Nowadays, the main challenges faced by smart meter manufacturers, when designing a new metering device, are price, size, global coverage, long range and considering surrounding environments that could affect the overall performance. Any wireless smart metering device’s data transmission has to be completely reliable, therefore, the antenna is a critical component in such device. First, chip antenna technology is perfect for providing cost savings in your smart meter production. It is often a lower cost component than an external antenna or FPC, and, by being SMD pick and place, it provides savings on assembly costs.
The internally mounted chip antenna provides the benefit of increased protection against environmental factors and vandalism compared to an external antenna. Our patented technology, Virtual antenna ® allows for the same antenna part to cover multiple frequency bands simultaneously and offers any device designer the flexibility of selecting and tuning the frequency bands simply through adjustment of the matching network. Virtual Antenna offers a predictable and optimized performance ensuring metering devices easily comply with cellular certifications. Second, Virtual Antenna® components use the PCB to resonate, which enables high performance in space constrained device designs. Even with a small size Virtual Antenna ® component, the metering device will perform with optimal efficiency and high gain in all the bands, helping with long-range communications.
