Sarantel comments on antenna design

As Apple so vividly demonstrated – with its own design and those of rivals – the human body is surprisingly good at interfering with radio signals, acting like a sponge and absorbing radio energy. It’s an inescapable combination of human biology and antenna physics.

We at Sarantel don’t claim to have a technology that will solve the voice antenna problem on the iPhone. But these same issues of biology and physics are ones we’ve studied closely because they also affect the GPS signals our antennas are mainly designed to receive. Indeed, given that GPS signals come more than 12,500 miles from space, not from a nearby base station, the problems of designing an efficient GPS antenna to capture such a weak signal are even more challenging.

For handset manufacturers, this is a problem. Recently published research from market researchers iSuppli suggests that by the end of 2011, around 80% of all smartphones will have GPS built in. What’s driving this is a new consumer demand for location-based services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Layar, not to mention the thousands of location-based apps emerging in places like the iTunes app store and Android market.

It’s our belief that the development of a healthy and profitable market for location-based services will flounder unless handset manufacturers recognise that current GPS antenna designs are inefficient when close to the human body and simply not up to the job of delivering the kind of performance that users will expect. They lose too much signal and this causes the associated electronics to draw too much precious power.

That’s why we are developing the most volumetrically efficient antenna designs to power the coming generation of location-sensitive devices. Sarantel’s unique approach uses dielectric ceramics to produce miniature antenna designs that are far less susceptible to signal loss when close to the human body. What we’ve developed is a way to keep much of the precious radio energy in the core of the antenna, rather than let it leak into the surrounding area where the body’s sponge-like properties will absorb it.

As a result, it uses less power and enables more reliable and accurate positional fixes – and that’s important because without robust and reliable performance consumers might not embrace the most exciting LBS applications. We think it’s the most efficient antenna design you can fit into a specific volume and we’re making it smaller and more efficient all the time.

Of course, you’ll see an improvement in signal bars if you use a Sarantel antenna, but the real result is what the user notices. The success of the location-based industry depends on whether users are confident they really are where they are, or whether they’re frustrated by the slow fix times and inaccuracies of conventional antenna designs.

With the accuracy and performance of Sarantel’s antenna technology, we believe the location services industry can truly fulfil its potential.