CN107682038B

CN107682038B - Antenna switching method, multi-antenna terminal and computer readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN107682038B
Application number: CN201710766580.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 龙浩
Original assignee: Nubia Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Nubia Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-08-30
Filing date: 2017-08-30
Publication date: 2020-05-22
Anticipated expiration: 2037-08-30
Also published as: CN107682038A

Abstract

The invention discloses an antenna switching method, a multi-antenna terminal and a computer readable storage medium, wherein the antenna switching method is applied to the multi-antenna terminal comprising a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path and at least three groups of antennas, and the condition advanced judgment of at least two judgment stages is carried out on the performance of each group of antennas by acquiring the uplink communication parameters of each group of antennas so as to determine whether the antennas are required to be switched. Since the current performance of each antenna group is evaluated by two or more stages with time sequence before determining whether the main and auxiliary antennas need to be reselected, the performance of the antenna is not only simply subjected to at least two judgments compared with a one-time evaluation method. More importantly, the overall performance of each group of antennas in the condition advanced judgment period can be objectively and comprehensively evaluated, the influence of accidental factors on the performance of the antennas is eliminated, the subsequent switching is reliable and effective, and each group of antennas participating in the work after the switching has real and stable good performance.

Description

Antenna switching method, multi-antenna terminal and computer readable storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to an antenna switching method, a multi-antenna terminal, and a computer-readable storage medium.

Background

With the development of terminal technology, the functions of the mobile terminal are more and more comprehensive, and the services provided by the mobile terminal to the user are more and more perfect. In the simplest, the mobile terminal has derived services from pure conversation and short message functions in the past, such as photographing, internet surfing, audio/video playing, and the like. However, although the functions of the mobile terminal are diversified, and with the development of technology, more intelligent functions will be developed as the terminal in the future in the spring after rain, the communication function carried by the mobile terminal will still be one of the most basic and important functions, and the performance related to the communication will continue to be the focus of the user.

As is known, when the antenna environment of the mobile terminal is severe, not only the communication quality may be degraded and the user experience may be affected, but also the power consumption of the mobile terminal for communication may be increased rapidly, thereby affecting the standby time. Therefore, if the conventional antenna design scheme is continuously adopted, the development of the mobile terminal industry must face a plurality of challenges in terms of communication quality and communication power consumption. Thus, a "dual antenna terminal" has come to appear gradually in recent years. Two of the dual-antenna terminals are generally disposed at upper and lower sides of the mobile terminal, respectively, one of the two antennas serving as a main antenna for transmitting and receiving signals, and the other antenna serving as an auxiliary antenna for assisting the main antenna in transmitting and receiving signals.

For example, one antenna provided at the tip of the mobile terminal is used as a main antenna, and the other antenna is used as an auxiliary antenna. When the signal is received, the upper and lower antennas simultaneously carry out multi-path reception, and then the signals received by the two antennas are respectively processed in a receiving diversity way, thereby ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the received signals.

In the actual use process, the main antenna may be shielded due to the holding of the user and the like, so that the transceiving capacity of the mobile terminal is extremely badly affected. Therefore, it is desirable to provide an antenna switching scheme for changing the role of an antenna when the working environment of the antenna changes due to user's holding or other shielding reasons, so that the mobile terminal always has a strong signal transceiving capability, and the communication experience of the user is improved.

Disclosure of Invention

The technical problem to be solved by the invention is as follows: the antenna switching scheme is used for changing the working role of each antenna in the terminal under the condition that the working environment of the terminal antenna is unstable, so that the problems that the receiving and sending performance of a mobile terminal is reduced sharply and the user experience is low easily caused when a main antenna is shielded because the working role of the antenna is fixed in the existing scheme are solved. In view of the technical problem, an antenna switching method, a multi-antenna terminal and a computer-readable storage medium are provided.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention provides an antenna switching method, which is applied to a multi-antenna terminal, where the multi-antenna terminal includes a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path, and at least three groups of antennas; the at least three groups of antennas are currently communicated with the main transceiving passage as main antennas, currently communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage as auxiliary antennas, and the rest are idle antennas; the method comprises the following steps:

performing a conditional step decision including N decision stages on the performance of the at least three groups of antennas to determine whether antenna switching is required, where N is greater than or equal to 2, and the decision stages include: acquiring uplink communication parameters for representing the current performance of each group of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal; calculating pairwise differences of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas; determining whether a calculation result meets a judgment condition corresponding to the judgment stage based on a stage threshold value of the judgment stage, if so, judging whether the current judgment stage is the last judgment stage, if so, judging that antenna switching is needed, otherwise, entering the next judgment stage;

and when the antenna switching is judged to be needed, the communication relation among the at least three groups of antennas, the main transceiving path and the auxiliary receiving path is determined again, so that new main antennas, auxiliary antennas and idle antennas are selected.

Optionally, the phase thresholds of at least two of the N decision phases are not equal.

Optionally, the phase threshold of the preceding decision phase in the N decision phases is greater than the phase threshold of the following decision phase.

Optionally, after determining that the current decision stage is not the last decision stage, before entering the next decision stage, the method further includes: and entering a waiting period of the current decision stage.

Optionally, the multi-antenna terminal includes three antennas, one of the antennas is communicated with the main transceiving path to be a main antenna, one of the antennas is communicated with the auxiliary receiving path to be an auxiliary antenna, and the remaining antenna is an idle antenna; the waiting period of the former decision stage in the N decision stages is larger than that of the latter decision stage.

Optionally, the uplink communication parameter includes at least one of a transmission signal power, a maximum transmission power ratio value, and a channel quality indicator.

Optionally, the uplink communication parameter includes at least two of a transmission signal power, a maximum transmission power ratio value, and a channel quality indicator; the calculating of pairwise differences of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas comprises: calculating pairwise difference values of the same uplink communication parameters of all groups of antennas in the at least three groups of antennas;

the determining whether the calculation result meets the decision condition corresponding to the decision stage based on the stage threshold of the decision stage includes:

carrying out dimensionless processing on each difference value of every two groups of antennas to obtain corresponding standard values, and then calculating the average difference value of each standard value of the two groups of antennas; comparing the average difference value between every two antennas of each group with the stage threshold value of the decision stage, and judging that the decision condition corresponding to the decision stage is met when any one of the average difference values is larger than the stage threshold value of the decision stage or the ratio of the average difference values larger than the stage threshold value of the decision stage reaches a preset ratio;

or the like, or, alternatively,

aiming at a certain uplink communication parameter, comparing each pairwise difference value corresponding to the uplink communication parameter with a judgment threshold value of the uplink communication parameter in the judgment threshold value; when any one of the pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters is greater than the judgment threshold value, or the number of the pairwise difference values greater than the judgment threshold value reaches a preset ratio value, judging that the uplink communication parameters meet a step condition; and judging whether the number of the uplink communication parameters reaching the advanced condition reaches a preset number, and if so, determining that the judgment condition corresponding to the judgment stage is met.

Optionally, the uplink communication parameters of each of the N decision stages are the same.

Further, the invention also provides a multi-antenna terminal which comprises a processor, a memory and a communication bus; the multi-antenna terminal also comprises a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path and at least three groups of antennas; the at least three groups of antennas are currently communicated with the main transceiving passage as main antennas, currently communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage as auxiliary antennas, and the rest are idle antennas;

the communication bus is used for realizing connection communication between the processor and the memory;

the processor is configured to execute one or more programs stored in the memory to implement the steps of the antenna switching method as described in any one of the above.

Further, the present invention also provides a computer-readable storage medium storing one or more programs, which are executable by one or more processors to implement the steps of the antenna switching method as described in any one of the above.

