WO2007085197A1

WO2007085197A1 - Uwb system and method for controlling uwb unit

Info

Publication number: WO2007085197A1
Application number: PCT/CN2007/000296
Authority: WO
Inventors: Zihua Guo
Original assignee: Lenovo (Beijing) Limited
Priority date: 2006-01-26
Filing date: 2007-01-26
Publication date: 2007-08-02
Also published as: CN101009498B; CN101009498A

Abstract

A UWB system and method for controlling the UWB unit. The UWB system has at least two UWB units, at least one antenna, and a controller, wherein the controller controls the operation of the above at least two UWB units according to the principle of no interference with each other. The UWB system and method can realize the simultaneous operation of the two UWB units without interference with each other; and the selection and handover between the different UWB modes in the UWB system can automatically perform, and also can be performed by the user intervention when only one mode is operating.

Description

UWB system and method for controlling UWB unit

Technical field

The present invention relates to a UWB system and a method of controlling a UWB unit, and more particularly to a method having multiple

The UWB system of the UWB unit and the method of controlling multiple UWB units. Background technique

Ultra-wideband wireless technology (UWB), as an ultra-high-speed short-range wireless technology, will play an important role in applications such as PC and peripheral devices, and 3C device interconnection. Based on the good prospects of UWB, the industry has launched a fierce standard battle for it.

Currently, there are two mainstream UWB standards, one is the MBOA camp led by Intel and TI, and the other is the DS-UWB camp led by Freescale. The two are incompatible with each other and have been competing with each other for almost three years. Since both have strong support in the industry, it is unlikely that a unified standard will be reached. Therefore, in future applications, there may be different UWB chips in different devices, so that a multi-mode UWB system or network card becomes very important and necessary.

However, existing multimode devices are basically a combination of two different systems (such as GSM and WiFi), and the integration of two or more different types of UWB chips into one module has a series of problems. This is mainly because when the two UWB chips work together, mutual interference occurs when the two chips operate in the same frequency band. Therefore, it is necessary to control the process in which two or more chips work together.

In addition, in a system with multiple UWB chips integrated, there may be only one UWB antenna. In this way, the controller needs to control the use of the antenna, so that there is no need for two UWB chips to use the antenna at the same time. Summary of the invention

It is an object of the present invention to provide a UWB system that integrates multiple UWB units into one system to improve system connectivity and availability.

The UWB system of the present invention has at least two UWB units, at least one antenna, and a controller, wherein the controller controls the operation of the at least two UWB units according to the principle that the UWB units do not interfere with each other. Wherein, the at least two UWB units are UWB units of the same standard, or UWB units of different standards. The system includes the DS-UWB system and the MBOA system.

The controller can be a microcontroller or a CPU.

In addition, the controller controls the at least two UWB units to perform the search of the same type of equipment alternately.

At the same time, the controller controls the at least two UWB units to operate on frequency bands that do not interfere with each other.

In addition, when the number of antennas is different from the number of UWB units, the controller further controls the use of the antenna by the at least two UWB units according to a predetermined rule.

The predetermined rule may refer to, by comparing each of the UWB units to search for signal strength or signal quality in the information returned to the controller by the similar device, and select a UWB unit suitable for communication to communicate. Here, the UWB unit suitable for communication refers to a UWB unit with the strongest signal strength or a UWB unit with the best signal quality.

Alternatively, the UWB unit suitable for communication may also be a UWB unit that the user needs to select to communicate.

A method of controlling a UWB unit in the UWB system described above, wherein the communication of the search of the at least two UWB units and/or the communication of the at least two UWB units is controlled by a controller according to a principle of mutual interference.

In the above method, the controlling, by the controller, the searching of the at least two UWB units may include the following steps:

Controlling, by the controller, the searching of the same type of devices by the at least two UWB units;

After one of the UWB units discovers the same type of device and performs a handshake connection, the controller determines the channels that other UWB units can search according to the principle of mutual interference.

The controller controls other UWB units to perform a search based on the determined channel.

