JP2000209010A - Antenna control device and antenna control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically control an antenna at its optimum length in accordance with the receiving condition of the antenna. SOLUTION: An antenna 101 receives the radio signals, a deciding means 105 decides the receiving state of the antenna 101 and antenna control means 104 automatically extends or contracts the antenna 101 based on the deciding result of the means 105.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an antenna control device and an antenna control method for a portable terminal device for communicating various data including voice and image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional portable telephone device, a user adjusts an antenna length by picking up an antenna with a finger. Further, there is an apparatus described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 2-98462 for a device in which a user operates a switch to expand and contract an antenna. The motor in the mobile phone is rotated by a user's switch operation, and the length of the antenna expands and contracts.

[0003]

However, in the conventional portable telephone device, the user manually adjusts the antenna length or operates a switch to expand and contract the antenna, so that the user uses the portable telephone device. It was difficult to expand and contract the antenna length during conversation. In the structure in which the antenna is manually expanded and contracted, there is a possibility that the antenna is broken by mistake.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide an antenna control apparatus and an antenna control method for automatically controlling an antenna to an optimum length in accordance with the reception state of the antenna. I do.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The gist of the present invention is to provide a portable terminal device having a function of automatically controlling an antenna to an appropriate length in accordance with the reception state of the antenna, without intervention of a user operation. The portable terminal device can be used in a comfortable reception state.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A first aspect of the present invention is a driving means for electrically expanding and contracting an antenna, a state detecting means for detecting a reception state of the antenna, and an antenna which is optimal according to the detected reception state. Control means for controlling the driving means so that the antenna length becomes long.

[0007] In the antenna control device configured as described above, the state detection means judges the reception state of the antenna, and the control means controls the driving means in accordance with the judgment, thereby expanding and contracting the antenna. This eliminates the need for the user to adjust the length of the antenna and improve the reception condition.

[0008] According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the control means controls the antenna length so that the reception level falls between a predetermined upper limit and a lower limit.

In the antenna control device configured as described above, when the reception level exceeds the predetermined upper limit, the antenna is not extended, and the antenna is not unnecessarily long.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect or the second aspect, the control means inhibits the control for further extending the antenna when the antenna is at the maximum length, and inhibits the control when the antenna is at the minimum length. Prohibits control to further shorten the antenna.

The antenna control device configured as described above prohibits the extension control when the antenna has the maximum length,
When the length is the minimum length, the shortening control is prohibited, so that useless processing is omitted and power consumption is suppressed. In addition, failure due to excessive force applied to the antenna can be prevented.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in any one of the first to third aspects, an expansion / contraction button for manually inputting an expansion / contraction signal for expanding / contracting the antenna to the driving means,
A switch is provided for switching between a manual mode in which the antenna length is controlled by operating the extendable button and an automatic mode in which the antenna length is controlled by the control means.

In the antenna control device configured as described above, when the user operates the switch to switch to the automatic mode, the antenna length is automatically expanded and contracted by the control means, and when the user switches to the manual mode, the antenna length is changed. Is manually controlled. Therefore, the user can control the antenna length in the manual mode in a place where a long extension of the antenna in a car or a garbage may disturb others or a place where there is a possibility that the antenna may be caught and damaged.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable terminal device including the antenna control device according to any one of the first to fourth embodiments.

In the portable terminal device configured as described above,
Control of the antenna control device according to any one of the first to fourth embodiments can be realized.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a state detecting means for detecting a reception state of a mobile station based on transmission power control information transmitted from the mobile station, and according to the detected reception state of the mobile station. A wireless base station apparatus includes: a unit that generates antenna length control information for controlling an antenna length; and a transmitting unit that wirelessly transmits the generated antenna length control information to a mobile device.

The radio base station apparatus configured as described above has
It is possible to generate antenna length control information for controlling the antenna length according to the reception state of the mobile device, and wirelessly transmit the generated information to the mobile device. For this reason, it is not necessary for the mobile device to include a means for generating information for controlling the antenna length.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mobile station which receives antenna length control information transmitted from the radio base station apparatus according to the sixth aspect and controls the antenna length.

The mobile station configured as described above controls the antenna length based on the antenna length control information transmitted from the radio base station apparatus, so that comfortable communication can be performed.

