RPG Radiometer physics GmbH – Company History

RPG Radiometer physics GmbH was founded in 1991 by Dr. Peter Zimmermann. Dr. Zimmermann brought with him over 20 years of research experience from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, as well as several years of involvement in the first Microwave Limb Sounder project at JPL/NASA.

In its early years, the company focused on the development of mixers and local oscillators up to the THz range, and their integration into complete receiver systems. As the market for high-frequency microwave technology grew, the number of employees increased to 15 by 1998, leading to a move to larger premises in Meckenheim.

In 2002, Dr. Peter Zimmermann transferred the majority of the company shares to his sons and to Dr. Thomas Rose, who had been with RPG since 1992. Dr. Rose took over the position of managing partner in 2002.

In 2003, RPG successfully entered the remote sensing market for meteorological instruments, resulting in an increase in the number of employees to 30 by 2007.

Since 2006, RPG has successfully developed extensions for network and spectrum analyzers for Rohde & Schwarz GmbH (R&S). This successful collaboration led to R&S acquiring a 25% stake in the company in 2007.

Since 2010, R&S has held a 75% stake in RPG. The continued intensive and productive collaboration with R&S has significantly expanded the development and manufacturing capabilities in the field of measurement equipment.

Today, in 2023, RPG employs over 70 people and is an established partner for innovative high-frequency technology.

In 2024, Rohde & Schwarz increased its stake to 100% of the company shares, further strengthening the long-term partnership.

Our Products

RPG manufactures state-of-the-art microwave components and systems operating at cm- mm- and sub-mm frequencies (1.4 GHz to 2 THz) for scientific, commercial and military applications.

RPGs product spectrum is split into five major application fields:

• Test and measurement equipment for mm-wave and THz applications. These products include Vector Network Analyzer, Spectrum Analyzer and Signal Generator Extension Modules that extend the capability of high performance microwave measurement tools to higher frequencies. Optimized Transmit-Receive systems are offered to be used in antenna measurements (anechoic chambers) and imaging. The systems are produced all in-house, from the components RF simulation, design and machining to the system integration, qualification and test. Available frequency bands reach from 50 GHz to 1100 GHz.

• Remote sensing turn-key systems. RPG manufactures a wide range of instruments for remote sensing of the earth’s atmosphere and ocean / land surface, both ground based and airborne. The wide field of meteorological applications is covered by tropospheric temperature and humidity profilers, water vapor and cloud liquid radiometers, systems for atmospheric attenuation or wet / dry delay measurements (VLBI) and atmospheric Tau measurements (e.g. radio astronomy site characterizations). Another group of instruments offers dual polarization capabilities which are useful in applications like soil moisture or ocean salinity determination and cloud / rain liquid water discrimination. RPG’s spectrum of active instruments include microwave scintillation transmit-receive systems for ground latent heat flux monitoring as well as W-band cloud radars.

• Space products. RPG’s space heritage started in 1995 in building the sub-mm frontends for the Swedish earth orbiting satellite ODIN. Since then, the company has further extended its space systems capabilities in projects like the MLS/UARS Microwave Limb Sounder (JPL/USA), the HIFI/Herschel Space Telescope (ESA), the SMILES/KIBO Superconducting Sub-millimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (JAXA/Japan), or the SAPHIR+MADRAS/ MEGHA-TROPIQUES microwave humidity sounder (CNES/ISRO). RPG is the main contractor in ESA’s Schottky diode space qualification program and participates in the technology development for Europe’s next generation meteorology satellite, the METOP 2^nd generation instrument.

• RF components and systems. RPG's products include active components like detectors, mixers, frequency multipliers, RF amplifiers, up- and down converters and pin-switches, as well as passive components like ortho-mode transducers (OMTs), isolators, attenuators, circulators, couplers, waveguide twists, waveguide transitions, power splitters, filters and optical parts (mirrors, wire grids, interferometers, feed horns). Additionally, RPG builds and sells Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometers (FFTS) up to 2.5 GHz bandwidth, developed by the MPIfR (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy) in Germany.

• Customized mm-wave systems. In order to meet special customer needs, RPG offers the flexibility to develop customized solutions in fields as plasma diagnostics, spectroscopy, radio astronomy, imaging and others.

Quality Policy

ISO 9001:2015