Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

St-ericsson Sa

Ericsson Modems Sa

Magnus Nilsson

Peter Jakobsson

Magnus Sandgren

Torsten John Carlsson

Sven Erik Mattisson

Martin Isberg

Jan Celander

Torbjörn Wigren

Bo Göransson

Hans Hagberg

Pål Frenger

Nikolaus Klemmer

Jonas B Karlsson

Sami Vilhonen

Michael Breschel

Per Ingelhag

Sten Wallin

Leif Wilhelmsson

Lars Sundström

Karl Werner

Fenghao Mu

Dandan Hao

Thomas Mattsson

Anders Lamm

Johan Thorebäck

Magnus Malmberg

Paavo Väänänen

Jing Rao

Christian Braun

John Stewart Petty, Jr

Bj&ouml;rn Lindquist

Peter Svensson

Joakim Plahn

Andreas Mårtensson

Agneta Ljungbro

Örjan Renström

Viktor Arfwedson

Satish Uppathil

Joakim Ahlgren

Andreas Nydahl

Marc Mjogeman

Sami Tapani Vilhonen

Björn Lindquist

In an Advanced Antenna System, a desired power amplifier, PA, load distribution, which counters the mismatch of active impedance load, is achieved by altering the lengths of routing traces connecting PA outputs and corresponding antenna elements/subarrays. The combined output performance in the beam during active impedance load is then restored to the matched condition performance. This can be visualized as distributing the load impedance more evenly—ideally, on a circle—on a Smith chart.

Advanced antenna system active impedance load mitigation

A multi-step coherent combination of signals received by multiple distributed phased antenna arrays to increase the coverage area of the distributed phase antenna arrays while decreasing the loss of such antennas, particularly in sections of a service area that traditionally are not covered by such antennas. More particularly, the solution presented herein coherently combines, in a multi-step coherent combination process, two or more data streams from two or more Phased Array Antenna Modules (PAAMs) to generate output data for the corresponding wireless device. In so doing, the solution presented herein achieves diversity gain in some scenarios, e.g., when adjacent PAAMs have partially overlapping frequency ranges, facilitates unsymmetrical BW support for uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) implementations, and/or provides service to more users.

MRC combined distributed phased antenna arrays

An Advanced Antenna System (AAS) receiver and related methods are provided. According to one aspect an AAS receiver comprises a digital processing block of a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC). The digital processing block comprises an interface for communicating with a Central Unit (CU), and a plurality of Antenna Signal Processing Blocks (ASPBs), each receiving a digitized receive signal from a respective antenna element of an antenna array. Each ASPB comprises one or more receivers, each of which receives the signal from the respective antenna element, processes the received signal, and beamforms the processed signal to produce one or more data streams to be sent to the CU. Each ASPB also includes a narrowband receiver that processes an input signal (either the signal received from the respective antenna element or that signal after processing) to create a narrowband signal that is provided to the CU directly, without beamforming.

Versatile AAS receiver

An over the air, OTA, procedure derives a propagation delay (Formula I) of radio signals transmitted between a first radio network node (BS) and a second radio network node (BS) operative in a wireless communication system. Using this propagation delay, a two-step synchronization procedure accurately synchronizes, or time-aligns, antennas at the radio network nodes (BS, BS) for both transmission and reception. In a first step, each radio network node (BS, BS) is accurately calibrated, to obtain a total calibrated delay (Formula II) reflecting the sum of delays through a calibrated receiver path (Formula II) and a calibrated transmitter path (Formula III). In a second step, a pair of radio network nodes (BS, BS) separately align their antenna transmit and receive timings in a procedure in which a first radio network node (BS) is a master and a second radio network node (BS) is a slave.

