Communication apparatus, distributed antenna system, and switching method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10644741-B2
Application number	US-201916382747-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 12, 2019
Priority date	May 14, 2018
Publication date	May 5, 2020
Grant date	May 5, 2020

Abstract

According to an embodiment, a communication apparatus includes a switching unit, a reception unit, a rising edge detector, a symbol detector, and a switching timing detector. The switching unit switches a transmission operation of a signal in the communication apparatus between uplink signal transmission and downlink signal transmission. The reception unit receives a signal transmitted in a time division multiplexing scheme. The rising edge detector detects a rising edge of a received signal received by the reception unit. The symbol detector detects a symbol of a signal indicating a guard time in the time division multiplexing scheme from the received signal. The switching timing detector detects a switching timing of the transmission operation from the switching unit on the basis of detection results of the rising edge detector and the symbol detector.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A communication apparatus, comprising:
a switching unit configured to switch a transmission operation of a signal in the communication apparatus between uplink signal transmission and downlink signal transmission;
a reception unit configured to receive a signal transmitted in a time division multiplexing scheme;
a rising edge detector configured to detect a rising edge of a received signal received by the reception unit;
a symbol detector configured to detect a symbol of a signal indicating a guard time in the time division multiplexing scheme from the received signal; and
a switching timing detector configured to detect a switching timing of the transmission operation from the switching unit on the basis of detection results of the rising edge detector and the symbol detector.

2. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the rising edge detector has a function of measuring reception power of the received signal and detects a rising edge of the reception power.

3. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the symbol detector includes
a sampling unit configured to sample the received signal;
a normalizer configured to normalize the received signal sampled by the sampling unit; and
a correlation calculator configured to calculate a correlation value between signals received at prescribed time intervals among received signals normalized by the normalizer, and
wherein the switching timing detector detects the switching timing on the basis of the correlation value.

4. The communication apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein the normalizer normalizes the received signal by dividing a signal value of the sampled received signal by amplitude of the received signal.

5. The communication apparatus according to claim 3 ,
wherein the received signal is an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal, and
wherein the normalizer acquires a value after normalization of the sampled received signal on the basis of correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between values of an in-phase component and a quadrature-phase component of the OFDM signal and values obtained by normalizing the in-phase component and the quadrature-phase component of the OFDM signal.

6. The communication apparatus according to claim 3 ,
wherein the received signal is an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal, and
wherein the normalizer acquires a value after normalization of the sampled received signal on the basis of correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between a phase of the OFDM signal and the values obtained by normalizing an in-phase component and a quadrature-phase component of the OFDM signal.

7. The communication apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein the switching timing detector detects a timing at which the correlation value or a value obtained by performing a statistical process on the correlation value becomes a maximum value as the switching timing during a prescribed detection period determined in accordance with a timing at which the rising edge detector has detected the rising edge of the received signal.

8. The communication apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein the switching timing detector detects the maximum value during a detection period determined in accordance with a timing at which a one-frame time required to receive a signal of approximately one frame has elapsed from a switching timing detected during a previous detection period.

9. The communication apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein the switching timing detector detects the maximum value during a detection period determined in accordance with a timing at which a one-subframe time required to receive a signal of approximately one subframe has elapsed from a switching timing detected during a previous detection period.

10. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a plurality of antennas,
wherein the switching timing detector notifies all switching units provided for every two or more antennas of a switching timing detected in relation to any of the plurality of antennas, and
wherein all the switching units switch transmission operations at the same switching timing of which the switching timing detector is notified.

11. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a plurality of antennas,
wherein the switching timing detector detects the switching timing in relation to each antenna of the plurality of antennas,
wherein the communication apparatus further comprises a timing deviation calculator configured to calculate a deviation of the switching timing detected in relation to each antenna, and
wherein the timing deviation calculator provides a notification of a magnitude of the calculated deviation of the switching timing if the magnitude exceeds a prescribed threshold value.

12. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a plurality of antennas,
wherein the switching timing detector detects the switching timing in relation to each antenna of the plurality of antennas,
wherein the communication apparatus further comprises a timing deviation calculator configured to calculate a deviation of the switching timing detected in relation to each antenna, and
wherein the timing deviation calculator causes transmission of a signal in the communication apparatus to be stopped if a magnitude of the calculated deviation of the switching timing exceeds a prescribed threshold value.

13. The communication apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a plurality of antennas,
wherein the switching timing detector detects the switching timing in relation to each antenna of the plurality of antennas,
wherein the communication apparatus further comprises a timing deviation calculator configured to calculate a deviation of a switching timing detected in relation to each antenna, and
wherein, if a magnitude of the calculated deviation of the switching timing exceeds a prescribed threshold value, the timing deviation calculator corrects the switching timing so that the magnitude of the deviation is less than or equal to the threshold value.

14. A distributed antenna system, comprising:
a master station apparatus; and
one or more slave station apparatuses having a wired connection with the master station apparatus,
wherein the master station apparatus is the communication apparatus according to claim 1 and communicates with a base station apparatus, and
wherein each of the one or more slave station apparatuses includes an antenna for communicating with a terminal station apparatus.

15. A distributed antenna system, comprising:
a master station apparatus; and
one or more slave station apparatuses having a wired connection with the master station apparatus,
wherein the master station apparatus communicates with a base station apparatus, and
wherein each of the one or more slave station apparatuses is the communication apparatus according to claim 1 and includes an antenna for communicating with a terminal station apparatus.

16. A distributed antenna system, comprising:
a master station apparatus;
one or more hub station apparatuses having a wired connection with the master station apparatus; and
one or more slave station apparatuses having a wired connection with the hub station apparatuses and configured to communicate with the master station apparatus via the hub station apparatuses,
wherein the master station apparatus communicates with a base station apparatus,
wherein each of

Assignees

• Toshiba Kk
• Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corp

Inventors

• Iida Yasutaka
• Kusama Katsumi
• Tango Toshihiro
• Honda Naohiro

Classifications

• H04W88/085

  Access point devices with remote components · CPC title

• H04L5/18

  Automatic changing of the traffic direction · CPC title

• H04L5/1469

  using time-sharing · CPC title

• H04B7/024

  Co-operative use of antennas of several sites, e.g. in co-ordinated multipoint or co-operative multiple-input multiple-output [MIMO] systems · CPC title

• H04L1/0036

  arrangements specific to the receiver · CPC title