Trackwise manufacture PCBs for a wide variety of radar systems operating across the RF spectrum, all working on the principle of a high power transmitted RF signal being reflected from the ‘target’ and being received by the same (or nearby) antenna.

The benefits of the use of PCBs within such radar systems are that the weight can be less than the traditional parabolic dish and have a wider bandwidth than the equivalent waveguide-based structures.

TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation) is a military aircraft navigation system working in the UHF band which gives to a pilot continuous information as to his range and bearing from a beacon. The ground equipment – for which Trackwise supplies antenna PCBs – consists of a beacon; bearing information can be obtained by the pilot without interrogation since the beacon is continuously transmitting.

Trackwise manufacture antenna PCBs for a wide range of threat detection devices.

Electronic device detectors are capable of detecting electronic devices whether they are a transmitting or hardwired, regardless if they are switched on or off. In order to optimise system performance and due to the critical nature of the system performance, a highly precise and ‘clean’ antenna PCB is required.

Sinuous antennas are especially suited to the Early Warning (EW) environment such as Electronic Support Measures (ESM) and Radar Warning Receivers (RWR) or more generally as Threat Warning Antennas:

Trackwise support Q-par Angus for A400 antennas

Q-par Angus has designed and produced a range of special microwave antennas for the A400 transport plane for protection against missile attack.

Jenny Holiday Director of Q-par Angus said “The antennas have very accurate PCB structures for the internal circuits and for the antenna elements themselves. These have to be made to very high levels of accuracy and must be consistent from one antenna to another. This is why Trackwise was chosen to help us develop and produce these parts. The antenna performance is superior to competitors and we are finding other markets for these in surveillance and direction finding applications.”