Global Positioning System Band Research Articles

Design and Study of a Microstrip Patch Antenna for GPS Application

A microstrip patch antenna for Global Positioning System (GPS) application is presented in this study. It has a rectangular shape with two notched slots. The notched slots are introduced to improve the adaptation between the microstrip line and the antenna. The antenna was designed and simulated by CST using FR-4 material as the substrate with relative permittivity of 4.3. The proposed microstrip antenna is designed to operate in the GPS band frequency from 1.555 GHz to 1.595 GHz. The performance analysis of the proposed antennas has been carried out in terms of return loss (dB), gain (dB), and VSWR.

Compact circularly polarized cross dipole antenna for RFID handheld readers/IoT applications

The radio frequency identification (RFID) and global positioning system (GPS) are employed for indoor and outdoor tracking scenarios. This paper presents an amalgamated identification mechanism for sensing and tracking in an Internet of things (IoT) network. A low-profile, compact, multi-functional antenna configuration is proposed for the amalgamation application. The antenna operates in the 915 MHz (UHF), 2.45 GHz, and 5.8 GHz RFID bands, along with the 1.575 GHz GPS L1 band. The presented antenna is a cross dipole configuration consisting of three pairs of dipole elements printed on both sides of the dielectric substrate. The first and third dipole pairs are larger and smaller metal strips with half-arrow shaped ends that excite the 915 MHz and 5.8 GHz bands, respectively. The second dipole pair is an asymmetric triangular-shaped radiator that excites the 1.575 GHz and 2.45 GHz bands. Using quarter wavelength ring delay lines, circular polarization is obtained in each band. The GPS band, in combination with the RFID bands, improves the efficiency and accuracy of the reader tracking device. The proposed multiband antenna prototype is fabricated on the 45° rotated substrate material, resulting in a compact size of 0.21λ0 × 0.21λ0 × 0.004λ0. The antenna simulation and measurement results are in close agreement.

Design of a Deployable Helix Antenna at L-Band for a 1-Unit CubeSat: From Theoretical Analysis to Flight Model Results.

The Cat-4 mission aims at demonstrating the capabilities of a CubeSat to perform Earth Observation (EO) by integrating a combined GNSS-R and Microwave Radiometer payload into a 1-Unit CubeSat. One of the greatest challenges is the design of an antenna that respects the 1-Unit CubeSat envelope while operating at the different frequency bands: Global Positioning System (GPS) L1 and Galileo E1 band (1575 MHz), GPS L2 band (1227 MHz), and the microwave radiometry band (1400–1427 MHz). Moreover, it requires between 8 and 12 dB of directivity depending on the band whilst providing at least 10 dB of front-to-back lobe ratio in L1 and L2 GPS bands. After a trade-off analysis on the type of antenna that could be used, a helix antenna was found to be the most suitable option to comply with the requirements, since it can be stowed during launch and deployed once in orbit. This article presents the antenna design from a radiation performance point of view starting with a theoretical analysis, then presenting the numerical simulations, the measurements in an Engineering Model (EM), and finally the final design and performance of the Flight Model (FM).

Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Different Types of Jamming Signals on Commercial GNSS Receivers

The received global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal has a very low power due to traveling a very long distance and to the nature of the signal’s propagation medium. Thus, GNSS signals are easily susceptible to signal interference. Signal interference can cause severe degradation or interruption in GNSS position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services which could be very critical, especially in safety-critical applications. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the presence of jamming signals on a high-end GNSS receiver and investigate the benefits of using a multi-constellation system under such circumstances. Several jamming signals are considered in this research, including narrowband and wideband signals that are located on GPS L1 or GLONASS L1 frequency bands. Quasi-real dynamic trajectories are generated using the Spirent™ GSS6700 GNSS signal simulator combined with an interference signal generator through a Spirent™ GSS8366 unit. The performance evaluation was carried out using several evaluation metrics, including signal power degradation, navigation solution availability, dilution of precision (DOP), and positioning accuracy. The multi-constellation system presented better performance over the global positioning system (GPS)-only constellation in most cases. Moreover, jamming the GPS band caused more critical effects than jamming the GLONASS band.

