B5 Systems

AUSA – Bluewater Defense & Vorbeck Introduce Wearable Antenna

I walked up to the Bluewater Defense booth and noticed that they were sharing it with an electronics company named Vorbeck.  Intrigued, I introduced myself to the Vorbeck team and they started to show me what they were up to.  About a minute into the presentation on their flexible 4G LTE antenna I was hooked.  

  

The technology is a printed graphene broadband antenna on a thin substrate that can be encapsulated between pieces of fabric for concealment into clothing or equipment.  Testing indicates it doubles the range of a cell phone.  

The frequency range is 824-894, 1850-1990, and 2400-2500 MHz.  Additionally, it has 50 Ohms impedance and 2:1 VSWR ratio.  While it’s currently tailored for 4G, the technology offers a great deal of opportunity.  In addition to cellular use for transmitting voice and data, it can also be used for Tagging, Tracking & Locating of friendly, threat and other targets of interest.  I can’t wait to see how Bluewater Defense integrates this technology into clothing and lad carriage. 

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6 Responses to “AUSA – Bluewater Defense & Vorbeck Introduce Wearable Antenna”

  1. BAP45 says:

    Way cool, any plans to make it commercially available? 2016?

  2. Bill says:

    Not being a geek, this isn’t the kind of antenna that microwaves your testicles, right? By “doubling” the range of a cell phone does that imply fewer geographically/topographically dead zones, or sensitivity inside structures?

    One of the Big Providers last week was presenting that we are within a year or two of integrating PTT cell and LMR. That’ll be huge in LE as it will give us a lot more comms security, and open up some of the data sources that are restricted to secure terminals, in the field, which I think the .mil has been doing all along.

    • AGL Bob says:

      It won’t increase the overall power, just the effective radiated power (ERP). Which means, theoretically, get more signal in the direction of the cell towers and less where they’re not.

      As far as PTT LTE, the nation wide system being constructed is First Net – Google it. There are others on smaller scales. LMR will eventually merge with data services, but it will be many years.