CN112216963A

CN112216963A - Electronic device and antenna switching method

Info

Publication number: CN112216963A
Application number: CN202011050138.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈二军
Original assignee: Vivo Mobile Communication Co Ltd
Current assignee: Vivo Mobile Communication Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-09-29
Filing date: 2020-09-29
Publication date: 2021-01-12
Anticipated expiration: 2040-09-29
Also published as: CN112216963B

Abstract

The embodiment of the application provides electronic equipment and an antenna switching method, and belongs to the technical field of communication. This electronic equipment's antenna module includes: the antenna comprises an antenna body, a rotating device and a driving device; the antenna body comprises a plurality of blades, and the blades are distributed on the rotating device along the rotating direction of the rotating device; the rotating device is connected with the driving device. In the embodiment of the application, the plurality of blades are arranged on the rotating device to form the rotary antenna, and any one of the plurality of blades can be moved to a position electrically connected with an antenna port by controlling the rotating device to rotate, so that the requirement of multiple antennas is met and the content space of equipment is saved; according to different communication requirements, antenna switching can be realized only by rotating the corresponding blades to be electrically connected with the antenna port, the phenomenon that multiple paths compete for the same antenna is avoided, and the communication quality is guaranteed.

Description

Electronic device and antenna switching method

Technical Field

The embodiment of the application relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to electronic equipment and an antenna switching method.

Background

With the fifth generation communication technology (5)^thgeneration, 5G), a more challenging Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) usageScenarios and related new services require higher data rates and greater capacity in densely deployed scenarios. Many early 5G deployments will use the frequency bands of previous generations of mobile communications, while frequency bands above 24G are considered complementary to those below 6 GHz. Due to the demand of 5G for extremely high data rates and very high traffic in topological areas, bands of higher frequency, even above 60GHz, are also considered for deployment, these bands being commonly referred to as millimeter wave bands in view of their wavelengths. The frequency bands supported by the 5G electronic equipment are more and more, the frequency range is wider and wider, the traditional single-antenna design cannot meet the requirements of the functions and the performances of the 5G electronic equipment, and the multi-antenna technology is introduced to be used in a large scale.

The existing schemes are designed by dividing antennas and frequency bands, so that different frequency band combinations must be supported by increasing the number of antennas, and in the increasingly limited layout space of electronic equipment, great difficulty and trouble are undoubtedly caused to the interference between the antenna design and the antennas. The number of antennas in the conventional design at present is generally 8-12, and due to the large number, the isolation between the antennas becomes very small, the interference between the antennas becomes very large, the situation that a plurality of paths compete for the same antenna can be caused in the antenna switching process, the frequent switching of the antennas can be caused, and the communication quality can be seriously influenced.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application aims to provide electronic equipment and an antenna switching method, and the electronic equipment and the antenna switching method can solve the problems that the isolation degree between antennas is small due to the fact that the existing antenna design is limited by space, and communication quality is affected due to the fact that multiple paths compete for the same antenna in the antenna switching process.

In order to solve the technical problem, the present application is implemented as follows:

in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an electronic device, including: the antenna module is electrically connected with the antenna port;

the antenna module includes: the antenna comprises an antenna body, a rotating device and a driving device;

the antenna body comprises a plurality of blades, the blades are distributed on the rotating device along the rotating direction of the rotating device, the blades comprise a first blade and a second blade, and the first blade and the second blade are different in size; the rotating device is connected with the driving device, the driving device drives the rotating device to rotate, when the rotating device rotates to a first position, the first blade is electrically connected with the antenna port, and the electronic equipment transmits a first signal through the first blade; when the rotating device rotates to the second position, the second blade is electrically connected with the antenna port, and the electronic equipment transmits a second signal through the second blade.

In the embodiment of the application, the plurality of blades are arranged on the rotating device to form the rotary antenna, and any one of the plurality of blades can be moved to a position electrically connected with an antenna port by controlling the rotating device to rotate, so that the requirement of multiple antennas is met and the content space of equipment is saved; according to different communication requirements, antenna switching can be realized only by rotating the corresponding blades to be electrically connected with the antenna port, the phenomenon that multiple paths compete for the same antenna is avoided, and the communication quality is guaranteed.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an antenna module of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a second schematic structural diagram of an antenna module of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 3 is one of application scenarios provided in the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a schematic flowchart of an antenna switching method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 5 is a second schematic view of an application scenario provided in the embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some, but not all, embodiments of the present application. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present application.

