Modular Antenna System for Tracking Satellites by adaptations of existing terminals

ABSTRACT: Many currently deployed EHF (Extreme High Frequency) SATCOM terminals lack the ability to track and acquire satellites in highly inclined orbits primarily due to the large Doppler frequency offsets created by a combination of a fast moving satellite and high carrier frequency. Combining this problem with the large operating bandwidths of employed frequency-hopped waveforms such XDR (Extended Data Rate) further compounds the situation as the Doppler frequency cannot be treated as constant across the band. MaXentric"s solution is a two prong approach that is wrapped around a candidate hardware architecture codenamed BLADE (Blackbox Adaptive Doppler Elimination). The first approach relies on monitoring the varying Doppler frequency offset created across the EHF downlink band and intelligently applying frequency correction prior to modem demodulation. The second approach subdivides the receive band into narrower spectral slices that can be independently corrected using a Doppler compensation factor. The key benefit to both of these approaches is that expensive modification of the currently deployed EHF SATCOM terminal is not required. BENEFIT: In an information-driven world, there is an increasing need to conduct data transfers over satellite links, whether the traffic is high-definition video to consumers at home or communication relays for disparate tactical networks across the globe. Today, the satellite industry is seeing burgeoning opportunities in broadband IP services, defense and military applications, and space- and ground-segmented products and services. Additionally, large satellite system operators and teleport operators are now merging, and broadcasters and large users are now leasing satellite capacity rather than opting to deploy their own dedicated systems. This enormous consolidation in satellite services, due to a combination of the global economic recession as well as reduction in government spending in satellite programs, has required ground operators and service providers to incorporate new schemes and methods to provide high bandwidth services in older generation equipment. With the lessons learned in developing BLADE. MaXentric is poised to take advantage of this severe consolidation of services and equipment to provide novel algorithms, architectures, and protocols to reduce costs for ground operators and service providers