JPH06188618A - Mobile radio terminal equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a mobile radio terminal equipment capable of matching easily and accurately the directivity of a directive antenna into an object direction. CONSTITUTION:An antenna section is provided with a directivity antenna 5A, etc., separated into four antenna sections, an error detection section detecting an error between the directivity DA of the directivity antenna 5A and a reception radio wave direction RA based on an output signal from each section, a picture display section GA, etc., displaying an object indication GA, etc., concerning to the reception radio wave direction based on an output from the error detection section, a terminal equipment case 6A, etc., and an antenna supporting mechanism 7A, etc., varying the direction of the directivity antenna 5A, etc., independently of the direction of the terminal caseing 6A, etc.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mobile radio terminal,
In particular, the present invention relates to a mobile wireless terminal suitable for a local area LAN, an indoor LAN, and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, omnidirectional antennas have been used in mobile radio terminals that use radio waves in the VHF band and UHF band, and parabolic antennas and the like in mobile radio terminals that use radio waves in the microwave band. Directional antennas were used.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional wireless mobile terminal, the omnidirectional antenna has a drawback in that the range of the directivity is wide but the antenna gain is low, while the parabolic antenna has a sharp directivity. The maximum gain value is high when the directivity direction and the radio wave direction match, but in order to set the antenna axis in the direction of maximum gain, is it an optical method using a telescope or a sighting device with laser light? Alternatively, there is a drawback that the operation becomes complicated, for example, it is necessary to use an electrical method for measuring the power intensity. It is considered that the conventional wireless mobile terminal described above does not cause much trouble if it is operated by an expert, such as a semi-fixed system or a wireless relay vehicle that rarely moves. However, in a system such as a local area LAN or an indoor LAN which is developed and expected to be introduced in the future, it is difficult to put it into practical use unless the antenna direction can be set by a simpler method. That is, some indoor wireless LANs to be introduced in the future use millimeter wave charged waves, in which case the wireless propagation distance is about 10 m, and the external dimensions of the antenna are about 2 to 3 cm to at most about 10 cm. It is thought that it will be miniaturized. Therefore, the antenna may be integrated with the wireless terminal itself and may be installed near the information terminal such as a computer or incorporated in the information terminal. When downsized in this way, the information terminal may be carried from desk to desk, and the place of use may change frequently. In such a case, it is necessary to direct the directionality of the antenna to the direction of the wireless base station of the wireless LAN system in the room in each case, but it must be a simple method rather than the complicated method of the related art. Not practical. The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a mobile radio terminal capable of simply and accurately matching the pointing direction of a directional antenna with a target direction.

[0004]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a mobile radio terminal according to the present invention is based on a directional antenna divided into four antenna parts and an output signal from each antenna part. Error detecting means for detecting an error between the directional direction of the directional antenna and the received radio wave direction, display means for displaying directional information on the received radio wave direction based on the output from the error detection means, the terminal housing, and the directional Antenna supporting mechanism that can change the direction of the flexible antenna independently of the direction of the terminal housing.

[0005]

According to the present invention having the above-described structure, the directional antenna divided into four antenna units and the error between the directional direction of the directional antenna and the received radio wave direction is detected based on the output signal from each antenna unit. Error detection means and display means for displaying direction information regarding the received radio wave direction based on the output from the error detection means, and therefore, based on the above direction information, the directional direction of the directional antenna and reception If the antenna support mechanism is adjusted so that the error from the radio wave direction is minimized, the directivity direction of the directional antenna can be simultaneously matched with the target direction.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of the first embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, this mobile radio terminal 1A is configured by connecting a terminal unit 8A to an information terminal 2 used as a LAN terminal. The terminal unit 8A includes a terminal housing 6A,
Antenna support mechanism 7A attached to terminal housing 6A
And a directional antenna 5A which has a directivity and whose direction can be adjusted by the antenna support mechanism 7A.

To the mobile radio terminal 1A, a millimeter wave charged wave is transmitted from a radio base station 3 of a radio LAN mounted on the ceiling of a room or the like and received by the directional antenna 5A. Further, a millimeter-wave charged wave is transmitted from the mobile radio terminal 1A to the radio base station 3.

The above-mentioned antenna 3 on the radio base station side has a wide-angle directivity so that it can cover a wide range in the room or on the premises, but the directional antenna 5A on the mobile terminal side is
A directional antenna having a beam characteristic with a narrow angle in the direction DA is used in order to eliminate the reception of multiple reflection signals (so-called ghost signals) and to obtain a large received power.

The directional antenna 5A is supported by the terminal housing 6A by an antenna support mechanism 7A that can change its direction freely independently of the terminal housing 6A. This antenna support mechanism can be easily realized by a known mechanism such as a universal joint.

Inside the above-mentioned mobile radio terminal 1A, as will be described later, a directivity direction of the directional antenna (direction in which the maximum gain is included in the radiation pattern of the directional antenna) DA,
An error detection unit for detecting an error from the received radio wave direction (direction from the directional antenna to the radio base station 3) RA is provided, and based on the detected error, a display image on the image display unit 9A of the information terminal 2 is displayed. A target display (display image such as an arrow indicating direction information such as a target direction to which the directional antenna should be directed at that time and direction angle information) GA is displayed on 10A. Here, the error detection unit corresponds to the error detection unit, the image display unit 9A corresponds to the display unit, and the target display GA corresponds to the direction information.

