In-orbit test of an onboard beam forming network for Engineering Test Satellite VIII - Novel antenna pattern measurement method and antenna pattern measurement results

摘要

ETS-V1II is the eighth engineering test satellite with an objective of demonstrating mobile satellite communication system technology that will enable us to establish satellite communication links with cellular phone-sized ground terminals. The satellite is equipped with two large-scale deployable antennas excited by active phased array feeders. NTT designed and developed the transmitting and receiving beam forming network (BFN) for ETS-VIII. This paper presents a novel antenna pattern measurement method under constraint conditions. The proposed method, which consists of simultaneous measurement using several earth stations and measurement errors correction techniques, offers high accuracy measurement and short measurement time. Antenna pattern measurement results showed that BFN2 is operating normally in-orbit.