Development of printed-on glass TV antenna system for car

This paper describes the printed-on quarter glass TV Antenna System which is a part of the Toyota Electro-Multivision System. For TV reception in the vehicle, the diversity antenna system consisting of plural numbers of rod antennas has been utilized. However, the rod antennas mounted on the vehicle have disadvantages with respect to ; (1) Wind noise, (2) Durability, (3) Vehicle exterior design. This paper reports the newly developed antennas printed on to the quarter glass, called the Printed-on quarter glass antenna, to solve these disadvantages listed above. First, the RF characteristic of quarter glass, and possible electro-magnetic interaction between the printed antenna elements and adjacent structural parts of vehicles have been studied experimentally and theoretically. As a result, the following techniques has been newly developed for a broadband reception from 90 MHz to 770 MHz ; (1)The composition method of plural elments, (2) The trap method consisting of horizontal elements and slanted ones. A set of two types printed antennas based on above techniques were installed on each quarter glass. The diversity antenna system made by these four printed antennas has proved much better reception performance over the conventional rod antenna system.