Taoglas flying high with European Space Agency contract

AN Enniscorthy company is flying high after being awarded a major contract by the European Space Agency.

Taoglas which is located in the Kilcannon Business Centre on the Old Dublin Road will lead a cutting edge European Research Project worth €633,000 which was awarded under ESA Satellite Communications Programme (ARTES)

The contract was announced last Friday by Minister of State John Halligan during a tour of the company’s headquarters in Enniscorthy.

The funding has contributed towards a complex research, development and commercialisation of their ZRM project, which combines the antenna elements, data router and Wi-Fi transceiver into a technology platform to provide an ‘Always Online’ solution for fixed and mobile applications.

Congratulating the company on its success, Minister Halligan said: ‘I am delighted to see a company in the South East winning such a high value contract from the European Space Agency. It points to the excellence in product development achieved by Taoglas, and is a superb example of how a growing number of Irish companies are benefitting from Irish Government investment in ESA.’

Taoglas is a fully owned Irish company founded by two Irish entrepreneurs, Ronan Quinlan and Dermot O’Shea, Joint Managing Directors. It is an innovative technology group delivering antenna products and radio frequency (RF) solutions to global brands.

They are fully committed to a long relationship with both Enterprise Ireland and ESA to enable Taoglas to expand their antenna and RF research and development centre of excellence in Ireland.

Ronan Quinlan said: ‘ As a customer-focused Group, Taoglas specialise in understanding and responding to the real needs of customers. We provide an entire antenna design and supply chain solution for wireless products to reduce our end customer’s product development time and component costs. Current solutions for complete connectivity utilise separate routers, antennas and multiple cables.

‘ They are complex and costly to install and may not be 100% reliable due to the cable insertion losses. We identified and addressed a need from our customers for a technology platform that is versatile and scalable with the back-haul capabilities to provide sufficient bandwidth for mobile applications, such as, rail, buses and marine.’

With the securing of this funding from ESA, Taoglas have been able to employ six highly skilled engineers to develop the technology platform.