TMD first began developing its range of laboratory instrumentation microwave amplifiers in the 1990s.
The technology grew from TMD's strength in high power military radar amplifiers and provided the marketplace with units of equal reliability and high performance but re-packaged for less demand physical environments into compact, affordable 19" rack-mountable units - COTS solutions for a wide range of applications.
Since then, TMD's instrumentation amplifiers - which cover the range 1 - 40 GHz, have gained a worldwide reputation for design innovation, offering many unusual and unique products unobtainable elsewhere.
This innovation is driven by the needs of the market; in particular, changing EMC testing regulations continue to offer many new challenges which we have to meet.
The latest amplifier developments have been driven by Aerospace EMC testing programmes related to the RTCA DO160 standards, which are highly important to new aircraft such as the Airbus 380 and Boeing 787. Due to the increasing use of carbon fibre in the structures, these aircraft are more susceptible to microwave radiation than the older style passenger aircraft with all-metal structures.
Case Study
In particular, there is a need for the microwave amplifiers used in HIRF (High Intensity RF) testing to deliver more than 5 kW pulsed at L-band frequencies, in order to achieve the necessary field strength requirements.
This is a technically challenging area for amplifier design in which TMD has succeeded. In 2002 TMD had already successfully developed a very special high pulse power amplifier which could deliver a minimum of 20 kW from 1.1-1.5 GHz. This was for a specific programme run by the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute for susceptibility testing of vehicles - emulating the conditions generated by high power L-band airport surveillance radars.
TMD now has a complete range of 6 high power amplifiers (PTC6704, PTC6706, PTC7352, PTC7354, PTC6326 and PTC6382) which together cover the range 1-18 GHz with output powers in excess of 4 kW.
A USA customer recently commented:
"we are extremely pleased with the quality and reliability of TMD's products, not to mention the extremely good service. The PTC6704 and PTC7352 amplifiers have exceeded our expectations by all means"
Photo - aviation-images.com |
