SAM Electronics

        Based in Bremen, Germany, Atlas Elektronik, as it was long known, has a long history in the maritime domain, with over 100 years' involvement in both naval and mercantile systems. Its product lines have embraced electronics for submarines, surface combatants and mine warfare vessels, coastal surveillance, civil vessel-traffic control and, of course, marine navigation radars.

        The company history has been somewhat turbulent in recent years: in 2003, as STN Atlas, it was acquired jointly by Rheinmetall AG and BAE Systems, and divided into two separate companies: Atlas Elektronik became a BAE Systems subsidiary, focused on naval systems; Rheinmetall Defence Electronics became a subsidiary of Rheinmetall AG, focused on land and airborne systems. In August 2006, after a span of only three years, Atlas Elektronik changed hands again, this time to become a joint venture company owned by ThyssenKrupp Technologies and EADS, the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company.

        This takeover concluded some considerable political intervention that debarred other interested parties; while national interests were being resolved, the civil marine activities of Atlas Elektronik were separated off, to become a subsidiary of L3 Communications based in New York, NY , which was itself formed in 1997 from units of the former Loral and Lockheed Martin corporations. The new subsidiary resurrected an earlier name, STN Atlas, in a slightly modified form: STN Atlas Marine, or SAM, and as SAM Electronics, has become a globally dispersed marine electronics business, with offices spread from Europe to China.

        This corporate upheaval complicates documentation of Atlas systems. No documentation appears to be available for legacy systems (already, the Radarpilot 1000 is obsolescent, and not available for 'new installations' because of changing IMO requirements), and in any case it is not clear whether these systems would bear an 'Atlas' logo or a 'SAM' logo on their antennas. In this edition, it is possible only to tabulate the published characteristics of the more recent products, the Radarpilot 1000 and the Radarpilot 1100. The manufacturer claims to have over 1000 systems installed in the world's mercantile fleets. Whatever designations they bear, we could track down information only on the Radarpilot systems; these are described in Appendix 1. We await opportunities for observation and characterization of the company's radar systems before preparing Appendix 2.