Advantageous effects

The invention provides an antenna switching method, a multi-antenna terminal and a computer readable storage medium, wherein the method provided by the invention is applied to a communication terminal comprising a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path and at least three groups of antennas, wherein the antenna which is currently communicated with the main transceiving path in the at least three groups of antennas is a main antenna, the current antenna connected to the auxiliary receiving channel is the auxiliary antenna, the rest is the idle antenna, based on the hardware frame provided by the invention, when the antenna switching condition is monitored to be satisfied, the communication relation among each group of antennas of the terminal, the main receiving and transmitting channel and the auxiliary receiving channel is re-determined so as to select new main antennas, auxiliary antennas and idle antennas to complete the switching of the antennas, namely the working roles of the antennas can be dynamically changed, the current requirement can be flexibly adjusted, the condition of disconnection or call drop caused by antenna performance deterioration is avoided, and user experience is improved.

In addition, the invention determines whether the antenna switching is needed by performing the conditional advanced decision comprising at least two decision stages on the performance of each group of antennas. In each judgment stage, firstly acquiring uplink communication parameters for representing the current performance of each group of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal, calculating pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters of each group of antennas, then determining whether a calculation result meets judgment conditions corresponding to the judgment stage or not based on a stage threshold value of the judgment stage, if so, further judging whether the current judgment stage is the last judgment stage or not, if so, judging that antenna switching is needed, otherwise, entering the next judgment stage; and when the antenna switching is determined to be needed after the judgment of each judgment stage, the communication relation among the at least three groups of antennas, the main receiving and transmitting passage and the auxiliary receiving passage is determined again so as to select new main antennas and auxiliary antennas. In the invention, before determining whether the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna need to be reselected, two or more than two judgment stages with a time sequence relation are adopted to evaluate the current performance of each group of antennas, so that the performance of the antennas is not only simply subjected to at least two judgments compared with a one-time evaluation mode. More importantly, the overall performance of each group of antennas in the condition advanced judgment period can be objectively and comprehensively evaluated, the influence of accidental factors on the performance of the antennas is eliminated, subsequent switching is reliable and effective, each group of antennas participating in work after switching is guaranteed to have real and stable good performance, and user experience is improved.

Drawings

The invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples, in which:

fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a hardware structure of an alternative mobile terminal for implementing various embodiments of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a hardware structure of a radio frequency unit of a multi-antenna terminal according to various embodiments of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of an antenna switching method according to a first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of the decision stages in the first embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an arrangement of three groups of antennas in a multi-antenna terminal according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating another arrangement of three groups of antennas in the multi-antenna terminal according to the second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a flowchart of an antenna switching method according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a flowchart of an antenna switching method according to a third embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of selecting a primary antenna and a secondary antenna according to a third embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of a hardware structure of a multi-antenna terminal according to various embodiments of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a diagram illustrating a wireless communication system of the multi-antenna terminal shown in fig. 10.

Detailed Description

It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

In the following description, suffixes such as "module", "component", or "unit" used to denote elements are used only for facilitating the explanation of the present invention, and have no specific meaning in itself. Thus, "module", "component" or "unit" may be used mixedly.

The terminal may be implemented in various forms. For example, the terminal described in the present invention may include a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a palmtop computer, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a Portable Media Player (PMP), a navigation device, a wearable device, a smart band, a pedometer, and the like, and a fixed terminal such as a Digital TV, a desktop computer, and the like.

The following description will be given by way of example of a mobile terminal, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the construction according to the embodiment of the present invention can be applied to a fixed type terminal, in addition to elements particularly used for mobile purposes.

Referring to fig. 1, which is a schematic diagram of a hardware structure of a mobile terminal for implementing various embodiments of the present invention, the mobile terminal 100 may include: RF (Radio Frequency) unit 101, WiFi module 102, audio output unit 103, a/V (audio/video) input unit 104, sensor 105, display unit 106, user input unit 107, interface unit 108, memory 109, processor 110, power supply 111, and antenna 112. The mobile terminal 100 shown in fig. 1 at least includes three groups of antennas 112, where a main antenna currently connected to the main transceiving path of the mobile terminal 100 in the at least three groups of antennas 112 is a main antenna, an auxiliary antenna currently connected to the auxiliary receiving path of the mobile terminal 100 is an auxiliary antenna, and the rest are idle antennas, the processor 110 may control on/off of each group of antennas with the main transceiving path and the auxiliary receiving path, respectively, and when the processor 110 controls a certain group of antennas to be connected to the main transceiving path, the radio frequency unit 101 may receive or transmit signals through the group of antennas, it should be understood that the at least three groups of antennas 112 may be flexibly disposed at any position of the mobile terminal 100, for example, when the mobile terminal 100 includes three groups of antennas 112, the three groups of antennas 112 may be disposed above, below left, and below right of the back surface of the mobile terminal 100, respectively. Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that the mobile terminal architecture shown in fig. 1 is not intended to be limiting of mobile terminals, which may include more or fewer components than shown, or some components may be combined, or a different arrangement of components.

The following describes each component of the mobile terminal in detail with reference to fig. 1:

the radio frequency unit 101 may be configured to receive and transmit signals during information transmission and reception or during a call, and specifically, receive uplink information of a base station and then process the received uplink information to the processor 110; in addition, the uplink data is transmitted to the base station. Typically, radio frequency unit 101 includes, but is not limited to, an antenna, at least one amplifier, a transceiver, a coupler, a low noise amplifier, a duplexer, and the like. In addition, the radio frequency unit 101 can also communicate with a network and other devices through wireless communication. The wireless communication may use any communication standard or protocol, including but not limited to GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), CDMA2000(Code Division Multiple Access 2000), WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), FDD-LTE (Frequency Division duplex-Long Term Evolution), and TDD-LTE (Time Division duplex-Long Term Evolution).

WiFi belongs to short-distance wireless transmission technology, and the mobile terminal can help a user to receive and send e-mails, browse webpages, access streaming media and the like through the WiFi module 102, and provides wireless broadband internet access for the user. Although fig. 1 shows the WiFi module 102, it is understood that it does not belong to the essential constitution of the mobile terminal, and may be omitted entirely as needed within the scope not changing the essence of the invention.

The audio output unit 103 may convert audio data received by the radio frequency unit 101 or the WiFi module 102 or stored in the memory 109 into an audio signal and output as sound when the mobile terminal 100 is in a call signal reception mode, a call mode, a recording mode, a voice recognition mode, a broadcast reception mode, or the like. Also, the audio output unit 103 may also provide audio output related to a specific function performed by the mobile terminal 100 (e.g., a call signal reception sound, a message reception sound, etc.). The audio output unit 103 may include a speaker, a buzzer, and the like.

The a/V input unit 104 is used to receive audio or video signals. The a/V input Unit 104 may include a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) 1041 and a microphone 1042, the Graphics processor 1041 Processing image data of still pictures or video obtained by an image capturing device (e.g., a camera) in a video capturing mode or an image capturing mode. The processed image frames may be displayed on the display unit 106. The image frames processed by the graphic processor 1041 may be stored in the memory 109 (or other storage medium) or transmitted via the radio frequency unit 101 or the WiFi module 102. The microphone 1042 may receive sounds (audio data) via the microphone 1042 in a phone call mode, a recording mode, a voice recognition mode, or the like, and may be capable of processing such sounds into audio data. The processed audio (voice) data may be converted into a format output transmittable to a mobile communication base station via the radio frequency unit 101 in case of a phone call mode. The microphone 1042 may implement various types of noise cancellation (or suppression) algorithms to cancel (or suppress) noise or interference generated in the course of receiving and transmitting audio signals.

The mobile terminal 100 also includes at least one sensor 105, such as a light sensor, a motion sensor, and other sensors. Specifically, the light sensor includes an ambient light sensor that can adjust the brightness of the display panel 1061 according to the brightness of ambient light, and a proximity sensor that can turn off the display panel 1061 and/or a backlight when the mobile terminal 100 is moved to the ear. As one of the motion sensors, the accelerometer sensor can detect the magnitude of acceleration in each direction (generally, three axes), can detect the magnitude and direction of gravity when stationary, and can be used for applications of recognizing the posture of a mobile phone (such as horizontal and vertical screen switching, related games, magnetometer posture calibration), vibration recognition related functions (such as pedometer and tapping), and the like; as for other sensors such as a fingerprint sensor, a pressure sensor, an iris sensor, a molecular sensor, a gyroscope, a barometer, a hygrometer, a thermometer, and an infrared sensor, which can be configured on the mobile phone, further description is omitted here.

