Process and apparatus for communicating with a user antenna
First Claim
1. A process for cooperative aerial inter-antenna beamforming for communication between (a) multiple moving platforms, each platform having an aerial antenna mounted thereon, such that one or more of the aerial antennas have variable positions and orientations over time, and (b) at least one user antenna mounted on user equipment having a lower altitude than the aerial antennas;
- the process involving;
determining the positions of the aerial antennas to within 1/10th of a wavelength of signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna; and
transmitting data relating to the positions and orientations of the aerial antennas to a processing system, the processing system calculating and transmitting beamforming instructions to the aerial antennas, the aerial antennas thereby transmitting or receiving respective component signals for each user antenna, the component signals for each user antenna having essentially the same information content but differing in their phase and usually amplitude, so as to form a cooperative beam from the cooperative sum of the signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A process for cooperative aerial inter-antenna beamforming for communication between (a) multiple moving platforms, each platform having an aerial antenna mounted thereon, such that the aerial antennas have variable positions and orientations over time, and (b) at least one antenna mounted on user equipment having a lower altitude than the aerial antennas; the process involving transmitting data relating to the positions and orientations of the aerial antennas to a processing system, the processing system calculating and transmitting beamforming instructions to the aerial antennas, the aerial antennas thereby transmitting or receiving respective component signals for each user antenna, the component signals for each user antenna having essentially the same information content but differing in their phase and usually amplitude, so as to form a cooperative beam from the cooperative sum of the signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna. A method of determining the position of a moving aerial antenna or antenna element mounted on at least one moving platform, such that the aerial antennas have variable positions and orientations over time, the method involving determining the phase difference yi, being a fraction of a wavelength between the values 0 and 1, between signals of known wavelength λi; transmitted between (a) i ground based transmitters which may be backhaul base stations, wherein i is at least three, the ground based transmitters having known position to within λi/10 and (b) the aerial antenna or antenna element, thereby establishing the distance from the base station to the aerial antenna or antenna element to be λi(ni+yi), wherein ni is an unknown integer; determining the position of the aerial antennas or antenna elements approximately by differential GPS or other methods to within a small number of wavelengths λi thereby establishing that ni can be one of a limited number of possible integer values for each signal; the number of base stations and their positions being sufficient to allow elimination of the possible values of ni that are inconsistent with the limited number of possible values for ni from the other ground based transmitters, until only one integer value for each ni is established; establishing the location of the aerial antenna or antenna element by triangulation of its known distance λi(ni+yi), from at least three ground based transmitters.
13 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A process for cooperative aerial inter-antenna beamforming for communication between (a) multiple moving platforms, each platform having an aerial antenna mounted thereon, such that one or more of the aerial antennas have variable positions and orientations over time, and (b) at least one user antenna mounted on user equipment having a lower altitude than the aerial antennas;
- the process involving;
determining the positions of the aerial antennas to within 1/10th of a wavelength of signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna; and transmitting data relating to the positions and orientations of the aerial antennas to a processing system, the processing system calculating and transmitting beamforming instructions to the aerial antennas, the aerial antennas thereby transmitting or receiving respective component signals for each user antenna, the component signals for each user antenna having essentially the same information content but differing in their phase and usually amplitude, so as to form a cooperative beam from the cooperative sum of the signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
- the process involving;
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2. An apparatus for providing a communication network, for communication between (a) multiple moving platforms, each platform having an aerial antenna mounted thereon, such that one or more aerial antennas have variable positions and orientations over time, and (b) at least one user antenna mounted on user equipment having a lower altitude than the aerial antennas;
- the network involving a processing system adapted to receive data relating to the positions and orientations of the aerial antennas, the processing system being further adapted to generate and transmit beamforming instructions to the aerial antennas, the aerial antennas being adapted to generate or receive respective component signals for each user antenna, the component signals for each user antenna having essentially the same information content but differing in their phase and usually amplitude, so as to form a cooperative beam between the cooperative sum of the signals between the aerial antennas and the user antenna, wherein the positions of the aerial antennas are determined to within 1/10th of a wavelength of the signals between the aerial antennas and the at least one user antenna.
Specification