The U.S. Department of Defense’s long-term strategy for acquiring more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), combined with the increasing sophistication of sensors to be employed onboard these aircraft, will drive a significant increase in required incremental data rates and bandwidth over the next 15 years, Intelsat General Vice President of Business Strategy Britt Lewis told Via Satellite.

    “We have done our own studies on the likely demand for the medium and high-altitude UAVs that leverage satcom and I also have recently reviewed the Teal Group’s projections for those aircraft. Our projections are in line that the government is set to spend somewhere around $49 billion overall for the next 10 years. That would include production of approximately 70 to 100 medium and high-altitude aircraft each year. It is a significant spending budget for satcom-enabled technology,” said Lewis.

    In February, the Pentagon released its $553 billion 2012 budget proposal to Congress, representing a $4 billion increase from its requested funding in 2011. For 2012, Gates highlighted support for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), stating that the number of missions will increase substantially as ground forces will have to be replaced by other means to gather intelligence.

    “It’s clear from the Department of Defense on down that the government has made significant commitments to UAV capabilities providing full-motion video and a whole range of other types of capability that broadly provide mission-critical situational awareness for the effectiveness of their operations in a range of places around the world. UAV have become an indispensable part of the in-theatre capabilities that are deployed for U.S. military and civilian purposes,” said Lewis.

    Currently, there are a number of ways to backhaul UAV and manned ISR mission data that is collected by on-board sensors. Commercial satellites provide a vast majority of those communications. While managing UAV missions, the U.S. Air Force operates a remote split mechanism where UAVs are launched in-theatre and controlled by pilots that are back in the United States. The military’s terrestrial network provides communications to Europe, with leveraged satcom providing command and control and the reach-back or for the sensor data that is originated.

    Lewis said the U.S. government also has made significant milsatcom investments, like WGS wideband communications, to help support reach-back for UAVs as well. “From the analysis that we’ve done with our customers throughout the Air Force and combat command, the Pentagon will likely begin to aggressively leverage milsatcom starting in 2011. However, projections go out to as far as 2027, when the expectation is that they will continue to use a mix of commercial Ku-band and Ka-band on WGS to support UAVs. As the military has committed to an eight-satellite WGS constellation, the UAVs that are developed over time will likely be developed to support Ka-band, which will then be able to be compatible with WGS Ka-band.”

    The sophistication of UAV sensors that are built on board aircraft is likely to drive increasingly higher data rates. According to Lewis, the military may not have the Ka-band capacity needed to support operations if they continue to operate in today’s current battle-theatre hotspots. 

“As we look out over time, the military’s throughput expectations become increasingly aggressive. Medium-altitude UAVs like the Predators, Reapers, and the Army’S extended-range multipurpose are planned to transition from 3.2 to 6.4 megabits-per-second (Mps) throughput to 12.8 megabits per second by leveraging commercial satcom. The military eventually wants to move to Ka-band and go to 16 Mps. During real combat missions, they want throughput support as high as 45 Mps and 100 Mps. So, we’re looking at a growth in overall data rates at 15 times the current rate, driven by sensor technology,” Lewis said. “If you look at the high-altitude Global Hawk missions that Intelsat General is supporting today, they are configured to three different mission rates – 8 Mbs, 20 Mbs, or 48 Mbs. Their vision for Global Hawk over time is to move to 83 Mbs, 138 Mbs, and, in some instances, to go well beyond 274 Mbs. This represents a growth in overall data rates for the high-altitude missions at six times the current rate.” 

Lewis said that Intelsat General has been working with military officials to figure out a reasonable path to achieve its requirements. “The military is often taking the raw imagery data, processing it, analyzing it, and then re-disseminating it back out so that the deployed warfighters can leverage it within their mission and operations. Because of the increase of demand, the discussions have been based on finding the right balance of commercial satcom and milsatcom. It has been productive, as we realize that is the only way the military will have the bandwidth they need moving forward.”