The display unit 106 is used to display information input by a user or information provided to the user. The Display unit 106 may include a Display panel 1061, and the Display panel 1061 may be configured in the form of a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED), or the like.

The user input unit 107 may be used to receive input numeric or character information and generate key signal inputs related to user settings and function control of the mobile terminal. Specifically, the user input unit 107 may include a touch panel 1071 and other input devices 1072. The touch panel 1071, also referred to as a touch screen, may collect a touch operation performed by a user on or near the touch panel 1071 (e.g., an operation performed by the user on or near the touch panel 1071 using a finger, a stylus, or any other suitable object or accessory), and drive a corresponding connection device according to a predetermined program. The touch panel 1071 may include two parts of a touch detection device and a touch controller. The touch detection device detects the touch direction of a user, detects a signal brought by touch operation and transmits the signal to the touch controller; the touch controller receives touch information from the touch sensing device, converts the touch information into touch point coordinates, sends the touch point coordinates to the processor 110, and can receive and execute commands sent by the processor 110. In addition, the touch panel 1071 may be implemented in various types, such as a resistive type, a capacitive type, an infrared ray, and a surface acoustic wave. In addition to the touch panel 1071, the user input unit 107 may include other input devices 1072. In particular, other input devices 1072 may include, but are not limited to, one or more of a physical keyboard, function keys (e.g., volume control keys, switch keys, etc.), a trackball, a mouse, a joystick, and the like, and are not limited to these specific examples.

Further, the touch panel 1071 may cover the display panel 1061, and when the touch panel 1071 detects a touch operation thereon or nearby, the touch panel 1071 transmits the touch operation to the processor 110 to determine the type of the touch event, and then the processor 110 provides a corresponding visual output on the display panel 1061 according to the type of the touch event. Although the touch panel 1071 and the display panel 1061 are shown in fig. 1 as two separate components to implement the input and output functions of the mobile terminal, in some embodiments, the touch panel 1071 and the display panel 1061 may be integrated to implement the input and output functions of the mobile terminal, and is not limited herein.

The interface unit 108 serves as an interface through which at least one external device is connected to the mobile terminal 100. For example, the external device may include a wired or wireless headset port, an external power supply (or battery charger) port, a wired or wireless data port, a memory card port, a port for connecting a device having an identification module, an audio input/output (I/O) port, a video I/O port, an earphone port, and the like. The interface unit 108 may be used to receive input (e.g., data information, power, etc.) from external devices and transmit the received input to one or more elements within the mobile terminal 100 or may be used to transmit data between the mobile terminal 100 and external devices.

The memory 109 may be used to store software programs as well as various data. The memory 109 may mainly include a storage program area and a storage data area, wherein the storage program area may store an operating system, an application program required by at least one function (such as a sound playing function, an image playing function, etc.), and the like; the storage data area may store data (such as audio data, a phonebook, etc.) created according to the use of the cellular phone, and the like. Further, the memory 109 may include high speed random access memory, and may also include non-volatile memory, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, flash memory device, or other volatile solid state storage device.

The processor 110 is a control center of the mobile terminal, connects various parts of the entire mobile terminal using various interfaces and lines, and performs various functions of the mobile terminal and processes data by operating or executing software programs and/or modules stored in the memory 109 and calling data stored in the memory 109, thereby performing overall monitoring of the mobile terminal. Processor 110 may include one or more processing units; preferably, the processor 110 may integrate an application processor, which mainly handles operating systems, user interfaces, application programs, etc., and a modem processor, which mainly handles wireless communications. It will be appreciated that the modem processor described above may not be integrated into the processor 110.

The mobile terminal 100 may further include a power supply 111 (e.g., a battery) for supplying power to various components, and preferably, the power supply 111 may be logically connected to the processor 110 via a power management system, so as to manage charging, discharging, and power consumption management functions via the power management system.

Although not shown in fig. 1, the mobile terminal 100 may further include a bluetooth module or the like, which is not described in detail herein.

In order to facilitate understanding of the embodiments of the present invention, a communication network system on which the mobile terminal of the present invention is based is described below.

The first embodiment:

in order to solve the problem that in the prior art, the working role of an antenna in a terminal is fixed, so that the transceiving performance of the terminal is easily affected by factors such as a holding posture of a user, and the communication performance of the terminal is unstable, the embodiment provides an antenna switching method. The antenna switching method is mainly applied to a multi-antenna terminal including multiple groups of antennas, and for convenience of understanding an application scenario of the antenna switching method, a hardware structure of a radio frequency unit of the multi-antenna terminal in this embodiment is described below with reference to fig. 2:

the terminal of this embodiment includes at least three sets of

antennas

211, 212 … … 21m, an antenna gating circuit 22, a radio frequency circuit 23 and a baseband processor 24, where the antenna gating circuit 22 has n first interfaces 2211, 2212, … … 221n (n is generally a positive integer greater than or equal to m), and two

second interfaces

2221, 2222. One second interface 2221 is connected to the primary transceiving paths 231 and 232 (TX and PRX in fig. 2) of the rf circuit, and the other second interface 2222 is connected to the secondary receiving path 233 (DRX in fig. 2) of the rf circuit, at least one switch circuit is connected between each first interface and the two second interfaces, each switch circuit has at least one switch, and each group of antennas in this embodiment is connected to at least one first interface of the antenna gating circuit. The baseband processor 24 includes a radio frequency transmission digital-to-analog conversion circuit 241 (TX-DAC in fig. 2), a main set reception analog-to-digital conversion circuit 242 (PRX-ADC in fig. 2), a diversity reception analog-to-digital conversion circuit 243 (DRX-ADC in fig. 2), and a modulation/demodulation circuit 244 (MODEM PROC in fig. 2) connected to the radio frequency transmission digital-to-analog conversion circuit 241, the main set reception analog-to-digital conversion circuit 242, and the diversity reception analog-to-digital conversion circuit 243, respectively, the

main transceiving paths

231 and 232 of the radio frequency circuit 23 are respectively communicated with the radio frequency transmission digital-to-analog conversion circuit 241 and the main set reception analog-to-digital conversion circuit 242 of the baseband processor, and the auxiliary receiving path 233 is communicated with the diversity reception analog-to-. The baseband processor further includes an antenna switching control module 245 and an HAL interface module 246, the antenna switching control module 245 is in communication with the antenna gating circuit 22 through the HAL interface module 245, and the antenna switching control module 245 can control on/off of each switch circuit in the antenna gating circuit 22 through the HAL interface module 246 (i.e., can control communication between any one of the first interface and the second interface), and select a specific main antenna from multiple groups of antennas or select a specific combination of the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna based on the on/off of each switch circuit.

In addition, the antenna switching control module 245 in this embodiment may be integrated in the baseband processor 24, or may be disposed separately from the baseband processor 24, for example, in the application processor, or may be disposed separately.

Please refer to the flowchart of the antenna switching method provided in fig. 3 further:

s302, performing conditional advanced judgment including N judgment stages on the performance of each group of antennas according to the uplink communication parameters of each group of antennas to determine whether antenna switching is needed.

