Prospects for commercial satellite services at Q- and V-bands

A fully integrated Q-band bidirectional transceiver in 0.12-µm SiGe BiCMOS technology

“…Millimeter wave frequencies at 36 to 46 GHz enable satellite systems for high data-rate communications as well as defense applications such as high-resolution radars [1]. These applications requires high antenna directivity and beamsteering provided by phased array antennas [2] [3].…”

Satellite Payloads Pay Off

“…This demands that the RF components, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) in the payload have sufficient dynamic range and bandwidth covering all frequencies of the designed communication tasks. Considering that the operation frequency of the satellite must move from low-frequency C/K u bands (4-8/12-18 GHz) to high-frequency K a or Q/V bands [6], [7], traditional electronic solutions that realize a softwaredefined payload inevitably face a number of critical issues, such as electromagnetic interference (EMI), mass, volume, complexity, RF isolation, and powerconsumption problems.…”

Analysis and design of efficient passive components for the millimeter-wave and THz bands

“…8.5 become much more smooth. For common communication links or other terrestrial applications this fact is not a problem, however it must be taken into account to plan satellite communications or atmospheric radiometry experiments [646], [653]- [655]. For instance, in [655], a lossy dielectric plate is inserted to compensate the difference in losses of the high-angle and low-angle sky spectra.…”

“…However, only general ideas were given rather than concrete implementable systems, hence the treatment of such concepts was merely qualitative. Satellite mm-wave communications were also predicted to have their role if some disadvantages were overcome [598], [622], [653]. Compactness and weight reduction were pointed as good advantages inasmuch as launch cost can be noticeably diminished.…”

“…In general, advanced antenna configurations will be required to face the propagation impairments, caused by a challenging channel, very affected by the atmospheric attenuation. In addition, the cost of solid-state power devices still remains higher than desired [653]. Several efforts are ongoing in the development of smart antennas able to provide beam-switching or adaptively beam-steering [668]- [669], [680], and to mature solid-state devices for satellite applications [681]- [682].…”