630

JOURNAL IEEE

COMMUNICATIONS, ON SELECTED IN AREAS

VOL. S A C J , NO. 4, MAY 1987

An Adaptive Multiple Beam SystemConcept

Abstract-An adaptive multiple beam system, which bas flexibility Furthermore, in order to assure all beam operations, each to adapt beam power to varying beam traffic, is proposed. The multiple beam must be highly reliable. beam transmitter, which is called hybrid transponder in this paper, In order to cope with these problems, we proposed the consists of a pair of multiport hybrids and a of set amplifying elements. Power combining, isolation, and intermodulation characteristics of thisuse of an active array multiple beam antenna [l]. Also, multiport network are analyzed. Also, a new interbeam exchange and Kawai proposed a new type of beam switching network feeder link connection concept, which serves as the basis for an adap- which consists of hybrids, l-bit phase shifters, and amtive multiple beam system, is proposed. Finally, characteristics of an plifiers [2], [3]. experimental 8-amplifier 8-port hybrid transponder are described.

I. INTRODUCTION N satellite communications, demand assigned multiple access intended for a large number of customer terminals enables an efficient use of a small number of satellite channels. This type of service, based on a multicarrier system using inexpensivelow power terminals,is expected to find extensive use in many areas of communications. Recently, in the fixed and mobile satellite communications, multiple beam systems have been under consideration as advanced satellite communication systems. Multiple beam systems can increase transmission capacity with an increase of satellite antenna gain and reuse of allocated frequency band. However, implementation of the multiple beam systems, especially in contiguous domestic communications, yields problems for an appropriate system design. In the case of single beam systems, all the transponders are connected to a single beam, and every Earth station has access to all the transponders.. Therefore, traffic variations in a local area do not yield any problem, provided they .do not exceed the total transmission capacity. Furthermore, single beam systems inherently have high reliability because failure of some transponders does not result in total system breakdown. On the other hand,in the case of multiple beam systems, the area subtended by each beam is a part of the total service area, and the transmission capacity of each beam is also a part of the total transmission capacity. Thus, the fixed allocation of transponder capacity to each beam degrades .the flexibility of the. system which has varying traffic distribution. Also, it will become difficult to provide a beam to a sparsely populated area with minimal traffic because such a beam requires a transponder with transmitting power corresponding to the estimated maximum traffic.

In this paper, these concepts are extended yielding a new multiple beam transmitter which consists of multiport hybrids and a set of amplifiers. A similar concept using a Butler matrix was proposed by Sandrin as a Butler matrix transponder [4]. The system described in this paper consists of multiple hybrids and multiple amplifiers, which, inherently realize a wide-band transmission and easy,implementation. Multiple fixed phase shifters, which are necessary in the Butler matrix transponder, are not necessary in the proposed configuration.

11. THE HYBRID TRANSPONDER CONCEPT A. The Multiport Hybrid Concept It is well known that a 90 hybrid divides input power equally into twoports in precise phase conditions.A welldesigned hybrid maintains these characteristics under a broad bandwidth. Fig. 1 shows the 90 hybrid and the multiport hybrids derived from it. Input and output signals are represented by complex amplitude variables pi and qi, respectively. Referring to Fig. l(a), the input and output relation of this hybrid is represented by matrix T I .

As an extension of the 2-port hybrid, a 4-port hybrid which divides incident power equally into 4 output ports can be derived as shown in Fig. l(b). In order to simplify matrix representations, the output port numbers are paired to the input port by the path which does not accompany 90 phase shift. Using this notation, the 4-port hybrid is represented by matrix T2.

Manuscript received August 2, 1985; revised October 21, 1986.

S. Egami is with Kamakura Works, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation,

Kamimachiya, Kamakura-shi, 247, Japan. M. Kawai is with the Electrical Communication Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Yokosuka-shi, 238, Japan. IEEE Log Number 8613620.

(>
9 4

= T2()

P 4

0733-8716/87/0500-0630$01.OO

O 1987 IEEE

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EGAMI AND KAWAI: ADAPTIVE MULTIPLE BEAM SYSTEM CONCEPT

63 1

from the above procedure [ 2 ] :

n-1

t;,k = ( I / @ )

eXp ( j T / 2

h=O

ih

kh)
-

(5)
-

where @ indicates exclusive OR ( a @ b = a * b + a * b ) . ih and kh( =O or 1) are derived from the following binary representation of i and k :
91
95

i
k

=
=,

io

93
97

+ i121 + i22 + + in42n-l k O + k12I + k22 + - - + k n - 1 2 n - .

* * *

(6)

92 6
94 98

B. The Hybrid TransponderConcept Using a pair of N ( =2)-port hybrid and N amplifying

elements, an N-port power combining network can be derived. ,We call this multiport power combining network hybrid transponder after Butler matrix transponder proposed by Sandrin [4]. The most simple 2-port transponder is the well-known balanced amplifier [5] shown in Fig. 2(a). If the complex amplitude gain of the amplifying elements (hereafter abbreviated as amps) is represented by a , the relationship between the input p i and output ri is represented using matrix Tl as follows (suffix of the input p i and output ri are numbered from the top. However, in Fig. 2 and hereafter, the corresponding input and output ports are denoted by the same port number).

P1 p2
p3 p4

q1 99
9 3 : 9

9 4 1 p7 P8
(a P9 plo
92 97

1 5

qlo
96 14

p11 P12

?2

15 1 6

8
ql6

Fig. 1 . Configurations of the rnultiport hybrid.

As an extension of the 4-port hybrid, an %port hybrid can be derived as shown in Fig. l(c). As stated above, the output ports numbers are paired to the input port by the path without 90 phase shift. Then, the %port hybrid is represented by matrix T3.

Input p 1 is amplified by two amps and comes out as r2. As an extension of the balanced amplifier, a 4-port transponder can be derived as shown in Fig. 2(b). In this case, outputs rl r4 are represented by matrix T2 and inputs P1 P4.

(::)

= aT2T2

(7)
P4

Fig. l(d) shows a l6-port hybrid derived from the 8port hybrid. In general, an N(=2)-port hybrid consists of n 2 hybrids, and its matrix T, can be represented by Tn- as follows:

Similarly, an 8-port transponder can be derived from the 4-pOrt transponder as shown in Fig. 2(c). Outputs rl r8 are represented by matrix T3 and inputs p 1 p8.

In order to facilitate further analysis, elements of the the matrix T, should be explicitly represented. For N ( =2)-port hybrid, element ti,kof the matrix T, can be derived from the following equation which is induced

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632

IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS,

VOL. SAC-5, NO. 4, MAY 1987

If the amps gain and phase shift are denoted by ai and

1 2
4 3

Bi, respectively, they can be represented by their mean values ao, Bo, and their deviations Ai, di, as follows:

(b)

3 4

2 1

1 2

8
7

where
N i=l N

(c)

3 4

6 5 4 3
2

CAi=O

5 6
7

i=l

c 6i = 0.

If the sum of each amps output power is represented by Po, the combined output by Po,,, and the output at the isolated port by Piso,then the combining efficiency is obtained from (5) and (11) as follows:

Pou,/Po= 1 - ( ( N - l ) / N ) ( A z + 6)

(15)

where A and 6 are mean value of gain and phase-shift deviation, respectively, which are defined by the following equations :
\ I/

Fig. 2 . Configurations of the hybrid transponder.

6 =
Fig. 2(d) shows a.16-port transponder as an extention
of the 8-port transponder. For general expression, if amps

(+,

6?/N).

gain matrix for the N ( =2)-port transponder are defined by An,

Similarly, the isolation at the isolated port is obtained as follows:

piso/p0 = (I/N)(A

+ 6.

(17)

A,, =

(;I

O
a N

)
,

then output vector r is related to the input vector p by the following equation: r = T,A,T,p.

Fig. 3 shows the combining efficiency and the isolation as functions of mean deviations. Since it is not difficult to prescribe mean gain deviations within 1 dB and mean phase-shift deviations within 10 for 20 dB gain amps, the combining efficiency lower than 0 . 3 dB and isolation over 20 dB can be expected.

