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We wanted to gain maximum flexibility for the photographers
giving them the opportunity of working without the tethered solution
but still having access to small devices like the iPhone and the iPad.
We have been working with the wireless solution for quite a while.
In the beginning of the product we discussed if we should have had
external antennas but we also felt that this would not benefit the photographers.
The antennas would be in the way for the photographer in his workflow.
It was quite difficult to make the solution.
We would like to keep the very strong structure that we have in the IQ back
which we are known for.
Having a good antenna design that is very close to the metal
was a very big challenge for us.
We started out by looking at available solutions
that you can buy commercially, and we soon discovered that
these solutions were not good enough for our product.
Mostly because the back is made of aluminum and
it’s more or less like a Faraday cage.
It keeps the EMC radiation inside the digital camera back,
where as we would like the antenna to radiate freely
to get a good performance.
The typical way to design mobile phones is to have areas which have plastic
that enables you to radiate freely.
Putting these two devices closely together is actually a contradiction.
The metal works as a Faraday cage, the antenna should radiate out,
so creating a really good design is crucial to getting the right
performance in the final product.
We had several antenna designers on this project,
and some of them said that we were crazy.
A lot of people have told us that this is almost impossible.
Creating a dual band antenna that works well on 2,4 and 5 GHz
is a really big challenge.
We worked on this for more than a year building maybe 15 prototypes
before we got a design that was good enough.
The top antenna is located up here and the bottom antenna is located down here.
The top section and the bottom section are still made of aluminum
to keep up the strength of the back.
With this antenna design we actually managed to escape the Faraday cage
by creating an antenna design which is integral with the product
and works on both the 2,4 and 5 GHz band at the same time.