Rotary Blade Modulation and the Convergence of Next Generation Communications

Next generation (NG) communications systems promise to deliver higher data rates, energy efficiency, global coverage and connectivity as well as extremely high reliability and low latency. Secure communications platforms are assessing the adoption of NG technologies to fulfill this promise. Initiatives such as the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) are striving to provide novel connected platforms for land, air, sea, and data highway into space (equivalent to 5G non-terrestrial networks). 5G mobile communication has pioneered the use of millimeter waves where large contiguous frequency bands are available to enable the targeted high data rates.

A crucial part of a new communication system is the design of new waveforms to be simultaneously used for land, aeronautical and satellite applications. However, this development requires a good understanding of the propagation characteristics at the particular frequencies in various scenarios. In this webinar, a study will present results on the impact of rotary blade modulation for future joint missions of manned and unmanned aerial platforms. This study has been conducted on a variety of rotor winged platforms, where it is a necessity to transmit command & control data links and radio waves through one or several rotor blade layers (helicopter-ground, helicopter-satellite or helicopter-helicopter). The study conducts channel measurement on propagation below 6 GHz and at millimeter waves with 3 types of helicopters and drones with different rotor blade designs and materials (metal, CFK). The impact on the radio waves for the different platforms and frequencies are compared with the results for example expected with a double knife-edge model. In addition to providing study results, current research activities will be highlighted paving the way towards 6G mobile communication targeting even higher frequencies in the sub-Terahertz range.