The objective of this idea is to design, manufacture and test a low-cost and high-performance miniaturized air-filled substrate integrated waveguide (AFSIW) front-end in Q/V bands. With the emergence of satellite constellations and micro-/nano-satellites, the space community is in demand of low-cost and high-performance technologies. The AFSIW, developed in Bordeaux INP, is a multilayer printed circuit board technology. It has been proven, through a collaborative research project with ESA, CNES and Cobham Microwave, to be an alternative low-cost technology providing a miniaturized solution for filters and multiplexers with Q factors in excess of 1000 and power handling of hundreds of Watts. Bordeaux INP has demonstrated some key passive millimeter-wave components and is willing to develop active components and complete front-ends based on the AFSIW technology. Applications of the idea includes radiometry, altimetry, imaging, telecommunications and radars. The benefits of this technology will concern some satellite equipment including solid state power amplifiers, phase array antennas, or more generally integrated input and output combined amplifying, limiting, mixing and filtering front-end functions… The support of ESA is crucial for the development of this technology and requested through this proposal.
