Phase II Amount
$3,508,324
Currently there is no affordable military band on-the-move non-line-of-sight (NLOS) or beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS)communications capability available for land vehicles, helicopters, boats or small UAVs. The current state-of-the-art in Satellite-On-the-Move (SOTM) terminals for Blue Force Tracking (BFT) application is the unit deployed for OIF/OEF which provides 2.4 Kbps utilizing a commercial L-band satellite. The key goals of this project is to develop a low cost, military band, high data rate (> 16 Kbps) on-the-move (OTM), small footprint (< 1 cubic foot) satellite terminal which supports Blue Force Tracking (BFT), situation awareness (SA), and C2 missions. We have investigated the DoD satellite offerings and believe that the X-band Wideband Gap Filler Satellite (WGS) provides the optimum capability to support small aperture on-the-move terminals. Our proposed design will support WGS X-band. In the interim these terminals will also support XTAR a commercial X-band service provider with operational capability available today. Alico Systems proposed approach is based on utilizing low cost beam steering antenna technology with no moving parts. An innovative approach is proposed for tracking the satellite with low cost components. Our design supports >128 Kbps forward and >16 Kbps reverse data rate on-the-move with a <0.5 cubic foot volume including the antenna, RF and modem.
Keywords: X-Band Satcom-On-The-Move (Sotm), Blue Force Tracking (Bft), Wideband Global Satellite (Wgs), Situation Awareness (Sa), Tactical Internet, Milsatcom,
