Keeping Customers Happy Worldwide

KVH Industries, Inc. has entered into an agreement that will enable the MVS Group, one of the world’s largest distributors of mobile satellite services, to offer KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband service and TracPhone V-series satellite communications systems to its global customer base.

The agreement will enable MVS Group to bundle KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband service within its state-of-the-art billing and airtime management system and full suite of value-added services to provide one-stop shopping for its global customer base.

“The MVS Group is a market leader that has won a solid following of loyal customers throughout the world by providing outstanding customer support and offering satellite services enhanced with its comprehensive, value-added services,” said Brent Bruun, KVH’s senior vice president of global sales and business development. “We’re delighted to enter into this cooperation to offer its customers next-generation VSAT services delivered by our mini-VSAT Broadband network and our award-winning TracPhone V-series product line.”

The MVS Group was founded in 1995, focusing on offering customers with mobile applications access to L-band MSS services on land, at sea, or in the air.

Winning customers by providing excellent support, high quality billing systems, and a full range of value-added services, MVS Group grew to become a leader in the mobile satellite communications market, and is currently the world’s third largest Inmarsat Distribution Partner as well as a global Iridium Service Provider. From its corporate headquarters in the United States, and regional offices in Cyprus, Russia, and the Netherlands, MVS Group employees work closely with their customers to help them achieve their business objectives by leveraging satellite communications services.

“Broadband connectivity offshore is becoming an important requirement in the commercial maritime industry,” explains Deborah Deffaa, executive director of the MVS Group. “Our customers are asking for faster, more affordable satellite communications service to support their new applications, which are designed to save fuel, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance efficiency, and improve crew morale. KVH has developed a remarkable new maritime broadband network that takes advantage of advanced, spread spectrum technology to dramatically reduce the size and cost of the antennas needed to receive the service onboard the vessels, making it easier than ever before to deploy affordable broadband service at sea.”

With more than 2,000 onboard terminals sold, KVH’s mini-VSAT Broadband service is the most widely used maritime VSAT solution. The network uses ArcLight spread spectrum technology, which was developed by KVH’s technology partner, ViaSat, Inc., (Nasdaq: VSAT) specifically for mobile use. ArcLight is unique due to its fast speed, low latency, efficient reuse of satellite channels, and ability to support very small antennas that provide reliable service, even in poor weather conditions.

KVH manufactures three onboard antennas for the mini-VSAT Broadband network—the award-winning 24” diameter TracPhone V7, the compact 14.5” diameter TracPhone V3, which is the world’s smallest and most affordable maritime VSAT antenna, and soon, the new dual-mode TracPhone V11, which will provide coverage of 95 percent of the Earth as a result of its ability to receive both C- and Ku-band satellite signals from KVH’s global network. The mini-VSAT Broadband service equips vessels with the highest data rates available today with downloads as fast as 4 Mbps and uploads as fast as 1 Mbps, as well as Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone lines with optimized service and prioritization of applications.

Learn more about the TracPhone V series here...

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101st Airborne Adds Realism To Army Network Test

While thousands of soldiers maneuver across the New Mexico desert to assess the Army’s future tactical communications network, a smaller group more than a thousand miles away is playing a quieter but essential role in the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 12.2.

For the first time, Army planners have incorporated the role of higher headquarters into the Network Integration Evaluation, with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) acting as the higher headquarters for the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. Just as it would in combat operations, the division is commanding and coordinating across subordinate elements, which includes 2/1 AD at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, the 1st Sustainment Brigade at Fort Riley, Kansas, and a “simulation brigade” that is notionally fighting alongside 2/1 AD to provide added realism and network traffic.

Under the rigorous operational scenario designed for NIE 12.2, the 101st has been assigned to help support and stabilize the Army and government of the fictional country of Attica, which is fighting off an incursion by the army of a neighboring country and an insurgency. The 101st has sent 2/1 AD and the simulation brigade into the thick of battle, where they are using new network technologies to communicate across echelons and while on the move.

“It puts the brigade combat team in a more realistic environment where they’re talking directly to a division headquarters, they’re sharing information with that division headquarters, and they get different insights that only a division headquarters can provide,” said Brig. Gen. Randal Dragon, commander of the Brigade Modernization Command, part of the Triad of organizations that execute the NIEs. “Any time you can train and evaluate in a multi-echelon approach, you start to see things that you simply didn’t see before.”

NIE 12.2 is the third in a series of semi-annual field exercises designed to further integrate and rapidly mature the tactical network, the Army’s top modernization priority. It is the first NIE to involve a higher headquarters and extend its test footprint beyond White Sands and Fort Bliss, Texas.

