| Terminal architectures must increasingly support a family of network centric, reconfigurable, multi-bank communication systems for above 2 GHz applications. The terminals are deployed on fixed and mobile platforms that include vehicles for Communications On The Move (COTM) applications, ships, shore, and aircraft. Wide variability in the antenna types and sizes used with these platforms requires an architecture for antenna control subsystem that is modular, flexible, and readily accommodates changes to support the various antenna types at low cost. An antenna controller architecture trade study resulted in the modular approach presented which partitions the software into a set of functional blocks that are "common to all the platform types. Blocks of functionality that are "platform-specific" are also identified, which represent functions that are unique to a particular antenna type or platform. A generic antenna control flow is introduced, issues and challenges with accommodating multiple antenna types/platforms are described in the development of the architecture, and definitions of the interfaces are provided. |