Issue 39 Unmanned Systems Technology August/September 2021 Maritime Robotics Mariner l Simulation tools focus l MRS MR-10 and MR-20 l UAVs insight l HFE International GenPod l Exotec Skypod l Autopilots focus l Aquaai Mazu

14 Platform one Dr Donough Wilson Dr Wilson is innovation lead at aviation, defence, and homeland security innovation consultants, VIVID/futureVision. His defence innovations include the cockpit vision system that protects military aircrew from asymmetric high-energy laser attack. He was first to propose the automatic tracking and satellite download of airliner black box and cockpit voice recorder data in the event of an airliner’s unplanned excursion from its assigned flight level or track. For his ‘outstanding and practical contribution to the safer operation of aircraft’ he was awarded The Sir James Martin Award 2018/19, by the Honourable Company of Air Pilots. Paul Weighell Paul has been involved with electronics, computer design and programming since 1966. He has worked in the real-time and failsafe data acquisition and automation industry using mainframes, minis, micros and cloud- based hardware on applications as diverse as defence, Siberian gas pipeline control, UK nuclear power, robotics, the Thames Barrier, Formula One and automated financial trading systems. Ian Williams-Wynn Ian has been involved with unmanned and autonomous systems for more than 20 years. He started his career in the military, working with early prototype unmanned systems and exploiting imagery from a range of unmanned systems from global suppliers. He has also been involved in ground-breaking research including novel power and propulsion systems, sensor technologies, communications, avionics and physical platforms. His experience covers a broad spectrum of domains from space, air, maritime and ground, and in both defence and civil applications including, more recently, connected autonomous cars. Unmanned Systems Technology’s consultants Tallysman Wireless has developed an extended filtering (XF) technology that boosts the performance of its GNSS antenna systems (writes Nick Flaherty). The XF feature is used to mitigate interference from all near-band signals and improve the quality of the GNSS signals received from the antenna. This is especially important for many new cellphone and satellite broadband frequency bands, whose signals or harmonic frequencies can affect GNSS antennas and receivers. In North America, the planned Ligado service, which will broadcast in the 1526-1536 MHz range, can affect GNSS antennas that receive space-based L-band correction service signals at 1539- 1559 MHz. New LTE 4G cellular phone signals in Band 32 in Europe (1452- 1496 MHz) and Bands 11 and 21 in Japan (1476-1511 MHz) have also affected GNSS signals. The Inmarsat satellite comms uplink (1626.5-1660.5 MHz) commonly used on maritime vessels can also affect nearby GNSS antennas. Tallysman uses a dual-feed ceramic patch technology in its Accutenna antenna systems. This is used on a patch antenna to receive a circularly polarised waveform, as both feed points receive independent linear signals that are then combined with a 90 º phase shift, to produce the waveform. This applies over the full 80 MHz bandwidth of the antenna and increases the rejection of cross-polarised signals caused by multi-path reflections that are a significant cause of positioning error. This dual-patch architecture allows the use of the XF technology to improve the quality of the signal. The custom XF filters have been tested against the new bands in Europe and Japan, as well as existing LTE signals. The filters will be used in Tallysman’s triple-band antennas that support GPS/ QZSS (L1/L2/L5), GLONASS (G1/G2/G3), Galileo (E1/E5ab), BeiDou (B1/B2/B2a), NavIC L5, and L-Band correction services. Antennas boost Satcoms August/September 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology Extended filtering technology gives Tallysman’s GNSS antennas better signal quality