JP2008236407A - Relay device and external antenna unit - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a compact, low-cost and easy-manufacturable relay device which relays a wireless WAN system and a wireless LAN system, and to provide an external antenna unit. <P>SOLUTION: In a communication system, the relay device has a first antenna unit which transmits and receives wireless signals in a first frequency band; a second antenna unit which transmits and receives wireless signals in a second frequency band; a first signal processing board which performs wireless communication via the first antenna unit; a second signal processing board which performs wireless communication via the second antenna unit; and a connector which connects the first and the second signal processing boards and relays wireless signals in the first and the second frequency bands. The second antenna unit has an antenna element that receives wireless signals in the second frequency band, and a filter which controls interference signals in a specified frequency band which are included in the wireless signals. The second antenna unit is provided removably from the second signal processing board. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention includes a first signal processing board that performs wireless communication using a wireless signal in a first frequency band, and a second signal processing board that performs wireless communication using a wireless signal in a second frequency band. The present invention relates to a relay device and an external antenna unit for relaying a radio signal in the frequency band and a radio signal in the second frequency band.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, a broadband wireless access system that relays wireless communication between a plurality of wireless communication systems such as a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) system and a wireless WAN (Wide Area Network) system such as a mobile phone (hereinafter referred to as a wireless LAN) BWA system) is known.

Such a BWA system includes a relay device (home device) including a LAN-side signal processing board for a wireless LAN system and a WAN-side signal processing board for a wireless WAN system such as a mobile phone (for example, see Non-Patent Document 1). ). In such a relay device, the LAN side signal processing board communicates with a terminal device such as a PC, and the WAN side signal processing board communicates with an external network such as the Internet. With such a configuration, the relay device relays communication between the terminal device and the external network.
IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group, “MMDS Background”; Document Number: IEEE 802.16sub10p-00 / 07; page 13.

  By the way, in the BWA system, the frequency band used in the wireless WAN system may be close to the frequency band used in the wireless LAN system. For example, when WCDMA (2.5 GHz band) is used for a wireless WAN system and a wireless LAN system (2.4 GHz band) is used, since the frequency bands are close to each other, signals transmitted and received by the relay device interfere with each other. There is a case. Therefore, in such a relay device, it is necessary to provide a highly accurate frequency filter in order to prevent interference.

  Furthermore, the frequency band used in the wireless WAN system may vary slightly depending on the region. Therefore, for example, when a relay device is moved to another area and used, or when a relay device corresponding to various areas is manufactured, the area used to prevent interference between the wireless WAN system and the wireless LAN system. It is necessary to change the specifications of the frequency filter according to the situation.

  In order to cope with this, it is conceivable that a plurality of frequency filters are provided in the relay device in advance and are used by switching for each target area. However, since this frequency filter needs to be highly accurate and has a large circuit scale, if a plurality of such frequency filters are provided, the cost of the circuit of the relay device increases or the scale of the circuit increases. .

  Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object thereof is to reduce the size, cost, and manufacture of a relay device that relays between a wireless WAN system and a wireless LAN system. .

  The first feature of the present invention is that a first antenna unit (main body antenna unit 10) for transmitting and receiving a radio signal in a first frequency band (for example, 2.5 GHz band) and a second frequency band (for example, 2.. A second antenna unit (external antenna unit 50) for transmitting and receiving a radio signal of 4 GHz band), a first signal processing board (first signal processing board 20) for performing wireless communication via the first antenna unit, and A second signal processing board (second signal processing board 40) for performing wireless communication via a second antenna unit, and a connection part for connecting the first signal processing board and the second signal processing board, A relay apparatus (relay apparatus 1) that relays a radio signal in a first frequency band and a radio signal in a second frequency band, wherein the second antenna unit is a radio in the second frequency band And a filter for suppressing an interference signal in a predetermined frequency band included in the radio signal received by the antenna element, and the second antenna unit is connected to the second signal processing board. The gist is that it is detachable.

  According to this feature, in the relay device, the second antenna unit is detachably provided from the second signal processing board. Therefore, the relay device includes a filter corresponding to interference in different first frequency bands even when the first frequency band of the radio signal used in the first signal processing board is slightly different depending on the region. Interchange can be suppressed by exchanging with two antenna units. Therefore, in such a relay apparatus, it is not necessary to provide a plurality of filters as in the prior art, and an increase in circuit scale can be prevented. Further, in such a relay device, only the second antenna unit needs to be exchanged, so that other devices can be used continuously. Therefore, since it is not necessary to prepare a new relay device with different filter specifications, a relay device that suppresses interference can be provided at low cost even in a region where the first frequency band is different. As described above, it is possible to reduce the size, cost, and manufacture of a relay device that relays wireless communication between a radio signal in the first frequency band and a radio signal in the second frequency band.

