Top Industry Case Studies for GPS Antennas

A Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a network of satellites orbiting the earth to help receivers find their location. The most popular GNSS network is the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the time and frequency products that it powers form the backbone of many industries that we rely on today. Here's a look at a few.

Both the aerospace and government infrastructures make heavy use of GPS antennas.

In aerospace and aviation, GPS antennas are built into many instruments to receive necessary data that will guide them through their flight. The aircraft requires constant communication from the stations on the ground as well as in the air in order to fly safely, and GPS antennas make that possible. Some of the information that is transmitted between the two include:

• Flight traffic
• Weather patterns
• Operating conditions
• On-flight circumstances
• Altitude
• Potential delays

The timing and frequency products that comprise a GNSS network are also a core component in building a robust government infrastructure that can meet the needs of its people. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the defense industry, where military equipment and personnel must be able to communicate with optimum reliability and synchronization. That's why most civilian timing and frequency applications operate on a L1 1575.42 MHz channel, while the military operates on a channel all its own.

Without timing and frequency equipment like GPS antennas, many data centers would not be able to perform their required tasks.

Some data centers must carry out key functions that depend on a high degree of time synchronization and accuracy. Some of these tasks are:

• Event ordering
• Causality
• Task scheduling
• Resource allocation
• Analytics

As transmission speeds, computational power, and storage capacity all continue to rise, a higher degree of synchronization will be necessary for data centers to carry out their necessary applications. Otherwise, they will not be calibrated as they should. That's why centers require an ecosystem of timing and frequency synchronization products that can sync a data center infrastructure to within microseconds or less, as well as one that possesses the embedding and security features that will meet their needs.

From radio to TV applications, signals can be broadcasted over two different systems: analog and digital — and digital has several advantages.

First, error correction enables better signal recovery, and can lead to a clearer signal in areas with a large amount of noise. Digital broadcasting also helps deliver the signal to more difficult reception areas, like places that are blocked by hills or buildings, or those in more remote locations. Other advantages of this Single Frequency Network (SFN) or Simulcast transmission method are fewer power repeaters and less consumed bandwidth.

In order for SFN and Simulcast broadcasting to work, each digital signal must be transmitted simultaneously. That means a high degree of synchronization is required, and GNSS satellites and antennas are used to ensure that each signal is sent out at the same time.

Cash is no longer the norm, and consumers and financial institutions both depend on data to carry out their transactions. That makes high-speed data transmission essential to the financial infrastructure we rely on today, which is where GPS antennas come into play.

Banks and stakeholders use GPS antennas to transmit multiple types of data, like:

• Financial transactions
• File creation
• Time stamping
• Email information
• Access time

In some countries, high-speed data transmission is not merely a matter of profitability, but of legal compliance. In 2018, the European Union implemented legislation titled MiFID-II that mandated all transactions to be accurately time-stamped to within one millisecond of their occurrence. Failure to comply could constitute a costly violation, so maximum synchronization is essential — and this can only be done with the use of GPS antennas.

In the healthcare infrastructure, near-real time data transmission is about more than the bottom line — it's about saving lives.

Having up-to-date information on your patient's condition is essential in many parts of the healthcare industry, yet some medical systems still lag behind. Some examples are:

• Recording steps in an operating room
• Patient hand-offs
• Monitoring chronic health conditions
• Medication history
• Allergies
• Logging drug manufacturing
• Ordering medical supplies
• Order placement
• Electronic medical records (EMR)

Medical devices must also have a high data transmission rate, as any lag could relay outdated information on the patient's condition. This could result in incorrect medical decisions being made, which could lead to the patient's harm.

Such time errors can be mitigated with the use of GPS antennas. These may be built into some medical devices so that they can transmit data regarding the patient's at minimal delay. This ensures that medical professionals can make decisions based on current information on their patient's status, which could potentially save lives.

