Method and system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11228378-B2
Application number	US-202016839494-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 3, 2020
Priority date	Apr 3, 2020
Publication date	Jan 18, 2022
Grant date	Jan 18, 2022

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter. The method comprises: performing a first measurement by means of a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter; performing a second measurement by means of the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter; obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter; determining a position of the measurement system; and taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter. In addition, a system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter is described.

First claim

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. A method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, comprising:
performing a first measurement by a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter;
performing a second measurement by the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter;
obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter,
determining a position of the measurement system; and
taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter such that at least two different measurement values associated with different transmitters are taken into consideration.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a ratio or a difference is determined that is based on the first measurement value and the second measurement value, and wherein the ratio or the difference is used to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a model is used, and wherein the measurement values obtained are evaluated in order to identify a best fit of the measurement values with regard to the model applied for estimating the transmission direction of the first transmitter.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein an artificial intelligence is used to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter, wherein the artificial intelligence was trained by training data comprising measurement values of transmitters with known transmission direction, and wherein the artificial intelligence receives the measurement values in order to output the estimated transmission direction of the first transmitter.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein several measurements are performed such that at least one of the first measurement value and the second measurement value are/is determined several times from different measurement directions.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein a metric is generated based on the results of the several measurements performed from the different measurement directions.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first measurement value and the second measurement value comprise at least one of a receive-power, a signal-to-interference-noise ratio, a receive-quality indicator, a delay-spread or any combination thereof.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position information is obtained from a database or from an estimation result provided by a position-estimation circuit.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position information of the first transmitter and the position information of the second transmitter are substantially identical since the first transmitter and the second transmitter are co-located.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position information and the position of the measurement system each comprise geographic position information.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the position of the measurement system is determined by a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) module.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the transmission direction is estimated with regard to at least one of azimuth and elevation.

13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the measurement values are filtered and interpolated over an angular measurement range.

14. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a path loss compensation is applied on the measurement values.

15. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a joint estimation of the respective transmission direction is performed for the first transmitter and the second transmitter.

16. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a probability-density function is taken into consideration for the respective estimation.

17. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a confidence interval is calculated for the respective estimation.

18. A system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, the system comprising:
a measurement circuit;
a position circuit; and
an analysis circuit,
wherein the measurement circuit is configured to gather measurement values of a first transmitter and a second transmitter and to forward these measurement values to the analysis circuit such that at least two different measurement values associated with different transmitters are taken into consideration,
wherein the position circuit is configured to gather a position of the measurement system itself and to forward the position to the analysis circuit, and
wherein the analysis circuit is configured to obtain position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter and to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter based on the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system.

19. The system according to claim 18 , wherein the analysis circuit is configured to:
determine a ratio or a difference that is based on the first measurement value and the second measurement value;
apply a model that is used to identify a best fit of the measurement values with regard to the model applied; and/or
use an artificial intelligence that was trained by training data comprising measurement values of transmitters with known transmission direction, wherein the artificial intelligence receives the measurement values in order to output the estimated transmission direction of the first transmitter.

20. A method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, comprising:
performing a first measurement by a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter;
performing a second measurement by means of the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter;
obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter;
determining a position of the measurement system; and
taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter such that a possible shadowing of the signals transmitted is cancelled out effectively.

Assignees

• Rohde & Schwarz

Inventors

• Hausl Christoph
• Emmert Julian
• Turan Nurettin

Classifications

• H04W64/006

  with additional information processing, e.g. for direction or speed determination · CPC title

• H04B17/104 Primary

  of other parameters, e.g. DC offset, delay or propagation times · CPC title

• H04W24/00

  Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements · CPC title

• H04B17/336

  Signal-to-interference ratio [SIR] or carrier-to-interference ratio [CIR] · CPC title

• H04B7/005

  Control of transmission; Equalising · CPC title