Technology
Game changing antenna technology, inspired by nature
Inspiration for Antenna Company’s technology can be found in the natural world. Examples of how plants have evolved to create a myriad of complex geometrical forms are all around us. In studying nature, our co-founder, Johan Gielis, developed a mathematical breakthrough to simplify the description of complex natural shapes.
First proposed by Johan Gielis in 2003, the Gielis Superformula was used to describe complex shapes with a reduced set of parameters. Antenna Company uses the Gielis transformations and associated computational methods to design high performance 2D and 3D antennas, which have better performance characteristics than their traditional counterparts.
With Antenna Company’s patented SuperShape® antennas, improvements in terms of gain, efficiency, directivity, polarization and shape are achieved. Benchmark tests have shown SuperShape® antennas to perform significantly better compared to conventional antenna designs. Based on these novel developments, the shape of the antenna can be tailored to meet the demands of performance, efficiency and cost.
SuperShape® Antenna System Benefits
As the need for network capacity increases, the number of antennas in wireless devices increases to support the required bandwidth and spectrum. As the physical size of wireless devices continues to shrink, it is obvious that these two trends are in direct conflict. Antenna Company’s ultra-wideband and multi-port antenna solutions solve this problem by combining the functions traditionally provided by multiple antennas into one – our antennas can enable LTE and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to co-exist with excellent isolation in a single compact antenna system.
In the case of MIMO Wi-Fi systems, our technology results in compact, embedded antennas which perform comparably to external dipole antennas, enabling more attractive industrial designs and smaller form factors without sacrificing system performance.
Our design methodology eliminates the “trial and error” approach commonly used in antenna design and accelerates time to market. Rigorous system-level simulations which factor in the 3D mechanical environment allows Antenna Company to determine optimal antenna placement and orientation to deliver the best possible radiation pattern for the application under development. This capability is a service provided to Antenna Company’s customers.
SuperShape® Dielectric Resonator Antennas (SDRA)
Antenna Company has redefined the field of dielectric resonator antennas by replacing ceramic materials with a proprietary, engineered polymer material that can be shaped according to the Gielis Superformula to achieve low loss, while delivering high efficiency and gain. Our SDRA antennas can be optimized to meet the needs of stringent networking and consumer applications, where extended range and high application throughput is required to deliver the best user experience. The use of polymer technology allows for simple and cost-effective integration of SDRA solutions into embedded applications, where size and cost are important considerations.
Measurements performed on SDRA antenna systems confirm that they are able to operate over very wide frequency bands while maintaining stable radiation patterns, gain and quality of the radio coverage. Furthermore, thanks to the proprietary, engineered polymer materials, the individual radiating structures can be accurately synthesized to provide enhanced electromagnetic isolation level in multi-band, multi-antenna systems. This key characteristic, combined with the aforementioned properties, overcomes antenna coexistence issues and boosts radio channel capacity in wireless MIMO communication systems.