Compact and broadband circularly polarized ring antenna with wide beam-width for multiple global navigation satellite systems

A compact and broadband circularly polarized (CP) annular ring antenna with wide beam-width is proposed for multiple global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) in the L1 band. The annular ring is excited by two modified L-probes with quadrature phase difference. It has a 36.3% 10-dB return loss bandwidth and a 13% 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth, because of the orthogonal L-probes with 90^\circ phase difference. The measured peak gain of the antenna is 3.9 dBic. It can detect the satellites at lower elevation as its half power beam-width (HPBW) is 113^\circ in both the x-z and y-z planes, achieving a cross-polarization level of larger than 25 dB. Noticeably, the antenna achieves 89% size reduction compared with the conventional half wavelength patch antennas. It can be used in hand-held navigation devices of multiple GNSS such as COMPASS, Galileo, GPS and GLONASS.