Dual band proximity-fed stacked patch antenna for tri-band GPS applications

A novel proximity-fed stacked patch antenna is presented to cover the new GPS band, namely L5 (1176 MHz, available after 2007) together with the L1 and L2 bands (1575 and 1227 MHz). High permittivity dielectric material is used to minimize the antenna size down to 1.2 X 1.2, implying an aperture size of only lambda/8 X lambda/8 at the L5 band. Quadrature phase feeding is employed to ensure RHCP radiation, with a broadside gain of 2 dBi. Because of its reduced size, the presented antenna can be used within a GPS antenna array or other tri-band GPS applications. The design procedures and employed tuning techniques to achieve the desired performance are presented.