B. Effects of the Amplifying Element Failure Failure of one or several amps decreases the combined In practice, when the number of beams is less than the output power and degrades isolation. In this section, the number of ports, the unused input and output ports are effect of one amp failure is analyzed. Failure of more than terminated with matching impedances. It is also possible two amps is not included since its effect is not uniform on to decrease the number of ports by deleting unnecessary all output ports. If the combined output is Po, and one hybrjds as shown later in Fig. 5 . amp failure decreases it to Po,,, then the rate of power decrease is obtained by using (5) and ( 1 1) as follows: 111. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HYBRID TRANSPONDER POt/PO = ( ( N - l ) / N ) Z . (17) A. Effect of Amplifying Element Nonuniformity If the phase shift and gain of the N ( =2) amps are the If the output power of the isolated port is denoted by same; the power combining efficiency and isolation are Piso,then the degraded isolation is given as follows: determined by the characteristics of the multiport hybrid. PisoIPo = ( 1 (18) Since the 90 hybrid has excellent coupling, isolation, and phase-shift characteristics over a broad band, amps gain For example, in the case of the 8 amps transponder, the and phase-shift uniformity become the most important. failure of 1 amp decreases output power by 1.2 dB and Thus, in this section, effects of the amps gain and phasedegrades the isolation to 18.1 dB. In case of 16 amps transhift nonuniformity are analyzed. sponder, the failure of 1 amp decreases output power by

(11)

/NY-

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EGAMI AND KAWAI: ADAPTIVE MULTIPLEBEAMSYSTEMCONCEPT

633

2
U

: -0 a
2 -0

p -0 K
. i

- 40
H

1 8 41 21 0

16

Mean Phase Variation (Deq.)

0

0.5

1.5

Mean Gain Variation (dB)

Fig. 3. Decrease of output power and degradation of isolation as functions of mean phase-shift deviation and mean gain deviation.
Low Power Transponder
2 Port Block Multibeam
8 7

~ , . . ~ - o .r ~ t...B~ock.~::::~::~~ ~~~~.......~.~... -.__.__.. ;~ ~ ~ ~ Antenna

a
6 ; 55
2

m
2

Band

H y b r i dT r a n s p o n d e r

Fig. 4. The 8-amps 8-port hybrid transponder implemented to an 8-beam

system.

symmetrical. By making the configuration symmetrical, the hybrid transponder can be made by the assembly of a the isolation over 20 dB is necessary, more than 16 amps 2-port and a %-port block as shown by the dotted line in will be necessary. the Fig. 4. Thiswill facilitate hardware materialization as an onboard transmitter. C. IntermodulationCharacteristics As shown in Fig. 4, the low power transponder (LPT) provides input to the hybrid transponder. If the total transIf more than one carrier is applied to only one port, the mitting power is 100 W, and the amps gain is 20 dB, the intermodulation characteristics of the hybrid transponder necessary transmitting power of LPT is 1 W in order to are similar to those of the single port amplifier. However, transmit whole power to the corresponding beam. This if one carrier is applied from one port,and another carrier lower transmitting power of the LPTs, which are allois applied from another port, the theoretical estimate of the intermodulation output ports will be necessary. In the cated for each beam,enables flexible assignment of beam case of the third-order intermodulation products, it can be power and adding beams to sparsely populated areas. Also, as shown in the figure, it is assumed that all eleverified from (5) and (9) that the following simple rule ments and LPTs share a common broad bandwidth. RF exists. channel assignment will be carried out considering interIf the carrier frequency applied from port n and port rn beam interference. The allocation of a common broad is denoted as fn and f , , respectively, the intermodulation band to each beam enables variations of the number of , - fn appears at port n with the output of fn, product 2 f carriers from 0 to the maximum value limited by the total and 2fn - f , appears at port m with the output of f , . transmitting power. The flexibility or adaptability will Therefore, intermodulation product dispersion cannot be liquidate the stated problems in the ordinary multibeam expected as the Butler matrix transponder [4]. However, systems. these characteristics on the intermodulation products may Fig. 5 shows a 16-amps 10-port transponder. Unnecease the actual system design. essary ports and hybrids are eliminated from the original IV. IMPLEMENTATION IN MULTIPLE BEAMSYSTEMS 16-port configuration. Although 1 amp failure among 16 amps decreases 12 percent of the total transmission caFig. 4 shows an 8-beam system using the 8-amps 8-port pacity, it does not bring about any specific beam failure. hybrid transponder. The configuration of the 8-port tran- At the s.ametime, isolation degrades to 24 dB, which still sponder shown in Fig. 2(c) i s rearranged so as to become allows cochannel frequency reuse. If the number of amps

