The ferment of activity in the Ku-band antenna arena continues, with the announcement that German supplier QEST is working on a lightweight bidirectional system designed to support broadband satellite communications for passenger aircraft.
Based at Holzgerlingen in southern Germany, QEST first came to the attention of the industry when it unveiled a unique, highly compact dual L/Ku-band design at the WAEA show in Toronto last September. Such a solution exploits the high bandwidth of Ku-band to deliver large volumes of data to the aircraft, while using available L-band capacity such as Inmarsat to send smaller volumes of reply traffic in the opposite direction.
Now the company is offering an all-Ku system offering megabit data rates both to and from the aircraft. “Hybrid solutions impose a burden on the satellite operators, requiring them to develop new ways of processing Ku and L-band signals simultaneously,” says QEST sales director Michael Stobinski. “We want to offer a product that could be used in the near future with existing satellite services, hence the new all-Ku product, while also continuing to pursue the hybrid concept.”
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| QEST’s new all-Ku-band antenna will move megabits to and from the aircraft |
Stobinski says that development of the new antenna is expected to take less time than usual because it will make use of modules already created for the initial hybrid system, while also making it easier to adapt it to the particular needs of the various Ku-band satellite operators.
With its novel package of advanced technologies – the hybrid design features a cryoelectronic ultra-low-noise amplifier, for example - QEST is looking to fight its way into an increasingly crowded marketplace that already includes offerings from Starling of Israel and US companies AeroSat and ViaSat.
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Source: Flight Daily News
