NovelSat is today launching its groundbreaking third generation satellite modulation technology, NS3™ to the military market place. NS3™ technology addresses the chronic shortage of satellite bandwidth that is restricting the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) around the globe today. Time and again, NS3™ technology has been shown to boost satellite capacity by 28-70 percent over the previous highest performance alternatives offered by the second generation Digital Video Broadcasting Standard (DVB-S2).
UAVs such as Predators, Global Hawks, Reapers and the French Harfang generate huge amounts of data, including full motion video and complex sensors such as high definition video, laser designators, imaging radar, ground moving target indicators and multispectral imagers, demanding high bandwidth for transmission. One Global Hawk (UAV) requires around 500 Megabits/second of bandwidth, which is five times the entire bandwidth required by all of the US military during Desert Storm.
Furthermore, the Pentagon has recently announced its intentions of buying at least 50 more UAVs of the extended range category, signaling to the satellite industry of its focus shift towards more Communications-On-The-Move (COTM) for UAVs in the coming years. The inevitable outcome of this focus shift is that the numbers of concurrent UAV flights will more than double itself in the coming years.
The NS3™ technology from NovelSat uses existing spectral bandwidth more efficiently to reduce satellite leasing costs by 20-37 percent over DVB-S2 (on 36MHz and smaller transponder segments), reduce antenna size by 33 percent, increase geographical coverage and/or increase capacity by up to 70 percent on wide transponders such as the 72 MHz transponders and offer unparalleled data speeds of up to 358Mbps today — growing to 1Gbps on a 250MHz transponder by Q4/ 2012.
For UAVs, NS3™ can contribute to a 33 percent reduction in the onboard pedestal and antenna’s size giving, an identical throughput. Such a reduction may contribute to improved UAV’s aerodynamics, fuel consumption, and flight range as well as reducing its Radar Cross Section (RCS). Similarly, for Special Forces as well as Ground Forces, Communications on the Move (COTM) the reduction in weight and size of the antenna carried on the back of a fighting soldier and the improved signal quality can prove to be a critical advantage in a military theatre.
NovelSat’s modulators, demodulators and modems are designed with increased resiliency. Therefore, in addition to the improved capacity and the highest data rate, they also provide a much more robust signal that will better sustain and be resilient to unfriendly, challenging conditions by 0.4dB to 3dB.
David Furstenberg, Chairman of NovelSat comments, “Governments around the globe are grappling with the challenges of shrinking budgets coupled with widespread unrest and mushrooming terrorist threats. NovelSat's powerful third-generation modulation technology NS3™, reduces costs and alleviates the bandwidth constraints such as those experienced during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan when the US military were only able to deploy half of their fleet of UAVs due to bandwidth restrictions.”