Quater Wave Antenna bent around battery?

[Søren]

Hi,

I am wandering if it would be possible at all, to wrap a quarter wave antenna printed on flex pcb around a cylindrical battery (LiFePo4)?

Would the radiation be totally disrupted by the battery, or would the radiation be omni-directional? The challenge being, that the pcb is aprox. the size of the battery and the battery therefore would shield the radiation in one direction. The application would need tuning for sure. If possible, would this approach be more efficient then a chip antenna, which also could suffer from disruption by the battery, in the direction of the battery? 

Any thoughts ?

[haakonsh]

I'm afraid that won't be possible. The metal in the battery will act as a ferrite core in an inductor and keep the EM fields from radiating. You'll have to pick one axis of poor RF performance and rely on reflections to get the packets through.