IoT antenna maker Antenova has created a software tool to help designers place antennas in a wireless design. The tool displays the optimum position for embedded antennas on a PCB.

Depending on the dimensions of the PCB and the specifications of the antennas, it places each individual antenna in the best location for signal strength.

UK-based Antenova has developed this tool to assist product designers who do not have access to antenna skills in-house. The tool should help designers place the antenna in the best position early in the design process and achieve a working wireless design more easily. It can be used for one to three antennas.

Antenna placement becomes more complex when there is more than one antenna in the design, as each antenna needs to be able to radiate correctly without causing interference to the others. With this in mind, Antenova created the tool to position up to three antennas from different categories or a pair of antennas in a diversity configuration.

The placement tool should help designers create layouts for small PCBs within some of the latest trackers and mobile devices. As well as showing the best position for the antenna, the tool displays the keep-out area adjacent to the antenna, which must be kept free of other components. This can help designers pack components as closely as possible and save space in the design.

Michael Castle, product marketing manager at Antenova, said: “RF engineering skills are in short supply, and not all designers have access to antenna specialists, so we are offering our antenna placement tool to help designers start their wireless design and achieve a successful layout first time round.”

Antenova develops and supplies integrated antennas and RF products for wireless communication, consumer electronic and wireless M2M devices. Its standard antennas and RF modules are suitable for GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G, LTE, 5G-NR, NB-IoT, GPS, GNSS, wifi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, LP-WAN, LoRa, Sigfox, Weightless-P and ISM, for M2M and IoT applications.