Project: Software Defined Antenna for software defined radio solutions.

This project aims to generate a demonstrator of a low-cost small embedded tunable antenna for mobile communication for M2M markets. Current mobile protocols work in a frequency range from 850 to 2100 MHz. Future protocols like LTE and LTE-A will extend this to a frequency range from 700 to 2700 MHz. Also the performance requirements of the antennas at the outer ranges of these frequency bands need to improve as these frequencies are targeted for high data- bandwidths. Law of physics makes it impossible to obtain the same antenna efficiency with the same sized antenna with a wider bandwidth, especially operating at a lower bandwidth. Antenna efficiency at a frequency point is the measure of how much energy the antenna radiates into free-space rather than being lost in heat and mismatch and other effects. Only active tunable antennas will be able to deliver the high efficiency needed in small form factors and small ground-planes, the antenna dimensions being below 40mm*6mm*5mm (50%+) and ground-plane dimensions likely to be below 100mm*40mm. _x000D__x000D_Cavendish Kinetics (CK) will develop a tunable RF-MEMS capacitor, which will be significantly smaller, cheaper and better performing as RF-MEMS capacitors available today. Such capacitor will enable antennas of the same size as today to reach these extended frequencies at the power efficiency and linearity required for LTE. _x000D__x000D_Taoglas is an antenna developer and manufacturer, serving the machine to machine wireless communication market. The efficiency of the antenna is of utmost importance to determine the total radiated power (TRP) and total isotropic sensitivity (TIS), the key performance parameters for wireless devices. Ultimately, all other things being equal on the encoding and software, these two figures determine the coverage and data-speeds achievable with a wireless device. Therefore, Taoglas objectives are always to maximize efficiency of the antenna. Today, Taoglas also needs to customize many antenna designs as there are different interferences from the customer equipment. This has lead to a situation with thousands of part no’s. In contrast, a tunable antenna requires just a software setting during test instead of a redesign of the actual hardware. This has many advantages (faster time to market, no NRE, flexibility, one device on stock instead of many different types, etc…..) _x000D__x000D_CK and Taoglas will team up to develop a prototype of a tunable antenna greatly exceeding the current state-of-the-art. CK will use this prototype as a demonstrator to mobile phone manufacturers, their sub-contractors and other wireless device makers to showcase the quality of their tunable capacitor product and sell this component into this ultra-high volume market. Taoglas will develop customized antenna solutions for the machine to machine market, based on the expertise gathered during this project.

Acronym	SoDA (Reference Number: 5901)
Duration	01/02/2011 - 31/01/2013
Project Topic	A Software Defined Radio (SDR) also demands a Software Defined Antenna (SDA) to provide an improved antenna performance across the whole frequency range. The antenna center frequency and bandwidth needs to be programmable just as is the case for the rest of the SDR to achieve a balanced system.
Project Results (after finalisation)	Dear All,_x000D__x000D_We did not get a cent of funding from Eurostars or Enterprise Ireland for this project, as Enterprise Ireland was not willing to sponsor us effectively, for which we are deeply disappointed, however we did not pull out of the project. We helped our Ps Cavendish Kinetics out on this project for two years, who did get full support from their national development agency and together we came out with a commercially realizable prototype of an advanced tunable antenna design which we have applied for IP for, using the Cavendish Kinetics tunable capacitor. _x000D__x000D_For any final report you can ask Cavendish Kinetics to fill in._x000D__x000D_Regards,_x000D_Ronan_x000D_
Network	Eurostars
Call	Eurostars Cut-Off 5

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
2	Cavendish Kinetics BV	Coordinator	Netherlands
2	Taoglas Ltd.	Partner	Ireland