Method and system for intelligently controlling propagation environments in distributed transceiver communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9253587-B2
Application number	US-201313919958-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 17, 2013
Priority date	Aug 8, 2012
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

A communication device comprising a plurality of distributed transceivers and one or more corresponding antenna arrays is operable to determine characteristics of one or more objects that are sensed within a surrounding communication environment of the communication device. The communication device may configure one or more of the plurality of distributed transceivers and/or one or more of the corresponding antenna arrays to handle communication of one or more data streams based on the determined characteristics. Exemplary characteristics may comprise reflective property and/or refractive property of the sensed one or more objects within the surrounding communication environment of the communication device. The communication device may be operable to store the determined characteristics, corresponding temporal information and/or spatial information for the sensed one or more objects, and/or signal propagation characteristics within a surrounding communication environment of the communication device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
in a first communication device comprising a plurality of distributed transceivers, each distributed transceiver comprising one or more corresponding antenna arrays:
determining a location of the first communication device;
identifying one or more reflectors within a surrounding communication environment of said first communication device;
based on the determined locations of the first communication device and said identified one or more reflectors, configuring antenna patterns of the antenna arrays of a set of distributed transceivers in said plurality of distributed transceivers to associate each distributed transceiver in the set of distributed transceivers with an identified reflector to transmit a data stream to a second communication device using the distributed transceiver and the associated reflector, at least two distributed transceivers configured to transmit different data streams to the second communication device, said configuring comprising configuring the antenna arrays' beam patterns to mitigate cross interference between said different data streams; and
transmitting a plurality of data streams from the antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers of the first communication device to the second communication device.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising determining characteristics of said one or more reflectors, wherein said characteristics comprise at least one of a reflective property and a refractive property of said one or more reflectors within said surrounding communication environment of said first communication device, wherein the antenna patterns of the antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers are further configured based on the determined characteristics of said one or more reflectors.

3. The method according to claim 2 further comprising:
storing one or more of said determined characteristics, a corresponding temporal information, a corresponding spatial information, and a location for said one or more reflectors, and signal propagation characteristics within surrounding communication environment of said first communication device; and
generating a map of said surrounding communication environment of said first communication device based on one or more of said stored determined characteristics, said corresponding temporal information, said corresponding spatial information, said location of the one or more reflectors, and said signal propagation characteristics.

4. The method according to claim 3 further comprising dynamically updating one or more of said stored determined characteristics, said corresponding temporal information, said corresponding spatial information, said location of the one or more reflectors, said signal propagation characteristics, and said map based on at least one of additional information acquired by said first communication device, information received from one or more communication devices other than the first communication device, and information received from one or more network devices.

5. The method according to claim 3 further comprising communicating surrounding communication environment data comprising one or more of said determined characteristics, said corresponding temporal information, said corresponding spatial information, said location for said one or more reflectors, and said signal propagation characteristics, from said first communication device to a coordinating device, wherein said coordinating device is configured to:
process and aggregate said communicated surrounding communication environment data with other corresponding data for said communication environment, which is received from one or more communication devices other than the first communication device and a set of network devices to generate resulting data for said surrounding communication environment; and
communicate said resulting data for said surrounding communication environment from said coordinating device to at least one of said first communication device, said one or more communication devices and said set of network devices.

6. The method according to claim 5 further comprising receiving said communicated resulting data for said surrounding communication environment from said coordinating device.

7. The method according to claim 6 further comprising adjusting configuration of one or more of (i) said plurality of distributed transceivers and (ii) said corresponding antenna arrays based on said received resulting data for said surrounding communication environment.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein configuring the antenna patterns of said antenna arrays comprises determining one or more communication paths for communicating said plurality of data streams within said surrounding communication environment.

9. The method according to claim 8 further comprising configuring one or more of said set of distributed transceivers and the corresponding antenna arrays to communicate said plurality of data streams via said determined one or more communication paths.

10. The method according to claim 8 , wherein said determined one or more communication paths for communicating said plurality of data streams within said surrounding communication environment utilizes one or more of a reflective and a refractive surface of said one or more reflectors.

11. The method according to claim 1 further comprising determining whether a data path between each antenna array of the first communication device and the second communication device is a reflective path or a refractive path.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the plurality of data streams comprise a set of critical data streams and a set of high throughput data streams, the method further comprising:
transporting the set of critical data streams over said refractive paths; and
transporting the set of high through put data streams over said reflective paths.

13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said one or more reflectors comprise a set of passive reflectors installed in the communication environment to create reflective paths.

14. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said one or more reflectors comprise a set of passive curved reflectors installed in the communication environment to expand a coverage area of the communication environment.

15. The method according to claim 1 is further comprising:
scanning the communication environment using one or more of said plurality of distributed transceivers to identify curved reflectors and refractive reflectors; and
utilizing the identified curved and refractive reflectors to transport different data streams over said curved and refractive reflectors.

16. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the antenna patterns of the antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers are configured to keep cross interference between said plurality of data streams below a threshold.

17. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising configuring directions of the antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers to keep cross interference between said plurality of data streams below a threshold.

18. The method according to claim 1 further comprising identifying a communication path between each identified reflector and the first communication device, wherein configuring the antenna patterns of the antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers further comprises configuring the antenna patterns of antenna arrays of the set of distributed transceivers to communicate said data streams utilizing the identif

Assignees

• Golba Llc

Inventors

• Moshfeghi Mehran

Classifications

• H04B17/336

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

• H04B7/0697 Primary

  using spatial multiplexing · CPC title

• H04B7/0871

  using different reception schemes, at least one of them being a diversity reception scheme · CPC title

• H04B7/0689

  using different transmission schemes, at least one of them being a diversity transmission scheme · CPC title

• H04B7/0456

  Selection of precoding matrices or codebooks, e.g. using matrices antenna weighting · CPC title