JP2009071596A - Radio base station - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce a loss of a synthesized transmission signal by improving phase correction accuracy by digitally controlling phase correction of each distribution signal. <P>SOLUTION: This radio base station comprises: a baseband processing part for generating a baseband signal of each carrier; a carrier synthesizing part for synthesizing baseband signals of each carrier; a plurality of transmitters 230 for performing phase correction of the synthesized base band signal, digital/analog conversion, up-conversion and power amplification in parallel; a synthesizer 240 for synthesizing respective transmission output signals; a coupler 250 for extracting an output of the synthesizer; and a receiver 260 for down-converting the output of the coupler 250, analog/digital converting the output and generating a phase correction signal, or the like. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a radio base station, and more particularly to a radio base station apparatus that combines transmission powers of a plurality of transmitters.

  In general, the life cycle of a mobile phone base station is several to ten years. For this reason, the base station equipment is required to have performance in anticipation of future traffic. Currently, advanced services such as voice-to-image and image-to-video have been required for mobile phone services one after another. Accordingly, the amount of communication required by the radio base station is increasing year by year.

  Under such circumstances, the radio base station needs to be able to easily cope with future traffic increase. As shown in FIG. 1, a multi carrier (MC) -CDMA radio base station can easily cope with fluctuations in necessary communication amount by increasing or decreasing the number of output carriers. Here, FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram for explaining an increase in output carriers with respect to an increase in traffic. In FIG. 1, in the state where there are only two users in the service area 900 of the radio base station 100 indicated by the antenna, the radio base station 100 operates only with the carrier of the frequency f0, and when the communication amount increases, the frequency f0 to f2 This corresponds to the number of carriers of 3.

  On the other hand, a radio base station installed in an area with a small number of users has a larger service area than a radio base station installed in an area with a large number of users in order to increase the number of services per radio base station. Make it wide. For this reason, the transmission power requested | required per carrier becomes high. Therefore, the carrier output from the radio base station is required to be output with the optimum power according to the service area.

  In this way, when looking at the transmission power output from the radio base station, the power per carrier and the number of output carriers differ depending on the location of the radio base station, so transmission power output over a wide range is required. .

  A general radio base station configuration of the MC-CDMA communication system will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the transmitting side of the radio base station. In FIG. 2, the transmitting side of the MC-CDMA radio base station 100 includes a baseband signal processing unit 110 that generates (N + 1) carrier signals, a carrier combining unit 120 that combines baseband signals, and a combined signal. RF unit 130 that converts the frequency of the signal, an amplification unit 140 that amplifies the frequency-converted signal, and an antenna 150 that transmits the amplified signal. In this configuration, the increase / decrease in the number of carriers output from the radio base station 100 can be handled by the increase / decrease in the baseband signal processing unit 110 that performs signal processing in units of carriers. However, since the amplifier 140 amplifies the signal after the synthesis of all carriers, the number of facilities cannot be increased or decreased according to the change in the number of carriers. For this reason, the amplifier 140 mounted on the radio base station 100 is required to have an ability to amplify a signal with the maximum number of carriers that the radio base station 100 supports.

  For this reason, a radio base station installed in an area where no traffic is required operates at a lower level than the rated power of the radio base station as shown in FIG. There's a problem. Here, FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the relationship between the input power and the output power of the amplifier. In FIG. 3, the amplifier amplifies most efficiently when the rated power is output, and loss occurs when the input power is lower than the input power that gives the rated power.

  As a method for solving the above problem, a method of amplifying each carrier signal individually as shown in FIG. 4 and combining the amplified signals and outputting them from an antenna can be considered. Here, FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the transmitting side of the radio base station. In FIG. 4, the transmission side of the MC-CDMA wireless base station 100A has (N + 1) baseband signal processing units 110 that generate carrier signals, and (N + 1) RF RFs that convert the frequency of the baseband signals. 130A, (N + 1) amplification units 140A that amplify the frequency-converted signal, a synthesis unit 160 that synthesizes the amplified signal, and an antenna 150 that transmits the synthesized signal. In this configuration, as with the baseband processing unit 110, the amplifier 140A can be added in accordance with the amount of communication. Therefore, by installing the optimum number of amplifiers 140A in the radio base station 100A, power efficiency degradation is improved. However, this method has a problem in that the phases of the amplified output signals are different in the combined portion after amplification, so that the signals interfere with each other and the expected output power cannot be obtained.

