Providing our leading technology in a trial with the US Navy

The US Navy SPAWAR Systems Center in San Diego purchased a special version of our 10Gbps E-band link for a trial, which demonstrated the strengths of the EMClarity technology.

The requirement for higher data bandwidths and communications capacity is shared by major deployed/mobile combat commands across all armed services (Air Force, Navy, Army, etc.).

In the military sphere, E-band communications are anticipated to make an impact in several technological areas, including backhaul data transfer, high-speed internet, cellular communications, and radar.

A few of the benefits of E-Band communications for defence applications include:

  1. unlicensed operation
  2. highly secure operations
  3. high frequency re-use due to highly directional communications
  4. fibre optic like speed
  5. system reuse and
  6. highly reliable operations

In this project the US Navy evaluated our E-band (71-86GHz) radio system’s capability to increase communications throughput by an order of magnitude or greater over their currently deployed military systems. The system was demonstrated in a few operational scenarios (environments) such as ground-ground, ship-ship, and ship-shore.

The objective was to deliver an evaluation of the suitability of current “foreign” commercial E-band (71-86 GHz) communications link equipment to meet military requirements in terms of capacity, range and reliability.

Our E-band radio modem was mounted on a three axis, self-aligning, gimbal terminal. Two units were supplied, constituting one link, which was used for over-water trials and propagation testing. Because this was a completely new configuration, in DoD parlance it was classed as a TRL7 prototype (meaning “System prototype demonstration in an operational environment”).

The radio link, delivered 10Gbps full-duplex throughput in 4.2GHz channels. In what is perhaps the most impressive result from the trial, a link from the land to a vessel 14km off-shore was closed and maintained, running at 10Gbps, over which more than 2TB of data were transmitted in one hour.