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November 2, 2022

RADIAFLEX Now

In our first blog celebrating the 50th anniversary of our flagship RADIAFLEX® cable we looked at the history of the technology and how it has developed to ensure it is one of RFS’s industry firsts that lasts. Now we look at where RADIAFLEX is today and how it is helping customers worldwide to deliver connectivity in challenging spaces with contoured coverage delivered via our continuously innovative cables.
Axel Schroeder, Product Line Manager, In-Tunnel Solutions
TAGS : RADIATING CABLE, RADIAFLEX, IN-TUNNEL, METRO,

RADIAFLEX® and the industry leading contoured coverage that it offers is at the heart of why RFS is the go-to choice for challenging in-building and particularly in-tunnel environments. This has been the case for decades and the continuing enhancements we have made to the solution have commentated RFS’s place in the in-tunnel and in-building space. 

As it celebrates 50 years in the industry, let’s look at exactly how those continuing developments have allowed RFS to play its roll in some of the world’s most innovative deployments. 

RADIAFLEX in action 

Follobanen project

The Follobanen project has been one of the standout deployments for RFS in recent years. It saw RFS work with partners to set the world record for in-tunnel download speeds in 2018 and we have continued to build on this success. The configuration makes use of a unique 4x4 MIMO solution. RFS’ vertically polarized RAY and horizontally polarized RLK product families take advantage of unique cross-polarization effects to optimize MIMO conditions in tunnels and deliver continuous, high throughput and reliable connectivity.

Grand Paris Express 

One of our latest projects has seen RFS work on the Grand Paris Express. Currently the largest transport project in Europe, it plans to lay 200 kilometers of new rail lines and build 68 new stations and connectivity is needed across the new transport network. For this project RFS RADIAFLEX radiating cables have been selected to deploy a 2x2 MIMO private LTE network as the cables fulfilled all project requirements which included futureproofing and compliance with the highest fire safety regulations.

Glasgow metro 

The Glasgow Subway is the third-oldest underground metro system in the world and RFS has worked recently on its modernization project. RFS focused on working to support critical communications, as well as the mission-critical connectivity needed to power driverless metro systems that rely on Wi-Fi. RFS designed a system that runs at 5.8GHz on the RADIAFLEX solution, in duplex configuration, with a fail-safe architecture that avoids any single or double point of failure. This will not only support the use case of facilitating driverless trains, but offers a low maintenance, high performance system that will serve the subway for years to come.

The focus for RFS with its RADIAFLEX portfolio has always been to deliver a solution that is both physically flexible and flexible in how it can be used to accommodate customers with specific requirements. As we have seen in just three of the hundreds of examples, RADIAFLEX has the versatility to accommodate a range of use cases and as the RADIAFLEX anniversary celebrations at RFS come to a close, we look forward to seeing how the next decades unfold for one of our longest serving solutions.