  Here, for example, the 2.4 GHz band is used as the second frequency band for the relay apparatus including the first signal processing board that communicates by WCDMA or the like using the 2.5 GHz band as the first frequency band. There is a case where a second signal processing board that communicates with IEEE 801.11b (for example, WiFi) is attached. In such a case, interference occurs between the first frequency band and the second frequency band in a frequency band near 2.5 GHz.

  Even in such a case, if the filter provided in the second antenna unit, for example, sets the predetermined frequency band that suppresses interference to a frequency band in the vicinity of 2.5 GHz, it is received at least by the second antenna unit. Interference of the received radio signal can be suppressed.

  As described above, according to such a feature, the relay device allows a user to freely select a signal processing board (for example, the second signal processing board) corresponding to the wireless communication system, and a plurality of wireless communication systems (for example, It is possible to suppress interference between radio signals used in a radio communication system such as WCDMA and a radio communication system such as WiFi.

  The second feature of the present invention relates to the first feature, and is characterized in that the first frequency band and the second frequency band are close to each other.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in accordance with the first or second aspect, the radio signal in the first frequency band is a WCDMA signal, and the radio signal in the second frequency band is a WiFi signal. It is a summary.

  The fourth feature of the present invention is that a first signal processing board (first signal processing board 20) that performs wireless communication using a radio signal in a first frequency band (for example, 2.5 GHz band), A second signal processing board (second signal processing board 40) that performs wireless communication using a radio signal in a frequency band (for example, 2.4 GHz band), and a radio signal in the first frequency band and a second signal An external antenna unit (external antenna unit 50) connected to a main unit that relays a radio signal in the frequency band of the antenna element (antenna element 51) that receives the radio signal in the second frequency band; A filter (filter 52) that suppresses interference signals in a predetermined frequency band included in the radio signal received by the antenna element, and a placement substrate (placement base) on which the antenna element and the filter are placed 53) and wherein the arrangement base are those summarized in that are provided detachably from said second signal processing board.

  According to such a feature, in the external antenna unit, the arrangement substrate is detachably provided from the second signal processing substrate. Therefore, for example, when the second signal processing board is configured to be detachable from the main body device, the user can set the frequency band that receives interference from the first frequency band to be a predetermined frequency band of the filter. Since the external antenna unit can be freely selected, the interference of the radio signal in the second frequency band can be further suppressed, and the communication quality of the radio signal can be prevented from being lowered.

  The fifth feature of the present invention relates to the fourth feature, and is characterized in that the first frequency band and the second frequency band are close to each other.

  According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, the wireless signal in the first frequency band is a WCDMA signal and the wireless signal in the second frequency band is a WiFi signal. It is a summary.

 According to the features of the present invention, there are provided a relay device and an external antenna unit capable of reducing the size, cost, and manufacturing of a relay device that relays between a wireless WAN system and a wireless LAN system. be able to.

(Configuration of BWA system according to an embodiment of the present invention)
An embodiment of the present invention will be described. In the following description of the drawings, the same or similar parts are denoted by the same or similar reference numerals. However, it should be noted that the drawings are schematic. FIG. 1 shows an overall schematic configuration of a broadband wireless access system (hereinafter referred to as a BWA system) 100 according to the present embodiment. The configuration of the BWA system 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the BWA system 100 according to this embodiment includes a terminal device A, a base station BS, a relay device 1, and an external network 1000.

  The terminal device A is one terminal provided in a wireless LAN system (not shown). In addition, the wireless LAN system includes other devices such as a network and a server, for example. However, in the present embodiment, description regarding the other devices is omitted.

  In addition, the terminal device A according to the present embodiment uses a radio signal in a frequency band (2.4 GHz band) of an ISM band (Industrial Scientific and Medical band) to communicate with the relay device 1. It is configured to perform wireless communication. In the present embodiment, the terminal device A will be described by taking as an example a case where wireless communication is performed by a communication method adopted in the standard IEEE 801.11b (for example, WiFi). That is, the terminal device A according to the present embodiment performs wireless communication with the relay device 1 using a radio signal having a frequency band of 2.4 GHz.

