Rohde & Schwarz

Rohde & Schwarz is a family-owned German technology group that has spent more than ninety years measuring, generating and securing radio signals, and the defence work it is best known for in this directory is a minority of what it actually does. Lothar Rohde and Hermann Schwarz founded it in Munich on 17 November 1933 as a physics and radio measurement laboratory. It is still headquartered there, still privately held, and reported revenue of 3.16 billion euros with more than 15,000 employees in its 2024/25 financial year, operating in over 70 countries with regional headquarters in Columbia, Maryland and in Singapore. The business runs in three divisions.

Test and Measurement is the largest and the one that built the reputation. It supplies oscilloscopes such as the R&S RTO6, signal and spectrum analyzers led by the R&S FSW, vector signal generators including the R&S SMW200A, wireless device testers such as the R&S CMX500 for 5G, power meters, amplifiers, power supplies, EMC test systems, antenna test chambers and over-the-air ranges, automotive radar testers and mobile network testing systems. The buyers are chipmakers, handset and vehicle manufacturers, regulators, universities and satellite operators, plus the aerospace and defence customers who need the same instruments for radar and electronic warfare test.

Technology Systems is where the defence, security and broadcast businesses sit. Secure communications covers the SOVERON family of software defined radios built to the Software Communications Architecture, the M3SR Series4400 VHF and UHF radios for stationary and shipborne use, and NAVICS, a fully IP-based internal and external naval communication system fitted across ship classes. Radiomonitoring and radiolocation is the signals intelligence line, built around wideband monitoring receivers such as the R&S ESMD covering 8 kHz to 26.5 GHz and correlative interferometer direction finders such as the R&S DDF255, with spectrum monitoring and analysis software above them. R&S ARDRONIS is the counter-drone product, identifying drone control links against a signal profile database to give early warning at airports and protected sites. R&S QPS millimetre wave security scanners, including the QPS201 and the walk-through QPS Walk2000, screen people at airports and events. The broadcast and media business supplies terrestrial television and radio transmitters, encoding and headend systems and monitoring to broadcasters worldwide.

Networks and Cybersecurity is the third division and the most recently reshaped. In June 2026 LANCOM Systems, the German network infrastructure and unified firewall specialist, merged with Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity to form Rohde & Schwarz Networks and Cybersecurity, a roughly 550-person subsidiary positioned around European digital sovereignty. The range covers network encryptors, endpoint security, a hardened secure web browser, management systems, secure mobile connectivity sold as R&S ComSec, and the deep packet inspection and IP analytics software that ipoque licenses to OEM customers.

Growth has come partly by acquisition, including the oscilloscope maker HAMEG in 2012 and LANCOM. What holds the divisions together is one competence in radio frequency engineering applied everywhere from a laboratory bench to a warship mast to a national broadcast network.