The terms first, second and the like in the description and in the claims of the present application are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order. It will be appreciated that the data so used may be interchanged under appropriate circumstances such that embodiments of the application may be practiced in sequences other than those illustrated or described herein, and that the terms "first," "second," and the like are generally used herein in a generic sense and do not limit the number of terms, e.g., the first term can be one or more than one. In addition, "and/or" in the specification and claims means at least one of connected objects, a character "/" generally means that a preceding and succeeding related objects are in an "or" relationship.

In the development and construction process of the 5G communication technology, two networking modes are adopted, namely an independent networking (SA) and a dependent-dependent Networking (NSA), and in the actual networking process, the 5G radio access network, the 5G core network, the 4G radio access network and the 4G core network are mixed and matched to form a plurality of network deployment options. At the initial stage of 5G networking, operators mostly adopt an EN-DC (4G +5G dual connectivity) scheme for cost and technology iteration, that is, an LTE frequency band and an NR frequency band can simultaneously operate. In case of dual connectivity, the NR band needs to support DL 4 × 4MIMO, and the LTE band supports at least DL 2 × 2 MIMO.

In 5G mobile communication, a function of Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) is also added to a terminal hardware design, and the SRS is mainly used for acquiring uplink and downlink channel state information. The switching of the SRS antenna of the 5G terminal system needs to be completed on the terminal hardware design, so the complexity of the radio frequency front end system of the mobile terminal is increased, and there are 3 SRS antenna switching methods that are currently well defined for 5G NR: 1 transmit 2 receive (1T2R), 2T4R, 1T 4R.

In view of this, the main rf needs at least 4 antennas to satisfy the above functions without considering the performance of the antennas.

The NR Sub 6G antenna has a wide frequency band range, and the existing schemes are designed with antennas and frequency bands, so that different frequency band combinations must be supported by increasing the number of antennas, and in the increasingly limited layout space of electronic devices, it will undoubtedly cause great difficulty and trouble to the interference between the antenna design and the antennas. The number of antennas in the conventional design at present is generally 8-12, and due to the large number, the isolation between the antennas becomes very small, the interference between the antennas becomes very large, and some devices have to be added on a circuit to increase the out-of-band rejection capability. Nevertheless, the effect is not very ideal, and in many cases, the design of the Sub 6G electronic device antenna is implemented by sacrificing the antenna performance and relaxing the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) index.

Meanwhile, antenna switching under different scenes is also very complex, in an LTE and NR dual-connection mode, an NR frequency band and an LTE frequency band adopt two different transceiving paths and antennas to respectively transceive, and at the same time, both transmissions have the requirement of switching the antennas, so that an Antenna Switching Diversity (ASDIV) function is realized, and a situation that a plurality of paths compete for the same antenna in the antenna switching process can be caused, so that frequent switching of the antennas can be caused, and the communication quality can be seriously influenced.

The electronic device and the antenna switching method provided by the embodiments of the present application are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings through specific embodiments and application scenarios thereof.

An embodiment of the application provides an electronic device, including: antenna module and antenna port, antenna module is through being connected with the antenna port electricity, for example can be connected with the antenna port electricity through cable (cable) line, see fig. 1 and fig. 2, and antenna module includes: a plurality of blades 1, a rotating device 2, and a driving device 3.

The plurality of blades 1 are distributed on the rotating device 2 along the rotating direction of the rotating device 2, the plurality of blades 1 include a first blade and a second blade, and the first blade and the second blade are different in size, it is understood that in a practical application scenario, the number of the blades 1 may also be other numbers such as 3, 4, and the like, for example, as shown in fig. 1 and fig. 2, the number of the blades 1 may be 5, and the number of the blades 1 is not specifically limited in the embodiment of the present application.

The sizes of the first blade and the second blade are different, and the corresponding transmitting frequencies are different. The rotating device 2 is in driving connection with the driving device 3, the driving device 3 drives the rotating device 2 to rotate, when the rotating device 3 rotates to a first position, the first blade is electrically connected with the antenna port, and the electronic equipment transmits a first signal through the first blade; when the rotating device 2 rotates to the second position, the second blade is electrically connected to the antenna port, and the electronic device transmits a second signal through the second blade.

Specifically, as shown in fig. 2, a connector 4 for electrically connecting the antenna body with the cable may be provided, and the connector 4 may have various forms, for example: may be a contact connected to a cable wire

In the embodiment of the present application, the driving device 3 drives the rotating device 2 to rotate, so that any one blade 1 of the plurality of blades 1 is electrically connected to the antenna port.

