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ANT (network)
ANT (originates from Adaptive Network Topology) is a proprietary (but open access) multicast wireless sensor network technology designed and marketed by ANT Wireless (a division of Garmin Canada). It provides personal area networks (PANs), primarily for activity trackers. ANT was introduced by Dynastream Innovations in 2003, followed by the low-power standard ANT+ in 2004, before Dynastream was bought by Garmin in 2006.
ANT defines a wireless communications protocol stack that enables hardware operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band to communicate by establishing standard rules for co-existence, data representation, signalling, authentication, and error detection. It is conceptually similar to Bluetooth low energy (BLE), but is oriented towards use with sensors.
As of November 2020,[update] the ANT website lists almost 200 brands using ANT technology. Samsung and, to a lesser part, Fujitsu, HTC, Kyocera, Nokia and Sharp added native support (without the use of a USB adapter) to their smartphones, with Samsung starting support with the Galaxy S4 and ending support with the Galaxy S20 line.
In 2025, Garmin announced that they would end their certification for ANT+ devices, blaming changes in wireless communication regulations. This is likely to lead to future devices dropping ANT+ support in favour of BLE.
ANT-powered nodes are capable of acting as sources or sinks within a wireless sensor network concurrently. This means the nodes can act as transmitters, receivers, or transceivers to route traffic to other nodes. In addition, every node is capable of determining when to transmit based on the activity of its neighbors.
ANT can be configured to spend long periods in a low-power sleep mode (drawing current on the order of microamperes), wake up briefly to communicate (when current rises to a peak of 22 milliamperes (at −5 dB) during reception and 13.5 milliamperes (at −5 dB) during transmission) and return to sleep mode. Average current draw for low message rates is less than 60 microamperes on the nRF24AP1 chip. The newer nRF24AP2 has improved on these figures.
ANT is considered a network/transport layer protocol. The underlying link layer protocol is Shockburst, which is used in many other Nordic Semiconductor "NRF" chips such as those used with Arduino. ANT uses Shockburst at 1 Mbit/s with GFSK modulation, translating to a 1 MHz bandwidth, resulting in 126 available radio channels over the ISM band.
ANT channels are separate from the underlying Shockburst RF channels. They are identified simply by a channel number built into the packet, and on the nRF24AP2 78 channels can be used. Each ANT channel consists of one or more transmitting nodes and one or more receiving nodes, depending on the network topology. Any node can transmit or receive, so the channels are bi-directional. Newer versions of ANT can back one ANT channel with several RF channels through frequency agility.
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ANT (network)
ANT (originates from Adaptive Network Topology) is a proprietary (but open access) multicast wireless sensor network technology designed and marketed by ANT Wireless (a division of Garmin Canada). It provides personal area networks (PANs), primarily for activity trackers. ANT was introduced by Dynastream Innovations in 2003, followed by the low-power standard ANT+ in 2004, before Dynastream was bought by Garmin in 2006.
ANT defines a wireless communications protocol stack that enables hardware operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band to communicate by establishing standard rules for co-existence, data representation, signalling, authentication, and error detection. It is conceptually similar to Bluetooth low energy (BLE), but is oriented towards use with sensors.
As of November 2020,[update] the ANT website lists almost 200 brands using ANT technology. Samsung and, to a lesser part, Fujitsu, HTC, Kyocera, Nokia and Sharp added native support (without the use of a USB adapter) to their smartphones, with Samsung starting support with the Galaxy S4 and ending support with the Galaxy S20 line.
In 2025, Garmin announced that they would end their certification for ANT+ devices, blaming changes in wireless communication regulations. This is likely to lead to future devices dropping ANT+ support in favour of BLE.
ANT-powered nodes are capable of acting as sources or sinks within a wireless sensor network concurrently. This means the nodes can act as transmitters, receivers, or transceivers to route traffic to other nodes. In addition, every node is capable of determining when to transmit based on the activity of its neighbors.
ANT can be configured to spend long periods in a low-power sleep mode (drawing current on the order of microamperes), wake up briefly to communicate (when current rises to a peak of 22 milliamperes (at −5 dB) during reception and 13.5 milliamperes (at −5 dB) during transmission) and return to sleep mode. Average current draw for low message rates is less than 60 microamperes on the nRF24AP1 chip. The newer nRF24AP2 has improved on these figures.
ANT is considered a network/transport layer protocol. The underlying link layer protocol is Shockburst, which is used in many other Nordic Semiconductor "NRF" chips such as those used with Arduino. ANT uses Shockburst at 1 Mbit/s with GFSK modulation, translating to a 1 MHz bandwidth, resulting in 126 available radio channels over the ISM band.
ANT channels are separate from the underlying Shockburst RF channels. They are identified simply by a channel number built into the packet, and on the nRF24AP2 78 channels can be used. Each ANT channel consists of one or more transmitting nodes and one or more receiving nodes, depending on the network topology. Any node can transmit or receive, so the channels are bi-directional. Newer versions of ANT can back one ANT channel with several RF channels through frequency agility.