Navy Ships Improve Attack With New Multi-Beam Satellite Antenna

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By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

(Washington, D.C.) Targeting enemy ships, bouncing war data off of drones, detecting incoming ballistic missiles, seeing approaching small boat attacks from over the horizon, intercepting anti-ship missiles and .. perhaps most of all … networking surface, air and undersea assets in real time — are all crucial elements of the U.S. Navy’s emerging Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) tactical attack strategy.

Offensive attack maneuver, fortified by advanced sensors and dispersed across vast swaths of ocean, is one of the tenets informing the Navy’s DMO thinking. Surface ships will by design increasingly operate in a dis-aggregated fashion, armed with long range weapons and sensors; it is all part of a multi-year Navy pivot toward broadly increasing lethality and attack technology throughout the surface fleet, by arming ships for high-end massive warfare on the open sea with a new generation of advanced weapons.

It is within this conceptual framework that the Navy is taking fast steps to better network its fleet with improved satellite connectivity. GPS guidance, radio frequencies and other electronic systems making up the warfare transport layer, are vital when it comes to connecting surface platforms with satellites, and to one another. The idea is for each platform to not only operate as an independent entity capable of combat operations but also function as a “node” within a broader warfare network. This can include long-range, high-frequency radio communications, an ability to bounce electromagnetic signals off of aerial nodes such as drones and the enabling of multi-satellite connectivity simultaneously to increase combat sensor awareness – possibly improving targeting.

The sea service plans to benefit from a recently awarded Defense Innovation Unit evaluation and development contract with Isotropic Systems for new patented beam-forming antenna technologies and circuits. The goal, according to Isotropic CEO John Finney, is to “fuse multi-band, multi-orbit commercial and military capacity to deliver intelligence data at the tactical edge over a single platform.”

The value added with this new technology is to enable a single, smaller-form factor, surface mounted, software-definable antenna that can emit a precise, narrowly configured electronic signal to several satellites at once — all while consuming less on-board power and increasing precision. It is a single, multi-beam antenna, which relies upon Isotropic’s new signal-forming optical lens technology, Isotropic Vice President of Development Brian Billman, told Warrior in an interview.