Electronics devices having antenna diversity capabilities

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10129165-B2
Application number	US-201715445853-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2017
Priority date	Feb 28, 2017
Publication date	Nov 13, 2018
Grant date	Nov 13, 2018

Abstract

An electronic device may include first and second antennas and a Bluetooth transceiver. Control circuitry may perform Bluetooth antenna diversity operations by coupling the Bluetooth transceiver to a selected one of the first and second antennas at a given time. The Bluetooth transceiver may transmit a first Bluetooth data packet and may determine whether a scheduled response packet associated with the first packet has been received over the first antenna during a predetermined time period. In response to determining that the Bluetooth transceiver has failed to receive the scheduled response packet during the first predetermined time period, the Bluetooth transceiver may re-transmit the first packet using the second antenna. This may serve to reduce the error rate of the transmitted Bluetooth data over time relative to scenarios where a single antenna is used, without requiring resource-intensive sensor circuitry to actively monitor the performance of the antennas.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of operating an electronic device having a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) transceiver, control circuitry, and first and second antennas, the method comprising:
with the WPAN transceiver, transmitting a first WPAN packet from a sequence of WPAN packets over the first antenna;
with the control circuitry, determining whether the WPAN transceiver has received a second WPAN packet over the first antenna during a predetermined time period following transmission of the first WPAN packet; and
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the WPAN transceiver has failed to receive the second WPAN packet during the predetermined time period, transmitting the first WPAN packet over the second antenna.

2. The method defined in claim 1 , wherein the sequence of WPAN packets comprises a third WPAN packet subsequent to the first WPAN packet in the sequence, the method further comprising:
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the WPAN transceiver has received the second WPAN packet during the predetermined time period, transmitting the third WPAN packet over the first antenna.

3. The method defined in claim 2 , wherein the WPAN transceiver comprises a Bluetooth transceiver, the first WPAN packet comprises a first Bluetooth data packet, the third WPAN packet comprises a third Bluetooth data packet, and the second WPAN packet comprises an acknowledge (ACK) packet generated by an external device in response to receiving the first Bluetooth data packet transmitted by the first antenna.

4. The method defined in claim 1 , further comprising:
with the control circuitry, subsequent to transmitting the first WPAN packet over the second antenna, determining whether the WPAN transceiver has received the second WPAN packet over the second antenna during an additional predetermined time period following transmission of the first WPAN packet over the second antenna.

5. The method defined in claim 4 wherein the sequence of WPAN packets comprises a third WPAN packet subsequent to the first WPAN data packet in the sequence, the method further comprising:
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the WPAN transceiver has received the second WPAN packet during the additional predetermined time period, transmitting the third WPAN packet over the second antenna.

6. The method defined in claim 4 , wherein the sequence of WPAN packets comprises a third WPAN packet subsequent to the first WPAN packet in the sequence, the method further comprising:
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the WPAN transceiver has received the second WPAN packet during the additional predetermined time period, transmitting the third WPAN packet over the first antenna.

7. The method defined in claim 4 , wherein the sequence of WPAN packets comprises a third WPAN packet subsequent to the first WPAN packet in the sequence, the method further comprising:
with the control circuitry, in response to determining that the WPAN transceiver has failed to receive the second WPAN packet during the additional time period, comparing a number of re-transmission attempts for the first WPAN packet to a threshold value;
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the number of re-transmission attempts is less than the threshold value, re-transmitting the first WPAN packet using the first antenna; and
with the WPAN transceiver, in response to determining that the number of re-transmission attempts is greater than or equal to the threshold value, transmitting the third WPAN data packet using a selected one of the first and second antennas.

8. The method defined in claim 1 , wherein the WPAN transceiver comprises a Bluetooth transceiver, transmitting the first WPAN packet over the first antenna comprises transmitting a first Bluetooth data packet over the first antenna during a first set of consecutive Bluetooth protocol timeslots, and the predetermined time period comprises a second set of consecutive Bluetooth protocol timeslots subsequent to the first set of consecutive Bluetooth protocol timeslots.

9. An electronic device, comprising:
first and second antennas;
Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) transceiver circuitry;
a switch having a first switch port coupled to the first antenna, a second switch port coupled to the second antenna, and a third switch port coupled to the WPAN transceiver circuitry, wherein the WPAN transceiver circuitry is configured to transmit a WPAN data packet over the second antenna while the second switch port is shorted to the third switch port; and
control circuitry, wherein the control circuitry is configured to control the switch to short the first switch port to the third switch port and the WPAN transceiver circuitry is configured to re-transmit the WPAN data packet over the first antenna in response to reception of a non-acknowledge (NACK) packet corresponding to the WPAN data packet over the second antenna while the second switch port is shorted to the third switch port.

10. The electronic device defined in claim 9 , further comprising:
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) transceiver circuitry, wherein the WLAN transceiver circuitry is configured to transmit WLAN signals over the first and second antennas.

11. The electronic device defined in claim 10 , wherein the WLAN transceiver circuitry comprises a first WLAN transceiver that is configured to transmit the WLAN signals over the first antenna and a second WLAN transceiver that is configured to transmit the WLAN signals over the second antenna, the electronic device further comprising:
an additional switch having a fourth switch port coupled to the second WLAN transceiver, a fifth switch port coupled to the WPAN transceiver, and a sixth switch port coupled to third switch port of the switch.

12. The electronic device defined in claim 11 , wherein the control circuitry is configured to control the switch to short the second switch port to the third switch port and is configured to control the additional switch to short the fourth switch port to the sixth switch port while the second WLAN transceiver transmits the WLAN signals over the second antenna.

13. The electronic device defined in claim 12 , wherein the WPAN transceiver circuitry comprises a Bluetooth transceiver and the WPAN data packet comprises a Bluetooth data packet.

14. The electronic device defined in claim 13 , wherein the first WLAN transceiver, the second WLAN transceiver, the Bluetooth transceiver, and the additional switch are formed on a shared integrated circuit having first and second ports, the first port couples the first WLAN transceiver to the first antenna, and the second port couples the additional switch to the second antenna through the switch.

15. The electronic device defined in claim 13 , further comprising:
a conductive electronic device housing having opposing first and second ends;
an ear speaker at the first end; and
a microphone at the second end, wherein the first antenna is formed at the first end and the second antenna is formed at the second end.

16. A method of operating an electronic device having a Bluetooth transceiver and first and second antennas coupled to the Bluetooth transceiver, the method comprising:
with the Bluetooth transceiver, transmitting a first Bluetooth data packet from a sequence of Bluetooth data packets over the first antenna during a first transmit period;
with the Bluetooth transceiver, in response to reception of an acknowledge (ACK) packet corresponding to the first Bluetooth data packet over the first antenna during a first rece

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Di Nallo Carlo
• Pascolini Mattia
• Guterman Jerzy S

Classifications

• H04L5/006

  Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling · CPC title

• H04W72/0446

  Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames · CPC title

• H04B7/0404 Primary

  the mobile station comprising multiple antennas, e.g. to provide uplink diversity · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04B1/401

  for selecting or indicating operating mode · CPC title