The purpose of performing conditional-order judgment on the performance of each group of antennas in this embodiment is mainly to eliminate the situation that the performance of the antennas is different from the normal situation due to the influence of accidental factors in one-time performance evaluation through at least two judgment stages with time sequences, and to evaluate the performance situation of each group of antennas in one period more objectively rather than the performance situation at a certain moment. Assuming that A, B, C three antennas are included in a multi-antenna terminal, normally, two antennas in the multi-antenna terminal are working antennas, which are respectively used as a main antenna and an auxiliary antenna, and the other antenna is used as a spare antenna. The main antenna is used for receiving and transmitting signals, the auxiliary antenna mainly assists in receiving signals, and the idle antenna does not participate in work temporarily. In table 1, the antenna performance of A, B, C antennas at different times are given respectively:

TABLE 1

Time of day	Performance of the antenna A	Performance of antenna B	Performance of the antenna C
				T1	Is excellent in	In general	Difference (D)
T2	Is excellent in	Good effect	In general
				T3	In general	Good effect	Is excellent in
…	…	…	…
				Tn-1	Is excellent in	Is excellent in	Difference (D)
Tn	Is excellent in	Good effect	In general

As can be seen from table 1, during the period from time T1 to time Tn, the overall performance of antenna a is better than that of antenna B and antenna C, and antenna B performs a little better than antenna C. Given that the performance of each antenna is now evaluated according to a one-time evaluation scheme, the selection of the evaluation time is very important, because if the communication parameters of each antenna are detected at selected times T1, T2, etc., the finally obtained performance evaluation will be matched with the actual situation. However, if the communication parameters of the antennas are detected at the time T3 so as to evaluate the performance of the three antennas, the result is opposite to the overall performance of the antennas. Therefore, if the scheme of one-time performance evaluation is adopted, it is possible that each antenna is affected by other accidental factors when the performance of the antenna is detected, and thus "abnormal" is expressed. It should be understood that the term "abnormal" as used herein refers to a situation that does not actually correspond to a normal situation. To avoid this problem in one-time performance evaluation, a conditional step decision mechanism is proposed in this embodiment. In the conditional advanced decision mechanism, N decision stages are included. Since the N decision stages are not performed simultaneously, the timing of execution of each decision stage is different from the previous timing to the next timing, and a period of time is required to complete the conditional advance decision including the N decision stages. Therefore, through a condition advanced judgment mechanism, the influence of accidental factors can be effectively avoided, and the stable and real overall performance condition of each group of antennas can be objectively known.

In this embodiment, the value of N is 2 or more. As for the specific value, the value can be set by the designer of the multi-antenna terminal or by the user according to the requirements of the user on the power consumption, performance and the like or the preference and the like. The following describes a single decision phase in the conditional step decision mechanism, please refer to fig. 4:

s402, obtaining uplink communication parameters for representing the current performance of each group of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal.

In this embodiment, the antenna performance of each group of antennas is mainly characterized by the uplink communication parameters, but it should be understood that in some other examples, the downlink communication parameters may also be used to evaluate the antenna performance. The downlink communication parameters include, but are not limited to, at least one of received signal strength, received signal quality, received signal power, and bit error rate. The uplink traffic parameter includes at least one of the transmission signal power, the maximum transmission power ratio value and the channel quality indication. It is to be understood that, whether the parameters are uplink communication parameters or downlink communication parameters, the lists herein indicate the common ones, and the uplink communication parameters and the downlink communication parameters may also increase or decrease according to different communication systems. In addition, the names of the uplink Communication parameters and the downlink Communication parameters may be different in different formats, for example, the Received Signal Strength is characterized by a parameter RSSI (Received Signal Strength indicator) in a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) format, and becomes a parameter RSCP (Received Signal Code Power) in two Communication formats, namely WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), and the Received Signal Code Power is characterized by a parameter RSRP (Reference Signal Power) in a Long Term Evolution (Long Term Evolution) format. Therefore, it is understood that the received signal strength, the received signal quality, and the like, which are referred to herein, are explained by the substantial effect of the parameters, and do not limit the specific names thereof in different scenarios. Correspondingly, any parameter, whether or not its name is the same as that listed above, is within the scope of the present embodiment as long as its essence is corresponding meaning.

In each example of this embodiment, the uplink communication parameters obtained in the decision phase may be the same, or there may be a difference in communication parameters of at least two decision phases in the N decision phases. The number of the communication parameters acquired in each decision stage is not specifically limited in this embodiment, and may be one, or two or more.

S404, calculating pairwise difference values of uplink communication parameters of each group of antennas.

Now, it is assumed that when the multi-antenna terminal X performs the conditional step decision, the uplink communication parameters obtained at each stage are the same, for example, it obtains the parameter X at each decision stage. After the parameter X of each group of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal X is obtained, the pairwise difference of the communication parameters of each group of antennas is calculated. Assuming that the multi-antenna terminal X includes 3 groups of antennas, a1, a2, and A3, the calculated pairwise differences will include 3, whereas if the multi-antenna terminal includes m groups of antennas, the calculated pairwise differences will include 3

And (4) respectively. For the case that the multi-antenna terminal X only obtains one same parameter X for each group of antennas in this example, it is very simple to calculate the pairwise difference between each group of antennas. For example, the difference d12 between antenna group A1 and A2 is equal to x1-x2, the difference d23 between antenna group A2 and A3 is equal to x2-x3, and the difference d13 between antenna group A1 and A3 is equal to x1-x 3.

S406, determining whether the calculation result meets the judgment condition corresponding to the judgment stage based on the stage threshold value of the judgment stage.

In this embodiment, corresponding phase thresholds are set for each decision phase, and after pairwise differences are obtained through calculation, the pairwise differences may be compared with the phase thresholds, and it is determined whether the current performance of each group of antennas has reached a certain difference according to the comparison result. If a certain difference is achieved, the performance difference among the antennas is proved to meet the judgment condition of the current judgment stage, and the possibility of antenna switching exists; otherwise, it indicates that the performance of each antenna is not as good as the performance of the current antenna, and there is no need for switching, so that it can be directly determined that antenna switching is not needed, and the process directly enters S414 to exit the current antenna switching process.

If only one uplink communication parameter capable of representing the communication performance of the antenna is obtained for each group of antennas at the stage of obtaining the communication parameters, only two differences for the same uplink communication parameter are obtained when two differences of the communication parameters of each group of antennas are calculated, so that when the judgment condition corresponding to the judgment stage is judged whether the calculation result meets the judgment condition based on the stage threshold value of the judgment stage, the conclusion can be obtained only by comparing the two differences with the stage threshold value of the judgment stage. However, if two or more communication parameters are acquired when acquiring the communication parameters, how to decide the calculation result based on the phase threshold value is proposed as follows:

first, two or more decision thresholds are set in the phase threshold. Specifically, different decision thresholds are set for different uplink communication parameters, and when a pairwise difference is determined, different decision thresholds are adopted for comparison for pairwise differences of different uplink communication parameters. For example, in a decision phase, x and y two communication parameters are obtained for antenna groups a1 and a2, and a decision threshold is set for x and y, respectively, and the two decision thresholds are included in the phase threshold. It will be appreciated that in this case, when calculating the pairwise differences between the antenna groups a1 and a2, it is ensured that pairwise differences are calculated for the same communication parameters, i.e. for the antenna groups a1 and a2, respectively, for the x parameter and for the y parameter. When the calculation result of the pairwise difference is judged, the pairwise threshold aiming at the uplink communication parameter x is compared with the judgment threshold of x, and the pairwise threshold aiming at the uplink communication parameter y is compared with the judgment threshold of y.

And if any one of the pairwise difference values of a certain uplink communication parameter is greater than a judgment threshold value, judging that the uplink communication parameter meets the advanced condition. If none of the uplink communication parameters is satisfied, the uplink communication parameters can be directly judged not to satisfy the advanced condition. Of course, other conditions may be used to determine whether an uplink communication parameter satisfies the advanced condition. If so, the number of difference values greater than the determination threshold value in each pair of difference values of the uplink communication parameters reaches a preset ratio. For example, in the multi-antenna terminal X, it is required that 2/3 for the pairwise difference of a certain communication parameter reaches the determination threshold to determine that the communication parameter satisfies the advanced condition, and if there are 3 groups of antennas in the multi-antenna terminal X, two pairwise differences greater than or equal to the determination threshold must be present. The same is true for whether the other uplink communication parameters satisfy the advanced condition, and the description is omitted here.

After the judgment of whether each uplink communication parameter meets the advanced condition is completed, whether the number of the uplink communication parameters meeting the advanced condition reaches the preset number needs to be further judged, if yes, the judgment condition corresponding to the judgment stage is determined to be met, and if not, the judgment condition of the current judgment stage is determined not to be met. Assuming that the preset number is 1 and 3 uplink communication parameters are adopted to measure the performance of each group of antennas, when any one of the 3 uplink communication parameters meets the advanced condition, the antenna performance can be judged to meet the judgment condition of the current judgment stage.

