Mark IV proposing 5.9GHz migration to E-ZPass IAG? - offering 5.9/GPS antenna after dual 5.9/915 reader

Soon after their official announcement of a dual mode reader named Janus (5.9GHz and 915MHz) Mark IV are saying they've developed a dual mode antenna combining bidirectional 5.9GHz signaling and a GPS signal receiver.

Mark IV doesn't have any picture or plan of the antenna but a major sales point is its very inconspicuousness. It is designed to function completely flush-mounted in the center of the roof panel, built that way in the factory - it's OEM, not retail, or after-market either.

BMW, Jaguar and other high-end cars have clunky antennas stuck up like mini-Jersey barriers on their rear ends (see pics nearby). Mark IV claims its engineers have worked out how to design a surface antenna that handles directional 5.9GHz signals from all around.

The GPS part with carrier frequencies of 1,228MHz and 1,575MHz from the 'birds' overhead seems intuitively to be easy to do. But 5.9GHz for the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration scheme come in to the antenna, and are supposed to go out very low - for vehicle to vehicle communications as well as vehicle to roadside. To do that without a protuberence housing an antenna seems intuitively quite difficult.

Martin Capper president of Mark IV IVHS says it's a first. He says a mockup version was tested in the Detroit trials. There's interest in it too.

A bunch of the antennas have been loaned to one of the major car companies - he won't say which - for them to test.

Capper says that all 5.9GHz VII units will incorporate a GPS chip, so it made sense to develop a single antenna serving both functions.

We've got a hunch migration to 5.9GHz is a major part of Mark IV's proposal to the E-ZPass IAG in the E-ZPass recompete procurement currently under way. That's based not on anything we've been told but only on the company's two 5.9GHz announcements, first Janus and now the antenna. And their evident enthusiasm for the higher frequency technology.

It still needs to be taken up by the car companies, so we remain skeptical.

All the American car companies seem interested in at present is fuel economy and hybrids. And getting on the US Government gravy train of cash to support their green virtue and bail them out of recklessly extravagant pension and health plans that are dragging them under the financial waters.

5.9 environment gig?

We expect to hear a pitch for 5.9GHz as pro-environment.

Maybe Al Gore will intone gravely about how heavy use of 915 MHz RF excites the electrons and causes greenhouse gases to multiply, meaning humankind simply has no alternative but to adopt 5.9GHz to save the planet.

Meanwhile getting the E-ZPass IAG to adopt 5.9GHz as the next tolling frequency would certainly be a step forward for the technology.

see http://www.ivhs.com/news_events/index.htm

TOLLROADSnews 2008-09-10