In addition, in the above method, the controlling the searching and communication of the at least two UWB units by the controller may include the following steps:

Controlling, by the controller, the at least two UWB units respectively performing a search of the same type of device and communicating with a similar device;

When the UWB unit performing the search finds a similar device, the handshake connection and communication are performed according to the channel determined by the controller and the UWB unit that does not interfere with each other.

Meanwhile, in the above method, the controlling, by the controller, the searching and communication of the at least two UWB units may also include the following steps: Controlling, by the controller, the searching for the same type of equipment and the communication with the similar equipment by the at least two UWB units;

When the communication UWB unit ends the communication, the search of the same type of device is performed according to the channel determined by the controller and the UWB unit that does not interfere with each other.

Compared with the prior art, the present invention can obtain the following beneficial effects:

First, it is possible to implement at least two different or identical UWB units that can work simultaneously without interfering with each other;

Secondly, when working in only one mode, the selection and switching of UWB systems between different UWB systems can be automated or user intervention. DRAWINGS

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a block diagram of a UWB system in accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention.

2(a) is a flow chart for describing a process in which two UWB units perform a search from each of the first embodiment of the present invention, and one of them establishes a connection for communication; FIG. 2(b) depicts the two UWB units from which A flow chart of a process of communicating, another process of searching for similar devices to simultaneously perform respective communications.

Figure 3 (a) is a flow chart for describing the related control of the controller when one of the two UWB units simultaneously performing communication work is stopped in the first embodiment of the present invention of Figure 1; Figure 3 (b) It is a flow chart describing the process in which the two UWB units communicate from one another, and the other performs a search for the same type of device to perform a separate search.

Figure 4 is a structural diagram of a UWB system in accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 5 (a) is a flow chart for describing a process of performing device search and establishing a connection by the controller in the second embodiment of Figure 4; Figure 5 (b) is a diagram illustrating the end of communication in the second embodiment of Figure 4 A flowchart of the process by which the controller performs control. detailed description

The UWB system of the present invention has various implementations, each of which may have at least two UWB units, and at least one antenna. By controlling the at least two UWB units through the controller in the system, the UWB units can be operated simultaneously without interference, or the antennas in the system can be shared. The UWB unit described herein may be an MBOA unit, a DS-UWB unit, and a combination of the two. Hereinafter, a multi-mode UWB system having UWB units of different standards will be described by taking the first embodiment of the present invention as an example. Among them, the UWB unit of different systems can be controlled by the controller, so that the UWB units of different standards can work simultaneously without interference.

The UWB system of the first embodiment of the present invention has two UWB units, and two antennas respectively corresponding to each of the two UWB units, that is, two UWB units are independent of each other. In this case, the UWB system design of the present invention is as shown in FIG.

As can be seen from Fig. 1, the host 10 connects two UWB units, namely the MBOA unit 40a and the DS-UWB unit 40b, through the interface 30a and the interface 30b, respectively. The host 10 may be a desktop computer, a notebook computer, a mobile phone or the like having a controller 20 that controls communication of the UWB unit. The controller 20 can be a physically separate module, such as a microcontroller. Alternatively, the controller 20 may be a general purpose CPU running a specific code, such as on a laptop computer, the controller 20 may be a notebook CPU running a specific control program; and on a smart phone, the controller 20 may be running a specific control program Mobile phone embedded CPU.

Further, in the present embodiment, the host 10 has an interface for connecting with each UWB unit to perform communication, that is, interfaces 30a and 30b herein. The interface 30a and the interface 30b may be one of various interfaces such as a serial port, a USB port, and a mini-PCI port, which correspond to interfaces used by the corresponding UWB unit. By receiving or transmitting a MAC data frame using the corresponding interface, the controller 20 can obtain information about each UWB unit or transmit related control information to the corresponding UWB unit.

It will be appreciated that although the controller for controlling the UWB unit and the communication of the controller with the UWB module are described herein in terms of controllers and interface modules in the host, other means may be used, for example, using a separate The MCU controls the operation of each UWB unit, and the communication between the UWB module and the UWB module can be directly transmitted by using the MAC data frame instead of the interface.

Each UWB unit in Figure 1 includes an RF module, a baseband/MAC module, and an interface module. For example, MBOA unit 40a herein includes its RF module 50a, baseband/MAC module 60a and interface module 70a; and DS-UWB unit 40b includes its RF module 50b, baseband/MAC module 60b and interface module 70b.

