In this paper we describe the development of devices devoted to the characterization of the magnetic complex susceptibility of materials and minerals. The work is focused on the evolution, calibration and validation of the prototypes foreseen in H2020 NEWTON project, a magnetic susceptometer for the in-situ characterization of rocks during high resolution magnetic prospections, with characteristics compatible with space vehicles and hand-held instrumentation. The instrument consists of a novel susceptometer design based on an inductive method and a COTS magnetometer for the vector magnetic field characterization. The calibration and validation process for Prototype 1 casted very good results in comparison with other commercial and high resolution laboratory devices, reaching a resolution in the order of χ = 10 - 4 (I.S. Vol. Susceptibility), representative of Earth, Moon and Mars rocks.

This paper discusses the design, realization, and tests of an engineering qualified model solid state power amplifier (SSPA) based on Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology, suitable for the second generation Galileo (G2G) constellation. The developed SSPA includes a power supply unit (PSU) to interface the module with the satellite primary bus, and an electronic power conditioner unit (EPC) to actuate remote telecommand and telemetry services. The radio frequency unit (RFU), based on 0.5-μm GaN technology, delivers a saturated output power of 300 W, with a minimum gain of 60 dB and 60% of efficiency in the whole E1-Band (i.e., 50 MHz centered at $f_{0}$= 1.575 GHz). The RFU, PSU, and EPC subsystems are housed in a single box with limited volume and mass, which has carefully been designed to account for both mechanical and thermal aspects. The realized SSPA has been subject to an extensive test campaign as foreseen by the European Cooperation for Space Standardization standards. It included environmental and mechanical tests, endurance and EMC tests leading to a technology readiness level equal to 6. In particular, under continuous-wave operations and temperatures ranging from $-$ 10 °C to 70 °C in a vacuum, the SSPA delivers, at the reference operating point (correspondingly to roughly 2 dB of compression), an output power in excess of 230 W with a gain higher than 60 dB and an overall efficiency, including the power consumption of the PSU and the EPC, higher than 44%. The SSPA was also tested with the modulated signal that will probably be adopted for the G2G constellation, having 4 dB of peak-to-average power ratio. Results have shown a spectral regrowth of just 25 dBc with 40% of efficiency at 180 W of average output power.

In this paper, we report the preliminary results of an Engineering Model of a complete SSPA, developed for Galileo satellite system (E1 band, 1575.42 MHz), and based on UMS GaN (GH50-10) technology. The SSPA includes also satellite interfaces (e.g., internal power supply generation unit, telemetry and telecommand functionalities) and measured results show an output power larger than the targeted 230W, with a PAE greater than 40%. Moreover, a very good stability in frequency was measured, with a gain ripple lower than 0.5 dB in 50MHz of bandwidth, and less than 0.2 dBpp in 10 MHz.

GaN HEMTs are ideal for making high-power amplifiers for satellite communication, because they are lightweight, compact, efficient and capable of delivering a high, uniform gain over a broad bandwidth.

An L-Band high power and efficient solid state power amplifier (SSPA) designed for the European satellite navigation system (i.e., Galileo) is presented. The developed SSPA, based on European Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology, comprises all the circuits required to interface the module with the satellite bus (i.e., a Power Supply Unit, PSU), and to control its functionalities by remote telecomand and telemetry (i.e., an Electronic Power Conditioner unit, EPC). The Radio frequency Unit (RFU) together with the PSU and EPC are accommodated in a single box with limited volume and mass. In continuous wave operating mode, the SSPA delivers an output power higher than 300W at less than 3 dB of gain compression in the whole E1-Band (i.e., center frequency f 0 = 1.575GHz). Moreover, the demonstrated gain and power added efficiency, including the power dissipated by the PSU and EPC, are higher than 65 dB and 44 %, respectively.

This paper describes the development of an L-Band (f0= 1.575 GHz) high power and efficient solid state power amplifier (SSPA) designed for the European satellite navigation system (i.e. Galileo). The amplifier, developed in the framework of the European Project named SLOGAN, exploits the GH50-10 GaN technology available at United Monolithic Semiconductor foundry. The aim of the project is to offer, using as much as possible European technologies, a valid alternative to replace traveling wave tube amplifiers with more compact and reliable systems. All the SSPA functionalities, i.e. power supply, power conditioning and radio frequency amplification, are integrated in the developed architecture and accommodated in a single box with limited volume and mass. The required output power level is achieved by parallelizing several GaN die power bars of 12 and/or 25.6 mm. In continuous wave operating mode, the overall SSPA delivers an output power higher than 250 W at less than 2 dB of gain compression in the whole E1-band. Moreover, the registered gain and efficiency are higher than 67 dB and 54%, respectively.

This paper presents the first step towards the realization of a solid state high power amplifier (SSPA) for Galileo, the European Global Navigation Satellite System. The idea is to have a reliable and performing power amplifier capable to replace the current solution based on the adoption of a Travelling Wave Tube Amplifier (TWTA) at a lower mass, weight and higher efficiency. Preliminary prototypes have been designed, realized and tested, using the GH50-10 GaN technology, provided by United Monolithic Semiconductor foundry. Experimental results (in continuous wave operating mode) have shown efficiency and output power levels higher than 60% and 80W respectively, at 1575.42MHz (Galileo E1 band).

