International Communications Group announced Wednesday it has conducted a recent series of test flights to demonstrate new-generation "paint-on" antenna technology using a unique SA-60 spherical airship designed for high-altitude research.
The goal was to demonstrate new, light-weight conformal antenna technology for high-altitude communications through Iridium's global satellite network.
The antennas successfully transmitted Iridium voice and data calls from various locations on the airship with outstanding radio frequency performance and bit error rates, ICG said in a news release.
ICG flew a four-channel Iridium aircraft communication package on the airship. In addition to qualifying similar performance between the paint-on antenna and standard FAA/TSO-qualified aircraft antennas, ICG demonstrated remote bi-directional data file transfers between the airship and various ground locations.
Of particular note, the company said, was the ability of the communications package to host multi-party airborne connections among geographically separated ground locations, establishing the relay capability resident on the airship.
"This was an important step in the validation of this new experimental antenna technology mated to light-weight, low-power satellite communication systems for transferring remote telemetry data anywhere in the world through the Iridium satellites," said Ray Larkin, military and government programs manager at ICG.
The test flights took place June 21 in the Nevada desert. In addition to ICG, participants included NASA's Langley Research Center, the Research Triangle Institute (RTI International); Applied EM Inc., Unitech, Sierra Nevada Techsphere Systems International and 21st Century Airships.
