Everything your parents never told you about antennas Johan Führi Design Engineer Poynting Antennas, South Africa MUM, Poland 2008

Poynting Antennas  Antenna and enclosure design and manufacture  Company size 180 people, 2600m 2 factory  20 R&D staff (3xPh.D, M.Sc’s, B.Sc’s, Techs)  Turnover USD 7.5 million p/a.  About 40,000 units per month output.  Export to Europe, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel and United States.  Various low cost, high performance fabrication technologies developed in-house.  Cutting edge outdoor enclosure portfolio with proven applications globally.

Overview  What is an antenna?  How does it work?  What antennas cannot do  Antennas in practice  New technologies in antenna/enclosure systems

What is an Antenna?  “The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.” – Albert Einstein.  Mechanical device that converts an electrical signal into an electromagnetic wave and vice-versa  It is not an AERIAL

How does antennas work?  Antenna focuses outgoing and incoming signals  In a particular direction  With a particular pattern  More ‘gain’ = more focusing in the firing direction  In TX, less signal sent in other directions  In RX, antenna is ‘deafer’ in other directions  More signal in the firing direction  Lower interference  More signal = higher range/data rates

8 dBi How does antennas work?  More gain = larger size  Panel/dish antennas – gain proportional to area  Limited by physics  Size/gain trade-off  Must keep losses down 14 dBi20 dBi 75cm 2 300cm cm 2

What antennas cannot do  Antenna ‘bandwidth’  Can’t work over arbitrarily wide number of channels  Frequency limited

How does antennas work?  In summary  Antennas focus energy to increase signal  High gain means less signal in other directions  Gain depends on antenna size  Cannot cheat physics – must reduce loss  Antennas can work differently in different channels

Antennas in practice  Connecting to the Electronics  Choosing the right antenna  Distribution  High site  CPE  Point-to-Point  Indoor

Connecting to the Electronics  Keep the radio close to the antenna  RF cable kept short  Negligible losses – best possible signal  Lower susceptibility to lightning impulse

Mounting Electronics Outdoor POE Injector Wired networkMains AC Weatherproof enclosure UV stabilised, shielded ethernet cable Routerboard platform Integrated panel antenna Wireless card Infrastructure location

Choosing the right antenna  Omni-directional antennas – The Ultimate Solution?

Choosing the right antenna  Sector Antennas  Cover only the areas that you need to cover  Multiple sector antennas per enclosure  One antenna per radio

Choosing the right antenna  Client Premises Equipment – CPE  What is important?  Easy installation  Aesthetics  Good performance  Low cost

iPoynt 230mm 240mm 55mm Compact aesthetic design IP67 rated, injection-moulded design Ethernet disconnect cable gland

iPoynt Ethernet clip-off gland IP67 watertight seal Wireless electronics Integrated directional antenna GHz (x4.0 range*) GHz (x5.6 range*) GHz (x8.0 range*) * Range relative to 2dBi dipole antenna

iPoynt Flexible electronics mounting Grounding lug built into mounting structure Pigtail Ethernet disconnect gland N-connector knock-outs Window knock-out RB133C/RB411 ready!

iPoynt Pole or wall mounting flange Separate Elevation adjust Separate Azimuth adjust

Choosing the right antenna  Point-to-Point  High gain dish/panels with heavy duty enclosures (long range)  Fully integrated medium gain solution (medium range)

Choosing the right antenna  High gain antennas  Narrow beamwidth  Cutting out noise  High gain  Improved signal strength  Higher data rates  Grid Antennas  Lower wind resistance

Choosing the right antenna  Indoor Antennas  Main problem is Multipath Interference  Space diversity  Polarisation diversity  Relatively low gain antenna – wide beamwidth  Going through walls – unreliable signal

Choosing the right antenna - Diversity WLAN-A0033 Dual diversity 2.4 GHz 8dBi Omni’s Integrated 5GHz 20dBi panel ‘Local Access Node’ WLAN-A0030 Integrated quad diversity (spatial & pol) 2.4 GHz 8dBi Patch antennas ‘Indoor MIMO AP Enclosure’ WLAN-A0031 Integrated diversity 2.4 GHz 7dBi Omni’s ‘Outdoor AP Enclosure’ WLAN-A0032 Dual integrated 2.4 GHz 14dBi Panel antennas ‘Indoor AP Enclosure’ ‘Outdoor diversity/2 channel link’

To the future  High performance antenna technology  Optimisation-based design  Wide band  Low loss  Low sidelobes

To the future  Integrated Multi-sector enclosures  Compact integrated outdoor enclosure for 5GHz  Quad-reconfiguarable sector array  4x 90 degrees  2x180 degrees  1x360 degrees 4x 90 degrees 2x 180 degrees1x 360 degrees

To the future  Antenna sharing for Nstreme 2  Only one pair of antennas to run Nstreme 2  Minimise installation costs and mounting space  Need wideband antenna, diplexer HI Freq Diplexer TX Radio RX Radio LO Freq Routerboard HI Freq Diplexer RX Radio TX Radio LO Freq Routerboard LO Band HI Band

To the future  Dual polarised antenna enclosure  Two antennas in one enclosure, HP and VP  Single Nstreme 2 enclosure

Thank you