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Country of origin: United Kingdom

Summary

A London-based university has developed a product for the transport industry to provide improved reception performance for mobile broadcast radio. In addition, the concept also has the potential to be realised as an integrated circuit. The university is looking for industrial partners to co-develop an integrated circuit version for manufacturing.

Full description

The traditional antenna for AM/FM reception in cars has been the 80cm mast antenna - this is a passive quarter wave monopole. Radio transmission levels are set to provide coverage such that adequate reception can be obtained with such an antenna.

The current trend for the modern automotive AM/FM antenna is to become more
discrete leading to shorter masts or even hidden antennas. Size reduction leads to a loss in gain and therefore the need for an amplifier module. However, it is not possible to design an amplifier to simultaneously meet the requirements of low noise for weak signal areas and large signal handling in the vicinity of transmitters.

Either a performance cost is accepted or additional circuitry is needed. Current solutions have opted for Automatic Level Control (ALC). However, the weak field / strong field problem is better addressed using a switched gain
approach.

Innovative Aspects

This university has developed such an Automated Switched Gain Amplifier (ASGA) technology that offers the following benefits:

" Best sensitivity in weak field areas
" Best sensitivity in strong field areas
" Reduced DC Power consumption
" Amenable to realisation as an ASIC

Benefits and Potential
i) Best quality of sound/reception (same cost as ALC)
ii) the solution of choice for the emerging digital
broadcast systems (e.g. DAB and DVB-S).

Partner expertise sought:

- Type of partner sought: Industrial.

- Specific area of activity of the partner: Manufacturing, Research & Development.

- Task to be performed by the partner sought: Develop integrated circuit version of product for large scale manufacturing.

Listed under: Electronics \ Information & Comuunication Technologies \ Telecommunications

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Key dates Profile created on: 28 July 2010 Date last updated: 12 August 2010 Closing date: 15 July 2011

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