Increased demands for land mobile and personal communications services have changed approaches to satellite design. Satellite providers are moving away from deploying a few large geosynchronous satellites to deploying tens, even hundreds, of smaller satellites at low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit where the orbital altitudes are ranging from 500km to 14,000km. This new generation of LEO and MEO satellites offers a considerable opportunity for the ONR UAV program. They are much closer to the Earth; therefore, low-power hardware, omni-directional antennas can often be used. Moreover, with a large number of satellites available for a given coverage area, a single satellite failure will not result in loss of communications, contrary to the geosynchronous systems. As a result, NAL Research Corporation proposes to develop a satellite data link system using the Iridium LEO satellites that will provide low-operating and hardware costs, low-power consumption and rugged hardware, secured two-way communications, relatively high bandwidth and continuous and truly global coverage in real-time.
Benefits: Satellite data link system can be extremely useful in many applications. Ships, airplanes and trucks have relied on geostationary satellites to provide mobile satellite services for years. Now, LEO satellite data link system will soon make mobile satellite services available for individuals. Any type of transmission, internet connection, voice, fax, data or paging, will soon be able to reach its destination anywhere on the planet. The system will simplify communications for business professionals such as salespeople, field producers and reporters for television networks, construction engineers sending plan revisions, oil-company geologists uploading test results, just to name a few. People who live in thinly populated areas that will never be covered by regular cellular phone service, travelers, private pilots, yachtsmen and disaster relief teams will benefit from the LEO satellite-based data link system as well.
Keywords: Satellite modem, Satellite transceiver, L-band transceiver, Low-Earth orbit satellites, Iridium Satellites
