Academic Year 2009/2010 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

This PhD Thesis is dedicated to my family, without which, I would not have been able to write even a single word of it. Besides, I would like to thank Prof. Antonio Morini for having carefully supervised any aspect of my PhD activity, having strongly supported me (both from a technical and a human point of view) and having allowed me to spend almost two years at the European Space Agency (ESA) in Noordwijk (The Netherlands), while developing my research projects. I sincerely acknowledge Piero Angeletti and Giovanni Toso (ESA Staff Members) for their continuous support and for having supervised all the phases of my activity at ESA. I have learned a million of things from them and it has been a great pleasure to work with such exceptional persons and extremely skilful engineers. Last but not the least, I would like to show my profound gratitude to Riccardo De Gaudenzi (Head of RF Payload Systems Division at ESA) and Francesc Coromina (Head of RF Payload Engineering Section at ESA). It is only thanks to them, who have always believed in me, if all the results presented here have been made achievable.