  Therefore, as in Patent Document 1, a method is considered in which a transmission signal is divided into a plurality of distribution signals, the distribution signals are respectively amplified, and the plurality of amplified distribution signals are combined and output. The power combining method shown in FIG. 3 of Patent Document 1 includes a distributor 4 that distributes a plurality of high-frequency input signals, phase shifters 15 to 17 that perform phase correction on each of the distributed signals, and phase shifters 15 to Amplifiers 1 to 3 that amplify the signal that has passed through 17, phase detectors 18 to 20 that perform phase detection from the amplified signal, obtain the phase correction value of the distribution signal from the output of the phase detector, and supply the correction signal to the phase shifter It comprises a phase controller 21 for outputting and a synthesizer 5 for synthesizing and outputting the respective distribution signals. In the case of this method, each distribution signal input to the synthesizer ideally has the same waveform, and therefore, the phase of each distribution signal does not differ from the method of the configuration shown in FIG. For this reason, the signals do not interfere with each other. In addition, a phase error is detected and a phase correction is performed for each distribution signal with respect to a phase change of each distribution signal path. Therefore, the synthesizer input signal is the same signal, and the distribution signals can be combined without loss. Therefore, the assumed output power can be obtained from the combined signal. In addition, phase shifters, amplifiers, and phase shift detectors can be added according to the transmission power required for the radio base station, so that the power efficiency of the amplifier during operation of the radio base station can be improved. Become.

  Patent Document 2 discloses a delay measurement method for a power combining system. According to this method, the phase can be matched with high accuracy. However, since a spectrum analyzer, a power meter, etc. are used, it is not a technique that can be handled during operation.

Patent Document 3 discloses a parallel operation system of transmission amplifiers. In Patent Document 3, a transmission amplifier is redundantly configured to improve reliability.
Patent Document 4 discloses an amplification device of polar modulation (a modulation method in which a phase component and an amplitude component are separated and the amplitude modulation component is controlled by switching).

  Patent Document 5 discloses an open loop power amplifier. Patent Document 6 discloses a transmission amplifier that adjusts a delay in order to match the timing of transmission and reception. Further, Patent Document 7 discloses a linear amplifier that synthesizes the output of a nonlinear amplifier with phase correction.

JP-A-2005-151185 JP 2006-060451 A JP 2003-032055 A Japanese translation of PCT publication No. 2002-506309 JP 2001-196870 A JP 2004-015769 A JP 2004-260707 A

  If the method of Patent Document 1 is used, the number of amplifiers can be increased according to the power required for the base station, so that the power efficiency of the amplifier during operation of the base station can be improved. However, in Patent Document 1, since analog processing is performed from phase difference detection to phase correction, it is difficult to sufficiently ensure the accuracy of phase correction, and there is a problem that transmission power after result synthesis is lost.

  In addition, when there is an error in each distribution signal path, the path error becomes a phase error for each frequency. Therefore, as the frequency band of the transmission signal becomes wider, the frequency flatness of the transmission signal becomes distorted as shown in FIG. There is a problem. Here, FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the distortion of the combined signal when only the phase correction at the time of broadband transmission is performed. In FIG. 5, the vertical axis represents transmission power and the horizontal axis represents frequency. In FIG. 5A, when there is no delay amount difference in the distribution signal path, no distortion occurs in the combined output. However, the actual distribution signal path has a difference in delay amount, and distortion occurs in the combined output as shown in FIG.

  In the present invention, the phase correction of each distribution signal is performed by digital control, thereby improving the phase correction accuracy and reducing the loss of the combined transmission signal.

  The above-described problems of the invention are a baseband processing unit that generates a baseband signal, a carrier synthesis unit that synthesizes the baseband signal, signal processing such as phase correction for the synthesized baseband signal, digital analog conversion, and up-conversion. Multiple transmitters that perform power amplification in parallel, a synthesizer that synthesizes each transmission output signal, a coupler that extracts the synthesizer output, a signal that generates a phase correction signal, etc. This can be achieved by a base station composed of receivers that perform processing.

