METHOD FOR DETERMINING TRANSMIT AND RECEIVE BEAM PATTERNS FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

• US 20180034522A1
• Filed: 01/08/2016
• Published: 02/01/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2015
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Bluwireless Technology Limited
• Original Assignee: Bluwireless Technology Limited
• Inventors: MEHTA, Mehul
• Application Number:
  US15/546,872
• Publication Number:
  US 20180034522A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0695 using beam selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/088 using beam selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0026 Transmission of channel quality indication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/0224 using sounding signals

Abstract

A method of antenna alignment for a wireless mesh communications network (1) is disclosed. The method is applied to a mesh communications network (1) having a first plurality of communications nodes (2) interconnected by a second plurality of wireless communications links (3).

Claims

1. A method of antenna alignment for a wireless mesh communications network having a first plurality of communications nodes interconnected by a second plurality of wireless communications links, the method comprising:

a. determining a first set of transmit beam patterns for an antenna array of a first node of the network;

b. determining a second set of receive beam patterns for an antenna array of a second node of the network;

c. at the first node of the network, following discovery of the second node of the network by the first node, transmitting an antenna training signal to the second node, using a first transmit beam pattern chosen from the first set of transmit beam patterns;

d. at the second node of the network, receiving such a transmitted antenna training signal from the first node using a first receive beam pattern chosen from the second set of receive beam patterns, determining a link quality value for such a transmission, and storing information relating to the transmit beam pattern, the receive beam pattern and the link quality value;

e. repeating steps c and d for a predetermined number of combinations of transmit and receive beam patterns;

f. from such stored information determining a preferred transmit and receive beam pattern pair for transmission of data signals from the first node to the second node.

2. A method of transmitting data signals from a first node of a wireless mesh network to a second node of such a network over a wireless communications link, the method comprising:

a. at the first node of the network, discovering a second node of the network;

b. determining a first set of transmit beam patterns for an antenna array of the first node of the network;

c. determining a second set of receive beam patterns for an antenna array of a second node of the network;

d. at the first node of the network, following discovery of the second node of the network by the first node, transmitting an antenna training signal to the second node, using a first transmit beam pattern chosen from the first set of transmit beam patterns;

e. at the second node of the network, receiving such a transmitted antenna training signal from the first node using a first receive beam pattern chosen from the second set of receive beam patterns, determining a link quality value for such a transmission, and storing information relating to the transmit beam pattern, the receive beam pattern and the link quality value;

f. repeating steps d and e for a predetermined number of combinations of transmit and receive beam patterns;

g. from such stored information, determining a preferred transmit and receive beam pattern pair for transmission of data signals from the first node to the second node;

h. transmitting data signals from the first node to the second node using the determined transmit and receive beam pattern pair.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising performing link adaptation during transmission of data signals from the first node to the second node.

4. A method as claimed in claim 2 or 3, further comprising, upon detection of a communications link fault, determining a new transmit and receive beam pattern pair from the stored information.