The interface modules (for example, 70a, 70b) of each UWB unit are generally USB or PCI specifications, and may be other types for performing various communications including data transmission, receiving control commands, or status information transmission with the host 10. . This communication is generally performed in the format of a M^C data frame, that is, the interface module of each unit transmits the MAC data frame received from the host 10 to the MAC layer in the baseband/MAC module, or The MAC data frame received by the MAC layer is sent to the host 10.

The MAC layer of the baseband/MAC module of each unit may receive a MAC data frame from the host 10 or transmit a data frame from the respective interface module to the host, and determine whether the received MAC data frame is a control command or data to be transmitted.

When the MAC data frame from the host 10 is a control instruction, an operation is performed according to the control instruction, for example, a wireless channel sharing mechanism for defining a plurality of user data and performing some security processing such as encryption, authentication, etc., if necessary, to MAC data The format of the frame returns the corresponding status information, which is sent to the host 10 through the respective interface module. In particular, it can send its own detected signal strength, device name, etc. to the controller or receive a set command from the controller about the channel.

When the MAC data frame from the host 10 is data, the MAC data frame is sent to the baseband.

The baseband processing part of the MAC module. The baseband processing part in the baseband/MAC module encodes and modulates the data frame sent from the MAC layer, and then adds some corresponding headers to the R module for transmission, or RF from the RF module on the other hand. The signal is decoded, and the MAC data frame is recovered after demodulation, and then transmitted to the MAC layer, and sent to the host 10 through the respective interface module.

The RF module parts of each unit (for example, 50a, 50b) mainly perform carrier modulation, filtering, frequency conversion, and power amplifier such as baseband signals, thereby modulating the baseband digital signal into an analog signal and transmitting it through the antenna, or receiving an analog signal received by the antenna. The digital signal is sent to the baseband processing portion of the baseband MAC module (e.g., 60a, 60b). The antenna here mainly receives the wireless signal in the air and inputs it into the device, or converts the RF signal modulated by the RF module into electromagnetic waves and sends it to the air. In this embodiment, the RF modules of the UWB units are connected to their own UWB antennas (i.e., 80a and 80b herein).

When two UWB units in the system work simultaneously, if they use the same or close frequency band, mutual interference will occur. So to make two UWB units work simultaneously without affecting each other, you must find patterns in which they can coexist.

In the DS-UWB standard, the entire UWB bandwidth (3.1-10.6 GHz) is divided into two groups: low band (3.1-4.85 GHz), high band (6.2-9.7 GHz). The MBOA standard divides the entire UWB bandwidth into five groups, namely 3.1-4.7 GHz, 4.7-6.3 GHz, 6.3-7.9 GHz, 7.9-9.5 GHz, and 9.5-10.5 GHz. Then, when transmitting, within each group (such as group 1), frequency hopping between three frequency bands, each frequency hopping mode is called a TF code, equivalent to a logical channel, such as group 1 (Group 1) There are 7 frequency modulation modes TF code 1-7, which is equivalent to dividing group 1 into 7 logical channels. Therefore, it can be based on the mode of the frequency hopping and the group in which it is located, The two band groups of the DS-UWB are then compared to calculate the channels they do not interfere with each other, as shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

It can be seen that when the channels working by the two UWB units do not interfere with each other, they can be operated under the control of the controller without interfering with each other. In addition, as can be seen from the above description, for the case where the two UWB units have the same standard, as long as the frequency band groups in which they operate are different, there is no mutual interference.

The specific flow of the UWB system operation in the embodiment of Fig. 1 under the control of the controller 20 will be described below with reference to the flowcharts of Figs. 2 and 3. Among them, each UWB unit has two working states, that is, the search of similar devices and the communication with similar devices. In the search of the same type of equipment, all the channels are generally scanned; after the same type of device is searched for handshake, the channel allocated by the controller is used for communication. Therefore, the purpose of controller control is to avoid mutual interference between two or more UWB units in the above two states.

The flowchart of Figure 2 (a) describes the process in which two UWB units in the UWB system perform separate searches and one of them establishes a connection for communication. For clarity of description, the two UWB units are referred to as a first UWB unit and a second UWB unit, respectively. For example, the MBOA unit acts as the first UWB unit and the DS-UWB unit acts as the second UWB unit, or can be reversed. Moreover, the present invention is not limited to two UWB units, and may also occur between multiple UWB units of the same type, or between multiple UWB units, as long as the working channels selected for these UWB units satisfy each other in the following process. Just fine.

At step 100, the controller 20 controls the two UWB units to alternately search. Specifically, the controller 20 issues an instruction to alternately close the two UWB units, for example, the DS-UWB unit 40b is turned off for 5 seconds, at which time the MBOA unit 40a searches for it separately, and then the MBOA unit 40a is turned off for 5 seconds to turn on the DS- The UWB unit 40b, at this time, the DS-UWB unit 40b performs a separate search. This will avoid interference during the search process.

Once the first UWB unit searches for its peer devices, they can perform handshaking, such as synchronization, authentication, channel setup negotiation, baseband and MAC layer parameter settings, and begin communication. At the same time, the first UWB unit notifies the controller 20 of the associated channel information (step 110), for example by transmitting the containing phase The MAC data frame of the channel information is given to the controller 20. Since the second UWB unit is still in the off state at this time, it does not affect the communication of the first UWB unit.

After receiving the channel information of the first UWB unit, the controller 20 determines the channel that the second UWB unit can work according to the above Table 1, and passes the determined message information in the form of an instruction included in the MAC data frame. The interface module sends to the second UWB unit (step 120). After receiving the command, the second UWB unit starts searching for the same type of device according to the channel determined by the controller 20 (step 130).

For example, after the MBOA unit 40a in Fig. 1 searches for its homogeneous MBOA device 90a, the negotiation channel is set to "Group 4, TF code 1" and sent to the controller 20. Then, after receiving the channel information, the controller 20 determines that the recommended channel of the DS-UWB unit 40b is "Low band" according to the above table 1, and sends it to the DS-UWB unit 40b through the interface module 30b in the form of an instruction. Thus, when the DS-UWB unit 40b searches for its class device 90b, it must follow the recommended channel "Low band". Thus, two UWB units can simultaneously perform data transmission work and search for similar devices without affecting each other.

The flow chart of Figure 2(b) depicts the process by which two UWB units communicate from one another and the other performs a search for the same type of device to simultaneously communicate with each other.

In step 200, the first UWB unit of the two UWB units is performing data transmission, and the second UWB unit is performing a search for the same type of equipment. When the second UWB unit searching for the same type of device finds the same type of device, they can perform handshaking, such as synchronization, authentication, channel setting negotiation, baseband and MAC layer parameter setting, and start communication. At the same time, the second UWB unit informs the controller 20 of the associated channel information (step 210). For example, the DS-UWB unit 40b searching for the channel "Low band" finds the homogeneous device 90b. After the handshake, the established channel is the "Low Band" designated by the controller 20, which tells the controller 20 of the channel setting. Then you can communicate according to the set signal. Thus, since the newly established channel is a channel compatible with the channel used by the first UWB unit according to the designation of the controller 20, the two units can operate simultaneously without interfering with each other (step 220).

The flowchart of Fig. 3(a) describes the related control of the controller 20 when one of the two UWB units simultaneously performing communication work stops the communication operation.

At step 300, the two units communicate with their respective devices of the same type. When the first UWB unit ends the communication, it notifies the controller 20 of the relevant information (step 310).

After receiving the information, the controller 20 determines, according to the channel information of the second UWB unit that is still communicating, the channel information that can be used by the first UWB unit that ends the communication, and sends the channel information to the first UWB unit. W Step 320). For example, when the MBOA unit 40a operating at the channel Group 2, TF code 1 ends the communication, it reports the information to the controller 20. The controller 20 determines the channel that the MBOA unit 40a can use for searching based on the channel on which the DS-UWB unit 40b communicates, for example, Low band, and controls the MBOA unit 40a to perform the search. Thereby, the two UWB units can simultaneously perform data transmission work and search of the same type of device without mutual influence (step 330).

