NSF Award
0340006
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will focus on the design of a new antenna for high accuracy Global Positioning system (GPS) to be used for geodesy, geophysics, meteorology, and transient motion for earthquake studies. A new design is proposed for GPS user antennas that reduces multi-path error and allows multi-frequency operation by using a micro-strip patch antenna on biased ferrite substrates. The desirable properties of biased ferrite will enable a smaller patch, improved antenna pattern, and frequency tunability. Therefore the proposed antenna will be smaller, cheaper, and lighter than existing high-accuracy GPS geodetic antennas, besides enhancing the quality of the GPS measurements thanks to its improved electrical performances.<br/><br/>Due to the increasing number of applications of GPS in scientific research studies that require high accuracy positioning, introducing in the market a new multi-frequency low-multi-path smaller and lighter GPS user antenna would give new impulse to the US market of GPS for geodetic equipment. Moreover, the proposed antenna will enable new science applications that depend on dynamic GPS positioning at the millimeter-level. Ferrite Substrate GPS antennas would be widely used in national and international high accuracy GPS measurement campaigns.
