What is inside a shark fin antenna?
Most of the new cars are moving to shark fin antennas from the older whip antennas. Read that BMW began to use shark fin antennas on their vehicles in the early 2000s. Shark fin antennas have a very low profile as you can see here and are used in automotive and transport applications. Paddle antenna is another name seen for shark fin antenna. It is not just an antenna for radio reception.
Shark fin antenna has multiple antennas inside, for FM/AM broadcast radio and even satellite radio, cell phone signals, telematics, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS/GNSS, V2X and MIMO signals. Shark fin antennas have lesser drag and wind resistance compared to the previous whip antennas.
As you would have guessed, shark fin antennas get their name from the resemblance to the dorsal fin of sharks! Telematics is a combination of telecommunications and informatics. The system collects, stores and transmits data from remote objects like vehicles for monitoring and analysis. Telematics uses devices with GPS, sensors and diagnostic codes to track location. Driver behaviour like harsh breakings and acceleration, vehicle health and other parameters can be monitored. Telematics finds application in optimizing fleet operations, improving safety and reduce costs.
GNSS or Global Navigation Satellite System is the general term for satellite based navigation. The GPS or Global Positioning system is by an array of satellites operated by the United States. There are other similar systems by India, Europe, Russia and China.
V2X means Vehicle to Everything communication, which allows vehicles to exchange real-time information with other vehicles, road infrastructure, pedestrians and cloud. V2X can enhance road safety, improve traffic efficiency, support development of autonomous driving systems, smart cities and connected cars!
MIMO stands for Multiple Input and Multiple Output, which is a wireless technology that increases the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmit and receive antennas. It has become the core technology for broadband wireless communications. MIMO exploits multipath propagation to multiply link capacity.