Economic and Time Efficient Test Sytems of Next-Generation Multi-Beam Antennas and Payloads

Future communication satellites equipped with multi spot beam antennas are providing more than 100 adjacent coverages on earth create very high demands for RF measurements during acceptance test campaigns performed prior to the satellites launch. The antennas beam isolation and frequency re-use capability require high measurement accuracies for the related test facility and a high time efficiency during the antenna and payload test campaigns considering the high number of beams. Within this paper the characteristics of multi spot beam antennas will be described firstly with a typical antenna scenario. In a second step, a facility trade-off will be performed in order to identify best suited test environment for such applications. At last state-of-the-art RF test setups for antenna pattern and payload testing will be described and related improvements for increasing time efficiency and reduction of risks concerning measurement errors during the test campaigns will be discussed.