Wessex Advanced Switching Products Limited (WASP) is a privately owned, electronics / engineering company based on the south coast of the UK. The company was formed in 1974 and today employs 110 people and has an annual turnover of almost £10M.

One of the company's founders was an ex-Plessey switch engineer and the initial aim was to design and manufacture a range of customised rotary switches for use in professional applications including military communications.

WASP's success in its chosen specialist marketplace is based on it's engineering skills and it's ability to work closely with its customers to develop customised solutions to meet their specific requirements. In addition, the quality and reliability of its products are key to the company's success. Many of WASP's products are 100% tested at several stages during their production cycle to ensure their total quality and reliability when deployed in the field. WASP is an ISO 9001-2000 registered company.

Over the years WASP has designed and manufactured rotary switches and other key components for many of the worlds leading defence manufacturers. From its initial involvement in the Clansman tactical radio system in the 1970's right up to its current involvement in the new Bowman Digital radio systems being introduced into operations now.

During the last 34 years, WASP has used it's engineering skills and experience to develop a range of standard rotary switches which will satisfy the majority of requirements, offering multi position, miniature variants, binary coded, clipped wafer, rotary wafer with in-line terminations, and open structure versions. In addition, the company has also developed sealed switches suited for particularly hazardous environments where the prevention of dust and water ingression is paramount.

For security purposes, WASP also developed the 'Pull to Turn' rotary switch which prevents accidental movement of the switch. 'Pull to Turn' adds an extra position to the switch which is not operational until the spindle has been pulled and the switch turned to the required position, where it is locked until an alternative setting is required. This facility can be supplied in as many positions as are required and at either end of the mechanism travel. Similar systems such as 'Push to Turn' and encoder switches of varying angles are also included in WASP's comprehensive range.

Despite the fact that rotary switches represent relatively old technology, they continue to be designed into and used on even the most recently developed military equipment, including communications equipment, because of their unique physical and electronic characteristics. These characteristics include mechanical memory, robustness, high levels of reliability, few moving parts and very low or no power requirement.

Following on from it's success with rotary switches WASP moved on to developed a range of custom designed membrane switches, specialist keypads and touch screens, again for use in professional applications including defence, medical and more recently the aviation industry.

WASP's membrane switches and military style keypads have enjoyed equal success with military equipment suppliers such as Thales, Racal and Redifon. WASP products are used on equipment supplied to US, UK, Australian, French, and other leading defence forces around the world. Among the many variations offered by WASP are printed luminous ink membrane panels, translucent panels for backlighting and light guides which can give a low or high intensity light depending on the situation.

For particularly harsh environments, including extreme cold or heat, dusty, salt water etc., WASP has designed and manufactured a number of fully sealed front panel assemblies. Full RFI shielding can also be incorporated into the units. The panels can also be supplied for gloved hand operation with low activation force requirements. Contact within the pads can be silent contact pill and legends can be either screen printed or incorporated in the silicon. On board electronics can also be added.

Over the years WASP has worked closely with many of the UK's and Europe's leading defense companies including Cobham Defence Communications, Thompson-CSF of France, Thales, Redifon, Racal, Plessey and Cogent. All have benefited from the use of WASP's products and its many years of experience in the defense industry.

In the early days, WASP worked with many of the UK's leading defence specialist such as Racal, Plessey, Marconi and STC to develop a range of rotary switches for the Clansman tactical radio system. Clansman was the main in-service family of tactical radios used by the British Army from many years, from it's entry into service in the 1970's until it's replacement by the Bowman digital radio system in 2004. WASP also worked with Thompson-CSF of France to develop a range of switches for their PRG4 tactical communications system for the French Army.

This system was later manufactured under license for the defence forces of Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Poland, with WASP supplying rotary switches directly to the locally chosen manufacturers in each country.

WASP is currently working with Cobham Defence Communications on their ROVIS and (AN/VIC-3) and LV2 range of inter-vehicle communication systems of which there are currently 120,000 units in service with 18 of the world's leading armies.

Cobham Defence Communications (CDC) is considered the world leader in platform intra-communications systems and under the generic family name of 'ROVIS,' CDC, produces a wide range of highly reliable modular communication systems for platforms including marine, light vehicles and armoured vehicles (light and heavy).

All systems are constructed to the very rigorous standards required for heavy armoured vehicles, and maintain the excellent high reliability the ROVIS family is noted for. WASP worked closely with CDC to develop a range of rotary switches to meet these rigorous standards and to ensure that the levels of quality and reliability expected of their system are continually achieved or surpassed.

WASP's aim is to continue to work with industry leading customers in it's chosen markets to provide world class engineering solutions.