Introducing Virtual Antenna™: Simplifying IoT Device Design with Embedded Antennas

Smart sensors, smart meters, smart tracking, smart factories, smart agriculture, and all possible smart things you can imagine need to be connected. The Internet of Things (IoT) enables connecting things with other things, necessitating a relevant player that transmits and receives data to and from each thing: an IoT antenna.

Wireless engineers working on the development of the new bunch of IoT devices are searching for the best IoT antenna: one that covers all desired bands, has the smallest footprint, and the highest efficiency. The antenna needs to be seamlessly integrated into the design with other radiofrequency components such as modules, amplifiers, and filters, treating it as just another component.

Virtual Antenna™ technology introduces an antenna booster, a tiny chip antenna component that can cover all IoT frequency bands. This off-the-shelf antenna booster can be tuned to any frequency worldwide as required, eliminating the need for customization and making the IoT architecture predictable from the outset, ideal for mass production.

Virtual Antenna™ technology is based on replacing complex and usually customized antenna designs with an off-the-shelf, miniature, and multiband component called an antenna booster. This component fits seamlessly on an electronic printed circuit board like any other electronic component, boosting currents on the ground plane to make it an effective radiator. The antenna booster is small compared to conventional multiband antennas, offering versatility and efficiency.

Besides its small size, Virtual Antenna™ features multiband operation in the frequency range from 0.698 GHz up to 6 GHz. A matching network combined with the antenna booster provides a passive solution, enabling operation in various devices. The ease of assembly with conventional pick-and-place machines makes manufacturing and design of IoT wireless devices simpler and more cost-effective.