A Circularly Polarized Meander Loop Antenna Design for GNSS Application

Abstract

A circularly polarized (CP) meander loop antenna design for GNSS applications is presented. The antenna size is 52.5 × 52.5 × 0.76 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> and it is placed 10 mm above a 100 × 100 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> metal plane. The proposed antenna utilizes a meandered loop antenna and has applied a perturbed element into the loop to excite two equal electric fields with near 90° phase difference, thereby radiating a good CP radiation. In addition, a triangular patch is loaded to the two diagonal corners of the loop are for improving the CP performances, as well as maintaining its CP radiation even under the interference of a large metal surface beneath it. The simulated 10 dB impedance bandwidth of proposed antenna was 2.2% (1.557–1.593 GHz), and the measured one was 2.4% (1.553–1.591 GHz). The simulated and measured 3 dB AR bandwidths were 0.8% (1.57–1.583 GHz) and 1.02% (1.567–1.583 GHz), respectively. Last, the proposed antenna is suitable for GNSS application that has large metal surface/ground, such as the roof of a vehicle.