How is the RF Payload Systems Laboratory equipped?
The RF Laboratory is equipped with:
Multipaction facility and RF Corona facility - thermal-vacuum chambers with precisely controlled temperature and pressure control.
'Passive intermodulation' (PIM) facility – used for interference testing of microwave system elements.
Ultra-stable reference signal – for time and frequency testing, also made available to the ESA Telecom and Radio Navigation Laboratories- one active maser and three caesium atomic clocks.
Life testing facility – accelerated and long-term testing of TWTAs, SSPAs, oscillators with thermal chambers.
General microwave and MMIC testing facility – for general purpose testing of microwave and millimetre-wave modules, includes thin film rapid prototyping for testing.
The Radio Navigation Laboratory is equipped with:
- Galileo/GPS/GLONASS simulators - with interference generator.
- GIOVE-A/B simulator – for testing of ground segment receivers.
- ORUS software - for the analysis of digitally captured real signals.
- IMAGE software - to generate EGNOS performance data for general public.
- Formation flying test bed - to evaluate proposed implementation of satellite formation flying.
- High-gain dish antenna - to track individual navigation satellites without interference.
- Mobile in-the-field test equipment - for measuring localised interference and multipath.
The RF Remote Sensing Laboratory is equipped with:
- Instrument modelling software – for SAR performance assessment and design
- SAR digital calibration transponder – for assessing in-flight performance of SARs
- Active array/front end simulators
- PARIS orbit assessment software
- GNSS-R simulator – for examining the end-to-end performance of GNSS-R instruments operating over the oceans, including PARIS
- OceanPal instrument – for carrying out external experiments into PARIS and GNSS-R such as soil moisture monitoring
- SIRA – Simulator for Interferometric Radar Altimeters – combines a state-of-the-art ocean model, ocean scattering module and radar instrument characteristics for performance assessment and design of wide-swath ocean altimeters
- Cloud and rain radar test bed - which makes use of an arbitrary waveform generator for assessing the performance of ultra-low sidelobe radar waveforms
The ESA Telecom Laboratory is equipped with:
- Interactive Satellite Networks consisting of gateways and satellite interactive user terminals with star and mesh connection capabilities.
- Uplink stations in Ku, C and Ka frequency bands
- Satellite Capacity
- Network simulation and emulation facilities
- Wideband satellite channel Simulators and DVB-S2 Test Bed
- High-speed data link test beds for Earth observing and Telecom applications.
- Test Equipment for multimedia applications, such as video conferencing end points, collaborative working platforms, video streaming equipment
- Two test vehicles, one for broadband/mobile communications and the other for interactive broadband communications
Last update: 19 September 2012

Rate this
Views
Share
- Currently 0 out of 5 Stars.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Rating: 0/5 (0 votes cast)Thank you for rating!
You have already rated this page, you can only rate it once!
Your rating has been changed, thanks for rating!