ThinKom to start shipboard tests of Ka-band antenna for USN
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), has awarded ThinKom Solutions a seven-month contract to provide its commercially available phased-array antenna for USN shipboard communications.
ThinKom announced on 6 August that it will provide its ThinAir Ka2517 Ka-band antenna for onboard demonstrations on a USN vessel, to show it can meet requirements for installation under the Multi-Domain Tactical Communications requirement.
A concurrent design study phase will evaluate performance modifications requested by the USN.
Ka2517 terminals, which are based on ThinKom’s patented VICTS phased-array antenna technology, are already installed on US government aircraft. VICTS ‘combines the technical benefits of mechanically steered and electronically scanned arrays… to deliver consistently high performance in the harshest environments’, the company states on its website.
‘ThinKom’s VICTS technology currently meets all of the DIU requirements for a low-cost, low-risk COTS solution that can be deployed on a DDG-1000 class destroyer,’ said Bill Milroy, chief technology officer for ThinKom Solutions.
ThinKom did not disclose the value of the contract. DIU is an arm of the US DoD that focuses on the rapid fielding and scaling of commercial technologies for military use,
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