A technology often used in satellite and defense applications may drastically improve smartphone performance in the near future by increasing antenna efficiency, according to new research from scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Engineering.
Antennas in many modern smartphones do not function optimally in 3G and 4G/LTE wireless environments, say the researchers, in part due to the growing demands being placed on increasingly small antennas. While antenna size—and by extension, RF performance—has shrunk to accommodate the incorporation of larger, more vibrant screens in thinner devices, the expectation that these smaller antennas cover additional frequency bands that would normally require larger antennas has strained their capabilities.
Now, UCSD electrical engineering professor Gabriel Rebeiz and his colleagues have released new research suggesting the use of Radio Frequency Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (RF MEMS) technologies could increase the efficiency of smartphone antennas.
“If you can make smartphone antennas 2 or 3 dB more efficient, you basically halve your download times. Truly, if we accomplish this with RF MEMS technologies, it’s a huge deal,” he said.
According to the research team, the incorporation of RF MEMS technology into smartphone antennas would yield tunable antennas that work efficiently across one or two frequency bands at a time. The technology would allow the antenna’s resonant frequency, or the frequency at which the antenna operates most efficiently, to be changed.
RF MEMS could also be used to create tunable filters that would replace the multiple individual filters installed in modern smartphones. Currently, the filters assist with carrier aggregation, which is the use of multiple frequency channels to divide data. Filters will become increasingly important as this practice continues, said Bilgehan Avser, an electrical engineering graduate student in the Rebeiz laboratory.
Rebeiz was recently awarded the 2014 IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award for Emerging Technologies “for pioneering contributions enabling commercialization of RF MEMS technology and tunable micro- and millimeter-wave systems.”
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