AMPS/PCS/GPS Active Antenna for Emergency Call Systems

Many vehicular emergency call applications utilize a dual-band cellular phone for data exchange and Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna for localization. When the cellular phone antenna is transmitting in close proximity to the GPS antenna, the GPS low-noise amplifier (LNA) is expected to be not affected, i.e., remain linear during the operation. Most commercial GPS LNAs hardly meet this requirement, hence passive antenna-to-antenna isolation and preamplifier filtering without affecting the noise figure of the system becomes crucial. In addition, passive antenna gain requirements for emergency call applications are generally higher than those of regular dual-band cellular phone antennas. To satisfy all these requirements, a multiple-element antenna is designed, built, and measured.