Apparatus and method for beamforming in a changing-interference environment
First Claim
1. A method of determining a smart antenna processing strategy to take into account a changing interference environment, the smart antenna processing strategy applied to a signal for transmission to form a set of antenna element signals to transmit to a remote user from a wireless station that includes an array of antenna elements, or applied to a set of received signals from the set of antenna elements of a wireless station to process the received signals and obtain an estimate of a signal transmitted by a remote user to the wireless station, the method comprising:
- (a) providing a process that computes a smart antenna processing strategy as a function of a first set of received data and a reference signal for the first set of received data, the strategy computation process taking into account the interference environment present in the first set of received data;
(b) forming a combination as a function of the first set of received data and a second set of received data, the combination including data incorporating the second set of received data such that the combination takes into account aspects of the interference environment present in the second set of received data and not in the first set of received data; and
(c) computing the smart antenna processing strategy by using the provided computation process with the combination formed in step (b) as input.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for adaptively producing transmitted signals and processing received signals in a communication system which includes smart antenna array of antenna elements. When processing received signals, the invention modifies an existing processing scheme by incorporating information about a second set of signals for which training or other characteristic information such as a reference is unknown to information about a first set of signals for which characteristic information such as a reference is known, prior to executing the processing scheme. This approach can be used to modify the receive weights which determine the relative weight assigned to the signals received from each of a plurality of antenna elements to take into account the presence of a changing interference environment. This permits an adaptive updating of the receive weights based on the additional information provided by the second set of data., and may be accomplished faster and with less computational resources than required to determine the weights based on applying the entire processing scheme to the second set of data. In addition, assuming a relationship between the transmit and receive environment, the invention can also be used to modify the transmit weights used by the base station.
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Citations
41 Claims
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1. A method of determining a smart antenna processing strategy to take into account a changing interference environment, the smart antenna processing strategy applied to a signal for transmission to form a set of antenna element signals to transmit to a remote user from a wireless station that includes an array of antenna elements, or applied to a set of received signals from the set of antenna elements of a wireless station to process the received signals and obtain an estimate of a signal transmitted by a remote user to the wireless station, the method comprising:
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(a) providing a process that computes a smart antenna processing strategy as a function of a first set of received data and a reference signal for the first set of received data, the strategy computation process taking into account the interference environment present in the first set of received data; (b) forming a combination as a function of the first set of received data and a second set of received data, the combination including data incorporating the second set of received data such that the combination takes into account aspects of the interference environment present in the second set of received data and not in the first set of received data; and (c) computing the smart antenna processing strategy by using the provided computation process with the combination formed in step (b) as input. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. An apparatus for processing a set of received signals received from an antenna array of a wireless station, the apparatus comprising:
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(a) a reference signal processor to provide reference signal data for a first set of received signals; (b) a combiner to form a combination as a function of the first set of received data and a second set of received data, the combination including data incorporating the second set of received data such that the combination takes into account aspects of the interference environment present in the second set of received data and not in the first set of received data; and (c) an adaptive smart antenna strategy computation processor configured to compute a smart antenna strategy to apply to the set of received signals to determine an estimate of a user signal transmitted by a remote user or to apply to a signal for transmission to transmit the transmission signal to the remote user, the strategy computation processor having the reference signal data and the combination as inputs. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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41. An apparatus for processing a set of received signals received from an antenna array of a wireless station, the apparatus comprising:
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(a) means for providing reference signal data for a first set of received signals; (b) means for forming a combination as a function of the first set of received data and a second set of received data, the combination including data incorporating the second set of received data such that the combination takes into account aspects of the interference environment present in the second set of received data and not in the first set of received data; and (c) means for computing an adaptive smart antenna strategy to apply to the set of received signals to determine an estimate of a user signal transmitted by a remote user or to apply to a signal for transmission to transmit the transmission signal to the remote user, the strategy computation processor having the reference signal data and the combination as inputs.
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Specification