Radio system having distributed real-time processing

• US 7,606,594 B2
• Filed: 02/24/2003
• Issued: 10/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Motorola Mobility, Inc. (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: RadioFrame Networks, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hoole, Elliott, Jesse, Mary, Mechaley, Robert G. Jr., Veintimilla, Greg
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; Duc
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rego; Dominic E
• Application Number:
  US10/373,626
• Publication Number:
  US 20040014466A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,430 Days
• Field of Search: 455/557, 4555521-5561, 455/558, 455/565, 455/562.1, 455/422.1, 370/338, 370/401, 370/395.1, 370/400, 370/349, 370/337, 370/347, 370/468, 379/33, 379/93.05, 379/301, 379/93.07
• US Class Current: 455/554.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/189 in combination with wireless systems selective distribution or broadcast in wireless communication networks H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/04 Large scale networks; Deep hierarchical networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/085 Access point devices with remote components
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/14 Backbone network devices

Abstract

A distributed radio system is disclosed. Transmit and receive packets of data are transported over a relatively high-speed multiplexed network, which in one embodiment may be an Ethernet network. The distributed radio system comprises in one embodiment a centrally-located network-level processing unit connected via network connections to one or more intermediate-level processing units. The intermediate-level processing units may be distributed throughout the coverage area. The processing units perform digital signal processing, as well as higher level processing such as signal routing, speech transcoding and proper interfacing to external environments, such as a macrocellular environment. Radio elements are provided that are accurately timed or synchronized, such that the radio elements have their own time base to ensure proper transmission, even when unpredictable network delays occur.

Claims

1. A distributed radio system for communication between a wireless user equipment and a network comprising:

a radio unit configured to;

transmit outgoing radio frequency signals to the user equipment;

receive incoming radio frequency signals from the user equipment; and

perform radio-level processing on data associated with received and outgoing signals;

an intermediate-level processing unit configured to perform intermediate-level processing on data associated with received and outgoing signals;

a first connection between the radio unit and the intermediate-level processing unit;

a network-level processing unit configured to perform network-level processing on data associated with received and outgoing signals; and

a second connection between the intermediate-level processing unit and the network-level processing unit, said second connection comprising a network connection;

wherein the radio unit, the intermediate-level processing unit and the network-level processing unit comprise an integrated, private system, whereby incoming and outgoing signals are processed in a distributed manner within said private system prior to any interaction, if any, with any external environment.

2. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the first connection comprises a network connection.

3. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the radio-level processing comprises RF processing.

4. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the radio-level processing comprises, with respect to an outgoing signal, performing digital signal processing on data received from the intermediate-level processing unit via the first connection.

5. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the radio-level processing comprises, with respect to a received signal, performing digital signal processing on data associated with the received signal and sending the processed data to the intermediate-level processing unit via the first connection.

6. The distributed radio system of claim 5, wherein the first connection comprises a network connection and wherein performing digital signal processing on data associated with the received signal comprises processing the received signal into a form suitable for being communicated via a digital network.

7. The distributed radio system of claim 6, wherein processing the received signal into a form suitable for being communicated via a digital network comprises extracting base-band data from the received signal.

8. The distributed radio system of claim 6, wherein processing the received signal into a form suitable for being communicated via a digital network comprises shifting the received signal down into a frequency range suitable for being processed into digital form by an analog to digital converter.

9. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing comprises, with respect to data associated with a received signal, processing said data associated with a received signal into one or more protocol-appropriate data units.

10. The distributed radio system of claim 9, wherein the intermediate-level processing further comprises sending said one or more protocol-appropriate data units to the network-level processing unit via the second connection.

11. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing comprises, with respect to data associated with an outgoing signal, receiving one or more protocol-appropriate data units from the network-level processing unit via the second connection.

12. The distributed radio system of claim 11, wherein the intermediate-level processing further comprises performing digital signal processing on said one or more protocol-appropriate data units and sending the processed data to the radio unit via the first connection.

13. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to perform signal routing.

14. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to perform signal routing.

15. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to perform speech transcoding.

16. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to perform speech transcoding.

17. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to perform layer 2 network processing.

18. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to perform layer 2 network processing.

19. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to perform wireless simulcasting.

20. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to perform wireless simulcasting.

21. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to interface to an external environment, whereby the user equipment may communicate to the external environment via the distributed radio system.

22. The distributed radio system of claim 21, wherein the external environment comprises the public switched telephone network.

23. The distributed radio system of claim 21, wherein the external environment comprises a mobile telephony system.

24. The distributed radio system of claim 23, wherein the mobile telephony system comprises a cellular telephone system.

25. The distributed radio system of claim 23, wherein the mobile telephony system comprises a voice over Internet protocol network (VoIP) telephony system.

26. The distributed radio system of claim 21, wherein the external environment comprises an external data network.

27. The distributed radio system of claim 26, wherein the external data network comprises a packet-switched data network.