The involvement of the 101st Airborne allows the Army to evaluate network capability the way it would be used in theater—across distances and echelons. It will also help the Army establish the techniques and procedures for how these new capabilities will enhance battlefield communications at echelons from division down to the tactical edge.

“We want to properly test this system before we deliver it to our soldiers,” said Maj. Gen. James McConville, commanding general of the 101st Airborne. “Our responsibility is to make sure we properly equip and train our soldiers, and in order to do that we need to make sure this system can support our information requirements.”

NIE 12.2 also includes the formal operational test for the Army’s on-the-move communications backbone, known as Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 2, which enhances network connectivity by introducing on-the-move satellite communications down to the company level. Data and soldier feedback from the 101st Airborne will factor into the test results for WIN-T Increment 2.

“The 101st is here to give a fair test to this system to make sure that it works moving forward for the Division and the rest of the Army,” said Maj. Erik Koenig, deputy communications officer for the 101st Airborne. “We know where we need to be and what threads need to be done—it’s just actually now executing that, showing the data pushing and pulling and making sure we do an operational stress test.”

In practical terms, that means division personnel will be able to constantly follow the activities and movements of 2/1 AD via several mission command systems connected to the network. They will also communicate directly via voice and data with 2/1 AD commander Col. Dan Pinnell both from his tactical operations center and as he navigates across the battlefield in a vehicle equipped with WIN-T Increment 2.

“Static and moving, I should be able to talk to them out of my command post and [from] my vehicle,” Pinnell said. “At a minimum they’ll be tracking what we’re doing, at maximum there will be coordination with them like we would have to do in a real fight.”
At Fort Campbell, there are three locations where the IOT&E will be conducted: the Tactical Command Post, the Joint Operations Center and the Network Operations Service Center. “Staffing those locations and training personnel on WIN-T equipment has provided useful experience for the division as it prepares for other exercises and eventual deployment,” said Lt. Col. Jason M. Jones, chief of exercises for the 101st Airborne.

“This really does give us a good chance to prepare, and technically it gives us a chance to see what’s coming up in the future,” Jones said.

“It gives our leaders and our soldiers a chance to see what the Army is planning to do, what capabilities are out there and what’s the next generation of this system.”

The physical distance between the NIE location at White Sands and Fort Campbell also contributes “friction” that adds to the realism of the test scenario, Jones said.

“It’s always been a challenge for the testing community—how do you put the system to work in a true field type test and conditions?” he said. “I wouldn’t promise that what we’ve got here is 100 percent, but it’s pretty close. We can verify that the equipment does what it’s supposed to do, and validate that OK, does it meet the users’ intent?”

Story by Claire Schwerin, U.S. Army

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Demo’ing A New Prototype

Boeing’s Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system (UAS) completed its first autonomous flight June 1 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The 28-minute flight began at 6:22 a.m. Pacific time as the liquid-hydrogen powered aircraft lifted off its launch cart. Phantom Eye climbed to an altitude of 4,080 feet and reached a cruising speed of 62 knots. After touching down, the vehicle sustained some damage when the landing gear dug into the lakebed and broke.

Phantom Eye is the latest in a series of Boeing-funded rapid prototyping programs, which include Phantom Ray, Echo Ranger, ScanEagle Compressed Carriage, and an associated Common Open Mission Management Command and Control (COMC2) system capable of managing all of the company’s unmanned assets. The flight occurred following a series of taxi tests in April that validated ground guidance, navigation and control, mission planning, pilot interface and operational procedures.

Phantom Eye’s innovative and environmentally responsible liquid-hydrogen propulsion system will allow the aircraft to stay on station for up to four days while providing persistent monitoring over large areas at a ceiling of up to 65,000 feet, creating only water as a by-product. The demonstrator, with its 150-foot wingspan, is capable of carrying a 450-pound payload.

The company’s portfolio of UAS solutions includes the A160T Hummingbird, H-6U Unmanned Little Bird, S-100 Camcopter, Integrator, ScanEagle (which is currently in service in Canada, Australia, Poland, the Netherlands and Malaysia), Dominator, Phantom Eye and Phantom Ray.

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'Heavy Metal’ Brigade’s SecArmy Visitation

The 21st secretary of the Army, John McHugh, spoke to soldiers of the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, during a walkthrough of the 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment’s, tactical assembly area at Fort Bliss, Texas, May 9, 2012.

The 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, under the guidance of the brigade modernization command is currently undergoing the third in a series of soldier-led, capabilities assessments and integration called the network integration evaluation, during which they will provide feedback on network and non-network capabilities in order to determine their implications across the Army.

