The Army, in particular, is looking for a "magic bullet" — one antenna that can receive SATCOM signals from constellations in LEO, MEO and GEO. But it may be disappointed due to the laws of physics, says Rick Lober, VP of defense and intelligence systems at Hughes.

尤其是美国陆军，正在寻找一种“灵丹妙药”——一种可以接收来自近地轨道(LEO)、中轨道（MEO）和地球同步轨道（GEO ）星座的卫星通讯（SATCOM）信号的天线。但由于物理定律，它可能会令人失望，休斯国防和情报系统副总裁里克·洛伯（Rick Lober）说。

 

By   THERESA HITCHENS

on April 15, 2022 

特蕾莎·希钦斯著

2022年4月15日

 

The Army Satellite Operations Brigade’s Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Centers at Fort Meade, MD. (File)

位于马里兰州米德堡的陆军卫星作战旅宽带卫星通信作战中心（文件）

 

WASHINGTON: As the Space Force works through how to create a “hybrid” satellite communications network that links commercial and military networks across all orbital regimes — an effort considered key to the success of the Pentagon’s high priority Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) strategy — most of the stumbling blocks lie on the ground, not in orbit.

华盛顿：随着太空部队研究如何创建一个“混合”卫星通信网络，该网络将所有轨道区域的商业和军事网络连接起来——这一努力被认为是五角大楼高优先级联合全域指挥与控制 (JADC2) 成功的关键战略——大多数绊脚石都在地面上，而不是在轨道上。

 

And one of the hardest nuts to crack is the question of how to reduce both the size and number of antennas required to receive satellite signals, says Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of Defense and Intelligence Systems Division at Hughes Network Systems.

休斯网络系统公司（Hughes Network Systems）国防和情报系统部副总裁兼总经理里克·洛伯（Rick Lober）说，最难解决的问题之一是如何减少接收卫星信号所需的天线的尺寸和数量。

 

“The antennas are where it gets hard,” he told Breaking Defense. “There’s a lot of things you can do with software, it’s great, and then with signal processing. But now you are coming back to physics.”

“天线是困难的地方，”他告诉《突破防御》（Breaking Defense）。“软件可以做很多事情，很棒，然后是信号处理。但现在你又回到了物理上来。”

 

The crux of the problem is most military SATCOM terminals/receivers link to only one frequency or one type of satellite, ships and Humvees use outdated terminals that would be too expensive to replace, and sometimes new satellites end up orbiting the Earth for years without any users because the terminals to make them useful weren’t built on time.

问题的症结在于，大多数军用卫星通信终端/接收器只能连接一个频率或一种类型的卫星，船只和悍马车辆使用过时的终端，更换这些终端的成本太高，有时新卫星会在没有任何用户的情况下绕地球运行数年，因为使它们有用的终端没有按时建造。

 

Not to mention that most commercial SATCOM networks — whether those owned or operated by traditional providers with satellites in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) or newcomers rushing to populate Low and Medium Earth Orbits (LEO/MEO) with constellations for high-speed, high-volume internet traffic — use proprietary kit, said Lober.

洛伯说，更不用说，大多数商业卫星通信网络——无论是由在地球同步轨道（GEO）上部署卫星的传统提供商拥有或运营的网络，还是急于在中低地球轨道（LEO/MEO）上部署高速、大容量互联网通信卫星的新用户——都使用专有套件。

 

The Army, which is the service using the most SATCOM bandwidth simply because of the size of its force, has been struggling for years to reduce the burden it bears in transporting myriad different antennas, many of which are very large, to enable myriad different SATCOM receivers to be able to ensure 24/7 communications connectivity for troops on the move.

美国陆军是使用卫星通信带宽最多的军种，仅仅因为其兵力规模，多年来一直在努力减轻其在运输无数不同天线时所承受的负担，其中许多天线非常大，以启用无数不同的卫星通信接收器能够确保机动部队的24/7通信连接。

 

That struggle will be complicated by the Pentagon’s plan to create an integrated multi-layer network of SATCOM constellations in LEO, MEO and GEO — the goal Space Force’s Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) is now pursuing.

五角大楼计划在LEO、MEO和GEO中创建一个集成的多层卫星通信星座网络的计划将使这场斗争变得复杂——这是太空部队太空作战分析中心(SWAC)目前正在追求的目标。

 

“The Army in particular is kind of looking for the magic bullet right now of ‘give me one antenna that will do LEO, MEO, GEO,'” Lober said. “And there’s challenges there. It might have to be a couple of antennas.”

