Via Satellite archive photo

There is a new industry standard consortium in the satellite industry, geared at advancing waveform virtualization for satellite gateway and terminals. The new consortium, Waveform Architecture for Virtualized Ecosystems (WAVE), announced Monday, is under the auspices of IEEE-ISTO.

The founding members include Microsoft, SES, Comtech, iDirect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Reticulate Micro, and The Space Crowd and Air Force Research Lab. Additional membership includes Intelsat and DoD Chief Information Office.

WAVE’s mission is to transform the satcom industry toward a fully interoperable ecosystem by using intelligent, open, and virtualized networks and providing standardized architectures and specifications.

WAVE is working toward a  future where satcom networks are built on scalable and cost-effective commodity platforms, so network innovation can be deployed more rapidly, and encourage a variety of suppliers. 

Dr. Juan Deaton, WAVE’s founding executive director and architect from Alignment, said there’s been a “gridlock” of satcom network operators tired of having proprietary modem boxes, which make it difficult to upgrade and adjust strategy for different mission sets and multi-orbit applications. 

“The purpose of WAVE is to be able to set up that stack computing substrate so we can move  waveforms out of these purpose-built boxes onto a hardware architecture that gives us the performance and cost savings that will help us move into the next generation of satcom,” Deaton said.