KR20230000773A - IN-BUILDING RELAYING APPARATUS WITH BEAMFOARMING AND BEAM STEERING ANTTENA FOR 28GHz BAND SERVICE OF 5G NETWORK - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an in-building relaying apparatus, which can effectively secure a visible area between a base station antenna and terminals for a millimeter wave mobile communication service while having easy-to-install configuration. The in-building relaying apparatus comprises: a donor antenna which is disposed in a visible area of one or more base stations; a service unit which is connected to a terminal through a service antenna; and a donor management unit which controls the donor antenna so that the service unit has connection between the terminal and the base station. The in-building relaying apparatus with beamforming and beam steering antenna for a 28 GHz band service of a 5G network allows the donor management unit to select a base station with high signal sensitivity among a plurality of base stations, perform beam steering for the donor antenna, and thus form a visible area.

Description

In-building repeater with 28GHz beamforming and beamsteering antenna for 5G {IN-BUILDING RELAYING APPARATUS WITH BEAMFOARMING AND BEAM STEERING ANTTENA FOR 28GHz BAND SERVICE OF 5G NETWORK}

The present invention relates to a relay system for mobile communication, and more particularly, to an in-building relay device having an easy-to-install configuration while effectively securing a visible area between a base station antenna and terminals in a millimeter wave mobile communication service. .

In general, a mobile communication service system is composed of a base station, a relay system, and a subscriber terminal, and the relay system is composed of a donor antenna unit, a repeater, and a coverage antenna unit.

In such a mobile communication service system, a base station and a subscriber station communicate in a certain frequency band, and each base station has a certain communication radius. Therefore, by appropriately arranging a plurality of base stations and overlapping the communication radii of each base station, the communicable area is widened.

However, even if the entire city is covered by the arrangement of such a plurality of base stations, as the signal transmitted from the base station propagates in the air, the signal is weakened and furthermore, in nature and areas such as mountains, buildings, underground buildings, tunnels or inside buildings, etc. Due to the artificial obstacles, the strength of the signal becomes weaker, resulting in a partial communication shadow area in which smooth reception of the subscriber station is impossible.

In order to solve the problem of the communication shadow area, conventionally, a repeater including a signal amplifier is installed between a donor antenna unit capable of transmitting and receiving signals to and from a base station and a coverage antenna unit capable of transmitting and receiving signals to and from a subscriber station, The donor antenna unit and the coverage antenna unit are relayed by a repeater to enable mobile communication in a communication shadow area.

Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2004-0016665 discloses a mobile communication relay system of the prior art, and FIG. 1 is a block diagram thereof.

In the case of a relay system that is generally applied in the related art, it includes a donor system 20 and a remote system 30, and the donor system 20 includes two duplexers 201 and 208 and two low-noise devices. It includes amplifiers 202 and 207, two power amplifiers 203 and 206, two frequency converters 204 and 205, and two antennas 209 and 210. In addition, the remote system 30 also includes two duplexers 301 and 308, two low noise amplifiers 302 and 307, two power amplifiers 303 and 306, two frequency converters 304 and 305, and two It includes antennas 309 and 310, and in this configuration, the antenna 309 transmits and receives signals in a frequency band for a link through wireless communication with the donor system 20, and the antenna 310 communicates with the mobile communication terminal 40. It sends and receives signals in the service frequency band through wireless communication.

In this case, there is a problem in that a donor system must be installed in each visible area, and a high cost is incurred due to the complexity of the facility, while it is difficult to provide a stable mobile communication service.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram showing such a relay system of the prior art to intuitively see.

As shown, the donor antenna 21 is installed on the outer wall or roof of the building and is connected to the relay system 20 and communicates with the terminal through the internal service antenna 310. Each base station (100a, 100b, 100c) has different beam patterns (B1, B2, B3) and has an overlapping area with the beam pattern (D) of the donor antenna (21).

In existing 2G, 3G or 4G services, the importance of LOS (Line of Sight) between antennas is not high even if shadow areas inevitably occur. Unlike the 2G to 4G scheme, it is very important to secure a visible range between antennas. Due to the characteristics of millimeter wave, even at close range, service failure due to the invisible area between the base station and the terminals occurs. .

However, since most in-building donor antennas installed in a specific building are fixed and receive signals from a plurality of outdoor base stations, it is inevitable to have a beam pattern in which overlapping signals are mixed. Due to this influence, the speed of data communication as well as the call quality of the wireless communication service is rapidly degraded, especially in urban areas with a large floating population.

