WO2008119284A1

WO2008119284A1 - Shared radio frequency front end, base station and method for sharing radio frequency front end

Info

Publication number: WO2008119284A1
Application number: PCT/CN2008/070479
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yulin Li; Chun Wang
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2007-03-30
Filing date: 2008-03-12
Publication date: 2008-10-09
Also published as: CN101052169A; CN100579265C

Abstract

A base station, includes: a shared radio frequency front end and at least two base station carrier frequencies with different system, wherein the shared radio frequency front end performs front end process on at least one type of signal transmitted/received via two base station carrier frequencies with different system, and transmission/reception of the at least one type of signal is perfromed between the shared radio frequency front end and the at least two base station carrier frequencies with different system. A method for sharing radio frequency front end and shared radio frequency front end are provided. The kind and the number of the radio frequency front end when 2G coexisting with 3G are reduced, thus the base station cost is decreased. When upgrading to the 3G base station from the 2G base station, the original radio frequency front end arrangement can be kept, and need not to be replaced, thus the cost of upgrading to the 3G base station from the 2G base station is decreased, at the same time, arrangement flexibility when organizing network by the 2G and 3G base station together is also improved.

Description

Method for sharing a common RF front end, base station, and RF front end

This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 200710090992.1, entitled "Shared RF Front End, Base Station and RF Front End Sharing Method", filed on March 30, 2007, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference. In this application.

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method for sharing a radio frequency front end, a base station, and a radio frequency front end.

Background technique

In the field of mobile communications, 2G (2nd Generation, 2nd generation mobile communication technology) is a mature and widely used technology. 2G GSM (Golbal System for Mobile Commnication)-based networks are already global. Deploying and applying. 3G (3rd Generation, 3rd Generation Mobile Communication Technology) is a new generation of mobile communication technology. It is recognized by WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and is recognized as the future development direction. In some regions and countries, it has been applied to a certain scale, and relevant international and domestic standardization organizations and communication management agencies have defined multiple frequency bands available for 2G and 3G. In the current and future, there will be overlapping of 2G and 3G available frequency bands. . From the perspective of development, 3G network will gradually replace the location of 2G network with its powerful functions and many advantages. 2G network will gradually transition to 3G network. In the process of transition, in order to protect the existing resources on 2G network, One of the important issues to be considered for ensuring a smooth transition between network performance and services is to achieve a smooth transition of the network at a low cost. The base station is a component of the existing network architecture, and its number is large. In the process of transitioning the 2G network to the 3G network, the 2G base station needs to be replaced with the 3G base station, which is costly and does not meet the requirements of low-cost smooth transition.

The common design principle diagram of the RF front-end in the existing base station equipment is shown in Figure 1. The specific principle is as follows: The base station transmits the signal to the transmitting channel of the RF front-end after being amplified by the power amplifier, and the combined signal of several transmitter signals is realized by the combiner. After passing through the transmit filter in the duplexer to suppress out-of-band spurious and interference signals, it is sent to the antenna for radiation. The uplink signal received by the antenna passes through the receiving filter in the duplexer to suppress the transmitted signal, filters out the out-of-band interference signal, enters the low noise amplifier and the splitter for low noise amplification and splitting, and sends it to the receiver for further processing. For the RF front-end, 2G base stations and 3G base stations have different functions, performances, and physical and structural requirements. Therefore, different designs are required for their respective requirements, as shown in Figure 2. In the GSM base station, the GSM radio frequency front end and the GSM base station carrier frequency are used according to the requirements of the function, and the WCDMA carrier frequency is adopted in the WCDMA base station. The required WCDMA RF front-end and WCDMA base station carrier frequency, the two RF front-end and base station carrier frequencies each have different functions and performance indicators, and the WCDMA RF front-end and WCDMA base station carrier frequencies cannot be used in the GSM base station. Similarly, the WCDMA base station cannot be used. The GSM radio front end and the GSM base station carrier frequency are used.

Since the RF front-ends of the two base stations cannot be used in common or shared, the RF front-end needs to be replaced when upgrading from 2G to 3G, and the 2G RF front-end is replaced with a 3G RF front-end. As shown in Figure 3, the GSM base station and the WCDMA base station are still used. For example, when it is necessary to upgrade a GSM base station to a WCDMA base station to provide more and higher quality services, since the GSM radio frequency front end and the GSM base station carrier frequency used in the GSM base station cannot be used in the new WCDMA base station, it is necessary to The carrier frequency of the GSM radio frequency front end and the GSM base station is replaced by the WCDMA radio frequency front end and the WCDMA base station carrier frequency. The cost is very high, and because of the large number of base stations, it also brings a lot of inconvenience to the replacement of the radio frequency front end.

In addition, since the transition from 2G to 3G may be a long process, the 2G base station and the 3G base station may have a long coexistence period. In the case where the 2G base station and the 3G base station coexist, the maintenance of the RF front end is inconvenient and the cost is low. Also higher.

Summary of the invention

The embodiments of the present invention provide a method for sharing a common radio frequency front end, a base station, and a radio frequency front end, so as to solve the problem that the current radio frequency front end is shared by the 2G and 3G base stations, and facilitate the upgrade from 2G to 3G.

To solve the above technical problem, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station, including: a shared radio frequency front end and at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies, where

The shared radio frequency front end is configured to perform front end processing on at least one type of signals sent and received by the base station carrier frequency of the at least two different systems;

The base station carrier frequency of the at least two different systems is used for transmitting and receiving at least one type of signal with the shared radio frequency front end.

Embodiments of the present invention also provide a shared radio frequency front end, including: a shared low noise amplifier and shunt unit, a shared combining unit, and a shared signal transceiving duplex unit.