The flow chart of Figure 3(b) depicts the process by which two UWB units communicate from one another and the other performs a search for the same type of device to perform separate searches. In step 400, the second UWB unit of the two UWB units is performing data transfer operations and the first UWB unit is performing a search for the same type of device. When the second UWB unit that communicates ends the communication, it notifies the controller 20 of the relevant information (step 410). After the controller 20 receives the information, it can arrange two units to perform the search work of the respective devices of the same type.

For example, when the DS-UWB unit 40b that performs communication ends the operation, the information is notified to the controller 20. The controller 20 can schedule the two units to perform a search in turn, as previously described, to avoid interference during the search (step 420).

Therefore, by controlling the two UWB units by the controller 20 so that they operate in a mode that does not interfere with each other, the two units can work together without affecting each other. It can be appreciated that for the case where two or more UWB units are connected to the same host 10, and each UWB' unit has a separate antenna, the operating modes of the respective UWB units, that is, the respective ones, are used by the controller 20 in the manner described above. The integration of these various UWB units can be achieved by searching for similar devices and communicating with similar devices in a mode that does not interfere with each other. For example, two DS-UWB units and one MBOA unit can be used, and two control methods can be used according to Table 1 above, through the controller 20 for a period of time (for example, three UWB units work together for communication) The DS-UWB unit controls the communication between the Low band channel and the High band channel respectively, and the MBOA unit controls the Group 2, TF code 1 channel communication, so that one integrated UWB unit can be realized, and three UWB units can work simultaneously. system.

In addition, the above description has been made for each UWB unit to use a different channel in each new communication process. It can be realized that a plurality of UWB units can be integrated in one UWB system by simultaneously fixing the channels of different UWB units to specific non-interfering channels for homogeneous device search and communication with similar devices.

In addition, when multiple UWB units are integrated into one system, there may be cases where more antennas are available or less than the number of UWB units. For the case where the number of available antennas is greater than the number of UWB units, The process in the first embodiment of the present invention is also achieved. For the case where the number of available antennas is less than the number of UWB units, the controller 20 is required to control the operation of each UWB unit, so that multiple UWB units can use one antenna in common without collision.

Figure 4 is an embodiment of such a UWB system. The UWB system has two UWB units, but only ~ 艮 antenna 80. g|3, as shown in Fig. 4, the respective RF units (50a and 50b) of the MBOA unit 40a and the DS-UWB unit 40b are connected to the same antenna 80. Therefore, the antenna 80 can only be used by one UWB unit at the same time, so that the use of the antenna 80 must be controlled by the controller 20.

The specific flow of the operation of the two UWB units by the controller 20 in the embodiment of Fig. 4 will be described below with reference to the flowchart of Fig. 5. As above, for clarity of explanation, the two UWB units are referred to as a first UWB unit and a second UWB unit, respectively. For example, the MBOA unit 40a acts as the first UWB unit and the DS-UWB 40b unit acts as the second UWB unit, or may be reversed.

The flowchart of Fig. 5(a) describes the process in which the controller 20 controls the device search and establishes a connection in the embodiment of Fig. 4. At step 500, the controller 20 controls the two UWB units to alternately search for their respective devices. This can be controlled by the controller 20 to control the two UWB units alternately. For example, the controller 20 issues an instruction to hand over the antenna control to two UWB units, for example, the DS-UWB unit 40b searches for 5 seconds using the antenna 80, at which time the MBOA unit 40a is in a standby state, and then the MBOA unit 40a uses the antenna. The 80 search for 5 seconds causes the DS-UWB unit 40b to stand by, so that the respective devices can be alternately searched.

In step 510, when the first UWB unit finds a similar device in the process of searching using the antenna 80, information such as the device name and signal strength of the discovered device is transmitted to the controller 20. After receiving the information, the controller 20 immediately switches the antenna control to the second UWB unit for a period of time, for example 5 seconds (step 520). If the second UWB unit does not find a similar device during the search process, then a connection is established between the first UWB unit and its discovery device (step 530); if the second UWB unit also finds a similar device during the search process, Then, information such as the device name and signal strength of the discovered device is also transmitted to the controller 20 (step 540). At this time, the controller 20 may report the device name and signal strength respectively discovered by the two UWB units to the user, and the user selects one device for related communication; or, the controller 20 according to a certain rule (for example, selecting a device with a strong signal strength) The device that selects the communication by itself can then communicate with the user or the UWB unit selected by the controller 20 to establish a connection with the discovery device (step 550). The flowchart of Fig. 5(b) describes the process in which the controller 20 performs control at the end of communication in the embodiment of Fig. 4. At step 600, the second UWB unit of the two UWB units is in communication operation and the first UWB unit is in a standby state. When the second UWB unit ends the communication, it notifies the controller 20 of the relevant information (step 610). After the controller 20 receives the information, it can arrange two UWB units to perform search operations for their respective devices. For example, when the DS-UWB unit 40b that performs communication ends the operation, the information is notified to the controller 20. Controller 20, as previously described, schedules the two units to search in turn to use the same antenna in turn (step 620).

Therefore, the use of the antenna is controlled by the controller 20, thereby realizing the integration of the two UWB units using only one UWB antenna. It can be appreciated that for two or more UWB units connected to the same host 10, and in the case of an antenna, the controller 20 can be used to integrate the UWB units by assigning the right to use the antennas to the respective UWB units.

In addition, it can be appreciated that by using the two controller control methods described above, it is possible to realize an antenna using less than the number of UWB units in one system, integrating a plurality of UWB units, and these UWB units can work simultaneously without mutual interference. For example, a system that integrates three UWB units, one DS-UWB unit and one MBOA unit use a common antenna together, and a single MBOA unit uses a separate antenna. The controller uses the method in Embodiment 2 above to control the DS-UWB unit and the MBOA unit to alternately use the common antenna, and uses the method in Embodiment 1 to control the two antennas to work simultaneously when using frequency bands that do not interfere with each other. A system with three UWB units and two UWB antennas is implemented, and two of the UWB units can operate simultaneously without interfering with each other.

Further, although the DS-UWB and MBOA units have been described as an example in the present invention, for other possible systems, when different systems exist in one system, the same or similar methods described above can be used.

Claims

A UWB system, comprising: at least two UWB units, at least one antenna, and a controller, wherein the controller controls the at least two UWB units according to a principle that the UWB units do not interfere with each other work.

2. The UWB system according to claim 1, wherein the at least two UWB units are UWB units of the same standard, or UWB units of different standards.

Right

3. The UWB system according to claim 2, wherein the system comprises a DS-UWB system and a MBOA system.

4. The UWB system according to claim 1, wherein the controller can be a single chip microcomputer, or a main

Machine CPU.

The UWB system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the controller controls the at least two UWB units to alternately search for similar devices.

The UWB system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the controller controls the at least two UWB units to operate on frequency bands that do not interfere with each other.

.

7. The UWB system according to claim 5, wherein the controller further controls the use of the antenna by the at least two UWB units according to a predetermined rule when the number of antennas is different from the number of UWB units.

8. The UWB system according to claim 7, wherein the predetermined rule is that the device name and the signal strength in the information returned to the controller by the respective UWB units are alternately searched, and the signal strength is selected. The UWB unit suitable for communication communicates.

9. The UWB system according to claim 8, wherein the UWB unit suitable for communication refers to a UWB unit having the strongest signal strength.

10. The UWB system according to claim 8, wherein said UWB unit suitable for communication refers to a UWB unit that a user needs to select for communication.

11. A method of controlling a UWB unit in the UWB system of claim 1, wherein: controlling, by the controller, the search of the at least two UWB units and/or the at least Communication between two UWB units.

The method according to claim 11, wherein the controlling the searching of the at least two UWB units by the controller comprises the following steps:

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the controlling, by the controller, the searching and communication of the at least two UWB units comprises the following steps:

When the UWB unit performing the search finds a similar device, the handshake connection and communication are performed according to the channel determined by the controller and the UWB unit that does not interfere with each other. .

14. The method of claim 11 wherein said controlling, by said controller, said searching and communicating of said at least two UWB units comprises the steps of:

The method according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the at least two UWB units are UWB units of the same standard, or UWB units of different standards.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the system comprises a DS-UWB system and a MBOA system.