New lightweight antenna for smaller business jets

21 May 2014: Inmarsat, Honeywell Aerospaceand antenna development company Kymeta, are working together to develop a higher-speed, Ka-band wireless antenna, to bring a high quality, faster connectivity broadband service to smaller aircraft in the business aviation market.

The lighter and more compact design will allow the antenna to be installed on a wider variety of aircraft, particularly smaller business aviation aircraft whose tail is not large enough to carry a large antenna.

The flat-panel design is lighter than existing tail-mount options and will reduce weight and drag on the aircraft, in turn reducing fuel and maintenance costs.

Ground-breaking solution

Inmarsat VP of Business Aviation, Kurt Weidemeyer says: "This joint initiative is dedicated to the delivery of a truly ground-breaking solution in the field of satellite connectivity technology and will see the development of a revolutionary form of lightweight antenna for the business aviation market.

"Kymeta will deliver its mTenna™ antenna products to Honeywell, who will be responsible for testing and integrating the antenna into its JetWave aviation product line."

"This will be the first truly flat-panel antenna for aviation that will offer great performance at the right price.

Continuous improvement

JetWave is the family of satellite communications hardware that exclusively supports Inmarsat's Jet ConneX Aviation service using the GX Network.

"We are investing in road map of continuous improvement across multiple technical platforms. Along with investment in infrastructure such as the GX network and the EU Aviation Network, we are always looking at new and emerging technologies that we can leverage to bring benefits to our customers.

Referring the upcoming service launch of the GX Aviation network, Weidemeyer says: "Inmarsat has a proven history of delivering trusted, reliable and robust safety communications to the cockpit. We're applying this knowledge to our GX network and to JetConneX, our business aviation solution, making us the right provider to take business aviation forward into the world of high-speed connectivity."

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