Wideband echo cancellation in a repeater

• US 8,285,201 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2009
• Issued: 10/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Gore, Dhananjay Ashok, Barriac, Gwendolyn Denise, Proctor, James Arthur Jr., Howard, Steven J., Inanoglu, Hakan, Gainey, Kenneth M., Wang, Michael Mao, Tian, Tao
• Primary Examiner(s): Ferguson, Keith
• Application Number:
  US12/609,505
• Publication Number:
  US 20100285733A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,075 Days
• Field of Search: 455/11.1, 455/7, 455/24, 455/13.3, 455/15, 455/17, 455/1, 455/20, 455/22, 455/23, 455/422.1, 455/403, 455/500, 455/517, 455/67.11, 455423-425, 455/509, 455/515, 455/550.18, 370/310, 370/315, 370/316, 370/317, 370/318, 375/211, 375/213
• US Class Current: 455/11.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15535 Control of relay amplifier gain amplifier gain control in general H03G3/00; gain control reducing self - or loop interference H04B7/15578
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15585 by interference cancellation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2607 Cyclic extensions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2613 Structure of the reference signals

Abstract

A wireless repeater having a receiving antenna for receiving an input signal and a transmitting antenna for transmitting an amplified signal includes first and second front-end circuits and a repeater baseband block coupled between the first and second front-end circuits. The repeater baseband block includes a channel estimation block, an echo canceller implementing time domain echo cancellation, a variable gain stage controlled by a gain control block implementing digital gain control, a first variable delay element introducing a first delay before or after the echo canceller, a second variable delay element introducing a second delay to the output signal. The delayed output signal is coupled to the channel estimation block as a reference signal for estimating the feedback channel, to the echo canceller as a reference signal for estimating the feedback signal, and to the gain control block for monitoring the stability of the repeater.

Claims

1. A wireless repeater having a first antenna and a second antenna to receive an input signal and transmit an amplified signal, the input signal being a sum of a remote signal to be repeated and a feedback signal resulting from a feedback channel between the first antenna and the second antenna, the repeater comprising:

a first front-end circuit configured to couple to the receiving antenna of the first antenna and the second antenna to receive the input signal and including receive and transmit front-end processing circuitry;

a second front-end circuit configured to couple to the transmitting antenna of the first antenna and the second antenna and configured to generate the amplified signal and including receive and transmit front-end processing circuitry;

a repeater baseband block coupled between the first and second front-end circuits, the repeater baseband block to receive a processed input signal from the first front-end circuit and generate an output signal to be processed by the second front-end circuit, the repeater baseband block comprising;

a channel estimation block to receive the processed input signal and estimate the feedback channel to provide a feedback channel estimate using frequency domain channel estimation;

an echo canceller to receive the feedback channel estimation from the channel estimation block and to generate a feedback signal estimate based on the feedback channel estimate and further configured to cancel the feedback signal estimate from the input signal using time domain echo cancellation;

a variable gain stage to amplify the echo cancelled signal to generate the output signal of the repeater baseband block;

a gain control block to adjust the gain of the variable gain stage using digital gain control to increase repeater stability;

a first variable delay element to introduce a first delay before or after the echo canceller, wherein the output of the first variable delay element and the echo canceller is provided as a delayed echo cancelled signal to the variable gain stage, the first delay being selected to provide decorrelation of the remote signal with the amplified signal, the first delay less than a maximum decorrelation delay amount; and

a second variable delay element introducing a second delay to the output signal, the second delay being selected to reduce delay spread, the delayed output signal to be coupled to the channel estimation block as a reference signal to estimate the feedback channel, to the echo canceller as a reference signal to estimate the feedback signal, and to the gain control block to monitor the stability of the repeater.

2. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the first variable delay element is configured to introduce the first delay to the processed input signal before the echo canceller.

3. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the first variable delay element is configured to introduce the first delay is introduced to the echo cancelled signal after the echo canceller.

4. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the first delay is selected based at least in part on a number of carriers in the input signal.

5. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the first delay is selected based at least in part on a bandwidth of carriers.

6. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the repeater is configured to set the first delay to a value to decorrelate the amplified signal from the remote signal, and wherein the value is further equal to or less than a maximum allowable delay of the repeater.

7. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the repeater is configured to determine a value of the first delay by computing a decorrelation value between the amplified signal and the remote signal.

8. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the reference signal provided to the channel estimation block, the echo canceller and the gain control block is delayed with respect to the amplified signal to advance the feedback channel to be estimated.

9. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the repeater is configured to adjust the first and second delays when the repeater is started up.

10. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the repeater is configured to tune the first and second delays periodically during repeater operation.

11. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein the second delay is selected to calibrate out bulk delay in the feedback channel to reduce the delay spread.

