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General Antenna Information

Antennas are basically devices that launch energy into the air, or receive energy that has already been launched. They are usually connected to some form of transmission line such as a coaxial cable that guides energy to or from the antenna in the form of electrons. The energy that is being launched or received from the antenna is in the form of photons, so visible light is just one form of electromagnetic energy that happens to be much higher in frequency then what we usually employ for radio systems. Antennas are basically devices that convert electrons into photons and vice versa. As such they can be considered a form of transducer just as a light bulb converts electricity into light or our eyes convert photons into signals for our brain to interpret as images.
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Antenna Engineering Characteristics

Accurate Electronics' antenna products have the following engineering characteristics, some of which make them unique:

  • Orientation or Spatial Relationship - Accurate Electronics' antennas have a near spherical power output pattern.  Embedded antennas in most mobile devices (such as cellular devices, automotive computers, laptops, netbooks, etc.) cannot take polarization into consideration as they often most continuously move in different planes versus the device they are communicating with.  The standard toroid power output pattern of embedded antennas with further attenuation of the surrounding materials creates nulls in the antennas output which are eliminated by the near spherical power output pattern.
  • Regulatory Compliance - Accurate Electronics' antennas do not bleed over into adjacent bandwidths, so they remain strictly within prescribed regulatory power requirements.  FCC does not enforce its requirements of vertical polarization stringently, yet power output and frequency ranges are evaluated for compliance continuously.
  • Environment - Accurate Electronics' embedded antennas are designed with two unique environments in mind. 
    • The environment of the embedded antenna, i.e. the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) it is integrated on, the materials of the casing, etc.
    • The environment of the product’s use. For instance, a utility meter may be mounted in a basement, an automotive Bluetooth device has to communicate through various materials with the car key-fob, extreme ambient temperatures, etc.
  • Volumetric and Enclosures - Accurate Electronics' embedded antennas are designed to be “as close to air” as possible.  The AEI Streamlined Antenna Integration process evaluates volumetric allocation of the enclosure and the collocated electronics. The antenna is designed to be close to materials with low density and high permittivity.  The material properties of the enclosures are taken into consideration.
  • Power - The power consumption of an embedded antenna impacts battery life.  This is related to the efficiency and the polarization of the antenna.  Incorrectly designed and integrated antennas have shown in-market penalties on products of 20db due to incorrect orientation and as much as 90% loss of power output.