Viasat, Inc.

David H Schmitz

Brian T Sleight

Clifford K Burdick

Arthur Senyue Loh

Systems and methods for aligning a satellite antenna mounted on a mobile platform to the platform. At each of several arbitrary orientations, a first directional vector is determined from the antenna to a satellite. For each orientation, an alias transformation is performed to transform the first vector having coordinates defined with respect to a first reference frame to a second vector having coordinates defined with respect to a second reference frame. A third vector is determined based on the orientation of the antenna after peaking the antenna. A rotation matrix is derived from the collection of second and third vectors. An estimate of the rotational offset of the satellite antenna with respect to the platform is determined based on the rotation matrix. The rotational offset is applied to the attitude of the platform to accurately point the antenna to the satellite.

Mobile terminal antenna alignment using arbitrary orientation attitude

Systems and methods for aligning a satellite antenna mounted on a mobile platform to the platform are disclosed. At each of several arbitrary orientations, a first directional vector is determined from the antenna to a satellite. For each orientation, an alias transformation is performed to transform the first vector having coordinates defined with respect to a first reference frame to a second vector having coordinates defined with respect to a second reference frame. A third vector is determined based on the orientation of the antenna after peaking the antenna. A rotation matrix is derived from the collection of second and third vectors. An estimate of the rotational offset of the satellite antenna with respect to the platform is determined based on the rotation matrix. The rotational offset is applied to the attitude of the platform to accurately point the antenna to the satellite.

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Encinitas, CA, United States of America

David H Schmitz