Over the air antenna synchronization in wireless communication network

In an example embodiment, a system comprises a chain of serially coupled nodes, including a central processing node (CPN) and one or more radio communications nodes (RCNs). The CPN couples to a first RCN in the chain via a dielectric waveguide (DWG) link and any further RCNs in the chain are successively connected in serial fashion from the first RCN via further (DWG) links. The CPN generates outbound radio carrier signals that are waveguide-propagated in a downstream direction of the chain, for over-the-air (OTA) by targeted ones of the RCNs, while radio carrier signals received via OTA reception by respective ones of the RCNs are waveguide propagated as inbound radio signals in an upstream direction of the chain, for processing by the CPN. Advantages from he contemplated system include greatly simplified implementation of the RCNs, with lower cost and power consumption. Further, strategic placement of failover CPNs and DWG links provide for continued operation in the face of CPN or DWG link failures.

Method and apparatus for radio communications

Disclosed is a method and a first transceiver of a wireless communication network, for handling reference signals. The method comprises receiving, from a second transceiver, at antenna elements of each of M antenna branches of the first transceiver and in time domain, an OFDM modulated wideband reference signal comprising an OFDM reference signal symbol mapped to every K subcarrier frequency of at least a subset of a carrier frequency bandwidth, and, at each of the M antenna branches, sampling the received wideband reference signal using N samples per OFDM symbol. The method further comprises, for each of the M antenna branches, accumulating the received, sampled wideband reference signal over at least two repetition blocks, each of length of N/K, to obtain a condensed signal with the length N/K samples and conveying the condensed signal over an interface to an aggregate unit.

Method and transceiver of a wireless communication network for handling reference signals

A distributed wireless system comprises controlling node and two or more antenna processing nodes communicatively coupled to the controlling node but spatially separated from each other and from the controlling node. The controlling node sends commands to and exchanges data with a first subset of the antenna processing nodes, using a first twisted-pair lane of a physical layer interface having four twisted-pair lanes, and sends commands to and exchanging data with a second subset of the antenna processing nodes, using a second twisted-pair lane. In some embodiments, the controlling node also uses a third twisted-pair lane for communicating with the first subset, while using the fourth twisted-pair lane for communicating with the second subset. Corresponding antenna processing nodes terminate one or two twisted-pair lanes in a direction towards the controlling node, while terminating one or two twisted-pair lanes towards one or more antenna processing nodes further from the controlling node.

Interface in series-connected radios

A first antenna processing node receives () one or more wireless transmissions from a wireless device and obtains first symbol values from the one or more wireless transmissions. The first antenna processing node receives () second symbol values from a second antenna processing node, the second symbol values corresponding to the one or more wireless transmissions as received at the second antenna processing node, and calculates () a first weight parameter based on at least a subset of the first symbol values and a corresponding subset of the second symbol values. The first antenna processing node calculates () third symbol values by computing a weighted sum of first symbol values and corresponding ones of the second symbol values, using the first weight parameter, and sends () the third symbol values to a third antenna processing node or to a controlling node. This combining of symbol values may approximate maximum ratio combining, MRC.

Coherent summing of signals from distributed radio access points

A wireless system comprises a controlling node and two or more antenna processing nodes coupled to the controlling node but separated from each other. The controlling node sends () a command to a first one of the two or more antenna processing nodes, instructing the first one of the two or more antenna processing nodes to transmit data to a wireless device. This may be preceded by selecting () the first one of the antenna processing nodes based on an estimated signal quality metric corresponding to the wireless device for each antenna processing node. In response to a determination by the controlling node that the wireless device has not successfully decoded the data, the controlling node sends () a command to a second one of the two or more antenna processing nodes, instructing the second one of the antenna processing nodes to transmit the data to the wireless device.

Hybrid automatic repeat request (ARQ) with spatial diversity

An Advanced Antenna System (AAS) receiver and related methods are provided. According to one aspect an AAS receiver comprises a digital processing block of a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC). The digital processing block comprises an interface for communicating with a Central Unit (CU), and a plurality of Antenna Signal Processing Blocks (ASPBs), each receiving a digitized receive signal from a respective antenna element of an antenna array. Each ASPB comprises one or more receivers, each of which receives and processes the signal from the respective antenna element. Some receivers within the ASPB beamform the respective processed signal to produce one or more data streams to be sent to the CU. Other receivers within the ASPB provide the respective processed signal to a processing block that buffers the processed signal and sends it to the CU at a later time, e.g., when traffic to the CU is relatively lower.

