V-ACU

User terminals (Ground)

Status

Ongoing
Status date

2024-07-19
Activity Code

ARTES 5.2

Objectives

The Versatile Antenna Control Unit (V-ACU) project was focused on the activities required to develop a new antenna control Unit as one of the fundamental key subsystems of current Janus Product Line as well as future mobile satcom terminals.

Among others, key features of this new ACU are:

The support of the different tracking methods normally envisaged for antennas working at highest frequency bands (Ka-band, and Q/V-bands);
The control of TX power for optimal bandwidth usage;
The capability to interface several motor technologies (brushless, direct drive, etc.) and encoders types (absolute, incremental) with different digital interfaces;
The ITAR & Export-Free configuration.

Challenges

The V-ACU is able:

To cope with more and more stringent constraints in terms of size, weight and power consumption of satcom terminals tracking and stabilization control units;
To operate in quite different operational conditions just adapting a SW-based configuration pre-set;
To guarantee steady performance of antenna tracking systems also in case of multi-band functioning;
To survive and correctly operate in very critical environmental conditions;
To drive a broad range of motors with the accuracy needed by the pointing requirements simply by tuning the motor driver algorithm parameters;
To support multiple tracking modes;
To adopt a standard and, possibly open, communication protocol for motion control.

Benefits

The V-ACU is a key element of the evolution roadmap of Janus Aero antenna configuration towards the new products required by the market:

Thanks to V-ACU, Airbus Italia intends to have full control of its antenna portfolio making it fully independent and exportable with no limitations.

Features

The high level functions of the proposed V-ACU are hereafter summarised:

To continuously collect all data necessary to monitor the status of the hosting mobile platform (e.g., aircraft attitude and motion direction);
To process the collected information with the aim to define all manoeuvres required to maintain the pointing of the antenna towards the satellite;
To actually command and control of all servomechanisms to implement previously defined manoeuvres;
To monitor the health status of all antenna components and subsystems.

System Architecture

The new ACU is composed by two separate elements:

An indoor unit (the Core unit) for running all algorithms;
One (or more) outdoor motor driver unit (the MDU units).

This solution will simplify the accommodation of the outdoor unit in very onboard small mobile platforms.

V-ACU architecture views:

V-ACU CORE

V-ACU MDU

Plan

The V-ACU project has been articulated in two phases:

Phase 1 (Technological Phase) with the target to the development of a prototype which implement all the functionalities identified as mandatory during the requirement analysis study.
Phase 2 (Development Phase) focused on the developed prototype and on the flight qualification of the product for airborne applications.

The project plan foresees the following reviews:

MS1: CDR (Critical Design Review) with the scope to review the results of the design, and in particular to identify the most critical items to be manufactured and tested before their design freezes.
MS2: FR (Final Review) of the technological phase (Phase 1).
MS3: SoF (Safety of Flight) with the scope to review the result of the SoF qualification campaign.
MS4: Final Statement with the scope to review the results of the full qualification campaign and of the field trial.

Current status

The project is at MS4 review. The qualification test campaign was carried out with positive results.