RELAY AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING NETWORK CODING

• US 20130039256A1
• Filed: 06/13/2012
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Chang Yong Shin
• Inventors: SHIN, Won Jae, SHIN, Chang Yong
• Granted Patent: US 9,106,303 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/315
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/086 using weights depending on external parameters, e.g. direction of arrival [DOA], predetermined weights or beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15521 combining by calculations packets received from different stations before transmitting the combined packets as part of network coding network coding aspects for detection or prevention of errors in the information received H04L1/0076; network traffic management with optimizing of information sizing, e.g. header compression, by using assembly and disassembly of packets H04W28/065

Abstract

Provided is a method and relay that performs network coding. The relay may determine transmission and/or receiving beamforming vectors for terminals so as to align effective channels of a plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs into different dimensions.

Claims

1. A method of performing network coding in a network including K transmit-and-receive pairs and a relay including M antennas, each terminal included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs including N antennas, the method comprising:

determining transmission beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that effective channels from the K transmit-and-receive pairs to the relay are aligned in independent dimensions, in response to the K transmit-and-receive pairs simultaneously transmitting signals;

detecting the signals transmitted from the K transmit-and-receive pairs using the effective channels aligned in the independent dimensions;

determining reception beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that the effective channels of the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in the same dimension; and

simultaneously transmitting network-coded signals for the K transmit-and-receive pairs, the network-coded signals being generated based on the detected signals.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein M corresponding to a number of the antennas included in the relay is greater than or equal to K corresponding to a number of the transmit-and-receive pairs, and M is less than 2N corresponding to twice the number of antennas of each terminal included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the relay determines the transmission beamforming vectors in a first time slot, and performs network coding that determines the reception beamforming vectors in a second time slot.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein signals among terminals included in one of the K transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in the same dimension.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

separating remaining transmit-and-receive pairs from one of the K transmit-and-receive pairs such that the remaining transmit-and-receive pairs are in different dimensions from the one transmit-and-receive pair.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the reception beamforming vectors of the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs is based on an assumption that the effective channels obtained by applying the reception beamforming vectors to the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs are the same.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein terminals included in one of the K transmit-and-receive pairs receive signals that are equivalently network-coded.

8. A computer-readable storage medium having stored therein program instructions to cause a processor to execute method of performing network coding in a network including K transmit-and-receive pairs and a relay including M antennas, each terminal included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs including N antennas, the method comprising:

determining transmission beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that effective channels from the K transmit-and-receive pairs to the relay are aligned in independent dimensions, in response to the K transmit-and-receive pairs simultaneously transmitting signals;

detecting the signals transmitted from the K transmit-and-receive pairs using the effective channels aligned in the independent dimensions;

determining reception beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that the effective channels of the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in the same dimension; and

simultaneously transmitting network-coded signals for the K transmit-and-receive pairs, the network-coded signals being generated based on the detected signals.

9. A relay including M antennas that performs network coding in a network including K transmit-and-receive pairs, each terminal included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs including N antennas, the relay comprising:

a transmission beamforming vector determining unit configured to determine transmission beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that effective channels from the K transmit-and-receive pairs to the relay are aligned in independent dimensions, in response to the K transmit-and-receive pairs simultaneously transmitting signals;

a detector configured to detect the signals transmitted from the K transmit-and-receive pairs, using the effective channels aligned in the independent dimensions;

a reception beamforming vector determining unit configured to determine reception beamforming vectors for the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs so that the effective channels of the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in the same dimension; and

a transmitter configured to transmit network-coded signals for the K transmit-and-receive pairs simultaneously, the network-coded signals being generated based on the detected signals.

10. The relay of claim 9, wherein M corresponding to a number of the antennas included in the relay is greater than or equal to K corresponding to a number of the transmit-and-receive pairs, and M is less than 2N corresponding to twice the number of antennas of each terminal included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs.

11. The relay of claim 9, wherein the relay is configured to determine the transmission beamforming vectors in a first time slot, and perform network coding that determines the reception beamforming vectors in a second time slot.

12. The relay of claim 9, wherein signals among terminals included in one of the K transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in the same dimension.

13. The relay of claim 9, further comprising:

a separator configured to separate remaining transmit-and-receive pairs excluding one of the K transmit-and-receive pairs from the one excluded transmit-and-receive pair so as to be in different dimensions from the one excluded transmit-and-receive pair.

14. The relay of claim 9, wherein the reception beamforming vector determining unit is configured to determine the reception beamforming vectors of the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs based on an assumption that the effective channels obtained by applying the reception beamforming vectors to the terminals included in the K transmit-and-receive pairs are the same.

15. The relay of claim 9, wherein terminals included in one of the transmit-and-receive pairs are configured to receive signals that are equivalently network-coded.

16. A relay in a network including a plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs, the relay comprising:

a transmission beamforming unit configured to determine transmission beamforming vectors for the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs so that channels from each pair of the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs to the relay are aligned in independent dimensions; and

a detector configured to detect transmission signals from the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs via the channels aligned in independent dimensions.

17. The relay of claim 16, wherein the detector is configured to simultaneously detect a transmission signal and a reception signal from each transmit-and-receive pair, from among the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs.

18. The relay of claim 17, wherein the transmission beamforming unit is configured to align the transmission signal and the reception signal from each transmit-and-receive pair into a dimension that is different from the dimensions of the transmission signals and the receptions signals of the other transmit-and-receive pairs.

19. The relay of claim 16, further comprising a reception beamforming unit configured to determine reception beamforming vectors for the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs based on the detected signals so that channels from the relay to each of the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs are aligned in independent dimensions.

20. The relay of claim 19, further comprising a transmitter configured to simultaneously transmit the signals to the plurality of transmit-and-receive pairs via the channels aligned in independent dimensions.