  In the present embodiment, the terminal device A is assumed to be a mobile phone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a laptop computer, a desktop computer, or the like.

  The base station BS is a base station provided in a wireless WAN system (not shown) such as a mobile phone. In addition, the wireless WAN system includes other devices such as a network and a wireless control station (for example, RNC or server). However, in the present embodiment, description regarding the other devices is omitted.

  In addition, the base station BS according to the present embodiment performs wireless communication with the relay apparatus 1 using a wireless signal in the 2.5 GHz band by a communication method using a WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) method. An example of the case will be described.

  The external network 1000 is connected to a base station BS provided in the wireless WAN system. The external network 1000 according to the present embodiment is assumed to be the Internet.

  The relay device 1 transmits and receives radio signals to and from the terminal device A to perform wireless communication, and transmits and receives wireless signals to and from the base station BS to perform wireless communication. The relay device 1 relays wireless communication between the terminal device A and the base station BS. With the function of the relay device 1, the terminal device A can communicate with the external network 1000 via the relay device 1 and the base station BS.

(Configuration of relay device according to this embodiment)
Next, the configuration of the relay device 1 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

  Hereinafter, portions related to the present invention will be mainly described. Therefore, it should be noted that the relay device 1 may include a functional block (such as a power supply unit) that is essential for realizing the function as the relay device and that is not illustrated or omitted.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the relay device 1 includes a main body antenna unit 10, a first signal processing board 20, a slot 30, a second signal processing board 40, an external antenna unit 50, an external antenna unit 50, A cable L connected to the two-signal processing board 40, a bridge 60, and a relay board 70 are provided. In the relay device 1 described above, the main body antenna unit 10, the first signal processing board 20, the slot 30, the second signal processing board 40, the external antenna unit 50, and the cable L, excluding the external antenna unit 50. The bridge 60 and the relay board 70 constitute a main device. Further, the cable L may not be included in the main device.

  The main body antenna unit 10 (first antenna unit) includes an antenna element 11 and transmits and receives a 2.5 GHz band (first frequency band) radio signal to and from the base station BS. The main antenna unit 10 outputs the signal received from the base station BS to the first signal processing board 20 and transmits the signal input from the first signal processing board to the base station BS as a 2.5 GHz band radio signal. To do.

  The first signal processing board 20 is connected to the main body antenna unit 10 and the relay board 70. The first signal processing board 20 performs wireless communication with the base station BS via the main body antenna unit 10 using a WCDMA 2.5 GHz band radio signal. Specifically, when a signal is input from the relay device 70, the first signal processing board 20 performs radio signal processing such as modulation on the signal, and sends the processed signal to the base station BS via the main body antenna unit 10. Send to. Further, when the signal from the base station BS received by the main antenna unit 10 is input to the first signal processing board 20, the first signal processing board 20 performs radio signal processing such as demodulation on the signal and sends the processed signal to the relay device 70. Output.

  The slot 30 is assumed to be an expansion card slot that functions as a PCI (Peripheral Components Interconnect) bus. Note that the slot 30 constitutes a connection portion that is connected to the second signal processing board 40.

  The second signal processing board 40 is connected to the slot 30 and the external unit 50. In addition, the second signal processing board 40 performs wireless communication with the terminal device A through the external antenna unit 50 using a wireless 2.4 GHz band wireless signal. Specifically, when a signal is input from the relay device 70 via the bridge 60 and the slot 30, the second signal processing board 40 performs radio signal processing such as modulation on the signal and passes through the external antenna unit 50. Then, the processed signal is transmitted to the terminal device A. In addition, when the signal from the terminal device A received by the external antenna unit 50 is input to the second signal processing board 40, the second signal processing board 40 performs radio signal processing such as demodulation on the signal, via the bridge 60 and the slot 30. The processed signal is output to the relay device 70.

  In the present embodiment, the second signal processing board 40 is assumed to be a LAN card configured as a card type. That is, the second signal processing board 40 is configured to be physically detachable from the slot 30. With this configuration, the second signal processing board 40 is detachably provided from the relay device 1.

  The cable L is connected to the second signal processing board 40 and the external antenna unit 50, and transmits and receives signals between them.

  The external antenna unit 50 (second antenna unit) transmits and receives a 2.4 GHz band (second frequency band) radio signal to and from the terminal device A. In addition, the external antenna unit 50 outputs the signal received from the terminal device A to the second signal processing board 40, and the signal input from the second signal processing board is a 2.4 GHz band radio signal as a terminal device A. Send to. Specifically, the external antenna unit 50 includes an antenna element 51, a filter 52, and a placement substrate 53.

