KR20170139985A - Method for operating a slave device in beamforming - Google Patents

Abstract

A method of operating a slave device in beam-forming transmission/reception of a slave device and a master device in a license-exempt band for transmission/reception beamforming according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a step of performing initialization for beamforming; a step of generating and transmitting a beam information response message for the master device; a step of receiving a beam search request message from the master device, transmitting a beam measurement packet; a step of transmitting a beam measurement response message to the master device; and a step of setting a beam requested for an antenna when requesting beam setting from the master device. It is possible to improve wireless performance.

Description

 [0001] The present invention relates to a method of operating a slave device for transmitting / receiving beamforming,

The present invention relates to a slave device operating method for transmitting / receiving beamforming, and more particularly, to a beam forming technique capable of minimizing interference in a license-exempt band.

License band means the frequency band used for small-power communications that can only be used by licensees under the Spectrum Commons policy.

This is a frequency allocated or designated for use in close proximity, such as within a specific area or building, within a power range that does not interfere with the communication of other stations. 2.4GHz and 5.7GHz are used for industrial, scientific, medical, GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) bands, and FACS (Flexible Access Common Spectrum), which can be used regardless of the application if it is designated for individual use or satisfies the technical standard.

There are many systems such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which are free wireless channels that can be freely used by anyone who does not monopolize a specific provider and meets certain conditions.

However, because of this feature, there is always a possibility of interference in the license-exempted band, and there is a point that it is difficult to effectively control the interference since the license-exempted band use condition is generally limited by the transmission power.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an operation procedure of a slave device for a beam forming operation for controlling interference in a license-exempt band.

A distributed resource management system based on a stochastic model and a method thereof are provided.

The technical problems of the present invention are not limited to the above-mentioned technical problems, and other technical problems which are not mentioned can be understood by those skilled in the art from the following description.

A method of operating a slave device for transmitting / receiving beamforming according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes: performing initialization for beamforming in a slave device in a license-exempt band and a slave device in beamforming transmission / reception of a master device; Generating and transmitting a beam information response message for the master device; Receiving a beam search request message from the master device, transmitting a packet for beam measurement; Transmitting a beam measurement response message to the master device; And setting the requested beam to the hatching when the beam setting is requested from the master device.

This technique can avoid interference in unlicensed bands and form transmit and receive beams that can improve radio performance.

1 is a view illustrating a beam formed by a transmission / reception beamforming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a view showing a beam pattern formed according to an embodiment using a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antenna of the present invention.
3 is a diagram illustrating a process of transmitting and receiving a message in a beam selection step according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a diagram illustrating a process of operating a slave device for transmission / reception beamforming according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a configuration diagram of a beamforming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of a beam forming module according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, some embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to exemplary drawings. It should be noted that, in adding reference numerals to the constituent elements of the drawings, the same constituent elements are denoted by the same reference symbols as possible even if they are shown in different drawings. In the following description of the embodiments of the present invention, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the difference that the embodiments of the present invention are not conclusive.

In describing the components of the embodiment of the present invention, terms such as first, second, A, B, (a), and (b) may be used. These terms are intended to distinguish the constituent elements from other constituent elements, and the terms do not limit the nature, order or order of the constituent elements. Also, unless otherwise defined, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Terms such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries should be interpreted as having a meaning consistent with the meaning in the context of the relevant art and are to be interpreted in an ideal or overly formal sense unless explicitly defined in the present application Do not.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6. FIG.

1 is a view illustrating a beam formed by a transmission / reception beamforming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The transmission / reception beamforming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention may be provided in the master device and the slave device 200 that transmit and receive messages in the license-exempt band, respectively.

Therefore, the transmission / reception beamforming apparatus performs optimal beam pattern determination that minimizes interference through message transmission / reception between the master device and the slave device. Then, the transmission / reception beam can be formed according to the determined pattern.

In the present invention, the master device and the slave device 200 can determine a beam pattern capable of minimizing interference through two steps of a beam selecting step and a beam reselecting step. Each time the slave device 200 completes the association, the slave device 200 performs a beam setting operation. After a predetermined time has elapsed after finding the optimal beam, or when the reception performance of the slave received by the master is less than a predetermined threshold The beam reset operation is performed.