Narrowband AAS receiver with data replay interfacing

A wireless system comprises a controlling node and multiple antenna processing nodes coupled to the controlling node but separated from each other. The controlling node receives () first soft bit information from a first antenna processing node, the first soft bit information corresponding to reception of a wireless transmission. Responsive to determining that it cannot decode transmitted bits using the first soft bit information, the controlling node requests () and receives () second soft bit information from a second antenna processing node, the second soft bit information also corresponding to the first wireless transmission from the wireless device and having been buffered by the second antenna processing node. The controlling node decodes () bits from the first wireless transmission using both the first and second soft bit information. The controlling node may then signal the antenna processing nodes that they can discard buffered information for the wireless transmission.

Chase combining in a distributed wireless system

A tunable inductor arrangeable on a chip or substrate comprises a first winding part connected at one end to a first input of the tunable inductor arrangement, a second winding part connected at one end to the other end of the first winding part, a third winding part connected at one end to a second input of the tunable inductor arrangement, a fourth winding part connected at one end to the other end of the third winding part, and a switch arrangement arranged. The switch arrangement tunes the tunable inductor by selectively connecting the first and fourth winding parts in parallel and the second and third winding parts in parallel, with the parallel couplings in series between the first and second inputs, or connecting the first, second, fourth and third winding parts in series between the first and second inputs. Corresponding transceivers, communication devices, methods and computer programs are disclosed.

Tunable inductor arrangement, transceiver, method, and computer program

There is provided a method at a network node equipped with an advance antenna system, AAS. The AAS comprises a plurality of antenna elements and one or more radio frequency integrated circuits, RFICs. Each of the one or more RFICs is associated with one or more of the plurality of antenna elements. The method comprising: capturing a plurality of signal samples of one or more signal chains of each of the one or more RFICs. Each of the one or more signal chains correspond to one or more of the plurality of antenna elements and a signal sample is associated with an envelope power level at an output of the respective signal chain; and summing at least a subset of the plurality of signal samples to obtain a short term average power value at the AAS.

Power control

Methods for determining calibration parameters to correct for frequency responses of one or more dielectric waveguides coupling a control unit to a first antenna node or to a series of antenna nodes that includes the first antenna node. An example method comprises transmitting, via a first dielectric waveguide coupling the control unit to the first antenna node, a radiofrequency (RF) test signal having a signal bandwidth covering a bandwidth of interest. The method further comprises receiving, via a second dielectric waveguide coupling the control unit to the first antenna node, a looped-back version of the transmitted RF test signal, and estimating a first one-way frequency response corresponding to the first (or second) dielectric waveguide, based on the RF test signal and the received loop-back version of the transmitted RF test signal.

Dielectric waveguide signal transfer function compensation

A method is disclosed for a centralized unit (CU) of a wireless communication network, wherein the CU is associated with each of one or more remote units (RU) of the wireless communication network via a respective communication interface. The CU is adapted to operate in one of a plurality of modes including at least a normal operation mode and a power saving operation mode, and the normal operation mode defines a plurality of functions to be performed by the CU. The method comprises (when the CU is in the normal operation mode) determining that a traffic load associated with the one or more RU fulfills a power saving operation criterion, configuring&#x2014;via the respective communication interface each of the RU for autonomous operation, whereby each of the RU is configured to execute at least one of the plurality of functions, and transferring from the normal operation mode to the power saving operation mode. Corresponding method for a remote unit, computer program products, network node, and arrangements for CU and RU, respectively, are also disclosed.

Network node power control

Growing community of inventors

Lund, Sweden

Magnus Nilsson