Dual-Band, Dual-Sense Textile Antenna With AMC Backing for Localization Using GPS and WBAN/WLAN

A wearable textile antenna with dual-band and dual-sense characteristics is presented in this work. It operates at the 2.45 GHz band for WBAN and WLAN applications, and at the 1.575 GHz band for Global Positioning System (GPS) applications. An antenna backing based on an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) plane operating at 2.45 GHz band is introduced to reduce the backward radiation and to improve antenna gain. It consists of a $3\times 3$ array of square patch unit cells, where each unit cell is integrated with four square slits and a square ring. A square-shaped patch is then located on top of the substrate as its radiator. To enable dual-band operation, two corners of this radiator are truncated, with each of the four corners incorporated with a rectangular slit to enable its circular polarization characteristic in the GPS band. Simulation and experimental results are in good agreement and indicate proper antenna operation with linear polarization in the 2.45 GHz band and circular polarization in the 1.575 GHz band, with realized gain of 1.94 dBi and 1.98 dBic, respectively.

Compact broadband dual‐band circularly polarised antenna for universal UHF RFID handheld reader and GPS applications

This study introduces a simple, compact broadband dual-band circularly polarised slot antenna suitable for the use in the compact universal ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader devices and Global Positioning System (GPS) applications. The proposed antenna is fed using an open-end coplanar waveguide with an inverted `L' structure. To realise a broadband circular polarisation and good impedance matching, an inverted L-shaped strip line is inserted adequately into a square slot at the right centre of the slot toward the slot centre. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed antenna exhibits a 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 552 MHz (716-1268 MHz) and 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 564 MHz (824-1388 MHz). Additionally, the antenna gains are 3.8 and 4.29 dBi throughout UHF RFID band and GPS band, respectively. The proposed antenna has a wide AR bandwidth, a compact size, and a simple structure. Furthermore, the proposed antenna is printed on one substrate layer with an overall size of 112 × 112 × 1.6 mm 3 , which makes it more practical for universal UHF RFID handheld readers and GPS applications.

Design and fabrication of triple‐band folded dipole antenna for GPS/DCS/WLAN/WiMAX applications

AbstractIn this article, a triple‐band folded dipole antenna consists of modified planar dual‐element folded dipoles and a monopole for global positioning system (GPS)/digital communication system (DCS)/wireless local area network (WLAN)/worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) applications is proposed. The triple‐band operation is enabled by applying a bilateral symmetric structure and coupling by adding stubs to the wideband antenna. The antenna passbands are satisfying the typical bandwidth requirement for GPS, DCS, WLAN, and WiMAX bands. The antenna is printed on FR4 substrate (εr = 4.3, tanδ = 0.025) having a thickness of 1.6 mm. Simulation and measurement results show that the antenna presents stable radiation pattern with a moderate gain at the desired frequency bands.

Compact Mobile Quad-Band Slot Antenna Design for GPS L1, WiMAX, and WLAN Applications

In this paper, an asymmetric compact multiband slot antenna is proposed for global positioning system (GPS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), and wireless area network (WLAN) applications. The top plane, a ground is composed of a rectangular slot with a trapezoidal-like stub, an inverted U-shaped slot at the right side of the rectangular slot, an inverted L-shaped slot at the left side of the rectangular slot, and three stubs. The proposed antenna is fed by an asymmetric cross-parasitic strip on the bottom plane. By properly designing the slots and stubs, four resonant frequency bands are achieved with -10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidths of 50 MHz, 400 MHz, 390 MHz, and 830 MHz in the 1.57 GHz GPS band, 2.4 GHz WLAN band, 3.5 GHz WiMAX band, and 5.5 GHz WLAN bands, respectively. The antenna has a total compact size of 13 mm × 32 mm × 0.8 mm. Simulated and measured results indicate that the proposed antenna has sufficient bandwidth and good radiation performance in each band.

