At a size comparable to a quarter, the ultra-wideband antenna is cheap and simple to produce, according to one of its inventors, Taeyoung Yang.
Is there anything worse than getting a new sleek, wall-mounted high-definition television and then having to deal with wiring your DVD player to the TV?
A new itty-bitty antenna, the size of a quarter, may solve all your problems. The ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna, invented by members of the group Wireless @ Virginia Tech, is designed for low-energy, short-range transmission of high volumes of data. The exciting thing is its size and the endless potential for its use.
“To our best knowledge, our invented antenna is the world’s smallest with more than a 10:1 bandwidth,” said Taeyoung Yang, an electrical and computer engineering doctorate student who invented the antenna with Tech professors William Davis and Warren Stutzman. “It has more than 95 percent efficiency for signal transmission, and a fairly constant omni-directional radiation pattern.”
In addition to transmitting data wirelessly from your DVD player to your wall-mounted TV, the antenna could also transmit data from a cell phone or digital camcorder to your computer.
Beyond personal uses, the antenna might be useful in more complex applications, such as with pulsed radar systems to prevent collisions between cars and medical imaging systems to detect tumors.
The antenna’s design, as a structure placed on the inner side of the protective housing (which can be light plastic), makes it cheap and easy to product. “The required material expense is low, the fabrication process is simple, and it is versatile for mounting on curved surfaces,” Yang said. “It is convenient to install and disassemble.”
The invention is still a prototype, but Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties is seeking an investor to develop it for the marketplace.
