A family of domestic antennas for working with signals from GPS and GLONASS satellite navigation systems in the L1 and L2 frequency ranges was developed by a team of scientists from Novosibirsk State Technical University (NETI) within the framework of the Priority 2030 program.
The design documentation for a family of new satellite navigation antennas will be transferred to an industrial partner, and in the future has the potential to adapt to work with the European Galileo satellite navigation system and the Chinese Beidou.
"The share of Russian navigation equipment in the global market is extremely small: most of the market is occupied by Chinese and European offers. The development and implementation of new active antennas for satellite navigation systems will increase the share of Russian navigation equipment in the global market. This will lead to a significant reduction in the dependence of representatives of the Russian market on foreign devices, components and licensing agreements. The result is also a simplification of the production of radio navigation equipment for government customers and an increase in its diversity and affordability for the civilian sector of the market," said Artemiy Podkopaev, project manager, Associate Professor of the Department of Radio Receivers and Radio Transmitting Devices at NSTU-NETI.
GPS and GLONASS antennas are used in the field of IoT, unmanned vehicles, personal navigation devices, covert tracking, surveillance and control. This determines the need for them for private and public organizations.
Artemy Podkopaev highlights the main differences between the active antennas developed at NSTU-NETI and their analogues: "At the moment, our antennas are domestic by 90%. The antenna itself, the amplifier board, and its components are almost completely represented on the domestic element base. Of course, we strive for 100% localization. Another feature is compactness: the ceramic substrate, which is produced by the partner company of the project, has unique characteristics, which allows the use of radiators with much smaller geometric dimensions than any analogues."
In addition, NSTU-NETI scientists are currently conducting research in the direction of multi-band active antennas that can operate in several frequency ranges at once and at the same time have only one printed emitter and one amplifier path. The project team evaluates the results obtained so far positively.
Currently, the project to create a family of new active antennas is at the stage of testing prototypes. In the future, scientists will have to improve prototypes to a pre-production state, as well as issue design documentation and a patent.