Wideband circularly polarized his backed fan‐shaped antenna with directional patterns covering L1‐L5 GPS bands

ABSTRACTA wideband circularly polarized (CP) fan‐shaped antenna employing a sequential phase feed network (SPFN) covering L1 to L5 global positioning system (GPS) bands is presented. The antenna geometry consists of two crossed bow‐tie shaped dipoles with four arms which offers bidirectional CP radiation. A SPFN feeds dipole arms with equal amplitudes and 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° phase values. To achieve directional patterns, the bidirectional antenna is backed by a mushroom‐like electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure which serves as wideband high impedance surface (HIS). Measurement verifies that the HIS backed antenna offers acceptable impedance matching, axial ratio (AR), antenna efficiency, gain and pattern performance between 1170 MHZ to 1630 MHZ (around 32% fractional bandwidth). The measured broadside (θ = 0°) AR is below 3 dB from 1.15 GHz to 1.7 GHz (38% bandwidth). The directional RHCP measured de‐embedded gain is 5.8 dBic, 6.1 dBic, 5.5 dBic and 4.6 dBic at 1170 GHz, 1220 GHz, 1380 GHz and 1570 GHz, respectively. The de‐embedded antenna efficiency is better than 60% between 1.15 GHz and 1.6 GHz with the maximum of 90% at 1.4 GHz. The measured and simulation results agree very well. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 59:497–500, 2017

A Novel Ancient Coin-Like Fractal Multiband Antenna for Wireless Applications

This study proposes a novel square-circle structure fractal multibroadband planar antenna, similar to an ancient Chinese coin-like structure, for second generation (2G), third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), WLAN, and navigation wireless applications. The device is based on the principles and structural features of conventional monopole antenna elements, combined with the advantages of microstrip antennas and fractal geometry. A fractal method was presented for circular nested square slotted structures, similar to an ancient Chinese copper coin. The proposed antenna adapted five iterations on a fractal structure radiator, which covers more than ten mobile applications in three broad frequency bands with a bandwidth of 70% (1.43–2.97 GHz) for DCS1800, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, LTE33-41, Bluetooth, GPS (Global Positioning System), BDS (BeiDou Navigation Satellite System), GLONSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), GALILEO (Galileo Satellite Navigation System), and WLAN frequency bands, 16.32% (3.32–3.91 GHz) for LTE42, LTE43, and WiMAX frequency bands, and 10.92% (4.85–5.41 GHz) for WLAN frequency band. The proposed antenna was fabricated on a 1.6 mm thick G10/FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a size of 88.5 × 60 mm2. The measurement results reveal that the omnidirectional radiation patterns achieve a gain of 1.16–3.75 dBi and an efficiency of 40–72%. The good agreement between the measurement results and simulation validates the proposed design approach and satisfies the requirements for various wireless applications.

Analysis and Design of a Low-Cost Dual-Band Compact Circularly Polarized Antenna for GPS Application

A compact dual-coupled shorting probe (DCSP)-loaded patch antenna for dual-band global positioning system (GPS) application is presented. Due to the use of shorting loaded technique, the overall size of the antenna is only $\frac{{\lambda_0}} {8}\cdot 8 \times \frac{{\lambda_0}} {8}\cdot 8 \times \frac{{\lambda_0}} {19}$ , and high-permittivity substrate is replaced by low-cost F4b substrate. The DCSP technique that this communication proposed enables this antenna to resonate at L1/L2 GPS bands. Simulated and measured voltage standing-wave ratio (VSWR) is below 1.5 over both the bands, and boresight RHCP gain is 4.49 and 4.12 dBic over a large ground plane with 41 and 57 MHz 3-dB gain bandwidth at the L2 and L1 band, respectively. Therefore, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for low-cost, dual-band, and compact patch antenna.

Exploring approaches to improve the performance of autonomous monitoring with imperfect data in location-aware wireless sensor networks

In recent years, information and sensing technologies have been applied to the construction industry to collect and provide rich information to facilitate decision making processes. One of the applications is using location data to support autonomous crane safety monitoring (e.g., collision avoidance and dangerous areas control). Several location-aware wireless technologies such as GPS (Global Positioning System), RFID (Radio-frequency identification), and Ultra-Wide Band sensors, have been proposed to provide location information for autonomous safety monitoring. However, previous studies indicated that imperfections (errors, uncertainty, and inconsistency) exist in the data collected from those sensors and the data imperfections have great impacts on autonomous safety monitoring system performance. This paper explores five computationally light-weight approaches to deal with the data imperfections, aiming to improve the system performance. The authors built a scaled autonomous crane safety monitoring testbed with a mounted localization system to collect location data and developed five representative test cases based on a live construction jobsite. Seven hundred and sixty location readings were collected at thirty-eight test points from the sensors. Those location data was fed into the reasoning mechanisms with five approaches to generate the safety decisions at those thirty-eight test points and evaluate system performance in terms of precision, recall and accuracy. The results indicate that system performance can be improved if at least ten position readings from sensors can be collected at small intervals at any location along the moving path. However, by including additional data such as velocity and acceleration that may be read from devices mounted on workers, localization error may be significantly reduced. These findings represent a path forward to improve localization accuracy by mixing imperfect data from the sensed environment with supplemental input.

