Clifton L. Cooke, Jr., served as Executive Vice President of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions. Prior to its merger with Kratos, Cliff was President and CEO of SYS Technologies, an $80M provider of information connectivity solutions that capture, analyze and present real-time information to the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security, other government agencies and large industrial companies. Cliff also served on the Board of Directors of SYS. Previously, Cliff was founder and CEO of VisiCom Laboratories, which provided embedded real-time products and services to industry and government customers. VisiCom grew to over $50 million in revenue before being acquired by Titan Corporation, where Cliff subsequently served as Executive Vice President. Prior to starting VisiCom in 1988, Cliff was founder and CEO of Advanced Digital Systems (ADS), which provided engineering services for DoD satellite programs. Cliff received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Physics and Information Science from the University of California, San Diego.


SatMagazine
Mr. Cooke, how did you become involved in the SATCOM industry?

Cliff Cooke
I’ve been involved with SATCOM, communications and RF engineering since 1971. I began as an engineer working at what is now known as Space and Naval Warfare Command in San Diego. Since then, I’ve started and grown several successful high tech companies, each involved to some measure with the development of communications products and services to suit defense, government and commercial applications.

The SATCOM industry continues to grow, providing valuable capabilities and offering new opportunities using innovative solutions that address a broad spectrum of requirements, whether for operations facing the war fighter and the nation, or for consumers and businesses who need convenient, global access to video, voice and data information. Wavestream has had the opportunity to contribute truly enabling technology to support the industry’s growth. I am proud of what Wavestream has accomplished and believe we have successfully leveraged the company’s technology leadership and manufacturing innovation into an industry-recognized reputation for product reliability and quality.



SatMagazine
You have been involved with DoD satellite programs for over three decades. What have been the most significant advancements and where do you see it heading over the next few years?

Cliff Cooke
Actually I’ve been involved for four decades, but who’s counting? SATCOM is a critical element of the communications infrastructure for the U.S. and foreign military. The number of satellites has increased dramatically and technology advancements in modems, antennas, encoders and compression technologies, as well as power amplifiers has helped meet the accelerating demand for greater access to real-time information at all levels in the chain of command. The DoD’s growing network-centric focus has rapidly increased the demand for war fighter bandwidth, particularly as operations occur in more remote and rugged environments. Bandwidth per soldier has increased five times since the year 2000, and we don’t see that trend stopping anytime soon.

It is easy for us to forget that satellites were first envisioned in science fiction. We truly are living in an environment where the “fictional” world is leading the real world in imagining what is possible. TV shows such as “24” offer a basis for warfighters to think about what they really could do with bandwidth of that magnitude. Don’t laugh, it’s happening. Just as we have UAVs providing sensor information and combat weapon systems, we have soldiers providing more and more sensor information, including real time, high definition video. I remain awestruck by the need to provide psychological support for combat stress to war fighters living in North Dakota, who are controlling equipment operating in Southwest Asia. The impact of satellite technology is just overpowering. Where else is the bandwidth that is accessible anywhere worldwide going to come from, but satellites providing seamless connectivity to local area, wireless networks? The US Army Win-T and SNAP programs are great examples of these kinds of technologies being implemented today. As a result, all of this technology and network connectivity will provide significant capabilities for police, fire and other first responders.

Mobility for global reach is making smaller terminals more desirable, putting pressure on power amplifier companies to deliver more compact, more efficient products that support multiple frequencies and higher data rates. There is additional pressure to purchase COTS’ products to help field systems in a shorter time period, reduce overall system costs, and significantly reduce system development and integration cycles. Systems must be extremely reliable and be ready to deploy quickly to provide key communication links for critical military operations, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, and search, rescue and recovery efforts anywhere in the world.

Going forward, SATCOM will help ensure connectivity to get information to those who need it, when they need it and where they need it. We look for the requirements to provide smaller and lighter equipment as a driver to provide more capability to individual war fighters. While we may not be “beamed up to Scotty”, we will be able to talk to him. Scotty, wherever he is, will be able to see and hear what those on scene see and hear, and that enhances the overall situational awareness and decision-making capabilities, resulting in increased effectiveness and more importantly, greater safety for those on scene.

SatMagazine
Do you work with the Department of Homeland Security as well? How do you see them evolving?

Cliff Cooke
Not really. I have tried repeatedly to provide state- of-the-art situational assessment systems to our own local governments and DHS. We continue to demonstrate the benefit of those capabilities, but progress is very slow.

Wavestream supports integrators who provide systems support to international emergency response agencies. The international first responder community seems to be taking the lead in actually buying products, putting them in the field, and seeing the operational benefits. The same issues facing the military can also be found in DHS and international response agencies, namely the increasing demand for high data rate mobile communications to support emergency and homeland security applications. We are seeing a trend towards comms-on-the-move, which provides the mobility needed to support first responders in challenging environments where terrestrial infrastructure is not as robust, and setting up a base station at one location is not an option for many reasons, safety being a critical one. The trend is to have seamless connectivity on the move, anywhere in the world. Again, smaller, lighter, rugged and mobile SATCOM systems to handle real-time video and data information will provide the critical link for emergency, security and disaster preparedness and response.

SatMagazine
In the areas of SSPAs and Block Upconverters (BUCs), which markets seem best positioned for growth?