“It’s pretty cool when someone from much higher up in the chain comes out to see the soldiers,” said Sgt. William Wilson, one of the soldiers with 1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, who spoke with Secretary McHugh. “It shows that they care about the soldiers.”

Wilson, a native of Pasadena, Maryland, and the gunner of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All Terrain Vehicle, gave McHugh a brief description of the new network systems on the vehicle and their purposes during the evaluation.

“When somebody important makes time from their busy schedule to come visit us like this, it means we have an opinion,” said Staff Sgt. Darryl Eid, a section sergeant in Company C, 1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, who viewed the secretary of the Army’s visit as a very positive thing. “It means they care what we think.”

What the soldiers think about the network and equipment is one of the largest driving-forces behind the NIE, and is a large factor that determines whether or not equipment is purchased and fielded.

“We’ve helped the Army make some very hard decisions on cancellation of programs, radio systems and others, by providing the kind of feedback they needed from soldiers about what really happened when we evaluated it,” said Col. Daniel Pinnell, commander, 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division.

The NIE 12.2, which began in late April, focuses on solidifying the current network baseline while adding the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical—Increment 2, the Army’s “on- the-move” satellite-based network connectivity set in a realistic, operational environment as opposed to a controlled test in a laboratory.

“This is one of the most important things, strategically, that this Army has taken up in recent years,” said McHugh. “At the end of the day, what they do here that makes it particularly unique is that they put the equipment in the hands of soldiers, lets them work with it, then takes their feedback and tries to make sure we’re not just fielding something that looks good, but also operationally works well.

Story by Sgt. Sean Harriman

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A First Ever...

Naval Research Laboratory scientists have obtained a first-ever measured altitude profile of a dim extreme-ultraviolet terrestrial airglow emission that provides vital information needed to test and improve the accuracy of advanced techniques for remote sensing of the daytime ionosphere.

They have obtained this altitude profile using scans from the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System (RAIDS) experiment. The results of the research are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, 117, A01316, (2012).

RAIDS temperature measurements have already directly contributed to the Calibration/Validation of the operational (NRL-led) Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) sensors aboard the DoD Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites. This new result from RAIDS will lead to improved operational algorithms for characterizing the vertical structure and global morphology of the ionosphere, the weakly ionized plasma surrounding Earth that affects Navy applications such as high-frequency communication and over-the-horizon radar.

The RAIDS experiment, jointly built by NRL and The Aerospace Corporation, is a suite of eight optical sensors spanning ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths. Under the direction of the DoD Space Test Program, RAIDS and the companion NRL Hyperspectral Imager for Coastal Oceans (HICO) experiment were integrated and flown as the HICO-RAIDS Experiment Payload (HREP) on the International Space Station Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF). RAIDS exceeded its mission goals by collecting more than 1 million scans of the terrestrial airglow between September 2009 and December 2010, and has continued to collect downward-looking spectra since early 2011. RAIDS is the latest in a significant line of NRL Space Science Division (SSD) sensors designed to advance methods and algorithms for remote sensing of the near-Earth space environment.

One high-priority science focus of RAIDS was the development of new ionospheric remote sensing techniques that use extreme-ultraviolet airglow features of O+ at 61.7 and 83.4 nm wavelengths. These naturally-occurring airglow emissions are particularly useful for this purpose in that strong absorption of these wavelengths in the lower atmosphere means that all the observed light comes from the upper atmosphere.

The emissions are created initially when the Sun ionizes atomic oxygen in the region of 150-200 km, but the resulting 83.4 nm photons are scattered by O+ in the ionospheric region between 200-500 km. Ionospheric densities are inferred by modeling how this scattering process changes the measured 83.4 nm intensity.

In effect, the ionosphere is like a thin fog whose characteristics are revealed via illumination by the 83.4 nm airglow from below. The 61.7 nm feature, which is not affected by scattering, provides the missing link to directly connect the intensity of the illuminating source in the lower atmosphere to the measured 83.4 nm profile, allowing the O+ density to be pinpointed.

NRL Space Science Division (SSD) researchers Dr. Andrew Stephan and Dr. Scott Budzien, along with retired SSD researcher Dr. J. Michael Picone (now at George Mason University) and colleagues at The Aerospace Corporation, analyzed RAIDS data for 29 Oct 2009 to provide the first independent test of the model that is currently used as part of this daytime ionospheric remote sensing method. The data show good agreement with the model, although subtle differences suggest changes on the order of 15 percent to the densities of specific neutral species are needed on this day to bring the two into agreement. These small differences confirm the notion that uncertainty in the density of the neutral atmosphere remains an important limitation to high-accuracy ionospheric specification.

Results from this study will be used to refine this ionospheric remote sensing technique and remove these limitations to meet the growing need for understanding this important region of space.

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