TRAK has been manufacturing coaxial isolators on the Dundee site for over 40 years with space qualified isolator and circulators produced over the past two decades. Coaxial Isolators and Circulators from TRAK are available for a wide range of applications and are designed to operate in assigned bands from 300 MHz to 31 GHz.
Since the first coaxial isolator was supplied to Alenia Spazio, over 45,000 flight model isolators and circulators (excluding iso-adapters) have been delivered; produced in accordance with customer specifications and supplied for use aboard an estimated 340 payloads.
Most of TRAK’s coaxial isolators and circulators feature the company’s unique solid connectors. These are available in female or male orientations in SMA, TNC and SMP styles. Where appropriate these are also available with standard or extended barrel connectors. Solid connectors are machined as integral features into the stainless steel device body. This type of connector offers excellent electrical and EMC performance combined with superior physical robustness.
These devices have been subjected to rigorous qualification, for example to 150g rms of random vibration and to 4200g at 4000 Hz for mechanical shock. Prospective customers are welcome to request copies of the qualification reports which are available in PDF form.
Over 12,000 solid devices have been produced and supplied for space and other applications. Full heritage data is available upon request or can be accessed in summary using this link.
All TRAK connectors comply with the RF connector standards detailed in MIL-PRF-39012 (formerly MIL-C-39012). The image above right illustrates the barrel of the connector machined directly into the stainless steel housing.
The range includes low and high power designs with loads and terminations selected as appropriate.
Since 2009 the range has been enhanced with the separate barrel threaded into the stainless steel housing replaced with the SOLID family where the male/female connector barrel is machined to be integral with the housing.
The 1″ solid isolator is the latest in the family to be space qualified. Devices of this size are suitable for frequencies from 800 MHz to ~2000 MHz. Flight qualified isolators have been supplied to TESAT, Airbus DS and MDA.
Since qualification and introduction in 2009-10 almost 13800 have been supplied using SMA compatible connectors with another 3000 supplied using SOLID TNC connectors. In 2010 the internal grounding structure was updated, and patents awarded in the USA and across Europe, to further enhance the performance, robustness and operational envelope.
By Frequency Band *
| Band | UHF | L | S | C | X | Ku | K | Total |
| Quantity of FMs supplied | 92 | 2591 | 3115 | 14091 | 4305 | 19884 | 3385 | 47463 |
By Function *
| Function | Quantity |
| Attenuator | 98 |
| Circulator | 12750 |
| Coupler/Splitter | 237 |
| Isolator | 33846 |
| Load/Termination | 392 |
| Iso-Adapter | 127 |
| Total | 47463 |
