Beam recovery for antenna array

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11539412-B2
Application number	US-201916526828-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 30, 2019
Priority date	Jul 30, 2019
Publication date	Dec 27, 2022
Grant date	Dec 27, 2022

Abstract

The described technology is generally directed towards beam recovery for an antenna array. One or more recovery beams or recovery beam patterns can be defined for an antenna array, and in response to a failure, the antenna array can be restored to a defined recovery beam or recovery beam pattern. Techniques for defining recovery beams and recovery beam patterns for the antenna array, selecting a recovery beam or recovery beam pattern for the antenna array, and entering a selected recovery beam or recovery beam pattern by the antenna array are also disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving, by a system comprising a processor, channel state information comprising signal strength information indicating strength of a wireless signal received at first mobile devices from a group of antenna arrays;
storing, by the system, the channel state information along with other channel state information for the group of antenna arrays, resulting in aggregated channel state information;
storing, by the system, beam pattern information that identifies beam patterns produced by the group of antenna arrays, wherein the beam patterns are produced by constructive and destructive interference of wireless communication signals generated by multiple antenna elements of the group of antenna arrays;
analyzing, by the system, the aggregated channel state information and the beam pattern information to pre-calculate, prior to use by antenna arrays of the group of antenna arrays, an atomic set of recovery beam patterns comprising recovery beam patterns for the use by the antenna arrays of the group of antenna arrays in response to a beam failure at the group of antenna arrays, wherein the beam failure comprises a connection disruption between a first mobile device of the first mobile devices and an antenna array of the group of antenna arrays, and wherein respective antenna arrays of the group of antenna arrays use the atomic set of recovery beam patterns by switching to respective recovery beam patterns of the atomic set of recovery beam patterns, followed by entering reactive modes to converge on respective subsequent beam patterns; and
in response to the beam failure at the group of antenna arrays:
using, by the system, a selection criterion to select the atomic set of recovery beam patterns from among atomic sets of recovery beam patterns,
wherein the selection criterion comprises a first criterion related to a position of a second mobile device associated with a security violation, and wherein the atomic set of recovery beam patterns comprises an attenuated signal strength at the position of the second mobile device; and
facilitating, by the system, switching the group of antenna arrays to the respective recovery beam patterns of the atomic set of recovery beam patterns.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein analyzing the aggregated channel state information and the beam pattern information comprises a machine learning analysis of the aggregated channel state information and the beam pattern information.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection criterion further comprises a second criterion related to a spatial distribution of mobile devices in wireless communication with the group of antenna arrays.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection criterion further comprises a second criterion related to a position of a mobile device associated with the antenna array of the group of antenna arrays.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection criterion further comprises a second criterion related to a position of a mobile device associated with the beam failure.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selection criterion further comprises at least one criterion from a group of criteria, the group of criteria comprising a second criterion relating to prevailing weather information, a third criterion relating to date information, and a fourth criterion related to time information.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein analyzing the aggregated channel state information and the beam pattern information to pre-calculate the atomic set of recovery beam patterns is in response to a beam failure inference based on the channel state information.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the system comprises a radio access network intelligent controller device.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving and storing, by the system, failure position information comprising the position of the second mobile device during a failure of wireless communication between the second mobile device and the antenna array of the group of antenna arrays, and wherein analyzing the aggregated channel state information and the beam pattern information comprises analyzing the failure position information.

10. A method, comprising:
generating, by an antenna array of a group of antenna arrays, wireless communication signals in a beam pattern produced by constructive and destructive interference of signals generated by multiple antenna elements of the antenna array; and
in response to a beam failure at the group of antenna arrays, the beam failure comprising a connection disruption between a first mobile device and at least one antenna array of the group of antenna arrays, switching, by the multiple antenna elements of the antenna array, the beam pattern to a recovery beam pattern from a pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns,
wherein the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns comprises recovery beam patterns for use by at least some of the antenna arrays of the group of antenna arrays,
wherein the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns was selected from among atomic sets of recovery beam patterns using a selection criterion, wherein the selection criterion comprises a criterion related to a position of a second mobile device associated with a security violation, and wherein the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns comprises an attenuated signal strength at the position of the second mobile device, and
wherein the antenna array and respective antenna arrays of the group of antenna arrays use the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns by switching to respective recovery beam patterns of the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns, followed by entering reactive modes no converge on respective subsequent beam patterns.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
sending, from the antenna array to a network controller device, channel state information comprising signal strength information indicating strength of wireless signals received at mobile devices from the antenna array;
sending, from the antenna array to the network controller device, beam pattern information that identifies beam patterns produced by the antenna array,
wherein the channel state information and the beam pattern information are analyzed at the network controller device to identify the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns for the group of antenna arrays; and
receiving, at the antenna array, the recovery beam pattern for the antenna array.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the selection criterion further comprises an evaluation of a spatial distribution of mobile devices in wireless communication with the antenna array.

13. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of an antenna array control device, facilitated performance of operations, the operation comprising:
identifying a beam failure at an antenna array, the beam failure comprising a connection disruption between a mobile device and the antenna array;
using a selection criterion to select a pre-calculated recovery beam pattern from among a pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns;
switching the antenna array to the pre-calculated recovery beam pattern in response to the beam failure at the antenna array, wherein:
the pre-calculated recovery beam pattern comprises a beam pattern produced by constructive and destructive interference of wireless communication signals generated by multiple antenna elements of the antenna array;
the pre-calculated atomic set of recovery beam patterns comprises recovery beam patter

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp
• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Tofighbakhsh Mostafa
• Jana Rittwik
• Ungureanu Bogdan
• Sharma Deva-Datta
• Jana Shraboni

Classifications

• H04B7/0617 Primary

  for beam forming · CPC title

• H04W16/28

  using beam steering · CPC title

• H04B7/0626

  Channel coefficients, e.g. channel state information [CSI] · CPC title

• H04B17/12

  of transmit antennas, e.g. of the amplitude or phase · CPC title

• H04B17/318 Primary

  Received signal strength · CPC title