Communications: radio wave antennas – Antennas – With vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-14
2001-03-13
Ho, Tan (Department: 2821)
Communications: radio wave antennas
Antennas
With vehicle
C343S704000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06201506
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus which is mounted on a window of a vehicle such as an automobile.
There is an automobile windowpane antenna apparatus as the most typical one of prior art vehicle windowpane antenna apparatuses. This type of antenna apparatus includes a thin, narrow, strip conductor mounted on a window (usually a rear window) of an automobile, which is employed as an antenna.
In recent automobiles, a defogger is provided almost all over the rear window to serve as a heater for defogging the window. The antenna therefore has to be mounted in a limited space between the defogger and the window frame.
The above prior art automobile windowpane antenna apparatus has the problem that its reception sensitivity cannot be obtained sufficiently in the AM or FM band since a space for mounting the antenna is limited. The apparatus also has the problem that an adjustment for the shape and arrangement of the antenna makes tuning for optimizing the reception performance difficult and a long period of time is required for performing the tuning operation.
In order to resolve the above problems, the present inventors have developed the following vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus and filed it as Japanese Patent Application No. 10-282870 (its corresponding U.S. and EPC applications have been filed). The antenna apparatus comprises a defogger mounted on a vehicle window, for defogging the window, a means for causing the defogger to serve as a slot antenna, and a driven antenna arranged close and opposite to the defogger with a given gap therebetween in such a manner that one side of the driven antenna is mutually coupled to one side of the defogger.
The foregoing vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus has the advantages that its reception sensitivity is high across a wide band and its tuning operation is easy to perform. However, it has the following problem to be solved. When the antenna apparatus is mounted on a rear window of an automobile, it is unclear how to set the dimensions of respective antenna sections and how to arrange these sections in order to obtain the optimum antenna characteristics. It is thus likely that a required antenna characteristic will not be obtained reliably according to the circumstances.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus which has the advantages that its reception sensitivity is high across a wide band and its tuning operation is easy and which is capable of being mounted appropriately on a rear window of an automobile to constantly obtain a required antenna characteristic.
To attain the above object, a vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus according to the present invention has the following features in constitution. The other features will be clarified later in the Description of the Invention.
A vehicle windowpane antenna apparatus comprising:
a defogger for defogging a vehicle window, which is constituted of a thin, narrow strip conductor and includes a plurality of horizontal wires arranged at least in parallel with each other and a pair of bus bars each connected in common to ends of the horizontal wires, the bus bars being arranged on a window glass surface of the vehicle window and each opposed to a metal section of a window frame of the vehicle window with a bus-bar gap therebetween;
a power source line for applying a power to the defogger;
means for separating the power source line and the defogger from each other in a high-frequency manner;
vertical wires crossing the horizontal wires to form the defogger in a mesh pattern having meshes, a length of a longer side of each of the meshes being smaller than a wavelength of received wave; and
a driven antenna having a height and provided close and opposite to the defogger with a clearance therebetween in such a manner that one side of the driven antenna is mutually coupled to one side of the defogger,
the bus-bar gap being set to 50 mm to 70 mm, the clearance being set to 5 mm to 15 mm, the height of the driven antenna being set to 100 mm to 250 mm, the number of vertical wires being one or more, and the power source line and the bus bars constitute an open circuit therebetween.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.
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patent: 5659324 (1997-08-01), Taniguchi et al.
patent: 5933119 (1999-08-01), Fujii et al.
patent: 5952977 (1999-09-01), Taniguchi et al.
patent: 5959587 (1999-09-01), McHenry et al.
patent: 0 661 772 (1995-07-01), None
patent: 0 856 904 (1998-08-01), None
Endo Hiroshi
Langley Richard
Harada Industry Co. Ltd.
Ho Tan
Pennie & Edmonds LLP
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