The overall objective of the project was to successfully refine and scale up for market readiness the world’s first cost effective, electronically steerable, digital, low profile phased antenna to enable high speed satellite communications on the move.
During the 1st Reporting Period of the project, Phasor completed the design refinement and customer consultation exercises in WP1. Feedback received from customers highlighted several extra features and requirements, principle of which was the desire for a small antenna footprint, which we included in the design activities in WP2, WP3 and WP4.
During the 2nd Reporting Period, Phasor took the decision to integrate both the Receive and Transmit antennas into a single compact unit. Initially this decision delayed the ASIC manufacture, however our engineers then identified that using a combination of a minor update to our current version 3 ASIC, by updating the masks only rather than the need for a complete new ASIC, we could achieve the objectives and the data performance rates required by our customers and for the project. A parallel development activity to develop the minimal changes needed on the PST3, to become PST3a, together with new RF antenna design was undertaken and which was successfully developed as listed below:
• Combination of any number of modules – without loss
• Fully electronically steered – no moving parts
• >200°/sec steering rate
• >2 GHz tuning range (Rx)
• Dual fully independent beams from single aperture
• Transmit & Received from a single aperture
• Rx only and Tx only also available
• Very high EIRP capability
• Ultimate off-axis performance – achieved from software controlled antenna
The new design was prototyped, tested and demonstrated to potential customers in September 2016 and showed that the new design clearly met the project objective and our customer performance requirements.
During the 3rd Reporting Period, Phasor have secured further private funding and are continuing to raise further private funding post project. Since the end of the project following a successful demonstration of the technology at the Monaco Yacht Show several large investments have been received, which will enable Phasor to launch the initial products during 2018.
Phasor are also obtaining the required aeronautical certification for the hardware to be flown on civil commercial aircraft (STC).
In summary, electronically steerable antenna technology is perceived as a game-changer for satellite communication-on-the-move services across rapidly expanding aeronautical, maritime & land-mobile vehicular mobile broadband markets.
Phasor has a unique offering in this field at present and is now very well placed to exploit the market, due to our technology’s much more advanced stage of development which will ensure we are the first to market with a commercial product.