12. The wireless repeater of claim 1, wherein a carrier comprises one or more carriers and the repeater baseband block further comprises:

a receive filter being a tunable, digital baseband filter coupled to receive the processed input signal, the filtered input signal to be coupled to the echo canceller; and

a transmit filter being a tunable, digital baseband filter coupled to receive the echo cancelled signal or the output signal of the gain stage and to provide a filtered output signal as the output signal of the repeater baseband block,

wherein the echo canceller is configured to generate the feedback signal estimate by convolving the feedback channel estimate with the receive filter and with the reference signal.

13. The wireless repeater of claim 12, wherein the input signal comprises one or more carriers, and wherein the repeater is configured to tune the receive filter and the transmit filter to operate for wideband or narrow band echo cancellation.

14. A wireless repeater having a first antenna and a second antenna for receiving an input signal and transmitting an amplified signal, the input signal being a sum of a remote signal to be repeated and a feedback signal resulting from a feedback channel between the first antenna and the second antenna, the repeater comprising:

first means for receiving the input signal and providing receive and transmit front-end processing;

second means for providing receive and transmit front-end processing and generating the amplified signal

means for receiving a processed input signal from the first front-end circuit and generating an output signal to be processed by the second front-end circuit, the means comprising;

means for receiving the processed input signal and estimating the feedback channel to provide a feedback channel estimate using frequency domain channel estimation;

means for generating a feedback signal estimate based on the feedback channel estimate and cancelling the feedback signal estimate from the input signal using time domain echo cancellation;

means for amplifying the echo cancelled signal to generate the output signal of the repeater baseband block, the gain of the variable gain stage being adjusted by a means for controlling gain means implementing digital gain control to maintain repeater stability;

means for introducing a first delay before or after the echo canceller and providing a delayed echo cancelled signal to the means for amplifying the echo cancelled signal, the first delay being selected to provide decorrelation of the remote signal with the amplified signal, the first delay less than a maximum decorrelation delay amount; and

means for introducing a second delay to the output signal, the second delay being selected to reduce delay spread, the delayed output signal being coupled to the means for estimating the feedback channel as a reference signal for estimating the feedback channel, to the means for generating the feedback signal estimate, and to the means for controlling gain for monitoring the stability of the repeater.

15. A method for providing wideband echo cancellation in a wireless repeater in a wireless communication system, comprising:

receiving an input signal at a first antenna of the repeater, the input signal being a sum of a remote signal to be repeated and a feedback signal resulting from a feedback channel between the first antenna and a second antenna;

performing front-end processing on the input signal;

estimating a feedback channel between the first antenna and the second antenna of the repeater using frequency domain channel estimation;

generating a feedback signal estimate based on the feedback channel estimate;

cancelling the feedback signal estimate from the input signal and generating an echo cancelled signal using time domain echo cancellation;

determining a gain value for maintaining repeater stability using digital gain control;

amplifying the echo cancelled signal using the gain value to generate an output signal;

introducing a first delay to the signal before or after cancelling the feedback signal estimate and providing a delayed echo cancelled signal, the first delay being selected to provide decorrelation of the remote signal with the amplified signal, the first delay less than a maximum decorrelation delay amount;

introducing a second delay to the output signal, the second delay being selected to reduce delay spread;

providing the delayed output signal as a reference signal for estimating the feedback channel, for generating the feedback signal estimate, and for determining a gain value;

performing front-end processing on the output signal to generate the amplified signal; and

transmitting the amplified signal on the second antenna.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein introducing a first delay comprises introducing the first delay to the signal before cancelling the feedback signal estimate.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein introducing a first delay comprises introducing the first delay to the signal after cancelling the feedback signal estimate.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the first delay is varied as a function of a number of carriers in the input signal.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the first delay is varied as a function of the bandwidth of carriers.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the first delay is set to a value equal to or less than the maximum decorrelation delay amount of the repeater and is also set to a value where the amplified signal is decorrelated from the remote signal.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the value of the first delay is determined by computing a decorrelation value between the amplified signal and the remote signal.

22. The method of claim 15, wherein the reference signal for channel estimation, for feedback signal estimation and for gain control is delayed from the amplified signal and advances the feedback channel to be estimated.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the first and second delays are adjusted when the repeater is started up.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein the first and second delays are tuned periodically during repeater operation.

25. The method of claim 15, wherein the second delay is selected to calibrate out bulk delay in the feedback channel.

26. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

filtering the processed input signal using a receive filter;

cancelling the feedback signal estimate from the input signal comprising cancelling the feedback signal estimate from the filtered input signal;

filtering the output signal using a transmit filter;

performing front-end processing on the output signal comprising performing front-end processing on the filtered output signal to generate the amplified signal; and

generating a feedback signal estimate based on the feedback channel estimate comprising generating the feedback signal estimate by convolving the feedback channel estimate with the receive filter and with the reference signal.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the input signal comprises one or more carriers, the receive filter and the transmit filter being tuned to operate for wideband or narrow band echo cancellation.