Boffins working for Edinburgh-based Sofant Technologies have designed a miniature antenna that could transform the performance of smartphones and tablets.

Dubbing it the “world’s smallest smart antenna”, the team think it will make poor reception, dropped calls and short battery life things of the past. The technology combines tunable RF Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (RF-MEMS) modules and Sofant Intelligent Software so to make Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 4G connectivity much better.

Sofant wants to license its designs to global smartphone manufacturers and wants a turnover of over £10 million in five years. The company has already licensed an early technology demonstrator to a large OEM and attracted considerable interest from several leading manufacturers.

Sergio Tansini, CEO of Sofant said that antenna design had not kept pace with the rapid evolution of smart phone technology and this invention was putting it back on track.