Hughes demonstrates Satcom through the rotor blades on military helicopters

Hughes Network Systems said that it has successfully demonstrated high-throughput video and data transmission over Satcom links on a variety of rotary wing platforms. Employing an advanced waveform technology developed by Hughes, the new communications-on-the-move (COTM) microsat system achieved zero packet loss on transmission and reception through the rotor blades, over both Ka- and Ku-band satellite channels, according to Hughes.

Tests were conducted on a variety of military and commercial helicopters in both static and in-flight environments that included numerous pitch, bank and roll maneuvers. In all cases, the Hughes microsat system successfully transmitted full motion video beyond the line-of-sight through the rotor blades over both conventional Ku-band global beam and Ka-band global or spot beam satellites, according to a company press release. The system operates with a variety of commercially available airborne antennas, facilitating integration with various government, military and commercial platforms.

The Hughes microsat rotary wing system is based on the company’s HX satellite broadband platform, which meets the Federal Information Processing (FIPS) 140-2, Level 2 encryption standard.