Posts by Todd Dudley
Small UAVs: Overcoming SWaP Limitations with Smaller, Lighter, High-Throughput X-band SATCOM Terminals
Have you wondered what trends in business ultimately will be successful, and which are just flashes in the pan? Look no further than everyday cell phones, the success of which is largely due to countless improvements overcoming Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) limitations of previous generations of cell phones and computing devices. Not surprisingly, the UAV market faces the…
Read MoreSmaller, Lighter, Further: All-Weather, High Endurance Reconnaissance and the X-band UAV
Small UAV manufacturers, take note: your efforts to build smaller, lighter UAVs with longer range and higher endurance are not going unnoticed. Time for a quick primer on what the established competition already knows: UAVs are Size, Weight and Power-limited (SWaP-limited) applications, and thus operate better in X-band – and the reason is simple physics involving (a) X-band’s…
Read MoreClausewitz, Satellite Disaggregation, and Commercial Concealment as a Means towards Space Security
Next Week at MilSatCom USA, the Department of Defense and the commercial satellite industry will be looking at the challenges of defining and strengthening a future military space architecture. In planning for the future, it is often best to learn from the past. Let’s see what military strategist General Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) might suggest.…
Read MoreDoD Acquisition Reform, Silicon Valley Innovation, and What These Should Tell Us about the Future of Satellite Communications
After years of watching struggling defense acquisition reform initiatives while simultaneously lauding the agility, responsiveness, and successes of U.S. industry (perhaps most notably, Silicon Valley companies), it is clear that the Department of Defense needs to transition from a traditional “you-buy-it, you-live-with-it” military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) architecture towards an agile, responsive, commercial-based satellite communications (COMSATCOM) solution to meet our…
Read MoreForeign Military Sales (FMS) and X-band Satellite Communications (SATCOM): A Long Overdue Marriage of Sorts
The U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, authorized under Section 3 of the Arms Export Control Act, specifically authorizes the sale of defense articles and services to foreign military and government end users. In a similar fashion, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has set aside certain bands of the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum, most notably X-band,…
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