Boeing Antenna Demos T1 Reception Rates

[reagle@rpcp.mit.edu (Joseph M. Reagle Jr.)]

WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 AUG 27 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. All  
eyes were on the truck as it meandered its way down the twisting 
mountain road in northern Bosnia. Except the eyes didn't belong to 
lookouts in an observation post along the road. They were in a 
modified US Air Force (USAF) C-135 flying at 35,000 feet along 
the East Coast of the United States, some 6,000 miles away. 

The USAF C-135, known by the name Speckled Trout, was participating  
in the 1996 Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID `96). 

JWID `96 is the eighth in a series of technology demonstrations  
designed to identify command, control, communications, computer, and 
intelligence (C4I) problems between the armed services, demonstrate 
improved operational capabilities for deployed forces, and promote 
interoperability among existing and emerging C4I systems needed to 
support a joint task force. 

As part of the exercise, the Air Force installed the first full-scale  
prototype Ku-band phased array receive antenna system on the 
Speckled Trout, a modified avionics testbed aircraft maintained by the 
412th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, California. 

The antenna, developed by Boeing Co., is capable of receiving broad-  
band, high data rate satellite communications, with civilian as well 
as military applications, Boeing spokesperson Charles Ramey told 
Newsbytes. 

According to Ramey, the antenna will "revolutionize mobile satellite  
communications by increasing the data flow by thousands of times over 
current capabilities." 

Depending on the satellite and receiver, he said, rates of up to 30  
megabits-per-second (Mbps) may be realized through a single transponder. 

"To date, satellite communication to mobile platforms has been limited  
to relatively narrow bandwidths, and wide band communication has 
been subject to the limits of antenna technology," Ramey told 
Newsbytes. 

The Boeing design can be adapted to simultaneously receive signals  
from multiple satellites in different orbits with a single antenna. 
The electronically steered antenna also allows for rapid switching 
between different satellites. 

During the JWID exercises, which will continue through August 30,  
the Boeing antenna system is being used to receive satellite 
transmitted video and data to support the Global Broadcast Service 
(GBS) mission. GBS, Ramey said, is designed to provide the military 
with a worldwide, seamless, high-throughput broadcast information 
service to support current and future defense objectives. 

As one Air Force Colonel at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa,  
Florida, told Newsbytes, "GBS is the CNN of the warfighter." 

EchoStar, a key member of the antenna demonstration team,  
transmitted video in Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) format for 
reception by the Boeing antenna system on the Speckled Trout. 

In addition to the video, an uplink data stream at T1, or 1.5Mbps,  
or higher is generated at the GBS uplink terminal testbed at the 
Operational Support Office facility located at the Naval research 
Facility near Washington DC. 

This signal, according to Ramey, is relayed through the GBS  
Americom K2 FSS satellite which downlinks to a receiver at an 
EchoStar facility. The data is then incorporated into the network 
broadcast system and retransmitted via the EchoStar 1 satellite 
to a GBS receiver. 

The data is then stored for retrieval by other systems, Ramey said,  
including the Global Command and Control System (GCCS), sponsored 
by the Air Force Communications Agency, and the Combat Information 
System, sponsored by the Air Intelligence Agency. 

"Other systems on board the Speckled Trout can retrieve data through  
the Boeing phased array antenna system, which is routed to terminals 
inside the aircraft for display and demonstration," Ramey said. 

The Speckled Trout also can track and receive video and data from  
EchoStar Dish Network TV, Hughes DirectTV, and USSB transmissions 
for display on a conventional monitor, Ramey said. 

Looking to commercial applications, Ramey said the phased array  
communication antenna system "offers the ability to provide 
passengers with more entertainment and information options. With 
the Boeing antenna system on board, passengers can have access to 
the entire spectrum of commercial television programming available 
from a BSS satellite." 

Ramey said the antenna system is capable of instantaneously  
bringing in approximately 100 channels from a given BSS satellite. 

(199670826/Press Contact: Charles Ramey, Boeing Defense & Space  
group, 206-657-1380)