A Novel High Performance GPS Microstrip Antenna

Xing Lan
Antenna Research Associates Inc., Beltsville, MD 20705

ABSTRACT

A novel high performance microstrip patch antenna for GPS applications is proposed and
simulated. Compared to existing GPS antennas, this antenna features dual GPS L1 and
L2 band operation, circular polarization, and excellent near hemispherical coverage.

INTRODUCTION

Due to the wide applications and growing demands of GPS antennas, the research on
GPS antennas has been extensive in recent years [l], [ 2 ] , [3], just to name a few. The
GPS antenna can be implemented in many different types such as the quadra-filar spiral
[I], but the many advantages of the microstrip antenna, such as lightweight, low profile
and low cost, lend itself to the first consideration over other conventional antennas.
Nevertheless, several typical stringent high performance requirements imposed on the
GPS antenna concurrently make it extremely difficult for microstrip implementation. The
requirements fall into the following categories: 1. Dual band operation: there should exist
certain mechanism in the circuit to be able to tune or shift the resonant frequency
locations and change the resonant frequency separation. 2.Enhanced low-angle radiation
pattem (near horizon plane direction). The near ground direction gain, which is
conventionally around lOdB below the bore-sight gain, needs to be greatly enhanced or
compensated for typical applications. 3.Good circular polarization level over the required
frequency band. 4. Good retum loss at required frequencies of 1.227 and 1 S75GHz and
high rejection at out-of-band frequencies to improve the antenna's immunity to
interference. Hitherto, no existing design in the open literature has satisfactory met all the
aforementioned requirements, to the knowledge of the author. In this paper, a novel
approach, which is based on phased circular slot rings, and satisfied these requirements
well, is succinctly presented.

ANTENNA CONFIGURATION

The antenna in this design consists of four circular slot rings fed with equal amplitude
signals with On, 90°, 180" and 270" phases separately shown in Figl. Each ring is
designed to excite linear polarization in dual frequency band operation at 1.227 and
1.57SGHz. The low-angle radiation enhancement is a lot easier to achieve with

0-7803-6369-8/00/$10.0002000 IEEE 988

appropriate ring excitation, compared to existing designs in literature. It is achieved at no
less than -3dB at 10" elevation with this configuration.

The matching and phase-shifting circuit can be designed on a separate feed layer other
than the ground layer that the four slot rings reside. Shown in Fig2, good axial ratio can
also be achieved over a very wide band due to the sequentially fed ring array [4].
Theoretically the resultant polarization is independent of the individual element's
polarization over the frequency band as long as the elements hold uniform polarization
property. It has been found that good retum loss and high immunity to interference come
with this configuration.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The narrow slot-width renders the microstrip antenna characteristic of a loop antenna [5].
Resonance occurs when the circumference is an integral number of guide wavelengths in
slot-line with the same width. Indicated in [5], as the width increases, the asymmetrical
distribution of electric field along the inner rim and outer rim becomes more distinct, so
the simple resonance model may not hold. The simulated pattems Fig 2 - 6 show that the
currents excited over the thin slot result in radiation characteristics similar to those of a
vertically placed magnetic dipole does in certain ways. The substrate used is Rogers
TMM6, which has a relative dielectric constant &1=6 and dissipation factor of 0.0023.
Absorbing materials could be adopted to get rid of the unnecessary back lobes. The strip-
line feed design could also be used as in [ 5 ] , so the energy will then be directed to only
the upper half space by the strip-line ground plane. Thus a higher gain can be achieved.
The radiation pattem and simulated performance Fig3-6 of the circular slot ring array
confirm the feasibility of using it as a high performance GPS antenna. Further simulation
shows that the location of the feed stub and the ring diameter play important roles in
exciting higher-mode resonance and impedance matching over the required band. With
proper tuning of the location and width of feed line, a good matching over the band from
L2 to L1 can be achieved. The separations between array elements should be chosen to be
within half wavelength from each other, but they should not be too close to each other
since mutual coupling may deteriorate the performance. It is speculated that any other
variations of planar circuits, which are equivalent to dipoles by nature, may be used for
meeting the aforementioned requirements.

The author wishes to thank Dr. B. Y. Foo for helpful discussions and valuable
suggestions.

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REFERENCE:

1. Neus Padros, Juan Ortigosa, James Baker, Magdy Iskander, and Bryce Thomberg,
“Comparative study of high-performance GPS receiving antenna designs”, IEEE-AP,
Vol. 45, No4, April, 1997.
2. David M. Pozar and Sean M. Duffy, “A dual-band circularly polarized aperture
coupled stacked microstrip antenna for global positioning satellite”, IEEE-AP Vo1.45,
No1 1, Nov. 1997.
3. R. Mittra, R.Yang, M. Itoh and M. Arakawa, “Microstrip patch antennas for GPS
applications, IEEE AP-S 1993 Intemational Symposia
4. John Huang, ‘‘ A technique for an array to generate circular polarization with linearly
polarized elements” IEEE-AP, Vo1.34, No 9, Sept 1986.
5. Chinglung Chen, William E. McKmzie, 111and Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos, “Stripline-
fed arbitrarily shaped printed-aperture antennas”, IEEE-AP Vo1.45, No7, July 1997.

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Fig3. E field components of the antenna

Fig 5. Radiation pattem Fig 6 . Radiation pattem

Fig.7. Isolation between the feed ports

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