According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, the reception state of the antenna is detected, and the antenna length is controlled according to the detected reception state.

According to this method, since the antenna length is controlled in accordance with the reception state of the antenna, the user can receive in a good state.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, in a mobile station, transmission power control information is determined according to a reception level and transmitted by radio, a radio base station apparatus receives transmission power control information, and receives the received transmission power control information. The antenna length control information for controlling the antenna length of the mobile station is generated based on the information, the generated antenna length control information is wirelessly transmitted, and the mobile station receives the antenna length control information and controls the antenna length.

According to this method, the mobile station does not need to have a means for generating information for controlling the antenna length.
In addition, since the mobile device controls the antenna length according to the reception state of the antenna, the user can receive in a good state.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a portable terminal device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

In this portable terminal device, a radio wave is received by the antenna 101, the received signal is subjected to modulation / demodulation processing by the transmission / reception device 102, input to the codec 106, and subjected to codec decoding and error correction. Further, the output signal of the codec 106 is sent to the microphone / speaker 107 and is output as sound by the speaker. In addition, microphone and speaker 10
The audio signal input by the microphone 7 is codec-decoded and error-corrected by the codec 106, input to the transmitting / receiving device 102, modulated and demodulated, and transmitted from the antenna 101.

Further, in the first embodiment, the antenna 10
An antenna expansion / contraction control device 103 that automatically adjusts the length of one antenna according to the reception state is provided. The antenna expansion and contraction control device 103 includes a reception level determination device 105 for determining a reception level and an antenna 10 according to the reception level determination result.
An antenna control device 104 that expands / contracts the length of one and controls the length to an appropriate length.

Next, the operation of automatic antenna control in the portable terminal device configured as described above will be described.
First, the operation when a call request occurs and when the reception state changes will be described with reference to FIG.

The transmission / reception apparatus 102 expands and contracts a signal indicating "call request generation" when receiving a passage start request from the wireless base station and when a portable terminal apparatus issues a call start request to the wireless base station. Output to the control device 103. Further, the transmitting / receiving apparatus 102 sequentially outputs reception level information of the reception signal currently received by the antenna 101 to the antenna expansion / contraction control apparatus 103.

Antenna expansion / contraction control apparatus 103 detects "call request occurrence" and a change in reception state from a signal input from transmission / reception apparatus 102 (ST201). Reception level determination device 105 determines whether or not the current reception level is equal to or higher than predetermined threshold value A (ST202). If the reception level is equal to or smaller than threshold value A, reception level determination apparatus 105 further determines whether antenna 101 has the maximum length (ST20).
3). If the antenna 101 has not reached the maximum length, the reception level determination device 105 sends an instruction to extend the antenna 101 to the antenna control device 104. Thereby, the antenna control device 104 performs a process of expanding the antenna 101 (ST204). As described above, when it is predicted that the reception level is low due to the short antenna length, the antenna 101 is controlled to be extended, so that the communication level can be improved by increasing the reception level. become.

If the antenna 101 has the maximum length, the portable terminal device starts a call or, if a call is already being made, continues the call (ST205). As described above, when the antenna length is the maximum length, even if the reception level is low, the antenna extension processing is not performed, so that useless processing steps can be omitted. Further, since an excessive force can be prevented from being applied to the antenna 101, there is also an effect of preventing an antenna failure.

On the other hand, when the reception level determination device 105 determines that the current reception level is equal to or higher than the threshold value A (ST2).
02) Further, it is determined whether or not the reception level is equal to or higher than a threshold value B (however, the threshold value B is larger than the threshold value A) (ST206). If the reception level is equal to or lower than threshold value B, the mobile terminal device starts a call, or continues the call when the call is already in progress (ST205). On the other hand, if the reception level is equal to or higher than threshold value B, reception level determination apparatus 105 determines whether antenna 101 has the minimum length (ST).
207).

If the antenna 101 is not the minimum length, the antenna control device 104 executes a process of shortening the antenna 101 by a predetermined length (ST208), and returns to ST206. Then, it is determined whether or not the reception level is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold B using the shortened antenna length (ST206). If the reception level is not equal to or higher than threshold value B, the portable terminal device starts passing or continues the call if the user is already talking (ST205).

