Airborne satellite navigation and other integrated antenna systems

Abstract

This paper is introducing the airborne satellite navigation and other integrated antenna systems for both weather and special navigation systems. In general, most of navigation antennas are omnidirectional, small and easy to install onboard aircraft, such as Global Navigation Satellite Antennas (GNSA) and other integrated antenna systems. However, in particular, some new developments of navigation antennas are providing miniaturized Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) antenna array technologies that significantly reduce the size of the antenna elements and the array dimensions. The passive and active GNSA for mobile applications including aeronautical are presented, which include all existing types of GNSS solutions. The GNSS antennas are usually omnidirectional, so they don’t need to be always pointed towards the satellite in spite of aircraft motions. In this paper are presented commercial aspects of the aircraft GNSS antenna technologies, their importance and integration with a digital beam-steering antenna electronics package. In addition, the solutions of different cost effective integrated antenna systems with GNSS antennas, such as airborne WAAS, XM, Weather, Sirius, ISL, DME, ADF, VOR, LOC, GS and other antenna systems are discussed.