  A carrier combining unit that combines the baseband signals; a plurality of transmitters that receive and amplify the transmission signal combined by the carrier combining unit; a combiner that combines the signals amplified by the plurality of transmitters; It consists of a receiver that receives a part of the output signal of the combiner, generates a phase correction signal from the received signal, and transmits it to a plurality of transmitters. The transmitter adds a calibration signal to the transmission signal. An adder, a phase adjuster that adjusts the phase using a phase correction signal, a DA converter that DA-converts the phase-adjusted signal, and an amplifier that amplifies the analog signal output from the DA converter. The A / D converter converts the received signal from analog to digital, a plurality of correlators for obtaining a correlation between the output of the AD converter and the calibration signal, and a phase correction signal generated from the outputs of the plurality of correlators. That the radio base station consisting of a correction signal generation unit, can be achieved.

  Since it is possible to increase or decrease the number of amplifiers according to the transmission power required for the radio base station, the transmission power during operation of the radio base station can be optimized.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings using examples. The same reference numerals are assigned to substantially the same parts, and the description will not be repeated.

  A first embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. Here, FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the transmission side of the base station. FIG. 7 is a detailed block diagram of the latter stage of FIG.

  In FIG. 6, the transmission side of the base station 200 includes N baseband processing units 210 that generate baseband signals for each carrier, a carrier combining unit 220 that combines baseband signals for each carrier, and a combined baseband signal. N transmitters 230 that perform signal processing such as phase correction, digital-analog conversion, up-conversion, and power amplification in parallel, a synthesizer 240 that synthesizes each transmission output signal, and part of the output of the synthesizer 240 The coupler 250 is configured to include a receiver 260 for down-converting and analog-digital conversion of the output of the coupler 250 and generating a phase correction signal, and an antenna 270 for transmitting the output of the combiner 240.

  The baseband processing unit 210-0 generates a baseband signal having a frequency f0. The baseband processing unit 210-1 generates a baseband signal having a frequency f1. The baseband processing unit 210- (N-1) generates a baseband signal having a frequency fN-1. Here, it is f0 <f1 <... <fN-1.

  A detailed configuration of the base station 200 will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 7, the post-carrier combining unit 201 includes N transmitters 230, a combiner 240 that combines the outputs of the transmitter 230, a coupler 250 that extracts a part of the output of the combiner 240 to the receiver 260, and each transmitter The receiver 260 generates a correction signal 230, and the antenna 270 transmits the output of the combiner 240.

  Hereinafter, the operation of the transmitter 230 will be described. First, a baseband signal obtained by carrier synthesis is distributed to the transmitter 230. In the transmitter 230, a unique calibration signal is generated by the CAL signal generation unit 232 of the Digital Block 231, and is added to the baseband signal by the addition unit 233. As this calibration signal, a signal such that the calibration signal of each transmitter 230 is uncorrelated, such as a PN sequence, is used. Next, the transmitter 230 performs phase correction of the transmission signal by the phase adjustment unit 234 based on the phase correction signal from the receiver 260, and outputs the signal to the Analog Block 235. The analog block 235 is output after DA conversion by the DA converter 236, frequency up-conversion by the up-converter 237, and transmission power amplified by an amplifier (PA: Power Amp) 238.

  There are a plurality of transmitters 230 (N in FIG. 7) in the base station, and the output of each transmitter 230 is input to the combiner 240 for power combining. A part of the transmission signal subjected to power combining is extracted by the coupler 250 and returned to the receiver 260. The transmission signal that has passed through the coupler 250 is transmitted from the antenna 270.

