IN Brief:
- Astute Group is expanding RF and antenna support for defence electronics programmes.
- The offer covers GNSS, LTE, 5G, MIMO, Satcom, Wi-Fi, LoRa, RFID, and M2M applications.
- UK-based custom design and prototyping are included for platform-specific antenna requirements.
Astute Group has expanded its RF and antenna capability for defence applications, combining authorised antenna product lines with UK-based custom design, rapid prototyping, and platform integration support.
The expanded offer is aimed at communications requirements across land, maritime, airborne, and industrial platforms, where antenna performance is shaped by mechanical installation, environmental exposure, platform geometry, and electromagnetic conditions as much as by nominal frequency band.
The portfolio covers GNSS, LTE, 5G, MIMO, Satcom, Wi-Fi, RFID, ISM, LoRa, and M2M applications. Astute is working with manufacturers including PCTEL, HUBER+SUHNER, 2J Antennas, Adactus AB, HL Global, and Mobile Mark.
Mobile Mark’s range spans 150MHz to 7.2GHz, giving engineers options across a broad set of communications, positioning, and telemetry requirements. Configurable elements include frequency bands, bandwidth, connector type, cable assemblies, mounting method, and environmental adaptation.
Where standard products do not meet electrical, mechanical, or environmental requirements, Astute can support bespoke designs. The capability includes no minimum order quantities, rapid prototyping, RF and mechanical design expertise, and optimisation for ground plane, enclosure, and installation constraints.
Antenna integration is becoming more demanding as defence platforms move from single-link communications architectures toward multi-band, multi-protocol systems. Tactical networks, unmanned platforms, electronic support equipment, soldier systems, vehicles, and portable systems increasingly carry multiple RF paths for positioning, telemetry, video, command, data, and machine-to-machine connectivity.
That density creates design conflicts at platform level. Antennas need clean placement, appropriate ground conditions, and suitable separation, while the available physical space may already be occupied by sensors, armour, cooling systems, masts, power electronics, or access points. A design that performs well in isolation can degrade once installed on a vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or deployable system.
For defence electronics teams, early antenna engineering can reduce late-stage redesign work. Cable routing, connector selection, ruggedisation, vibration exposure, environmental sealing, and mounting geometry all influence RF performance, and many of those decisions become expensive to change once a platform layout is fixed.
The availability of custom design and prototyping support also reflects wider pressure on defence programmes to move faster without compromising reliability. Communications hardware often has to be adapted to existing platforms rather than developed from a blank sheet, especially where upgrades are being added to fleets already in service.
Although the capability is being expanded for defence, the same design constraints apply across aerospace, maritime, emergency response, remote infrastructure, and industrial IoT systems. As wireless links become embedded in safety-critical and mission-critical equipment, antenna selection is moving closer to the core system engineering process, where environmental performance and integration practicality can be as important as the datasheet gain figure.
