ALCAN Announces Ultra-Low Profile Satellite Broadband Terminal For LEO And MEO Satellites That Reduces TCO By More Than 10x While Delivering Speeds Of Up To 400Mbps

Smart antenna start-up, ALCAN Systems, today announces its development of the market’s lowest cost flat-panel ground terminal for Low Earth orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellations delivering Satellite Broadband on high capacity Ka-Band frequencies.

The electronically steerable flat-panel antennas use ALCAN’s patented liquid crystal-based technology to enable beam-steering. This optimizes performance and allows broadband speeds of 400Mbps via LEO and MEO satellites. This innovation, originally developed at the Technical University of Darmstadt, allows ALCAN to build a liquid crystal based phased array antenna that achieves the lowest unit cost and power performance in the industry. Additionally, the nature of liquid crystal allows for an ultra-low-profile form factor to minimize the visual impact of equipment.

Technical details:

• The full terminal will be priced at €2,500, offering the lowest Total Cost of Ownership of any product on the market.
• It has a modular design and will allow multiple antennas to be combined to achieve higher gain/throughput based on the needs of the customers.
• The antenna size will be compact at 55cm x 99cm x9cm and have a weight less than 20Kg.
• The power consumption of the antenna (including LNB and BUC) will be less than 100W, five times lower than typical semi-conductor based phased array antennas
• It will have 2D beam steering and will operate across a wide scan angle of +/-55 degrees from boresight.
• The antenna will be full-duplex and have slew times less than 30ms, enabling 99.5% max. signal throughput

ALCAN is partnering to build a mass-production supply chain and assembly capability for the antenna and will deliver first customer orders in Q4 2021.

Onur Karabey, CEO at ALCAN Systems commented: “The realization of the R&D innovations at ALCAN into a commercial product is hugely exciting, not only for us as a company, but for the potential this solution has to impact the Satellite Broadband market. Reducing ownership and running costs of Satellite Broadband equipment will not only open up new markets for LEO and MEO satellite operators and service providers, but will revolutionize connectivity for the enterprise customers and high-end consumers that will benefit from a cost effective way to access Satellite Broadband.”

About ALCAN Systems
ALCAN Systems is a German-based smart antenna technology company which has developed a revolutionary new liquid crystal (LC) based phased array antenna technology. ALCAN’S liquid crystal-based platform technology provides the lowest cost and lowest power consuming high-performance phased array technology in the world. This has disruptive implications for the satellite and 5G markets.

For the satellite market, ALCAN is targeting high-performing enterprise antennas that can achieve throughputs of more than 1Gbps for under EUR 10,000 and consumer & IOT broadband antennas that can achieve throughputs in excess of 100 Mbps for under EUR 1,000.

For the 5G market, ALCAN is targeting 2D beam-steering antennas that can meet the performance requirements of the mmWave frequencies at price points that are 3-5x lower than comparable products. Furthermore, ALCAN is also working to develop transparent UE antennas that can be integrated into the windows of buildings or sunroofs of cars.

The technology is based on the work of ALCAN co-Founder and CEO Dr. Onur Karabey who proved the viability of LC based phased array antennas in 2011. The company initially received seed funding of EUR 850,000 from the EXIST Transfer of Research Program of German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in 2014 to commercialize the research and accelerate the development of a working prototype. ALCAN raised a further EUR 10.5 million Series A investment in 2017 from a consortium of leading global companies and is now focused on bringing its first product to market in 2021.