TRAK produces a wide variety of loads and terminations ranging from those designed to be integrated into isolators to stand alone components. Loads, terminations and attenuators conjure images of assemblies used in applications with impressive levels of RF power. They are designed to be the most reliable available anywhere in the world. The care and attention that we put into our products is independent of the application. So whether the application is a spacecraft, air traffic management, satellite communication or high energy physics our customers know that our products will operate exactly as they are designed to do.
The X-Band filtered duplexer features an extraordinarily complicated high power load. Designed to operate at an extremely high baseplate temperature the load is a combination of attenuators and termination arranged so that heat conducted to the cold plate is dispersed in such a manner that the system onto which it was fitted remained within its safe operating environment under any combination of worst case conditions.
When designing loads, terminations and attenuators, reliability takes precedence. Using a choice or combination of RF absorbing wedges and proprietary conformal load technology TRAK designs each requirement to have an appropriate margin under the worst case operating conditions with special attention provided to ensuring the thermal design is optimised using whatever cooling is available; conduction, liquid or convection. Optional features include RF and or thermal sensors.
Thermal management depends on the application. Where appropriate, liquid, forced air or combination cooling is selected on the basis of the most efficient available type with monitoring/control circuits provided where requested.
| Application | Conduction | Liquid Cooled | Forced Air | Natural Convection |
| Medical | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Industrial | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Defence | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| TVAC Test | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Space | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Optional Features:
- RF sensors
- Temperature sensors
- Thermal switches
- Flow Regulators
Heritage
All loads are carefully designed based on customer supplied system constraints (peak and average power, base plate temperature etc) and thermally and mechanically simulated to ensure that under the worst combination of effects that TRAK loads perform flawlessly with a factor of safety designed to balance cost and mass.
TRAK’s highest power space qualified loads include those operating at 1500W average power in C-Band and 220W in K-band while in a terrestrial setting water cooled S-band loads supplied for the CERN continue to operate today at 750kW of average power cooled using water.
More routinely loads supplied for ground, naval and airborne radar applications are designed to operate over broad bands and are cooled using the most appropriate and available means; combinations of liquid, conduction, forced air and convection cooling.
TRAK uses a choice of RF absorbing technologies the selection of which depends on several factors. These include bulk absorbers, either ceramic or loaded rubber or TRAK proprietary thin film coating which has substantial space, defence and industrial application heritage.
By Frequency Band*
| Band | Loads & Terminations FMs |
| X [WR112] | 5 |
| X [WR62] | 8 |
| Ku [WR75] | 43 |
| K [WR51] | 29 |
| Ka [WR34] | 2 |
| Ka [WR28] | 27 |
| Total | 114 |