Miniature GPS Antenna System

The proposed research effort addresses two main shortcomings in the state-of-art GPS anti-jam systems. One of them relates to antenna size and the other pertains to performance limitation imposed by antenna electronics implementations. The current antenna array GAS-1 CRPA has seven antenna elements and extends 14in diameter, making it too large for airborne platforms of interest. A modified version of this antenna array GAS-1 CRPA is significantly smaller in size (seven inches in diameter) but incorporates only four antenna elements, thus limiting its nulling capabilities under severe jamming conditions. Ubiquitous use of GPS systems on missiles and airborne platforms does, of course, imply a need for smaller real estate without compromise in anti-jamming capability. Our Phase I work resulted in a novel miniature GPS antenna that can allow for a 4.25" GPS array, and during Phase II we propose to develop and test such an array for GPS applications. We will still maintain 8 ports for agility in nulling and beamforming , and we will also consider platform effects in evaluating the performance of the new GPS array.