Second, only one dimensionless phase threshold is set. Here, two groups of antennas are taken as an example for explanation: optionally, the dimensionless processing is performed on each two-by-two difference values of the two groups of antennas to obtain corresponding standard values, then an average difference value of each standard value of the two groups of antennas is calculated, then the average difference value between each two-by-two antenna groups is compared with the stage threshold value of the decision stage, and when any one of the average difference values is greater than the stage threshold value of the decision stage, or when the proportion of the average difference value greater than the stage threshold value of the decision stage reaches a preset proportion, it is determined that the decision condition corresponding to the decision stage is met.

The de-dimensioning process is briefly described here, taking received signal strength and received signal quality as an example: determining the maximum value P of the received signal strength in practical application of the antenna_MAX1. Likewise, for signal quality, the maximum Q it may reach is determined_MAX2. Assuming that the pairwise difference of the current received signal strengths of the two groups of antennas is P1 and the pairwise difference of the received signal qualities is Q1, the standard differences obtained by carrying out dimension removal processing on the two communication parameters are P1/P respectively_MAX1And Q1/Q_MAX2. Therefore, the average difference between the two antenna standard values is (P1/P)_MAX1+Q1/Q_MAX2)/2. Of course, in some other examples of the embodiment, the average difference value may be calculated by using a weighted average or an arithmetic average. Alternatively, it is also possible to directly set (P1/P) without calculating the average difference value, for example, when the phase threshold value is set for the sum of the standard difference values_MAX1+Q1/Q_MAX2) And comparing with the phase threshold.

It should be understood that there are many methods for the dimensionless processing, and the dimensionless processing may be performed by using a "relativistic processing method", a "functional processing method", an "extremizing method", a "normalization method", and the like, in addition to the above-described exemplary methods. In fact, the above process is a simple way to normalize the dimension removal.

It should be understood that some communication parameters belong to a "positive index" when the de-dimension processing is performed, and the higher the value of the communication parameter is, the better the antenna performance is characterized, such as received signal quality, received signal strength, and the like. However, some communication parameters belong to "negative indicators", such as bit error rate, MPTL (Maximum transmit power level) in uplink communication parameters, and the smaller the value, the better the antenna performance is. For the case of simultaneous existence of positive and negative indexes, the communication parameters of the positive index and the negative index need to be comprehensively considered when calculating the average difference. For example, assuming that the calculated standard deviation of the received signal strength of two antennas is P11 and the standard deviation of the bit error rate is J11, the average difference can be obtained by using the formula (P11-J11)/2. In this case, the larger the average difference value is, the better the antenna performance is characterized. It should be understood that the foregoing calculation method is only a simple example that is feasible, and does not represent that the present invention can only adopt the calculation method to process the case where the "positive and negative indexes" exist simultaneously. In fact, it is also possible to perform processing in which "positive and negative indicators" are present simultaneously by using a processing method such as "relative processing method".

It is needless to say that the phase thresholds of the decision stages may be equal or not equal, that is, the phase thresholds of any two decision stages are not equal. In this embodiment, the phase threshold of each decision phase may be gradually decreased, that is, the phase threshold of the previous decision phase is greater than the phase threshold of the subsequent decision phase. For example, among the conditional advanced decisions of a certain multi-antenna terminal, 3 decision stages are included, wherein the stage thresholds of the first to third decision stages are D1, D2 and D3, respectively, and the three stage thresholds satisfy the relationship of D1> D2> D3.

S408, judging whether the current judging stage is the last judging stage.

When judging that the judgment condition of a judgment stage is satisfied in the judgment stage, whether the current judgment stage is the last judgment stage needs to be judged. If not, it indicates that there is a next decision phase, and therefore, the current antenna performance needs to be further evaluated, and therefore, S410 is entered. If so, it is determined that the antenna performance has completely passed the decision of N decision stages, so that it can be determined that the performance gap between each group of antennas in the communication terminal satisfies the antenna switching condition, and antenna switching is required, so that the process can proceed to S412.

And S410, entering the next judgment stage.

It should be understood that the flow of each decision phase in this embodiment is similar, so the specific process can refer to the description of fig. 3, and the processes of other decision phases are not described here.

In this embodiment, the purpose of making N decision stages for deciding whether the antenna performance satisfies the handover condition is described above, so as to ensure that the stability performance of the antenna is comprehensively evaluated. Therefore, the performance of the antenna in a period of time can be evaluated through a plurality of decision stages with timing relation. It will be appreciated that the larger the time span that elapses when the antenna is evaluated, the more objective the evaluation results are. Therefore, in some examples of the present embodiment, in order to extend the time elapsed for the conditional step decision, a waiting period may be set between two adjacent decision phases, and the influence of the incidental factor may be sufficiently excluded by the time consumption of the waiting period. It should be appreciated that the duration of the waiting period is not as long as possible, since if the waiting period is too long, it may result in an overall antenna switching phase that is too long, which may affect the user experience in some cases. For example, the current idle antenna performance of the terminal is very good, but the main antenna performance is very poor, and the user is talking in this situation and is greatly affected, so that the antenna switching is urgently needed. However, the time for the conditional step decision is too long, so that the user has a poor conversation experience for a long time.

The duration of the waiting period can be preset by a terminal designer or can be customized by a user. Because the decision stages are not completely bound, the waiting periods in the decision stages may be equal or not completely equal. It is also possible, for example, that the waiting period of each decision phase is 3s, or that the waiting period of the first decision phase is 3s, while the waiting period of the second decision phase is only 2 s. In some examples of the present embodiment, the waiting period for each decision phase is gradually decreased. In addition, different waiting periods can be set correspondingly according to different requirements of the user on the radio frequency function of the multi-antenna terminal, for example, in a scene that the user is seriously dependent on the radio frequency function, such as conversation, internet surfing and the like, the waiting period can be set to be shorter, and in other scenes that the user is insensitive to data receiving and sending, the length stage of the waiting period can be increased, and the waiting period does not need to be set. When it is determined that there are no more decision stages after the decision stage, the process of antenna selection can be directly entered.

Similar to the waiting period, the communication parameters acquired in each decision phase may be the same, or the acquired communication parameters in at least two decision periods may be different. For example, in a certain conditional step decision, the first decision stage obtains the ratio of the uplink communication parameter transmitting signal power and the maximum transmitting power. In the third decision stage, the channel quality indication and the transmitted signal power of each antenna group of the multi-antenna terminal are obtained. However, the length of the waiting period is different from that of the waiting period, if there is a relationship between the phase thresholds of the decision phases in the conditional step decision, the dimensionless processing needs to be performed on the obtained communication parameters when determining whether the decision conditions corresponding to the current decision phase are satisfied. Because, when there is a relationship between the phase thresholds of each decision phase, it is stated that the thresholds of each decision phase must be of the same dimension or dimensionless, and therefore, the obtained communication parameters need to be converted, otherwise, the decision cannot be realized.

S412, the antenna switching is determined to be needed.

When the antenna switching is determined to be needed, the process of reselecting the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna can be entered.

And S414, exiting the antenna switching process.

In this embodiment, if it is finally determined that the antenna needs to be switched through the decision in the N decision stages, S304 is entered, otherwise, the antenna switching procedure is ended.

S304, re-determining the communication relation among the antennas, the main transceiving path and the auxiliary receiving path so as to select new main antennas, auxiliary antennas and idle antennas.

When the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna are reselected, the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna can be selected according to the uplink communication parameters obtained in the advanced judgment based on the conditions, the current uplink communication parameters can also be reacquired, then according to the performance ranking of each group of antennas under the uplink communication parameters, a group with the optimal performance is selected as the main antenna and is communicated with the main transceiving passage of the multi-antenna terminal, a group with the suboptimal performance is selected as the auxiliary antenna and is communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage of the multi-antenna terminal, and the rest antennas are used as idle antennas.

