State of the Art and Innovations needed for Direct Radiating Arrays to place Very High Throughput Satellite Communications into Technology Reach

The current work provides the roadmap towards the advent of Very High Throughput Satellite Communications. The key enabler will be the envisioned and presented in detail placement of the Direct Radiating Arrays vision into the reach of the technology. Such an endeavor entails the proper choice of the multi-element electrically large array’s geometry as well as the choice on the element radiator. Those choices should support and implement the overlapping concept in hardware. At the same time, they should leave room for advanced array synthesis techniques to unfold their full potential. Those issues are treated in detail, and proper emphasis is given both on the state of the art as well as to the innovations needed to increase the current relative technological readiness level.