Tri-band Miniature GPS Array with a Single-fed CP Antenna Element

Yijun Zhou*, Chi-Chih Chen and John L. Volakis Electroscience Lab, ECE Department, The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43212 Email: {zhou.160, chen.118, volakis.1}@osu.edu,

Abstract: A single-fed CP stacked patch antenna is proposed to cover all the GPS bands, including E5a/E5b for the Galileo system. The small aperture size (/8 at the L5 band) and the single feeding property make this antenna a promising element for small GPS arrays. The design procedures and antenna performances are presented, and issues related to coupling between array elements are discussed. Introduction Recent GPS developments include the addition of a new navigation signal located at 1176 MHz (L5) with 24 MHz bandwidth to be available after the launching of the Block IIF satellites in 2008. Also, the European Galileo navigation system employs frequency bands at the lower L band, namely, E5a (1164 MHz ~ 1189 MHz) and E5b (1189 MHz ~ 1214 MHz). Several tri-band GPS antennas [1-3] have been proposed to cover the new L5 (and also E5a/E5b) band together with the existing L2 (1227 MHz) and L1 (1575 MHz) bands. Among these, the proximity-fed stacked patch antenna [3] shows promising gain performance and pattern coverage, and thus can be used as an antenna element in small anti-jamming GPS arrays. However, for a 7-element GPS array implemented by the proximity-fed stacked patch antenna, 14 feeding ports and 7 0-90 hybrids are required. Clearly, this increases the array complexity and is not a desirable feature for small GPS arrays. Therefore, it is of practical interest to design a single-feed GPS antenna (the challenge being the realization of the circularly-polarized (CP) operation). In this paper, we present a miniature, single-fed CP stacked patch antenna for GPS arrays. An integrated 0-90 branch-line hybrid is employed to realize CP excitation. The hybrid is printed on the same side of the ground plane as the patches. The feeding is then through a simple coaxial connector, thus reducing rather significantly the array complexity. Design concepts and procedures are introduced, followed by simulation and measurement results. Coupling effects are studied qualitatively to understand how this element performs within GPS arrays. Design Procedures The desired small GPS antenna should have the following specifications: small size (largest dimension of less than /8 at the L5 band); multi-band operation (E5a/L5: 1176 MHz, E5b: 1201 MHz, L2: 1227 MHz, L1: 1575 MHz, 24MHz bandwidth); RHCP radiation with gain larger than 0 dB; and fed by a 50 coaxial connector. The proximity-fed stacked patch antenna in [3] achieved all these above requirements but requires quadrature phase feedings. For a typical 7element GPS array, it is desired to reduce the number of feeding cables and therefore a major task is to excite the CP mode in the stacked patch configuration using a single feeding. Two approaches are typically used to excite CP modes in
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the microstrip patch design. One method is to excite two degenerate modes with 90 phase delay by offsetting the feed position and cropping the corners of the patch [4, 5]. Several single-fed stacked patch antennas [4, 5] were proposed for GPS applications. However, the phase condition is very sensitive to the operational frequency, leading to narrow CP bandwidth. Another method employs an external 0-90 hybrid coupler [3] or a similar feeding network [6] for CP excitation. The feeding network is usually a PCB circuit printed at the back of the ground plane, making it not easy to mount conformally. Considering the bandwidth requirements, we must employ a feeding network to achieve CP excitation. The proposed network is an integrated 0-90 branch-line hybrid printed inside the dielectric substrate (see Fig. 5) so that the antenna itself is compact and mountable on any platform with metal-backing. The branch-line hybrid [7] is well understood and widely used. However, branch-line hybrids have not been integrated with antennas. In our approach, the hybrid or feeding network is part of the antenna, instead of being shielded by the ground plane as in [6]. It is also worth noting that as the antenna and the hybrid are miniaturized using high contrast dielectrics, the coupling between the antenna and the hybrid is increasing. Therefore, there is a concurrent challenge to design a small and compact branch-line hybrid integrated with the antenna so that it does not radiate to cause interference. A) LP stacked patch with single feeding As shown in [3], the proximity-fed stacked patch antenna supports two orthogonal modes that combine to deliver CP operation. Keeping in mind the need for better packing of the elements in an array configuration, we first modify the square patches in [3] to circular ones supporting the TM11 mode at resonance. Let us first consider the linearly polarized (LP) dual patch in Fig. 1. The stacked patches are exited from the metal strip printed vertically around the boundary of the dielectric layers. We also include a layer of Duroid 6010 LM (r3=10.2 & 25 mils thick) as the PCB layer for the branch-line hybrid in the next step. For the designed parameters: D=1.3, d1=26 mm, d2=22 mm, h1=6 mm, h2= 8 mm, gain coverage is achieved for all the GPS bands as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1: Geometry of the single-fed LP stacked patch antenna.

Fig. 2: Gain and S11 of the single-fed LP stacked patch antenna as shown in Fig. 1.

B) Design of the integrated 0-90 hybrid The next step is to design a branch-line hybrid to achieve power splitting with 90 phase delay. Referring to Fig. 3, we design a circular 0-90 branch-line

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hybrid and place it near the center of the patch (where the electric fields of the patch mode are weak). Also, a very thin substrate (25 mils) is used to reduce coupling/interference between the hybrid and patches. In our design, we set the center frequency of the hybrid at 1.35 GHz and vary the width of the transmission line to achieve impedance matching over a broad bandwidth. The simulated S parameters of our circular hybrid versus the usual square branch-line hybrid in [7] are presented in Fig. 4. As seen, the bandwidth of the circular hybrid (S11<-10 dB) can cover all the GPS frequencies with a phase delay between port 3 and port 2 being -85.8 at 1.2 GHz and -100 at 1.575 GHz, respectively.

Fig. 3: Circular branch-line hybrid printed on Duroid 6010 LM.

Fig. 4: Computed S parameters; the lines refer to the square hybrid in [7] and the dots refer to data for the new circular hybrid in Fig. 3.

C) Integration of the hybrid with the stacked patch design We next proceed to integrate the stacked patch with the hybrid feed. ECCOSTOCK dielectric paste (r=15) is used to glue the different layers and remove the air gaps. A 50 coaxial connector is also used at the feed and a surface mount chip resistor is employed to terminate the port. The simulation model and fabricated single-fed CP stacked patch antenna are shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5: Simulation model and image of the fabricated CP stacked patch.

Fig. 6: Simulated and measured return loss of the single-fed CP stacked patch in Fig. 5.

Antenna performance Referring to Fig. 5, the final design has the following design parameters: d1=26.6 mm (upper patch diameter), d2=24 mm (lower patch diameter), h1=6 mm (upper layer thickness), h2= 10 mm (lower layer thickness), dh=360 mils (hybrid diameter), w1=15 mils and w2=30 mils (trace widths). The simulated and measured S11 and gain performance are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, showing reasonable agreement between calculations and measurements. It is seen that the

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lower mode of the stacked patches covers the L5/E5a, E5b and L2 bands with RHCP gain above 0 dB and the high mode covers the L1 band. We also observe that the CP isolation is around 15 dB at both modes.

Fig. 7: Gain performance of the single-fed CP stacked patch in Fig. 5.

Fig. 8: Gain accounting for coupling from adjacent antenna elements.

Coupling between elements in the array To examine the in-situ performance of the designed element, we first simulate two adjacent elements. For a separation distance of d=40 mm (4.5 for the 7-element array), (see Fig. 8), the RHCP gain is shifted significantly at the high mode, indicating strong coupling at high frequency. This coupling emanates from the feed that launches radiating fields (in addition to exciting the patches). One way to reduce this coupling is to print the hybrid outside the dielectric substrate. This will be discussed at the conference. Conclusion A small, compact single-fed CP stacked patch is proposed to cover all the GPS bands. The small aperture size (/8 at L5/1176 MHz) and the single feeding property make this antenna very attractive for small GPS arrays. To further reduce the size of the GPS array, we must primarily reduce coupling among antenna elements by modifying the hybrid/feeding network.
References: [1] B. R. Rao, M. A. Smolinski, C. C. Quach and E. N. Rosario, Triple-band GPS traploaded inverted L antenna array, Microw. Opt. Tech. Lett., vol.38, no. 1,pp.: 35-37, 2003. [2] Y. Zhou, S. Koulouridis, G. Kiziltas and J. L. Volakis, A novel 1.5 quadruple antenna for tri-band GPS applications, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 5, pp. 224-227, 2006. [3] Y. Zhou, C. C. Chen and J. L. Volakis, Dual band proximity-fed stacked patch antenna for tri-band GPS applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 55, no. 1, 2007. [4] C. M. Su and K. L. Wong, A dual-band GPS microstrip antenna, Microwa. Opt. Tech. Lett., vol.33, no. 4, pp.: 238-240, 2002. [5] X. F. Peng, S. S. Zhong, S. Q. Xu and Q. Wu, Compact dual-band GPS microstrip antenna, Microw. Opt. Tech. Lett., vol. 44, no. 1, pp.: 58-61, 2005. [6] D.M. Pozar and S.M. Duffy, A dual-band circularly polarized aperture coupled stacked microstrip antenna for global positioning satellite, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 45, no. 11, pp.: 1618 1625, 1997. [7] D.M Pozar, Microwave Engineering, Wiley, 2nd edition, pp.: 379-384, 1997.

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