RA-2 Over the Horizon (OTH) Communications for Small UAV's

An enabling technology to accomplish OTH communications systems architectures for small UAV¡_s is identified. In addition two small-UAV based communications architectures are highlighted for theater applications. One utilizes multiple small UAV¡_s for disadvantage users with hand held terminals; the other is UAV-based communications systems with ground beam forming for ground mobile users with small directional antennas. SDS, with support from AOptix, proposes a tri-band solution that combines the best of all three communication technologies. This TRI-Band Universal-aperture Terminal (TRIBUTE) supports FSO, millimeter wave, and RF bands all in one robust and compact common-aperture package. In addition, it utilizes recent innovations at AOptix and SDS. AOptix FSO Terminals incorporate unique curvature-based Adaptive Optics (AO) optimized specifically for long distance atmospheric FSO. AOptix AO subsystems exhibit size, weight and power (SWaP) orders of magnitude lower than traditional AO systems, servo bandwidth high enough to mitigate atmospheric optical turbulence and scintillation effects, and packaging robustness suitable for battlefield use. SDS Digital Beam Forming (DBF) technology provides agile RF beam forming features that are not possible or practical with current phased array technology. The proposed enabling technology and two communications architectures will be evaluated in phase I study.