Millimeter-wave sourceless receiver

• US 10,116,396 B1
• Filed: 04/28/2017
• Issued: 10/30/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Canada Co., Ltd (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Canada Co., Ltd (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Wu, Ke, Liu, Ruizhi
• Primary Examiner(s): Bocure, Tesfaldet
• Application Number:
  US15/582,013
• Publication Number:
  US 20180316439A1
• Time in Patent Office: 550 Days
• Field of Search: 398 25
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/616 Details of the electronic signal processing in coherent optical receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/6165 Estimation of the phase of the received optical signal, phase error estimation or phase error correction
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/70 Photonic quantum communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2210/006 Devices for generating or processing an RF signal by optical means
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/70 specially adapted for specific purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/73 for taking measurements, e.g. using sensing coils
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/08 at the receiving station
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/00 Network planning, e.g. coverage or traffic planning tools; Network deployment, e.g. resource partitioning or cells structures

Abstract

A receiver includes a planar antenna array including at least three antennas. Each antenna simultaneous receives a local oscillator (LO) signal from a near field region and a radio frequency (RF) signal from a far field region. Each antenna is coupled to a respective quasi-optical mixer. Each quasi-optical mixer includes only passive components and outputs a respective intermediate frequency (IF) signal. The receiver includes two six-port demodulators. Each six-port demodulator receives a different pair of IF signals as input and outputs signals representing baseband power of the pair of IF signals. Each six-port demodulator includes only passive components. The receiver also includes a processor to calculate direction of arrival (DoA) for the LO signal and the RF signal using the output from the six-port demodulators.

Claims

1. A receiver comprising:

a planar antenna array including at least three antennas, each antenna being configured for simultaneously receiving a local oscillator (LO) signal from a near field region and a radio frequency (RF) signal from a far field region;

each antenna being coupled to a respective quasi-optical mixer, each quasi-optical mixer including only passive components and outputting a respective intermediate frequency (IF) signal;

at least two six-port demodulators, each six-port demodulator receiving a respective different pair of IF signals as input and outputting signals representing baseband power of the respective pair of IF signals, each six-port demodulator including only passive components; and

a processor coupled to receive output from the six-port demodulators, the processor being configured to calculate direction of arrival (DoA) for the LO signal and the RF signal using the output from the six-port demodulators.

2. The receiver of claim 1, wherein each six-port demodulator comprises:

a correlator portion; and

a power detector portion, wherein the power detector portion is based on zero-biased schottky diode.

3. The receiver of claim 1, wherein each quasi-optical mixer is a zero-biased schottky diode-based mixer.

4. The receiver of claim 1, further comprising:

a power divider coupled to receive a IF signal from at least one quasi-optical mixer, the power divider dividing the IF signal into two signals for input into the at least two six-port demodulators.

5. The receiver of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to calculate DoA by:

calculating phase differences between the respective pairs of IF signals using the output from the six-port demodulators; and

calculating the DoA of the LO and RF signals using the phase differences.

6. The receiver of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to calculate the DoA using the phase differences by solving the equations:

7. A method for performing direction of arrival (DoA) estimation, the method comprising:

receiving, at a planar antenna array including at least three antennas, a local oscillator (LO) signal from a near field region and a radio frequency (RF) signal from a far field region simultaneously, each antenna being coupled to a respective quasi-optical mixer to output a respective intermediate frequency (IF) signal;

using output signals from at least two six-port demodulators coupled to the quasi-optical mixers, calculate phase differences between respective pairs of IF signals; and

using the phase differences, calculate incident angles of the LO signal and the RF signal.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the output signals from the six-port demodulators represent baseband power of the IF signals for calculating the phase differences.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein calculating the incident angles comprises solving the equations: