MinePoynt “HELI Range” Antenna Development History

Poynting designed its first single band WiFi helical antennas for mining and tunneling communication more than 20 years ago. The company patented these innovative antennas way before their time. The patent has expired in the meantime, with some competitors producing similar antennas for the last few years. These circular polarised antennas were very popular for mine tunnels for two reasons; a) their RF propagation abilities in harsh mine environments proved to cover 3 to 4 times the distance of conventional antennas, and farther in some cases and b) these tubular, horizontally mounted antennas aka “Bazooka antennas” did not take up much space on the side or top of the tunnel.

The development of the mini-HELI Antenna range

As underground mine communication demands increased, the company received requests for dual band 2.4 and 5.8 GHz antennas for dual band WiFi applications. With the proliferation of IoT and M2M communications above and below ground, a requirement for broadband antennas that covers WIFI-6 and LTE/5G bands was born. This resulted in an innovative and novel design which was conceived by the company’s chief RF engineer; Dr. Derek Nitch, who designed the basis for this antenna range around a tapered helical antenna. What makes this tapered helical antenna unique is that both the diameter and the spacing of the helical radiator is tapered. The antenna is back-end fired and changing the spacing improved the antenna performance across the whole band. Poynting have now patented and/or registered the various designs related to this new antenna range.

miniHELI Circular Polarised 2.4GHz & 5GHz Antennas

The new HELI-11, 12 & 13 antennas are unidirectional, circular polarised, mine tunnel antennas, which are specifically designed for dualband WiFi access points and mesh nodes for the 2.4-2.5GHz & 5-6GHz frequency band. Poynting also have the HELI-17, 18 & 19 antennas that are bi-directional, i.e. radiating in both directions of a tunnel.

miniHELI Circular Polarised 1.7 to 7.2 GHz Antennas

The HELI-31 antenna is a unidirectional, log-periodic spiral antenna, specifically meant for technologies that require an ultra-wideband circular polarized antenna. The HELI-31 obtains consistent performance over the entire band, making it ideal for LTE Carrier Aggregation, 5G and WiFi-6 or simply a single antenna which can be used across multiple technologies.

Mounting Accessories

Various brackets and assemblies are available for mounting these antennas to the tunnel roof, which include the BRKT-45 that houses two miniHELI antennas, an AP/node and is level adjustable when bolted to the ceiling. The BRKT-47 additionally provides the option to mount directly to the mine ceiling bolts. As the most popular miniHELI antenna is expected to be the HELI-19 bi-directional 2.4 & 5GHz antenna; 2x HELI-19 antennas are combined as a HELI-22 antenna assembly, which also includes the mounting bracket.