Case Study: Antennas to go — Ayantra selects Taoglas’ PA.25 and GP.25a

AyantraHeadquartered in Fremont, California, Ayantra provides wireless solutions for industrial asset management. The company designs and manufactures remote fleet vehicle monitoring and telemetry solutions to an international market from its in-house base. A key product in Ayantra’s portfolio is FleetSight, an M2M solution tailored to managing small fleets of vehicles including cars, trucks and vans. FleetSight enables fleet managers to track equipment, collect usage information and centrally manage all assets from a single website. It detects conditions such as harsh or rough driving, usage patterns and if vehicles are being used outside normal business hours.

Tracking Down the Right Antennas

With the market trend for wireless products to have a smaller footprint, Ayantra needed to reduce the size of its FleetSight product. This meant developing a solution that had an embedded antenna housed in a smaller form factor. The original antenna was not small enough for the new platform so, Ayantra’s CEO, Ashok Teckchandani searched for a smaller GPS and cellular antenna for its product. Ayantra was contacted by Tim Dolan, Taoglas’ (www.taoglas.com) Director of North American Sales to discuss the possibilities.

Antennas Made Easy

Ayantra’s FleetSightTeckchandani purchased Taoglas’ renowned off-the-shelf surface mount PA.25 antenna for cellular and a GP.25a patch antenna for GPS.
“Our experience of working with Taoglas was very good,” said Teckchandani. “The PA25 and GP.25a had good design guidelines, which we followed to install the antenna in FleetSight ourselves – they worked first time. We then put the FleetSight though North American PTCRB and FCC tests and it passed first time. It was a quick and easy process.”

Dermot O’Shea, Director, Taoglas commented “The PA.25 is a great solution for customers who require a high performance embedded antenna but don’t need custom antenna solutions for certification. It’s a robust multiband surface mount antenna (SMT) that delivers efficiency of over 50% on all worldwide cellular bands. It is automotive approved and has passed 20G vibration testing. With the PA.25, there’s no need for custom design or complicated installation, you can purchase any amount and we can support everybody on integration. This antenna is already shipping in high volumes globally into automotive, tracking (asset and people), POS payment terminals and telemedical.

Making Life Easier for Our Customers

“Working with Taoglas was very easy, I had an open dialogue right away and it was easy to access the decision makers within the company. — Ashok Teckchandani, CEO, Ayantra

“Ayantra’s goal is to make fleet management affordable both in terms of price and usage. We want people to get the maximum benefit from our products,” said Teckchandani. “Our products need to be easy to install and use – that’s the key. Simple installation, easy to use, get on the web and you are done. That’s the core of what makes FleetSight successful. My experience with Taoglas and their antenna offerings, the PA25 for cellular and GP.25a for GPS were similar. Installation was quick and easy. The product was ready and used in the field almost immediately.”

Direct Response

“Working with Taoglas was very easy, I had an open dialogue right away and it was easy to access the decision makers within the company,” said Teckchandani. “They responded right away with the information I needed. I will be approaching Taoglas for custom antenna designs in the future.”

Market Trend

Taoglas’ O’Shea knows that tracking and monitoring assets is a critical service for any company in fleet management.

“The antenna is a vital link in this communication chain and the most common point of failure in small wireless devices. High transmission, sensitivity and reception are important to maintain the integrity of Ayantra’s service to their customers. We provide solutions that keep products tracking in areas where cell phone coverage is week. In fact, we have seen these products retain reception in areas where there is no cell phone coverage. I would encourage all customers to engage with us so we can help them select the right antenna for their application. That is what Ayantra did and we look forward to working with them again in the future.”