A reflector antenna includes a dual band waveguide feed and a splashplate support arranged to define a space between the waveguide feed aperture and the splashplate. The dual band waveguide feed is configured to receive an input signal in a first transmission mode the input signal including a plurality of frequencie...

A means of filtering communications channels in a telecommunications satellite to remove large unwanted interfering signals, comprising monitoring channels of an uplink signal by stepping across a channel with a first analog agile filter having a narrow bandwidth in relation to the channel, and at each step monitori...

A phased array antenna for providing a radiation pattern comprising at least one communication beam the antenna comprising a plurality of antenna elements each antenna element having an antenna element signal having a phase relationship and an amplitude relationship to the other element signals; a digital signal pro...

A variable bandwidth filter for use in filtering signal channels in a telecommunication satellite between uplink and downlink beams, and having a reduced amount of phase noise, comprises a first mixer for translating the frequency of an input signal by a first predetermined frequency value, a first filter for defini...

A waveguide is provided that comprises an elongate dielectric inner region, and an electrically conducting outer region spaced apart fkom the dielectric inner region. The dielectric inner region may be arranged to be flexible, and in some examples may be formed fkom powdered dielectric contained in a polymer tube ...

A telecommunications satellite having a phased array antenna, wherein the beam-forming function within the phased array is simplified by partitioning it into two stages, in which the sub-array stage relates to a fixed, or infrequently changed,set of overlapping sub-arrays and the main stage provides the main pattern...

An apparatus for an antenna system comprising one or more blades for splitting the electromagnetic field received by an antenna into a plurality of sections corresponding to separate beams and redirecting said plurality of sections for detection by a plurality of detectors. The apparatus may comprise a plurality of ...

A positioning system (1) comprising one or more transmitters configured to transmit transmissions including positioning data, wherein the system is configured to synchronise the transmission with a reference time. The transmissions are formed using a repeating pseudorandom number (PRN) code comprising a plurality of...

The invention relates to active interference suppression in a satellite communication system, particularly but not exclusively to an apparatus and method for using active interference suppression in order to suppress co-channel interference between user signals in the communication system. The communication system i...

A receiver is configured to receive signals wirelessly from a plurality of pseudolites each signal including information defining a pseudolite from which the signal was transmitted. The receiver is configured to determine an estimated location based on which combination of two or more pseudolites the receiver is cur...

In order to maintain isolation of signals within a multiport amplifier of a Communications satellite and to reduce cross-talk components, by monitoring Communications signals passing through the multiport amplifier, output signals of the multiport amplifier are sensed and downconverted to baseband, and applied to an...

There is provided a filter network arrangement comprising a filter network; and one or more correction networks , wherein the one or more correction networks is arranged to substantially equalise the passband gain and group delay of the filter network arrangement. Given an appropriate Q for the one or more correctio...

An antenna feed assembly (15) is provided which includes at least two elongate feed chains (1, 2) lying adjacent one another. Each feed chain is adapted to transmit or receive electromagnetic radiation between itself and the antenna (34) along a longitudinal feed axis (3, 4) thereof via a transmit/receive element (7...

A radar system for forming a scanning receive beam from signals received by a phased array (4) having a plurality of sub arrays (6), comprises a plurality of phase units (8) each configured to receive a said signal from one or more sub arrays. Each phase unit (8) comprises a waveform generator (18) configured to gen...

According to the present invention, there is provided an output multiplexer OMUX comprising a plurality of hybrid-coupled filters. Each hybrid-coupled filter may be arranged to receive a first signal and a second signal via first and second input ports respectively, and output the first signal and the second signal ...

A multi-band filter comprising: at least one input manifold; 5 at least one output manifold; and a plurality of filters connected in parallel between said input manifold(s) and said output manifold(s), wherein the plurality of filters are single filters, and each filter is directly coupled between a said input ...

A test arrangement includes a multi port test interface having a first waveguide coupled to a plurality of second waveguides. The first waveguide is arranged to propagate an input signal and each of the second waveguides is arranged to output the input signal providing a plurality of test signals to be supplied to a...

A receiving device for receiving a satellite broadcast comprising: a receiver for receiving a sustaining satellite beam; and a controller for switching the receiver to receive a high power content beam in response to a determination that the high power content beam can be received by the receiving device. A communic...

An extendable structure (100) which may be used in space-based applications, for example forming the body of a telescope. The structure is movable between a stowed configuration and an extended configuration, and comprises a plurality of walls (401,402,403,404) arranged to give a polygonal cross-section in the exte...

Claims 1. A beam system comprising: input means for receiving samples of a number of signals, each sample containing a band of frequencies; switching means for routing all sampled signals associated with the same beamformed frequency band to a predetermined processing block; means for sequentially selecting a pr...

For selectively routing downlink frequency channels to downlink beams of a communications satellite, the inherent routing functionality of a normal bandwidth multiport amplifier (MPA) is exploited in conjunction with the grouped channel filter characteristics of an output multiplexer (OMUX). In this arrangement the ...

A method of tuning a multiport amplifier and a multiport amplifier are provided. The multiport amplifier comprises an even number of microwave power amplifiers (A1-A8) arranged in parallel, a series of input ports (pl-p8) and a series of output ports (q 1 -q8), the input ports being connected to the amplifiers by a ...

Feedback loops are used within a Multiport Amplifier (MPA) of a Communications satellite to maintain phase and ampUtude tracking and hence isolation and combining performance, at Ku and Ka-bands, for which there is increasing interest in MPA applications, and where wavelengths are short and maintenance of phase/ampl...

A signal processing system comprising: a plurality of input channels for receiving signals, each channel being adapted to handle signals associated with a predetermined frequency sub-band (SRF1...SRF4, SD1-SDP), a summation system (54, 68) adapted to combine signals from each channel together to form a composite ...

A remote testing system, comprising: a control system; a device to be tested remote from the control system; and a test system local to the device, the test system being connectable to the device to perform device testing; the control system being arranged to establish a communications link with the test system;...

A method and apparatus for obtaining, while on a spacecraft, a random number and hence a secure cryptographic key. The method includes the steps of providing, on the spacecraft, a device capable of producing random information when subject to random space phenomena, obtaining the random information and producing a r...

A method of operating synthetic aperture radar in a low PRF mode, comprising generating a stream of radar pulses, imposing onto said stream a predetermined modulation of the Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF), directing said stream to a target area, and processing received pulses, comprising separating the received...

A digital method of determining and correcting beam-pointing for a communications spacecraft that has a digital beam-forming architecture for defining multiple spot transmit and receive beams, the antenna system of the spacecraft including a receive antenna (DRA, AFR) having antenna elements providing respective ant...

Abstract RF POWER AMPLIFIERS A Solid State Power Amplifier (SSPA) for powering a single element of a multi-element antenna, the SSPA comprising: an RF amplifier, having a signal amplifying path that includes preamplifier, driver amplifier (16) and a power output stage (18) an Electronic Power Conditioner (EPC) for...

The invention provides a communication system and method of communication. The communication system includes a satellite transmitter arranged to transmit a first signal to be received within a predefined geographical area by a satellite receiver and a terrestrial transmitter" arranged to transmit a second signal-to-...

A telecommunications satellite payload processing system comprising one or more identical generic integrated processor modules (10), wherein the number of integrated processor modules (10) is selected in accordance with the antenna and bandwidth characteristics of a specified mission uplink (36, 50) and downlink (40...

A reflector (8) for a reflector antenna is provided for producing a far field pattern with near-zero field strength at a predetermined position, the reflector having a surface comprising a stepped profile for generating the near-zero field strength. The stepped profile may comprise a radial step. The location of the...

An apparatus comprising: a first transceiver for communicating with a set-top box via a first network-corresponding to a short-range network; a second transceiver for communicating with a geostationary communication satellite in a second network, the first transceiver being configured to receive information correspo...

According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus (300) comprising a hybrid network (301, 302) comprising at least one hybrid coupler, and a plurality of circulators (303, 304, 305, 306), each circulator having a first port connected to the hybrid network (301, 302), and further having a second po...

A method of manufacturing a connector (10; 60) comprising forming an outer connection element (20) or inner connection element (90) having fingers (22, 92). The fingers (22, 92) are deformed to an angle to a longitudinal axis. The connection element (90) is heat treated with the fingers (22, 92) restrained at the an...

An apparatus for controlling the gain and phase of an input signal input to a power amplifier comprises a gain control loop configured to control the gain of the input signal based on power levels of the input signal and an amplified signal output by the power amplifier to obtain a predetermined gain of the amplifie...

An apparatus for controlling a supply voltage to an electronic processing 5 arrangement comprising a processor or a memory element, the apparatus being configured to receive an output of the electronic processing arrangement and comprising: error detection means for detecting errors in an output of the electronic...

There is provided an apparatus for a satellite communication system comprising: means for determining at least one out of a phase offset for a frequency channel of a plurality of frequency channels demultiplexed from a carrier to compensate for group delay variation within the carrier and a gain offset for the frequ...

There is provided an apparatus for calibrating a multi-beam satellite system comprising a beam forming network providing a plurality of signal paths, the apparatus comprising a calibration processor tor determining the phase and amplitude shift of a lest path of the phurality of signal paths by correlating a calibra...

The invention provides a method and apparatus for applying test signals to a multipart amplifier (MPA) and a method, apparatus and system for determining parameter adjustments for an MPA. Applying test signals to an MPA is performed so as to provide an output signal indicative of parameter adjustments for the MPA, t...

The invention provides a content broadcasting system comprising a communications satellite and a satellite control arrangement for controlling the communications satellite to transmit a satellite broadcast signal. The satellite control arrangement is arranged to control the satellite to transmit the satellite broadc...

A terminal for communicating with a communication satellite A terminal comprising: a first transceiver for communicating with at least one device in a short range network; a second transceiver for communicating with a geostationary communication satellite in a network deploying a plurality of forward channels for th...

A positioning system (1) comprising a transmitter configured to transmit a CDMA transmission, wherein the transmitter is configured to substantially synchronise the transmission with a reference time, and wherein the transmission is formed using a repeating pseudorandom number (PRN) code comprising a plurality of ch...