Poynting Antennas MD Juergen Dresel recently did a presentation at an overseas seminar on: ‘Direction-finding solutions for diverse application platforms’. The company is able to offer these solutions to clients with over a decade of experience with direction-finding antennas. Poynting is a US$10 million independent company specialising only in antennas.
Poynting makes use of various antenna test facilities such as Paardefontein Antenna Test Range, the Gerotek Test Facility, the LGI Compact Range and a private on-site anechoic chamber, which was commissioned in March 2014. The company’s anechoic chamber is a tapered chamber capable of testing between 400MHz to 18GHz.
Poynting specialises in direction-finding (DF), jamming, log-periodic dipole array, monitoring, counter-RCIED and communication antennas as well as electronics and masts.
Direction-finding requires a specialised array of antennas, which are designed to achieve wideband direction-finding performance. The choice of algorithm affects the DF antenna design. The company has the detailed knowledge of algorithm and system design that is needed. Implementation of algorithms allows Poynting to optimise solutions for each client.
There are various direction-finding techniques such as Adcock or Watson Watt DF (WW) and correlative interferometric direction finding (CIDF). It is important to note that the number of receivers affects algorithm, system cost and performance. A full set of receivers is more expensive, but gives the highest performance.
Poynting sells portable DF antennas as well as DF antennas for vehicles (eg, DF-A0029 and DF-A0069) and mast-mounted DFs such as the DF-A0007 or DF-A0038. Portable antenna design is the most challenging type of DF design because users want the best sensitivity and accuracy possible, in a very small and light package. These antennas are suitable for man-on-the-march, threat warning and driving search applications. Vehicle-mounted DF antennas are designed for use on small vehicles, shelters, containers, ships and submarines, and are suitable for driving search applications, event and border security, and situational awareness and threat warning. Fixed-site DF systems are utilised for regulatory spectrum monitoring and border security.
Future developments in the pipeline for DF include low-profile vehicle antennas, compact portable antennas and a free-standing lightweight antenna.
Poynting Antennas delivers high-quality antenna solutions for the global defence, security and telecommunications markets. For further information on Poynting products, please visit Poynting’s Web site on www.poyntingdefence.com.
