ERA Technology has recently been awarded a prestigious £1M grant by the European Space Agency (ESA), following intense competition for funding of innovative space-related technologies.

The ERA-led Cobham bid was highly rated both in terms of both technical excellence and commercial exploitation potential. The grant will support development of ERA’s revolutionary G3 low-profile antenna technology into a fully approved product for airborne and land applications.

ERA’s third generation Ku-band G3 antenna is based on low cost phased array technology and employs a patented low profile scanning system. The integrated tracking antenna has a low-profile of around 100mm with both transmit and receive functions integrated into a single high efficiency aperture. The design is aimed at broadband airborne and land-based ‘Satcom-On-The-Move’ (SOTM) applications and is being targeting at a range of commercial and military markets.

The ESA grant follows the highly successful SPITFIRE R&D programme supported by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, which was completed by a consortium of companies including ERA Technology, Chelton Electrostatics and Cobham Advanced Composites.

The ESA contract is also supported by major Cobham PV R&D investment and will involve the original Cobham SPITFIRE consortium members, plus Atlantic Positioning Systems from the USA. The programme will harness leading edge technologies from across the group to reinforce Cobham’s leading technology position in this sector.

For more information about G3, please contact: vlad.stoiljkovic@era.co.uk or
visit: Antenna Systems

About ERA Technology
ERA Technology works at the leading edge of many advanced technologies. The business was founded in 1920 and today provides specialist, high value-added, technology-based services including design and development, testing, assessment and expert advice.

The company has built an international reputation for technical expertise through constant innovation at the leading edge of technology. ERA's services reduce technical and commercial risk, improve the operational performance of engineering infrastructure assets, and enhance the competitiveness of products and systems.

ERA Technology is a Cobham plc company.