Aerodynamic issues such as drag, weight and aeroacoustic noise are important factors in evaluating the impact of a given antenna on an aircraft’s overall performance. These factors are directly related to aircraft fuel consumption, speed and range. This project’s focus is on RF front-end electronics.
The main goal here is to bring aircraft radio equipment as close as possible to the antennas in order to minimize wiring weight and complexity. This calls for a drastic volume reduction of the radio equipment. To this end, the system level requirements for the RF front-ends in terms of frequency bandwidths, data rates, etc, are first investigated in order to identify applications where the proposed volume reductions are the most beneficial and feasible.
Following this, the focus was on an architectural investigation of alternative topologies that can meet the specification. For each topology considered the front-end-level specification need to be translated to circuit/component level requirements. For each case, performance, cost and technical risk analyses are carried out. Then, the design and prototyping of key RF front-end circuits for the selected architecture are undertaken. The multilayered Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology had to be considered as a high risk but more advantageous option in terms of volume/weight reduction. Finally, we aimed at integrating and testing the proposed RF front-end chain, first by characterizing each component individually, and then as a whole front-end subsystem