0.8 dB and degrades the isolation to 24 dB. Thus, a larger number of amps minimizes the effect of 1 amp failure. If

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634

IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS

Low Power Transponder

IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. SAC-5, NO. 4, MAY 1987

4,..~.o.rt...Bl~ck...~..2 . . . . . . . . .. _ . . . . . .: : : : Er:..!!!.?:k

Hybrid Transponder

Fig. 5. The 16-amps 10-port hybrid transponder implemented

Multibeam Antenna

to a 10-beam system
Multibeam Antenna

Common Channel Unit

Fd

Fd n 7

Band, fu

Fd n 2 Fd E x 1 lommon D/L Band, Fd

Receiving IF Transmitting 1st 1st IF

SYN; Frequency Synthesizer
M I X ; Mixer Rx ; Receiving Down T K ; Transmitting Up

Converter Converter

fl

f2

f3.

f4

f 5 f8 f6

f7

Feeder Link, To Terrestrial Network

Fig. 6. Adaptive multibeam system concept using the hybrid transponder.

existing terrestrial network by a feeder link, these 1st IF signals are directly sent to the feeder link Earth station. If interbeam traffic exists, channel units are connected to V . INTERBEAM EXCHANGE USING COMMON CHANNEL the combined 1st IF signals. A channel unit selects a carUNITS f8, and changes itsfrerier from the 1st IF bands By employing the hybrid transponder, the number of quency to the appropriate frequency slot of the transmitcarriers transmitted from each beam can be changed from ting 1st IF bands F1 F8.If it must be connected to beam 0 to the maximum value limited by the total transmitting 1, the channel unit changes its frequency to any frequency power. In order to facilitate an adaptive carrier assign- slot of F , . The transmitting 1st IF bands F1 F8 are then ment, a new onboard system configuration is proposed. converted to the same transmitting frequency band Fd by 7 X 8 . If all the traffic i s Fig. 6 shows the proposed adaptive multibeam system the transmitting converter 7 X 1 1st IF configuration. All beams share the same frequency band originated from the feeder link, the .transmitting which corresponds to the allocated bandwidth. The same signals are directly supplied from the feeder link. Since frequency band f , transmitted from each beam is con- the channel units are used in common,the number of verted by receivers RXI RX, to different contiguous 1st channel units can be conspicuously decreased compared IF bands5 fs, which are then combined by the resistive to the former SS-FDMA system concept which provides combining network. If all the traffic is connected to the channel units to each beam [ 6 ] , is small and high isolation is required, providing spares to each elements will become necessaly.

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EGAMI ANDKAWAI:

ADAPTIVE MULTIPLE BEAM SYSTEM CONCEPT

635
8 - p o r t - H y b r i d ?. . . . . tandem :

-.

m
C

Fig. 7. Outside view of the 2.5 GHz 8-amps 8-port experimental hybrid transponder.
36

i
I
I

/ 4 5

Combining

I I L O S S

4 Port

30

Fig. 9. Isolation characteristics of the experimental 8-amps 8-port hybrid transponder.

40

a a

a
0

20

4J

2
rl

Fa

20

10

20

U n i t amp i n p u t (dBm)

, -20
$ +

Fig. 8. A typical amp output and the combined output as functions of amps input power. In the figure, gain and phase-shift deviation of 8-amps are also shown.

