Hi,
Could anyone please help me to choose the efficient antenna my UWB tag. i have studied about the antenna and its gain in decawave application notes but still have some confusion to choose the final antenna design.
Decawave suggested some antenna in antenna design, but they gave three of them could anyone help me to right one for indoor navigation. those antennas are
2.what the difference between chip antenna and on board antenna, in decawave boards dwm1000 has chip antenna and dwm1001 has on board pcb antenna, which one is more efficient??
They all have a peak gain of around 3 dBi and a typical gain of around 0 dBi or just under. But they also have angles and orientations which they perform a lot worse in.
Generally the chip antenna looks to be a little worse, it’s closer to -5 dBi than 0 dBi in a lot of orientations.
For the chip antenna the patterns are in the DW1000 data sheet, for the other antenna designs they are in the design pack.
Keep in mind the patterns are for the antennas on their own (or on the DW1000 for that antenna), not for your end product, any circuitry near the antenna will influence the pattern and gain you get.
Also keep in mind that when testing for compliance with regulations the testing is all done in the orientation that gives the strongest signal, not necessarily the orientation you plan to use it in.
Antenna selection is always a trade off between size, pattern and gain. Ultimately only you can work out which best fits your needs.
hi andy,
thank you for your response, i am currently using the chip antenna( ACS5200HFAUWB), as you said that the antenna gain for chip antenna is -5dBi than 0 dBi.
i need the maximum gain for my design, if i go with the recommended gerber file for on board pcb antenna,
can i get the maximum gain or more gain than chip antenna???
my understand from your reply is instead of chip antenna better i make my own pcb antenna with high gain…
my application is indoor navigation and also have to acheive the distance of more than 25meter. kindky help me to crack this out…
Is this for an end product that you wish to sell eventually or just for an R&D project?
You say you need more than 25 m, what do you get right now?
While it’s somewhat questionable and not practical for an end product the simple way to get more range is to crank up the transmit power over the regulatory limits. Every 6 dB will double your range.
If you make your own antenna then you can get better gain, that will give you more range. Best real world case, you could probably get a range of about 1.5x the range of the chip antenna, maybe 2x if you are really lucky. But you will then need to worry about antenna delay calibration.
If you’re using anything other than the DWM1001 then you’re going to have to do regulatory approvals testing for any end product no matter what antenna you use.
i have very similar application , will you please let me know currently which antenna you are using and which firmware settings (like refresh rate,Tx power, Preamble length, etc),you are using?
also please let me know which antenna is best for good range in indoor applications, and how much max range you have got indoors?
