Linearly Polarized Antenna Boosters versus Circularly Polarized Microstrip Patch Antennas for GPS Reception in IoT Devices

GPS has become an attractive feature for geolocalization enabling asset tracking IoT devices. GPS satellite antennas radiate RHCP (right-hand circularly polarized) electromagnetic waves; thus, the typical antenna at the receiver is also RHCP. However, when the orientation of the receiving device is random, linear polarization antennas operate better in terms of TTFF (time to first fix). Through field measurements (urban and field) and considering different positions of the device in a vehicle, an RHCP microstrip patch antenna and a linear non-resonant antenna element called an antenna booster were compared. TTFF averaged for several positions was 7 s better for the linearly polarized antenna booster than for the microstrip RHCP patch antenna. The results demonstrate that the behavior of the linear polarization antenna booster technology is more robust in terms of TTFF to the arbitrary position of the IoT device while keeping a small size and simplicity.sdf