Over-the-horizon broadband maritime communications utilizing novel lightweight antennas

The demand for implementing new radio communication services at sea is steadily increasing. Unfortunately, these needs are still far from being adequately fulfilled by currently available technologies. This paper presents some results of our studies aiming at developing broadband radio links operating in UHF/microwave bands at sea. The general principle of the concept that we are implementing is establishment of a robust backbone network based on vessel-to-vessel mesh communications, making use of radio links that are expected to be capable of beyond the horizon operation. Novel lightweight antennas have been carefully designed to minimize user investment and maintenance costs for this technology implementation, thus avoiding use of expensive and complicating beam forming techniques.