In the beam selecting step, the master device and the slave device 200 measure a beam by transmitting and receiving a message to each other, search for an optimal beam among the measured beams, and select the beam to determine a beam setting for generation of a transmitting / . ≪ / RTI >

Also, in the beam reselecting step, when the predetermined time passes after the beam selecting step, or when the reception performance of the slave device 200 is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, the master device and the slave device 200 mutually transmit a message And measuring the beam by transmitting and receiving the beam, searching for an optimum beam among the measured beams, selecting the optimal beam, and determining the beam setting for generation of the transmission beam and updating the existing beam setting.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the master device 100 may transmit a beamforming start command to a beamforming module included in the antenna after the device is determined to operate as the master device 100. [

Further, the slave device 200 which has transmitted the beam forming start command transmits the beam forming start command to the master device 100

A beam forming start command including beam setting information may be transmitted to the beam forming module to form a beam.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, in order to determine a beam pattern, the master device 100 transmits a link request message, a beam information request message, a beam search request message, a beam measurement request message, Beam setting request message.

The slave device 200 receiving the response transmits a link response message, a beam information response message, a beam search response message, a beam measurement response message, and a beam setting response message corresponding to the received request message to the master device 100 .

According to an embodiment of the present invention, in the beam reselecting step, the master device 100 can transmit a beam search request message, a beam measurement request message, and a beam setting request message to the slave device 200 in order to determine a beam pattern have.

The slave device 200 can transmit a beam search response message, a beam measurement response message, and a beam configuration response message corresponding to the received request message to the master device 100.

2 is a diagram illustrating a beam pattern formed according to an embodiment using a highly integrated multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antenna of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, a beam pattern formed by a transmitting / receiving beam forming apparatus using a highly integrated multiple antenna is shown.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the antenna may be a multiple antenna that can form a beam in a specific direction among multiple beams in a single antenna through a specific control using a single RF chain.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, by using a highly integrated multi-antenna, a single RF chain can be used to form a beam in a specific direction among multiple beams in a single antenna through specific control.

Therefore, multiple antennas can utilize a single RF chain, which is advantageous in terms of power consumption compared to array antennas. In contrast, array antennas need to be arranged with multiple antennas, Can also be advantageous.

3 is a diagram illustrating a process of transmitting and receiving a message in a beam selection step according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the master device 100 and the slave device 200 included in the transmitting / receiving beam forming apparatus can perform a beam selecting step by transmitting and receiving at least one message.

In the case of the master device 100, the beam forming process may be started by informing the beam forming module of the start of the beam forming process after the device is determined as the master (S101).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, in the beam selection step, the master device 100 can transmit an Association Request message to the slave device 200 (S102), and when the slave device 200 receives the association request message The association request message (Association.Response message) to the master device 100 (S103).

At this time, the slave device 200 can start the operation of the slave device 200 by receiving the Association Request message (S104).

The master device 100 can transmit a beam information request message (Beam.Info.Request message) to the slave device 200 in the beam selection step (S105) The control unit 200 can transmit a beam information response message (Beam.Info.Response message) to the master device 100 (S106).

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a beam information request message (Beam.Info.Request message) is generated by the master device 100 to request the slave device 200 to inform the slave device about the capability of beam formation It can mean a message. The contents of the beam information request message may include the ID (Slave.ID) of the slave device 200, and may follow the following format according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Beam.Info.Request {

Slave.ID // 8-bit

}

The beam information response message (Beam.Info.Response message) may be a message that the slave device 200 transmits to the master device 100 in response to a beam information request message received from the master device 100. [

At this time, the contents of the beam information response message may include information on the ID (Slave.ID) of the slave device 200 and the maximum number of beam patterns that the slave device 200 can provide for beam formation. According to the embodiment, the following format can be followed.

