The European Space Agency Tender

Current Rf Front-ends For Radar Applications Are Based On Separate Transmit And Receive Channels Making Them Bulky And Expensive. Recent Advances In Gallium Nitride (gan) Technology Has Been Shown To Offer A Higher Output Power Density In Transmit And Similar Lownoise Figure Performance In Receive, When Compared To Traditional Gallium Arsenide (gaas) Based Solutions. The Advantage Of Combining Both Transmit And Receive Functionality On A Single Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (mmic) (single Chip Front-end (scfe)), Has Been Explored At C-band As A Potential Solution For S1ng Synthetic Aperture Radar. However, This Format Would Also Benefit Altimetric, Atmospheric And Interferometric Eo Radar Applications Operating In K-band.such Scfe Mmics Shall Contain All The Essential Rf Front-end Functionality, Transmit High Power Amplifier (hpa), Receive Low Noise Amplifier (lna), And Tx/rx Switch, Thereby Reducing Cost And Reducing Size Dramatically Over Multi-chip Solutions. In Phased-array Type Of Architectures (e.g. For Atmospheric Radars) Where A Potentially High Number Of These Array Elements Shall Be Employed, This Could Be A Significant Enabler. Moving To Gan Has Also The Added Benefit Of Increasing Instrument Sensitivity By Increasing The Energy Of The Transmitted Pulse. Increased Robustness In The Rx Chain Can Also Be Demonstrated With This Technology, Therefore Potentially Removing Any Limiter Which Can Increase The Noise Figure Significantly At Higher (e.g. K-band) Frequencies. Mass Reduction In The Power Harness Is Also Feasible Due To The Higher Voltage And Lower Current Operation.the Outcome Of This Activity Aims At Enabling Low Cost, Miniature Front-ends For Eo Applications In K-band, Including Altimetric, Atmospheric And Interferometric Radars.this Activity Encompasses The Following Tasks:- Review Of The Needs Of Upcoming Altimetric, Atmospheric And Interferometric Missions In K-band Where Architecture And Performance Specifications Of The Individual Functions Shall Be Derived- Design, Manufacture And Test The Most Promising Candidates- Validation Of The Test Results Disclaimer : Closing date mentioned is an assumption date, Please contact the tendering authority to get exact closing date.