Sarantel launches the Sarantel LBS Pro, a miniature, energy saving and high-performance GPS antenna aimed at mobile handset manufacturers whose commercial strategies depend on successful consumer adoption of location based services (LBS). Built on patented PowerHelix® filtering antenna technology, the LBS Pro SL1300 GPS antenna is ideally suited for mobile phones and tightly integrated GPS devices with multiple radio that require high positional accuracy. Unlike other conventional antennas, SL1300 achieves an uplift in gain once integrated into the customer’s product.

The Sarantel LBS Pro accounts for the fact that today’s mobile phones are small, thin, lightweight and include Bluetooth and other antenna functions. It needs no ground plane and is designed to be embedded within a phone with very limited space. LBS services use handsets’ geographical positions to alert consumers to services depending on where they are, where their friends are and which points of interest they are near. As such, for location based services to succeed, the devices that they are communicated through need to transmit a highly accurate geographical position, not an approximation. Today Mobile GPS users are expected to hold their mobile phones in their hand away from their body, which is simply not a natural way to use this technology and unsafe in urban environments. The Sarantel LBS Pro GPS antenna delivers positional accuracy and performance suitable for hands-free pedestrian navigation, which consumers are increasingly demanding. This accuracy is also fundamental to location based services that will drive mobile operator revenues.

Sarantel LBS Pro is built on Sarantel’s GeoHelix filtering technology that is less susceptible to energy lose and de-tuning in the presence of the human body because its near field energy is stored within its ceramic core. This is a fundamental advantage of Sarantel’s technology and explains why conventional GPS antennas don’t work properly when worn close to the body. The antenna offers better performance in urban environments with tall buildings, which typically impede satellite reception. Realistically, most mobile GPS consumers will be using their handsets in these environments. It does not lose energy and de-tune when held close to the body. This means that mobile consumers can leave their phone in their pocket while listening to turn-by-turn instructions through their headsets, resulting in a more natural and safe ‘hand’s free’ user experience.

The SL1300 antenna is designed to be embedded within a device where space is a limitation. The antenna does not require a sleeve to de-tune it to GPS. The GPS antenna requires a minimum of 10 percent less GPS battery power so that consumers can practically use their phone for pedestrian navigation. The antenna also has an integrated balun (a type of transformer that converts between balanced and unbalanced electrical signals) that isolates the antenna from the device ground plane (a kind of electrically conductive surface) and rejects common mode noise from conducted power on the device chassis, improving its performance significantly. The LBS Pro SL1300 antenna is balanced. This isolates it from the device and enables the antenna to reject common mode noise resident on the device ground plane. The construction and materials of the antenna constrain its near-fi eld to a very small volume, therefore materials near the antenna have negligible de-tuning effects.

To improve performance when using between tall buildings, Sarantel antennas all have a beamwidth in excess of 130º, allowing it to pick up satellites close to the horizon, which significantly improves its positional accuracy. The integrated gain of the SL1300 is increased by ~2-3dBs in comparison to free space. It is essential that the gap between the antenna and the adjacent PCB is 1.5mm as the near fi eld energy of the antenna is refl ected in such confi gurations, boosting the gain of the antenna.

Related products

• Tiny surface mount GPS receiver
• Garmin widescreen bluetooth portable GPS navigator