“特别是美国陆军现在正在寻找灵丹妙药‘给我一根天线，它可以做LEO、MEO、GEO，’”洛伯说。“那里存在挑战。它可能必须是几个天线。”

 

He explained that the difficulty is because of where and how an antenna has to focus to catch the radio frequency signals from far away satellites that, in essence, are in different positions above the Earth. So, it’s not really feasible to use one antenna for SATCOM constellations in different orbital regimes.

他解释说，困难在于天线必须聚焦在何处以及如何聚焦，以捕捉来自遥远卫星的射频信号，而这些卫星本质上位于地球上方的不同位置。所以，在不同的轨道状态下使用一个天线用于卫星通信星座是不可行的。

 

Since individual satellites stay visible over the horizon only for some seven to 10 minutes, Lober said current LEO SATCOM networks themselves generally rely on two parabolic antennas: one to catch the signal from the rising satellite and another to catch those of the setting satellite.

由于单个卫星在地平线上的可见时间只有大约7到10分钟，洛伯说当前的LEO SATCOM网络本身通常依赖于两根抛物面天线：一根用来捕捉来自上升卫星的信号，另一根用来捕捉落下卫星的信号。

 

Also, different antennas as well as different signal processing software in radios/receivers are needed for the different radio frequencies used by different satellite networks.

此外，不同卫星网络使用的不同无线电频率需要不同的天线以及无线电/接收器中的不同信号处理软件。

 

To help solve the LEO antenna problem, he said, Hughes has prototyped a new electronically steerable, flat panel antenna based on open standards that eliminates the need for two parabolic antennas for LEO constellations.

他说，为了帮助解决LEO天线问题，休斯公司基于开放标准设计了一种新型电子可操纵平板天线原型，消除了LEO星座对两个抛物面天线的需求。

 

In effect, it automatically cycles to track a LEO sat as it crosses the horizon, and as that satellites dips out of sight, it “hands off” the signal to another beam focused on the rising satellite.

实际上，它会自动循环跟踪一颗穿过地平线的LEO，当卫星倾斜到看不见的地方时，它会将信号“传递”给另一个聚焦在上升卫星上的波束。

 

According to a March 22 press release, the new antenna is “capable of seamless handoffs from one satellite beam to the next every 11 seconds and one satellite to the next every three minutes.” The company says it also has high data rates for uplink and downlink, supporting speeds during testing of 190 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up, with roundtrip latency averaging 55 milliseconds. The antenna is expected to be available in 2023.

根据3月22日的新闻稿，新天线“能够每11秒从一个卫星波束无缝切换到下一个，每三分钟从一个卫星波束无缝切换到下一个。”该公司表示，它的上行和下行数据速率也很高，在测试期间支持下行190 Mbps和上行20 Mbps的速度，往返延迟平均为55毫秒。该天线预计将于2023年上市。

 

The antenna is 14 inches by 18 inches and about 2 inches thick, Lober said, and draws only about 100 watts of power. It also has no moving parts.

洛伯说，该天线长14英寸，宽18英寸，厚约2英寸，仅消耗约100瓦的功率。它也没有活动部件。

 

A further advantage of the new design, he added, is the fact that while it was made to support the OneWeb network in LEO, it is based on open interface standards that would, for example, enable it to receive signals from SpaceX’s Starlink satellites as well. Hughes is a OneWeb partner.

他补充说，新设计的另一个优点是，虽然它是为了支持LEO中的OneWeb网络而设计的，但它基于开放接口标准，例如，它可以接收SpaceX的Starlink卫星发出的信号。休斯是OneWeb的合作伙伴。

 

Lober said that “because these proprietary waveforms and proprietary systems are not going to go away,” the trick for DoD in ensuring the success of JADC2 and the new SATCOM architecture will be focusing on network management, rather than simply looking at the receiving end. This means using artificial intelligence and software designed to route signals through and across networks in a way that maximizes efficiency of bandwidth consumption and can stay ahead of jamming or interference in any one network and/or frequency.

洛伯说，“因为这些专有波形和专有系统不会消失”，国防部确保联合全域指挥与控制 (JADC2)和新SATCOM架构成功的诀窍将集中在网络管理上，而不是仅仅关注接收端。这意味着使用旨在通过网络和跨网络路由信号的人工智能和软件，以最大限度地提高带宽消耗效率，并可以在任何一个网络和/或频率中保持领先于干扰或干扰。

 

“Come up with a common network management technique. Use some software-defined networking to do it very cleverly,” he said. “That’s where I think the DoD should be focusing, and, you know, they may have to live with two apertures as they call them. That’s just physics. That’s tougher to change.”

“想出一种通用的网络管理技术。使用一些软件定义的网络来非常巧妙地实现，”他说。“我认为国防部应该把重点放在这一点上，而且，你知道，他们可能不得不忍受他们所说的两个光圈。这只是物理学。这更难改变。”