28. The distributed radio system of claim 27, wherein the packet-switched data network comprises an Internet protocol (TP) network.

29. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to interface to a plurality of external environments, whereby the user equipment may communicate via the distributed radio system to a selected one of said plurality of external environments.

30. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the first connection comprises a network connection and wherein the radio unit comprises at least one radio element, the radio element comprising a radio frequency front end and a network interface.

31. The distributed radio system of claim 30, wherein the radio element further comprises a first time base to ensure proper transmission at the radio frequency front end in order to compensate for the fact that the data to be transmitted by the radio element will not have a guaranteed arrival time due to unpredictable network delays.

32. The distributed radio system of claim 31, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit comprises a second time base and the first time base is substantially synchronized with said second time base.

33. The distributed radio system of claim 32, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to provide a timing signal to the radio unit with which the radio element is associated and the radio unit with which the radio element is associated is configured to synchronize the first time base with the second time base using said timing signal.

34. The distributed radio system of claim 33, wherein the first connection comprises a network cable and the timing signal is transmitted from the intermediate-level processing unit to the radio unit via one or more extra wire pairs in said cable.

35. The distributed radio system of claim 32, wherein the network-level processing unit comprises a third time base and wherein said third time base is substantially synchronized with the first time base and the second time base.

36. The distributed radio system of claim 35, wherein the network-level processing unit is configured to synchronize the third time base with the first time base and the second time base by sending synchronization-related communications over the second connection.

37. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the first connection comprises a layer 2, point-to-point Ethernet path.

38. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the radio unit comprises one of a plurality of radio units and the first connection comprises a layer 2, point-to-multipoint Ethernet path.

39. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the radio unit comprises one of a plurality of radio units, each radio unit having a network connection to the intermediate-level processing unit, and each radio unit transmits and receives modulated baseband data traffic to and from the intermediate-level processing unit through its associated network connection.

40. The distributed radio system of claim 39, wherein the data traffic includes data for at least one digital radio protocol.

41. The distributed radio system of claim 39, wherein each radio unit may be configured to support wireless communications under one or more of a plurality of wireless communication standards, and wherein the data traffic may comprise data traffic associated with multiple radio standards simultaneously;

whereby communications under multiple wireless communication standards may be processed simultaneously by the distributed radio system and/or transported between system components via the same network connections.

42. The distributed radio system of claim 41, wherein each radio unit comprises, for each wireless communication standard the radio unit is configured to support, at least one radio element configured to support said wireless communication standard.

43. The distributed radio system of claim 42, wherein each radio element comprises a modular unit configured to support one or more of the wireless communication standards that each of the radio units may be configured to support, and the set of wireless communication standards a particular radio unit is configured to support is determined by which modular radio elements have been installed in that particular radio unit.

44. The distributed radio system of claim 39, wherein each radio unit includes operational parameters and further comprising an integrated system manager to selectively control and monitor said operational parameters, whereby the radio unit does not require an external management process such as through a macrocellular system controller.

45. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein:

the radio unit comprises one of a plurality of radio units;

the intermediate-level processing unit comprises one of a plurality of intermediate-level processing units;

each radio unit is associated with and has a network connection to a corresponding one of the plurality of intermediate-level processing units; and

each radio unit transmits and receives modulated base-band data traffic to and from the intermediate-level processing unit with which it is associated through its corresponding network connection to said intermediate-level processing unit with which it is associated.

46. The distributed radio system of claim 45, wherein the network-level processing unit comprises one of a plurality of network-level processing units, and each intermediate-level processing unit of said plurality of intermediate-level processing units is associated with and has a corresponding network connection to at least one of said plurality of network-level processing units.

47. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the user equipment comprises a cellular communication device.

48. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the user equipment comprises a personal digital assistant configured for wireless network communication.

49. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the user equipment comprises a computing device configured for wireless network communication.

50. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the user equipment comprises a wireless telephone.

51. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the first connection comprises a network connection comprising a single network cable, and wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is configured to use said single network cable as a network path for network communications between the intermediate-level processing unit and the radio unit.

52. The distributed radio system of claim 51, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is further configured to use said single network cable to provide power to the radio unit.

53. The distributed radio system of claim 52, wherein the intermediate-level processing unit is further configured to use said single network cable to provide a timing signal to the radio unit.

54. The distributed radio system of claim 1, wherein the first connection comprises a network connection and the integrated, private system comprises a private network comprising at least one virtual local area network (VLAN), said virtual local area network being configured to handle a defined subset of network communications on said private network.

55. The distributed radio system of claim 54, wherein the defined subset comprises communications between the radio unit and the intermediate-level processing unit over the first connection.

56. The distributed radio system of claim 55, wherein the distributed radio system is configured to process communications associated with a plurality of wireless communication standards and wherein the defined subset comprises communications associated with a specific one of said plurality of wireless communication standards.