KR100469419B1 - Antenna driving control apparatus and method capable of moving for mobile communication device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a movable antenna driving control apparatus and method for a mobile communication terminal to control the antenna mounted on the terminal to move left and right, thereby improving the reception rate by the selective diversity effect, Control means for detecting an intensity and generating an appropriate antenna position control signal accordingly; An antenna fixing mechanism capable of attaching the antenna to move in the horizontal direction; Connecting means attached to the antenna to move the antenna through the groove of the fixture; It is configured to include a drive means for forward or reverse rotation driven by the position control signal of the control means for horizontally moving the antenna attached to the antenna fixing mechanism, when the call of the terminal starts the current position information of the antenna Identifying; Detecting an intensity (RSSI_i) of the received signal at the position (i); Determining that the signal is in a stable state when the strength of the received signal RSSI_i is equal to or greater than a predetermined reference value Pr, and fixing the position of the current antenna; When the strength of the received signal at the moved position is less than or equal to a predetermined reference value, the process may be repeated by moving the antenna to a position where the strength of the received signal is greater than or equal to the reference value.

Description

ANTENNA DRIVING CONTROL APPARATUS AND METHOD CAPABLE OF MOVING FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICE}

The present invention relates to an antenna of a mobile communication terminal. In particular, the antenna mounted on the terminal can be automatically moved horizontally to the left and right, so that the reception ratio can be improved by the selective diversity effect. Drive control apparatus and method.

In general, spatial diversity to overcome the effects of fading is a method of using two or more receiving antennas that are spaced sufficiently apart.

In order to achieve spatial diversity, the signals coming from different antennas must not be correlated with each other, so the distance between the antennas should be far enough apart. This is difficult to achieve when the receiver is small in hand and difficult to obtain an equally strong signal. In addition, there is a problem in the price and power of the terminal.

Therefore, the mobile communication system serves hundreds or thousands of terminals and is equipped with a base station, which is limited in sufficient space and complexity for a plurality of antennas in comparison with the terminals, thereby increasing the performance of the forward link diversity. The situation is using.

Meanwhile, in the case of a mobile communication terminal such as a CDMA terminal or a GSM terminal, conventionally, a helical antenna is installed to extract an optimal signal according to the reception rate of the terminal only by the characteristics of the helical antenna, thereby making a user's call smooth. It has been composed of algorithms.

However, such a technique has already exposed its limitations, and in a region with a worsening radio environment, the reception rate has been sharply lowered. As a result, two or more aspects of selective diversity are selected. Further, by increasing the selectivity by mounting more antennas in the terminal, the performance improvement is being progressed in the direction of increasing the reception rate by diversifying its reception path, and it is expected that a terminal having a diversity function will be released in the near future.

In other words, the conventional CDMA & GSM antenna is equipped with one helical antenna in an existing set, thereby improving performance of the receiver and a signal tracking algorithm (finger technique, combination technique, phase). It was a method of obtaining the optimal signal through the phase compensation technology through tracking and providing it to the user.

However, the method of improving receiver performance as described above has a problem that improvement of reception performance is difficult by techniques such as phase compensation because the position of the antenna is fixed in an area where the radio wave environment is poor.

Accordingly, in order to overcome the problems as described above, by mounting two or three or more antennas at different positions recently, extracting a signal having an optimal reception rate among incoming signals and providing the same to the user, thereby selecting antennas Research into applying a selectivity diversity technique to a terminal to improve reception by increasing the Rx is performed.

However, in order to apply the selective diversity technique as described above, when a plurality of antennas are mounted in a terminal, due to limitations in terms of space utilization of the terminal and interference between antennas, a problem of attenuation of the signal and a decrease in reception rate due to the interference is caused. This will occur.

Of course, if the distance between the antenna and the antenna is sufficiently reduced, the above problem can be solved, but due to the characteristics of the small size of the portable terminal, the application of the concept of far away is limited, and thus the development of a new antenna In particular, there is a problem that a unidirectional patch antenna that can be mounted inside the terminal should be developed.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the mobile communication to improve the reception rate by the selective diversity effect by controlling the antenna mounted on the terminal to be horizontally movable left and right. An object of the present invention is to provide a movable antenna driving control apparatus and method for a terminal.

The present invention for achieving the above object, the control means for detecting the strength of the received signal and generates an appropriate antenna position control signal accordingly; An antenna fixing mechanism capable of attaching the antenna to move in the horizontal direction; Connecting means attached to the antenna to move the antenna through the groove of the fixture; It characterized in that it comprises a drive means for horizontally driven by the forward or reverse rotation by the position control signal of the control means for horizontally moving the antenna attached to the antenna fixing mechanism.

