[qiqitori]

Learned about superheterodyne receivers. Recently I've been studying up on RF technology, happened to come across superheterodyne receivers a short while ago, decided to research them today, saw that Technology Connections had a video on them, watched it, and felt reasonably enlightened.

[brcmthrowaway]

Are there AI enabled antennas by now?

[lormayna]

I don't know about AI antennas, but smart antennas[1] are a things since more than 15 years. Basically they are array of antennas that can change via software the directivity (mainly used in radar systems) or increase/reduce power transmission and direction (this is used in 5G cell).

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_antenna

[neversaydie]

There's also this, from long before the gen AI era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna

[lormayna]

This is probably one really fascinating projects, but there is no AI behind this kind of things. It's just randomly trying new configurations and select the best ones in an evolving way.

During my master degree, I attended an antenna design course and I almost burnt my laptop trying to optimize a dipole array as a side project.