Advanced Communications at Speed and Depth

Currently, communicating to submarines at sea requires either large, low-frequency, land-based systems or for the submarine to be near the surface towing an antenna or loitering near a communications buoy. GMS’s proprietary (US Patent Application 12/219,569 -24 July 2008) wavelength compression antenna (WCA) technology overcomes these limitations by efficiently transmitting a low frequency signal highly biased toward its magnetic component from a physically small but electromagnetically large antenna. These characteristics make possible systems capable of communicating from mobile platforms, including aircraft, to submarines at operational speeds and depths, regardless of sea ice, sea state, vegetation etc. In Phase I, GMS, working with Lockheed Martin, demonstrated a WCA that successfully showed: • The ability to generate a propagating (“launched”) signal of a wavelength many times greater, in air, than the conductor in the antenna. • The performance gains of a WCA vs. a loop antenna of the same dimensions. • The feasibility of communications from a transmitter in air to a receiver in water. In Phase II, we will use WCAs of improved design and greater power to extend the range and depth at which signals can be transmitted from antennas in air to receivers submerged in sea water.