Design aspects of digital modems for the forecoming demonstrations of mobile systems operating at SHF/EHF

Growing interest is currently being paid to the possibility of offering a wide range of satellite telecommunications services (including wideband services, the so-called multimedia) to Mobile Terminals (MTs), either land-mobile, maritime or aeronautical, operating in the 20/30 GHz range (SHF) and eventually in the 40/50 GHz range (EHF). This interest is also witnessed by the fact that the European Commission has endorsed an on-going project ("SECOMS / ABATE") coordinated by Alenia Spazio (Italy) aiming to study an SHF / EHF satellite system architecture suitable for the provision of wideband land-mobile and aeronautical services, to develop the required technologies and to validate the assumptions by means of field trials (over the Italsat satellite).