Synzen Precision Technology, a leading supplier of antennas and antenna module solutions, has teamed up with venture studio Next Big Thing (NBT) to produce the sensor-based LTE-M/NB-IoT development platform for fast cellular IoT prototyping.
The new Prometheus platform showcases Synzen’s leading expertise in LTE 4G and GNSS antenna solutions when combined with the latest Nordic nRF9160 module to provide unrivaled 4G connectivity combined with high performance and industry best GNSS positioning solutions. The building blocks enabling the new mobility and IoT revolution are “always on” connected 4G cellular and accurate and reliable GNSS solutions, regardless of the operating environment.
For the Prometheus platform, the latest IoT sensor-based development platform has been designed to simplify prototyping and speed time to market for developers of IoT and Cloud-based solutions. NBT chose two of the latest antenna solutions from Synzen Precision Technology: The OPALA (SZP-C-0L02) 4G LTE antenna and an industry leading low power FR4 active GNSS solution, PROXIMA (SZA-C-0G03).
“We wanted to ensure an optimized full band LTE performance to facilitate the wide range of sensors and interfaces which NBT had specified including mesh connectivity for short range communication and automatic switching between the NB-IoT and LTE-M cellular networks as well as offering advanced provisioning tools. The OPALA solution was found to work extremely well with the Nordic nRF9160 SiP and the selection of our latest PROXIMA low power active solution in an industry leading FR4 package helped enable a fully certified solution optimized for low power consumption over the full industrial temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees centigrade,” said Synzen’s Technical Director Chris Tomlin.
“Through intensive research and development, our team has conducted a number of analyses and tests which have indicated that cellular IoT is more reliable than alternative low power (LPWANs). We selected Synzen Precision Technology antenna solutions as they offered market-leading performance when combined with the nRF9160 Nordic SiP giving us advantages in both connectivity and power consumption. We greatly benefitted from Synzen's design-in assistance which they provided through a local partner here in Germany,” said Florian Heptner, Senior Hardware Engineer at Next Big Thing.
