An Auckland electronics company has developed the world's smallest global positioning system (GPS) receiver.
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The company, Rakon, has made a new module - as tiny as a baby's fingernail - which can decode GPS signals in devices such as cellphones. Previously, this was done with a set of components the size of a 50c piece.
"It means manufacturers can meet market demand to miniaturise devices which may contain GPS function such as mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants) or even watches, yet offer improved GPS capability," said Rakon managing director Brent Robinson.
Brent Robinson, Rakon’s Managing Director, says the tiny radio receiver is a complete ‘plug and play’ unit, which makes it uniquely simple for GPS designers to embed into their devices.
“It will mean GPS manufacturers can meet market demand to miniaturise devices, while offering improved capability.“ says Robinson.
“Our R&D team has come up with a high sensitivity unit that can enable quite weak signals to be received, which is a real breakthrough in an industry that needs to have products that will function in urban environments with very high interference.”
He says the company is now further developing the unit to provide up to three times greater sensitivity in its next generation, even before the first development is out the door.
Brent Robinson says the miniaturisation of the GPS RF module is strategically very important for Rakon as it provides more value-add on its core technology. He says it has the potential to provide between 20-30% of the company’s revenue over the next two years.
Rakon produces high performance crystals and oscillators and the company is regarded as a world leader in the field. Currently over half of all GPS products manufactured today have a Rakon crystal or oscillator driving them.
All GPS receivers use quartz crystals in the decoding of satellite positioning data by oscillating at very specific frequencies; Rakon was the first to develop temperature-controlled crystal oscillators that were small, inexpensive and yet still precise enough under the dynamic temperature changes that GPS systems experience.
By Nzherald
World's smallest GPS receiver
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