Waterproof Antenna Enclosure Design

Before contacting us, the Customer had already prepared a preliminary device concept and specified the enclosure requirements. Our team was able to jump into development right away, as there were a great number of objectives to fulfill along the way. The industrial designer and mechanical engineer examined the proposed concept. After that, our team suggested refinements and agreed the changes with the Customer.

We picked many solutions for the enclosure material that were suitable in terms of radio-frequency permeability. Then we simulated the enclosure being submerged to a specific depth in order to calculate the thickness of its wall and other load-bearing parts. Our engineers didn't stop there; they also focused on manufacturability. We intended to avoid overengineering in terms of appearance, strength and durability. This leads us not to expensive materials as well as complicated parts in the enclosure design so that there would not be high production set-up costs, such as injection molding of plastics. We created the prototype out of polyethylene water pipes and sheets that were commercially available.

Prototyping with commercially available off-the-shelf materials and assemblies can save a lot of money. If we had started to make prototypes, design tooling and build the production chain, instead of using standard pipes, then changing the distance between antennas would have crossed out hundreds of hours of engineering work.

The Customer received an inexpensive prototype and began its testing. To reduce the device’s buoyancy, we suggested giving up a cylindrical shape of the enclosure. It is simple but very bulky. The initial cylindrical design was replaced with separate enclosures for each of the antennas. This resulted in a 5-fold reduction in the weight of ballast necessary to create negative buoyancy. The prototype could still be made of standard polyethylene pipes.