40

2 20
0

VI:8-AMPS8-PORT HYBRID TRANSPONDER EXPERIMENT The 8-amps 8-port hybrid transponder is experimented at 2.5 GHz band to confirm the stated electrical characteristics. The amps have 20 dB small signal gain and 1.5 W output power. Branch line-type hybrids made by an air suspended triplate were used.Fig. 7 shows an outside view of the experimental transponder.

- 20
-417 2.39 GH z

10 MHz/div.

2.49

GH z

Fi,g. 10. Output power spectrumof output ports 1 and 4, when equalpow two carriers are applied from input ports 1 and 4 simultaneously.

A. CombiningEficiency Fig. 8 shows a typical unit amp output and the combined output as functions of amps input power. Since its scale is shifted 9 dB for combined output, the difference between the two curves represents combining loss. In the same figure, the gain and phase-shift deviations of 8 amps are shown. For an input level of 14 dBm, the output level is distributed from 31.9 to 32.5 dBm (1.5-1.8 W ) , and the phase shift within 6. This level of uniformity can be attained by a slight adjustment on the devices. In this operating condition, combined output power was 40.6 dBm ( 11.5 W). Since the sum of each amps output power was 13.7 W, the combining .loss was 0.8 dB. Since this value includes the 8-port hybrid loss of 0.5 dB, the net combining loss can be estimated to be around 0.3 dB.

lation was well over 30 dB. As a reference, the isolation without amps (tandem connection of %port hybrid) is shown by the dotted line. Also, in order to simulate single element failure, one of the elements is turned off. This decreases isolation to 17 dB,which is estimated to be 18.1 dB theoretically.

C. Intermodulation Two equal power carriers with slightly different frequencies fl and f4 are applied to ports 1 and 4, respectively. The input level of each carrier is about 6 dBm at the input of the. amps. Fig. 10 shows the output power spectrum at the corresponding output port. At output port 1 , carrierf, and intermodulation product 2f4 - fl appear. At output port 4, carrier f4 and 2 f , - f4 appear. In other B. Isolation ports, 3rd-order intermodulation products do not appear. The isolation at the isolated port at the stated operating These experimental results verify the estimation stated in condition is shown in Fig. 9. Excluding port 3, the iso- Section 111-C.

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636

IEEE JOURNAL

ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS. VOL. SAC-5,

NO. 4, MAY 1987

VII. CONCLUSION
An adaptive multiple beam system using a new hybrid transponder concept is described. By the experiments, carried out at 2.5 GHz by 8-amps 8-port configuration, theoretical characteristics are confirmed. These concepts will facilitate implementation of multibeam multicarrier satellite communications in future mobile or customer premises services.

REFERENCES
[ l ] S. Egami and M. Kawai, Adaptive multibeam satellite communications using active array, in Proc.14thInt. Symp. Space Technol. Sci., Tokyo, Japan, 1984, pp. 793-798. [2] M. Kawai, Multiport coupling beam switching network for satellite use, Trans. IECEJapan, vol. J66-D, no. 3, pp. 329-336, Mar. 1983 (in Japanese). [3] M. Kawai, K. Suzuki, and S. Egami, Concept of multiport coupling beam switching network and its basic performance in K-band, Electron. Lett., vol. 19, no. 23, pp..990-991, Nov. 10, 1983. [4] W. A. Sandrin, The Butler matrix transponder, COMSAT Tech. , Rev., vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 319-345, Fall 1974. [5] R. S. Engelbrecht and K. Kurokawa, A wide-band low noise L-band balanced transister amplifier, Proc. IEEE, vol. 53, pp. 237-247, Mar. 1965. [6] J. D. Kiesling, Direct access satellite communications using SSFDMA, in AIAA 9th Commun. Satellite Syst. Conf., 1982, pp. 627633.

Makoto Kawai (77) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1972 and 1974, respectively. He joined the Electrical Communications Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, Kanagawa, Japan, in 1974, and i s presently a Senior Research Engineer of the Satellite Communications Department, Radio Communication Networks Laboratories. He is currently involved in systems engineering studies related to future satellite communications systems.

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