A Circularly Polarized Multiple Radiating Mode Microstrip Antenna for Satellite Receive Applications

A beam peak and null steering multiple radiating mode based microstrip patch antenna is presented for satellite receive applications operating at L1 Global Positioning System (GPS) band. Two collocated microstrip patch antennas were designed to produce TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sub> and TM <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">21</sub> radiating modes. These orthogonal and circularly polarized radiation patterns were combined enabling full hemispherical steering of a single beam peak and null. Using theoretical analysis and full-wave simulation, the multimode aperture was designed to operate over a 25 MHz bandwidth centered at 1.575 GHz, which covers the L1 GPS band. Impedance and radiation pattern measurements of the passive antenna aperture were in close agreement with the simulated data. Next, this antenna was integrated with an active feed network allowing full hemispherical control over the beam null position and limited beam peak scan in ≈ 5 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">°</sup> increments. Using a simple calibration scheme, the measured beam peak and null elevation angles were programmed to within <; 10° of the intended value based on simulation. Azimuthal positions were consistently offset by ≈ 20 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">°</sup> from the simulated value, which could be resolved in the board layout by phase matching the transmission lines and test point locations. The antenna maintained high total efficiency >68% and low axial ratio 3 dB over all steering angles.

Dual‐band microstrip‐fed bow‐tie antenna for GPS and WLAN application

ABSTRACTA novel microstrip‐fed bow‐tie antenna for the global positioning system (GPS) and wireless local area network (WLAN) applications is presented in this letter. The proposed antenna consists of two pairs of printed bow‐tie patches with different dimensions, which can generate dual‐band characteristics independently. Based on this design concept, a prototype of the dual‐band antenna is fabricated and measured. The simulated and measured reflection coefficients, together with the radiation patterns, are presented and compared. Measurements show that the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed dual‐band bow‐tie antenna is about 670 MHz (1.22–1.89 GHz) and 1130 MHz (5.24–6.37 GHz), which can cover both the GPS and WLAN bands. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2088–2091, 2014

Linearly polarised planar inverted F‐antenna for Global Positioning System and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access applications

A compact dual-band planar inverted-F antenna in conjunction with an inverted L-shaped parasitic and reduced ground-plane structure working in the GPS (Global Positioning System) band (1565–1585 MHz) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access band (3300–3800 MHz) is presented. The antenna meets the strict space requirements of the portable devices and the final design fits a volume of 100 × 24 × 9.7 mm3 (L × W × H). It is composed of a series of branches, properly dimensioned and separated to generate the resonances at the desired frequencies. The antenna is fabricated using a 0.2 mm thick copper foil. The linearly polarised antenna exhibits good impedance matching performance, wide beam radiation pattern and high gain. Also, carrier-to-noise ratios for three different satellite locations, that is, 5°, 50° and 90° elevation are 47.58, 50.49 and 45.86 dB/Hz, respectively, at the centre frequency (1575 MHz) of GPS L1 band, which is well within the maximum allowable limit (50.5 dB/Hz) at room temperature.

A compact dual-band RF front-end and board design for vehicular platforms

Modern vehicular platforms include several wireless systems that provide navigation, entertainment and road side assistance, among other services. These systems operate at different frequency bands and thus careful system-level design should be followed to minimise the interference between them. In this study, we present a compact dual-band RF front-end module for global positioning system (GPS) operating in the L1-band (1574.42–1576.42 MHz) and satellite digital audio radio system (SDARS) operating in the S-band (2320–2345 MHz). The module provides more than 26 dB of measured gain in both bands and low noise figure values of 0.9 and 1.2 dB in SDARS and GPS bands, respectively. The front-end has interference suppression capability from the advanced mobile phone system and personal communication service cellular bands. The module is designed on a low-cost FR-4 substrate material and occupies a small size of 62 × 29 × 1.3 mm3. It dissipates 235 mW in the SDARS section and 100 mW in the GPS section. Three prototypes have been built to verify a repeatable performance.

