TRAK produces a wide range of waveguide products for a variety of commercial, defence and space applications. The breadth of products includes devices operating from 1.0 to 52.0 GHz and includes isolators and circulators, combiners, transitions and terminations.
Each product is designed for specific applications and optimised to handle an appropriate amount of RF power; for example 100mW for Low Noise Amplifier equipment’s or extraordinary amounts of RF power as in the case of the Joint European Torus (JET) project where TRAK supplied S-Band High Power Isolators operating at 750kW CW which, when added to the nominal reverse power, resulted in the design handling 1MW CW.
The highest power devices TRAK supplies are based on differential phase shift technology while lower power devices are supplied based on traditional junction technology, either as single or multiple junctions.
If appropriate, devices/systems are supplied with cooling/thermal management systems with additional functionality as required, e.g. transitions, filters, windows etc. The one thing that every product has in common is that it is designed and manufactured with care and an attention to detail that sets them apart.
TRAK has experience of supplying products for a diverse range of application including;
- Commercial marine radar filter duplexers – with over 350, 000 delivered over the past 20 years
- Liquid cooled high power terminations for medical oncology applications – over 7500 produced in just over 2 decades.
- High power differential 4-port circulators for naval, land and airborne defence and commercial ATC systems.
- Products designed for spacecraft; orbiting and deep space probes. TRAK has delivered thousands of high and low power devices since the first was delivered in 1993.
Space Applications
TRAK has outstanding space experience across a range of topologies however waveguide stands out for the range of frequency, power and functionality.
TRAK’s first space qualified product was a WR42 medium power isolator for ITALSAT. This was delivered in 1993 to what was then Alenia Spazio.
In the two decades since over 11,000 waveguide and iso-adapter devices, operating in assigned bands from 2 to 52 GHz have been delivered for applications ranging from low power LNA/Receiver to high power isolators for TWTAs. Each FM is specifically designed for its intended application and operating environment. Occassionally design compromises have to be made and these are discussed and agreed with the user/customer so that the end product does exactly as expected.
TRAK waveguide products have been used on, or supplied for, a large number of spacecraft and have travelled to several interplanetary bodies including;
- Comet missions
- NEAR Shoemaker – C-Band iso-adapter used in the data relay
- Hayabusa – K-Band HPI used in the data relay
- Rosetta – X-Band HPI used in the data relay
- Planets & Stars
- Moon – Kaguya (Selene), Chandrayan-1 – X-Band micpucks and waveguide used in the data relay
- Mars – Nozumi, Pathfinder – C-Band iso-adapter used in the data relay
- Venus – Akatsuki, ExoMars – X-Band HPI used in the data relay
- Saturn – Cassini C-Band iso-adapter used in the data relay
- Jupiter – Juno K-Band HPIs used in the data relay
- Mercury – BEPI – X & K-Band HPIs used in various equipments
- The Sun – Hinode, Solar Probe Plus, SOLAR Orbiter, – X & K-Band HPIs used in various equipments
By Band*
| Band | Quantity |
| S [WR229] | 111 |
| C [WR137] | 51 |
| C [WR159] | 17 |
| X [WR90] | 670 |
| Ku [WR75] | 2957 |
| Ku [WR62] | 816 |
| K [WR51] | 911 |
| K [WR42] | 646 |
| Ka [WR34] | 895 |
| Ka [WR28] | 4853 |
| Q [WR22] | 419 |
| V [WR19] | 11 |
| Total | 12601 |
By Function*
| Function | Quantity |
| Isolator | 8007 |
| Circulator | 1306 |
| Transition | 1096 |
| Coupler/Splitter | 400 |
| Iso-Adapter | 1547 |
| Load/Terminations | 114 |
| Multi-Function Assemblies | 131 |
| Total | 12601 |