{"id":59869,"date":"2020-04-22T20:10:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T12:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/isotropic-systems-ceo-shares-roadmap-to-holy-grail-of-antenna-connectivity\/"},"modified":"2020-04-22T20:10:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T12:10:41","slug":"isotropic-systems-ceo-shares-roadmap-to-holy-grail-of-antenna-connectivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/isotropic-systems-ceo-shares-roadmap-to-holy-grail-of-antenna-connectivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Isotropic Systems CEO Shares Roadmap to \u2018Holy Grail\u2019 of Antenna Connectivity"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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SES CEO Steve Collar and Isotropic Systems CEO John Finney with new terminal designed for SES O3b mPOWER. Photo: Isotropic Systems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

This year, Isotropic Systems<\/strong> is in its final stage of collaboration with SES<\/strong> on software-defined, multi-beam customer edge terminal antennas compatible with O3b mPOWER \u2014 ahead of the commercial launch of the terminals with the O3b mPOWER Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) system in 2022.<\/p>\n

Isotropic CEO John Finney spoke to Via Satellite<\/em> and said this is the result of years of work, and an example of Isotropic\u2019s business strategy of partnering with major operators, such as SES and Inmarsat<\/strong>, and making technology that pairs with operators\u2019 requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a full understanding of the major operator requirements to be effective in enterprise, and that\u2019s how we developed the feature set for our first-generation product,\u201d Finney said. \u201cI think that over the course of time, this will be one of the key reasons why we\u2019re able to distinguish ourselves from the competition, not just because we have really interesting technology that does new things, but those new things are designed to match what customers want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout this year, Isotropic will test and optimize the tiered platform to meet specific performance, cost, power, and connectivity requirements of user cases. Previously in November 2019, Isotropic hit the performance milestone of demonstrating bi-directional high-speed connectivity with a Ka-band broadband satellite.<\/p>\n

[Q&A With Isotropic Systems CEO on New Defense Innovation Unit Contract]<\/em><\/p>\n

Finney said the first-generation terminal is in Ka-band in order to fulfill the needs of Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) constellations. Isotropic has contracts with SES and Inmarsat, and understands Telesat<\/strong>\u2019s requirements as well. Once the first-generation product in Ka-band is released, Isotropic plans to release a Ku-band version soon after. These terminals will be bi-directional, meaning that they can transmit and receive at the same time. In addition, when a second and third beam is added, Finney said, the antenna performance is multiplied, and there is no trade-off in performance. That capability, Finney said, is completely unique to Isotropic Systems\u2019 terminal platform.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Isotropic Systems Ka-band terminal designed for SES. Photo: Isotropic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

But beyond the first-generation terminals \u2014 Finney said Isotropic has the roadmap to a second-generation product: a converged antenna that operates in multiple frequencies and multiple beams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means you can have complete arbitrage of everything that\u2019s in the sky,\u201d Finney said. \u201cYou can connect to a Ku-band satellite and a Ka-band satellite, and several of them at once \u2014 with complete discretion and control of the end user. And that\u2019s considered something of the holy grail in this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201choly grail\u201d of antenna technology will be the result of years of development. Finney was a founding employee and CCO of O3b<\/strong>, and this is where he became passionate about the limitations of terminal infrastructure in terms of performance and reliability. He looked ahead to the coming age of mega-constellations of satellites, and realized that ground system technology would not match up.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of the next 10 years, the amount of available options in space for connectivity will be vast, with anywhere between thousands of satellites, to tens of thousands of satellites, operating in different frequencies and different orbits,\u201d Finney said. \u201cYou then have two choices. You either work with the legacy, old generation technology that was never designed for that future. \u2026 Or you innovate, to create something that\u2019s purposely designed for the new world of satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n

This realization led Finney and Isotropic to apply the field of transformational optics \u2014 the manipulation of light to make objects appear invisible \u2014 to satellite antennas. Describing Isotropic\u2019s deep tech, Finney said that light and radio propagate through space in the same way, in a straight line, so radio waves can be bent just like light waves. Using optical beam-forming technology, radio waves are shaped when passing through an Isotropic device, and no signal is lost. Finney said that this technology allows the company to provide its customers with much higher levels of bandwidth than any existing technology or emerging player.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, what we\u2019re aiming to do is offer the entire ecosystem a set of capabilities that really are the closest possible match to the amazing performance that the satellite manufacturers are now putting into the sky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also in March, Isotropic announced that it is licensing patented core components of its multi-beam antennas to aeronautical and defense system integrators in order to accelerate customized designs, certifications, and deployments of next-generation terminals aboard commercial, business, and government aircraft.<\/p>\n

Finney said the licensing approach is to avoid issues other companies encounter with getting certification onto aircraft.<\/p>\n

Explaining the licensing strategy, Finney said: \u201cWe have to know that our modules are forming part of their next generation terminal story, such that we become a major component supplier to their finished next-gen aeronautical terminal. We\u2019ll supply the lenses, the beam formers, the ASICs, the RFICs, and associated circuitry. And we will provide that under license. We will effectively be a component supplier to those integrators in those relationships, which I think will be more strategic by nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SES CEO Steve Collar and Isotropic Systems CEO John Finney with new terminal designed for SES O3b mPOWER. Photo: Isotropic Systems This year, Isotropic Systems is in its final stage of collaboration with SES on software-defined, multi-beam customer edge terminal antennas compatible with O3b mPOWER \u2014 ahead of the commercial launch of the terminals with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}