Antenova Ltd, manufacturer of antennas and RF antenna modules for M2M and the Internet of Things, is now shipping its latest positioning antenna – Raptor, which achieves an extraordinary level of accuracy in the GNSS bands – pinpointing location to within centimetres.

The Raptor is an embedded antenna for all positioning applications that require a greater level of accuracy. In particular it is ideal for emerging applications with autonomous vehicles, drones and other mobile devices where its enhanced positioning capability can, for example, indicate which side of the road a vehicle is on – which has not generally been possible with previous GNSS devices.

The antenna will also be useful for applications in tracking, surveying and mapping.

It requires a corresponding high precision GNSS receiver module – these are also newly available on the market to connect the Raptor antenna in a complete RF system.

The Raptor antenna operates in the 1200MHz and 1600MHz GNSS satellite bands and is suitable for all global public constellations: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou.  It supports the L2 1200MHz band in addition to the existing L1 and L5 bands.

It is a single feed antenna in compact SMD form, measuring just 16.0 x 8.0 x 1.7mm, making this exciting antenna a practical choice for small electronic designs such as wearables and portable devices where space on the PCB may be restricted.

Antenova’s CEO, Colin Newman explains, “We are seeing a lot of interest in this antenna!  Raptor provides the high performance of a much larger ceramic patch antenna, but in an ultra-low profile size which means designers can create very small devices that will pinpoint location very accurately.”

The addition of the L2 frequency band combines multi-band satellite signal reception and GNSS correction data. This helps to mitigate position errors, greatly improving accuracy, especially in urban areas.

Like Antenova’s other SMD antennas, the Raptor antenna is designed according to the company’s philosophy of Design for Integration (DFI) – meaning that the antenna has been designed to fit easily into a PCB, alongside other components. Antenova specialises in the design of SMD antennas and also provides expert integration and testing services for its customers.

The Raptor antenna, part no SR4G053, is supplied in Tape and Reel and is available to purchase through Antenova’s global network of partners, and online from www.antenonva.com