Signal concentrator device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016020932-A1
Application number	US-201514755602-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 30, 2015
Priority date	Jul 18, 2014
Publication date	Jan 21, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A gateway device having a baseband processor for processing a plurality signals carrying a digital information modulated in the form of chirp signal, the chirp signals being either base chirps, for which the frequency changes from an initial instant to a final instant according to a predetermined base chirp function or modulated chirps, whose instantaneous frequencies vary according to one of a plurality of a functions that differ from said base chirp function, characterized in that the gateway device is arranged for simultaneously demodulating a plurality of signals having received at a same frequency and exhibiting different bitrates.

First claim

1 . A gateway device having a processor for processing a plurality signals carrying a digital information modulated in the form of chirp signal, the chirp signals being either base chirps, for which the frequency changes from an initial instant to a final instant according to a predetermined base chirp function or modulated chirps, whose instantaneous frequencies vary according to one of a plurality of a functions that differ from said base chirp function, the gateway device comprising one demodulator or several demodulators, arranged for simultaneously demodulating a plurality of signals having different bitrates.

2 . The gateway device of claim 1 , each chirp being limited in time between an initial instant, at which the signal has an initial instantaneous frequency and an initial phase; and a final instant at which the signal has a final instantaneous frequency and a final phase, the phase of the signal being essentially continuous.

3 . The gateway device of claim 1 , wherein the instantaneous frequency of the modulated chirps varies according to a function that is a cyclical shift of the base chirp function.

4 . The gateway device of claim 1 comprising a plurality of frequency converters tuned to detect signals in a plurality of frequency sub-bands.

5 . The gateway device of claim 1 , wherein said chirp signals include preamble parts, and the gateway device comprises a preamble search engine and a plurality of demodulators, the preamble search engine being operatively arranged to scan the signals generated form the converters, identify said preamble parts for all data rates and, when a preamble is detected, cause the corresponding message to be decoded in one of said plurality of demodulators.

6 . The gateway device of claim 5 , wherein the preamble search engine is arranged to detect sequences of a predetermined number of base chirps.

7 . The gateway device of claim 5 , comprising a packet arbiter unit, operatively arranged for assigning messages corresponding to said detected preambles to one demodulator, possibly based on a set of predetermined rules.

8 . The gateway device of claim 1 , further comprising at least one modulation unit for encoding a digital message into a modulated signal in which the information is encoded as transmitted chirp signals.

9 . The gateway device of claim 8 , each transmitted chirp being limited in time between an initial instant, at which the signal has an initial instantaneous frequency and an initial phase; and a final instant at which the signal has a final instantaneous frequency and a final phase, the phase of the signal being essentially continuous.

10 . The gateway device of claim 1 , further comprising a FSK or GFSK modulator.

11 . The gateway device of claim 1 , the chirp signals being modulated in such a way that signals having different bitrates are orthogonal.

Assignees

• Semtech Corp

Inventors

• Sornin Nicolas
• Champion Ludovic

Classifications

• H04L27/103 Primary

  Chirp modulation (for spread spectrum techniques H04B1/69) · CPC title

• H04B2001/6912

  using chirp · CPC title

• H04B1/69

  Spread spectrum techniques · CPC title

• H04L27/14

  Demodulator circuits; Receiver circuits · CPC title

• H04W88/16

  Gateway arrangements · CPC title