NEW INTEGRATED SDARS ANTENNA ELEMENT FOR AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS

Abstract: In the past few years the demand for light weight compact automotive antennas in the customersdesired mounting position has brought a challenge for the automotive antenna developers. Due to thehigh demands for the accuracy and compactness it became very difficult to develop antenna elementswhich fulfil all the strict requirements. Integrated SDARS (Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service)antenna element is one of such tasks which require strong gain requirements at particular elevationangles for the best reception of the satellite signals along with the car manufacturer’s desired mountingpositions.To achieve the desired objectives for SDARS element, different antenna designs were proposed andtested during the project work. Finally a newly developed two port cylindrical dielectric resonatorantenna (DRA) with a parasitic element is presented due to its high performance, simplicity andcompactness. The newly developed DRA antenna fulfils the strict SiriusXm gain requirements for thechallenging mounting position in the car. The SDARS antenna element is simulated using CSTMicrowave Studio and verified by prototype measurements. The developed DRA antenna element hasa broad beam with a peak gain more than 6dBi at the null position. An axial ratio of less than 3dB isachieved at the peak gain position. Real time 3D far field measurements are taken by using the MiDAS4.1 system which verifies the simulated results of the developed integrated SDARS antenna. A goodagreement is achieved between the simulated and measured results.