Home Applications Septentrio Roke has developed a miniature eLORAN an…

Roke has developed a miniature eLORAN antenna

The eLORAN system is growing in importance as a technology that complements Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), especially in environments where GNSS signals are limited, such as indoors, in cities and underground. Rock, with support from the European Space Agency (ESA), is advancing the eLORAN system to provide a wider range of services and developing miniaturised eLORAN antennas for portable devices.

The eLORAN system consists of high-power land-based radio transmitters traditionally used for maritime and aeronautical positioning. With the increase in GNSS interference and spoofing events, eLORAN systems are a more resilient alternative due to their low frequency and high power characteristics. Despite the trade-off in accuracy, eLORAN can still provide an accuracy of around 8 metres, which is sufficient for many application scenarios.

One of the challenges Rock faced was the miniaturisation of the eLORAN antenna. Traditional eLORAN antennas are large due to their signal characteristics, but Rock has managed to achieve miniaturisation by developing the MILOR antenna, which uses two orthogonally placed ferrite rods with circuitry encapsulated in an IP67-rated housing. The new design doubles the sensing voltage of the original design by changing the size of the rods and increasing the number to four, while reducing the antenna's size to 55 x 55 x 14 mm, making it suitable for small handheld devices.

In addition, Rock is leading an ESA-funded project to develop a combined eLORAN and GNSS receiver and demonstrate its potential as a more robust and reliable navigation solution in real-world application scenarios. This demonstrates that eLORAN technology is constantly evolving and progressing to meet modern navigation needs.

In addition to Rock's advances in eLORAN technology, there are other companies contributing to the GNSS module. For example, Septentrio has introduced the Septentrio Mosaic GNSS module, a high-performance GNSS receiver capable of providing accurate positioning and timing.The Mosaic module supports a wide range of GNSS systems, including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou, which allows it to provide reliable navigation in a variety of application The high performance and multi-system support of the Septentrio Mosaic GNSS module makes it an important complementary technology in the eLORAN system.
the eLORAN system.

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