As described above, when the reception level exceeds the threshold B and is too high, the antenna 101 is controlled so as to contract until the reception level falls below the threshold B or the antenna length becomes the minimum length. Therefore, the reception level can be maintained in an optimum state. If the antenna 101 has the minimum length in the process of ST207, the mobile terminal device starts a call or
If the user is already in a call, the call is continued (ST205).

As described above, when the antenna length is the minimum length, the processing for shortening the antenna 101 is not executed even if the reception level is high, so that unnecessary processing steps can be omitted. Extra load can be prevented.

Next, the operation when a call termination request is made will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The transmission / reception device 102 transmits a signal indicating a "call termination request" to the antenna when the portable terminal device receives a call termination request from the radio base station and issues a call termination request to the radio base station. Output to the expansion / contraction control device 103.

When antenna expansion / contraction control apparatus 103 detects a signal indicating "call termination request" from the signal input from transmission / reception apparatus 102 (ST209), reception level determination apparatus 105 determines whether or not antenna 101 has the minimum length (ST209). ST
210). If the antenna 101 has the minimum length, the portable terminal device ends the call (ST211). If the antenna 101 is not the minimum length, the antenna control device 10
4 performs a process of shortening the length of the antenna 101 (ST
212). Then, the processes after ST210 are performed again.

As described above, since the antenna is automatically controlled to the minimum length at the end of a call, the antenna can be contracted when not in use to prevent damage to the antenna.

As described above, according to the first embodiment, the user does not need to pinch the tip of the antenna 101 and pull it out, or to adjust the antenna 101 by operating the input device such as a switch. Can also be received in good condition. Further, it is possible to avoid a situation in which the use of the portable terminal device becomes impossible for the user due to sudden deterioration of the reception state.

In the portable terminal device of the above embodiment, since the length of the antenna 101 is automatically adjusted, the user checks the display section of the reception level and checks the antenna 1 as in the related art.
You can talk comfortably without having to expand and contract 01.

Further, it is possible to prevent the antenna 101 from being damaged by a malfunction when the user manually puts out the antenna 101.

Further, since the portable terminal device has two reception level thresholds, the antenna 101 is more than necessary.
Does not become long. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the user from hitting the antenna 101 with another person and breaking it.

In the first embodiment, the portable terminal device has been described as an example. However, as long as the portable terminal device has a stretchable antenna, the present invention can be applied to anything other than the portable terminal device.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 3 is a front view and a side view of a portable telephone device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a button setting pattern of the mobile phone device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention.

The portable telephone device 301 according to the present embodiment is capable of switching between an automatic expansion / contraction mode similar to that of the portable terminal device according to the first embodiment and a manual mode in which the antenna length can be adjusted by a user's button operation. It is an example.

The portable telephone device 301 has antenna expansion and contraction buttons 302 and 303 on the outer surface, and further has a button determination device for judging the states of the antenna expansion and contraction buttons 302 and 303 inside. When the user operates the antenna expansion and contraction buttons 302 and 303, the length of the antenna 101 can be switched between expansion and contraction manually using a driving force of a motor or the like or automatic expansion and contraction by the antenna control device 104.

The antenna expansion / contraction button 302 is turned on and the antenna expansion / contraction button 303 is turned off.
In the state of (a), the antenna control device 104 performs a process of extending the antenna 101. Antenna telescopic button 302 is off and antenna telescopic button 304 is on
In the state, that is, the state of FIG. 4B, the antenna control device 104 performs a process of shortening the antenna 101. When both of the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302 and 303 are in the OFF state, that is, in the state of FIG. 4C, the antenna control device 104 performs a process of stopping the antenna 101. Further, when the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302 and 303 are both ON, that is, in the state shown in FIG. 4D, the antenna control device 10 performs control from ST201 to ST208 in FIG.

Next, the portable telephone device 3 having the above configuration
Operation 01 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

The button judging device includes the antenna extend / contract button 3
It is determined whether both 02 and 303 are ON (ST50).
1). When both of the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302 and 303 are ON, the antenna control device 104 sets the ST in FIG.
201 to ST208 are executed (ST502), and S
It returns to the state of T501.

