everything RF recently interviewed Aitor Moreno, who is the Product Manager at Ignion to discuss about their new Antenna design platform Oxion™. Aitor oversees the company’s Cloud solutions strategy and roadmap implementation, working in close collaboration with Engineering and Marketing teams at Ignion. Aitor’s educational background is in Telecommunications Engineering, and he has been developing his career in engineering and product management roles within companies in the IoT and Cloud space, deeply involved in large-scale and global projects.
Q. Congratulations on the launch of the Oxion™ cloud platform. Can you tell us more about this platform and what it does?
Aitor Moreno: Oxion™ is an AI-powered antenna integration platform that speeds up wireless development. It features a design universe where a digital twin represents the antenna design in a new wireless device. The platform includes a dashboard with interactive drag-and-drop features to show the impact of design changes on antenna performance in real time, providing guidance to ensure a solid design journey. Oxion™ was created with the ambition to enable access to the technology needed when developing any IoT/wireless product.
Q. What made Ignion develop this platform? What were the challenges that engineers faced when integrating antennas in IoT devices?
Aitor Moreno: Connectivity shouldn’t stand in the way of good ideas. At Ignion, we want to make antenna integration transparent for all device makers, regardless of RF expertise. This is possible thanks to our simple Virtual Antenna® portfolio, and we have revolutionized the antenna industry again with the launch of the Oxion™ platform.
As in any other industry, the IoT space is diverse, with companies of different sizes, resources, and levels of know-how. This diversity is also present in the antenna domain. Most companies developing wireless products do not have RF domain experts, making antenna integration a complex challenge. The principal challenge developers face is trying to meet the main antenna requirements in the design, such as location, clearance area, and matching network. These are directly addressed in Oxion™, but it is also critical to understand the use case and the impact of the different elements of the device on antenna performance. For example, deploying a product for global coverage differs from deploying a product for regionally focused applications. Properly addressing these challenges marks a product's success, and we try to solve those challenges and needs by promoting the use of our antenna and platform technology.
Figure 1.Oxion's Dashboard
Q. How does the Oxion™ platform work? Can you walk us through its key features?
Aitor Moreno: Oxion™ is a cloud-based platform powered by AWS to guarantee worldwide accessibility and limitless scalability. Its core functionality is based on proprietary Machine Learning models trained on thousands of anonymized real device data points from Ignion's 20 years of experience and learnings and from the Antenna Intelligence Cloud™ launched in 2022. It has been designed to guarantee a friendly and easy-to-use interface, enabling access to its main features:
- Projects Dashboard and Results View
- All design projects are in one view with development status and performance history.
- Access a detailed results view of your digital twin, including antenna performance and matching network components.
- AI Design Explorer - Estimate and optimize performance in real-time.
- Understand the impact of design changes on Virtual Antenna® performance in real-time.
- Interactive tool to adjust antenna location, clearance, and dimensions of your design.
- Stock – One-click stock availability.
- Direct access to Ignion’s distribution channels to speed up procurement, including both antenna and matching network components. The exact Bill of Materials for your device is ready in one click.
- Help Center – Tailored guidance specific to projects.
- Design recommendations to guarantee optimal antenna performance.
- Direct access to Ignion’s support.
Q. Can you tell us more about the de-risked design process feature that allows users to get the right wireless design quickly?
Aitor Moreno: If you consider the antenna from the very beginning by using the Oxion™ platform, you are de-risking your design process. At Ignion, we like to compare the antenna to a tire on a car. You may have the best chassis and the best engine, but if the car doesn’t have tires, it will not move. In the wireless domain, if you do not consider the antenna from the very beginning, you can end up with a solid device design that does not connect as it should due to antenna issues. For this reason, Oxion™ provides a free-of-charge environment where you can test as many design iterations as you wish to understand Virtual Antenna® component performance and anticipate problems during your design journey. This is why we claim that by using Oxion™, you can de-risk your design journey, making better and more informed decisions.
Q. How does the Oxion™ platform eradicate the need for developing physical prototypes? How accurate are the simulation results?
Aitor Moreno: We are not aiming to eradicate physical prototypes, as they play a key role in any product design cycle. However, we believe that during the ideation and proof of concept phases, developers can be much more flexible if they can solve most feasibility studies in the digital domain. This approach eliminates the costs and time impact of physical prototypes, allowing for greater flexibility in design changes and iterations. Specifically in the antenna space, by using the Oxion™ platform, you can achieve a 95% accurate estimation of antenna performance in your device, ensuring proper wireless performance during the subsequent steps of the design cycle.