The present invention has been devised to overcome the problems of the prior art, and can improve the service quality of an in-building system and increase the convenience of installation by maintaining the visible area between the base station and the terminal in an optimal state. It is an object of the present invention to provide an in-building relay device for 5G capable of

The present invention for solving the above problems is a donor antenna disposed in the visible area of one or more base stations, a service unit connected to a terminal through a service antenna, and controlling the donor antenna so that the service unit has connectivity between the terminal and the base station. An in-building relay device including a donor management unit is provided.

The donor management unit performs beam pobing on a plurality of base stations to form a visible area, and a steering determination unit for selecting a directivity for a beam pattern of a base station having high signal strength, and according to the determination result of the steering determination unit It is desirable to be able to change the beamforming directivity of the antenna.

In addition, in the present invention, the donor antenna includes an attachment and tilt portion formed on the casing so that it can be attached to the inner wall of the window of a building, and a tilt sensor for detecting a change in direction in which the casing is installed and correcting the directivity of the steering determination unit And it may be configured to include an acceleration sensor.

On the other hand, the steering determination unit beamforming to track the area of the fixed beam pattern to sequentially measure the received signal strength, and a tracking unit for additionally measuring and quantifying the received signal strength by beam steering for the area between the measured areas; A data generator that converts and stores the received signal strength and traffic volume according to the directionality measured by the tracking unit into data in a time-series manner; orientation can be adopted.

According to the configuration of the present invention, since LOS of the base station can be maintained and optimal communication quality can be guaranteed, user convenience is increased.

In addition, since the optimal tracking algorithm for the base station is configured and service quality degradation due to interference of signals from neighboring base stations can be prevented, reliability of operation is improved, and since the antenna can be installed in a building type, installation time and Cost can be reduced, so there is an economic effect.

1 is a block diagram of a mobile communication relay system in the prior art.
2 is a schematic diagram showing an intuitive view of a mobile communication relay system of the prior art.
3 is a conceptual diagram of an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming antenna for 5G is applied according to the concept of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a beamfobing operation of an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming antenna for 5G of the present invention is applied.
5 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of the configuration of an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming antenna for 5G of the present invention is applied.

Hereinafter, an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming antenna for 5G of a preferred embodiment according to the present invention is applied will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

However, the embodiments described below are only intended to be described in detail so that those skilled in the art can easily practice the invention, thereby limiting the scope of protection of the present invention. doesn't mean

In the following description, when a part is said to be 'connected' to another part, this includes not only the case where it is directly connected but also the case where it is connected with another element or device in between. In addition, when a certain part 'includes' a certain component, this means that it may further include other components without excluding other components unless otherwise stated.

Basically, the present invention includes a service unit connected to a terminal through a donor antenna disposed in the visible region of one or more base stations and a service antenna, and a donor management unit that controls the donor antenna so that the service unit has connectivity between the terminal and the base station. Provides an in-building repeater to which a beamforming and beamsteering antenna of 28 GHz for 5G is applied so that the donor management unit selects a base station with high signal sensitivity from among a plurality of base stations and beam-steers the donor antenna to form a visible region do.

The present invention targets a repeater transmitted from a 5G mobile communication base station (BTS: Base Transceiver Station) to transmit and receive signals with a mobile communication terminal, but is not necessarily limited thereto with respect to communication frequencies and transceiver terminals, and various types of frequencies It should be understood as relating to a repeater for transmitting to or receiving from.

3 is a block diagram of an in-building repeater to which a 28GHz beamforming and beamsteering antenna for 5G according to the present invention is applied.

According to the concept of the present invention, at least one of each of the beam patterns B1, B2, and B3 of the plurality of base stations 1110a, 1110b, and 1110c and the beam pattern of the donor antenna 1400 are line of sight (LOS) , and the installation method of the donor antenna 1400 is simplified.

The configuration of the donor antenna 1400 will be described later.

The in-building relay device 1100 connects the donor antenna 1400 and the service antenna 1310 and performs a function of controlling connectivity between the base station and the terminal, respectively, and is defined as a donor management unit and a service unit, respectively. However, it goes without saying that the donor management unit and the service unit may be physically formed on one substrate and may be distinguished by a predetermined algorithm. Depending on the case, the donor management unit and the service unit may be physically separated, and a wireless or wired method may be selectively applied to the connection between them.

The in-building repeater 1100 is directed to the base stations 1110a, 1110b, and 1110c, but can be placed in a selected location considering economic feasibility and efficiency inside or outside the building, and provides service in relation to the visible area with the terminals. Together with the antenna 1310, an optimal place within the service coverage range can be set.

Meanwhile, in the present invention, a relay device may perform duplexing by applying a dynamic time division duplex (TDD) method to enable multiple communication. The application of such a dynamic TDD scheme is more useful because the present invention can be operated to secure a visible area and smoothly form multiple links between a plurality of base stations and terminals, especially in millimeter wave communication for 5G. In the case of such a dynamic TDD method, a signal is transmitted as a time division method, but the traffic environment can be monitored and the transmission ratio of uplink and downlink can be varied. Since a known communication method can be applied in relation to multiplex communication, detailed description will be omitted. .

