Multi-carrier transceiver assembly

• US 7,869,528 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2003
• Issued: 01/11/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation (Northrop Grumman Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation (Northrop Grumman Corporation)
• Inventors: Robinson, Ian
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan; Chieh M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lee; Siu M
• Application Number:
  US10/700,310
• Publication Number:
  US 20050094714A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,629 Days
• Field of Search: 375/148, 375/260, 375/146, 375/147, 375/316, 375/295, 375/219
• US Class Current: 375/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/0483 Transmitters with multiple parallel paths
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/04 using two or more spaced independent antennas
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/06 the signals being represented by different frequencies combined with time-division multiplexing H04L5/26

Abstract

An assembly and method for processing of multi-carrier signals is provided. A plurality of carrier signals are combined into a combined multi-carrier signal represented in a first domain. The combined multi-carrier signal is converted from the first domain to a second domain. The converted multi-carrier signal is distributed into a plurality of signals represented in the second domain.

Claims

1. A multi-carrier transmitter assembly, comprising:

a digital exciter that provides a digital multi-carrier signal from baseband data, the digital multi-carrier signal comprising a plurality of time interleaved digital signals;

a digital-to-analog converter that converts the digital multi-carrier signal into an analog multi-carrier signal;

a signal distributor that deserializes the analog multi-carrier signal into a plurality of analog carrier signals, the signal distributor comprising a time division demultiplexer that separates the plurality of time interleaved analog signals into the plurality of analog carrier signals;

a plurality of antennas, each of the plurality of antennas transmitting at least one of the plurality of analog carrier signals;

wherein the signal distributor further comprises at least one passband filter having at least one passband, each of the at least one passband having an associated center frequency, the digital exciter being operative to adjust the respective center frequencies of the at least one passband.

2. The assembly of claim 1, a given passband filter from the at least one passband filter having a plurality of passbands, each of the respective center frequencies of the plurality of passbands-being electrically adjustable by the exciter.

3. The assembly of claim 1, the exciter and the digital-to-analog converter being located at a first location, and at least one of the plurality of antennas being located at a second location, spatially remote from the first location.

4. The assembly of claim 3, at least one antenna being located at a third location, spatially remote from the first location and the second location.

5. A receiver assembly, comprising:

a plurality of antennas that each receives an analog signal comprising at least one frequency band of interest and at least one frequency band containing an interfering signal;

a signal combiner that combines at least two of the analog signals from the plurality of antennas into a multi-carrier signal;

a bypass configured to allow an analog signal from one of the plurality of antennas to bypass the signal combiner;

an analog-to-digital converter that creates a digital representation of the multi-carrier signal;

a digital processing component that receives the digital representation of the multi-carrier signal and produces a control signal from the digital representation and the analog signal from the bypass, and for each analog signal representing an associated antenna, specifying the at least one frequency band containing the interfering signal; and

a plurality of electrically adjustable stopband filters, each electrically adjustable stopband filter being associated with one of the plurality of antennas, a given electrically adjustable stopband filter being electrically adjustable to change respective associated center frequencies of at least one stopband associated with the filter in response to the control signal associated with the associated antenna of the given adjustable filter as to attenuate the specified at least one frequency band within the analog signal received at the associated antenna of the given adjustable filter.

6. The receiver assembly of claim 5, further comprising at least one mixer for downconverting analog carrier signals, a given mixer being associated with a respective one of the at least one antennas and having an associated intermediate frequency.

7. The receiver assembly of claim 5, the signal combiner comprising a frequency multiplexer.

8. The receiver assembly of claim 5, the signal combiner comprising a code division multiple access multiplexer.

9. The receiver assembly of claim 5, further comprising a plurality of coders that provide respective spreading codes to the analog carrier signals, the respective spreading codes being mutually orthogonal.

10. The receiver assembly of claim 5, the analog-to-digital converter and the digital processing component being located at a first location, and a first of the plurality of antennas being located at a second location, spatially remote from the first location.

11. The receiver assembly of claim 10, a second of the plurality of antennas being located at a third location, spatially remote from the first location and the second location.

12. A receiver assembly, comprising:

a plurality of antennas that each receives an analog signal comprising at least one frequency band of interest and at least one frequency band containing an interfering signal;

a plurality of mixers for downconvertinq the plurality of analog signals to an intermediate frequency, wherein each mixer has an associated oscillator producing appropriate signals for downconvertinq the analog signals;

a plurality of spreaders for spreading the downconverted analog signals and produce a plurality of spreaded signals;

a code division multiplexer that combines the plurality of spreaded signals from the plurality of spreaders into an analog multicarrier signal;

an analog-to-digital converter that receives the analog multicarrier signal and creates a multicarrier digital signal comprising a representation of each analog signal in digital form;

a digital processing component that receives the digital representation of each analog signal and produces a control signal from the digital representation for each analog signal, representing an associated antenna, wherein the digital processing component further comprises control components for computing and maintaining the codes for each signal path and providing codes to the spreaders; and

a plurality of passband filters, each passband filter being associated with one of the plurality of antennas.

13. The receiver assembly of claim 12, the analog-to-digital converter and the digital processing component being located at a first location, and a first of the plurality of antennas being located at a second location, spatially remote from the first location.

14. The receiver assembly of claim 13, a second of the plurality of antennas being located at a third location, spatially remote from the first location and the second location.