Ultra-low-power millimeter-wave to baseband receiver module for scalable massive MIMO

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11664840-B2
Application number	US-202217681323-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 25, 2022
Priority date	Aug 7, 2020
Publication date	May 30, 2023
Grant date	May 30, 2023

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, receiving, by a first radio module at a first location, a wireless signal, to obtain a first received RF signal. The wireless signal includes information originating at a remote transmitter and conveyed via a wireless channel. An envelope of the first received RF signal is detected by the first radio module without requiring a local oscillator, to obtain a first baseband signal. The first baseband signal may be filtered and/or amplified, after which it is provided to a processor. The processor also obtains a second digital signal from a second radio module receiving the wireless signal at a second location and determines an estimate of the information originating at the remote transmitter according to the first and second signals. Other embodiments are disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A receiver device, comprising:
an antenna element comprising an antenna terminal, wherein the antenna element is adapted to provide a received radio frequency (RF) signal at the antenna terminal responsive to illumination of the antenna element by a spatially diverse RF signal comprising a baseband signal impressed thereon; and
a non-linear energy detector communicatively coupled to the antenna terminal, wherein the non-linear energy detector is adapted to detect a respective 1 -bit baseband signal directly from the received RF signal without using a local oscillator to obtain a detected baseband signal.

2. The receiver device of claim 1 , wherein the non-linear energy detector comprises a current-voltage (I-V) characteristic curve, the detected baseband signal determined according to the I-V characteristic curve.

3. The receiver device of claim 1 , further comprising an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) communicatively coupled to the antenna terminal.

4. The receiver device of claim 3 , wherein the ADC comprises a comparator adapted to compare the detected baseband signal to a reference value to obtain a comparison result, and wherein a digital signal is obtained according to the comparison result.

5. The receiver device of claim 4 , wherein the baseband signal is impressed thereon according to amplitude modulation, and wherein the reference value comprises a threshold voltage, the digital signal being obtained according to a comparison of the detected baseband signal.

6. The receiver device of claim 1 , wherein the receiver device is a passive device operating without requiring energy beyond that obtained via the illumination of the antenna element by the spatially diverse RF signal.

7. The receiver device of claim 1 , wherein the spatially diverse RF signal comprises a signal transmitted from a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transmitter, wherein a baseband signal is impressed upon the spatially diverse RF signal by the MIMO transmitter according to amplitude modulation.

8. The receiver device of claim 7 , wherein the signal transmitted from the MIMO transmitter operates within a millimeter weave spectrum.

9. The receiver device of claim 1 , wherein the received RF signal operates within a millimeter wave spectrum.

10. A radio frequency (RF) receiver system, comprising:
a plurality of radio modules, each adapted to provide a respective 1-bit output signal responsive to a wireless signal received by the plurality of radio modules via a wireless channel, each radio module comprising:
a respective antenna element comprising a respective antenna terminal, wherein the respective antenna element is adapted to provide a respective received RF signal at the respective antenna terminal responsive to the wireless signal received via the wireless channel;
a respective receiver circuit comprising a respective envelope detector communicatively coupled to the respective antenna terminal, wherein the respective envelope detector is adapted to detect information modulated onto the wireless signal prior to transmission via the wireless channel, to obtain a respective detected baseband signal; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the plurality of radio modules and adapted to determine an estimate of the information modulated onto the wireless signal prior to transmission according to the respective detected baseband signal of each of the plurality of radio modules.

11. The RF receiver system of claim 10 , wherein a dimension of the respective receiver circuit is no larger than a maximum dimension of the respective antenna element, such that a size of each radio module is determined according to the maximum dimension of the respective antenna element.

12. The RF receiver system of claim 10 , wherein the respective receiver circuit comprises a respective analog-to-digital converter (ADC) communicatively coupled to the respective envelope detector, wherein the respective ADC is adapted to generate a respective digital signal according to the respective detected baseband signal.

13. The RF receiver system of claim 10 , wherein the wireless signal comprises a wireless multiple input multiple output (MIMO) signal.

14. The RF receiver system of claim 10 , wherein the wireless signal comprises a millimeter wave signal, and wherein each respective receiver circuit comprises a respective LNA is configured to operate in saturation.

15. A method, comprising:
receiving, by a first radio module and at a first location, a wireless signal, to obtain a first received radio frequency (RF) signal, the wireless signal comprising information originating at a remote transmitter and conveyed to the first radio module via a wireless channel;
detecting, by the first radio module and without requiring a local oscillator, an envelope of the first received RF signal to obtain a first detected baseband signal; and
providing, by the first radio module, information obtained from the first detected baseband signal to a processor, the processor also obtaining a second detected baseband signal from a second radio module receiving the wireless signal at a second location, the processor determining an estimate of the information originating at the remote transmitter according to the first and second detected baseband signals.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the detecting of the envelope of the first received RF signal further comprises rectifying, via a semiconductor junction, the first received RF signal.

17. The method of claim 15 , further comprising conditioning, wherein the wireless signal comprises a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) signal comprising information originating at a remote MIMO transmitter.

18. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
comparing, by the first radio module, the first detected baseband signal to a reference value to obtain a first digital signal according to the first detected baseband signal, wherein the second detected baseband signal from the second radio module comprise a second digital signal, and wherein the estimate of the information originating at the remote transmitter is based on a combination of the first digital signal and the second digital signal.

19. The method of claim 15 , wherein the wireless signal comprises a carrier wave component operating in a millimeter wave spectrum.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the first received RF signal comprises an amplitude modulated signal according to the information impressed upon the carrier wave component according to on-off-keying applied by the remote transmitter.

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp
• Univ Notre Dame Du Lac

Inventors

• Bendlin Ralf
• Chisum Jonathan David
• Estes Nicholas Joseph
• Hochwald Bertrand Martyn
• Chopra Aditya

Classifications

• H04B1/22 Primary

  for receivers in which no local oscillation is generated · CPC title

• H04L27/06

  Demodulator circuits; Receiver circuits · CPC title

• H04B7/0413

  MIMO systems · CPC title

• H04B7/0417

  Feedback systems · CPC title

• H04B7/08

  at the receiving station · CPC title