Beam.Info.Response {

Slave.ID, // 8-bit

Number.of.Beam.Pattern // 8-bit

}

The master device 100 may transmit a beam search request message (Beam.Search.Start.Request message) to the slave device 200 in the beam selection step (S107) The slave device 200 can transmit a beam search response message (Beam.Search.Start.Response message) to the master device 100 (S108).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam search request message (Beam.Search.Start.

Request message) may mean a message that the master device requests the slave device 200 to send a measurement packet for beam search.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam search request message (Beam.Search.Start.

Request message may include information on the slave ID of the slave device 200, the type of beam search to be searched, and the number of packets. According to one embodiment, You can follow the format.

Beam.Search.Start.Request {

Slave.ID, // 8-bit

Beam.Search.Type, // 8-bit

Num.of.Packets // 8-bit

}

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the beam search type of the search beam may be as shown in Table 1.

In an embodiment using Table 1 as a beam search type to be searched

If beam.Search.Type is 0, m packets can be sent to one CTA.

At this time, the length of the packet is the maximum packet size that can be sent by the MAC, and the number m of sending packets is determined as an integer value of (the size of the CTA resource / the maximum packet size that can be sent by the MAC) according to the size of the allocated CTA resource .

And the packet may include payload and zero padding values sent from the beamforming module.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, when Beam.Search.Type is 1, n packets may be transmitted, and the length of the packet may be a payload that can be transmitted by the beamforming module and may not be zero-padded .

Also, the number n of transmitted packets can be determined as an integer value of (CTA resource size / packet size).

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the Num.of.Packets field in Beam.Search.Type 0 and 1 is filled with 0 and may not be used.

Also, according to the embodiment where Beam.Search.Type is 2, the beam forming module can specify the number of packets. At this time, the MAC can return an error value to the beamforming module if the number K of packets is larger than an integer value of (CTA resource size / packet size). If K is larger than the integer value of CTA resource size / packet size If it is smaller, the MAC can transmit K packets after zero padding.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam search response message (Beam.Search.Start.

Response message may be a message transmitted from the slave device 200 to the master device 100 in response to a beam information request message received from the master device 100. [

At this time, the contents of the beam search response message may include information on the ID (Slave.ID) of the slave device 200, and may follow the following format according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Beam.Search.Start.Response {

Slave.ID // 8-bit

}

The master device 100 may transmit a beam measurement request message to the slave device 200 in step S 109. In step S 109, the slave device 200 May transmit a beam measurement response message (Measurement.Tx.Done.Indication message) to the master device 100 (S110).

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a Beam Measurement Message

message may mean a message sent from the slave device 200 to the master device 100 for beam search.

Here, the content of the beam measurement request message may include a slave ID of a slave device and a beam pattern ID of a currently transmitted beam pattern. According to an exemplary embodiment, You can follow the same format.

Beam.Measurement {

Slave.ID, // 8-bit

Beam.Pattern.ID // 8-bit

}

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam measurement response message (Measurement.Tx.Done.

Indication message may include beam measurement information corresponding to the beam measurement request message, and the slave device 200 may transmit the beam measurement information to the master device 100 (S110).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam measurement response message (Measurement.Tx.Done.

The contents of the Indication message may include an ID of the slave device 200, an error code, a request SFN, a single frequency network transmitter Tx SFN, Tx.Beam.Pattern.ID), and the number of packets (Num.of.Packets), and according to one embodiment, may follow the following format.

Measurement.Tx.Done.Indication {

Slave.ID, // 8-bit

Error.Code, // 8-bit

Req.SFN, // 16-bit

Tx.SFN, // 16-bit

Tx.Beam.Pattern.ID, // 8-bit

Num.of.Packets // 8-bit

}

Here, the error code (Error code) may be included in the beam measurement response message to notify the master device 100 when the slave device 200 can not transmit the beam measurement result.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the type of the error code may be as shown in Table 2.

