The Hanwha Phasor 16-tile conformal airborne AESA satcom antenna displayed at FIA 2022. (Giles Ebbutt/Janes)
Hanwha Systems is developing a 5G-based tactical communications system incorporating the OneWeb low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications (satcom) system. It will include the new satcom antenna technology from Hanwha Phasor and a smartphone-based integrated versatile terminal (IVT).
Kevin Kim, vice-president for command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I), Hanwha systems, told Janes at 2022 Farnborough International Air Show (FIA) that the objective of the development programme is to provide “hyperconnectivity for multidomain operations”. He explained that the new system uses 5G for terrestrial communications because it offers low latency, high capacity, and high connectivity, particularly for unmanned systems and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors.
The IVT that Hanwha has developed as part of the programme is based on a commercial smartphone to provide the user interface, to which different modules are added according to the requirement. These include satcom, 5G and tactical radio modules, plus an encryption module that is always present. Kim said that the modules have to be swapped according to the requirement, but the intention is that they will all be contained within the IVT to provide a multifunctional capability.
Other equipment associated with the terrestrial layer in addition to the IVT are a high-capacity large base station, a small cell base station, and a multilayer network controller (MLNC). The MLNC controls message routing between the different communications modes (5G, satcom, and tactical radio) and using artificial intelligence automatically selects the most appropriate mode according to the type of communication (voice, data, and video) and its priority.
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