  The receiver 260 performs frequency down-conversion on the return signal from the combiner 240 by the down converter 262 of the Analog Block 261, AD-converts it by the AD converter 263, and outputs it to the Digital Block 264. The digital block 264 includes N correlators 265 corresponding to each transmitter and a correction signal generation unit 268. Each correlator 265 includes a CAL signal generation unit 266 and a correlation calculation unit 267. The CAL signal generation unit 266 generates a calibration signal corresponding to each transmitter 230, and the correlation calculation unit 267 calculates an autocorrelation between the reception signal from the synthesizer and the calibration signal. The correction signal generation unit 268 generates a phase correction signal of each transmitter 230 from the autocorrelation calculation results of the N transmitters 230, and outputs any of the N parallel phase correction signals to any of the transmitters 230. .

A specific phase correction signal generation method will be described below. First, assuming that the calibration signal of the transmitter 230-0 is g0 [n] and the calibration signal of the transmitter 230-0 at the receiver 260 is g0 ′ [n], both have a phase rotation θ in the transmission path. The relationship of the signals is g0 ′ [n] = exp (jθ) · g0 [n] ... [1]
It is expressed. Here, when both sides of the formula [1] are Fourier-transformed, the linearity of both sides is maintained, so the Fourier transform G0 ′ [k] of g0 ′ [n] is G0 ′ [k] = exp (jθ) · G0 [k ] [2]
It becomes. When this G0 ′ [k] is correlated with the Fourier transform G0 [k] of the transmission calibration signal, G0 ′ [k] · G0 [k] ^ * = exp (jθ) · G0 [k] · G0 [k ] ^ *
= Exp (jθ) · | G0 [k] | ^ 2 ... [3]
It becomes. That is, the correlator 265 can estimate the phase rotation θ in the transmission path by taking the correlation with the transmission calibration signal G0 [k]. By performing this calculation for each transmitter, the phase rotation for each transmitter can be estimated. The correction signal generation unit 268 calculates the phase error from the reference transmitter 230-s and transmits a phase correction signal to each transmitter 230.

  According to the present embodiment, it is possible to increase or decrease the number of amplifiers according to the transmission power required for the base station, so that it is possible to optimize the transmission power when operating the base station and improve the power efficiency of the amplifier when operating as a result It becomes possible. Further, the phase and delay correction of each amplifier output combined signal when the amplifier is added can be performed with high accuracy by performing digital signal processing, so that power loss during combining can be reduced.

  A second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 8 is a detailed block diagram of the latter stage of FIG. In FIG. 8, a post-carrier combining unit 201A includes N transmitters 230A, a combiner 240 that combines the outputs of the transmitter 230A, a coupler 250 that extracts a part of the output of the combiner 240 to the receiver 260A, and each transmitter. The receiver 260A generates a correction signal 230A, and the antenna 270 transmits the output of the combiner 240.

  Hereinafter, the operation of the transmitter 230A will be described. First, the baseband signal synthesized by the carrier is distributed to each transmitter 230A. Each transmitter 230 </ b> A includes a CAL signal generation unit 232, an adder 233, a phase adjustment unit 234, and a delay adjustment unit 239. The CAL signal generation unit 232 generates a unique calibration signal. The adder 233 adds the calibration signal to the baseband signal. As this calibration signal, a signal such that the calibration signal of each transmitter is uncorrelated, such as a PN sequence, is used. Next, the phase adjustment unit 234 corrects the phase of the transmission signal with the phase correction signal from the receiver 260A. The delay adjustment unit 239 performs delay correction of the transmission signal based on the delay correction signal from the receiver 260 </ b> A, and outputs the signal to the analog block 235. The operations of Analog Blocks 235 and 261 are the same as those in the first embodiment, and will be omitted.

  The digital block 264A of the receiver 260A includes N correlators 265A corresponding to each transmitter and a correction signal generation unit 268. The correlator 256 includes a CAL signal generation unit 266 and a correlation calculation unit 267A. The CA signal generation unit 266 generates a calibration signal corresponding to each transmitter 230A. The correlation calculation unit 267A calculates an autocorrelation between the reception signal from the combiner 240 and the calibration signal generated by the CAL signal generation unit 267A. The correction signal generation unit 268A generates a phase correction signal and a delay correction signal for each transmitter 230A from the autocorrelation calculation results of the N transmitters 230A, and sends the generated correction signals (phase and delay) to the transmitter 230A. Output.

