Characterizing the Effects of Mutual Coupling on the Performance of a Miniaturized GPS Adaptive Antenna Array

Basrur Rama Rao, Jonathan H. Williams, C. Daniel Boschen, Jeffry T. Ross, Eddie N. Rosario and Robert J. Davis

Abstract:	This paper describes the design of a compact, M-code capable, four element GPS adaptive antenna arrays made from stacked patch microstrip antenna elements. Possible applications for these antenna arrays are in military airborne platforms where the space available for installing antennas is very limited. To meet future GPS M code requirements, the antenna elements were designed for a bandwidth of 24 MHz. The size of the entire array assembly including the metal ground plane on which it is mounted is 4.625”; the size of the array itself is even smaller - only 3.5” square. The array also has a low profile with a height of just 1.2” including the radome cover. The size of the microstrip antenna elements has been reduced in size to fit within this aperture by using high dielectric constant substrate materials. The technical challenges in the design was to reconcile conflicting requirements imposed by the small antenna size and the wider 24 MHz bandwidth demanded by the M-code. Each element in the array fed by a self-diplexing feed consisting of coaxial probes connected to surface mount quadrature hybrids for circular polarization. Satisfactory M–code performance of the antenna array has been demonstrated by measuring the signal fidelity of the correlation peak using an M-code transmitter, down-converter and receiver built at MITRE. The results of mutual coupling measurements on this circularly polarized array are described with their impact on array design. The antenna patterns and other pertinent performance characteristics of this array are being measured. These results will be described in a future paper.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 13th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2000) September 19 - 22, 2000 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	2491 - 2498
Cite this article:	Rao, Basrur Rama, Williams, Jonathan H., Boschen, C. Daniel, Ross, Jeffry T., Rosario, Eddie N., Davis, Robert J., "Characterizing the Effects of Mutual Coupling on the Performance of a Miniaturized GPS Adaptive Antenna Array," Proceedings of the 13th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2000), Salt Lake City, UT, September 2000, pp. 2491-2498.
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