SAT Brings Single Antenna Solution To Cellular Handsets – Aug 23, 2013– Birmingham, UK (Techreleased) – Smart Antenna Technologies (SAT) today announced the launch of its innovative single-antenna technology for mobile devices. The technology will enable smartphone and tablet device manufacturers to replace several antennae with a single multi-band antenna, the performance of which will match that of the separate antennae at their specified frequencies.
Currently mobile devices require a separate antenna to support each communication technology such as Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, GSM and 3G/4G. 4G phones are expected to have up to six narrow band antennae operating on individual band segments. This is highly inefficient in terms of cost and space occupied in the device.
SAT’s technology has emerged from research by Professor Peter Hall, one of the leading experts in radio antenna technology, and his team at The University of Birmingham. The patented solution uses a novel foil or printable antenna and control chip to produce a compact multi-frequency antenna.
SAT’s single antenna solution is expected to ultimately cost a few dollars per handset compared to US $20 per handset for existing antennas. Additionally, SAT uses software re-configurable hardware enabling manufacturers to produce one device for all territories, reduce costs and streamline manufacturing & logistics. SAT’s technology has already generated interest from its target customers, including include cellular handset and chipset manufacturers.
This technology delivers major benefits on every critical constraint for handset manufacturers, including cost, design flexibility, space, single product for multiple territories and extended battery life. It is also fully complementary to existing RF solutions being used by the mobile phone industry and emerging products such as Qualcomm’s RF360 technology.
Having won both Cambridge Wireless ‘Discovering Start-ups’ competition in 2012 and the Enterprising Birmingham Innovation Competition 2013 the SAT team has been working with Venture Capital company, Mercia Fund Management (MFM), to secure its first investment, a Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme round, and will be shortly completing a further syndicated round lead by Mercia. Funding will be used to produce the first product and customer deployment.
