Flexible Distributed Antenna System
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a radio frequency (RF) conditioning module having a plurality of first physical interfaces and being configured to;
receive a respective input digital RF physical signal via each of one or more of the plurality of first physical interfaces,split each received respective input digital RF physical signal into a respective number of duplicate signals,combine particular duplicate signals selected from among each of the respective number of duplicate signals into one or more superposition RF signals,and route and transmit the one or more superposition RF signals to an array of remote antenna nodes to which the apparatus is configured to be communicatively coupled; and
one or more low-power RF modules each having a communicative connection to one of the plurality of first physical interfaces, and each configured to;
receive a respective baseband digital optical signal via a respective second physical interface,modulate the received respective baseband digital optical signal to a respective RF passband signal,and send the respective RF passband signal to the RF conditioning module via the communicative connection to the one of the plurality of first physical interfaces as one of the respective input digital RF physical signals.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for implementing a flexible distributed antenna system (DAS) head end are disclosed. A flexible DAS head end includes an RF conditioning module configured to be connected to one or more base station transceiver (BTS) devices and one or more low-power RF modules that are also part of the flexible DAS head end. In an example embodiment, the flexible DAS head end receives high-power digital-RF passband transmissions from its connections to the one or more BTS devices, and low-power digital-RF passband signals from the one or more low-power RF modules. The low-power RF modules, in turn, can receive input baseband signals from one or more baseband units (BBUs) in a wireless network, and then convert the input signals to the lo low-power digital-RF passband signals. The RF conditioning module constructs one or more superposition RF signals from the passband signals, and routes and transmits them to an array of antenna nodes.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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a radio frequency (RF) conditioning module having a plurality of first physical interfaces and being configured to; receive a respective input digital RF physical signal via each of one or more of the plurality of first physical interfaces, split each received respective input digital RF physical signal into a respective number of duplicate signals, combine particular duplicate signals selected from among each of the respective number of duplicate signals into one or more superposition RF signals, and route and transmit the one or more superposition RF signals to an array of remote antenna nodes to which the apparatus is configured to be communicatively coupled; and one or more low-power RF modules each having a communicative connection to one of the plurality of first physical interfaces, and each configured to; receive a respective baseband digital optical signal via a respective second physical interface, modulate the received respective baseband digital optical signal to a respective RF passband signal, and send the respective RF passband signal to the RF conditioning module via the communicative connection to the one of the plurality of first physical interfaces as one of the respective input digital RF physical signals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An apparatus comprising:
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a radio frequency (RF) conditioning module having a plurality of first physical interfaces; one or more low-power RF modules each having a communicative connection to one of the plurality of first physical interfaces; a processor; and machine logic executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to; receive a respective input digital RF physical signal via each of one or more of the plurality of first physical interfaces of the RF conditioning module, at the RF conditioning module, split each received respective input digital RF physical signal into a respective number of duplicate signals, at the RF conditioning module, combine particular duplicate signals selected from among each of the respective number of duplicate signals into one or more superposition RF signals, at the RF conditioning module, route and transmit the one or more superposition RF signals to an array of remote antenna nodes to which the apparatus is configured to be communicatively coupled, at a given one of the one or more low-power RF modules, receive a baseband digital optical signal via a respective second physical interface, at the given one of the one or more low-power RF modules, modulate the received respective baseband digital optical signal to an RF passband signal, and at the given one of the one or more low-power RF modules, send the RF passband signal to the RF conditioning module via the communicative connection to the one of the plurality of first physical interfaces as one of the respective input digital RF physical signals. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. In an apparatus comprising (i) a radio frequency (RF) conditioning module having a plurality of first physical interfaces and (ii) one or more low-power RF modules each having a communicative connection to one of the plurality of first physical interfaces, a method comprising:
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at the RF conditioning module, receiving a respective input digital RF physical signal via each of one or more of the plurality of first physical interfaces; at the RF conditioning module, splitting each received respective input digital RF physical signal into a respective number of duplicate signals; at the RF conditioning module, combining particular duplicate signals selected from among each of the respective number of duplicate signals into one or more superposition RF signals; at the RF conditioning module, routing and transmitting the one or more superposition RF signals to an array of remote antenna nodes to which the apparatus is communicatively coupled; at a given one or more of the one or more low-power RF modules, receiving a respective baseband digital optical signal via a respective second physical interface; at the given one or more of the one or more low-power RF modules, modulating the received respective baseband digital optical signal to a respective RF passband signal; and at the given one or more of the one or more low-power RF modules, sending the respective RF passband signal to the RF conditioning module via the communicative connection to the one of the plurality of first physical interfaces as one of the respective input digital RF physical signals. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification