Lightweight UAV SATCOM on the Move

Even though Group 2 UAVs, and those weighing around 100 lbs, lack the surface area on their tubular fuselages for mounting adequately sized phased arrays for SATCOM connectivity, the surface areas on their relatively flat wings can be used. Toyon proposes adding SATCOM to these UAVs by distributing a number of our Electronically Reconfigurable Phased Arrays (ERPAs) on the wings and efficiently combining them with our software-defined Digital Distributed Array Combiner System Modem (DDACS‑M) that we developed under prior work for the Army and Navy. The ERPA’s wide-angle-scanning capability maximizes the downlink and uplink signals, despite the UAV’s orientation. Traditional non-reconfigurable phased arrays (non‑ERPAs) pose serious limitations on the scanning capability down to low elevation angles, which also reduces link margins. The DDACS-M will use a novel beamforming integrated circuit to drive to and receive from the arrays with a high-performance System-on-a-Chip (SoC) containing an FPGA and multi-core CPU. This system will be able to establish high-data-rate “primary” LEO/MEO links and low-data-rate “secondary” GEO links. The proposed system offers (1) an increase in downlink G/T through coherently combining the receive phased array panels, (2) smooth make-before-break transitions between satellites, (3) and multi-beam half- or full-duplex operation.