A specific method for generating the phase correction signal and the delay correction signal is as follows. First, when the calibration signal of the transmitter 230A-0 is g0 [n] and the calibration signal of the transmitter 230A-0 at the receiver is g0 ″ [n], there is a phase rotation θ and a delay τ in the transmission path. In this case, the relationship between both signals is g0 ″ [n] = exp (jθ) · g0 [n−τ / Ts]... [4]
It is expressed. Here, considering a case where a sine wave exp (jωt) of a certain frequency ω is delayed by time τ, this is equivalent to rotating by the phase θ = ωτ.
exp [j (ωt−θ)] = exp [jω (t−τ)]
= Exp (jωt) · exp (−jωτ) [5]
It becomes. When ω is applied to a discrete signal, ω = 2πf
= 2πk / (N · Ts) (k = 0,..., N−1) [6]
Thus, the amount of phase rotation at frequency k is exp (−jωτ).
= Exp [−j · 2πkτ / (N · Ts)] (k = 0,..., N−1) [7]
Thus, the Fourier transform G0 ″ [k] of g0 ″ [n] is G0 ″ [k] = exp (jθ) · exp [−j · 2πkτ / (N · Ts)] · G0 [k].
= Exp [j ([theta] -2 [pi] k [tau] / (N.Ts))]. G0 [k] ... [8]
It becomes. When this G0 ″ [k] is correlated with the Fourier transform G0 [k] of the transmission calibration signal, the equation [9] is obtained.
G0 ”[k] ・ G0 [k] ^ *
= Exp [j (θ-2πkτ / (N · Ts))] · G0 [k] · G0 [k] ^ *
= Exp [j (θ-2πkτ / (N · Ts))] · | G0 [k] | ^ 2 ... [9]
Here, when the phase component of the equation [9] is y [k] and the slope A = θ−2πkτ / (N · Ts),
y [k] = A · k + θ ... [10]
Is a linear function. That is, by obtaining the slope A and intercept θ of the phase component of the correlation result, the phase rotation θ and the delay component τ at each transmitter can be obtained.

  According to the present embodiment, it is possible to increase or decrease the number of amplifiers according to the transmission power required for the base station, so that it is possible to optimize the transmission power when operating the base station and improve the power efficiency of the amplifier when operating as a result It becomes possible. Further, the phase and delay correction of each amplifier output combined signal when the amplifier is added can be performed with high accuracy by performing digital signal processing, so that power loss during combining can be reduced.

In the first and second embodiments, the actual calibration signal of each transmitter is transmitted in a mixed form with the main signal. Therefore, a very low level signal that does not affect the main signal is required for the calibration signal. Here, when the calibration signal output from the transmitter is g [n] and the main signal component output from the transmitter is gs [n], the signal gm [n] detected by the receiver is gm [n]. = Exp (jθ) · g [n−τ / Ts] + gs [n] (11)
It becomes. When the Fourier transform Gm [k] of the received signal is correlated with the Fourier transform G [k] of the calibration signal, Gm [k] · G [k] ^ *
= Exp [j (θ-2πkτ / (N · Ts))] · | G0 [k] | ^ 2 + Gs [k] · G [k] ^ * [12]
Thus, since the second term of equation [12] is uncorrelated, both phase and amplitude have error components. Therefore, to obtain the phase and delay components of each transmitter with high accuracy, it is necessary to reduce the second term component of Equation [12]. Here, since the first term of the equation [12] has a fixed phase rotation with respect to the absolute value component | G0 [k] | ^ 2, when the correlation calculation result is added, the amplitude is added in the same vector direction. It becomes a form. On the other hand, since the second term of the equation [12] is random in both amplitude and phase, the more it is added, the smaller the value compared to the first term. For example, by adding N times, the first term becomes N times the average of G0 [k] | ^ 2, but the second term becomes √N times, and a gain of 10 logN [dB] can be obtained. In this way, by adding the correlation calculation results of the calibration signals in the first and second embodiments in-phase, the influence of the transmission signal can be reduced, and the calculation accuracy of the phase correction value and the delay correction value can be improved.

