Antenna Engineer

The Service Team shall support the Head of the Antennas and Sub-millimeter Waves Section for the following matters:

• Contribution to the engineering work in the field of Antennas in support to ESA Projects, which includes:
• Supporting Staff in interfacing with Projects (and Studies). This includes:
  • Providing expertise to support Projects (and Studies) throughout all project phases, for antenna sub-systems;
  • Performing and documenting relevant analyses
  • Supporting the implementation of industrial project activities;
• Supporting and performing “in-house” design and trade-offs to support projectspecific technology developments;
• Providing hands-on antenna modelling and testing support to projects, which will require proper coordination with the corresponding Laboratory Service;
• Supporting and contributing to meetings and reviews.
  • Identification, implementation, validation, and operation of the relevant section tools, which includes:
  • Providing expertise related to the software, hardware and data related tools;
  • Participating in the development, validation, deployment and maintenance of relevant internal software tools and databases; Liaising with Technical Responsible for the proper configuration of software / hardware either developed in the service itself or originating from externalactivities.
  • Operating the tools for the purpose of supporting Projects or ESA R&D activities.

• Support to Staff in the implementation of R&D activities in the technical domain. This includes:
  • Providing technical inputs to the definition of technology roadmaps and contributing to relevant reviews and meetings;
    o Monitoring applicable scientific and technological trends and maintaining stateof-the-art expertise in space antenna systems;
  • Providing inputs to documentation and meetings / reviews, conducting relevant technical analyses;
  • Contribute to the definition of technical requirements and statements of work for the tasks to be performed by industry from early conceptual studies to full hardware development;
  • Reviewing output from industry / academia and providing inputs to the ESA Technical representative. This includes – when relevant – the conduction of software or of hardware tests in a Divisional laboratory, which will require proper coordination with the corresponding Laboratory Service.
  • Supporting the ESA Technical representative in meeting with industry / academia;
  • When required, organizing ad hoc meetings with industry / academia and reporting on their outcome to the ESA Technical representative.
  • Reviewing output from industry / academia and providing inputs to the ESA Technical representative. This includes – when relevant – the conduction of software or of hardware tests in a Divisional laboratory, which will require proper coordination with the corresponding Laboratory Service.
  • Supporting the ESA Technical representative in meeting with industry / academia;
  • When required, organizing ad hoc meetings with industry / academia and reporting on their outcome to the ESA Technical representative.

In the frame of these functional tasks, technical activities are expected to include:

• Analysing and characterizing antenna systems as well as of interference effects among antennas and with the spacecraft structure (including mini and Cubesats) or other platform (like aircraft/train/vehicle).
• Designing, synthesizing, analysing and engineering all antenna (passive and active) sub-systems including e.g. stand-alone radiators, arrays, reflector, lens optics, dichroics and their associated focal plane.
• Interfacing with other sections for structural aspects (e.g. reflection characteristics, impact of manufacturing and thermo-elastic errors) and for sub-system and system aspects.
• Developing RF Modelling and design tools for all kind of stand-alone antennas and antenna interactions (e.g. parasitic effect on the radiation performance, coupling among antenna ports, antenna farm analysis, scattering effects,...) for spacecraft (including mini and CubeSats) or other platform (like aircraft/train/vehicle), including advanced techniques (e.g. Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence techniques, etc.).
• Supporting the testing of the radiative performance of antennas, payloads and instruments both in stand-alone and in relevant environment.
• Supporting the characterization of the RF properties of materials, both at room- and operational-temperature.
• Supporting the involvement in ESA Working Groups, Workshops/Conferences organisation.
• Supporting the technology harmonisation and coordination in the area of Reflector antennas and Array antennas.
• Ensuring operations according to ISO 9001.
  

• MSc or PhD in Telecommunications or electrical engineering or physics
• Very good knowledge in electromagnetic wave theory
• Experience with antenna architectures and technologies as applied to space
• Familiarity with antenna Space constraints at RF, mechanical, thermal and environmental levels gained from the handling of Flight Model development or R&D development at high TRL level.
• Familiarity with antenna industrial design, manufacturing, testing processes, architecture and technologies.
• Familiarity with antenna modelling tools (e.g. Ticra Tools, Ansys, CST) and programming languages (e.g. Python, Matlab)
• Familiarity with antenna testing processes and control software design for antenna measurement systems.
• Familiarity with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence applied to antennas is considered and asset.
• Familiarity with high power phenomena applied to antennas
• Project support skills and experience in management of R&D activities is considered an asset.