However, the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302, 30
If it is determined that either of the three is OFF, the button determination device further determines the state of the antenna extension / contraction buttons 302 and 303 (ST503). Antenna extension button 302,
If 303 is in the state of FIG. 4 (c), antenna control apparatus 104 returns to ST503 without performing any processing.

If the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302, 303
Is in the state of FIG. 4A, the antenna control device 10
4 performs processing to extend the antenna 101 (ST50).
4). Also, the antenna expansion / contraction buttons 302 and 303 are shown in FIG.
In the state of (b), antenna control apparatus 104 performs processing for shortening antenna 101 (ST505). At this time, the device for determining the end of the call (not shown) in the mobile phone device 301 further determines whether or not the end of the call (S
T506).

If it is determined that the call has ended, the antenna control device 104 performs a process of shortening the antenna 101 to the minimum length (ST507), and the mobile phone device 301 ends the process. If it is not determined in ST506 that the call has ended, the process returns to ST503, and mobile phone device 301 repeats the same processing as described above.

The expansion and contraction of the antenna 101 will be described with reference to FIG.

The antenna 101 is stored inside the portable telephone device 301, and is extended by being exposed from the portable telephone device 301 depending on the reception state. Further, the expansion and contraction operation may be performed steplessly, or may be expanded and contracted stepwise like 601, 602 and 603. The state of 101 is the shortest state of the antenna 101.

As described above, according to the portable telephone device 301 of the present embodiment, the user can automatically control the antenna 101 during use in a normal situation and automatically adjust the length of the antenna 101. . In addition, the user may use the antenna 1 in a place where if the antenna 101 is long, the antenna 101 may be annoying to others or may be caught and damaged by a person.
01 is set to manual control, and the antenna length can be controlled according to the surrounding situation.

In this embodiment, a button type input device is used, but a device other than the button type, for example, a lever type or a roller type may be used.

In this embodiment, the portable telephone device 301
However, the present invention can be applied not only to a mobile terminal device other than the mobile phone device 301 but also to a device having an elastic antenna other than the mobile terminal device.

(Embodiment 3) FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a communication system according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention.

In this communication system, antenna expansion / contraction information is transmitted from a radio base station 710 to a mobile station 711. Note that in FIG.
Portions having the same functions as those described above are denoted by the same reference numerals.

The radio base station 710 processes a signal transmitted and received, a codec 702 that performs codec processing and error correction of a signal input from the control device 701, and transmits a signal to the mobile station 711. A transmitting unit 703 for performing a modulation process on a signal to be transmitted, a synchronization unit 704 for performing a demodulation process on a signal received from the mobile device 711, an antenna 705, and ST201 to ST211 in FIG. 2 or ST50 in FIG.
And an antenna control device 706 that performs processing from 1 to ST507 and transmits antenna length information to the mobile station 711.

The antenna control device 706 includes a reception level sensing device 707 for internally sensing the reception level sent from the synchronization section 704 and the antenna 10 according to the reception level.
Antenna expansion / contraction information control unit 708 for controlling expansion / contraction information of No. 1
And

The mobile station 711 includes an antenna 101, a transmission / reception device 102, an antenna expansion / contraction device 709 for controlling the length of the antenna 101 by an antenna expansion / contraction information control signal transmitted from the radio base station 710, and a codec 106. And a microphone / speaker 107 for outputting or inputting sound.

In the communication system configured as described above, the signal transmitted from mobile station 711 is transmitted to radio base station 71.
0 is received. The antenna control device 706 of the radio base station 710 receives the transmission power control information extracted from the received signal by the synchronization unit 704. In the case of open loop control, the transmission power control information transmitted from the mobile device 711 is a parameter indicating the reception level at the mobile device 711. In the wireless base station 710, the reception level sensing device 707 of the antenna control device 706 can predict the reception level at the mobile station 711 from the transmission power control information. The antenna expansion / contraction information control unit 708 includes a reception level sensing device 707.
, And receives antenna level control information for controlling the antenna length of the mobile station 711 in the same manner as in the first embodiment. It is assumed that the antenna control device 706 of the wireless base station 710 manages antenna length information of the mobile device 711. The antenna length control information is transmitted from transmitting section 703 to mobile station 711.

