Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation

Bellsouth Corporation

Anthony Thomas DeMarco

A product and system is disclosed for intelligently controlling the number of amplifier modules that are active in a linear amplification system. By exercising such control, the system can avoid using unnecessary power. The invention monitors the system and gathers information from signals associated with the system, particularly information concerning signal power. A control functionality evaluates the gathered information to decide how many modules are necessary to sufficiently operate the amplification system or to decide if it has been commanded to perform certain functions. Once this decision is made, the control functionality communicates control signals to the power amplification modules to activate the needed or desired number of modules and deactivate the unneeded or undesired number of modules. Likewise, the control functionality configures the splitter and the combiner according to the number of needed or desired amplifier modules. This gathering, evaluation, and control is conducted continuously.

Power amplification system with intelligent control of amplifier modules

A system and method for transmitting cellular signals has linear power amplifiers mounted on a cellular tower within a tower circuit. The linear power amplifiers provide the primary amplification of the signals which are transmitted by the antennas on the tower. By moving the amplifiers from a base station to the tower circuit, the system and method can employ less-expensive and more-reliable amplifiers and need not employ high-cost low-loss feeder lines. The tower circuit also includes a modulator for transmitting status signals down to the base station. The base station includes a demodulator for receiving the status signals and a control circuit for placing a switching circuit in a desired one of a plurality of modes based on the status of the tower circuit. The switching circuit, in a first mode, passes radio signals from combiners to their respective feeder lines and thus to their respective amplifiers and antennas when all transmission paths are operational. If a fault occurs along one or more transmission path, the switching circuit combines the radio signals from the combiners associated with the faulty amplifiers with the radio signals associated with an operational antenna and directs the combined set of radio signals to the operational antenna. In this manner, the system and method provide a redundancy path whereby a fault in the tower circuit does not result in any transmission loss.

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Duluth, GA, United States of America

Anthony Thomas DeMarco