VIDEO: How Will Isotropic Systems’ Antenna Platform Affect IFC?

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Image via Isotropic Systems
Image via Isotropic Systems

Isotropic Systems’ antenna platform promises a faster, more efficient in-flight connectivity offering for airlines. In this video from APEX’s Satcoms for Aircraft video series, the company explains how and why. 

While satellite technology may have advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years, vice-president of Product Development at Isotropic Systems Brian Billman says that in contrast, satellite terminals have lagged behind, and are often the source of a bottleneck when it comes to delivering high-throughput connectivity. He claims that this is especially true in the aero market, because airlines are restricted by what can physically fit inside a radome.

Earlier this year, Isotropic Systems announced that it was licensing patented core components of its multi-beam antennas to aeronautical system integrators to accelerate the customized design, certification and deployments of next-generation terminals aboard commercial aircraft.

In this interview conducted at Satellite 2020 in Washington D.C. – the fourth in APEX’s Satcoms for Aircraft video series – Billman gives APEX Media director Maryann Simson a detailed walkthrough of Isotropic Systems’ flexible terminal which uses optical beam formers and can conform to an aircraft’s fuselage or existing radome to maximize satellite features and capacities. Billman also adds that the terminal can “essentially connect to anything in the sky, that’s at any frequency, any polarization.”

In the aforementioned announcement regarding aero integrators, Christopher Baugh, president of Northern Sky Research (NSR), commented, “Terminal advancements made in 2020 will play a pivotal role in bringing new LEO and MEO high-throughput satellite capacity to the aero market, bringing long-awaited IFC expectations more closely in line with the technical realities and capabilities aboard commercial, business and government aircraft.” As part of the Satcoms for Aircraft video series, APEX also interviewed NSR about what airlines should look for in an in-flight connectivity solution.