According to the antenna switching method provided by the embodiment, the time sequence of the antenna performance is evaluated twice or more through a condition advanced judgment mechanism, the evaluation of the overall performance of each group of antennas in a period is realized through the time sequence of each judgment stage in the condition advanced judgment, the influence of accidental factors on the antenna performance at certain moments is eliminated, the judgment on whether the antenna switching is needed or not is objectively made, the correctness, the reliability and the stability of a judgment result are ensured, the multi-antenna terminal is ensured to have stable and reliable radio frequency performance, and the user experience is improved.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, in a decision stage, it is determined that the performance of each antenna group satisfies the decision condition of this decision stage, and when it is determined that a next decision stage needs to be entered, a waiting period of the current decision stage is entered first, and after the waiting period is ended, the next decision stage is entered. By the method, the duration of the condition advanced judgment can be further prolonged, so that the performance of each group of antennas in a longer period is evaluated, a more comprehensive conclusion is obtained, and the accuracy of the condition advanced judgment conclusion is further improved.

Second embodiment:

in this embodiment, the setting positions of the multiple groups of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal in the foregoing embodiment are described first, please refer to fig. 5:

in fig. 5, exactly three groups of antennas are provided in the multi-antenna terminal 50, wherein a first antenna group 51 is provided at the top thereof, and a second antenna group 52 and a third antenna group 53 are provided at the left and right sides of the bottom of the terminal, respectively. Since the roles of "primary antenna", "secondary antenna", and "idle antenna" in this embodiment are interchangeable, it is possible that, for the multi-antenna terminal 50, at a certain time, the first antenna group 51 is operated as a primary antenna, the second antenna group 52 is operated as a secondary antenna, and the third antenna group 53 is temporarily not operated. At another time, it may become that the second antenna group 52 and the third antenna group 53 participate in the rf operation as the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna, respectively, and the first antenna group 51 is used as the idle antenna.

The positions of the antenna groups in the multi-antenna terminal can be set according to the upper, middle and lower positions, for example, the first antenna group is set at the top of the multi-antenna terminal, the second antenna group is set at the middle, and the third antenna group is set at the bottom of the terminal, in addition to the example shown in fig. 5. In addition, when a user holds the terminal, the holding probability of the top of the terminal is relatively small, so that more antenna groups can be arranged on the top of the terminal on the basis of reducing interference among the antenna groups. For example, fig. 6 shows a multi-antenna terminal 60, which includes a third antenna set 61, a fourth antenna set 62 and a fifth antenna set 63, wherein the third antenna set 61, the fourth antenna set 62 are disposed at the top of the multi-antenna terminal 60, and the sixth antenna set 63 is disposed at the bottom of the terminal.

It should be understood that the "group of antennas" referred to in the present embodiment and the first embodiment actually includes a case where there is only one antenna in the group of antennas. For example, a certain group of antennas in the multi-antenna terminal serves as a main antenna, and only one antenna in the group of antennas is provided, so that the one antenna solely serves as the main antenna. Of course, in other multi-antenna terminals, a group of antennas may include at least two antennas, and in these multi-antenna terminals, multiple antennas may simultaneously assume the function of the main antenna or implement the function of the auxiliary antenna.

The antenna switching method in the first embodiment is further explained below with reference to a specific example in which only A, B, C antennas are provided for the multi-antenna terminal.

Example one:

it is assumed that the conditional advanced decision includes 3 decision stages, and the communication parameters obtained in each decision stage are the same, for example, the maximum transmission power ratio values in the uplink communication parameters (assuming that the communication system adopted by the multi-antenna terminal is the LTE system). In addition, the phase thresholds of the decision stages in the conditional advanced decision are all equal, for example, the phase thresholds D1 ═ D2 ═ D3 of the first to third decision stages are 60%. Please refer to the flowchart of the antenna switching method shown in fig. 7:

s702, obtaining the current maximum transmitting power ratio value of each antenna of the multi-antenna terminal.

It is assumed that after the current maximum transmission power ratio parameter of each antenna is collected, the current main antenna, the current auxiliary antenna and the current idle antenna, that is, the maximum transmission power ratio values of A, B and C are respectively 30%, 60% and 90%.

S704, calculating pairwise difference of the maximum transmitting power ratio values of the antennas.

In the present example by d_ABCharacterizing the difference between two antennas A and B, likewise by d_BCAnd d_ACAnd respectively representing pairwise differences between the antenna B and the antenna C and between the antenna A and the antenna C. It should be understood that the pairwise difference in this embodiment refers to the absolute value of the difference. Therefore, d_AB＝30％，d_BC＝30％，d_AC＝60％。

S706, judging whether a pairwise difference value which is larger than or equal to 60% of the stage threshold exists.

If yes, go to S708; otherwise, the process proceeds to S710 to exit the antenna switching process. After judgment, the current d is found_AC60% reach a stage threshold d_AC60%, what stands forSo, S708 may be entered.

S708, judging whether the next judging stage exists.

If so, the process proceeds to S712, otherwise, the process proceeds to S714. It is determined whether there is a next decision stage, i.e., whether the current decision stage is the last one among the conditional advance decisions. Since it is actually determined that the current performance of A, B, C three antennas of the multi-antenna terminal meets the decision condition of the current decision stage after the judgment of S706, if a next decision stage exists subsequently, the next decision stage needs to be entered; if the next decision stage does not exist, the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna need to be reselected.

And S710, exiting the antenna switching process.

Exiting the antenna switching process means that no subsequent decision phase is performed. Only when the new trigger condition is reached will the conditional further decision be made again.

And S712, entering a waiting period of the current judgment stage.

If the judgment shows that another judgment stage exists after the current judgment stage, the next judgment stage needs to be entered. However, in order to ensure that a certain time interval can exist between two decision stages, so as to more comprehensively reflect the performance of the antenna at a plurality of different times, in this embodiment, before entering the next decision stage, a waiting period of the current decision stage is entered, and after the waiting period is ended, the current decision stage is ended, so as to enter the next decision stage.

The duration of the waiting period of each decision stage may be the same or different. Since there are only three decision stages in this embodiment, and the last decision stage usually does not set a waiting period, in practice, there are only two waiting periods in the conditional step decision of this embodiment. However, in other examples, there may be a plurality of waiting periods in the conditional advance decision, and these waiting periods may be equal or even, that is, no two waiting periods are equal, for example, so that the waiting period of the decision stage decreases in a decreasing trend.

The duration of the waiting period is set according to a decreasing trend, and actually, the antenna performance is subjected to more and more evaluations with the increasing number of passed decision stages, so that the comprehensiveness and objectivity of the evaluations are fully reflected. The waiting period, etc. in the post-decision phase can be gradually reduced to save the duration of the conditional step decision.

And S714, reselecting the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna for the multi-antenna terminal.

When the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna are reselected, the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna can be selected according to the downlink communication parameters acquired in the advanced judgment based on the conditions, the current uplink communication parameters can also be acquired again, then according to the performance ranking of each group of antennas under the uplink communication parameters, a group with the optimal performance is selected as the main antenna and is communicated with the main transceiving passage of the multi-antenna terminal, a group with the suboptimal performance is selected as the auxiliary antenna and is communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage of the multi-antenna terminal, and the rest antennas are used as idle antennas.

In this embodiment, when the communication parameters of each antenna are obtained, only a single uplink communication parameter is obtained, but those skilled in the art can understand that, in order to fully understand the performance of each aspect of the antenna, several communication parameters may be obtained at each decision stage. For example, it is also possible to simultaneously acquire two uplink communication parameters, one uplink communication parameter and one uplink communication parameter, and a plurality of uplink communication parameters.

The antenna switching method provided by this embodiment selects the same communication parameters at each decision stage, and sets the same stage threshold for each decision stage, so that the whole condition advanced decision processing is simple, the processing resources occupied by antenna switching are reduced, and resource optimization configuration is facilitated.

