No products in the cart.
As satellite communications customers look for more multiorbit and multiconstellation connectivity, antenna manufacturers need to adopt universal standards.
“We’re starting to see some change in the industry towards standardization, which is going to benefit everybody,” Ryan Stevenson, vice president and chief scientist at antenna manufacturer Kymeta, said on the “Antenna Innovations” GVF webinar last week. “It has to. It just has to.”
If antenna manufacturers continue demonstrating the value of standardization and that their solutions work within a standard, eventually there will be wide adoption across the industry, said Gavin Cox, R&D engineering manager at communications technology provider Global Invacom.
“Once critical mass is reached, then it will just open the floodgates and everything will go that way,” he added.
The satcom industry has traditionally been very siloed, and it’s taken effort to push past companies’ reluctance to embrace standardization, Stevenson said.
Several companies have joined the Digital Intermediate Frequency Interoperability (DIFI) Consortium, an industry group pushing for an open, interoperable standard.
“We’re very strong proponents of what DIFI is about and what DIFI is trying to do because it will really transform the user terminal and ultimately help reduce costs,” Stevenson said.
5G connectivity
The satcom community needs to converge with the terrestrial connectivity sector, and standardization will help with that.
“The recent releases in the 3GPP standards for 5G is a step in the right direction,” said Lukas Nystrom, chief technology officer at terminal provider Satcube. “The telecom community is now looking towards space more and more, and we should try to push for this.”
The latest 5G iterations have prioritized integration of satcom into the network.
“Terrestrial has had interoperability for years, so there’s definitely a lesson to be learned there,” Cox added.
Government’s role
The U.S. government also is driving industry toward standardization as the military adds language about standards into its contracts and engages with industry to learn more about them.
“We’re seeing DoD RFIs come out now that are requesting information on the DIFI standard and how users are going to be using that standard in their solutions,” Stevenson said.
The military is a major driver of standardization in another important satcom technology: Optical links. By developing a standard and then purchasing hundreds of optical links, the Space Development Agency has pushed manufacturers and satellite companies to adopt standardization.
