SMALL SIGNAL THRESHOLD AND PROPORTIONAL GAIN DISTRIBUTED DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

• US 20070064506A1
• Filed: 09/01/2006
• Published: 03/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Procomm International Pte. Ltd. (Transpacific IP Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: ADC Telecommunications Incorporated (TE Connectivity Limited)
• Inventors: Toms, Jerry, Bauman, Donald, Wala, Philip
• Granted Patent: US 7,539,509 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 365/194
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/42 in systems with time, space, frequency or polarisation diversity

Abstract

An apparatus for gain distribution in a system comprising a plurality of distributed antennas and a total system dynamic range is disclosed. The apparatus includes means for sensing a signal level at each of the plurality of distributed antennas, means for comparing at least one of the plurality of signal levels with a dynamic range fair share threshold, and means for attenuating each of the at least one of the compared signal levels that is greater than the dynamic range fair share threshold with a gain factor that is determined in response to a remaining portion of the total system dynamic range after attenuation of other signal levels of the plurality of signal levels.

Claims

1. An apparatus for gain distribution in a system comprising a plurality of distributed antennas and a total system dynamic range, the apparatus comprising:

means for sensing a signal level at each of the plurality of distributed antennas;

means for comparing at least one of the plurality of signal levels with a dynamic range fair share threshold; and

means for attenuating each of the at least one of the compared signal levels that is greater than the dynamic range fair share threshold with a gain factor that is determined in response to a remaining portion of the total system dynamic range after attenuation of other signal levels of the plurality of signal levels.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the dynamic range fair share threshold is initially determined by an inverse of a quantity of the plurality of distributed antennas.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, and further including:

means for sorting the sensed signal levels in an ascending order coupled between the means for sensing and the means for comparing; and

means for updating the total system dynamic range, after attenuation of each signal level, for allocating unused total system dynamic range to subsequently attenuated signal levels.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the means for attenuating further include generating unity gain signal levels that are less than or equal to the dynamic range fair share threshold.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the signal level is greater than the dynamic range fair share threshold, the gain factor applied to a first signal level is inversely proportional to the first signal level.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the gain factor that is substantially equal to the inverse of the first signal level is equal to a quantity of distributed antennas in the distributed antenna system divided by the first signal level.

7. A circuit for gain distribution in a distributed antenna system having a system dynamic range, the circuit comprising:

means for sorting, in ascending order, a plurality of signal levels from the distributed antenna system;

means, responsive to the means for sorting, for comparing a first signal level of the plurality of sorted signal levels with a dynamic range fair share threshold; and

means, responsive to the means for comparing, for attenuating each of the at least one of the compared signal levels that is greater than the dynamic range fair share threshold with a gain factor that is determined in response to a remaining portion of the total system dynamic range after attenuation of other signal levels of the plurality of signal levels.

8. The circuit of claim 7, wherein the means for sorting include a sorter.

9. The circuit of claim 7, wherein the means for comparing include a threshold comparator.

10. The circuit of claim 7, wherein the means for attenuating include:

a gain calculator; and

a remaining dynamic range calculator.

11. A program product comprising program instructions, embodied on a storage medium, that are operable to cause at least one programmable processor included in one or more controllers within a distributed antenna system, the system having gain distribution and a total dynamic range, to:

receive signals each having a signal level;

sense each signal level with a signal level sampling function;

generate comparison results in response to a comparison between a sorted signal and a dynamic range fair share threshold;

generate a remaining system dynamic range by decreasing a total dynamic range by each attenuated signal level; and

progressively generate a gain factor for each received signal in ascending order in response to each comparison result.

12. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to convert each received signal to a digital signal having a signal level expressed in a digital format.

13. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to sort the received signals in ascending order in response to each signal level.

14. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to update the dynamic range fair share threshold with the remaining system dynamic range.

15. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to compare a first digital signal level of the plurality of digital signals with the dynamic range fair share threshold.

16. The program product of claim 15, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to apply a unity gain factor to the first digital signal level if the first digital signal level is less than or equal to the dynamic range fair share threshold.

17. The program product of claim 16, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to update the dynamic range fair share threshold to allocate the remaining system dynamic range between remaining digital signals if the unity gain factor has been applied to the first digital signal level.

18. The program product of claim 17, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to apply a first gain factor that is substantially equal to the dynamic range fair share threshold divided by the first digital signal level if the first digital signal level is greater than the dynamic range fair share threshold.

19. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to generate the gain factors in discrete increments.

20. The program product of claim 11, further comprising program instructions operable to cause the at least one programmable processor to attenuate each received signal in response to a corresponding gain factor.