Next, a method of directing the directional antenna 5A toward the radio base station 3 will be described. First, the information terminal 2 is turned on to display an image. Then
Based on the target display GA displayed on the image display section 9A,
The antenna support mechanism is manually moved to adjust so that the arrow indicating the target direction to turn the directional antenna 5A and the angle amount to rotate at the time indicated by the target display shrinks and disappears from the screen. To do. When the adjustment is made in this way, the angle amount to be rotated becomes zero, and at the same time, the directivity direction of the directional antenna 5A can be accurately matched with the target direction of the wireless base station 3 (calibration). You can do it.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of the present invention, which is an example 1B or 1C of an integrated mobile radio terminal in which a radio terminal part is incorporated in an information terminal such as a computer.
Is illustrated. In this case, the direction of the directional antenna 5B or 5C can be moved independently of the housing of the terminal by the antenna support mechanism 7B or 7C. When using the mobile radio terminal 1B or 1C of FIG. 2, first,
The mobile radio terminal 1B or 1C can be installed at a position where it can be easily used, and then the directional antenna 5B or 5C can be calibrated in the antenna direction in exactly the same manner as in the first embodiment.

Next, a concrete configuration example of the directional antenna in the first embodiment or the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. This directional antenna 5D
Shows an example of a planar antenna 11 having an electronic circuit incorporated on the back surface. The effective area of the planar antenna 11 is two-dimensionally divided into four to form four antenna blocks 12A to 12D which are antenna portions. Each of the antenna blocks 12A to 12D is composed of a large number of antenna elements U. The directional antenna can be realized not only by a planar antenna but also by configuring each of the antenna blocks 12A to 12D with a horn antenna.

Next, the structure of the electronic circuit for generating the target display image information will be described with reference to FIG. Figure 4
As shown in FIG. 3, the received output signals from the antenna blocks 12A to 12D are two difference signal generation units 13 and 14 respectively.
And two difference signals in the diagonal direction (AD direction and BC direction) are detected. These difference signals represent error amounts in the respective orthogonal directions. Therefore, when the directional direction of the directional antenna and the received radio wave direction match, the error becomes zero. From the above difference signal, the display logic unit 16 converts the direction to rotate from the current antenna direction and the rotation angle amount into a vector amount (amount indicating the direction and its size), and the target as image information. It is output to the display device 18 as a display. As shown in FIG. 5, this target display is displayed as an arrow-shaped image in which the direction to rotate from the current antenna direction is the direction and the angle amount to rotate is the size. In addition, each antenna block 12
The reception output signals from A to 12D are sent to the transmitting / receiving device 17 via the synthesizing circuit 15.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. The above-mentioned embodiment is an exemplification, has substantially the same configuration as the technical idea described in the scope of the claims of the present invention, and has any similar effect to the present invention. It is included in the technical scope of the invention.

In the above embodiment, as the target display which is the direction information, the target direction to which the directional antenna should be directed at that time and the display image of the arrow indicating the direction information such as the rotation angle amount are taken as an example. The example in which the error between the directivity direction of the directional antenna and the direction of the received radio wave is minimized when the display disappears on the screen has been explained, but this is controlled by the display logic unit so that it becomes a display of another format. It does not matter even if you do. For example, when the error between the directional direction of the directional antenna and the direction of the received radio wave is minimized, a small bright spot appears on the screen, or an arrow that does not reduce below a certain size, Alternatively, when the error becomes zero, a special display (such as a star-shaped mark or a large blinking bright spot) may be displayed.

Further, in the above embodiment, the directional antenna has been described by taking a plane antenna as an example, but this is not limited to the plane antenna as long as it is a divisible antenna, and other types of antennas can be used. Even if it exists, the present invention can be realized. Even if it is a plane antenna, its shape is
The shape is not limited to the rectangular shape as in the embodiment, and may be a circular shape, an elliptical shape, a polygonal shape, or the like.

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention having the above structure, the directional antenna divided into four antenna parts and the directional direction of the directional antenna based on the output signal from each antenna part. Since the error detection means for detecting an error from the received radio wave direction and the display means for displaying the directional information on the received radio wave direction based on the output from the error detection means, based on the above directional information, If the antenna support mechanism is adjusted so that the error between the directional direction of the directional antenna and the received radio wave direction is minimized, the directional direction of the directional antenna can be made to coincide with the target direction at the same time. Therefore, according to the present invention, the antenna direction setting is accurate because it does not rely on human intuition, and according to the direction information on the display screen, for example,
In the direction indicated by the arrow-shaped display, perform an operation such as rotating the antenna angle by an amount according to the size of the arrow, and the display is displayed in a predetermined mode (for example, the arrow disappears from the screen). Since it is only necessary to confirm that it is true, it has the advantages that it is extremely simple compared to the conventional method, that there is almost no burden on the operator, and that it is realistic.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific configuration example of the directional antenna shown in FIG. 1 or FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a specific configuration example of a processing circuit of the mobile radio terminal shown in FIG. 1 or FIG.

5 is a diagram showing a specific example of a display image in FIG. 1 or FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1A-1C Mobile radio terminal 2 Information terminal 3 Radio base station 5A-5D Directional antenna 6A Terminal housing 7A-7C Antenna support mechanism 8A Terminal part 9A-9C Image display part 10A-10D Display image 11 Planar antenna 12A-12D Antenna block 13, 14 Difference signal generation unit 15 Synthesizing circuit 16 Display logic unit 17 Transmitter / receiver 18 Display device 20 Error detector DA to Dc Radio wave directing direction GA to GD Target display RA to RC Receive radio wave direction U Antenna element W Radio radio wave

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A directional antenna divided into four antenna sections, and error detection means for detecting an error between a directional direction of the directional antenna and a received radio wave direction based on an output signal from each antenna section, Display means for displaying direction information on the received radio wave direction based on the output from the error detection means, a terminal housing, and an antenna support mechanism capable of changing the direction of the directional antenna independently of the direction of the terminal housing, A mobile radio terminal comprising: