Satellite Vendors Ready to Meet Military Challenges

R&D Efforts

While many improvements have been made, the demands of the military customers necessitate constant research and development efforts,” says Smith. You may see “from us new [satellite communications] systems that are compatible with stealth vehicles such as the F-22, new manufacturing techniques to cut the cost of these systems, advances in composites that can be used to keep the weight low, new antenna designs that allow broader bandwidths in a lower profile configurations, and new packaging for platform-friendly, multiband solutions,” he says.
Newpoint has been spending a great deal of effort managing communications between the terminals in the field and the network operations center managing the network, says Martland. “The terminal is deployed to provide essential data to the warfighter in extreme circumstances, and you don’t want that delayed or interfered with by the terminal management software,” he says. “So we have worked to reduce the amount of data transported by the control system to the [network operations center] and establish efficient yet responsive communication between them. This is not only the current status and control of the terminal but also to enable them to upload new mission parameters to the terminal.”
The U.S. military is helping fund some of this research and development through many programs. In November, Globecomm Systems was awarded a contract by the U.S. Army to develop a standard network IP modem for use on military and commercial satellites. The Joint IP Modem, being developed in conjunction with subcontractor ViaSat Inc., will serve as the U.S. Department of Defense’s standard network IP modem for satellites, and the goal of the effort is to leverage commercial technology while providing an open standard based approach which can form the basis of interoperability for military users. The contract is valued at $9.9 million and includes multiple options that if fully exercised over the next three years would value the contract at $87 million.
For Globecomm, the Joint IP Modem deal is vital, says Kenneth Miller, Globecomm’s president. “The network-centric IP modem is being designed to be the [Department of Defense] standard network IP modem for use with military and commercial satellites and will be packaged for integration into fixed and transportable satellite terminals that can be easily deployed with the warfighter,” he says. “This capability will allow the warfighter to access databases for information as well as provide a communications path for voice or data in a tactical environment. The goal of the [modem] effort is to leverage commercial technology to the maximum extent possible while providing an open standards-based approach which can form the basis of interoperability for military users. The network-centric IP modem is designed to provide demand-based satellite communication transport services to the warfighter, which means satellite bandwidth will be used more efficiently than current circuit based satellite communication systems.”
The program is “a progressive step in the proliferation of commercial satellite communication technologies into military satellite communication terminals,” says Ric Vandermeulen, vice president and general manager, Government Satcom Systems, ViaSat. “The new generation of terminals benefits from communication improvements in modulation and coding, use of ACM (adaptive coding modulation), and advances in dynamic resource allocation in addition to architectural transition to IP applications. Taken together, these new terminals are able to combine advances in IP acceleration, quality of service and compression with the communication improvement to provide efficient, open architecture terminals. In the future, the technology evolution will be in the networking, information assurance and bandwidth dimensions.” The modem will provide an affordable, open standard, tactical terminal system providing access to the Global Information Grid, and other capabilities being developed under the modem effort will be expanded into the Global Broadcast Service and potentially the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 1 and combat support services programs, he says.
“The new generation of satellite terminals are Internet Protocol based as opposed to earlier terminals that were circuit based,” says Miller. “The use of Internet Protocol means that any service can be provided through one platform and these services can be managed end to end through the Global Information Grid to the warfighter. Many of the new generation of satellite terminals are multiband to allow flexibility when requirements for deployment arise. The ability to access both military and commercial satellites provides the ability to adapt to the warfighters needs as they arise in a military tactical situation. The new tactical terminals we supply auto acquire the satellite and automatically configure the terminal into the network. This makes it much easier, quicker and with less training to deploy.”
The U.S. Navy’s Multiband Terminal contract, awarded to Raytheon in June, also will bring significant communications technology advancements, says Rick Smith, Raytheon’s director of Navy communications systems. “The capability on the ships today are basically all point-to-point systems, all working individually in specific parts of the spectrum to allow the Navy to communicate,” he says. This “is really going to replace many of the legacy systems that exist on the ships today. So it provides a smaller footprint and more capable systems.” The contract could be valued at more than $1 billion for development and production.
Part of Raytheon’s focus in its satellite communications work is to make sure systems can evolve to meet the requirements established for future satellite programs, says Smith. The approach will help the Navy save money when additional capability is added with the launch of new satellites. “We have to understand what capability the satellite can provide and then work our research and development programs and upgrades to our existing terminals to allow for a smooth transition to the more capable satellites once they are launched and available,” says Smith. “Much of the technology development is about reduction of our apertures while increasing bandwidth so that the footprint is smaller and yet more capable. We are looking at phased array technology. Phased array systems seem to be very expensive right now. We haven’t figured out how to get the technology down to a reasonable cost, but we will continue working that. We are also looking at laser communication technology. The idea is find the technology gaps between the technology we have today and what technology advances we can achieve tomorrow. We should also find ways to use bandwidth more efficiently so we can meet the requirements of the government.”

Satellite Vendors Ready to Meet Military Challenges

R&D Efforts

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