Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) now underpin a wide range of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) applications, from autonomous vehicles and precision agriculture to critical infrastructure timing and geodetic monitoring. The antenna remains a performance-limiting component in these systems: it determines how effectively satellite signals are captured, how well multipath and interference are suppressed, and how stable the phase reference is for high-precision measurements. This review provides a critical assessment of GNSS antenna technologies, covering established designs (patch, helical, choke ring, chip, stacked, dipole, and array antennas) alongside their operating principles, performance trade-offs, and application suitability. Key performance parameters, including gain, bandwidth, axial ratio, polarization purity, impedance matching, phase centre stability, and group delay, are examined with attention to their practical influence on positioning accuracy. The review also addresses frequency band support across GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, and NavIC constellations, and maps antenna requirements against current and forthcoming signal modernisation efforts. Importantly, the paper situates GNSS antenna design within the broader context of emerging challenges and opportunities: the growing threat of intentional jamming and spoofing, the development of controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPAs) for interference mitigation, the integration of GNSS with low Earth orbit (LEO) PNT augmentation layers, the convergence of satellite navigation with 5G/6G non-terrestrial networks, and the demand for compact, wearable, and reconfigurable antenna solutions. The review identifies specific gaps in current research and outlines directions for antenna designs capable of meeting the requirements of next-generation resilient PNT architectures.
Adeyemo Adeola Oluwatosin, Eleyele Dolapo Emmanuel, Adewumi Adebayo Segun et al.· International Journal of Lat...· 0 citations
This study evaluates the performance of Global Positioning System (GPS)-only, BeiDou-only, and hybridized GPS+BeiDou Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations in Nigeria, with emphasis on positional stability and the benefits of multi-constellation integration. A dual-frequency u-blox ZED-F9P GNSS receiver was deployed at a static reference station at the Department of Pure and Applied Physics, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Continuous 24-hour GNSS observation data were collected at 4 Hz over a 14-day period in May 2025. The raw data were converted to Receiver Independent Exchange (RINEX) Format using the Real-Time Kinematic Library (RTKLIB) suite and processed with RTKPOST to obtain positioning solutions. The data were analyzed in terms of carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N₀), number of satellites visible (NSV), satellite elevation angle, positional stability, and Single Point Positioning (SPP) performance. The results showed that GPS provided more stable satellite visibility, with visible satellites ranging from 6 to 11 per epoch and a daily average NSV of 8.22 ± 0.05, while BeiDou ranged from 4 to 8 visible satellites per epoch, with a daily average NSV of 6.05 ± 0.11. GPS maintained 31 visible Pseudo-Random Noise (PRN) satellites throughout the observation period, whereas BeiDou varied between 28 and 31 PRNs. The C/N₀ analysis showed that GPS L1 provided the strongest signal quality, with values ranging from 36.26 dB-Hz to 39.05 dB-Hz and a mean value of 38.10 ± 0.55 dB-Hz. In terms of positional stability, GPS recorded lower standard deviations in latitude, longitude, and altitude, ranging from 1.15 m to 1.75 m, 1.38 m to 1.94 m, and 4.16 m to 5.69 m, respectively. BeiDou showed higher variability, with corresponding values ranging from 2.07 m to 3.39 m, 2.07 m to 4.12 m, and 6.36 m to 9.85 m. However, BeiDou provided a complementary elevation-angle advantage, with a mean elevation angle of 29.06 ± 2.08°, compared with 25.71 ± 2.39° for GPS. The hybridized GPS+BeiDou solution delivered the best positioning performance, with average Two-Distance Root Mean Square (2DRMS), Circular Error Probable (CEP), Spherical Error Probable (SEP), and Mean Radial Spherical Error (MRSE) values of 3.93 m, 1.64 m, 3.66 m, and 4.83 m, respectively. These values represent an improvement of approximately 14% over GPS-only and about 46–49% over BeiDou-only, depending on the positioning performance metric considered. The findings demonstrate that GPS+BeiDou hybridization improves GNSS positioning performance, reliability, and solution stability over the study area.
Adebayo Babatunde Benedict, Adewumi Adebayo Segun, Ogobor Efua Anthony et al.· Discover Electronics· 0 citations
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