Meteksan Savunma Sanayii A.S.

Meteksan Savunma was set up in Ankara in 2006 as the defence arm of Bilkent Holding, the industrial group tied to Bilkent University, and the university connection shows in how the company works. It hires out of the research base, keeps a payroll of around 450 people, and competes on physics rather than volume. Turkish primes such as Aselsan and Roketsan sell systems. Meteksan tends to sell the sensor or the link inside somebody else's system, which is a narrower but stickier position. The company organises itself into six fields: radar systems, perimeter surveillance systems, laser and electro-optic systems, communication systems, underwater acoustic systems and platform simulators.

Radar is the best known of the six. MILDAR is a millimetre wave fire control radar developed for attack helicopters, intended to give a Turkish rotorcraft its own target acquisition rather than relying on imported sets. MILSAR is a synthetic aperture and ground moving target indication radar sized for unmanned aircraft, and the company has also built millimetre wave sensors that let a UAV land automatically on a moving deck. Perimeter surveillance is a separate product line rather than a spin-off. The Retinar family covers the Retinar PTR, a Ka band intrapulse modulated Doppler ground surveillance radar that a two person crew can operate remotely from up to a kilometre away and that is tuned specifically to detect and classify walking people, and the Retinar FAR-AD, aimed at small drones. Kapan packages radar detection, electro-optic tracking and radio frequency jamming into a modular counter drone system, which is the same problem set approached as a complete effect rather than a sensor.

Underwater work is the quietest part of the portfolio and arguably the hardest. Yakamos 2020 is a hull mounted sonar developed for Turkish surface combatants, and the acoustic group extends into submarine sonar and underwater communications. Meteksan is also one of two partners behind Ulaq, the armed unmanned surface vessel developed with Ares Shipyard, contributing the communications and control side while the yard builds the boat. Communications products centre on Kement, a tactical data link that connects munitions, platforms and command nodes, together with anti-jamming GNSS receivers that keep GPS and GLONASS usable in a contested electromagnetic environment. Laser and electro-optic systems supply designation, ranging and countermeasure components. The simulator line is trained on the navy, covering damage control trainers, fire fighting trainers and helicopter underwater escape training rigs that exist because those skills cannot safely be taught any other way. For a firm of this size the spread is unusual, and it is deliberate, since every one of those fields rests on the same core of signal processing and precision electronics. Radar, sonar and data link are the same mathematics applied to different media. Keeping all three under one roof is what lets 450 engineers cover ground that would normally take several times that number spread across separate specialist houses.