POINT-TO-MULTIPOINT MICROWAVE COMMUNICATION

• US 20130077612A1
• Filed: 09/27/2012
• Published: 03/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Skyriver Spectrum & Technology, LLC
• Original Assignee: Skyriver Communications
• Inventors: Khorami, Saeed Sarikhani
• Granted Patent: US 8,989,162 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/0458 Arrangements for matching and coupling between power amplifier and antenna or between amplifying stages matching circuits in general H03H
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/18 Input circuits, e.g. for coupling to an antenna or a transmission line coupling networks between antennas or lines and receivers independent of the nature of the receiver H03H
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/40 Circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/525 with means for reducing leakage of transmitter signal into the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2001/0491 with frequency synthesizers, frequency converters or modulators
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/08 each combination of signals in different channels being represented by a fixed frequency
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/22 using time-division multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/085 Access point devices with remote components

Abstract

A microwave communication system may include subscriber stations in communication with a base station. The stations may include time duplex circuitry normally found in wireless local area networks (WLANs). Signals normally routed through antennas associated with such circuitry instead are routed through circuitry to perforin frequency conversion to and from microwave communications frequencies, for communications over microwave links between the subscriber stations and the base station. In some embodiments the wireless circuitry is configured for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) operation with one antenna port dedicated for transmission of data and one antenna port dedicated to reception of data.

Claims

1. A communication device for a microwave communication system, comprising:

wireless communication circuitry including at least two antenna ports, with at least one of the two antenna ports configured for transmission only and at least one other of the two antenna ports configured for reception only;

at least one transmit mixer coupled to the at least one antenna port configured for transmission, to upconvert a signal from the at least one antenna port configured for transmission to provide a transmit signal at microwave communication frequencies; and

at least one receive mixer coupled to the at least one other antenna port configured for reception, to downconvert a received signal at microwave communication frequencies.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication circuitry comprises wireless access point circuitry.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the wireless access point circuitry includes circuitry for performing access point communication medium contention processing.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication circuitry includes circuitry for performing physical layer and media access control functions.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication circuitry comprises wireless subscriber unit circuitry.

6. The device of claim 5, wherein the wireless subscriber unit circuitry includes circuitry for performing contention avoidance in multi-subscriber unit environments.

7. The device of claim 6, wherein the contention avoidance is accomplished by way of a time division communication scheme.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least two antenna ports provide spatial separation of transmit and receive channels.

9. The device of claim 1 wherein the microwave communication frequencies are frequencies between 6 GHz and 40 GHz.

10. The device of claim 1, further comprising a diplexer coupled to the at least one transmit mixer and the at least one receive mixer.

11. The device of claim 10, wherein the diplexer is further coupled to a microwave antenna port, with the diplexer couplings arranged such that a signal received at the microwave antenna port through a microwave antenna coupled to the microwave antenna port is provided to the at least one receive mixer, and a signal received at the diplexer from the at least one transmit mixer is provided to the microwave antenna port.

12. The device of claim 1, further comprising:

a first local oscillator coupled to the at least one transmit mixer so as to provide a first local oscillator signal to the at least one transmit mixer;

a second local oscillator coupled to the at least one receive mixer so as to provide a second local oscillator signal to the at least one receive mixer;

a power amplifier coupled to the at least one transmit mixer;

a low noise amplifier coupled to the at least one receive mixer; and

a diplexer coupled to the power amplifier, the low noise amplifier and a microwave antenna port, with the diplexer couplings arranged such that a signal received at the microwave antenna port through a microwave antenna coupled to the microwave antenna port is provided to the at least one receive mixer by way of the low noise amplifier and a signal received at the diplexer from the at least one transmit mixer by way of the power amplifier is provided to the microwave antenna port;

wherein the at least one transmit mixer, the at least one receive mixer, the first local oscillator, the second local oscillator, the power amplifier, the low noise amplifier, and the diplexer are part of a radio frequency front end (RFFE).

13. The device of claim 5, wherein the wireless subscriber unit circuitry is coupled to components of a subscriber station by way of a wired Ethernet connection.

14. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the two antenna ports configured for transmission only is coupled to the at least one transmit mixer by way of a first wired connection and the at least one other of the two antenna ports configured for reception only is coupled to the at least one receive mixer by way of a second wired connection.

15. A method useful in providing microwave communications, comprising:

presenting a signal for transmission on a first antenna port of a wireless communication device having multiple input multiple output (MIMO) capability;

upconverting the signal for transmission to a microwave communications frequency;

downconverting a received signal from a microwave communications frequency; and

providing the downconverted signal to a second antenna port of the wireless access point device having MIMO capability.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the wireless communication device is an 802.11n or 802.11ac device which is coupled to components of a subscriber station by way of a wired Ethernet connection.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the first antenna port is configured to transmit signals only and the second antenna port is configured to receive signals only.

18. A communication device for a microwave communication system, comprising:

wireless communication circuitry including at least one antenna port, the wireless communication circuitry providing for time duplexed communications;

a transmit/receive switch coupled to the at least one antenna port by way of a wired coupling;

at least one transmit mixer coupled to the transmit/receive switch to upconvert a signal from the transmit/receive switch to microwave communication frequencies; and

at least one receive mixer coupled to the transmit/receive switch to downconvert a received signal from microwave communication frequencies.

19. A point-to-multipoint microwave communication system, comprising:

a microwave base station, comprising;

a base station microwave antenna;

wireless access point circuitry providing for communication of data with spatial diversity between transmission of signals and reception of signals, the wireless access point circuitry configured so as to transmit information from a first antenna port and receive information from a second antenna port, the first antenna port and the second antenna port being different antenna ports; and

base station mixing circuitry for upconverting a signal received from the first antenna port from frequencies utilized in transmission of signals by the wireless access point to microwave communication frequencies and for downconverting a signal received from the base station microwave antenna from microwave communications frequencies to frequencies utilized in reception of signals by the wireless access point;

a plurality of microwave subscriber stations, each comprising;

wireless subscriber unit circuitry coupled to components of a subscriber station by way of a wired Ethernet connection, the wireless subscriber unit circuitry providing for communication of data with spatial diversity between transmission of signals and reception of signals, the wireless subscriber unit circuitry configured so as to transmit information from a first antenna port and receive information from a second antenna port, the first antenna port and the second antenna port being different antenna ports;

a subscriber station microwave antenna; and

subscriber station mixing circuitry upconverting a signal received from the first antenna port from frequencies utilized in transmission of signals by the wireless subscriber unit to microwave communication frequencies and for downconverting a signal received from the subscriber station microwave antenna from microwave communications frequencies to frequencies utilized in reception of signals by the wireless subscriber unit.