Gogo LLC

The Boeing Company

Gogo Business Aviation LLC

Hughes Electronics Corporation

Carefusion 207, Inc.

United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

Aircell LLC

Yong Liu

James P Michels

Michael H Baker

Heinz A Miranda

Anand Chari

Sean Scott Cordone

Rongsheng Li

Patrick Jay Walsh

Yeong-Wei Andy Wu

Harold Grant Saroka

Tim Joyce

Daniel Bernard McKenna

Anthony Challoner

A Dorian Challoner

Joseph Alan Tobin

Ivica Kostanic

Joseph M Cruz

Howard H Ge

Francis Forest

Christopher L Rice

Matthew J Dufner

Joseph A Tobin

Harold G Saroka

Anand K Chari

Anthony Dorian Challoner

Systems and methods may facilitate initial establishment and/or handover of an air-to-ground (ATG) communication link between an aircraft and a ground-based cellular communication network (e.g., a 5G network). The systems and methods may be particularly applicable for an aircraft having a user equipment (UE) antenna that uses narrow beamforming to connect to a cell of a base station (gNB). The UE identifies candidate cells based upon the location of the UE and locations and orientations of cells in the network, identifies a cell having a higher likelihood of connection success compare to other cells, and directs a beam to the chosen cell. The systems and methods may enable the UE to create neighbor lists in real time based upon the UE location, and may prevent blind searching normally associated with narrow beamforming methods.

Neighbor list and beam management for ATG systems

Systems and methods are described for connecting with LEO satellites while reducing emissions toward GEO satellite communications. A system to implement the instant techniques may include a system comprised of a user communications equipment and a LEO constellation. The user equipment ('UE') may comprise a communications modem and an active antenna unit with a transmit and receive beamformer. In further implementations, the UE may include additional receive only beamformers. The LEO constellation can have a regenerative payload or bent pipe, and can include orbits at different altitudes. Methods as described herein may include a procedure by which the user equipment and LEO satellite work together to identify candidate serving satellites, and select the one that allows to meet the power density requirements to avoid interfering with the GEO satellites.

Systems and methods for satellite selection using beamscanning techniques

A method of communicating with satellites in a low-earth orbit (LEO) constellation includes determining, by a controller of a mobile communicator mounted on a mobile platform, one or more conditions corresponding to a plurality of spatial channels associated with multiple satellites in the LEO constellation. The method also includes allocating, based on the one or more conditions, each subset of a plurality of subsets of antenna resources of a phased array antenna to a respective different satellite included in the multiple satellites in the LEO constellation, where the antenna resources of the phased array antenna are communicatively connected to plurality of transceivers via a bus. The method also includes commanding the plurality of transceivers to establish simultaneous communicative connections to the different satellites via the allocated subsets of antenna resources.

LEO constellation satellite terminal

A method of communicating with satellites in a low-earth orbit (LEO) constellation includes determining, by a controller of a mobile communicator mounted on a mobile platform, one or more conditions corresponding to a plurality of spatial channels associated with multiple satellites in the LEO constellation. The method also includes allocating, based on the one or more conditions, each subset of a plurality of subsets of antenna resources of a phased array antenna to a respective different satellite included in the multiple satellites in the LEO constellation, where allocating each subset includes allocating a particular antenna resource to two or more subsets of the plurality of subsets of the phased array antenna. The method also includes commanding one or more transceivers to establish simultaneous communicative connections to the different satellites via the allocated subsets of antenna resources.

A method of communicating with multiple satellites includes allocating, based on one or more conditions corresponding to a plurality of spatial channels associated with multiple satellites, each subset of a plurality of subsets of antenna resources of a phased array antenna to a respective different satellite included in the multiple satellites. The method also includes commanding one or more transceivers to establish simultaneous communicative connections to the different satellites via the allocated subsets of antenna resources, and re-allocating, based on a detected change to at least one of the one or more conditions, at least one antenna resource to a respective another different satellite. The method also includes commanding the one or more transceivers to maintain the simultaneous communicative connections to the different satellites using the re-allocated at least one antenna resource.

