Government Communications

Meeting Critical Needs with Tunable Technology

Defense and Civilian Agencies have a critical need for adaptive software defined radios (SDRs) that interoperate seamlessly with legacy communications systems. Whether in the harsh conditions of the modern battle-space or in the aftermath of a national disaster, radios that are lighter, smaller, and more capable provide significant advantages to the Warfighter and the disaster relief worker.  While the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) has been the ground-breaker for this technology, many other programs are following this vision of smaller size requirements and lower power consumption with broadband interoperability.  Paratek’s RF-tunable technology is a key enabler to designing lightweight, high performance, frequency agile radios. The technology is focused on extremely small passive tunable integrated circuits (PTICs) that combine ParaScan™ tunable capacitors with built-in bias networks on semiconductor substrates. These PTICs are integrated with inductors, switches, and other passive components to make tunable filters. Using the filters, radio designers can build more compact devices that consume less power while tuning continuously across multiple frequency bands.  

Paratek technology also finds use in other critical areas such as:

• Cosite Mitigation:  Paratek’s rapidly tunable high performance filters eliminate friendly radio signals or jammer interference that may limit the ability of communications systems to operate simultaneously and that may also blind Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) systems to harmful threats.
• Adaptive Antenna Matching:  Paratek’s Adaptive Impedance Matching Module (AIMM) multi-chip-module technology is finding widespread application in cellular handsets and can be used to dramatically improve antenna efficiency of deployable sensors and body-worn antennas.  AIMM dynamically corrects antenna mismatch loss caused by varying environments such as the moving human body, and other moving objects in close proximity to the antenna.
• High Performance Phase Shifters:  Low-power analog phase shifters can be used to build high accuracy phase array antennas.  Paratek’s efficient low-power technology can achieve outstanding performance at much lower cost points that competing technologies.  In additional to traditional communications applications, Paratek antenna systems can extend the range of RFID systems to maintain control of critical inventory.

Regardless of the program or agency, Paratek has the expertise and know-how to support system–level developers with customized components that provide game-changing performance advantages.