The third embodiment:

the present embodiment continues to further explain the antenna switching method in the first embodiment with a specific example in which only A, B, C antennas are provided for the multi-antenna terminal.

Example two:

it is assumed that 4 decision stages are included in the conditional advanced decision, and the stage thresholds of the decision stages are different. Please refer to the situation of the communication parameters, the phase threshold and the waiting period obtained at each decision phase given in table 2 below:

TABLE 2

In this embodiment, each decision stage acquires an uplink communication parameter, but it should be understood that in some other examples, a downlink communication parameter may also be acquired, and the uplink and downlink communication parameters may also be combined. Please refer to the flowchart of the antenna switching method shown in fig. 8:

s802, obtaining the current transmitting signal power and MTPL of each antenna of the multi-antenna terminal.

The current transmitting signal power and MTPL parameters of each antenna are collected, and then A, B and C transmitting signal powers are found to be-43 dB, -57dB and-52 dB respectively; the MTPL values of the three were 10%, 35% and 47%, respectively.

And S804, respectively calculating pairwise difference values of the communication parameters of the antennas aiming at the transmitting signal power and the MTPL.

In this example, the difference in transmit signal power is characterized by q and the difference between MTPLs is characterized by r. Then r is_AB、r_BC、r_ACRespectively 14dB, 5dB, 9dB, q_AB、q_BC、q_AC25%, 12% and 37%, respectively.

And S806, judging whether the judgment condition of the current judgment stage is met according to the calculation result.

In the first embodiment, the process of acquiring a plurality of communication parameters in one decision stage and setting a plurality of decision thresholds, if it is determined whether or not the decision condition is satisfied, has been described:

since the phase thresholds of the decision stages are not equal in this embodiment, it is necessary to determine which decision stage is the current decision stage and what phase threshold is before the decision is made. Now, assume that it is the third decision phase, so, as can be seen from table 2, the decision threshold for the communication parameter of the transmit signal power is 4dB, and the decision threshold for the MTPL is 40%. Therefore, r can be replaced_AB、r_BC、r_ACRespectively compared with 4dB, and q is_AB、q_BC、q_ACComparison was made with 40% respectively.

It is assumed that in this embodiment, it is required that 2 of the two differences reach the corresponding determination threshold of the communication parameter to determine that the communication parameter meets the advanced condition, and when at least one of the two communication parameters meets the advanced condition, it is determined that the performance condition of each current antenna meets the determination condition of the third determination stage. Therefore, it can be determined from these requirements that both the transmission signal power and the MTPL satisfy the advanced condition, and thus the decision condition of the third decision stage is reached as a whole.

If it is determined that the performance of the current antenna does not meet the determination condition of the current determination stage in other examples, the antenna switching process may be directly exited because the performance of each current antenna is good or bad, but the performance gap between the antennas is not large in general, and antenna switching is not required, so S810 is performed.

And S808, judging whether the next judgment stage exists.

After the current performance of the three antennas is determined A, B, C to meet the decision condition of the third decision stage, it needs to be determined whether the next decision stage still exists. Since the conditional step decision in this example includes a total of 4 decision stages, it is not currently the last decision stage, and therefore a waiting period for entering this decision stage is required.

If the current decision stage is the fourth decision stage, no other decision stage is found after judgment, so that the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna can be directly reselected.

And S810, exiting the antenna switching process.

Exiting the antenna switching process means that no decision stage is performed in the present conditional step decision. Only when the new trigger condition is reached will the conditional further decision be made again.

And S812, entering a waiting period of the current judgment stage.

If the judgment shows that another judgment stage exists after the current judgment stage, the next judgment stage needs to be entered. However, in order to ensure that a certain time interval can exist between two decision stages, so as to more comprehensively reflect the performance of a plurality of different time points, in this embodiment, before entering the next decision stage, a waiting period of the current decision stage is entered, and after the waiting period is ended, the current decision stage is ended, so as to enter the next decision stage.

In this example, the waiting periods of the decision phases are not equal, and therefore, it is necessary to determine how long the waiting period of the current decision phase is before entering the decision phase each time. And continuing to assume that the current decision stage is the third decision stage, and the duration of the waiting period of the decision stage is 1 s. Therefore, after entering the waiting period and waiting for 1s, the next decision phase is entered and the decision phase is ended.

And S814, reselecting the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna for the multi-antenna terminal.

The scheme for selecting the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna in the present embodiment is briefly described below with reference to fig. 9:

and S902, determining election parameter values for each group of antennas according to the uplink communication parameters of each group of antennas.

The election parameter values referred to herein are election parameter values of each antenna when election is performed between the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna, and for example, in the present embodiment, the election parameter values are received signal strength and received signal quality of each antenna. It should be understood that there are at least two sources of election parameter values: first, since the communication parameters of each antenna are already acquired in the conditional step decision stage, the antenna selection can be directly performed based on the uplink communication parameters acquired in the conditional step decision, that is, the election parameter values are obtained according to each communication parameter value in the conditional step decision. And secondly, when two antennas are selected, the current uplink communication parameters are acquired again.

For the first scheme, it is considered that the communication parameter obtained in the last decision stage in each decision stage can most represent the latest performance condition of each antenna, and therefore, the communication parameter obtained in the last decision stage can be directly used as an election parameter value, so that the performance conditions of each antenna are ranked. The method is simple, parameters do not need to be acquired again, and the selection efficiency is high. In addition, since the decision of N stages has been performed previously, it is considered that the overall situation of the communication parameters acquired in the N decision stages is integrated, for example, the communication parameters acquired in each of the N decision stages are averaged, and the obtained average value is used as the election parameter value. In the scheme, the election parameter value reflects the overall performance of the antenna in a period of time, and is more objective and reliable.

For the second scheme, the election parameter values are more free and flexible when being obtained, because the election parameter values in the first scheme are from each judgment stage of conditional advance judgment, the types of the election parameter values are limited, but in the second scheme, the process of election of the antenna has no parameter binding relation with the conditional advance judgment process, so that more and more comprehensive parameters can be completely obtained when the antenna election is carried out, then the comprehensive performances of the antenna are sequenced, and the antenna with better comprehensive performances is ensured to be selected as the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna.

And S904, selecting a group of antennas with optimal performance to be communicated with the main receiving and transmitting channel according to the magnitude of the antenna election parameter values, and selecting a group of antennas with suboptimal performance to be communicated with the auxiliary receiving channel.

In addition, in the present embodiment, an antenna having the best overall performance is not necessarily selected as the main antenna, and an antenna having the second best overall performance is not necessarily selected as the auxiliary antenna. Because a user has different requirements for different performances of the antenna under different use situations, for example, when data is downloaded, downlink performance of the lower antenna is more important, and when data is uploaded, uplink communication performance is more important, when the antenna is selected, the current use scene of the multi-antenna terminal can be detected, so that the antenna with the performance more suitable for the current requirements can be selected as the main antenna and the auxiliary antenna.

The present embodiment has been described in a scheme of acquiring two communication parameters in each decision phase and decreasing the threshold value in each decision phase. In the condition advanced judgment, the phase threshold value of each subsequent judgment phase is continuously reduced, so that the judgment condition of the subsequent judgment phase is easier to meet, namely the severity of the judgment condition is gradually weakened. The following decision stages are considered, which mainly means that the more the number of the decision stages passed by the current antenna is, the more the antenna switching needs to occur, so that the antenna switching can be finally realized under the condition that the antenna switching really needs to be obtained by gradually weakening the severity of the decision conditions. In addition, the waiting period of each judgment stage is shorter and shorter, so that the antenna switching can be realized as soon as possible under the condition that the antenna switching is really needed, and the multi-antenna terminal can recover better communication performance as soon as possible.

The fourth embodiment:

the present embodiment first provides a computer-readable storage medium, in which one or more computer programs are stored, and the computer programs can be read, compiled and executed by a processor, so as to implement corresponding method flows. In the present embodiment, a computer program that can implement the antenna switching method in the foregoing embodiments is stored in a computer-readable storage medium.