Multi-constellation satellite terminal

A first beam is implemented, from a set of vehicle-based antennas, for current or future communication with a ground-based or satellite-based network via an external antenna (e.g., of a base station or satellite). A second beam may be implemented to detect or determine a better pointing angle for the first beam, thereby 'fine tuning' the pointing angle for the first beam. Specifically, the second beam may be 'swept' through a range of pointing angles while a signal parameter representing signal quality or strength is measured, detected, or calculated at each pointing angle. The values for the signal parameter may be evaluated to identify a desired value and the pointing angle at which the desired value was obtained. The first beam may be reoriented or repointed at the desired pointing angle, and one or more nodes of vehicle-based communication system may communicate with an external network via the first beam.

Beam pointing fine tuning for vehicle-based antennas

Techniques, systems, devices, and methods for utilizing a mobile communicator for communicating with multiple satellites, e.g., simultaneously over an interval of time, are disclosed. The mobile communicator is disposed on a vehicle, and the multiple satellites may be disposed in different satellite constellations operating in different orbits. The mobile communicator establishes multiple communication links to the multiple satellites by utilizing only the set of antenna resources provided by a single antenna platform or array. Subsets of the antenna resources are dynamically apportioned and adapted, e.g., while the vehicle travels, to establish and maintain different communication links to different satellites via different spatial channels and their respective air interfaces to thereby maintain optimal satellite communicative connectivity. On-board connectivity services for personal electronic devices and/or other on-board applications may be supported by the disclosed techniques.

Novel techniques for pooling the available transmit power of a beam across the subcarriers that are or that are scheduled to be in use (and not across all available subcarriers) are disclosed. The scheduled subcarriers may be located in the same or different carriers of a modulation transmitter modulation system, and the pooled transmit power may be allocated or distributed across the scheduled subcarriers of the beam. Modulation symbols or resource elements may be transmitted in accordance with allocated, per-subcarrier power budgets, thereby maximizing the SNIR of signals that are transmitted in the beam via the scheduled subcarriers. Additionally, the allocation of the pooled transmit power to various subcarriers may continuously and/or dynamically vary over time, e.g., based on traffic demands, interference characteristics, etc., as well as based on subsequent scheduling of subcarriers to transmit subsequent modulation symbols or resource elements.

Multi-carrier power pooling

Calibration of a hexapod structure includes measuring a head pose of the hexapod structure relative to a base of the hexapod structure. Calibration of the hexapod structure also includes for each strut, independently increasing a length of each strut by a predefined amount from an original length and repeating the measuring of the head pose relative to the base. Calibration of the hexapod structure further includes for each strut, independently decreasing a length of each strut by a predefined amount from the original length and repeating the measuring of the head pose relative to the base. Additionally, calibration of the hexapod structure includes moving each strut back to the original length, and estimating joint errors for each strut prior to calibrating of the hexapod structure.

Hexapod pose knowledge improvement by joint location calibration with individual strut length differential measurements

An example machine accessible medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, causes a machine to at least command a first actuator to move to a first corrected stroke position and a second actuator to move to a second corrected stroke position to point a payload at a target along a line of sight vector without verifying a target pointing direction of a base when the first and second actuators are positioned to the respective first and second corrected stroke positions and without using a feedback to verify the base being at the target pointing direction when the first and second actuators are positioned to the respective first and second corrected stroke positions.

Methods and apparatus to point a payload at a target

Systems and method are provided to facilitate predictive mitigation of noise. A vehicle may measure noise floor levels and transmit a noise floor signal to a noise signal aggregator. Based on the noise signal, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor map database. The noise floor map database may associate a plurality of geographic locations with a plurality of noise floor levels. Accordingly, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor level in the noise floor map database that corresponds to the location associated with the transmitted noise signal. The noise floor map database may then be queried to retrieve noise floor levels for locations further along a route traversed by a vehicle such that the vehicle may predictively tune one or more antennas to mitigate interference associated with the noise floor.

Growing community of inventors

Schaumburg, IL, United States of America

Yong Liu