Miniaturized CP patch antenna with low spurious radiation for GNSS applications

This contribution presents investigation and development of a miniaturized antenna on a PTFE/ceramic substrate for GNSS high-performance applications. Due to the use of such a high-DK substrate, the performance of the antenna is very sensitive to variations in substrate and ground-plane dimensions. It may also severely degrade when the antenna is used in array configurations, due to the excitation of surface waves, producing spurious radiation and a high coupling between adjacent elements. A soft surface is employed to deal with this limitation, resulting in an antenna that exhibits lower coupling with adjacent elements and low sensitivity to changes of the substrate outer dimensions.