High Efficiency GPS Block-III RF Front-End Supporting Multi-Code and Multi-Carrier Waveforms

Abstract

A high power and high efficiency RF transmitter front-end is developed for a GPS block-III satellite payload. The transmitter consists of two 400-Wpeak power amplifiers (PAs) and diplexer. The PAs amplifies L1 signal at 1575 MHz and L2 and L5 composite signal at 1200 MHz respectively. The delivered power is combined by the diplexer. This topology promises significantly reduced size, weight, and power dissipation provided the higher peak to average power ratio and linearity challenges can be addressed. In response to these challenges, envelope tacking technology is adopted to reduce the overall DC power consumption, size, and weight of the rad-hard SSPA for the GPS Block-III L-band. We demonstrate an RF front-end sub-system prototype, which successfully delivers all L1, L2 and L5 signals with total 370-Wavg output power.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 25, 2019
Accession Number
AD1075473

Entities

People

  • Aly E. Fathy
  • Donald F. Kimball
  • Houman Ghajan
  • J. J. Yan
  • Toshifumi Nakatani

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Amplifiers
  • Amplitude Modulation
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Carrier Frequencies
  • Composite Materials
  • Diplexers
  • Efficiency
  • Frequency
  • Global Navigation Satellite Systems
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Impedance
  • Insertion Loss
  • Navigation
  • Navigation Satellites
  • Radio Frequency Amplifiers

Readers

  • Electronics Engineering
  • Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Technology.
  • Radio communications and signal processing.

Technology Areas

  • Space