Plextek in double Queen's Awards win

Plextek's electronics design services include:FPGA design, ESCAN Radar, MMIC design, GPRS design, Communications product design, Microwave design Defence electronics, Electronic product design, RF design, DSP design, Telemetry system, System Integration,Communications system design, Due diligence

Press Release

Plextek in double Queen's Awards win

Issued 21/04/2009

Sustained growth in export sales and the continued development of breakthrough technologies secures awards for Innovation and International Trade

Plextek, the Cambridge-based electronics and communications design consultancy today announced that it has won two coveted Queen's Awards for Innovation and International Trade. Plextek has shown superb growth in its international sales, nearly trebling exports over the last three years to an aggregate of £48m. The company has also been recognised for its continued innovation, particularly in the field of wireless technologies, as illustrated by the success of its Ultra Narrow Band (UNB) radio devices and its "Blighter" electronic scanning radar technology.

Colin Smithers, co-founder and managing director of Plextek comments: "Plextek, by its very nature, sells innovation and for the last 20 years has been continually developing the best and most effective new technologies for our diverse clients. This innovative culture and advanced technology has helped fuel impressive international sales growth, particularly in the US, Far East and Middle East. It's a proud feeling knowing that our talented team's hard work has been recognised and rewarded with, not one, but two prestigious Queen's Awards."

Plextek wins the Innovation award for continued innovation in all facets of its business of communications system and product design, in particular the wide commercial application of its proprietary UNB technology and various radar based projects.

Plextek's Blighter family of portable and fixed electronic scanning radar systems were selected and purchased last year by the UK Ministry of Defence for an 'urgent operational requirement' (UOR) and continue to outperform rivals in intruder detection and target identification. Blighter radars have been sold into Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the US.

The UNB technology has formed the core of a low power transmitter system designed for the UK Ministry of Defence enabling communications between military vehicles in convoys, with minimum risk of enemy detection. UNB-based wireless meter readers, with a battery life of ten years, have also been developed for domestic gas and electricity suppliers. Similar systems based on UNB have been developed to monitor hospital cardiac patients, for controlling street lighting and for covertly monitoring stolen vehicles. Plextek continues to design and supply stolen vehicle recovery systems for TRACKER Network in the UK and LoJack Corporation in the US. To date, TRACKER has recovered 17,800 stolen vehicles in the UK resulting in 1700 arrests.

Plextek originated as a pure design consultancy but, after the 2001 tech recession, also turned its hand to product manufacturing and supply. Consequently Plextek displaced a major multinational supplier to become LoJack's sole supplier to all the licensees for its proprietary in-car stolen vehicle recovery devices. Plextek designed tracking units have been fitted in over 5 million vehicles across 28 countries. The success of this technology has been a key factor in winning the International award for Trade.

For more information on the prestigious Queens Awards for Enterprise please visit The Queens Awards Website