The mobile station 711 receives the antenna length control information transmitted from the radio base station 710. Mobile device 71
The antenna length control information received by the transmission / reception device 10
2 to the antenna extension / contraction device 709. The antenna expansion / contraction device 709 controls expansion / contraction of the antenna length of the antenna 101 according to the antenna length control information.

As described above, according to the present communication system, the antenna control device 706 is not the mobile station 711 but the radio base station 7.
10, the size of the mobile device 711 can be reduced. Further, by adopting the present communication system, it is possible to provide the user with the comfort and convenience of the portable terminal device.

In the third embodiment, the radio base station 7
In FIG. 10, the antenna level control information is generated by predicting the reception level of the mobile station 711 according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 2. However, two pieces of information of “power increase” and “power decrease” indicated by the transmission power control information are used. Correspondingly, antenna length control information such as “extend the antenna” or “shorten the antenna” may be generated. That is, the synchronization unit 704 of the radio base station 710 extracts and receives the transmission power control information received from the mobile station 711, and inputs the information to the reception level sensing device 707. The reception level sensing device 707 extracts the information of “power increase” or “power decrease” from the transmission power control information and
08. The antenna expansion / contraction information control unit 708 includes:
For “power increase”, a signal to “extend the antenna” and for “power decrease” to “reduce the antenna” are transmitted from the transmission unit 703 to the mobile device 711.

Although the antenna control device 706 is provided in the radio base station 710 in this embodiment, a system provided in the mobile device 711 as shown in FIG. 8 is also possible.

[0069]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide a mobile terminal device and a control method of the mobile terminal device that automatically control the receiving device to an optimum length according to the receiving state of the receiving device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a portable terminal device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an operation of the mobile terminal device according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a mobile phone device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a button setting pattern of the mobile phone device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an operation of the mobile phone device according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of an antenna according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a communication system including an antenna expansion / contraction control device according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram according to a modification of the communication system including the antenna expansion / contraction control device according to the third embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 101 antenna 102 transmission / reception device 103 antenna expansion / contraction control device 104 antenna control device 105 reception level determination device 106 codec 107 microphone / speaker 301 mobile phone device 302, 303 antenna expansion / contraction button 701 control device 702 codec 703 transmission unit 704 synchronization unit 705 Antenna 706 Antenna control device 707 Reception level sensing device 708 Antenna expansion / contraction information control unit 709 Antenna expansion / contraction device 710 Wireless base station 711 Mobile device

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A driving unit for electrically expanding and contracting an antenna, a state detecting unit for detecting a reception state of the antenna, and the driving unit such that the antenna has an optimum antenna length according to the detected reception state. Control means for controlling the control of the antenna. 2. The antenna control device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit controls the antenna length such that the reception level falls between a predetermined upper limit and a lower limit. 3. The control device according to claim 2, wherein the control unit prohibits a control for further extending the antenna when the antenna has a maximum length, and prohibits a control for further shortening the antenna when the antenna has a minimum length. The antenna control device according to claim 1 or 2. 4. An expansion / contraction button for manually inputting an expansion / contraction signal for expanding / contracting the antenna to the driving means, a manual mode for controlling the antenna length by operating the expansion / contraction button, and an automatic mode for controlling the antenna length from the control means. The antenna control device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising: a switch that switches between (a) and (b). 5. A portable terminal device comprising the antenna control device according to claim 1. 6. A state detecting means for detecting a reception state of the mobile station based on transmission power control information sent from the mobile station, and an antenna for controlling an antenna length according to the detected reception state of the mobile station. A radio base station apparatus comprising: means for generating length control information; and transmission means for wirelessly transmitting the generated antenna length control information to the mobile device. 7. A mobile station that receives antenna length control information transmitted from the radio base station apparatus according to claim 6 and controls the antenna length. 8. An antenna control method comprising: detecting a reception state of an antenna; and controlling an antenna length according to the detected reception state. 9. A mobile station determines transmission power control information in accordance with a reception level and wirelessly transmits the transmission power control information. A radio base station apparatus receives the transmission power control information and receives the transmission power control information based on the received transmission power control information. An antenna control method for generating antenna length control information for controlling an antenna length of a mobile station, wirelessly transmitting the generated antenna length control information, and receiving the antenna length control information at the mobile station to control an antenna length.