URI inventor finds big rewards<br> in tiniest creations

ROBERT VINCENT has been tinkering with electronics since his childhood, in the early 1950s. Now, one of his inventions has been licensed by a major auto parts maker. /
ROBERT VINCENT has been tinkering with electronics since his childhood, in the early 1950s. Now, one of his inventions has been licensed by a major auto parts maker. /

Robert Vincent’s lifelong obsession with electronic radios has paid off. Vincent, a staff technician in the physics department at the University of Rhode Island, recently patented a tiny, flat antenna that resembles a small piece of paper but performs as well as much larger antennas.

The invention has been picked up by Lear Corp., a giant automotive supplier and major player in remotely operated automobile systems, which has licensed six applications of Vincent’s antenna.

Lear, which supplies parts and systems to General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and a number of European car manufacturers, will incorporate the antenna into several products, including remote systems for tire-pressure monitoring, keyless entry and remote car starting, according to the company.

“You’re going to be able to literally monitor all of your car functions from a remote location,” Vincent said. “And you’re going to be able to do this from some incredible distances. Right now, typically what do you get for a keyless entry – 30, 40, 50 feet, if you’re lucky? Well, they’re going to be able to extend this to hundreds of feet.”

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Vincent, 64, has been experimenting with radios and antennas since he was a child in Warren in the 1950s. When he got his first amateur radio license at age 14, he built his own transmitter, put up an antenna and used an old receiver to talk to people all over the world.

But Vincent has taken a roundabout road to success as an inventor. He was 48 when he came to URI in the early 1990s to pursue a bachelor’s degree, after working more than three decades as an electronics engineer for Raytheon Corp., Sippican Inc. and KVH Industries Inc.

He was hired as a technician in the university’s physics department, where Vincent had befriended a professor who recognized his passion and skill. Since then, Vincent has worked out of a former barn on the edge of URI’s campus, repairing research equipment, assisting graduate students and faculty members, and developing his own inventions.

Vincent spent eight years perfecting his tiny antenna after conceiving the idea in 1995. Working to shrink a standard DLM antenna without losing bandwidth or efficiency, Vincent invented a breakthrough design that essentially flattens the antenna’s three-dimensional helix and load-coil shape onto a tiny, two-dimensional surface.

“If you tried to make a three-dimensional DLM [this small], you’d have to wind the helix 90 turns of wire about an inch long on 8/1000s of an inch diameter,” he said. “So I created basically a flat helix. It’s kind of one of those ambiguities – when you think of a helix, it’s three-dimensional. But in this case, no, it’s not. It’s two-dimensional, it’s flat. And they behave exactly the same.”

Because it is as thin and flexible as a piece of paper, Vincent’s antenna can be folded, curled or laid flat inside the case of a cell phone, or the tire of a car – which is exactly what Lear Corp. plans to do with it.

The antenna will play an integral role in a remote tire pressure monitoring system that Lear is currently developing to satisfy new federal regulations slated to take effect next year.

Vincent said he expects Lear’s tire pressure monitoring system to dominate the world market.

“They have a battery-less tire-pressure monitoring system, and basically, it was my antenna that made it possible,” he said. “They’re in the process of making them. They’re going to have the only one in the world.”

Under an agreement Vincent signed with the University of Rhode Island Foundation, he will receive 40 percent of any commercial profits from his inventions, URI will receive 40 percent, and 20 percent will go to student scholarships in URI’s physics department.

Vincent and URI would not disclose the financial terms of their deal with Lear.

Vincent also has several other patents pending, including other applications for his DLM antenna. He is working with Warwick-based Vishay Electro Films Inc. to develop even smaller antennas on thin film for use in cell phones, other wireless communication applications and radio frequency identification. •

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