WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20090017862A1
• Filed: 07/10/2008
• Published: 01/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: YAGINUMA, Jun, SUGIYAMA, Tomonori, MATSUSHITA, Naohiro
• Granted Patent: US 8,078,214 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/523
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/28 using the near field of leaky cables, e.g. of leaky coaxial cables

Abstract

The present invention provides a wireless communication system includes a plurality of leaky transmission lines and sufficiently increases a wireless area.

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system which includes a wireless base station; a plurality of leaky transmission lines that function as antennas of the wireless base station; and a selector for selecting each of the leaky transmission lines and thereby connecting the leaky transmission lines to the wireless base station, wherein only one leaky transmission line is selected and connected at any given time. The selector may select all of the leaky transmission lines cyclically, one at any given time. Alternatively, the selector may select one of the leaky transmission lines according to a control signal from a selection controller.

Claims

1. A wireless communication system having a wireless base station and a plurality of leaky transmission lines configured to function as antennas of the wireless base station, comprising:

a selector connected to the wireless base station, the selector configured to select each of the plurality of leaky transmission lines, wherein only one leaky transmission line is selected at any given time.

2. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of receiving signal discriminators connecting to each of the leaky transmission lines and configured to monitor a signal sent to the wireless base station and discriminate whether a wireless device is present in a corresponding wireless area of the leaky transmission line; and

a selection controller configured to control the selection by the selector based on discrimination results of the receiving signal discriminators, whereby only the leaky transmission lines having a wireless device ready for communication in a wireless area are used.

3. The wireless communication system according to claim 2, wherein a selection interval between selections of the leaky transmission lines is set to a value not more than P/(N−

1), where N is defined as the number of the leaky transmission lines having a wireless device ready for communication in a wireless area of the leaky transmission line, and P is defined as one of an interval between packets sent by the wireless base station and an interval between packets sent to the wireless base station.

4. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a receiving signal discriminator configured to monitor a signal sent to the wireless base station and discriminate whether a wireless device is present in a wireless area of the leaky transmission line selected by the selector; and

a selection controller that;

directs the selector to select each of the leaky transmission lines one by one while receiving discrimination results of the receiving signal discriminator for each selection;

ascertains the leaky transmission lines having a wireless device ready to communicate in a wireless area and the leaky transmission lines having no wireless devices ready to communicate in a wireless area; and

controls the selection by the selector, wherein a selection ratio of the leaky transmission lines corresponding to a wireless area having a wireless device ready to communicate is high and a selection ratio of the leaky transmission lines corresponding to a wireless area having no wireless device ready to communicate is low.

5. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, wherein the selector cyclically selects all of the leaky transmission lines.

6. The wireless communication system according to claim 4, wherein a selection interval between selections of the leaky transmission lines is set to a value not more than P/(M−

1), where M is defined as the number of the leaky transmission lines, and P is defined as one of an interval between packets sent by the wireless base station and an interval between packets sent to the wireless base station.