Multi-Antenna Communication Method and Multi-Antenna Communicaton Apparatus

• US 20090010353A1
• Filed: 01/10/2006
• Published: 01/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: INVT SPE LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: She, Xiaoming, Li, Jifeng
• Granted Patent: US 7,860,184 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/267
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0413 MIMO systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/06 using space diversity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1893 Physical mapping arrangements physical resource mapping in general H04L5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/0204 of multiple channels

Abstract

A multi-antenna communication method capable of improving the retransmission performance in a multi-antenna transmission. In this method, firstly, the reception quality of a substream to be retransmitted is acquired (Step 401). Then, it is determined for the substream whether any transmission antennas, which satisfy a target value related to the foregoing reception quality when they are used for the retransmission, are existent among the transmission antennas that are candidate antennas to be used for there transmission (Step 405). Then, if there exist any transmission antennas satisfying the target value, a transmission antenna to which the poorest channel characteristic corresponds is selected from among those transmission antennas satisfying the target value, and the selected transmission antenna is designated as an antenna to be used for retransmitting the foregoing substream (Step 406). If there exist no transmission antennas that satisfy the target value, then a transmission antenna to which the best channel characteristic corresponds is selected from among the foregoing candidate transmission antennas, and the selected transmission antenna is designated as an antenna to be used for retransmitting the foregoing substream (Step 407).

Claims

1. A multi-antenna communication method comprising the steps of:

acquiring reception quality of a substream requiring a retransmission;

determining, with respect to the substream, whether or not there is a transmit antenna that will satisfy a target value of reception quality if used in the retransmission, among candidate transmit antennas for use in the retransmission; and

if there are transmit antennas that will satisfy the target value, selecting a transmit antenna where corresponding channel characteristics are poorest from transmit antennas that satisfies the target value and designating the selected transmit antenna as an antenna to be used in the retransmission of the substream, and, if there are no transmit antennas that will satisfy the target value, selecting a transmit antenna where corresponding channel characteristics are best as an antenna to be used in the retransmission of the substream from the candidate transmit antennas.

2. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 1, wherein:

the acquiring step further comprises a step of respectively acquiring reception quality of a plurality of substreams requiring a retransmission and selecting each of the plurality of substreams in order from higher reception quality acquired; and

the determining step comprises determining, with respect to selected substreams, whether or not there is a transmit antenna that will satisfy the target value.

3. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 2, further comprising a step of determining a substream requiring a retransmission based on a result of cyclic redundancy check decoding of all received substreams.

4. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 2, wherein the acquiring step comprises calculating reception quality after a multi-input multi-output detection for a substream among the plurality of substreams that is transmitted for the first time, and calculating reception quality upon previous reception for a substream among the plurality of substreams that is transmitted not for the first time.

5. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 2, further comprising an excluding step of, after one of the plurality of substreams is selected in the selecting step and before another one of the plurality of substreams is selected in the selecting step, excluding a transmit antenna selected for the one of the plurality of substreams, from the candidate transmit antennas.

6. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 2, further comprising a feeding back step of, after a transmit antenna is selected for each substream requiring a retransmission in the designating step, feedback an antenna selective information for associating each substream and a corresponding selected antenna.

7. The multi-antenna communication method according to claim 6, further comprising a step of retransmitting each substream based on the antenna selective information, and a step of detecting each retransmitted substream based on the antenna selective information.

8. A multi-antenna communication apparatus comprising:

a section that acquires reception quality of a substream requiring a retransmission;

a section that determines, with respect to the substream, whether or not there is a transmit antenna that will satisfy a target value of reception quality if used in the retransmission, among candidate transmit antennas for use in the retransmission; and

a section that, if there are transmit antennas that will satisfy the target value, selects a transmit antenna where corresponding channel characteristics are poorest from transmit antennas that satisfies the target value and designating the selected transmit antenna as an antenna to be used in the retransmission of the substream, and, if there are no transmit antennas that will satisfy the target value, selects a transmit antenna where corresponding channel characteristics are best as an antenna to be used in the retransmission of the substream from the candidate transmit antennas.