Autonomous Vehicles
& Systems
Position | Navigation | Safety
Helix Antenna Based Solutions
Positioning accuracy at centimetre-level consistency is vital for safety integrity
The future of transportation is autonomous. Road safety will be improved, as will human productivity and the health of planet Earth. Safe deployment of autonomous systems is absolutely dependent on precision location as the lynchpin of all situational awareness, which will be communicated between vehicles and infrastructure to maintain safe and orderly traffic flow.
Helix is developing its DielectriX™ antennas to improve precision navigation capabilities in today’s driver-assist applications, as well as into array systems that take accuracy to the next level, and enhance resilience against jamming and spoofing.
Helix DielectriX antennas and array systems enable the safe widespread deployment of autonomous vehicles on our roads.
Primary & backup PNT
– we’ve got it covered
Autonomous vehicle systems will require position accuracy of at least 10cm with very high reliability to achieve the performance targets and safety goals critical in fully deployed autonomous applications.
DielectriX technology delivers antennas for primary GNSS constellations (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou) as well as regional navigation satellites, and the LEO back-up service provided by Satelles (STL). Helix will continue to develop support for next generation PNT solutions including LEO constellations planned for launch in the near future.
In every case, resilience to vulnerability and attack, and pinpoint accuracy of location are the driving forces for adoption of our technology.
position. navigation. safety.
Helix Dielectrix antennas overcome the challenges traditionally associated with GNSS signal reception:
We have developed and patent-protected a completely novel approach to creating the smallest antennas capable of delivering world-beating performance for GNSS and terrestrial or satellite data communications. It combines material science, RF innovation, and precision manufacturing, and we call it DielectriX.
Immunity to multi-path signals
Commonly known as ‘the urban canyon effect’, reflected signals disrupt and confuse GNSS receivers leading directly to inaccuracy. But it’s not just buildings that cause reflections of GNSS signals – it’s buses, trucks and cars, too – a truly dynamic reflective environment. That’s why DielectriX antennas are strongly polarised for right-hand circular polarisation (RHCP) signals in order to discriminate the direct satellite signals, and ignore all reflected ones.
Resilience to interference and jamming
GNSS signals are transmitted in narrow sections of the L-band (1-2GHz), which makes a DielectriX filtering antenna highly desirable to ensure adjacent band interference is ignored. By tuning tightly to the desired signals wide-band jamming is mitigated as the antenna is able to discern the satellite signals within the individual GNSS frequency bands.
Enable centimetre accuracy
With the GNSS PNT ecosystem delivering enhanced signals from satellites together with satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) to deliver real-time correction data, DielectriX antennas make the receiver computation task straightforward and reliable.
Small and rugged
DielectriX antennas are so compact, that even the multi-antenna arrays that will be required for Level 5 vehicle autonomy can be easily concealed in the vehicles design language.