Figure 2. Oxion's AI Design Explorer
Q. Can you tell us about where and how AI and ML are used by the Oxion™ platform?
Aitor Moreno: Oxion™ is an AI-powered antenna integration platform, which means that AI plays a central role in the features and functionalities we currently enable and will continue to develop in the future. At this moment, we provide access to this technology through our proprietary Machine Learning Model, which users can utilize to get real-time antenna performance estimations. We have created an interactive interface under the AI Design Explorer tool, where you can drag and drop different design elements, such as antenna position, clearance area, and PCB dimensions, to see the impact on antenna performance in real time. We consider this an extremely powerful feature, as it addresses the needs of developers during the proof-of-concept stage, where there are many design options. This allows our users to make better-informed decisions about the various implications and requirements of their designs.
Q. Can you provide more details about Ignion’s Antenna Intelligence Cloud™ platform and its integration into Oxion™?
Aitor Moreno: The Antenna Intelligence Cloud™ tool was launched in 2022 to address a market need by providing a free-of-charge antenna performance feasibility study in less than 24 hours, revolutionizing the industry with an unprecedented service. This goal was achieved and well received by the market. As a natural evolution, Oxion™ was developed with the ambition to encompass the entire design journey, moving beyond feasibility and proof of concept stages to enable access to the necessary technology for any wireless product. This integration is why Antenna Intelligence Cloud™ is now part of the Oxion™ platform. The process of describing project and device requirements now occurs within the Oxion™ interface, and the design recommendations and performance results, previously delivered via email in a report format, are now displayed live on the platform.
Q. Have customers started using this platform? Are there any commercial products on the market that have been developed using this platform?
Aitor Moreno: Yes, definitely. We have had more than 200 new users per month since our launch at Embedded World in Nuremberg, and we have seen a doubling in the number of project requests to integrate Virtual Antenna® components during the proof-of-concept stage. Based on our experience at Ignion, it typically takes between 12 to 24 months for a wireless product to reach the market from the ideation phase. Therefore, we will need to wait a bit longer to see products in the market that have successfully started using the Oxion™ platform.
Q. Can customers use third-party antennas on the Oxion™ platform? If not, is this something you plan to support in the future?
Aitor Moreno: At this moment, Oxion™ is designed to promote the adoption of Virtual Antenna® technology exclusively. Therefore, we focus our recommendations on our simplified 6-component portfolio, which is designed to provide excellent coverage from 400 MHz up to 10 GHz, addressing the needs of the vast majority of IoT/wireless applications. However, in the future, Oxion™ may recommend other antenna technologies too.
Q. Who is the target customer? At what stage of the product development cycle should users use this platform?
Aitor Moreno: While we do not have a specific target customer, our efforts are focused on simplifying the work of engineers and developers, who often find RF technology complex and somewhat like a "mystery box". Our goal is to provide these developers with the tools they need to be autonomous in creating and developing successful products.
At Ignion, we strongly advocate for considering the antenna from the very beginning, often promoting the idea of "antenna first". This belief stems from the recognition that the antenna is a critical element in any wireless device. Failing to consider the antenna early in the design process can lead to problems later on, resulting in additional costs and delays. These issues can be mitigated significantly by prioritizing the antenna early and utilizing the Oxion™ design platform to guide your digital prototype effectively.
Q. How can customers start using the Oxion™ cloud platform? What does this service cost?
Aitor Moreno: To start using Oxion™, simply visit the Oxion website, where you can create a free account and initiate your first project. This account creation process is free of charge. Through Oxion™, you can receive your proof of concept analysis and leverage the power of our AI-based antenna integration platform.
Q. What is the feature roadmap for the Oxion™ platform? Can the users expect any new features in the upcoming updates?
Aitor Moreno: We cannot disclose all the details of our roadmap, but certainly, users can expect new features in the coming months. We are planning a new release in September with additional functionalities that will be announced in the coming weeks.
Oxion™ is continuously evolving, and we have an ambitious roadmap for the next few years that always prioritizes our customers’ needs. Staying at the forefront of the industry involves integrating the latest technologies, including AI, which is a cornerstone of our current and future features. We are continuously exploring other technologies and tools to enhance users' autonomy.
