Systems and methods for beacon detection infrastructures

• US 10,367,577 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2018
• Issued: 07/30/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Smyth, Peter Paul, Cheng, Lin, O'Connor, Jim, Arendt, Steve, Hamzeh, Belal, Winkelman, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Rego, Dominic E
• Application Number:
  US16/142,933
• Publication Number:
  US 20190028182A1
• Time in Patent Office: 307 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/3913 Predictive models, e.g. based on neural network models
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0413 MIMO systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18517 Transmission equipment in earth stations
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18519 Operations control, administration or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/20 for indoor coverage or short range network deployment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/242 taking into account path loss

Abstract

A communication system includes an earth station configured to receive a downlink transmission from a satellite and transmit an uplink transmission to the satellite. The communication system further includes a server in operable communication with the earth station, a beacon detector in operable communication with the server, an access point configured to operate within a proximity of the earth station, and a beacon transmitter disposed within close proximity to the access point. The beacon transmitter is configured to transmit a beacon signal to one or more of the server and the beacon detector. The beacon signal uniquely identifies the access point. The server is configured to implement a measurement-based protection scheme with respect to at least one of the downlink transmission and the uplink transmission.

Claims

1. A communication system, comprising:

an earth station configured to receive a downlink transmission from a satellite and transmit an uplink transmission to the satellite;

a server in operable communication with the earth station;

a beacon detector in operable communication with the server;

an access point configured to operate within a proximity of the earth station; and

a beacon transmitter disposed within close proximity to the access point, the beacon transmitter configured to transmit a beacon signal to one or more of the server and the beacon detector, wherein the beacon signal uniquely identifies the access point,

wherein the server is configured to implement a measurement-based protection scheme with respect to at least one of the downlink transmission and the uplink transmission.

2. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon transmitter is integral to the access point.

3. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon detector is integral to the earth station.

4. The communication system of claim 3, wherein the beacon detector comprises a receiving portion and a transmitting portion.

5. The communication system of claim 4, wherein the earth station includes a satellite dish and a frequency agile receiver having a low noise block, and wherein the beacon detector receiving portion comprises the low noise block.

6. The communication system of claim 5, wherein the beacon detector transmitting portion comprises a reporter component configured to receive a demodulated beacon signal output from the low noise block and transmit the received the demodulated output beacon signal to the server.

7. The communication system of claim 5, wherein the server is further configured to dynamically receive site-related information from the earth station, including one or more of per-dish frequency usage, direction of alignment, elevation, dish size, GPS coordinates, bandwidth usage, antenna azimuth, elevation angle, receiving schedule, and noise measurements.

8. The communication system of claim 7, wherein one or more of the direction of alignment, the elevation, the antenna azimuth, and the elevation angle are dynamically obtained by a measuring device disposed with the earth station.

9. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon detector comprises an external antenna and a transceiver.

10. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the server comprises a spectrum access system and a central database.

11. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the server comprises a plurality of servers.

12. The communication system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of servers collectively share tasks and communicates in a cloud-based network.

13. The communication system of claim 11, wherein a particular one of the plurality of servers is a master server.

14. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon signal includes a received signal strength indication.

15. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon detector comprises a distributed receiver.

16. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a fixed satellite service site.

17. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the access point is configured to implement small cell communication.

18. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of user equipment devices associated with the access point.

19. The communication system of claim 18, wherein the server is further configured to manage the plurality of user equipment devices using information included in the beacon signal regarding individual ones of the plurality of user equipment devices.

20. The communication system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of user equipment devices employing small cell unlicensed transmissions.

21. The communication system of claim 20, wherein the access point is further configured to report relay information to the server regarding the operation of each of the plurality of user equipment devices.

22. The communication system of claim 20, wherein the access point is further configured to report information to the server regarding an aggregate operation of the plurality of user equipment devices.

23. The communication system of claim 22, wherein the access point is configured to report the information to the server only when the aggregate operation of the plurality of user equipment devices exceeds a predetermined value.

24. The communication system of claim 18, wherein one or more of the plurality of user equipment devices comprises at least one user equipment beacon transmitter.

25. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon detector comprises a plurality of distributed beacon detectors.

26. The communication system of claim 1, further configured to measure interference and utilize portions of the downlink transmission for priority access license and general authorized access license sub-bands in the citizens band radio service.

27. The communication system of claim 26, wherein the downlink transmission includes the 3.7-4.2 GHz frequency spectrum.

28. The communication system of claim 1, further configured to measure interference and utilize portions of the uplink transmission coordination with existing fixed microwave frequencies.

29. The communication system of claim 28, wherein the uplink transmission includes the 5.925-7.125 GHz frequency spectrum.

30. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a first fixed service transceiver and a second fixed service transceiver.

31. The communication system of claim 30, wherein the first and second fixed service transceivers are configured to operate a point-to-point microwave link therebetween.

32. The communication system of claim 30, wherein the server is further configured to implement the measurement-based protection scheme to mitigate interference from the earth station into an operation of at least one of the first and second fixed service transceivers.

33. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the transmitted beacon signal comprises a 16-bit beacon identifier.

34. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the transmitted beacon signal comprises a 12-bit beacon identifier based at least in part on geography.

35. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to implement a protection zone layering scheme about the earth station.

36. The communication system of claim 35, wherein the protection zone layering scheme includes a first area zone about the earth station and a second area zone about the first area zone, wherein the second area zone is larger than the first area zone.

37. The communication system of claim 36, wherein the server is further configured to prevent, within the first area zone, the access point from using a frequency spectrum utilized by the earth station for the uplink or downlink transmissions.

38. The communication system of claim 37, wherein the server is further configured to authorize, within the second area zone but outside of the first area zone, restricted utilization, by the access point, of a portion the frequency spectrum at a first power level.

39. The communication system of claim 37, further comprising a third area zone about the second area zone, wherein the server is further configured to authorize, within the third area zone but outside of the second area zone, the access point to fully utilize the frequency spectrum at a second power level greater than the first power level.

40. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the measurement-based protection scheme is configured to be self-calibrating.

41. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to receive, over a fixed communication path, information for at least one distant beacon transmitter operating outside of a proximity in which the beacon detector in which the beacon detector is capable of detecting a beacon signal from the distant beacon transmitter.

42. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna in operable communication with the earth station.

43. The communication system of claim 42, wherein the beacon detector comprises the MIMO antenna.

44. The communication system of claim 1, wherein the beacon detector comprises one or more of a platform-mounted beacon receiver, a station-integrated beacon receiver, a co-located beacon receiver, and an auxiliary beacon receiver.

45. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a distributed antenna system configured to implement the measurement-based protection scheme.

46. The communication system of claim 45, wherein the beacon detector comprises the distributed antenna system.

47. The communication system of claim 45, wherein the distributed antenna system comprises the beacon detector and a plurality of remote antennas.

48. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising at least one of a directional antenna and an omni-directional antenna.

49. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a multi-antenna transceiver array.

50. The communication system of claim 49, wherein the multi-antenna transceiver array is configured to implement at least one of beamforming and null forming about the earth station.

51. The communication system of claim 50, wherein the multi-antenna transceiver array is configured to implement the beamforming and the null forming with respect to a mobile user equipment device or a fixed wireless access subsystem.

52. The communication system of claim 1, further comprising a stoplight subsystem including a collective configuration of a plurality of beacon transmitters, a plurality of beacon detectors, and a plurality of fixed satellite service sites.