Meanwhile, in the illustrated embodiment, a plurality of beam patterns are formed by the donor antenna 1400, and as described above, the formed beam has a narrow characteristic in the millimeter wave region of 5G. For example, beamforming may be performed in a manner in which a plurality of antenna arrays are switched with respective beam patterns. For such beamforming technology, a known antenna technology may be applied. As shown, the first beam pattern D1, the second beam pattern D2, and the second beam pattern D2 may be directed with respective directions.

Beam steering of the present invention means changing the directivity of an antenna, and can be regarded as including beamforming in a broad sense. In some cases, a technique of physically varying the directionality of a fixed area of a plurality of beam patterns that can be beamformed may be referred to as beam steering.

Meanwhile, according to an additional concept of the present invention, the donor antenna 1400 may be disposed in such a way that it is attached to the indoor window W of a building instead of being installed on an outdoor structure. Accordingly, the donor antenna 1400 may have a structure that can be attached to the window W, and an embodiment related to this will be described later.

When the in-building and window installation type donor antenna (1400) is applied, it can be attached to the inside of the window instead of the outer wall of the building, so it can be installed without much difficulty even in a high-rise building. ) Note that there is an advantage in that it is easy to attach and move.

4 is a diagram for explaining the concept of beam steering of an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming and beam steering antenna for 5G according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

As shown, a plurality of regions may be set for a plurality of base stations 1110a, 1110b, and 1110c, and as described above, for example, the first beam pattern D1, the second beam pattern D2, and the third beam A pattern D3 may be defined. For example, a digital method, a phased array method, a switching method, a shift cell method, etc. may be selected by applying the concept of beamforming.

For example, when the second beam pattern D2 has a direction of 0°, the first beam pattern D1 may have a direction of -30° and the third beam pattern D3 may have a direction of 30°. In addition, in order to secure the LOS, beam steering is applied so that the area that can be formed can be varied by steering, and thus the middle area (-15°) of the first and second beam patterns D1 and D2 is applied. ), beam steering is possible for the middle region (15°) of the first and third beam patterns D1 and D3.

As shown in the drawing, the donor antenna 1400 having antenna arrays is attached and disposed inside the window W, and is installed from the inside to the outside as described above.

5 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an in-building repeater to which a 28 GHz beamforming and beamsteering antenna for 5G of the present invention is applied.

Connection between the donor management unit 1200 and the service unit 1300 may be configured with a predetermined interface.

The donor antenna 1400 and the service antenna 1310 of the present invention may be configured as multi-beam antennas.

In one embodiment, the donor management unit 1200 transmits/receives a donor interference removal unit, a plurality of donor down converters and donor up converters, a donor noise amplifier connected to the donor down converter, and a donor power amplifier connected to the donor up converter. It may have a unit 1220, and in this regard, a known technique for controlling donors may be applied.

According to the concept of the present invention, the donor management unit 1200 beamforming the directivity of the empty pattern according to the steering determination unit 1231 that determines the direction of the seismic beam pattern of the base station and the steering determination unit 1231. Alternatively, it may be configured to include a beamforming control unit 1232 that controls the LOS through beam steering to optimally maintain it.

The beamforming control unit 1232 changes the amplitude and phase of the signal supplied to the donor antenna 1400 according to the determination result of the steering determination unit 1231, for example, to improve the intensity of a specific beam pattern, Accordingly, LOS with a specific base station can be maintained in an optimal state.

In order to determine the optimal state of the LOS, the steering determination unit 1231 functions, and the optimal LOS can be formed by basically receiving the beamformed signal and measuring the received signal strength indication (RSSI). let it be

As a preferred embodiment, the steering determination unit 1231 may include a tracking unit to determine the directivity to the optimal base station. The tracking unit may firstly change the beamforming position of the donor antenna 1400 to track the beam pattern area of the base station, quantify the received signal strength for each beamforming pattern, and store it in a database. For example, the first step of tracking is completed by measuring received signal strength through signal transformation in the first beam pattern D1, the second beam pattern D2, and the third beam pattern D3 sequentially.

In addition, the tracking unit may physically change the direction of a beam pattern secondarily fixed to an array antenna to sequentially track an area between fixed beam patterns, and the amount of rotation of the beam steering is optional. Referring to the embodiment of FIG. 4 , the area between the second beam pattern D2 and the first beam pattern D1 and the area between the first beam pattern D1 and the third beam pattern D3 It can be quantified by measuring the received signal strength through beam steering.

