Speech and data multiplexor optimized for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels
First Claim
1. A speech and data multiplexor for use over imparied and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representative of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,allocating means for alllocating a speech sub-band in a central poriton of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech,selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band, within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band and in a portion of the available bandwidth separate and distinct from the portion of the bandwidth containing the speech sub-band, for the transmission of data,said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attenuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, andadaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and independent of any speech signals and/or channel impairments existing or occurring in the speech sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments in the data sub-band and within the limt of the power available or allocated for the transmission.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for the simultaneous transmission of analog speech and modulated data, such apparatus and method being optimized for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels, or digital representations of such channels. In each instance of use, an evaluation is made of the available channel bandwidth, with a frequency division multiplex scheme allocating a voice sub-band, with data transmission allocated to sub-bands above, below, or around, this selected voice sub-band. The speech and data sub-band allocations are made by the multiplexor in response to user input of either a requested speech quality, a requested data rate, or a value indicating the relative user weighting of speech quality and data rate. A multi-carrier multi-mode modulation scheme is employed for data transmission, with this scheme having the ability to fully utilize the remaining bandwidth, and further, being capable of adapting to the impairments most likely present on the fringes of bandwidth restricted analog channels. When the analog channel employed is the standard voice-grade telephone circuit, good speech quality simultaneously with 3000 bps data transmission may be expected. The further ability to automatically switch to full bandwidth data transmission when voice transmission is not being attempted is also provided.
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Citations
37 Claims
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1. A speech and data multiplexor for use over imparied and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representative of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for alllocating a speech sub-band in a central poriton of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band, within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band and in a portion of the available bandwidth separate and distinct from the portion of the bandwidth containing the speech sub-band, for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attenuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, and adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and independent of any speech signals and/or channel impairments existing or occurring in the speech sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments in the data sub-band and within the limt of the power available or allocated for the transmission.
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2. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating mean for allocating a speed sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the adaptive means include evaluating means for determination of the total available bandwith for data transmission, said evaluating means being operatively associated with the selecting means for said selection of the data sub-band.
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3. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restrited analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the adaptive means include multiple signal carriers uniformly spaced apart in small increments of frequency and wherein said adaptive means are effective both to select certain carriers for transmitting the data and also to select a particular modulation scheme for each selected carrier in order to optimize the overall rate of data transmission in the presence of any impairments existing in the data sub-band.
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4. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the adaptive means include an ensemble modem which utilizes multiple signal carriers and a multimode modulation scheme for transmitting the data in the data sub-band.
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16. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwith for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmisison of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the selecting means select a single data sub-band above the speech sub-band and including detecting means for detecting the absence of speech transmission on the analog channel and effective in combination with the selecting means for selecting all of the available bandwith for the transmission of data in the absence of speech.
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17. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwith for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the selecting means select a single data sub-band below the speech sub-band and including detecting means for detecting the absence of speech transmission on the analog channel and effective in combination with the selecting means for selecting all of the available bandwidth for the transmission of data in the absence of speech.
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18. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means or allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion for the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optmize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the selecting means select two data sub-bands, one data sub-band above the speech sub-band and the other data sub-band below the speech sub-band and including detecting means for detecting the absence of speech transmission on the analog channel and effective in combination with the selecting means for selecting all of the available bandwidth for the transmission of data in the absence of speech.
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26. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attenuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmisison of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and wherein the analog channel is a telephone channel having a restricted bandwith in the general range of 0-4000 Hz and wherein the edges of the speech sub-band are allocated to permit all dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) and call progress signalling without the need to switch the speech or data sub-bands.
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31. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representations of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a cental portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attenuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, said adaptive means including evaluating means for determination of the total available bandwidth for data transmission, said evaluating means being operatively associated with the selecting means for said selecting of the data sub-band, said adaptive means including an ensemble modem which utilizes multiple signal carriers and a multimode modulation scheme for transmitting the data in the data sub-band, filter means for separating the speech and data energies that are present in the speech sub-band and data sub-band, said filter means including programmable, active filter means for selecting the edge frequencies of the sub-bands, and wherein the ensemble modem is operatively associated with the filter means for allowing the ensemble modem to select the edge frequencies of the sub-bands, and wherein the analog channel is a telephone channel having a restricted bandwidth in the general range of 0-4000 Hz and the edges of the speech sub-band are allocated to permit all dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signalling without the need to switch the speech or data sub-bands.
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32. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in a central portion of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attentuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, adaptive means for adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to any impairments existing in the data sub-band and effective to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and including user input means for inputting a requested speech quality signal, a requested data rate signal or a value indicating the relative user weighting of speech quality and data rate and wherein said allocating means and selecting means determine the edge frequencies of the speech and data sub-bands in response to the signal which is input by said user input means.
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33. A speech and data multiplexor for use over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representatives of such channels, said multiplexor comprising,
allocating means for allocating a speech sub-band in the middle part of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting means for selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the transmission of data, said analog channel being an analog channel of the kind in which impairments of induced noise, attenuation and/or group delay are common in the data sub-band, elvaluating means for determination of the total available bandwidth for data transmission, said evaluating means being operatively associated with the selecting means for said selecting of the data sub-band, and multicarrier data transmitting means for transmitting data in the data sub-band on a plurality of carriers.
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34. A method of multiplexing speech and data over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representations of such channels, said method comprising,
allocating a speech sub-band in the middle part of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting at least one data sub-band, within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band and in a portion of the available bandwidth separate and distinct from the portion of the bandwidth containing the speech sub-band, for the transmission of data, and adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to the impairments of induced noise and attenuation that may be present in the data sub-band and independently of any speech signals and/or channel impairments existing or occurring in the speech sub-band to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impcirments in the data sub-band and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission.
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36. A method of multiplexing speech and data over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representations of such channels, said method comprising,
allocating a speech sub-band in the middle part of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the the transmission of data, adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to be impairments of induced noise and attenuation that may be present in the data sub-band to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and including utilizing multiple signal carriers uniformly spaced apart in small increments of frequency for transmitting data in the data sub-band and including selecting certain carriers for the transmission of data and also selecting a particular modulation scheme for each selected carrier (to determine the number of data bits modulated on each carrier) for said optimization of the overall rate of data transmission in the presence of any impairments existing in the data sub-band.
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37. A method of multiplexing speech and data over impaired and bandwidth restricted analog channels or digital representations of such channels, said method comprising,
allocating a speech sub-band in the middle part of the available bandwidth for the transmission of speech, selecting at least one data sub-band within the available bandwidth and on a border of the speech sub-band for the the transmission of data, adapting the transmission of the data in the data sub-band to be impairments of induced noise and attenuation that may be present in the data sub-band to optimize the transmission of data in the data sub-band in the presence of said impairments and within the limit of the power available or allocated for the transmission, and including determining the edge frequencies of the speech and data sub-bands in response to a user requested speech quality, a user requested data rate or a value indicating the realtive user weighting of speech quality and data rate.
Specification