AIRBORNE 2×3-1-WAY ANTENNA COMBINER, 0.7 to 2.7GHZ

The Airborne 2×3-1-WAY Power Combiner is a multipurpose antenna combiner to be installed on aircraft for inflight-connectivity applications and legacy RF-applications in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

The 2×3-1 Antenna Combiner is available in configurations with TNC antenna connectors or SMA antenna connectors. The intent is to reduce the total number of antennas that needs to be installed at the airframe. Most common installation purpose is for example the installation of a 4G/5G mobile cell network device which requires 2ea. antennas for MISO or MIMO operation or installation of a WIFI (WLAN) networking device which requires 3ea. antennas for MIMO operation.

The 2×3-1 Antenna combiner was developed in with our valued cooperation partner KMT GmbH for utilization with the MLX100 CELL/WIFI/SATCOM Router. This is a perfect use-case to understand the need for an antenna combiner. The MLX100 incorporates 2ea. MIMO-capable cell-network radios which require 2ea. for each radio to enable MIMO-operation. Thus, these rotorcraft applications require 4ea. antennas to be installed. In addition, the MLX100 also operates a 2×2 high-power 2.4GHz WIFI radio to operate as wide-area MESH-networking node that requires 2ea. additional antennas to be installed on the airframe.

In sum, the application requires 6ea. legacy antennas for installation. This is hard to achieve in already mission equipped helicopters where even on the airframe belly is not enough space to install more than 2ea. antennas to have enough spatial separation to other RF-antennas without having influence on other avionics equipment.