The tracking of the received signal strength by the tracking unit is not performed once, but can be cumulatively compiled into a database at predetermined time intervals. To this end, the steering determination unit 1231 may include a data conversion unit that converts and stores received signal strength according to directivity in time series. The data may also include information on the time the RSSI was measured and the traffic volume at the measurement time.

According to the above concept, the steering determination unit 1231 further includes a traffic determination unit, and the traffic determination unit compares only values less than the set traffic amount among data of received signal strengths tracked by applying a plurality of beamforming and beam steering to optimize the optimum It is possible to adopt the directionality of beamforming and beam steering.

Preferably, the operating time zone of the tracking unit may be set at a time interval set in the range of early morning time zone with relatively low communication attempts.

In addition, the service unit 1300 is connected to the service antenna 1310, a service interference cancellation unit, a plurality of service down-converters and service up-converters, a service low-noise amplifier connected to the service down-converter, and service power connected to the service up-converter. An amplifier may be included.

For example, in the operation of the donor down converter, the donor noise amplifier that removes the noise signal from the received signal from the base station 1110 received at the donor antenna 1400 and greatly amplifies only the original signal operates, and the donor down converter operates. This noise canceling signal is converted into an intermediate frequency (IF), transmitted to the service upconverter of the service unit according to the operation of the interface unit, converted back into a service signal, and the gain is amplified by the service power amplifier and transmitted to the service antenna 1310, thereby transmitting the signal to the terminal. will deliver

Conversely, in the operation of the service down-converter, the service low-noise amplifier that removes and amplifies the noise signal from the received signal from the terminal received by the service antenna 1310 operates, and the service down-converter converts it to an intermediate frequency and transfers it to the interface unit. It is transmitted to the up-converter, which is converted into a service signal again, and amplified by the donor power amplifier to transmit the signal from the donor antenna 1400 to the base station 1110.

On the other hand, as in the embodiment of the present invention, the donor antenna 1400 may be provided in a form attached to the window W, and the casing 1410 having an array antenna therein and forming an external shape, and an attachment capable of being attached to the window and a tilt unit 1420. In order to set the optimal position during installation, the attachment and tilt unit 1420 can be tilted up and down and/or left and right, for example, a ball joint can be configured. The attaching and tilting unit 1420 may be composed of one or more suction plates in consideration of attachment and detachment of the window.

In some cases, in order to determine the optimal LOS, the user changes the directivity, or undesirable deformation of the position due to use may occur. To detect this and correct the steering determination unit 1231, the tilt sensor and / or acceleration It would be desirable to have a sensor.

User convenience is increased because LOS of the base station can be maintained and optimal communication quality can be guaranteed by the in-building repeater to which the 28 GHz beamforming and beam steering antenna for 5G according to the present invention is applied.

In addition, since the optimal tracking algorithm for the base station is configured and service quality degradation due to interference of signals from neighboring base stations can be prevented, reliability of operation is improved, and since the antenna can be installed in a building type, installation time and It is economical because the cost can be reduced.

In the above, the present invention has been described in detail based on examples and accompanying drawings. However, the scope of the present invention is not limited by the above embodiments and drawings, and the scope of the present invention will be limited only by the content described in the claims below.

1100 ... in-building relay device 1110a, b, c ... base station
1200 ... donor management unit 1220 ... donor transmission and reception unit
1231 ... Steering determination unit 1232 ... Beam forming control unit
1300 ... service part 1310 ... service antenna
1400: window type donor antenna 1410: casing
1420... attachment and tilt unit

Claims (3)

a donor antenna disposed in the visible region of one or more base stations;
a service unit connected to a terminal through a service antenna;
A donor management unit controlling the donor antenna so that the service unit has connectivity between the terminal and the base station;
The donor management department,
A steering determination unit that performs beamforming on a plurality of base stations to form a visible area and selects the directivity of the beam pattern of a base station having a high signal strength, and the beamforming directivity of the antenna according to the determination result of the steering determination unit In-building relay device including a beamforming control unit for changing the.
According to claim 1,
The donor antenna,
In-building relay including an attachment and tilt part formed on the casing so that it can be attached to the inner wall of the window of a building, a tilt sensor and an acceleration sensor that detects a change in the direction in which the casing is installed and corrects the directivity of the steering decision unit. Device.
According to claim 1,
The steering determination unit,
A tracking unit that sequentially measures the received signal strength by beamforming to track the area of the fixed beam pattern and additionally measures and measures the received signal strength by beam steering for the area in between; A data storage unit that converts and stores received signal strength and traffic volume in a time-sequential manner according to data, and traffic judgment that extracts and prepares only cases of less than set traffic among the tracked received signal strength data and adopts beamforming and beamsteering directivity An in-building relay device having a unit.

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