Optimizing power efficiency of a power amplifier circuit to reduce power consumption in a remote unit in a wireless distribution system (WDS)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10833635-B2
Application number	US-201916532623-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 6, 2019
Priority date	May 19, 2017
Publication date	Nov 10, 2020
Grant date	Nov 10, 2020

Abstract

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to optimizing power efficiency of a power amplifier circuit to reduce power consumption in a remote unit in a wireless distribution system (WDS). A power amplifier circuit is provided in the remote unit to amplify a received input signal associated with a signal channel(s) to generate an output signal at an aggregated peak power. In this regard, a control circuit is configured to analyze at least one physical property related to the signal channel(s) to determine a maximum output power of the power amplifier circuit. Accordingly, the control circuit configures the power amplifier circuit according to the determined maximum output power. By configuring the maximum output power based on the signal channel(s) in the input signal, it may be possible to optimize the power efficiency of the power amplifier circuit, thus helping to reduce the power consumption of the remote unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A wireless distribution system (WDS), comprising:
a plurality of remote units configured to:
receive and convert a plurality of downlink optical communications signals into a plurality of downlink radio frequency (RF) communications signals for distribution; and
receive a plurality of uplink RF communications signals and convert the plurality of uplink RF communications signals into a plurality of optical uplink communications signals; and

a central unit comprising at least one optical-to-electrical converter and at least one electrical-to-optical converter and configured to:
distribute the plurality of downlink optical communications signals to the plurality of remote units; and
receive the plurality of uplink optical communications signals from the plurality of remote units;

wherein at least one selected remote unit among the plurality of remote units comprises a power management circuit, the power management circuit comprises:
a power amplifier circuit comprising a signal input and a signal output, the power amplifier circuit configured to:
receive an input signal among the plurality of downlink RF communications signals, the input signal comprising one or more signal channels via the signal input;
amplify the received input signal to generate an output signal at an aggregated peak power; and
provide the output signal to the signal output for distribution among the plurality of downlink RF communications signals; and

a control circuit configured to:
analyze at least one physical property related to the one or more signal channels of the input signal;
determine a maximum output power for the power amplifier circuit to amplify the received input signal to the aggregated peak power based on the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels, wherein the maximum output power is greater than or equal to the aggregated peak power of the output signal; and
configure the power amplifier circuit.

2. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein the determined maximum output power of the power amplifier circuit is a smallest maximum output power required to amplify the received input signal to the aggregated peak power.

3. The WDS of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of remote units is distributed over multiple floors of a building infrastructure.

4. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein the control circuit comprises:
signal analysis circuitry configured to:
analyze the at least one physical property related to the one or more signal channels of the input signal; and
determine the maximum output power of the power amplifier circuit to amplify the received input signal to the aggregated peak power based on the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels of the input signal; and

power setting circuitry configured to configure the power amplifier circuit according to the determined maximum output power.

5. The WDS of claim 4 , wherein the at least one physical property related to the one or more signal channels comprises a count of the one or more signal channels, a respective bandwidth of the one or more signal channels, a respective power of the one or more signal channels, and a respective waveform of the one or more signal channels.

6. The WDS of claim 4 , wherein the signal analysis circuitry is configured to analyze the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels by analyzing a sample of the input signal.

7. The WDS of claim 4 , wherein the signal analysis circuitry is configured to analyze the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels by analyzing a sample of the output signal.

8. The WDS of claim 4 , wherein the signal analysis circuitry is configured to analyze the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels by analyzing a digital signal corresponding to the input signal.

9. The WDS of claim 8 , wherein the digital signal is encoded in common public radio interface (CPRI) format.

10. The WDS of claim 4 , wherein the signal analysis circuitry is configured to retrieve the at least one physical property of the one or more signal channels from a database.

11. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein:
the power amplifier circuit is further configured to:
receive a bias voltage at a voltage input from a power supply; and
amplify the received input signal based on the bias voltage to generate the output signal at the aggregated peak power; and

the control circuit is further configured to adjust the bias voltage to cause the power amplifier circuit to provide the determined maximum output power greater than or equal to the aggregated peak power of the output signal.

12. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein:
the power amplifier circuit comprises a plurality of power amplifiers; and
the control circuit is further configured to determine and enable one or more selected power amplifiers among the plurality of power amplifiers based on the determined maximum output power.

13. The WDS of claim 12 , further comprising:
a splitter configured to split the input signal into one or more channel-based input signals and provide the one or more channel-based input signals to the one or more selected power amplifiers, wherein the one or more selected power amplifiers are configured to amplify the one or more channel-based input signals to generate one or more channel-based output signals, respectively; and
a combiner configured to receive and combine the one or more channel-based output signals to generate the output signal at the aggregated peak power.

14. The WDS of claim 12 , wherein the control circuit is further configured to disable power amplifiers of the plurality of power amplifiers that are not among the one or more selected power amplifiers.

15. The WDS of claim 12 , wherein the plurality of remote units is distributed over multiple floors of a building infrastructure.

16. The WDS of claim 15 , wherein the plurality of remote units comprises:
remote unit optical-to-electrical (O/E) converters configured to convert the plurality of downlink optical fiber-based communications signals into the plurality of downlink communications signals; and
remote unit E/O converters configured to convert the plurality of uplink communications signals into a plurality of uplink optical fiber-based communications signals.

17. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein the central unit comprises electrical-to-optical (E/O) converters configured to convert the plurality of downlink communications signals into a plurality of downlink optical fiber-based communications signals for distribution to the plurality of remote units over a downlink optical fiber-based communications medium.

18. The WDS of claim 17 , wherein the plurality of remote units is distributed over multiple floors of a building infrastructure.

19. The WDS of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of remote units is distributed over multiple floors of a building infrastructure.

Assignees

• Corning Optical Communications LLC

Inventors

• Harel Dror

Classifications

• H03F1/0222 Primary

  by using a signal derived from the input signal · CPC title

• H04B17/13

  of power amplifiers, e.g. gain or non-linearity · CPC title

• H03F2200/451

  the amplifier being a radio frequency amplifier · CPC title

• H03F3/189

  High-frequency amplifiers, e.g. radio frequency amplifiers · CPC title

• H03F3/2178

  using more than one switch or switching amplifier in parallel or in series (H03F3/2173, H03F3/2175 take precedence) · CPC title