Taoglas, a provider of antennas and IoT components, has announced the launch of Inception, a new GNSS L1/L5 ultra-low-profile “patch-in-a-patch” antenna. The HP5354.A offers dual-band stacked patch performance in a single 35 x 35 x 4mm form factor. This design integrates the second antenna within the first, eliminating the need for stacking parts and reducing the antenna height by 50%.
Key Features and Benefits
Design and Performance: The HP5354.A antenna features a passive, dual-feed surface mount design (SMD) that decreases weight and conserves horizontal space. This makes it suitable for GNSS applications requiring high precision and limited space. The antenna improves positioning accuracy from 3 meters to 1.5 meters while maintaining dual-band L1/L5 performance.
Form Factor: The antenna’s compact design (35 x 35 x 4mm) is optimized for use on a 70 x 70mm ground plane. It serves as a drop-in replacement for single-band surface mount patches.
Gain and Polarization: With a passive peak gain of 2.61 dBi, the HP5354.A is optimized for GPS L1/L5, BeiDou B1, Galileo E1, and GLONASS G1 operations. Its dual-feed design maintains circular polarization gain even when the antenna is de-tuned or requires in-situ tuning.
Applications: The HP5354.A is ideal for applications such as asset tracking, smart agriculture, industrial tracking, commercial drones, and autonomous vehicles. These applications benefit from enhanced stability, resilience, and precision.
Technological Advancement: The HP5354.A utilizes Taoglas’ custom electro-ceramics formula, ensuring high-quality performance and seamless integration into devices requiring high-precision GNSS.
Industry Implications
Emerging GNSS bands such as L2, L5, L6, and L-band offer designers pathways to cleaner signals, improved gain, and centimeter-level accuracy. This trend is crucial for global GNSS technologies, including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, IRNSS, and SBAS.
“Taoglas has been designing and manufacturing reliable, high-performance GNSS antennas in-house for over 20 years, and we remain committed to investing in new antenna technologies,” said Dermot O’Shea, CEO at Taoglas. “We know electroceramic patches are still the most efficient way to receive circularly polarized signals, and before Inception, multi-band configurations required a stacked patch antenna, which adds to height and weight. The HP5354.A—our latest innovation—means you can move to dual band without changing the footprint, size, and height of your current single band GPS antenna.”
Technical Specifications
- Ultra-low Profile SMD: Provides stacked patch L1/L5 performance within a single-patch solution.
- Compact Form Factor: 35 x 35 x 4mm patch optimized for use on a 70 x 70mm ground plane.
- Consistent Gain Performance: Maintains circular polarization gain with dual-feed design.
The Taoglas HC125A hybrid coupler can combine the dual feeds for the L1 patch, offering high RHCP gain and optimal axial ratio for upper constellations including GPS L1, BeiDou B1, Galileo E1, and GLONASS G1. Upgrading active circuitry to L1/L5 along with the antenna is necessary. The Taoglas TFM.100B L1/L5 front-end module can be incorporated into the device PCB, saving valuable real estate and up to two years of complex design work.
