New satellite constellations in low earth orbit, medium earth orbit or geostationary orbit (GEO) allow uninterrupted connectivity on land, at sea and in the air. Besides classic aerospace and defense (A&D) satellite applications, the new orbits will enable new services such as global tracking, IoT, remote sensing or non-terrestrial networks, which will drive demand for satcom infrastructure testing in the coming years.

Rohde & Schwarz has joined forces with IMST to demonstrate a powerful solution for satcom terminal testing at the EuMW in Berlin. Testing the performance of satellite terminal systems and components with appropriate signals under realistic over-the-air (OTA) conditions is crucial. satcom infrastructure size, formfactor, weight and performance are all challenging for satcom terminal manufacturers.

At EuMW, Rohde & Schwarz and IMST will showcase a test solution that uses the compact R&S ATS1800C compact antenna test range (CATR) based test chamber from Rohde & Schwarz for OTA measurements to characterize a SANTANA IV antenna array module from IMST. The R&S ATS1800C has a high-quality CATR reflector that creates a large quiet zone for much higher measurement certainty relative to other solutions. The R&S ZNA vector network analyzer can comprehensively test and reliably characterize DUTs. R&S AMS32 software measures technical parameters such as magnitude and phase of far field and near field distributions, as well as metrics such as error vector magnitude to characterize the digitally-modulated transceiver performance.

The SANTANA IV module (FKZ 50RK1925) is a smart antenna terminal designed by IMST. It is equipped with electronically controlled antenna beam steering that allows the beam shape and pointing direction to be electronically adjusted without any moving mechanical parts. The Tx antenna array has 64 elements that support dual linear or circular polarization. The array was designed for an operating frequency range from 29.5 GHz to 30 GHz, which can be used for applications such as satcom-on-the-move. The single 64-element module can be used as a base module for larger arrays.

Rohde & Schwarz and IMST will showcase active antenna array testing for satellite terminals at the EuMW 2023 from September 19 to 21, 2023, at booth H105 of Messe Berlin Hub27.