BALTIMORE–Hughes is working with various prime contractors on a satellite communications (SATCOM) waveform capable of penetrating rotating helicopter blades, according to a company executive.
Hughes Vice President and General Manager of Defense and Intel Systems Rick Lober told sister publication Defense Daily Oct. 6 the company is experimenting with a more robust waveform that will stand up through the blades, which “chops-up” the waveform, while adding error correction codes that make up for the lost data. Lober said Hughes has performed various trials for large prime contractors that develop rotary wing platforms and hopes to move into some funded demonstrations and, perhaps, pre-production in the next year.
“We hope to move into some direct testing with (the Defense Department) probably in the fiscal year 2015 timeframe,” Lober said at the MILCOM 2014 conference.
Lober said Hughes calls the waveform microsat, which he described as a catch-all name for advance waveform technology. Rotary wing aircraft affect SATCOM waveforms much like jamming, Lober said, when the rotating helicopter blades chop up a signal while a pulse jammer make a waveform appear to be chopped-up. Lober said Hughes is applying this microsat technology in the company’s various anti-jam efforts.
Lober declined to specify which platforms Hughes has tested its microsat waveform, citing negotiations, but said the platforms include both manned and unmanned rotary wing platforms that DoD uses. The Navy has tested Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aircraft system on guided-missile destroyers (DDG)-class ships. The MQ-8B can operate from air-capable ships with initial deployment on a Guided Missile Frigate (FFG), followed by final integration and test aboard the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), according to the Navy.
Hughes has received interest from international customers, Lober said, but the company is currently focusing on DoD customers.
Hughes’ microsat is a beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) capability that has demonstrated data throughputs of up to 10 megabits per second (Mbps) through rotor blades and over geostationary (GEO) satellites, according to a company statement. Hughes said by employing advanced waveform technology, its rotary wing system enables seamless transmissions through rotor blades over both Ka- and Ku-band satellite channels with zero packet loss. Microsat operates with a variety of commercially-available airborne antennas on government, military and commercial platforms, facilitating integration with existing systems for strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and tactical operations.
The Hughes rotary-wing system is based on the company’s advanced HX satellite broadband platform, which meets the Federal Information Processing (FIPS) 140-2, Level 2 encryption standard and meets Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) requirements, according to the company.
Hughes is a division of
EchoStar [SATS].