Dual Antennas Would Boost Cell-Phone Signals

The recent uproar over the iPhone antenna 4, the consumer aware of the constraints designers when trying to slim, compact devices that build a good connection. Researchers at Rice University could have a design that will make a signal of troubles past and a longer battery life as well. The design uses two antennas, which focus their power in different directions.
The antenna in your current cell phone radiation, a signal in all directions. "Only a tiny fraction of this energy actually reaches the base station," said Zhong Lin, whose research group is exploring ways to computer equipment more efficiently. This is not only a waste of a phone's battery life, he says, but it creates an unnecessary interference to other users.
Antennas, the beams of energy in a narrower bandwidth can be more efficient. Mobile phone masts using this tactic, with several antennas show in different directions in order to serve users better. Zhong group has a prototype antenna system that could provide this capability to mobile phones itself, energy saving designs and longer battery life.
The researchers combined a small Wi-Fi transmitter, three directional cheap "patch" antennas in different directions, and a standard omni-directional antenna. Only one of the four was active at any time, used with the directional antenna to send data to the base station, and the omni-directional one earlier, to receive them.
The system was mounted on a motorized spinning platform to test its most important quality: the ability to connect, if the alignment changes of the device, as it (shot of the conversion to which antenna usually is oriented the base station is stay) . The directional antennas monitored to determine the quality of the packages received by the base station, which among them should be the next package to send.
Even when spun in one revolution per second, the prototype was able to stream video, with almost no interference. This suggests that the concept would work well in real situations, "says Zhong. He collected a week of data from the accelerometer and compass of 11 smart phones actually in use by real people, and found that these phones were shot rarely more than a third of a revolution per second while connected.
The current prototype uses Wi-Fi frequencies because off-the-shelf directional Wi-Fi antennas are easier to acquire. But the results apply to any frequency, said Zhong. His group is based on a version that combines multiple antennas Nexus One phones running the Android operating system, and does computer simulations of the approach. Results far so back to the Wi-Fi tests, he says.