The manufacturing sector has been integrating high-speed data transmission into its systems to achieve better performance, and they’ve been using GPS antennas to do it.

Industry 4.0 and the IoT are both powered largely by timing and frequency equipment, as precise synchronization is needed to achieve many manufacturing tasks. For example, a robot may be programmed to perform a given function at a precisely interval, and in a dynamic environment like a manufacturing floor, even a slight delay could result in a mishandled part — or worse, an injured employee.

Smart Sensors 

Another increasing trend in the manufacturing world is the integration of sensors into both machines and products. These “smart” systems can be connected to the IoT to give feedback on their status (operating conditions, troubleshooting information, predictive maintenance data, etc.), giving manufacturers valuable insights about their equipment and parts.

Whether it’s the synchronicity needed for industrial automation or the data transmission required for sensor integration, both depend on timing and frequency equipment to work. The time stamping that has become so common for event detection in quality assurance is not possible without GNSS-based receivers, and the integrated sensors that are part of the IoT depend upon the high-speed transmission that GPS antennas provide.

Universities, laboratories, and research facilities often need extremely precise instruments to conduct their work, and when they do, they often use GPS antennas.

Cutting-edge research often depends on the most exact synchronization. Some examples are:

• Reaction kinetics
• Quantum computing
• Deep space imaging
• High-speed videography
• Particle physics
• Long-distance signal transmission

The most advanced research facilities are dependent upon precise timing and frequency equipment to be able to conduct their experiments, and GPS antennas are often used to detect the signals their instruments emit.

As we transition into a more sustainable energy economy, a cohesive power grid will be part of the solution, and GPS antennas can help make it happen.

The current power grid is highly fragmented and lacks basic self-reporting and sustainability functions. It is unable to balance increased power demands in one region with power surpluses in another, and inadequately anticipates fluctuations that can result in power disruptions.

In order to become more coherent, the power grid must look to digitization. This means adding modernized control systems and sensors with greater transmission functionality. These should be integrated into substations and transmission sites to move the grid toward the ability to communicate with itself nationwide. Doing so will bring tremendous benefit to our energy economy, with a few capabilities being:

• Balancing under-performing power sources with excess power produced elsewhere.
• Reducing the number of power outages by supplying a power alternative.
• Detecting defective equipment when a component is damaged or fails.
• Extending equipment life through predictive maintenance.

As helpful as these capabilities are, they're only possible when the grid is furnished with timing and frequency equipment. Long-distance transmission inherently carries a time delay with it, and a single nationwide power grid would be extremely vast. A network of so many substations and power plants would require high-precision synchronization, as well as high-speed data transmission. GPS antennas and receivers make this possible, and open the door to a more connected power grid

GPS antennas pick up signals sent from a satellite network, but they can be found throughout the satellite communications industry.

Satellite communication (SATCOM) systems require a high degree of synchronization to relay data from ground stations and onboard systems to their broadband devices. They are used for everything from position triangulation to internet broadcasting, but they depend on the precise synchronicity of GPS antennas to do it.

As 5G continues to emerge, the telecom infrastructure is increasingly relying on high-performance timing and frequency equipment, and 5G equipment is part of the package.

5G internet offers multiple advantages over its fourth-generation predecessor. Among these are greater bandwidth, higher-speed, and a telecom infrastructure with a host of capabilities we haven't seen before. However, 5G technologies have a strict time error budget, which means that precise synchronization is needed to make them work. GPS antennas and other timing and frequency products help achieve this synchronization, and because 5G signals travel much shorter ranges, you can expect GNSS equipment like this to not only be used heavily in 5G tech, but to be increasingly common in your everyday world.

Novotech is a leading North American provider of many timing and frequency products. We sell the routers, modems, boosters, and GPS antennas that companies use in their development of the IoT tech that makes our world run. We are also expanding our services to offer hardware and low-cost data bundles to end users and companies, so contact us today, and we'll meet your connectivity needs.