The Navy Terminal Interoperable with a Commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) ("NICL") satellite system can provide a flexible means to off-load non-critical small messages from the Navy UHF Satcom (FLTSAT) system at low cost and with timely delivery. This project creates the opportunity for such interoperability in the near future by providing access to the ORBCOMM system through a new 6U VMEbus card in the open architecture FLTSAT terminal. The new card provides the interface to a modified industrial-grade ORBCOMM transceiver. The low-cost remote transceiver performs all the necessary operations to support two-way data communications via the VHF ORBCOMM satellites. The innovative modifications provide much higher RF and environmental performance than available with the commercial versions of the ORBCOMM Data Communicator terminal, as necessary to operate reliably, in the dense RF transmitter environment of Navy ships. The 8"x8"x4" transceiver can be collocated topside with the antenna. Existing shipboard antenna designs are suitable. The time varying path diversity provided by the multiple LEO satellites provides much more flexibility in placing the antenna than is common for shipboard antennas. Upon completion of a successful Phase II demonstration, the NICL capability could be deployed almost immediately.
