Communications: directive radio wave systems and devices (e.g. – Directive – Including antenna orientation
Patent
1993-03-19
1994-09-13
Issing, Gregory C.
Communications: directive radio wave systems and devices (e.g.,
Directive
Including antenna orientation
342352, 342424, 343725, 343757, H01Q 300, H01Q 2100, H04B 7185, G01S 502
Patent
active
053472861
ABSTRACT:
An embodiment of the present invention is a system for automatically pointing a directional antenna. The system comprises two GPS antennas mounted at horizontally opposed extremities of the directional antenna, the placement is such that the GPS antennas lie on a line having a normal vector approximately parallel to a boresight of the directional antenna. The outputs from the GPS antennas are downconverted to a measurement frequency and differentially phase compared for each of a plurality of radio visible GPS satellites. A measurement controller that receives the phase comparisons. A navigation computer receives measurements from the measurement controller and uses a microprocessor to calculate the GPS latitude and longitude and the attitude angles of the pair of GPS antennas. A servo points the directional antenna at a particular target communications satellite, based on the computed azimuth, elevation, latitude, and longitude, as provided by the navigation computer. One of these servos is used to move the GPS antennas in roughly a circle to average out multipath effects to improve accuracy and to reduce integer ambiguities.
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Issing Gregory C.
Schatzel Thomas E.
Trimble Navigation Limited
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