At CES 2017, Ethertronics has announced an Active Steering™ antenna system solution for smart cord-cutting applications, enabling consumers to gain OTA programming on a wide-range of Wi-Fi enabled devices. The company will be conducting live demonstrations of its new 14” x 14” Active Steering™ Antenna System for OTA television reception at CES 2017 in Las Vegas from January 5-8, 2017.
The new antenna system developed for OTA TV reception provides 50% more range and reliable performance by using dynamic radiation patterns to improve TV signal reception in homes, opening up a larger range of locations for OTA antenna placement. The improved TV signal reception will result in clearer video and audio of the desired broadcast channels resulting in a better viewing experience for the consumer. This technology makes the process of installing and positioning the OTA antenna much simpler and cheaper.
Ethertronics Active Steering technology solves many of the problems associated with using a passive antenna in homes for TV signal reception. The current method of finding an appropriate location within a room in a typical home for a passive antenna to receive the available OTA TV signals is time consuming and difficult for the typical consumer due to the weak signals trying to be received and the large number of reflections in-building. Quite often the location of the passive antenna needs to change as the TV channel to receive changes due to these reflections. With the multiple radiation patterns available from Ethertronics Active Steering antenna along with the strong dual polarization properties a stronger, more reliable signal can be received across a large number of channels for a fixed antenna location.
Active Steering optimizes the antenna characteristics to the environment, resulting in better signal reception. The Active Steering algorithm continually samples and switches between radiation patterns in the sub-millisecond time-frame to optimize TV signal reception for the specific home installation. This surpasses passive antenna techniques, delivering stronger signals that enable consumers to access additional television channelsn anywhere in the home. The technology minimizes the ill effects of reflections in the different rooms of a house, such as people moving around the home, reducing the likelihood of channel degradation.
Key Features of Active Steering™ for OTA Applications
Ease of installation by opening up a wider variety of locations around the house for antenna placement
Improved performance provided by the beam steering function with four or more radiation patterns generated at each channel
Less susceptible to interference and less likelihood of channel degradation from people moving around the room, weather effects, etc.
Compact design compared with many off-the-shelf antennas. The 2D form factor allows for wall and window attachment.
Industry Leading Antenna Performance
Wi-Fi Active Steering system solutions enable beam steering from a wireless device by sampling and switching between the multiple radiation patterns, and optimally selecting the antenna radiation pattern that provides the best radio frequency (RF) link performance. This capability provides revolutionary improvements in range, data throughput for applications such as video streaming, interference reduction, robustness in multipath environments and connection reliability.
Product Details
Ethertronics’ Active Steering antenna system solution for OTA applications relies on the same technology developed for SISO, MIMO, and beam forming applications for smart access points and wireless cable/DSL gateways. The proprietary algorithm integrated into the EC482, combined with the EC614 can connect to any baseband on the market to control from one to eight antennas and optimize for the best scenario of coverage with fast switching capability. The Ethertronics algorithm can be tailored to benefit the aggregate throughput, and significantly improve one client or the least served client based on the preferences of the carrier or box manufacturer.
