Projects Profile
Project Title
Enhanced GPS for indoor and urban environments
Partnership
Dr. Yue Gao, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr. Bing Bai, Fudan University
Project Aim
The aim of the project is to develop a direct receives GPS antenna technology, i.e. not requiring infrastructure, which is sensitive enough to work in heavily attenuated environments.
The objectives of this project are to prototype a number of diversity antenna systems, and test such systems against the single antenna systems. If successful, it will open the door to the development of GPS system in many different applications.
Inspiration for the projects
Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are very weak at the Earth’s surface. When the receiver is close to a tall building in urban environments, or when the signal passes through absorbing materials, such as concrete or steel structures in buildings further attenuation renders the GPS signals obsolete. Assisted GPS (A-GPS) and high Sensitivity GPS can partially solve the problem, but the former requires network infrastructure while the latter does not work well in highly attenuated areas.
There exists a gap, therefore, for a direct receives GPS antenna technology, i.e. not requiring infrastructure, which is sensitive enough to work in heavily attenuated environments.
Computer simulation study at QMUL has demonstrated that the use of diversity antennas for GPS can improve performance in attenuated environments much better performance compared a single-element antenna, therefore potentially offer a solution.
Commercial Potential and Further Development
The output of this Partnership Grant will be a first prototype for a GPS diversity antenna. This will lead to a more comprehensive Proof of Concept project.