In addition, the present invention is a movable antenna drive control method of a mobile communication terminal to obtain a selective diversity effect by moving the position of the antenna in the horizontal direction, when the call of the terminal to determine the current position information of the antenna Steps; Detecting an intensity (RSSI_i) of the received signal at the position (i); Determining that the signal is in a stable state when the strength of the received signal RSSI_i is equal to or greater than a predetermined reference value Pr, and fixing the position of the current antenna; When the intensity of the received signal at the moved position is less than a predetermined reference value, it is characterized in that the step of repeating the process to move the antenna to a position where the intensity of the received signal is greater than the reference value.

1 is an exemplary view showing the configuration of an antenna drive control apparatus that can move left and right of a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention.

2 is a flow chart illustrating a processing flow of a method of controlling a movable antenna driving of a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention.

*** Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings ***

100: antenna fixing mechanism 200: drive means

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

At this time, in the following description, many specific details such as specific processing flows are shown to provide a more general understanding of the present invention, and it is understood that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. It will be obvious to them.

In addition, detailed description of well-known functions and structures which are determined to unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

The present invention can automatically maintain the optimum reception state by moving the antenna in the left and right directions according to the reception state. At this time, as a factor for determining call quality, RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) indicating the strength of the received signal is used.

In the related art, there has been a terminal configured to automatically pull in / out an antenna by the strength of a received signal (RSSI), but it is limited to a monopole antenna or the like to pull up the top to increase the call quality.

That is, the terminal antenna mainly uses a non-directional retractable antenna for the purpose of bidirectional communication and easy portability.

Accordingly, most commercially available terminal antennas are a combination of two antennas suitable for a signal standby state and a call state, and a spring-shaped helical antenna capable of making a call regardless of the position in which it is normally placed It consists of a monopole whip antenna that performs better than a helical antenna in a perpendicular state to the ground.

When the signal standby state and the propagation environment are good, the helical antenna operates alone, and in the place where the propagation environment is poor, the two antennas operate simultaneously with the whip type antenna part drawn out.

That is, conventionally withdrawing the antenna to improve the call quality is due to the antenna characteristics as described above, the antenna can be damaged when the antenna is withdrawn, as well as the call quality by the combination of the helical antenna and whip antenna as described above Since the improvement is limited, the development of a new antenna is required.

However, as described above, since the performance of the small antenna for the terminal varies depending on the type and material of the terminal to be mounted, unlike the other core parts, there is a problem in that the design varies according to the terminal model in order to obtain optimal performance.

Accordingly, the present invention relates to a technique for moving the position in the terminal to reduce the cost of developing a new antenna as described above, and improve the call quality by using the selective diversity effect.

That is, although the call quality is improved by adjusting the length of the whip antenna in the related art, the present invention improves the call quality by changing the position of the antenna.

1 is an exemplary view showing the configuration of an antenna drive control apparatus that can move left and right of a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention.

The present invention configured as described above is an antenna fixing mechanism 100 capable of moving the antenna in the horizontal direction according to the strength of the received signal; It characterized in that it comprises a drive means 200 for automatically moving the antenna attached to the antenna fixing mechanism (100).

At this time, the antenna protruding to the upper part of the terminal to protrude to the back of the terminal, in order to prevent damage during horizontal movement, by protecting the portion corresponding to the movement path by the cover of the transparent material, also obtain a visual effect of the antenna moving It is possible to prevent damage to the antenna.

In addition, although not shown in the drawing, when the antenna moves horizontally as described above, the power is to be made by the coaxial line at the bottom of the antenna.

In addition, the antenna fixing mechanism 100 is composed of a lead screw or a ball screw, and a nut attached to the antenna to move along the groove of the lead screw, the drive means 200 preferably uses a small motor. .

In the present embodiment, for convenience of description, the form protruding from the top of the terminal will be described as an example.

In general, most of the current terminal is fixed in the form of a protrusion on the upper right of the terminal when viewed from the front, due to the characteristics of the antenna will show a lot of changes in the radiation pattern.

That is, the current distribution supplied to the antenna forms a new current distribution on each side of the terminal, and these current distributions cause interference and radiate.

Accordingly, the present invention is to horizontally move the position of the antenna in order to obtain the optimal call quality in consideration of the characteristics of the relationship with each side of the terminal as described above.

Looking at the operation of the antenna driving control device of the mobile communication terminal, when the call is started automatically checks the reception rate of the antenna, compares the reception rate with the previous antenna position to find the optimal position, the antenna is fixed to the position itself To provide convenience to the user.

