Tait Electronics has joined the ranks of the world's top technology innovators after winning a prestigious international product design award for the development of a wireless product using innovative MIMO Space Time technologies.

The IEE Innovation in Engineering Awards were held in London earlier this month, and recognise and celebrate excellence in engineering innovation across a range of industry sectors and engineering capabilities.

Tait won the Product Design category ahead of three other short-listed finalists, with the panel of internationally renowned judges describing its MIMO development as "an inspired and ingenious design innovation with the potential to transform many lives".

The 12-strong Tait Group Research team has been conducting intensive research into MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) technology for about three years. The MIMO concept utilises multiple antennas to send and receive multiple streams of data over a single channel - increasing the radio channel throughput, improving the received signal quality and substantially increasing data capacity in communications systems.

Tait Research Achieves World Firsts

Tait Group Research Manager Doug McConnell says the IEE award has given his team international credit for its significant research efforts, which include achieving a number of world firsts in the implementation of MIMO Space Time technology.

"We're immensely proud of our achievements in MIMO research and development, and this kind of recognition gives us much-deserved credibility in this field. It also means we can benchmark ourselves against international companies carrying out similar high-calibre research," Mr McConnell says.

"We're a tiny team by global standards, and our research is a substantial team effort - we have academics, technicians and engineers with a diverse range of skills and experience, they all deserve credit."

Principal engineer Dr Ian McLoughlin, a key member of Tait Group Research and also a member of the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers), entered the awards on behalf of the group.

The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology funded the research through its New Economy Research Fund, after Tait formed an international taskforce with MIMO expert researchers and collaborators from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and Singapore.

Foundation Business Manager Sue Pauwels says Tait's long-term commitment to research, constantly extending its knowledge and capability with a focus on commercial application, makes it an excellent company for the Foundation to partner. She also praises Tait for its support and development of new graduates.

Tait Group Research hopes its winning honours in the IEE Innovation in Engineering Awards will raise the profile of its MIMO development amongst telecommunications companies around the globe. In the meantime however, the group is keeping a strong focus on its product development phase.

The IEE is an international organisation for electronics, electrical, manufacturing and IT professionals, and the IEE Innovation in Engineering Awards is in its inaugural year.