Intelsat General and L-3 Communications Systems-West Succeed in Automatic Beam Switching on UAS

Screen capture of an Intelsat EpicNG rendition. Photo: Intelsat

[Via Satellite 03-08-2016] Intelsat General Corporation (IGC) and L-3 Communication Systems-West (L-3 CS-West), announced the successful demonstration of new automatic beam switching technology that enables Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) fitted with L-3 CS-West satellite communications packages to operate on Intelsat’s High-Throughput Satellite (HTS) platform, Intelsat EpicNG. This software upgrade was funded and developed through a partnership between IGC and L-3 CS-West to ensure that the existing UAS platforms can take advantage of the 3-times to 4-times throughput improvement that Intelsat EpicNGenables.

This demonstration was part of Intelsat’s ongoing ecosystem work validating the compatibility of existing hardware with Intelsat’s EpicNG HTS. This over-the-satellite demonstration was conducted on Intelsat’s Horizons 1 satellite using three separate bandwidth segments and a navigation simulator representing a UAS flying through three separate high-throughput spot beams on a single Intelsat EpicNG-class satellite. Using an L-3 CS-West hub and terminal modems for the end-to-end test, engineers measured the performance of full-motion video and IP data between the UAS and the hub controller as the system automatically switched both frequency and polarization while the aircraft flew through the three separate beams.