Next big thing in Army SATCOM: tiny antennas for combat vehicles.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Homeland Security News

* The Army is poised for a breakthrough that would make command armored vehicles less detectable to enemies and safer to operate.

The idea is to do away with bulky satellite communication dishes and replace them with low-profile distributed aperture terminals--several small antennas working together to act as a single large antenna. The Army has been interested in this technology for years but only started a serious push in 2013.

The problem for the Army is that current SATCOM systems are too bulky and cumbersome to fit inside heavy vehicles like the Bradley or the Abrams tank that have turreted weapon systems. The turret has limited space and power available for a traditional mobile satellite terminal.

The Army's communications technology lab has identified distributed aperture terminals as a technology that could help shrink SATCOM systems so that they can be installed in Bradleys and tanks. This is important for the Army because these are the vehicles that leaders use as their moving command posts when they go to war. A big dish antenna on top automatically turns them into high-value targets.

Because of the space and power limitations in turreted vehicles, SATCOM systems have been a huge headache for engineers trying to squeeze terminals, modems and power amplifiers into tanks or Bradleys.

The Army Communications Electronics Research & Development Engineering Center's (CERDEC) space and terrestrial communications directorate at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, last year awarded Harris Corp. a 29-month, S10 million fixed-price contract to build a distributed aperture satellite communications system in a Bradley infantry personnel carrier. A functioning prototype is due in 2016.

"This is disruptive technology," said Scott Potter, a program executive at Harris corporate headquarters in Melbourne, Florida. "We are combining energies from multiple apertures so electrically they look like one," Potter told National Defense. "There's nothing comparable."

Distributed aperture architectures are found in big-ticket weapons systems like the F-35 joint strike fighter, but they have been considered too expensive for ground combat vehicles.

In a distributed aperture terminal, small antennas can be inserted on the sides of the turret or other areas on the exterior of the vehicle, whereas traditional terminals must be mounted on the top of the turret.

"It's going to be a big challenge for us," Potter said. "When you get live TV on commercial...