Developing Electronically Steered Array (ESA) antennas is an expensive and complicated process. These antennas, also referred to as flat panel antennas or phased array antennas, still have not reached the sweet spot where price per bit allows for widespread adoption, especially when compared to more traditional, parabolic antennas.
“The original vision of a low-cost, high-performing electronically steered antenna [ESA] has not yet been achieved,” Quilty Analytics published in its ESA report in 2020. Fortunately, there are near-term market opportunities for ESAs, and future ways to unlock its power as digitization advances.
ESA antennas currently make sense for certain markets, but there have been some setbacks. On a recent SmallSat Symposium panel, Kymeta VP of Global Network Operations Richard Hadsall spoke to how the COVID-19 pandemic hampered the company’s production lines. “We can’t build these things with the people working from home – they have to be in the lab and assembling these antennas,” he explained.
Even with setbacks, others are still optimistic for the future of the growing ESA market. ThinKom Solutions Chairman and CTO Bill Milroy sees opportunity in the ground mobile market, and that “the [military] market is going to be a real growth market … as the commercial IFC [in-flight connectivity] market recovers [from the pandemic], the military and government markets are going to grow quickly.”
Yet even with increased production in a post-pandemic world and growing market adoption on the horizon, price is still an issue. According to C-COM Satellite Systems President and CEO Leslie Klein it will take a long time for ESA antennas to cost $500. He compares it to the cellphone – “we started off with high-end, expensive phones with a power supply on one end and a phone in the other. Today, we have [the cellphone] in our back pocket.” There will eventually be a day where ESAs will be more affordable.
Since industry is far from reaching the “holy grail” of the $500 ESA antenna, there are other solutions in development that could bring the cost per bit down – namely, a digital antenna interface. This type of interface could support multibeam capabilities, allowing users to take advantage of higher-priced antennas. It’s not just about the antenna, but how it integrates into the modern network.
“Analog interfaces handicap what the antenna can do,” said Kratos Defense SVP of Product Management Greg Quiggle in an interview. “Define a new digital interface instead of an analog interface. If you define a new modem antenna interface standard that’s digital, it allows the antenna to support multibeam and beamforming.” He explained that most ESAs today are multibeam and can inherently support up to 32 beams in an array, but are only supporting one beam in practice, because of their analog interface.
Quiggle continued: “If you want the antenna to be $500, buy a parabolic. But when you spend the money for the ESA, you’re unlocking the power of Software-Defined Networking (SDN).”
SDN within the ground segment unlocks the advantages of virtual and software-defined architectures, which include great agility, lower costs, increased scalability, and enhanced security in service offerings, according to Kratos Defense in the World Teleport Association (WTA) The Virtual Teleport report.
Waiting for ESAs to be at a similar price point to parabolic antennas will take a long time. Although ESAs equipped with digital interfaces are still on the horizon, it’s technology that Quiggle calls a “double whammy” – allowing you both a cost-effective antenna, with the power of SDN.