Although the intensity of the received signal is not shown in the drawing, the control means (MSM chip) checks the intensity of the received signal, generates an appropriate control signal accordingly, and outputs it to the driving means 200.

Accordingly, the antenna fixing mechanism 100 connected to the driving means 200 is rotated forward or reverse, and the antenna moves horizontally from side to side along the fixing mechanism 100.

As described above, the present invention is not merely a technology for horizontally moving the antenna, but a technology for automatically horizontally moving the antenna to the left / right by finding a position where the optimal call quality can be obtained by the current distribution between the antenna and the terminal surface. As well as horizontal movement to the left and right, it is obvious that depending on the design can be moved in a variety of paths by giving a bend.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a processing flow of a method of controlling a movable antenna driving of a mobile communication terminal according to the present invention.

The program according to the processing flow is stored in the internal memory (not shown) of the terminal, and the operation according to the processing flow is performed by the MSM chip (not shown).

First, when a call of the terminal is started, current position information of the antenna is determined and an internal timer (not shown) is driven (S101).

Next, the strength (RSSI_i) of the received signal at the position (i) is detected (S102).

If the detected intensity RSSI_i of the received signal is equal to or greater than a predetermined reference value Pr within a predetermined timer time S105 (S103), the controller determines that the signal is in a stable state and fixes the current antenna position (S104).

However, if the detected intensity RSSI_i of the received signal is less than or equal to the predetermined reference value Pr within the predetermined timer time S105 (S103), power is supplied to the driving means (motor) (S106), and the antenna moves properly. The position is calculated (S107), and the position of the antenna is moved (S108).

When the operation is completed, the internal timer is initialized (S109), and the above processes (S102 to S108) are repeated.

At this time, the step (S107, S108) of calculating and moving the proper moving position of the antenna can be used when the experimental data is mapped in advance, and if there is no mapping data, the antenna is moved in a predetermined unit. The reference signal Pr is fixed at a position where the intensity RSSI of the received signal detected at the position is equal to or greater than the predetermined reference value Pr.

If there is no place above the predetermined reference value Pr at any position, the antenna is moved to the place having the highest value among the intensity RSSI of the received signal detected until then.

In other words, the present invention checks the received signal while moving the antenna by an appropriate length each time the strength of the received signal in the receive path checked at regular intervals weakens, and finds an optimal position among them to fix the antenna. Algorithm how to make it.

As described above, the present invention can achieve the same effect using only one antenna, compared to the existing selective diversity technology, it is possible to expect a material savings effect, it is possible to shorten the development schedule of the antenna, Development costs can be reduced.

In addition, the present invention can achieve a more stable call quality by completely eliminating, rather than reducing the interference effect when the other antenna is mounted, it is possible to create a new demand of the user by the visual effect.

As described above, the movable antenna driving control apparatus and method of the present invention provide automatic horizontal movement of the antenna mounted on the terminal, so that the reception ratio can be improved by selective diversity effect. It is effective.

Claims (5)

Control means for detecting the strength of the received signal and generating an appropriate antenna position control signal accordingly; An antenna fixing mechanism capable of attaching the antenna to move in the horizontal direction; Connecting means attached to the antenna to move the antenna through the groove of the fixture; Moveable antenna drive control device of the mobile communication terminal, characterized in that it comprises a drive means for horizontally driven by the position control signal of the control means for moving the antenna attached to the antenna fixing mechanism horizontally; . The movable antenna drive control apparatus of claim 1, wherein the fixing unit and the connecting unit connected to the fixing unit to move the antenna comprise a lead screw and a nut. The movable antenna drive control apparatus of claim 1, wherein the fixing mechanism is configured to be able to control a direction in which the antenna moves by giving a predetermined curvature according to a design. In the movable antenna drive control method of the mobile communication terminal to obtain a selective diversity effect by moving the position of the antenna in the horizontal direction, Determining location information of a current antenna when a call of the terminal is started; Detecting an intensity (RSSI_i) of the received signal at the position (i); Determining that the signal is in a stable state when the strength of the received signal RSSI_i is equal to or greater than a predetermined reference value Pr, and fixing the position of the current antenna; When the strength of the received signal at the moved position is less than a predetermined reference value, repeating the above steps to move the antenna to a position where the strength of the received signal is greater than the reference value, the movable antenna drive control of the mobile communication terminal Way. The method of claim 4, wherein the moving of the antenna to an appropriate position comprises: mapping experimental data of the antenna position according to the received signal strength, and when the detected received signal strength is less than or equal to a predetermined reference value, the mapped value. A movable antenna driving control method of a mobile communication terminal, characterized in that for moving the antenna to a corresponding position by.