Opportunities for Small, Low Cost, SHF Satellite Communications Terminals

After over 20 years of military satellite system acquisition, there remain thousands of unsatisified requirements for airborne and ground based satellite communications terminals. This shortfall is primarily due to cost. Cost is related to frequency band, size of the terminal and waveform complexity, to first order. Military terminals have lagged behind commercial developments in moving toward very small aperture terminals (VSATs). Significant cost reductions through waveform simplification and special systems contexts, such as operation in star (or hub-and-spoke) networks and addition of a processing repeater, are described which allow use of very small terminals in the SHF Defense Satellite Communications System. A review of parts costs suggests that very small military SHF (7,8 GHz) terminals are feasible and could exploit advances made for commercial C-band (4,6 GHz) and Ku-band (14,12 GHz) terminals. A small SHF terminal concept is described, which could be configured either as a manpack, a small transportable or a hardened, fixed terminal. Component performance and cost data are used to indicate areas where technology can be applied to reduce size or cost. Data is presented to justify feasibility of low cost and to estimate total terminal cost.