Inflight MUOS testing completed for ARC-210 SDR
NewsNovember 21, 2013
SAN DIEGO. Rockwell Collins and Lockheed Martin engineers completed airborne testing of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) and the new Wideband Code Divisional Multiple Access (WCDMA) waveform leveraging the latest version of the Rockwell Collins ARC-210 airborne software defined radio (SDR). Rockwell Collins made the announcement at the MILCOM show in San Diego this week.
Testing was performed in two phases. During phase one, a series of ground tests were utilized to monitor MUOS parameters and collect data for the Lockheed Martin engineering team. The ARC-210 was then placed into an L-100 Hercules aircraft (commercial variant of a C-130) for airborne testing that covered signal acquisition during various flight profiles at speeds of as fast as 300 knots. The ARC-210 was able to demonstrate repeatable MUOS signal acquisition.
“The ARC-210 provided consistent, fast processing and locking on to the MUOS channel," says Paul Scearce, Lockheed Martin’s director of Military Space Advanced Programs. "MUOS WCDMA will provide in excess of 16 times improvement over legacy waveforms. Along with a modern all-IP dynamic network, MUOS will enable tremendous communications-on-the-move flexibility for the warfighter.”
The ARC-210 radio currently has both Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) and Integrated Waveform (IW) satellite communications capabilities. With the implementation of the MUOS WCDMA waveform, the ARC-210 radio will provide all Department of Defense UHF SATCOM capabilities.
