Zetifi wins design award for safety-focused smart antenna

Zetifi has won a Silver Award in the Product Design Technology category at the 2026 BETTER FUTURE Australian Design Awards for its UHF CB Smart Antenna, which it designs and manufactures in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

The company positions the product as a shift from passive vehicle antennas towards an antenna that acts as a connectivity hub. Zetifi said the device can generate duress alerts, lone-worker check-ins, automated asset tracking and real-time location reporting.

From passive to active

Vehicle antennas for two-way radios have typically functioned as passive components that pass signals between the radio and the outside environment. Zetifi's product integrates active electronics into the antenna housing. This places computing and event detection at the point where radio frequency signals enter the vehicle.

The design combines GPS, Bluetooth, Wi‑Fi, cellular and support for UHF radios in a single unit. Zetifi said it uses cellular and Starlink for backhaul. The company also said the product can connect into other systems through open-source APIs.

The award win draws attention to a category of in-vehicle equipment that has expanded alongside broader fleet digitisation. Fleet operators and field-based organisations have increased use of telematics, compliance systems and worker safety tooling, particularly in sectors where staff operate alone or at distance, such as agriculture, mining and road maintenance.

Zetifi described the smart antenna as a way to consolidate multiple pieces of vehicle equipment. The company said it can replace separate antennas, routers and telematics boxes with a single device on the vehicle exterior.

Safety focus

Zetifi said the antenna began as a project to improve RF performance and deliver reliable coverage in remote environments. According to the company, field use then expanded the focus beyond signal quality and resilience.

In its description of early deployment, Zetifi said customers asked whether a UHF button press could trigger a duress alert and whether vehicles could check workers in and out automatically. The company also referenced use cases tied to verifying the presence of radios, personal protective equipment and tools.

Those scenarios sit within a wider technology mix that includes satellite connectivity for vehicles. Zetifi pointed to Starlink and other networks that it said have made "coverage almost everywhere" more realistic for mobile operations.

Design and engineering

The smart antenna combines mechanical design, electronics and software in a single housing. Zetifi said development work covered mechanical design, RF, electronics, firmware, cloud architecture and app design, alongside field testing.

Product features listed by the company include triggers based on UHF button presses and Bluetooth Low Energy tag events. Zetifi said these can initiate duress alerts, check-ins and location reports without additional screens or apps.

The company described an industrial design that uses a matte black, low-glare finish and a compact form factor. Zetifi also highlighted manufacturing and assembly choices, including what it called parallel radome profiles for part reuse and a compression holder for the printed circuit board array.

On RF and electronics, Zetifi said it combined simulation with on-road validation. It also said on-board electronics logged performance over thousands of kilometres. The company linked that process to RF quality assurance and to the use of thinner coax cabling for cable management and longevity.

Zetifi said the software side includes open APIs and over-the-air updates. It also said it has worked with Icom and Telstra as part of its ecosystem approach for safety and fleet features.

The company described test and validation processes that included shaker table testing and long-term field trials. Zetifi said the programme supports a five-year warranty.

Durability and lifecycle

Zetifi also framed the antenna as a product designed for long service life and efficient energy use. The company said RF and electronics design work reduces wasted power and supports long duty cycles in harsh conditions.

It also cited rugged construction, high ingress protection and vibration-tolerant mechanics. Zetifi said these measures reduce failures and the need for early replacement. It added that standard mounting and cabling, along with over-the-air firmware updates, can extend the useful life of the antenna as software and use cases change.

"Winning this award is recognition of our expertise and insight to imagine the possibilities, develop strategies to bring them into being and pursue market opportunities with precision and patience, says Dan Winson, Founder and CEO, Zetifi. "At the same time, our ongoing success is heavily contingent on the strength of Zetifi's relationships with our key technology partners and dealer community which has enabled our company to achieve extraordinary growth and invest in solutions to meet market the demands of businesses requiring solutions for connectivity, worker safety and compliance reporting."

Zetifi said its smart antenna technology is used across agriculture, fleet, mining and enterprise sectors, where it supports telematics, telemetry and safety systems for vehicles and field equipment.