In some embodiments, each of the blades 1 is isolated, and specifically, referring to fig. 1, the region between the blades 1 (i.e., the white region between the blades 1 in fig. 1) may be filled with an insulating material such as plastic, so as to achieve the isolation between the blades 1 and improve the isolation between the antennas.

In the embodiment of the application, the plurality of blades are arranged on the rotating device to form the rotary antenna, any one of the plurality of blades can be moved to a position corresponding to the connecting piece by controlling the rotating device to rotate, and the blades are electrically connected with the cable wire through the connecting piece, so that the interference among the antennas can be weakened to a great extent while the functions and the performance are met, the directivity and the radiation characteristic of the antennas are improved, and the flexibility of the antenna design is also improved; in a non-independent networking mode, when antenna resource conflict exists in LTE ASDIV and NR SRS antenna polling technologies, the antenna provided by the embodiment of the application is adopted to realize LTE/NR shared antenna, and communication quality deterioration caused by resource conflict in the receiving and transmitting antenna switching process of NR and LTE is effectively avoided, so that the communication quality is improved.

It should be noted that the electronic device in the embodiment of the present application may have a plurality of antenna modules, that is, a plurality of rotary antennas may be disposed, and accordingly, a plurality of antenna ports are disposed corresponding to different operating frequency bands. Specifically, referring to fig. 3, which shows a scenario in which 4 rotating antennas and 6 antenna ports are provided, it can be understood that, in order to ensure isolation between the rotating antennas, the rotating antennas are disposed as far apart as possible in space, for example, as shown in fig. 3, two rotating antennas located in the upper half of the device are disposed in a diagonal manner, and two rotating antennas located in the lower half of the device are disposed in a side-by-side manner due to space limitations.

In fig. 3, the 6 antenna ports are respectively: a Wifi antenna port for GPS band of 2.4G, 5G or L1 band (Ant 201Wifi 2.4G/5G/GPS L1); a transmit antenna port (Ant 11LMHB _ TRX) for the low-mid high (LMHB) band; diversity receive antenna port for Low and Medium High (LMHB) bands (Ant 11LMHB _ DRX); multiple-in multiple-out (MIMO) antenna ports (Ant 401Wifi 2.4G/5G _ MIMO) for 2.4G, 5G frequency bands; a MIMO diversity receive antenna port for LMHB band (Ant 31LMHB _ DRX _ MIMO); a MIMO main set receive antenna port for the LMHB band (Ant 31LMHB _ PRX _ MIMO). It is understood that the type of the antenna ports shown in fig. 3 is only one possible example, and in the practical application process, the type and the number of the antenna ports may be adjusted according to product requirements, which is not specifically limited in the embodiment of the present application.

Each antenna port can be connected with the rotary antenna through a cable wire, and the rotary antenna is controlled to rotate the corresponding blade to the position electrically connected with the antenna port based on the required working frequency band. For scenarios requiring multiple antennas for transmission and reception, such as 1T2R, 2T4R, 1T4R, etc., the antenna ports may be connected to multiple rotary antennas, and the respective rotary antennas may rotate to select corresponding blades, thereby realizing transmission and reception of signals.

With continued reference to fig. 2, the driving device 3 is a stepping motor, and the stepping motor converts the electrical pulse signal into a corresponding angular displacement, thereby realizing the control of the rotation angle of the rotating device 2;

the rotating device 2 includes: a turntable 21 and a rotating shaft 22;

the rotating shaft 22 is positioned at the center of the rotating disc 21, and the plurality of blades 1 are distributed on the rotating disc 21 along the circumferential direction;

the shaft 22 is drivingly connected to the rotor of the stepper motor.

Further, a plurality of conductive members 221 are disposed on the rotating shaft 22; the plurality of blades 1 are electrically connected to the antenna port through different conductive members 221, respectively

Further, the number of the conductive members 221 may be the same as the number of the blades 1, each conductive member 221 being electrically connected to a different blade 1, respectively;

in the embodiment of the present application, the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft 22 to rotate, so that any one of the conductive members 221 moves to a position corresponding to the connecting member 4, and is electrically connected with the cable through the connecting member 4.

