Commercial Radomes

Protection of non-military equipment is equally as demanding of the radome, as the locations for the installations are sometimes in the most inhospitable environments.

Further to this there is a great pressure on the Civil Aviation Authorities and designers of the worlds new airports and facilities to provide aesthetically pleasing monitoring and control hardware to fit into the overall image of the development.

Commercial radomes can be grouped as follows:

Air Traffic Control and Ground Movement radar
Satellite Communication and tracking radar
Weather radar

Air Traffic Control (ATC) Radomes

Ground movement radar by definition allows the safe movement of aeroplanes on the ground on runways, aprons and hard standings to eliminate collisions, and schedule bottlenecks.

Ubiquitously mounted on tall towers the radar equipment is subject to high winds, rain and salt laden atmospheres and the use of a radome is essential.

Tods have installed radomes for GMR installations all over the world including many 5.18 metre ‘ASTRE’ radomes.

Heathrow
Stansted
Paris Charles de Gaulle
Moscow
Inchon Korea
Jeju Korea
Beijing

	Air traffic monitoring radar systems are often at exposed mountain top locations such as this 11.585m diameter radome installed in Serbia.

	New designs are being addressed to provide futuristic radomes for the most modern site constructions.

Satellite Communications and Weather Radomes

Satellite communication earth terminals, such as the recent installation at Svalbard, Spitzbergen in the Arctic Circle for EUMETSAT illustrate the extremes of location and atmospheric conditions.

Two 15-metre diameter radomes were installed during 2002. Installation taking 21 days for both radomes.