For some time, manufacturers have been promising flat panel antennas that would be low cost, low profile, yet high reliability and performance. However, despite an obvious market need, we still appear to be a long way from getting flat panel antennas that meet the requirements for satellite operators. In a virtual workshop last year, we asked: “are flat panels irrelevant today?
It is evident that there has been a clear demand for flat panel antennas driven by market needs. Satellite operators have been filling the market with requirements and some have already been working with a number of manufacturers. In that time, there have been numerous promises from antenna manufacturers and operators have invested a great deal of money. However, each time the target set can’t be met. Either the price is wrong, or the performance is wrong.
NSR predicted significant use of flat panels, but currently it isn’t clear how we are going to meet that.
It was suggested during the workshop that flat panel antennas are close to the graveyard if someone doesn’t come up with a solution…and fast. It is disappointing that the industry hasn’t risen to the challenge. Every time a new flat panel antenna comes to the market, operators have to take a decision whether to evaluate. However, the history is not great, so it is increasingly difficult for them to justify budget. Right now, innovation is more critical than trying to find a flat panel.
This is where the work QuadSAT is doing is very interesting and innovative. An SIG member, QuadSAT has developed a system for testing satellite antennas using a drone-based solution, which makes testing much faster and cheaper.
Martin Coleman made the point that the satellite industry is over complicating the mobile market. “We are not utilising our network enough, we should be enabling 5G and 4G, connecting cell infrastructure of mobile, but in space. There is lots of unused bandwidth that could be utilised in this way. We should be engaging with the terrestrial industry and working together. In this scenario, flat panel antennas will not be out of the game. That said, aeroplanes and ships probably need them, but I cannot see a situation where satellite antennas will be mounted on connected cars, that will all be 4G or 5G anyway.”
Anver Anderson of Anver Limited cited some successes: “the only time we have seen a flat panel antenna working as it should do was a dish developed by an Israeli company. It was fabulous but had to be pointed. It was perfectly ok for comms on the pause, but not comms on the move. There is this idea that everyone will be connected all the time with the slimmest antenna, but I’m not convinced that is the case for two main reasons: firstly, flat panel antennas can’t currently get sufficient power to get the kind of data throughputs for today’s market. Secondly, the market position has been massively overstated to a position where the industry wastes money based on these statistics.”
Anver continued by stating that the market penetration for on the move is going to be very small. “Aircraft market has of course been stilted due to COVID. The maritime market sees much smaller numbers than general VSAT connectivity. Why would you need flat panel antennas for comms on the pause? There are better and cheaper ways of testing your antennas for the future and thank goodness for young innovative companies like QuadSAT.”
The current state of the market has even led operators to look at other avenues in which to put their money. Type approvals is one of those areas. While there is a potential market for flat panel antennas, most of the current requirements can be managed with conventional antennas. It will take something groundbreaking to buck that trend.
Maybe it isn’t all quite the final curtain for flat panel antennas yet. Anver said that he wouldn’t like to see them disappear. “We should look at using better materials to give us better gain, allowing us to have an effective omni directional antenna with whatever satellite network is being used.”
He also posed the question about involvement from the telecoms industry. “We are constantly griping about going to conferences on satcoms and there are no telcos present. Maybe some of that investment for flat panel antennas could come from people with bigger pockets, like the telcos.”
Martin agreed that the telcos should play a part: “If the telcos want better, and their customers want better, space is the answer to it. We should join together to solve the overall problem. As with anything, we need to go where the money is and right now, that is the mobile industry. We need real investment from a few, not just one operator, and we need to ensure it is spent on the right thing. That means pooling resources to determine what that is.”
There are comms on the pause flat panel antennas that work but they are inefficient as the amount of capacity you have to give up or charge the customer for, means it becomes unviable. The industry needs to realign and look at the bigger picture.
Atif Taha of Es’hailSat said: “I agree with everything said so far but I don’t think that flat antennas are suitable for GEO satellites.” He commented that many customers have suffered bad experience using flat panel antennas. “You need to have transponders with very high gain and that will increase the noise floor and reduce the performance. Also, a transponder with very high gain is more vulnerable to noise and interference. Customers like to use it on the move but that is not a good use case. We need to educate customers and lower expectations of performance with these antennas. They often watch a promotional video and think it will just work.”
Ultimately the satellite industry needs flat panels to be more efficient, lighter, cheaper, and handle more power. They haven’t met these goals.
Perhaps the answer is indeed that the operators need to work together, just as they did to develop SOMAP. That is why we have begun a project together with SOMAP. We are looking to engage with manufacturers to better understand their challenges, as well as communicating the requirements from the satellite operators. At the same time, we will be spearheading discussions between operators to determine commonality when it comes to data required. Finally, we are investigating new ways to test these antennas efficiently while ensuring an accurate picture of performance.
We hope that this will help the industry develop a working solution that will benefit the whole industry in the future.