Self organizing backhaul radio

• US 10,237,760 B2
• Filed: 07/17/2017
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: COMS IP Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: Skyline Partners Technology, LLC (COMSovereign Holding Corp.)
• Inventors: Negus, Kevin J., Proctor, Jr., James A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ghowrwal, Omar J
• Assistant Examiner(s): Detse, Kokou R
• Application Number:
  US15/651,207
• Publication Number:
  US 20170318482A1
• Time in Patent Office: 610 Days
• Field of Search: 370329
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0408 using two or more beams, i.e. beam diversity
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0697 using spatial multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/10 Polarisation diversity; Directional diversity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A self-organizing backhaul radio (SOBR) and related arrangements are disclosed. A “primary” link between an first SOBR enabled radio and a second SOBR radio includes a secondary transmission link, referred to as a signature control channel (SCC), as a spread spectrum modulated signal embedded within and transmitted simultaneously with the primary link. The SCC transmissions from the first SOBR radio may be utilized by other SOBR enabled radios to determine an interference level to or from the first SOBR radio'"'"'s primary link. The SCC transmission may be utilized to allow transmit beam forming between SOBR-enabled radios without damaging other friendly SOBR radios within the propagation distance of the transmitted signals based upon the detection of the SCC transmissions.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of self-organizing backhaul radios, each self-organizing backhaul radio comprising;

one or more demodulator cores, wherein each demodulator core is capable of demodulating one or more primary receive symbol streams to produce one or more receive data interface streams;

a plurality of receive radio frequency (RF) chains, wherein each receive RF chain is capable of converting from one of a plurality of receive RF signals to a respective one of a plurality of receive chain output signals;

an antenna array comprising a plurality of directive gain antenna elements, wherein each directive gain antenna element is couplable to at least one receive RF chain;

a frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer to produce one or more composite receive symbol streams from the plurality of receive chain output signals, wherein each respective one of the one or more composite receive symbol streams comprises a linear combination of a respective primary receive symbol stream and a respective signature control channel symbol stream, and wherein each respective signature control channel symbol stream is a spread spectrum modulated signal that carries a respective signature control channel information; and

a signature link processor, interposed between the one or more demodulator cores and the frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer, to produce the one or more primary receive symbol streams provided to the one or more demodulator cores from the one or more composite receive symbol streams.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each self-organizing backhaul radio further comprises:

a radio resource controller, wherein the radio resource controller is capable of setting or causing to be set specific selective couplings between the certain of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements and the certain of the plurality of receive RF chains.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each one of the one or more demodulator cores comprises at least a decoder and a soft decision symbol demapper;

and wherein each one of the plurality of receive RF chains comprises at least a vector demodulator and two analog to digital converters that are capable of producing the respective one of the plurality of receive chain output signals, each said respective one of the plurality of receive chain output signals comprised of digital baseband quadrature signals.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the set of receive RF chains that can accept receive RF signals from the one or more selectable RF connections is divided between one subset that accepts receive RF signals from directive gain antenna elements with a first polarization and a second subset that accepts receive RF signals from directive gain antenna elements with a second polarization.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the directive gain antenna elements that can be selectively coupled to receive RF chains are arranged on a plurality of facets with one or more directive gain antenna elements per facet, and wherein each facet is oriented at a different azimuth angle relative to at least one other facet.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer comprises at least one of a Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) combiner or equalizer, a maximal ratio combining (MRC) combiner or equalizer, a minimum mean squared error (MMSE) combiner or equalizer, an Eigen Beam Forming (EBF) combiner or equalizer, a receive beam forming (BF) combiner or equalizer, a Zero Forcing (ZF) combiner or equalizer, a channel estimator, a Maximal Likelihood (DL) detector, an Interference Canceller (IC), a VBLAST combiner or equalizer, a Discrete Fourier Transformer (DFT), a Fast Fourier Transformer (FFT), or an Inverse Fast Fourier Transformer (IFFT).

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the antenna array further comprises:

one or more selectable RF connections for selectively coupling certain of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements to certain of the plurality of receive RF chains, said certain of the plurality of receive RF chains including at least one receive RF chain coupled to the frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer, wherein the number of directive gain antenna elements that can be selectively coupled to receive RF chains exceeds the number of receive RF chains that can accept receive RF signals from the one or more selectable RF connections; and

wherein the backhaul radio is capable of determining an opportunity for a performance enhancement that derives from setting specific selective couplings between the certain of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements and the certain of the plurality of receive RF chains.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein at least one of the one or more selectable RF connections comprises at least one RF switch.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein at least one of the additional certain of the plurality of receive RF chains is coupled to the frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein said performance enhancement includes one or more of a reduced interference level within one or more of the receive symbol streams, an increased data throughput rate, an improved link diversity, an increased channel efficiency, or an increased signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR).

11. The system of claim 1, wherein each self-organizing backhaul radio further comprises:

one or more transmit RF chains,

and wherein the self-organizing backhaul radio is configured to perform each of the following;

scan one or more radio frequency channels for the presence of signature radio signals transmitted from one or more other self-organizing backhaul radios to generate scan data, and wherein the radio comprises at least one adjustable network parameter that is adjustable based on the scan data,

wherein said scanned one or more radio frequency channels are selected, at least in part, based upon the scan data,

wherein the at least one network parameter is adjusted to reduce a potential of interference of the self-organizing backhaul radio with the other self-organizing backhaul radios,

wherein the adjusting the at least one network parameter comprises one or more of;

selecting a frequency channel utilized between the self-organizing backhaul radio and a second self-organizing backhaul radio;

adjusting the effective radiation pattern of the self-organizing backhaul radio;

selecting one or more of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements; and

adjusting the physical configuration or arrangement of the one or more of the plurality of directive gain antenna elements.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the adjusting the effective radiation pattern comprises one or more of:

steering the effective radiation pattern in elevation;

steering the effective radiation pattern in azimuth.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the adjusting the effective radiation pattern comprises calculating digital beam former weights based upon at least one constraint related to the potential of interference;

and applying the digital beam former weights.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the constraint comprises one or more of:

properties related to or derived from said scan result;

a direction in which signal transmission is to be limited;

parameters which reduce the potential for interfering with one or more of said registered radios meeting said specific criteria;

parameters which increase the likelihood of said self-organizing radio and a second self-organizing radios meeting performance goals with respect to an interposed wireless communication link;

a restriction of use of specific transceivers or specific antennas of a plurality of transceivers or antennas;

a use of specific polarizations for transmission;

attributes of a collective transmission radiation pattern associated with a plurality of transmitters;

a frequency or geometric translation of beam forming weights between receiver weights and transmitter weights;

a change in antennas used or selected;

a change in operating frequency.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein a chip rate of the respective signature control channel symbol stream is equal to a symbol rate of the respective primary receive symbol stream of at least one of the one or more composite receive symbol streams, for at least a portion of time.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein a chip rate of the respective signature control channel symbol stream is equal to a symbol rate of the respective primary receive symbol stream of each of the one or more composite receive symbol streams, for at least a portion of time.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the respective signature control channel symbol stream is not present during a respective preamble period of the respective primary receive symbol stream of at least one of the one or more composite receive symbols streams.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein a timing of the respective signature control channel symbol stream is synchronized in time with a preamble period of the respective primary receive symbol stream of at least one of the one or more composite receive symbol streams.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the frequency selective receive path channel multiplexer further produces one or more receive non-composite symbol streams from the plurality of receive chain output signals, wherein each respective one of the one or more non-composite receive symbol streams comprises a respective primary receive symbol stream and does not comprise a respective signature control channel symbol stream.