Big thank you to all that stopped by our stand at Amsterdam Drone Week 21 – 23 March 2023. The Helix team found it a privilege to meet so many specialised people form over 50 countries, that provided so many inspiring discussions regarding BVLOS navigation and the future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM).
Companies and regulatory organisations are working to meet the expectations for the use of airspace over urban and suburban areas for transportation purposes using electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The show highlighted how both major aerospace firms and small privately funded companies are investing in UAM technologies and developing prototypes, while regulatory bodies are working to establish guidelines and standards for safe and efficient UAM operations.
Helix focuses on high performance antenna technology for satellite communications and resilient PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing). With variants for GPS, Galileo GNSS constellations and the Iridium LEO satcomms constellation, Helix antennas are multifrequency resonant devices with tightly targeted frequency discrimination. They utilise multiple helical conductor filaments on a high dielectric constant ceramic core. The selective nature of the design assures integrity of data delivered to the receiver enabling positional accuracy to 10cm to be computed, and high levels of resilience against environmental and deliberate disruption. The helical antenna resonance means that troublesome reflected signals, typical of modern cities’ ‘urban canyons’ are ignored, while the on-frequency accuracy makes the system resilient to ‘noisy neighbour’ spectrum interference and deliberate jamming. All this comes in a compact and robust form factor light enough for drones and small enough for vehicle aesthetics. Using this best-in-class antenna technology enables the CRPx anti-jamming/spoofing systems deliver the optimum defence against malicious attempts to undermine satellite navigation and communications with the best SWaP-C.
