Which would you say is one of the most incredible and useful revolutions of the last 20 years? It is indeed the mobile phone revolution. With a mobile phone we can now easily make calls and surf the web from almost everywhere: location does not matter anymore.
The possibility of having this kind of global connection can be credited to the genius of a Spanish inventor: Carles Puente, who, along with his team, has created the so-called “Fractal-based antennae” for mobile-phones.
This invention assure reception anywhere in the world and utilize various radio-technology such as GPS, Wi-fi and Bluetooth and basically opened the door for the “internet everywhere” revolution.
To help understand the scope of the invention, it is sufficient to say that this technology is used in almost all mobile phones worldwide and finished with classic extendable antennas of the first mobile.
Puente began to think about a new solution of antennas while studying engineering at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona in the 1990s. Patenting this revolutionary invention in 1995 led to the creation of the company Fractus, in 1999.
“This technology has enormous potential from the beginning, because before it was invented it was difficult to reduce the size of radio antennas to increase the signal strength. Nevertheless, we had no idea what impact it would have on the world of mobile phone”, says the inventor.
The success of the invention has been the application of mathematical principle of “fractals” to the design of antennas. Basically, the invention consists in dividing traditional antennas into smaller ones with similar shapes but reduces proportionally.
The fractal-based antennae is hardly any larger than a grain of rice, but it broadcasts radio waves efficiently on several frequencies in spite of its minimal size.
The main advantages of the fractal-based antennae:
- They are much smaller than their predecessor
- They make it possible for a single antenna to use several different frequencies: an antenna can work with lots of different communication services.
Carles Puente, along with his team (Jordi Soler, Carmen Borja Borau, Jaume Anguera Pros y Edouard Rozan), is one of the finalists of the Inventor Award 2014, under the Small and Medium Enterprises category.
They are going to be granted 5 prices (Industry, Small and Medium Enterpises, research, Lifetime achievement and Non-European countries), and also a “Popular Prize”, which is going to be granted to the nominee who receives more votes through an on-line voting system (the dead line for voting is the 10th of June 2014).
From Protectia, we truly hope that the company Fractus get the deserved recognition.
