Rohde & Schwarz Receives U.S. Army Contract For High-Performance Signal Generators

Columbia, MD — Rohde & Schwarz recently announced that it has received a contract from the U. S. Army Aviation & Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, AL, for the supply of 4000 R&S SMB100M high-performance RF signal generators, as well as optional service and support over a seven-year period. The instruments will be used in U. S. Army facilities throughout the world.

The procurement is part of the Army's Test Equipment Modernization (TEMOD) program that is tasked with replacing obsolete general-purpose test equipment throughout the Army's inventory with state-of-the-art, off-the-shelf products. The benefits of the TEMOD program are expected to be an improvement in the readiness of Army weapon systems, a reduction in the amount of equipment in the field, and lower operational and support costs.

The R&S SMB100M is based on the commercially available R&S SMB100A analog signal generator. The R&S SMB100A has a measurement range of 9 kHz to as high as 6 GHz depending on the model. It has high RF output power, fast measurement speed, low single-sideband phase noise, and high spurious and harmonic signal suppression.

The R&S SMB100A is extremely well suited for aerospace and defense applications because it can be serviced in place by its owner, thanks to an architecture that relies on only four main modules. The R&S SMB100A can automatically determine if servicing is required on a particular module. The owner can replace this module on site with calibrated modules retained in inventory, which allows the instrument to return to service with a minimum of downtime. Calibration interval for the R&S SMB100A is also 3 years, a year longer than is typical in the industry.

The R&S SMB100A operates over a temperature range of 0° C to +55° C at a maximum altitude of 4600 m, weighs only 5.3 kg (11.7 lb), and requires only two height units in a rack. All are essential attributes when measurements must be made in airborne, mobile, and other environmentally or physically challenging situations. Operators can perform a dedicated security procedure in which all user memory is rapidly deleted and other memory is overwritten with random values so that nothing can be recovered if the instrument falls into unfriendly hands.

SOURCE: Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG