Partnership will integrate video streaming into Viasat satellite communications terminals to bring enhanced situational awareness to Velaris customers
Viasat, Inc., a global communications company, is today welcoming Videosoft Global – which provides adaptive encoding and secure real-time video transmission over wireless networks – to its Velaris Partner Network. The partnership will enable enhanced real-time video streaming capabilities over satellite communications, providing peace of mind to ground crews even in areas of poor terrestrial coverage, or tough network environments. This brings enhanced situational awareness to some of the most challenging environments on the planet.
One such use of the technology is in search and rescue scenarios – where Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be at the scene much more quickly than human crews, without compromising on safety, and stream video back to a control room without the need for ground-based communications infrastructure. Additionally, the technology could be used to provide real-time onboard monitoring of passengers to enhance comfort and safety. This system communicates with ground-based control centers and vertiports, catering to the future air taxi market.
More than simply bringing eyes and ears to uncrewed platforms, Videosoft Global’s technology also provides high-quality video with much lower data costs.
Streaming live video usually demands significant bandwidth usage, which can result in high data costs. This is where Videosoft's technology excels, using adaptive video compression and transmission to address these issues. By enabling streaming from as little as 4kbps, it not only cuts down data usage significantly but also broadens operational coverage.
Increasing ease of use and speed of integration for aviation operators, Videosoft Global’s ‘plug and play’ software will run natively on Viasat’s low size, weight, and power Velaris satcom terminal, developed in partnership with Gotonomi. These terminals offer an always-available secure datalink between vehicles, remote operators and UAV Traffic Management (UTM) systems, thanks to Viasat’s resilient, global L-band satellite network.
This combination of lightweight hardware solutions with edge-compute capabilities is enabling faster integration of software, simplified installations, and reduced latency – thanks to the proximity of the software to the data connection, and enhanced endurance thanks to weight and power savings.
Joel Klooster, SVP Flight Safety and AAM at Viasat, said: “Our Velaris Partner Network continues to go from strength to strength, and this latest partnership builds on a years-long relationship with the team at Videosoft Global. This combination demonstrates our vision to include edge-compute capabilities inside the terminal hardware, which will provide a major advantage to software partners and end-users alike.”
Stewart McCone, Chief Executive Officer at Videosoft Global, said: “It’s a privilege to join Viasat’s esteemed Velaris Partner Network, and to bring our robust, secure, and uninterrupted video streaming software to Viasat’s customers and partners. We know how critical our turn-key solutions are to realizing the future of airspace, and this will only be enhanced further by partnering with such industry leaders as Viasat. Together, we plan to continue to innovate and bring novel solutions to the aviation industry.”
