Forward-path digital summation in digital radio frequency transport

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9367828-B2
Application number	US-201314090139-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 26, 2013
Priority date	Nov 26, 2012
Publication date	Jun 14, 2016
Grant date	Jun 14, 2016

Abstract

A distributed antenna switch includes a plurality of first interfaces, each of the plurality of first interfaces configured to receive a downlink serialized data stream from a different network interface across a different first digital communication link; at least one second interface, the at least one second interface configured to communicate an aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link; and wherein the distributed antenna switch is configured to aggregate the plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A distributed antenna switch comprising:
a plurality of first interfaces, each of the plurality of first interfaces configured to receive a downlink serialized data stream from a different network interface across a different first digital communication link;
a first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions, each configurable to operate as at least one of a downlink selector and a downlink summer;
while operating as a downlink selector, any of the first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions are configured to generate an aggregate downlink serialized data stream by selecting and interleaving portions of at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream;
while operating as a downlink summer, any of the first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions are configured to generate the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by digitally summing data from timeslots of at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream; and
at least one second interface, the at least one second interface configured to communicate the aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a remote antenna unit over a second digital communication link.

2. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , further comprising:
wherein the at least one second interface is further configured to receive a first uplink serialized data stream from the remote antenna unit over the second digital communication link;
a first plurality of uplink selector/summer functions, each configurable to operate as at least one of an uplink selector and an uplink summer;
while operating as an uplink selector, any of the first plurality of uplink selector/summer functions are configured to generate an aggregate uplink serialized data stream by selecting and interleaving portions of at least the first uplink serialized data stream with at least one additional uplink serialized data stream into an aggregate uplink serialized data stream;
while operating as an uplink summer, any of the first plurality of uplink selector/summer functions are configured to generate the aggregate uplink serialized data stream by digitally summing data from timeslots of the first uplink serialized data stream with data from timeslots of at least one additional uplink serialized data stream into the aggregate uplink serialized data stream; and
wherein each of the plurality of first interfaces is further configured to communicate the aggregate uplink serialized data stream to the different corresponding network interface across the different corresponding first digital communication link.

3. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein while operating as a downlink selector, any of the first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions are configured to generate the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by mapping timeslots from each of the at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams to timeslots within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

4. The distributed antenna switch of claim 3 , wherein the timeslots from each of the at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams are interleaved within the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

5. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein at least one first interface of the plurality of first interfaces is configured to receive a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream, wherein the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream is one of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams aggregated into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

6. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein a first downlink selector/summer function of the first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions is operating as a downlink selector, providing a first aggregate downlink serialized data stream to the remote antenna unit through the at least one second interface across the second digital communication link, the first aggregate downlink serialized data stream including portions of at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams; and
wherein a second downlink selector/summer function of the first plurality of downlink selector/summer functions is operating as a downlink summer, providing a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream to a second remote antenna unit through the at least one second interface across a third digital communication link, the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream including a digital summation of data from timeslots of at least two of the plurality of downlink serialized data streams.

7. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one different network interface across at least one different first digital communication link is a serialized baseband data stream.

8. The distributed antenna switch of claim 7 , wherein the serialized baseband data stream includes quadrature samples of I/Q pairs.

9. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein the at least one second interface includes a plurality of second interfaces, each of the plurality of second interfaces configured to communicate corresponding aggregate downlink serialized data streams to corresponding remote antenna units over corresponding second digital communication links.

10. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link includes serialized digital radio frequency signals representing a radio frequency band communicated by a base station.

11. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link is a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream including serialized digital radio frequency signals representing a plurality of radio frequency bands communicated by a plurality of base stations.

12. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein the downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link includes Ethernet frames from an internet protocol network.

13. The distributed antenna switch of claim 12 , wherein the Ethernet frames are used for wireless local area network (WLAN) backhaul.

14. The distributed antenna switch of claim 12 , further comprising an Ethernet network switch configured to extract Ethernet frames from the at least one downlink serialized data stream received from at least one of the different first digital communication link, the Ethernet network switch further configured to route a subset of packets from the extracted Ethernet frames into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the subset of packets into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream.

15. The distributed antenna switch of claim 14 , wherein the Ethernet network switch is further configured to route a second subset of packets form the extracted Ethernet frames into a second aggregate downlink serialized data stream by integrating the second subset of packets into the aggregate downlink serialized data stream, wherein the second aggregate downlink serialized data stream includes a plurality of downlink serialized data streams from the different network interfaces.

16. The distributed antenna switch of claim 1 , wherein at least one first digital communication link is a fiber optic cable.

Assignees

• Adc Telecommunications Inc
• Commscope Technologies Llc

Inventors

• Zavadsky Dean
• Forland Jody
• Fischer Larry G
• Wala Philip M

Classifications

• H04B7/022 Primary

  Site diversity; Macro-diversity (using two or more spaced independent antennas H04B7/04) · CPC title

• G06Q10/087 Primary

  Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders · CPC title