Repeater and radiation pattern forming method for the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11005559-B2
Application number	US-201916699240-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 29, 2019
Priority date	Feb 27, 2019
Publication date	May 11, 2021
Grant date	May 11, 2021

Abstract

A repeater includes an up-link circuit and a down-link circuit. The down-link circuit includes a receiver, a radio frequency circuit and a transmitter. The transmitter transmits the repeated second signals to the user equipment and includes an antenna array, a plurality of power amplifiers, a plurality of first phase shifters, a first memory unit, and a first control logic circuit. The antenna array includes a plurality of antenna elements arranged along a first direction, and the number of the plurality of antenna elements is at least four. The first memory unit is configured to store predetermined parameters associated with a predetermined radiation pattern. The first control logic circuit selects a first number of the power amplifiers and the first number of the first phase shifters, and sets normalized gains for the selected plurality of power amplifiers range from 0.7 to 1 unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A repeater, comprising:
an up-link circuit configured to receive first signals from a user equipment, repeat the first signals and transmit the repeated first signals to a base station, respectively; and
a down link circuit, including:
a first receiver configured to receive second signals from the base station; and
a first radio frequency (RF) circuit configured to repeat the second signals;
a first transmitter configured to transmit the repeated second signals to the user equipment and including:
an antenna array, including a plurality of antenna elements disposed on a substrate and arranged along a first direction, wherein a number of the plurality of antenna elements is at least four;
a plurality of power amplifiers connected to the antenna array;
a plurality of first phase shifters connected between the plurality of power amplifiers and the radio frequency circuit;
a first memory unit configured to store predetermined parameters associated with a predetermined radiation pattern; and
a first control logic circuit configured to select a predetermined number of the plurality of power amplifiers and the predetermined number of the plurality of first phase shifters, and control the selected plurality of power amplifiers and the selected plurality of phase shifters according to the predetermined parameters,

wherein the first control logic circuit is configured to set, according to the predetermined parameters, normalized gains for the selected plurality of first power amplifiers range from 0.7 to 1 unit to generate the predetermined radiation pattern through the antenna array.

2. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of antenna elements is a single-polarized patch antenna elements and each of the plurality of power amplifiers is corresponding to one of the plurality of antenna elements.

3. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of antenna elements is a dual-polarized antenna element, and each two of the plurality of power amplifiers is corresponding to one of the plurality of antenna elements.

4. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein the predetermined radiation pattern is defined as a plane having antenna gains range from 2 dB to 5 dB within an angle of 120 degrees with respect to a center axis crossing a center point of the antenna array along a normal direction of the substrate, and the plane is formed by the center axis and an axis along the first direction.

5. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein the normalized gains are ratios of gains of the plurality of power amplifiers to maximum gains thereof.

6. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein M antenna elements of the antenna elements are arranged along the first direction and N antenna elements of the antenna elements are arranged along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction.

7. The repeater according to claim 6 , wherein M is a positive integer equal to or larger than 4, and N is a positive integer equal to or larger than 1.

8. The repeater according to claim 1 , wherein the uplink circuit includes a second receiver configured to receive third signals from the user equipment and including:
a plurality of second phase shifters;
a plurality of low noise amplifiers connected between the plurality of second phase shifters and the antenna array;
a second memory unit configured to store the predetermined parameters associated with the predetermined radiation pattern; and
a second control logic configured to select a second number of the plurality of low noise amplifiers and the second number of the plurality of second phase shifters, and control the selected plurality of low noise amplifiers and the selected plurality of second phase shifters according to the predetermined parameters.

9. A radiation pattern forming method for a repeater including an up-link circuit and a down-link circuit, the radiation pattern forming method comprising the following steps:
arranging a plurality of antenna elements of the antenna array along a first direction, wherein a number of the plurality of antenna elements is at least four;
configuring a first memory unit to store a predetermined radiation pattern and predetermined parameters associated with the radiation pattern;
configuring a first control logic circuit to select a first number of a plurality of power amplifiers and the first number of a plurality of phase shifters of the down-link circuit, and control the selected plurality of first power amplifiers and the selected plurality of phase shifters according to the predetermined parameters;
configuring the first control logic circuit is configured to set, according to the predetermined parameters, normalized gains for the selected plurality of first power amplifiers range from 0.7 to 1 unit to generate the predetermined radiation pattern through the antenna array.

10. The radiation pattern optimization method according to claim 9 , wherein each of the plurality of antenna elements is a single-polarized patch antenna elements and each of the selected plurality of power amplifiers is corresponding to one of the plurality of antenna elements.

11. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , wherein each of the plurality of antenna elements is a dual-polarized antenna element and each two of the plurality of power amplifiers is corresponding to one of the plurality of antenna elements.

12. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , wherein the predetermined radiation pattern is defined as a plane having antenna gains range from 2 dB to 5 dB within an angle of 120 degrees with respect to a center axis crossing a center point of the antenna array, and the plane is formed by the center axis and an axis along the first direction.

13. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , wherein the normalized gains are ratios of the gains of the plurality of power amplifiers to maximum gains thereof.

14. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , wherein M antenna elements of the plurality of antenna elements are arranged along the first direction and N antenna elements of the plurality of antenna elements are arranged along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction.

15. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 14 , wherein M is a positive integer equal to or larger than 4, and N is a positive integer equal to or larger than 1.

16. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , further comprising:
configuring a second receiver of an uplink circuit of the repeater to receive third signals from the user equipment;
configuring a second memory unit of the second receiver to store the predetermined parameters associated with the predetermined radiation pattern;
configuring a second control logic of the uplink circuit to select, according to the predetermined parameters, a second number of a plurality of low noise amplifiers of the second receiver and the second number of the plurality of second phase shifters of the second receiver, and control the selected plurality of low noise amplifiers and the selected plurality of second phase shifters according to the predetermined parameters.

17. The radiation pattern forming method according to claim 9 , further comprising:
configuring the first control logic circuit to perform an optimization process, which includes the following steps:
determining a threshold of convergence;
obtaining a set of parameters for the plurality of antenna elements by executing an optimization algorithm;

Assignees

• Wistron Neweb Corp

Inventors

• Liu Chih-Hsiang
• Huang Tsun-Che
• Chen Horen

Classifications

• H04W84/047

  using dedicated repeater stations · CPC title

• H04B7/15528 Primary

  Control of operation parameters of a relay station to exploit the physical medium · CPC title

• H04B7/155 Primary

  Ground-based stations (H04B7/204 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H01Q3/34

  by electrical means (active lenses or reflecting arrays H01Q3/46) · CPC title