In some embodiments, conductive elements 221 include a first conductive element and a second conductive element; the first conductive piece is electrically connected with the first blade, and the second conductive piece is electrically connected with the second blade; when the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft 22 to rotate by a first preset angle, the first blade is electrically connected with the antenna port through the first conductive piece, and when the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft 22 to rotate by a second preset angle, the second blade is electrically connected with the antenna port through the second conductive piece.

In some embodiments, each conductive member 221 is insulated from the other.

Taking the scenario shown in fig. 1 and 2 as an example, in practical application, 5 sections of solidified metal conductors (as conductive members 221) may be disposed at the periphery of the rotating shaft 22, the metal conductors are isolated from each other, and the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft 22 to rotate, so as to rotate the corresponding metal conductors to positions corresponding to the connecting members 4, so that the metal conductors are electrically connected with the cable wires through the connecting members 4, thereby realizing the electrical connection between the blades 1 electrically connected with the metal conductors and the cable wires.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 1, each of the blades 1 has a fan shape, and the area and size of each of the blades are different from each other.

Further, the area and size of the blade 1 is inversely related to the corresponding signal frequency of the blade 1.

In the embodiment of the application, each blade 1 has different resonance characteristics through different radiuses and radians, and the overall characteristics are that the smaller the radius is, the smaller the radian is, the narrower the corresponding bandwidth is, and the higher the frequency is; conversely, a larger fan blade exhibits a wider bandwidth and a lower frequency.

Referring to fig. 4, an embodiment of the present application provides an antenna switching method, which is applied to the electronic devices shown in fig. 1 to 3, and the method includes:

step 401: acquiring a communication return parameter;

in the embodiment of the application, the communication report parameter is used for the electronic device to determine the current communication quality, and further determine whether the antenna needs to be switched.

Specifically, the communication return parameter includes at least one of the following:

received Signal Code Power (RSCP), Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), and Channel Sounding Reference Signal (SRS).

Step 402: determining a target blade according to the communication return parameters;

in this embodiment of the application, based on the communication return parameter, the electronic device determines a suitable communication frequency band and then selects a suitable blade, that is, a target blade.

Step 403: and driving the rotating device to rotate to a target position through the driving device, so that the target blade is electrically connected with the cable wire.

In the embodiment of the application, after the target blade is selected, the electronic device drives the rotating device to rotate through the driving device, so that the target blade is rotated to a position electrically connected with the cable wire, namely, a target position, and antenna switching is completed.

Specifically, the driving the rotating device to rotate to the target position by the driving device comprises:

(1) determining a target rotation angle corresponding to the target blade;

(2) and driving the turntable to rotate by a target rotation angle through a stepping motor.

In the embodiment of the present application, the target rotation angle corresponding to the target blade may be preset, for example: the blade 1 corresponds to the rotation angle 1, the blade 2 corresponds to the rotation angle 2, and when the blade needs to be used, the rotating disc is controlled by the stepping motor to rotate by a corresponding angle, so that the target blade is rotated to a target position.

By adopting the rotary antenna provided by the embodiment of the application, the blade is connected with a Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) through a cable wire, so that the radio frequency communication network of the electronic equipment can transmit and receive signals through the antenna. In a specific scene, the electronic device automatically rotates and switches the corresponding antenna according to the return parameter of the base station signal, optionally, a new return value is obtained again after the antenna is switched, and then the antenna can be continuously rotated and switched until the motor is switched without rotating after the return value is optimal; and (5) detecting and adjusting again after a fixed time, and repeating the steps. The electronic equipment automatically adjusts the fan blade steering according to the return parameters of the base station signals, the self-located angle and the like, and realizes end-to-end tracking connection so as to reduce signal loss caused by multipath. And, in this way, various ideal combination forms can be formed, and each antenna can independently generate single resonance or multi-resonance to meet the requirements of the combined scenes such as CA, EN-DC and the like.

Based on the principle, intelligent tuning customization processing can be performed on each antenna on a targeted basis on the premise of identifying interference in some specific occasions, and specifically, if signal quality cannot meet expected requirements due to same-frequency interference, the electronic equipment can switch other antennas through rotation of the motor to obtain antennas with different resonance characteristics and anti-interference characteristics, so that front interference is avoided, and relatively optimal performance is achieved. The selection of specific performance parameters may be preset in advance. The electronic device controls the stepper motor to output different states to connect different blades to form combined states, each state being in the form of an antenna. Different forms correspond different resonance characteristics, just so can carry out fine configuration with same moment antenna isolation, reduce mutual interference.

