Flomerics' research highlights continuing problems with wireless antenna performance

Citation

(2003), "Flomerics' research highlights continuing problems with wireless antenna performance", Sensor Review, Vol. 23 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2003.08723baf.006

Flomerics' research highlights continuing problems with wireless antenna performance

Flomerics' research highlights continuing problems with wireless antenna performance

90 per cent of design engineers believe antenna enclosures are not getting the attention they deserve

Keywords: Wireless, Antenna

Research undertaken by Flomerics has found that an overwhelming 90 per cent of electronic design engineers who expressed an opinion believe that not enough attention is paid to the effect of enclosures on antenna performance. With antennas now forming an integral part of thousands of new wireless products, the costs of ignoring this issue are potentially huge (Plate 5).

Dr Rachid Aitmehdi, Head of Flomerics' Electromagnetic division, said, "The global IT industry will need to wake up to the fact that antennas need to be designed to suit the environment they are intended to operate in. It is a well-known fact that enclosures can potentially have a detrimental effect on the antenna performance, for example. This effect and others can easily be simulated these days and if done early in a product's design, rather than solved with a test and fix mentality at the end of the project, weeks can be cut from design cycles with huge cost benefits."

Plate 5 Antenna performance is affected by enclosures; any electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the device is not being utilised to transmit data

Dr William McKinzie, Chief Engineer, Etenna Corporation, commented, "An example (of the enclosures' effect) is a common housing material such as ABS. At 2.4 GHz, it can have virtually no effect, or a significant degradation of several dB in efficiency, depending on the exact nature of the plastic, its colour pigments, fibre content, paint, etc."

This was echoed by Kenneth Carrigan, Electromagnetic Engineer, Anteon, who commented, "This has been a long outstanding problem that needs more attention in modelling and field work. Antenna factors are usually specified in a free field, not inside an enclosure (anechoic, reverb, etc.). Coupling of lower frequencies (<100 M) to enclosures can change the antenna characteristics, and thus antenna factors."

Flomerics' Micro-Stripes software enables design engineers to simulate and optimise the RF performance of antennas in-situ, so that the effects of enclosures and operational scenarios can be modelled long before a product prototype is built and tested. The software is delivering time-to-market and cost advantages to companies across the world.

For further information about Micro-Stripes, please contact: Yussef Khamnei, Flomerics Ltd, 81 Bridge Road, Hampton Court, Surrey, KT8 9HH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 8941 8810; Fax: +44 (0)20 8941 8730; E-mail: yussef.khamnei@flomerics.co.uk