Industry News
Mouser Explores the World of 5G with Extensive Technical Resource Center and New Products for Engineers
Mouser Electronics, Inc. provides engineers with insightful and trusted resources in its 5G content hub.
dB Control Awarded $10M Orders for mmWave MPMs and TWTAs
dB Control was awarded two contracts worth a total of $10.8 million for mmWave microwave power modules and travelling wave tube amplifiers to support secure satellite communications.
UWB Tracking Antenna Arrays
Aaronia has added four new models to its IsoLOG series, which now consists of six antennas.
RAN Market Still a Disaster, According to Dell’Oro Group
According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, preliminary findings reveal that the Radio Access Network (RAN) market is still struggling after the peak in 2022.
What Is the Difference Between Directional and Omnidirectional Antennas and What Are They Used For?
Antennas are the basic components and devices used to convert electromagnetic signals traveling through free space to a conductive environment via waveguides and transmission lines. Antennas can be as simple as a single exposed conductor or as complicated as modern active/advanced antenna systems (AAS) with hundreds of individual antenna elements and active electronics driving each element. Two basic distinctions among types of antennas are directional antennas and omni-directional antennas. Simply put, directional antennas are antennas with an antenna radiation pattern that is less than 360 degrees along the azimuth, while omnidirectional antennas have a 360-degree azimuth radiation pattern. This distinction doesn’t differentiate between antennas that have varying elevation radiation patterns, purely along the horizontal.
Omnidirectional antennas are used in applications where the direction of target systems or incoming signals is unknown or could be from multiple directions. For instance, in a wireless mesh network that can be actively/automatically reconfigured, the nodes in the mesh could be in any location in relation to nearby nodes. Hence, using omnidirectional antennas for these mesh networks would likely make deploying the nodes and general mesh operation easier. Many communication systems that broadcast over long distances use omnidirectional antennas, such as AM/FM broadcast and early cellular telephone systems.
Directional antennas focus the antenna radiation along a more targeted area than omnidirectional antennas. The benefit of this is that the directional radiation pattern can contain higher RF energy than if an omnidirectional antenna were used. The caveat to this, is that a directional antenna can only sense and send signal energy within the direction of the radiation pattern, so must be pointed in the direction of a target or receive signal. However, the increased signal energy available in the directional pattern, i.e. antenna gain, allows for the same amount of RF energy to cover longer distances or offer improved the signal-to-noise/bit-error-rate (SNR/BER) at the same distances and with the same input energy as an omnidirectional antenna.
Modern AAS used multiple antenna elements and electronics to generate extremely directional antenna patterns that can be steered. Additional electronic systems can be used to allow for multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) spatial multiplexed signals sent and received by these complex antennas. Though many of the latest Satellite Communication (Satcom), radar, RF sensing, and cellular antennas are complex highly directional systems, omnidirectional antennas are still widely used for any application that doesn’t require high directionality. There are many omnidirectional antenna systems built as antenna modules or even on to PCBs as trace structures or solderable modules for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices used in medical, industrial, and consumer applications.
The post What Is the Difference Between Directional and Omnidirectional Antennas and What Are They Used For? appeared first on Pasternack Blog.
US Navy Selects BAE Systems to Develop Dual-Band Decoy for Airborne Countermeasures
Northeastern University's Open 6G OTIC Announces Availability of Open RAN Testing and Integration Solutions
American Microwave Corporation, a Subsidiary of Ironwave Technologies Wins a $4 Million Contract
Micro-Ant Designs and Manufacturers Custom Advanced Parabolic Antenna Solutions for Satellite Communication
Quantic Electronics Acquires M Wave Design, Leading Supplier of Ferrite-Based RF and Microwave Components
Rohde & Schwarz Introduces New Compact Oscilloscope Series with up to 2 GHz Bandwidth
Echodyne EchoFlight Radar Integrated Into AATI’s BVLOS Unmanned Aircraft
Echodyne announced its EchoFlight radar is integrated into the American Aerospace Technologies, Inc. (AATI) AiRanger aircraft, which recently obtained a waiver from the FAA for commercial beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight operations.
Epirus Finalizes Delivery of Four IFPC-HPM Systems to U.S. Army
Epirus announced that it has delivered the final two of four total IFPC-HPM systems to the U.S. Army and successfully completed both NET and EDT with the U.S. Army.
Quantic Electronics Announces Acquisition of M Wave Design
Quantic® Electronics announced the acquisition of M-Wave Design.
The Open 6G OTIC at Northeastern University Announces General Availability of Open RAN Testing and Integration Solutions
The Open6G OTIC at Northeastern University announces the general availability of testing and integration solutions for Open RAN.
BAE Systems to Develop Next-Generation Airborne Decoy Countermeasure
BAE Systems has been selected by the U.S. Navy to develop Dual Band Decoy (DBD), one of the most advanced RF countermeasures in the world.
Fairview Microwave Launches High-Power RF Terminations for Enhanced Performance up to 6 GHz
Fairview Microwave announced the launch of its high-power RF terminations to enhance signal integrity in demanding applications across telecommunications, aerospace and defense sectors.
Spectrum Instrumentation Presents Versatile Python Programming for all its 200+ Products
Spectrum Instrumentation presents a new open-source Python package (spcm) that is now available for the current line of all Spectrum Instrumentation test and measurement products.
Rohde & Schwarz Introduces the MXO 5C Series
Rohde & Schwarz extends its portfolio with a 2U high oscilloscope/digitizer tailored for rack mount and other applications.