  Example 3 will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 9 is a detailed block diagram of the latter stage of FIG. In this embodiment, the calibration signal used for obtaining the phase rotation and delay amount of each transmitter is mixed with the transmission signal and transmitted. Therefore, the synthesizer output signal received by the receiver receives the transmission signal in addition to the calibration signal. The transmission signal acts as noise for the calibration signal. For this reason, it is necessary to reduce this transmission signal component when obtaining the phase correction value and the delay correction value.

  In the first embodiment and the second embodiment, the method of reducing the transmission signal component by performing the in-phase addition of the correlation signal has been described. However, in order to obtain accuracy, it is necessary to increase the number of additions to some extent, and as a result, processing delay occurs. Further, since it takes time to calculate the phase correction value and the delay correction value, the transmission signal is distorted during that time. Example 3 solves this problem.

  In the third embodiment, a transmission signal canceller 269 is provided at the subsequent stage of the AD converter 263 of the receiver 260B. The transmission canceller 269 subtracts the transmission signal distributed to each transmitter 230A from the reception signal that is a part of the output of the combiner 240. As a result, the transmission signal component in the received signal is reduced.

  According to the present embodiment, since the reception signal whose influence of the transmission signal has been reduced in advance is input to the correlation calculation unit 265A, accuracy can be obtained even if the number of in-phase additions is reduced. Further, since the processing delay can be reduced by the in-phase addition, the distortion time of the transmission signal until the phase correction value and the delay correction value calculation can be shortened.

It is a schematic diagram explaining the increase in the output carrier with respect to the increase in communication amount. It is a block diagram explaining the transmission side of a radio base station. It is a figure explaining the relationship between the input power and output power of an amplifier. It is a block diagram explaining the transmission side of a radio base station. It is a figure explaining distortion of a synthetic signal at the time of performing only phase correction at the time of broadband transmission. It is a block diagram of the transmission side of a base station. FIG. 7 is a detailed block block diagram subsequent to FIG. 6. FIG. 7 is a detailed block block diagram subsequent to FIG. 6. FIG. 7 is a detailed block block diagram subsequent to FIG. 6.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 ... Wireless base station, 110 ... Baseband signal processing part, 120 ... Carrier combining part, 130 ... RF part, 140 ... Amplifying part, 150 ... Antenna, 160 ... Combining part, 200 ... Base station, 201 ... Subsequent carrier combining part , 210... Baseband signal processor, 220... Carrier synthesizer, 230... Transmitter, 240 synthesizer, 250.

Claims (4)

  A plurality of baseband processing units that generate baseband signals having different frequencies, a carrier combining unit that combines the baseband signals, phase correction using a phase correction signal and digital / analog conversion for the combined baseband signals It comprises a plurality of transmitters that perform power amplification, a combiner that combines the outputs of these transmitters, and a receiver that generates part of the output of the combiner by analog-to-digital conversion to generate the phase correction signal. A radio base station characterized by that. A carrier synthesizer that synthesizes the baseband signal, a plurality of transmitters that receive and amplify the transmission signal synthesized by the carrier synthesizer, a synthesizer that synthesizes the signals amplified by the plurality of transmitters, and this synthesis In a radio base station configured to receive a part of the output signal of the transmitter, generate a phase correction signal from the received signal, and transmit to the plurality of transmitters,
The transmitter includes an addition unit that adds a calibration signal to a transmission signal, a phase adjustment unit that adjusts a phase by the phase correction signal, a DA conversion unit that DA-converts the phase-adjusted signal, and the DA conversion unit And an amplifier that amplifies the analog signal output from
The receiver includes an AD conversion unit that performs AD conversion on the received signal, a plurality of correlators for obtaining a correlation between the output of the AD conversion unit and the calibration signal, and the phase from the outputs of the plurality of correlators. A radio base station comprising a correction signal generation unit for generating a correction signal. The radio base station according to claim 2,
The transmitter further includes a delay correction unit that performs delay correction of the transmission signal by a delay correction signal,
The radio base station, wherein the correction signal generation unit generates the delay correction signal from outputs of the plurality of correlators. The radio base station according to claim 1 or 2,
The radio base station, wherein the receiver is provided with a transmission signal canceller that receives the transmission signal after the AD converter and cancels a transmission signal component included in the output of the AD converter.

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