This paper describes the preliminary results attained in the framework of the European Project named SLOGAN. It aims to develop, using European GaN-HEMT technology, a ready-to-fly 230 W solid state power amplifier (SSPA) for space borne Galileo System. The idea is to offer a valid alternative to replace travelling wave tube amplifiers with more compact and reliable systems. All the SSPA functionalities, i.e. power supply, power conditioning and RF amplification, are integrated in the developed architecture and accommodate in a unique box with limited volume and mass. The required output power level is achieved by parallelizing several GaN die power bars of 12 mm and/or 26.5 mm. Test results on preliminary prototypes have shown efficiency levels higher than 68% with less than 3dB of compression in the wall E1-Band.

This paper describes the development of an L-Band (f(0) = 1.575 GHz) high power and efficient amplifier designed for the European satellite navigation system (i.e., Galileo). The amplifier, developed in the framework of the European Project named SLOGAN, exploits the GH50-10 GaN technology available at United Monolithic Semiconductor foundry. The required output power level is achieved by parallelizing several GaN die power bars of 12 mm and/or 26.5 mm. In continuous wave operating mode, the first prototype is able to deliver an output power higher than 250W at less than 2 dB of gain compression. Moreover, the registered gain and efficiency are higher than 54 dB and 54 %, respectively.

The increase in navigation accuracy demanded by EGNOS and Galileo and their future evolution encourages the study and design of advance receiver architectures. In that direction, the ADIBEAM project focuses on the design of high accuracy ground stations, specifically GNSS Reference Stations, in order to improve its robustness in front of multipath and interference errors with the goal of achieving centimeter level tracking accuracy. The adoption of antenna arrays and digital beamforming at the ground reference station receivers is one of the most promising approaches to cope with errors induced by multipath and interference. This paper proposes an innovative design of a ground based tracking station. In particular, the architecture proposed is based on the use of an antenna array and digital beamforming techniques, considering both adaptive and deterministic methods. The work carried out here considers the ground based tracking system, including the characterization of the system components (antennas, RF chains, calibration techniques, GNSS software receiver and digital beamforming), and the development of a software based experimentation platform representative of the proposed design for a hardware prototype. The sensitivity to perturbations and the extreme difficulty to perfectly control and calibrate all the components of the system, especially regarding the antenna array implementation, requires that the proposed design take into consideration not only the benefits of the possible solutions but also their feasibility for a real implementation. In summary, this paper will present the design proposed and the Experimentation Platform used for its validation.

Navigation accuracy and integrity demanded by Galileo and its future evolution motivate the study and design of advance receiving techniques. In that direction, the ADIBEAM project focus on the design of high accuracy ground stations. More specifically, the project deals with the adoption of advance receivers based on the use of arrays of antennas and digital beamforming.In this paper, we present the receiver solution proposed in the project. This solution has been designed aimed at addressing the problems arising when an array of antennas is implemented in practice. Basically, the main problem is the extreme difficult to perfectly control and calibrates all the components of the system. For that reason, a realistic Experimentation Platform has been developed. This platform is based on the software emulation of all the components of the system and the implementation of a GNSS software receiver based on digital beamforming. Concerning the beamforming solutions, robust approaches have been proposed in order to cope with array perturbations.As revealed by the results obtained in the project, the proposed receiver architecture based on the adoption of an antenna array is able to attain code centimetre and carrier millimetre accuracy in challenging scenarios with multipath, interference and scintillation effects.

In this paper a broadband IFA antenna is presented for WLAN applications in the 5.6 GHz band. An improvement in the design of this IFA antenna is analyzed to achieve a radiating element more stable when changes are done in the input microstrip line or/and in the dimensions of the ground plane. This fact helps to integrate the antenna with the other parts of the transceiver using microstrip line. A comparison between arrays (MIFA array and IFA array) is done too to present the improvements of the new IFA antenna.

In this paper it is presented a study of the optimum number of radiating elements in a MIMO array for different portable devices working in the 5.6 GHz band. The array configurations are formed using a Vivaldi antenna as radiating element. This study tries to clarify how many elements are possible to allocate in the different form factors to achieve the best possible effective diversity gain (EDG). Laptop, PDA and PCMCIA are the form factors that are used in this study.

In this paper a broadband IFA antenna is presented for WLAN applications in the 5.6 GHz band. An improvement in the design of this IFA antenna is analyzed to achieve a radiating element more stable when changes are done in the input microstrip line or/and in the dimensions of the ground plane. This fact helps to integrate the antenna with the other parts of the transceiver using microstrip line. A comparison between arrays (MIFA array and IFA array) is done too to present the improvements of the new IFA antenna.

Shifting spatial signal processing in multiantenna systems from the digital base band to the RF front-end allows the development of energy efficient (green) MIMO radios. An integrated transceiver using RF-MIMO is designed in 0.25 mum SiGe technology together with a four-element antenna array. Low correlation between the antennas was achieved by using different diversity techniques and by optimizin...

This paper presents the design and development of a module of a phased-array antenna for multimedia contents reception in mobile avionics applications. The antenna, which operates in Ku band (12.5 GHz to 12.75 GHz), is based on a modular design. The developed antenna & RF front-end module is implemented in multilayer technology and it has been tested from an electrical, mechanical and thermal point of view. The results presented in this paper are the results of the work developed under the project MULFUN, "Multifunctional Structures", a VI Framework EC project. The objective was to reduce costs and provide added value to avionics equipment by integration of electrical, mechanical and thermal functions.