  The antenna element 51 transmits and receives a 2.4 GHz band radio signal to and from the terminal device A.

  The filter 52 suppresses an interference signal in a predetermined frequency band included in the 2.4 GHz band radio signal received by the antenna element 51.

  Here, the predetermined frequency band indicates the frequency band of the interference signal generated by the 2.5 GHz band radio signal output from the main body antenna unit 10 in the 2.4 GHz band radio signal received by the antenna element 51.

  FIG. 3 shows the relationship between the WiFi frequency band of the radio signal used for communication with the terminal device A and the WCDMA frequency band of the radio signal used for communication with the base station BS. As shown in FIG. 3, the WiFi frequency band (2.4 to 2.4835 GHz) and the WCDMA frequency band (2.5 to 2.6 GHz) do not directly overlap, but are very close to each other.

  Since the radio signal in the WCDMA frequency band transmitted from the main antenna unit 10 has a high transmission intensity, when the radio signal is received by the external antenna unit 50, the amplifier of the second signal processing board 40 is saturated, and WiFi is generated. The communication quality of radio signals in the frequency band is likely to deteriorate. In the present embodiment, the filter 52 is assumed to be a low-pass filter that suppresses radio signals in the WCDMA frequency band or a band-pass filter that passes only the WiFi frequency band. By providing the filter 52, the external antenna unit 50 suppresses deterioration in communication quality due to the influence of an interference signal in the WCDMA frequency band.

  On the arrangement substrate 53, the antenna element 51 and the filter 52 are arranged. The arrangement substrate 53 is physically connected to the second signal processing substrate 40 by a cable L. Further, the arrangement substrate 53 is detachably provided from the second signal processing substrate 40.

  Here, the arrangement board 53 is arranged by disconnecting or connecting a connection portion (not shown) between the filter 52 and the cable L in the cable L connecting the filter 52 and the second signal processing board 40. The board 53 and the second signal processing board 40 may be detachably provided, or by disconnecting or connecting a connection portion (not shown) between the cable L and the second signal processing board 40, The arrangement substrate 53 and the second signal processing substrate 40 may be detachably provided. Further, a connection portion (not shown) is provided at any location of the cable L, and the connection substrate 53 and the second signal processing substrate 40 are detachably provided by disconnecting or connecting the connection portion. It may be. In addition, this connection part may be comprised so that it can separate or connect by soldering, and may be comprised by the exclusive connector (not shown).

  As described above, the arrangement substrate 53 is provided so as to be detachable from the second signal processing board 40, whereby the external antenna unit 50 is provided so as to be detachable from the second signal processing board 40.

  The bridge 60 is connected to the relay board 70 and the slot 30. The bridge 60 functions as a host bus that controls the slot 30.

  The relay board 70 is connected to the first signal processing board 20 and the bridge 60. The relay board 70 is configured by an arithmetic processing device such as a CPU, and controls radio signal processing executed by the first signal processing board 20. Further, the relay board 70 communicates with the second signal processing board 40 via the bridge 60 and the slot 30 and controls the radio signal processing executed by the second signal processing board 40.

  The relay board 70 is a signal transmitted and received between the first signal processing board 20 that performs wireless communication in the 2.5 GHz band and the second signal processing board 40 that performs wireless communication in the 2.4 GHz band. Relay. Note that the relay substrate 70 constitutes a connection portion that is connected to the first signal processing substrate 20.

(Action / Effect)
According to the relay device 1 according to the present embodiment, the second signal processing board 40 is detachably provided from the slot 30. Therefore, the user can freely select the second signal processing board 40 corresponding to a desired wireless communication system (for example, a wireless LAN system such as WiFi) and attach it to the relay apparatus 1 as a communication apparatus on the wireless communication system side. be able to.

  In the relay device 1, the external antenna unit 50 includes a filter 52 that suppresses an interference signal in a predetermined frequency band included in a radio signal received by the antenna element 51. Here, for example, the second signal processing in which the user communicates with the 2.4 GHz band signal such as WiFi to the relay apparatus 1 including the first signal processing board 20 that communicates with the radio signal of 2.5 GHz band such as WCDMA. The substrate 40 may be attached. In such a case, interference occurs in the vicinity of 2.5 GHz. Moreover, in the relay apparatus 1, since it is assumed that the frequency band of the radio signal used in the first signal processing board 20 is slightly different depending on the region, the frequency band in which interference occurs is slightly different accordingly. Conceivable.