The process S107 repeats the number of beam patterns of the S110 slave antenna and repeats S111 through S114 in FIG.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, in the beam selecting step, the master device 100 can transmit a beam setting request message (Beam.Set.Request message) to the slave device 200 (S115) The control unit 200 can transmit a beam setting response message (Beam.Set.Response message) to the master device 100 (S116).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam setting request message (Beam.Set.Request message) is transmitted to the slave device after the master device determines an optimal beam based on the measured beamforming information, Lt; / RTI > message. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a beam setting request message (Beam.Set.Request message) includes a slave ID of a slave device 200 and a beam pattern ID of a slave device to be set According to one embodiment, the following format can be followed.

Beam.Set.Request {

Slave.ID, // 8-bit

Beam.Pattern.ID // 8-bit

}

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a beam setting response message (Beam.Set.Response

message may mean a message indicating that the slave device has set the beam to the master device 100 in response to the beam setting request message (Beam.Set.Request message).

Here, the content of the Beam Setup Response message (Beam.Set.Response message) may include the ID (Slave ID) of the slave device, and may follow the following format.

Beam.Set.Response {

Slave.ID // 8-bit

}

After the completion of the beam selection, if the preset specific time has elapsed or the reception performance of the slave device 200 is equal to or less than the preset threshold value, the beam reselection can be performed.

4 is a diagram illustrating a process of operating a slave device for transmission / reception beamforming according to an embodiment of the present invention.

When the association between the slave device 200 and the master device 100 is completed, the modem 210 informs the beamforming module 220 of the start of the beamforming module 220 by informing the beamforming start message (BFMStartInd) (S201). At this time, the beam forming module 220 can know whether it is a master device or a slave device 200 through a mode value. The beamforming module 220 receiving the beamforming start message BFMStartInd sets the antenna 230 as an omni-directional value that is a default value (S202). Up to this point, the initialization for the beam forming of the slave device 200 is completed.

The modem 210 sends an association information message (BFMAssociateInd) to the beamforming module 220 and the association information message includes a device ID (Station ID) (S203). Based on this, the beam forming module 220 sets the ID value in the memory.

Upon receiving the beam information request message (Beam.Info.Request) from the master device 100, the modem 210 sends a transmission message (BFMRxInd) including the beam request message to the beamforming module 220 (S205) The received beamforming module 220 generates a beam information response message (Beam.Info.Response) to notify the master device 100 of its beamforming availability capability and transmits a beam information response (BFMTxReq) containing the message (S206)

Thereafter, the modem 210 sends a beam search request message (Beam.Search.Start.Request) received from the master device 100 to the beamforming module 220 through a transmission message (BFMRxInd) (S207) One beam forming module 220 generates a beam search response message (Beam.Search.Response) and sends it as a transmission message (BFMTxReq) to the modem 210 to send to the master device 100 (S208).

Then, a packet for measurement is started from the next superframe (SF) (S209). The slave device 200 sets an antenna to transmit a measurement packet (S210).

Next, the beam forming module 220 sends a beam measurement request message (BFMMeasurementReq) to the modem 210 to request a transmission of a measurement packet (S211).

The modem 210 transmits a measurement packet to the master device 100 and then transmits an ACK message (BFMMeasurementCfm) to the beamforming module 220 (S212).

The beam forming module 220 generates a beam measurement response message (Measurement.Tx.Done) to be sent to the master device 100 and sends it as a transmission message BFMTxReq to the modem 210 (S213). The slave device 200 repeats the steps from the antenna setting to the procedure of sending the beam measurement response message (Measurement.Tx.Done) by the number of beam directions that can be transmitted by itself (S214 to S220).

Table 3 below shows the interface between the modem 210 and the beamforming module 220 in performing the above procedure.