In addition, the present embodiment further provides a multi-antenna terminal, please refer to fig. 10, in which the multi-antenna terminal 10 includes a processor 11, a memory 12, a communication bus 13, a communication unit 14, and an antenna 15;

the communication bus 13 is used for realizing connection communication among the processor 11, the memory 12 and the communication unit 14;

the communication unit 14 may be a radio frequency communication unit (radio frequency circuit), or may be another type of communication unit, and includes a main transceiving path and an auxiliary receiving path (not shown in the path), and the antenna 15 includes at least three groups, where among the at least three groups of antennas, the antenna currently communicating with the main transceiving path is a main antenna, the antenna currently communicating with the auxiliary receiving path is an auxiliary antenna, and the rest antennas are idle antennas.

The memory 12 is used for executing one or more programs, and the processor 11 is used for executing one or more programs stored in the memory, so as to implement the steps of the antenna switching method as illustrated in the above embodiments.

The communication of the multi-antenna terminal 90 in this embodiment is briefly described below with reference to the communication network system architecture diagram provided in fig. 11:

referring to fig. 11, the communication Network system is an LTE system of the UMTS, and the LTE system includes a UE (User Equipment) 1101, an E-UTRAN (Evolved UMTS terrestrial radio Access Network) 1102, an EPC (Evolved Packet Core) 1103 and an IP service 1104 of an operator, which are in communication connection in sequence.

Specifically, the UE1101 may be the multi-antenna terminal 10, and is not described herein again.

The E-UTRAN1102 includes eNodeB11021 and other eNodeBs 11022, etc. Among them, the eNodeB11021 may be connected with other eNodeB11022 through backhaul (e.g., X2 interface), the eNodeB11021 is connected to the EPC1103, and the eNodeB11021 may provide the UE201 with access to the EPC 1103.

EPC1103 may include MME (Mobility Management Entity) 11031, HSS (Home Subscriber Server) 11032, other MME11033, SGW (Serving GateWay) 11034, PGW (PDN GateWay) 11035, PCRF (Policy and charging Function) 11036, and the like. MME11031 is a control node that handles signaling between UE1101 and EPC1103, and provides bearer and connection management. The HSS11032 is used to provide registers to manage functions such as a home location register (not shown) and holds some user-specific information about service characteristics, data rates, etc. All user data may be sent through SGW11034, PGW11035 may provide IP address allocation and other functions for UE1101, and PCRF11036 is a policy and charging control policy decision point for traffic data flow and IP bearer resources that selects and provides available policy and charging control decisions for a policy and charging enforcement function (not shown).

The IP services 1104 may include the internet, intranets, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), or other IP services, etc.

Although the LTE system is described as an example, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the LTE system, but may also be applied to other wireless communication systems, such as GSM, CDMA2000, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, and future new network systems.

Since the UE1101 provided in this embodiment is a multi-antenna terminal, in the process of interaction between the UE1101 and the E-UTRAN1102, the antenna performance may be evaluated by using the antenna switching method described in the foregoing embodiments, and when it is determined that the performance of each antenna has a large performance gap after the decisions in multiple decision stages, new main and auxiliary antennas with better performance are selected for the UE1101 again, so as to avoid affecting user communication and improve user experience.

It should be noted that, in this document, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

The above-mentioned serial numbers of the embodiments of the present invention are merely for description and do not represent the merits of the embodiments.

Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will clearly understand that the method of the above embodiments can be implemented by software plus a necessary general hardware platform, and certainly can also be implemented by hardware, but in many cases, the former is a better implementation manner. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the present invention may be embodied in the form of a software product, which is stored in a storage medium (such as ROM/RAM, magnetic disk, optical disk) and includes instructions for enabling a terminal (such as a mobile phone, a computer, a server, an air conditioner, or a network device) to execute the method according to the embodiments of the present invention.

While the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments, which are illustrative and not restrictive, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. The antenna switching method is characterized by being applied to a multi-antenna terminal, wherein the multi-antenna terminal comprises a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path and at least three groups of antennas; the at least three groups of antennas are currently communicated with the main transceiving passage as main antennas, currently communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage as auxiliary antennas, and the rest are idle antennas; the method comprises the following steps:

the performance of the at least three groups of antennas is judged to include N judgment stages, whether the performance of the at least three groups of antennas meets the antenna switching condition is judged to determine whether the antenna switching is needed, wherein N is greater than or equal to 2, a time sequence exists in the N judgment stages, and each judgment stage comprises: acquiring at least one uplink communication parameter for representing the current performance of each group of antennas of the multi-antenna terminal; calculating pairwise differences of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas; when the relation between the pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas and the stage threshold value of the judgment stage meets a preset condition, judging whether the current judgment stage is the last judgment stage, if so, judging that antenna switching is needed, otherwise, entering the next judgment stage;

2. The antenna switching method of claim 1, wherein the phase thresholds of at least two of the N decision phases are not equal.

3. The antenna switching method of claim 2, wherein a phase threshold of a preceding decision phase of the N decision phases is greater than a phase threshold of a following decision phase.

4. The antenna switching method of claim 1, wherein after determining that the current decision phase is not the last decision phase, before entering the next decision phase, further comprising: and entering a waiting period of the current decision stage.

5. The antenna switching method according to claim 4, wherein the multi-antenna terminal includes three antennas, one of the antennas is a main antenna connected to the main transceiving path, one of the antennas is an auxiliary antenna connected to the auxiliary receiving path, and the remaining one of the antennas is an idle antenna; the waiting period of the former decision stage in the N decision stages is larger than that of the latter decision stage.

6. The antenna switching method of claim 1, wherein the uplink communication parameter comprises at least one of a transmission signal power, a maximum transmission power ratio value, and a channel quality indicator.

7. The method of switching antennas of claim 6, the uplink communication parameters comprising at least two of a transmit signal power, a maximum transmit power ratio, and a channel quality indication; the calculating of pairwise differences of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas comprises: calculating pairwise difference values of the same uplink communication parameters of all groups of antennas in the at least three groups of antennas;

judging whether the relation between the pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas and the stage threshold value of the judgment stage meets a preset condition or not comprises the following steps:

carrying out dimensionless processing on each difference value of every two groups of antennas to obtain corresponding standard values, and then calculating the average difference value of each standard value of the two groups of antennas; comparing the average difference value between every two antennas of each group with the stage threshold value of the decision stage, and when any one of the average difference values is larger than the stage threshold value of the decision stage or the ratio of the average difference values larger than the stage threshold value of the decision stage reaches a preset ratio, judging that the relation between every two difference values of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas and the stage threshold value of the decision stage meets a preset condition;

or the like, or, alternatively,

judging whether the number of the uplink communication parameters reaching the advanced condition reaches a preset number or not, if so, judging that the relation between the pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters of the at least three groups of antennas and the stage threshold value of the judgment stage meets the preset condition; a stage threshold of the decision stage is set with a decision threshold corresponding to the uplink communication parameter, and the determining whether the uplink communication parameter reaches the advanced condition includes: comparing each pairwise difference value corresponding to the uplink communication parameter with a decision threshold value of the uplink communication parameter in the decision threshold values; and when any one of the pairwise difference values of the uplink communication parameters is greater than the judgment threshold value, or the number of the pairwise difference values greater than the judgment threshold value reaches a preset ratio, judging that the uplink communication parameters meet a step condition.

8. The antenna switching method according to any of claims 1-7, wherein the uplink communication parameters of each of the N decision stages are the same.

9. A multi-antenna terminal, comprising a processor, a memory, and a communication bus; the multi-antenna terminal also comprises a main transceiving path, an auxiliary receiving path and at least three groups of antennas; the at least three groups of antennas are currently communicated with the main transceiving passage as main antennas, currently communicated with the auxiliary receiving passage as auxiliary antennas, and the rest are idle antennas;

the processor is configured to execute one or more programs stored in the memory to implement the steps of the antenna switching method according to any one of claims 1 to 8.

10. A computer readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer readable storage medium stores one or more programs which are executable by one or more processors to implement the steps of the antenna switching method according to any one of claims 1 to 8.