  Even in such a case, the relay apparatus 1 can suppress interference by replacing the external antenna unit 50 (second antenna unit) including the filter 52 corresponding to interference in different frequency bands. Therefore, in the relay apparatus 1, it is not necessary to provide a plurality of filters as in the conventional technique, and an increase in circuit scale can be prevented. Moreover, in this relay apparatus 1, since it is only necessary to replace the external antenna unit 50, other devices can be used continuously. Accordingly, since it is not necessary to prepare a new relay device 1 having different specifications of the filter 52, the relay device 1 that relays signals while suppressing interference even in regions where the frequency band of the first signal processing board 20 is different. Can be provided at low cost.

  As described above, according to the relay device 1 and the external antenna unit 50 according to the present embodiment, the relay device 1 that relays between the wireless WAN system and the wireless LAN system can be reduced in size, cost, and manufacturing can be facilitated. Can be achieved.

(Other embodiments)
As described above, the contents of the present invention have been disclosed through one embodiment of the present invention. However, it should not be understood that the description and drawings constituting a part of this disclosure limit the present invention. From this disclosure, various alternative embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

  In the above-described embodiment, the first signal processing board 20 and the main body antenna unit 10 perform communication with a radio signal of 2.5 GHz band, and the second signal processing board 40 and the external antenna unit 50 are of 2.4 GHz band. Although it was configured to perform communication with a radio signal, the present invention is not limited to such a frequency band. Moreover, although the 1st signal processing board | substrate 20 was comprised so that communication might be performed by a WCDMA system, a communication system is not limited to this. For example, you may be comprised so that it may communicate by the OFDM system employ | adopted by Wimax etc. The same applies to the second signal processing board 40.

  In addition, the operation and effect of each embodiment and each modification are merely a list of the most preferable operations and effects resulting from the present invention, and the operation and effect according to the present invention are described in each embodiment and each modification. It is not limited to the ones.

  As described above, the present invention naturally includes various embodiments that are not described herein. Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention is defined only by the invention specifying matters according to the scope of claims reasonable from the above description.

It is a schematic block diagram which shows the structure of the BWA system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a block block diagram of the relay apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the relationship of the frequency band of the WCDMA frequency band and WiFi frequency band with which the relay apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention communicates.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 ... BWA system, 1 ... Relay device, 10 ... Main body antenna unit, 11 ... Antenna element, 20 ... First signal processing board, 30 ... Slot, 40 ... Second signal processing board, L ... Cable, 50 ... External antenna unit , 51 ... Antenna element, 52 ... Filter, 53 ... Placement board, 60 ... Bridge, 70 ... Relay board, 1000 ... External network, A ... Terminal device, BS ... Base station, F ... Interference band

Claims (6)

A first antenna unit that transmits and receives a radio signal in a first frequency band, a second antenna unit that transmits and receives a radio signal in a second frequency band, and a first signal that performs radio communication via the first antenna unit A processing board; a second signal processing board that performs wireless communication via the second antenna unit; and a first signal processing board and a connection unit that connects to the second signal processing board. A relay device that relays a radio signal in a frequency band and a radio signal in the second frequency band,
The second antenna unit is
An antenna element for receiving a radio signal in the second frequency band;
A filter that suppresses an interference signal in a predetermined frequency band included in the radio signal received by the antenna element;
The relay device, wherein the second antenna unit is detachable from the second signal processing board.   The relay apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are close to each other.   The relay apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the radio signal in the first frequency band is a WCDMA signal, and the radio signal in the second frequency band is a WiFi signal. A first signal processing board for performing wireless communication using a wireless signal in a first frequency band; a second signal processing board for performing wireless communication using a wireless signal in a second frequency band; and the first signal. An external antenna unit that is connected to a main body device that is connected to a processing board and the second signal processing board and includes a relay board that relays the radio signal in the first frequency band and the radio signal in the second frequency band Because
An antenna element for receiving a radio signal in the second frequency band;
A filter for suppressing an interference signal in a predetermined frequency band included in the radio signal received by the antenna element;
A placement substrate on which the antenna element and the filter are placed;
The external antenna unit, wherein the arrangement base is detachably provided from the second signal processing board.   The external antenna unit according to claim 4, wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are close to each other.   6. The external antenna unit according to claim 4, wherein the radio signal in the first frequency band is a WCDMA signal, and the radio signal in the second frequency band is a WiFi signal.

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