A new miniature GPS antenna from UK-based Sarantel can acquire GPS signals inside a vehicle or truck as efficiently as a traditional external device. The company’s new F02 SmartAntenna will benefit in-vehicle navigation and tracking systems by offering the designer more considerably flexibility in locating the GPS antenna.
Tests conducted by Sarantel have shown that when mounted in the foot-well of a production car, the SmartAntenna provided its first fix in under 15 seconds from a warm start and tracked a minimum of 6 satellites during an urban test route.
In any vehicular tracking application this translates to near-instant results when a location is changed and continual tracking accuracy while on the move.
Barrie Foley CEO said, “The current take-up of personal navigation products is creating an anticipation of good in-vehicle performance from both commercial and consumer focussed GPS products. Until now, good in-vehicle performance was simply not possible without an external GPS antenna and users were not impressed.”
Sarantel hopes the test results of the new SmartAntenna will be attractive to manufacturers wanting to add GPS functionality to portable equipment and to specifiers of automotive installations, including covert security and asset tracking.
In the exhaustive tests devised to test the SmartAntenna’s ability to operate within the vehicle, carrier to noise ratio exceeded 40dB most of the time demonstrating the devices ability to reject non-GPS RF signals from outside and inside the vehicle.
SmartAntenna F02 combines Sarantel’s omni-directional GPS antenna with Fastrax’s popular ultra low-power Trax02/4 GPS receiver chipset. The antenna’s innovative GeoHelix design offers exceptionally high levels of immunity to RF interference thereby simplifying the integration process.
It is particularly small at 32mm x 32mm and 10.8mm deep, weighs under 30g, and consumes just 100mW at 2.7V in continuous operation, making it ideal for portable applications and for vehicle, personal, and mobile asset tracking where battery power is used.
Founded in September 2000, UK-based Sarantel specialises in miniature antennas for portable and mobile wireless devices, including GPS and Wi-Fi, as well as GSM, PCN and PCS mobile telephones.
