
Long-distance ground-to-aircraft data comms over commercial LTE
The LTE test was conducted at Edwards Air Force Base as part of the Department of Defense (DOD) Cellular Range Telemetry Network (CeRTN) program in collaboration with the DOD Test Resource Management Center.
Perspecta Labs, then Vencore Labs, was awarded the CeRTN contract in October 2016. Under the program, Perspecta Labs was tasked with developing a system that leverages commercial cellular technology for aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT) applications at DOD Major Range and Test Facility Bases.
Velocite, developed by Perspecta Labs is a novel system that enables use of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf LTE cellular technology to deliver high-bandwidth data communications at supersonic aircraft speeds. Velocite is vendor agnostic, operates without the need for per-flight frequency coordination and provides bi-directional high-speed data connectivity to aircraft. Further, it combines an intelligent LTE network design with groundbreaking innovations to reliably deliver high-bandwidth data communications for aircraft at speeds of 1,000 kph and above.
“Perspecta Labs’ Velocite solution offers considerable savings in cost, time and resources for critical applications in flight testing, training and operations,” said Petros Mouchtaris, Ph.D., president of Perspecta Labs. “We are excited to mature this technology from laboratory testing through successful field demonstrations and to deliver these substantial benefits to our customers.”
Velocite’s proprietary transceiver provides state-of-the-art Doppler compensation and easily integrates with any standard LTE user equipment to maintain a robust data link. Perspecta Labs is developing, hardening and transitioning Velocite to support a range of use cases for AMT in performance evaluation, testing, training and operations for manned and unmanned aircraft.
