gps antennas

Proactive Investors UK - Sarantel: about to ride the GPS wave?

Investors are often keen to profit from new trends in consumer electronics. The safest approach, of course, is to bank on some of the big names in the world of gadgets to keep on making products that people will want to buy; for example, Apple may have been regarded as being on the decline back in the late 90s, but then the company produced the iPod.

Antenna specialist Sarantel could turn out to be just such a company. Spun out of Nasdaq-listed Symmetricom nine years ago, this technology business has focused on designing and manufacturing ‘filtering antennas’ for use in portable wireless devices but with a particular focus on GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. Worldwide annual shipments of GPS-integrated mobile devices are expected to grow at a rate approaching 40% until 2012, by which time they will have reached 834 million units, according to Parks Associates. Although personal navigation devices (PNDs) will remain the most widely-used and preferred navigational choice until 2011, by 2012 mobile phones and smart phones will constitute the majority of shipments, said the research firm in a report published last year. Parks’ view of the GPS-integrated market is backed up by more recent research, released in April this year, from fellow US-based analyst In-Stat. It expects a spurt in GPS growth to come not only from mobile phones that integrate the technology, but also from mobile consumer electronic devices (e.g. portable music and video players) and mobile computing platforms. Sarantel’s key technology is an antenna, formed around a core ceramic material, that it claims has a far better performance than conventional antennas. The company says that conventional antennas are generally adversely affected by being held close to the human body, but Sarantel has developed a filtering antenna – combining form, materials and structure to very tightly constrain the antenna’s near field. Because conventional antennas suffer low in-use efficiency and de-tuning in the presence of the human body, as well as being highly susceptible to interference from nearby components, each new antenna requires extensive development to get it to work within a particular kind of electronic device. And as devices get smaller, their antenna problems intensify, especially when you are trying to incorporate several wireless functions like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and, of course, GPS. This ability to sell a standardised GPS antenna has been key to the company building a diverse market for itself of more than 150 customers, serving specialised applications. In recent months, Sarantel has secured design wins with: Harris Corporation, which has selected Sarantel’s LBS Pro miniature GPS antenna for its new Unity XG-100 portable multiband public safety radio; Sonim Technologies, which is incorporating the LBS Pro GPS antenna in its XP3 Quest rugged mobile phone; and G-CORE, which is using the company’s SL1300 GPS antenna in its recently-launched Mini Caddy Golf GPS device. But more important is the company’s recognition that despite a recent tough market for its products, as a result of the worldwide economic downturn, it has the chance to take advantage of its reputation as GPS goes from being a niche to a ‘must-have’ technology in all kinds of mobile electronic devices.

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