A Dual-Port Antenna for GPS and UWB Operations

A dual-port antenna is proposed to operate in the two frequency bands of global positioning system (GPS) and ultrawideband (UWB). First, the shorted ring-slot antenna is etched on the top surface of the FR4 substrate to radiate circularly polarized (CP) waves in the GPS band. Second, a monopole antenna, which is responsible for operation in UWB, is constructed on the bottom surface. In order to reduce the coupling coefficient, the monopole antenna is located in the center region of the bottom surface and the microstip line is placed in the specific region, whose reverse side is grounded. The measured data for impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidths in the GPS band are 320 MHz (21.1%) and 80 MHz (5.0%), respectively. As for UWB, experimental results show that the reflection coefficient is below – 10 dB between 2.93 GHz and 10.7 GHz. The antenna gain in GPS is 4.74 dBic and those in UWB are between 4.4 and 5.8 dBi. Moreover, the measured coupling coefficient is below –14 dB between 1.5 GHz and 10 GHz, which implies that the proposed antenna can operate independently in the bands of GPS and UWB.

Shorted square‐ring slot antennas with a rectangular slot coupled by a microstrip line for GPS and 3G communication applications

AbstractShorted square‐ring slot antennas with a rectangular slot are presented for the global positioning system (GPS) and third‐generation communication (3G) operations.The shorted square‐ring slot antenna is used as the basic configuration for circular polarization in the GPS band. Then, an added rectangular slot inside the square‐ring slot will radiate linearly polarized wave in the 3G band. Because the added slot has little influence in the GPS band's characteristics, the design rule is very simple. The experimental impedance and axial‐ratio bandwidths for the GPS band are 19.8 and 4.5%, respectively. Also, the impedance bandwidth and the antenna gain for the 3G band are 14.9% and 2.5 dBi, respectively. The antenna characteristics such as bandwidths and gain satisfy the dual‐band's antenna requirements. Especially, the antenna radiation patterns are very suitable to apply in the GPS and 3G systems. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 52:855–857, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.25051

Design of a dual‐mode annular ring antenna with a coupling feed

AbstractA dual‐mode annular ring antenna for both global positioning system (GPS) and satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (S‐DMB) is designed. The proposed antenna consists of a coupling feed line and four slots on an annular ring patch. A gap between the feed line and the annular ring patch is used for an input impedance matching; the slots are used for adjusting the resonant frequency of the TM21 mode at the DMB frequency. The antenna was fabricated and measured. The antenna resonates at the GPS and DMB frequencies with suitable bandwidths. It has a broadside radiation pattern in the GPS band and a conical beam radiation pattern in the DMB band. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 3011–3013, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience. wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24796

커플링 급전을 이용한 이중 모드 Annular Ring 안테나 설계

본 논문에서는 GPS와 위성 DMB에 사용할 수 있는 이중 모드 annular ring 패치 안테나를 제안하였다. 제안된 안테나는 커플링 급전과 annular ring 패치의 네 개의 슬롯을 특징으로 한다. 급전 선로와 패치 사이의 간격은 입력 임피던스를 조절하는 역할을 하고, 패치의 슬롯의 길이는 DMB 주파수에 해당하는 <TEX>$TM_{21}$</TEX> 모드의 공진 주파수를 조절하는 역할을 한다. 제안된 안테나를 제작 및 측정을 하였다. 제작된 안테나는 GPS와 DMB 주파수에서 만족할만한 대역폭을 가지고 공진을 일으키며, GPS 대역에서는 broadside 방사 패턴을 가지고 DCS 대역에서는 코니컬 빔 방사 패턴을 가진다. A dual-mode annular ring antenna for both global positioning system(GPS) and satellite digital multimedia broad-casting(DMB) is designed. The proposed antenna consists of a coupling feed line and four slots on the annular ring patch. The gap between the feed line and the annular ring patch is used for an input impedance matching, and the slot length is used for adjusting the resonant frequency of the <TEX>$TM_{21}$</TEX> mode at the DMB frequency. The antenna was fabricated and measured. The experimental results show that the antenna resonants at the GPS and DMB frequencies with suitable bandwidths, and had a broadside radiation pattern at the GPS band and a conical beam radiation pattern at the DMB band.