The Microwave and Antenna Engineering Lab at Heriot-Watt University has maintained a full suite of state of the art facilities for fabrication and testing of antennas, microwave components and devices. These also include an experimental Satellite Ground Station that enables live experimentation with in-orbit satellites

Facilities can be made available to external users, for further information please contact g.goussetis@hw.ac.uk.

Satellite Ground Station

Funded by the EPSRC under the Strategic Equipment programme, we have established an experimental satellite ground station facility (SGSF), hosted in our Edinburgh campus.

SGSF provides scarcely available capabilities that accelerate research in space technologies and flexibly supports the needs of broad research communities developing e.g. mm-wave and optical communications technologies; non-terrestrial and terrestrial network integration, as well as; astronomical instrumentation and data collection. SGSF will also catalyse industry academia interactions, synergising with urgent needs to validate emerging technologies on tracking antennas, optical/quantum comms, spaceborne lidar calibration and pilot satellite missions.

Capabilities:

  • 4 mechanically tracking pedestals
  • Frequency ranges: VHF, UHF, L-, S-, Ku-, Ka-bands
  • 7 degree of freedom motion platform
  • Tracking software based on orbital information (open loop)
  • Software defined radio receivers up to 5GSps
  • 2 x workspaces and 1 x storage space

Signal Generators

Analog Signal Generator (9KHz~40GHz)
Keysight MXG N5183B Analog (9KHz~40GHz)
Keysight MXG N5182B Vector (9KHz~6GHz)
Tektronix Arbitrary Waveform Generator 5204
Analog Signal Generator (up to 1 GHz)
Tektronix TSG 4106A (DC~6GHz)

Signal/Spectrum/Waveform Analysers

Keysight PXA Signal Analyser N9030B (3Hz~44GHz)
Anritsu Portable Dual-function VNA-Spectrum Analyser MS2038C (5KHz~20GHz)
HP Spectrum Analyser E4401B (9kHz~1.5GHz)
R&S RTO2064 Oscilloscope (20GSPS)
Tektronix Oscilloscope MSO44 (6.25GSPS)
Keysight N9324C (1MHz~20GHz)

Vector Network Analyser

Keysight VNA N5225A (10MHz~50GHz)
Keysight VNA N5234A (10MHz~43.5GHz)
Keysight VNA E5080B (100kHz~44GHz)
Anritsu Portable Dual-function VNA-Spectrum Analyser MS2038C (5KHz~20GHz)
HP VNA 8510B (45MHz~20GHz)
Keysight PNA-X N5245B (10MHz~50GHz)

Anechoic Chamber

Far-field Anechoic Chamber (6.3m x 4.3m x 2.8m)
Far-field (3.6m x 2.4m x 2.4m) and Near-field NSI (1.2m x 1.2m) Anechoic Chamber

Others

Probe Station
Maury Automatic Load Tuner (up to 18GHz, 3rd Harmonic)
LPKF ProtoMat E44
Reflow Oven
Various R&S Programmable DC Sources
UB Box 5G (up to 44GHz)
National Instruments SDR 16-Tx 16-Rx (up to 6GHz)
Keithley 2400 and 2450 SMUs
Log Periodic Antenna (A-INFOMW)
Keysight Digital Multimeter 34465A
4-port R&S Programmable DC Sources
Tektronix AC/DC Current Probe

Simulation Software

  • Ansys HFSS
  • CST
  • ADS
  • SystemVue
  • LabVIEW
  • Sonnet
  • COMSOL
  • In-house HERAS

Other Resources