Name When Octets Fields Descriptions BFMStartInd When the modem 210 is initialized (Power On / Reset) [0] id 0xC0 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] mode Mode
'0': Master
'1': Slave [3] addr Station ID [4] freq Frequency
'0': 2.4 GHz
'1': 5 GHz BFMAssociateInd When the join request process is completed [0] id 0xC1 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] stationID Address of assigned station after joining BFMDisassociateInd When the separation request process is completed [0] id 0xC2 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] stationID Address of disconnected station BFMRxInd When the reception result for the corresponding station occurs [0] id 0xC4 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] srcAddr Source address
(Sending station address) [3] result 0: success
1: preamble error
2: header error
3: payload error [4] rate Transmission speed (0 ~ 7) [5] rssi RSSI (dBm) (signed char) [6] snr SNR (dB) [7] rxAntenna Rx Antenna Index [variable] payload payload BFMAntennaControlReq When there is a result for the beam pattern [0] id 0xC5 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] addr Destination address
(Destination station address)
0x01 ~ 0xFE: unicast address
0xFF: Broadcast address. Applied to beacon or CSMA / CA section. [3] rxAntenna RX Antenna Index [4] txAntenna TX Antenna Index BFMTimeInfo When beacon frame transmission / reception is completed [0] id 0xC6 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2-3] sfLength Superframe length (unit: usec) [4-5] sfNum Superframe Number
Increased by 1 for every superframe variable slaveList Slave list assigned to CTA resource in current superframe BFMTxReq When a beamforming related message is requested to be transmitted in the CAP section [0] id 0xC7 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [variable] variable Message payload BFMMeasurementReq Beam Measurement When requesting a packet transmission
(Slave) [0] id 0xCB [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] type Measurement packet transmission method
0: Maximum packet size transmission
1: Minimum packet size transmission
2: numPackets Number of packets sent [3] numPackets Number of transmission request packets [4] srcAddr Source station ID [5] beamID Beam pattern ID BFMMeasurementCfm Beam Measurement Tells the result of packet transmission
(Slave) [0] id 0xC8 [One] length The length of the parameter (excluding id and length) [2] result Measurement message transmission success
- 0: Success
- 1: Error [3] numPackets Number of packets transmitted

5 is a configuration diagram of a beam forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The beam forming apparatus performs beamforming in a direction that minimizes interference through transmission / reception of a message between the master device 100 and the slave device 200.

The slave device 200 includes a modem 210, a beam forming module 220, and an antenna 230.

The modem 210 performs message transmission / reception with the master device 100.

Beamforming is performed in a direction in which interference is minimized by using the message of the master device 100 received through the beam forming module 220 and the modem 210. [

Antenna 230 may be set according to the determined beamforming.

6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the beam forming module 220 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

After the association is completed (S301), the beam forming module 220 waits for data using a queue to receive the signal sent by the modem 210 (S302).

At this time, when a beamforming start message (BFMStartInd) comes in the queue (S303), the beam forming module 220 performs initialization and waits for data again (S304). Upon receiving the transmission message BFMRxInd, the beamforming module 220 determines whether the contents of the transmission message BFMRxInd is a message or a measured value (S305).

If the content of the transmission message BFMRxInd is a message, a processing procedure for the message is performed (S306). If the transmission message BFMRxInd is a measurement, the signal quality is updated and a queue is again waited (S307 ).

On the other hand, when the association request message BFMAssociateInd is received, beam tracking for the associated slave device is performed, beam setting is performed, timer setting is performed, and a queue is waited for .

At this time, the time information message (BFMTimeInfo) is data to be sent by the modem 210 when the super frame field (SF) starts. Upon receipt, the beamforming module 220 updates the timer. Then, it is determined whether or not the timer has ended and the signal quality is below a threshold value for all the slave devices 200. If there is a slave device 200 whose timer has ended or the signal quality is below the threshold value, it performs a procedure when receiving an association request message (BFMAssociateInd) for all corresponding slave devices and waits for a queue.

The foregoing description is merely illustrative of the technical idea of the present invention, and various changes and modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention.

Therefore, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are intended to illustrate rather than limit the scope of the present invention, and the scope of the technical idea of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments. The scope of protection of the present invention should be construed according to the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope of equivalents should be construed as falling within the scope of the present invention.

Claims (1)

Claims 1. A method of operating a slave device in beam-forming transmission and reception of a slave device and a master device in a license-
Performing initialization for beamforming;
Generating and transmitting a beam information response message for the master device;
Receiving a beam search request message from the master device, transmitting a packet for beam measurement;
Transmitting a beam measurement response message to the master device; And
Setting a beam requested for the hatch when the beam setting is requested from the master device
Receiving beamforming of the slave device.

Images