Intep: Satellite Communications System for UAVs

History

2025: Trials Begin

The Russian design bureau Intellectual Devices (Intep) has begun testing Russia's first real-time satellite communications system for middle-class unmanned aerial vehicles. This development will significantly expand the range of drones and ensure their control outside line of sight zones. This became known on April 23, 2025.

According to TASS, the new system is a unique development for Russia, allowing you to work with mobile small-sized subscriber stations with a truncated aperture. Alexander Kondrashina, General Director of the Intellectual Devices Design Bureau, stressed that the system ensures compliance with the requirements of the regulator for working on the air and effective use of the frequency resource through code compaction.

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Фото: Intelligent instruments

The system is capable of maintaining stable operation at the edges of the coverage areas of spacecraft in geostationary orbit and promising spacecraft in high elliptical orbit, including operation at high latitudes. This makes the development especially valuable for the development of the Northern Sea Route, as well as the marine waters of the Far East, the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas.

The introduction of this system will ensure control over drones outside the coverage areas of radio channels operating in the line of sight, as well as outside other sources of signal relay - for example, other drones or elements of the infrastructure of cellular networks.

The technical part of the system works in Ku-bands of frequencies, while the developers have provided for the possibility of making a version for the C-band. The design combines a 35 centimetre high performance parabolic antenna with an irradiator, transceiver, control module, positioning module and intelligent tracking system in a single antenna. This allows the unmanned platform to remotely communicate with satellites in geostationary orbit while moving.^[1]

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