Cliff Cooke
Wavestream has seen tremendous growth from the DoD with the transition to smaller, lighter and more capable terminals. We believe that we are the leaders in providing products today that achieve our customer goals in this area. We believe that our R&D efforts will enhance these capabilities significantly in the next three years. The transfer of our technology from the university laboratory to the field has improved performance and reduced package size and weight. This capability has made Wavestream products the ideal feed-mount solutions for the new, smaller antennas. We are proud to have shipped over 6,000 Ka and Ku-band amplifiers to support war fighters operationally in some of the most extreme environments imaginable.

Wavestream is uniquely poised to continue providing field-proven solutions to meet the DoD’s mission requirements as bandwidth demand increases and as harsh terrains continue to drive the need for amplifiers that offer optimal size, weight and performance capabilities. Likewise, these capabilities are desired by non-military customers for the very same reasons.

We also see substantial growth in the broadcast industry for SSPAs and BUCs. Like the DoD customer, reliability, efficiency and smaller, lighter product packages are critical, particularly for SNG and flyaway applications. SSPAs are increasingly viewed as attractive replacement alternatives to TWTAs to help broadcast sites improve functionality and reduce operational, energy and lifecycle maintenance costs. Wavestream can offer broadcasters and teleports significant cost savings as they move to solid state from the TWT environment.

Wavestream has not only anticipated this need but introduced solid state products as viable alternatives to consumable TWTAs, offering significant lifecycle cost savings. Wavestream’s solid state product line is equivalent in size, weight, function, efficiency and price to traditional TWTAs. Our patented spatial power combing technology offers equal performance and the added value in energy savings in redundant configurations. TWTAs must remain in a warm-stand-by mode 7/24, constantly using up power and operational life. Our SSPA solutions operate in a cold stand-by mode, with no power usage. Customers save energy costs over the life of the system, which in can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

SatMagazine
The increasing use of SATCOM for broadcasting, from delivery of SD, HD and 3D content, is taking its toll on satellite capacity. How can products such as yours assist in this regard?

Cliff Cooke
The solution for diminished availability based on increased demand is not going to go away through the application of better power amplifier technology alone. Broadcasters need a more cost efficient way of delivering the increased demand for content bandwidth with high reliability. Wavestream will play a role by offering higher frequency solutions at higher power levels using solid state technology. Clearly, optimization of networks, modem and compression technology play significant roles in meeting demand now and in the future.

SatMagazine
How important is troposcatter for both the commercial and military user? How is such implemented by Wavestream?

Cliff Cooke
Special users are looking at alternatives to provide the connectivity and information flow they need. Anything that can reduce SATCOM dependency and provide high capacity communications channels will also decrease the demand and load on satellites. Troposcatter mobile technology has advanced to permit tropo systems to be set-up and operate high data rate communications within one or two hours, as opposed to the up to 24 hours for older systems. Tropo is a much lower cost, tactical medium range, point to point communications mode to SATCOM. For military users, tropo offers a back-up alternative to increasingly vulnerable satellites. Troposcatter implementation depends on architecture, terrain and many other factors, and continues to be considered by the military in some scenarios.

Wavestream SSPAs for tropo systems have been proven successful in operational environments. We are confident we can help make troposcatter systems successful based on our demonstrated performance to date. We have previously seen companies deciding to build their own high power tropo amplifiers internally, but we have not seen products fielded to date. Given our experience and knowledge, Wavestream is in a unique position to supply proven tropo products when the need arises.

SatMagazine
One area critical to the success of any company is their customer support. How does Wavestream manage their operations in this regard?

Cliff Cooke
I am proud that Wavesteam’s reputation for product reliability and high quality standards has resulted in extremely high customer satisfaction and extremely low product support inquiries and RMAs. However, when an inquiry has been logged, our support team has a track record for quickly advancing a resolution to help keep customer systems up and running. For Wavestream, the constant emphasis on quality, reliability, rapid customer response, and problem resolution is at the core of our continued success and growth going forward. Fortunately, our early growth has been based upon sales to large military integrators that provide most of the day-to- day handling of end-user customer calls. As we grow internationally and into commercial markets, we have been expanding our support through our representative network and through establishing key support centers in strategic locations such as Singapore, China and the UK. As we continue to grow, we continue to expand this area and are constantly looking for partners to help us maintain support across the globe.

SatMagazine
What can we expect to see from Wavestream over the coming months?

Cliff Cooke
We’re continuing to grow and expand our product lines to support new technology directions and new market requirements. We are paying particular attention to the creation of new technology and product solutions to meet the challenges facing customers who need to improve efficiency and reduce costs while migrating to increasingly bandwidth-intensive content distribution. Wavestream is an established, trusted supplier of Ku- and Ka-band amplifiers to the DoD and has proven market leadership in the development and delivery of solid state amplifiers for flyaway and on the move systems.

Our product roadmap includes several new product introductions to expand that market leadership, including the introduction of solid state amplifiers to support the anticipated rapid growth in X-band and commercial Ka-band, both domestically and internationally. In addition, we’re planning to release more C- and Ku-band products to support the broadcast market to replace aging tubes with more efficient technology. You should expect to see at least one new Wavestream product each quarter for the next two years.

Further out on the horizon, you will see Wavestream’s spatial power combing technology fielded in higher frequency bands for both SATCOM and non-SATCOM applications.