Antennas for RF Designs in the IoT

Antennas for RF Designs in the IoT
The physical connection for many IoT nodes leverages legacy wired networks found in homes, offices, schools, factories and other areas. As we become mobile, wireless physical connections are becoming the norm. Each wireless connection requires at least two antennas: one on both the transmitter and receiver.
A growing number of antenna solutions are customized to drive optimal system performance, cost and size. Whether designed internally or leveraging the RF design capabilities of antenna manufacturers, many OEMs can’t support an RF engineering team or meet the NRE or high production volume requirement needed for custom antenna designs.
Recognizing this, several leading antenna manufacturers continue to increase their standard antenna portfolios targeting low to medium volume applications. Standard antennas have many features that ease RF system design:
- They are typically tuned for specific frequencies.
- They are small, lightweight and can be easily mounted using typical PCB assembly techniques.
- Any minimal antenna impedance matching can be handled with typical passive components.
- They are high quality, competitive in cost and provide shorter lead times.
TE Connectivity (TE) Solutions
TE designs and manufactures antennas that comply with the most stringent operating requirements, The latest addition to their portfolio is a line of low-profile, high-performance standard antenna solutions for single, dual, tri, quad, and even penta band applications. These newly developed solutions allow virtually any wireless product to operate at different frequencies without the need of multiple antennas.
TE offers these low-cost, highly repeatable designs with a number of standard Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) parts including Stamped Metal, Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) antennas – all of which can be customized when necessary. These antennas address the needs of a variety of wireless applications and come with integrated contacts to ground plane.
Molex Solutions
Based on diverse manufacturing and RF technologies, Molex standard antennas offer high performance and ease of integration for demanding wireless applications spanning the industrial, consumer, medical and automotive markets. Molex’s current selection of standard antennas are designed for IoT/M2M communication over the ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) bands and cellular bands (including GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS [3G] band-1 and LTE band-7), as well as applications running Wi-Fi* and mobile TV (DVB-H and CMMB).
Pulse Electronics Solutions
Pulse Electronics, including the Larsen brand, is a leading global supplier, designer and manufacturer of technologically advanced antenna solutions targeting several applications in the IoT ecosystem. These include antennas solutions for NFC, LTE, 3G/4G, WLAN and wireless M2M. Pulse’s wide selection of standard antennas addresses solution requirements for any wireless IoT nodes.
Avnet Solutions
In addition to our deep antenna product offering, Avnet offers antenna design-in support with systems-oriented Field Application Engineers (FAEs). Avnet FAEs can help you, regardless of production volume requirements, access to best-in-class wireless products and first-class engineering support, helping you achieve faster time-to-prototype, market and revenue.
*Wi-Fi is a registered trademarks of the Wi-Fi Alliance


