Airfield (Walkman) Radar rescued from Obsolescence
Challenge:
The Walkman radar has been used as the fundamental radar system for airfields for decades. It is a very good system and reluctance to replace it has stemmed from that. Why replace what works well? The issue is that the electronics, and most particularly a laser diode used for fibre optic telecommunications, have become unsupported – it just isn’t possible to replace like for like with components that fail because of use and age.
Airfield owners were loathed to replace the tried and trusted Walkman radar system just because some basic but old parts weren’t readily available.
Solution:
The solution was in the re-development of the parts of the radar that were suffering from obsolescence of components. The most particular being the laser diode that launched radar data over a fibre optic cable. The EM redesigned the amplifier and transmission circuit with a modern laser diode. This, of course, brought the Walkman radar back to life in its entirely original form, and that was what the client required.
Skills:
- Advanced analogue amplifier and signal conditioning design
- System modelling to confirm performance of transmission circuit.
Journey:
Much of the design work was bread and butter to the EM, but it must be accepted that the high frequency analogue electronics needed quite a bit of testing before effective solution was achieved.
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