DEVELOPMENT AND TEST OF A MULTIBEAM ARRAY PAYLOAD FOR SATELLITE COMMUNICATION WITH MOBILES.

A multibeam array payload for satellite communication with mobiles has been developed, built and tested. The multiple beam system is of a planar phased array type, where beamforming is performed at if and where power amplificaion is performed at rf behind the antenna elements. Special hardware developed includes an array of 18 short backfire elements, 18 L-band linear power amplifiers, temperature compensated dielectric resonator diplexers and a 19 multiplied by 18 beamforming network at if. A multibeam transmit system has been integrated using the hardware as mentioned above together with beamswitching equipment, and interface equipment for testing. Tests have been performed on a fully automatic far field outdoor range, and predicted system performance has been verified. It has been demonstrated that a powerful multibeam array payload is feasible for use in a global communications system with mobiles.