Measurement on simple vehicle antenna system using a geostationary satellite in Japan

Abstract

This paper provided a measurement campaign of simple antenna system mounted on a vehicle by utilising a Japanese geostationary test satellite called Engineering Test Satellite VIII (ETS-VIII). We developed an antenna system that was compact, light weight, and promising in low cost production. The antenna system was built by a 16-cm patch array antenna, which had simple satellite-tracking method that controlled by a control unit as the vehicle's bearing was updated from a navigation system in real time. A Global Positioning System (GPS) module was utilised for navigation system to provide accurate information of the vehicle's position and bearing during travelling. The control unit was used as the antenna-beam control and measured-data acquisition. The antenna system was thoroughly examined in the measurement under the line of sight (LOS) areas as well as the blockage areas in order to evaluate the propagation characteristics caused by utility poles, pedestrian overpasses and vegetation-covered road. In this measurement, received signal power and average bit error rate (BER) were simultaneously retrieved. Steadily received levels and BER were satisfactorily attained during satellite-tracking in LOS area. Moreover, the fade characteristics and BER performance were investigated while signal blockage happened. The measurement results were presented here to grasp their attenuations and effects on the bit error rate in terms of fade depth. With these results, we can consider to design a cost-effective mobile satellite application for future technology.