In early October 2017, it was announced that Syntonics had been acquired by General Atomics. Syntonics was founded as a "technology transfer" spin-off of the The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. For the first three years, the firm was based in the NeoTech Incubator operated by the Howard County Economic Development Authority. Syntonics initially focused on radio frequency electronics for spacecraft, but in 2002 management refocused the firm's engineering talent on specialty RF communications hardware. Syntonics designs, develops, and manufactures speciality RF-over-fiber communications systems and innovative RF technologies, equipment and accessories for the military, civil, and industrial markets. Communication Technologies in the RF Domain include: a Passive Wireless Sensing oil-pipeline (PaWS) to enable valuable new measurements such as strain, torque, temperature, corrosion, or pressure in hostile and challenging environments including turbines, rotating or reciprocating machinery, pipelines, and reaction vessels; The Pixel-Addressable Reconfigurable Conformal Antenna (PARCA) Software-Defined Antenna, a conformal, reconfigurable, electronically pointed phased array antenna technology capable of supporting SATCOM, EW, SIGINT and COMINT applications up to 44 GHz; The Staring Projectile Detection Radar (SPiDR), which is able to detect incoming and near-miss projectiles ranging from slow RPGs to fast rifle bullets using an ultra wideband noise radar without a detectable electronic signature.