The rotary antenna of the embodiment of the application forms a high-gain narrow beam in the direction of the optimal path and tracks the change of the optimal path, the effective sending power of signals is fully utilized to reduce the interference of electromagnetism to the rotary antenna, and the design scheme of the rotary antenna can well meet the hardware function requirements of the self-adaptive antenna. Referring to fig. 5, one application and manifestation of dynamic narrow beam adaptive tracking is shown.

The rotary antenna provided by the embodiment of the application can bring the following beneficial effects:

1. the antenna design method can be effectively applied to the Sub 6G electronic equipment antenna design;

2. the fading and multipath effects are improved, and the signal transceiving capacity of the terminal in a weak signal environment is improved;

3. noise influence is optimized, a local interference source is resisted, the minimum working bandwidth of a terminal user is ensured, and the disconnection probability is reduced;

4. when the position, the angle and the direction of the mobile terminal are changed, the optimal coverage effect can still be kept;

5. the synchronous uplink and downlink gains improve the network capacity and the throughput rate;

6. the use of devices such as a double-pole double-throw switch (DPDT), a filter and the like on the mainboard is reduced, and the cost is saved;

7. link insertion loss is small, hardware debugging is convenient, and power consumption is remarkably reduced;

8. the anti-interference capability of the antenna can be enhanced, and the EMC of the whole machine is improved;

9. the space division multiple access technology can utilize limited channel resources to the maximum extent;

10. the antenna of the electronic equipment is universal, and has better compatibility and portability.

In some embodiments, the direction of the transmitted beam can be conveniently controlled by independently adjusting the angle and phase of transmission of each antenna unit, and the direction of the received beam can also be controlled by adjusting the phase of reception of each antenna unit at the receiving end. For such analog multi-antenna processing, each antenna group is typically phase shifted to adjust the beam direction. In case the beamforming effect is good enough, users in different directions can be allocated the same code channel, which will increase the system capacity by a factor of two.

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. Further, it should be noted that the scope of the methods and apparatus of the embodiments of the present application is not limited to performing the functions in the order illustrated or discussed, but may include performing the functions in a substantially simultaneous manner or in a reverse order based on the functions involved, e.g., the methods described may be performed in an order different than that described, and various steps may be added, omitted, or combined. In addition, features described with reference to certain examples may be combined in other examples.

While the present embodiments have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the precise embodiments described above, which are meant to be illustrative and not restrictive, and that various changes may be made therein by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims

1. An electronic device, comprising: the antenna module is electrically connected with the antenna port;

the antenna body comprises a plurality of blades, the blades are distributed on the rotating device along the rotating direction of the rotating device, the blades comprise a first blade and a second blade, and the first blade and the second blade are different in size;

the rotating device is connected with the driving device, the driving device drives the rotating device to rotate, when the rotating device rotates to a first position, the first blade is electrically connected with the antenna port, and the electronic equipment transmits a first signal through the first blade; when the rotating device rotates to the second position, the second blade is electrically connected with the antenna port, and the electronic equipment transmits a second signal through the second blade.

2. The electronic device of claim 1,

the driving device is a stepping motor;

the rotating device includes: a turntable and a rotating shaft;

the rotating shaft is positioned at the center of the rotating disc, and the plurality of blades are distributed on the rotating disc along the circumferential direction;

the rotating shaft is connected with a rotor of the stepping motor.

3. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein a plurality of conductive members are disposed on the hinge;

the blades are electrically connected with the antenna port through different conductive pieces respectively.

4. The electronic device of claim 3, wherein the plurality of conductive members comprises a first conductive member and a second conductive member;

the first conductive piece is electrically connected with the first blade, and the second conductive piece is electrically connected with the second blade;

when the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft to rotate by a first preset angle, the first blade is electrically connected with the antenna port through the first conductive piece, and when the stepping motor drives the rotating shaft to rotate by a second preset angle, the second blade is electrically connected with the antenna port through the second conductive piece.

5. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the plurality of blades are equally spaced along a circumference of the turntable.

6. The electronic device of claim 3, wherein the plurality of conductive members are equally spaced around the hinge.

7. The electronic device of claim 3, wherein each of said conductive members is insulated from the other.

8. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein each of the blades is insulated from the other blades.

9. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein each of the blades is fan-shaped and has a different size.

10. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein a size of the blade is inversely related to a corresponding signal frequency of the antenna body.