IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - February 2022 - 40

Multibeam Antennas With Reflector for High Throughput Satellite Applications
Figure 11.
Spaceway-3 satellite [13] and Ka-band spot beams layout [14].
Figure 13.
Satellite ofHYLAS 1 (left) [16] and HYLAS 2 (right) [18].
Figure 14.
KA-SAT multibeam antenna system [20] and multispot beams
coverage using a four-colour scheme [21].
Figure 12.
European spot beams layout ofHYLAS 1 [16].
was a dual-reflector antenna with 112 Rx beams of 0.5
beamwidth with the Ka-band spot beams layout [14], as
shown in Figure 11. It was the classical application of
SFPB with single-aperture reflector scheme with beamforming
technology. And the Tx antenna was a phased
array multibeam antenna system providing 24 Ka-band
beams. The satellite overall capacity was 10 Gb/s providing
services to more than 2 million users.
HYLAS 1/2 (2010/2012)
HYLAS1(2010)
HYLAS 1 [15], built by EADS Astrium for the U.K.'s satellite
operator Avanti, is the first Ka-band satellite to provide
broadband services to European customers. The
satellite delivered services from U.K. GEO orbital position
of 33.5 West and covered 22 countries in central and
western Europe. The layout of 8 Ka-band beams of Hylas
1 [16] is shown in Figure 12.
HYLAS2(2012)
The HYLAS 2 [17] satellite carried 24 active Ka-band
user beams and 4 gateway beams. The HYLAS 2 provided
services to Eastern Europe, Northern and Southern Africa,
and the Middle East. And the HYLAS 2 is three times the
40
size ofHYLAS 1 on the basis of system bandwidth capacity.
As we can see from Figure 13, HYLAS 1 [16] and
HYLAS 2 [18] both used the SFPB method with multiple
reflectors but with different amount of reflectors. Two
combined Tx and Rx reflector antennas of HYLAS 1 are
the Ka-band multibeam antennas. And the 2 Ka-band
reflectors and the Ku-band reflector are separated at the
east and the west deck of the satellite. And in HYLAS 2,
there are totally 6 Ka-band multibeam reflector antennas
and three reflectors in one back shelf at the east deck and
the other three at the west deck.
KA-SAT (2010)
KA-SAT ofEutelsat [19] represented the first generation of
HTS in Europe with system capacity exceeding 90 Gb/s.
The KA-SAT multibeam antenna system [20], [21] and the
multispot beams coverage is shown in Figure 14. The Kaband
multibeam antenna system adopted SFPB method
using four combined Tx and Rx antennas and four-color
reuse scheme. Two sizes of 0.6 and 0.8 beams were generated
on the European and part ofNorth Africa coverage.
INMARSAT-5 GLOBAL EXPRESS
(GX1,2,3,4,ANDGX 5)
The first three Ka-band satellites GX 1, 2, 3 of Inmarsat5
[22], [23] were operated by Inmarsat and manufactured
by Boeing. Each Inmarsat-5 satellite produced 89 Kaband
beams that will operate in GEO orbit with flexible
global coverage. And GX 1, 2, 3 together can cover areas
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
FEBRUARY 2022
IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - February 2022

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