The shared signal transceiver duplex unit is configured to perform transmission and reception processing on at least one of base station carrier frequencies of at least two different systems; The shared low noise and splitting unit is connected to the shared signal transceiver duplex unit for performing low noise amplification and splitting on at least one of the at least two base station carrier frequencies of different systems;

The shared combining unit is connected to the common signal transceiving duplex unit, and is used for combining at least one of base station carrier frequencies of at least two different systems.

An embodiment of the present invention further provides a method for sharing a radio frequency front end, comprising the steps of: transmitting and receiving at least one of base station carrier frequencies of at least two different systems by using a preset shared radio frequency front end.

The embodiment of the present invention reduces the type and number of radio frequency front ends when the base stations coexist in at least two different systems, thereby reducing the cost of the base station; when the base station is upgraded in at least two different standards, the radio frequency front end of the original base station can be retained, without The replacement not only reduces the cost of base station upgrades of at least two different systems (such as upgrading a 2G base station to a 3G base station); it also improves the flexibility of configuration when at least two different types of base stations are co-networked.

DRAWINGS

1 is a schematic structural view of a front end of a radio frequency in the prior art;

2 is a schematic diagram of a shared site of a GSM and WCDMA base station in the prior art;

3 is a schematic diagram of upgrading a GSM base station to a WCDMA base station in the prior art;

4 is a schematic structural diagram of a base station according to an embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a schematic diagram of a radio frequency front end of a 2G base station and a 3G transceiver in the embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of an RF front end of a 2G base station upgraded to a 3G base station according to an embodiment of the present invention; Functional diagram of the front end;

8 is a flowchart of a method for sharing a radio frequency front end according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of the composition of a shared radio frequency front end according to an embodiment of the present invention.

detailed description

Embodiments of the present invention utilize at least two different standards (such as 2G and 3G; 2.5G and 3G, or 2G, 3G, and long-term evolution networks, etc.) base station RF front-end functions and performance commonalities, and unified radio frequency front-end functions and performances. And the outer structure, the base station of the at least two different standards is used for the common and common to the radio frequency front end.

In order to facilitate the understanding of those skilled in the art, the present invention will be further described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be noted that at least two different types of base stations involved in the embodiments of the present invention are 2G and 3G are examples. But it is not limited to this.

The schematic diagram of the structure of the base station in the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 4, includes: a shared RF front end 100 (for example, a shared RF front end of 2G and 3G, or a shared RF front end of 2.5G and 3G, or 2G, 3G, and long term evolution networks) The shared radio frequency front end, etc.), at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies, in this embodiment, the 2G base station carrier frequency 200 and the 3G base station carrier frequency 300 are taken as examples, and the implementation process of the three or more different standard carrier frequency base station embodiments is The two are similar, as described in the following two implementations. The common radio frequency front end 100 is configured to perform front end processing on at least one type of signals sent and received by the base station carrier frequency of the different systems. This embodiment takes the front end processing of the transmitted and received 2G and/or 3G signals as an example, and subsequently 2G base station carrier frequency 200, connected to the shared RF front end 100, used for transmitting and receiving 2G signals with the shared RF front end 100; 3G base station carrier frequency 300, connected to the shared RF front end 100, for sharing The transmission and reception of 3G signals are performed between the RF front ends 100.

The shared RF front end 100 further includes: a shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101, a shared low noise and split unit 102 and a shared combining unit 103, and a shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101 for pairing 2G and/or 3G. The signal is sent and received, and the shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101 sets the working frequency band suppression degree of the RF front end, and the working capacity is 2G and the more stringent requirements in the 3G base station; the shared low noise and split unit 102 is connected. The shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101 is configured to perform low noise amplification and splitting on the 2G and/or 3G signals, and the shared low noise and split unit 102 sets the receive gain, the receive noise figure, and the receive channel input ldB compression point. The number of split ports and the isolation between the split ports are more stringent requirements in the 2G and 3G base stations; the shared combine unit 103 connects the shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101 for combining 2G and/or 3G signals. Road, and the shared combining unit 103 sets the number of combined input ports, the isolation between the combined input ports is 2G, and the requirements in the 3G base station are stricter. index of. The specific parameter settings will be described in detail in the following method embodiments shared by the RF front-end of the present invention, and are not mentioned here.

The shared signal transceiver duplex unit 101 further includes: a shared receive filter subunit 1011 and a shared transmit filter subunit 1012. The shared receiving filtering subunit 1011 is configured to receive 2G and/or 3G signals, and perform interference filtering on the 2G and/or 3G signals, and the common receiving filtering subunit 1011 sets the receiving channel to suppress the transmitting frequency band to 2G and 3G. A more stringent indicator is required in the base station; a common transmit filter sub-unit 1012 is configured to perform interference filtering on the 2G and/or 3G signals and then transmit the radiation to the antenna, and the common transmit filter sub-unit 1012 sets the transmit channel to the receive band. The degree of inhibition is More stringent metrics are required in 2G and 3G base stations.

As shown in FIG. 5, in a base station according to an embodiment of the present invention, a 2G and 3G signal transceiver device uses a shared radio frequency front end to implement signal transmission and reception, and a base station where 2G and 3G transceivers coexist, 2G and 3G carrier frequency sharing. RF front-end, 2G signal transmitter (in the figure, 2G transmitter 1 to 2G transmitter n is taken as an example). By sharing the RF front-end, the RF signal is sent to the corresponding 2G signal receiver (2G receiver 1 to 2G in the figure) The receiver n is an example), the 3G signal transmitter (in the figure, the 3G transmitter 1 to 3G transmitter n is taken as an example) transmits the radio frequency signal to the corresponding 3G signal receiver through the shared RF front end (in the figure, the 3G reception is performed) The machine 1 to 3G receiver n is an example).

It should be noted that the shared radio frequency front end in this embodiment is not used to implement transmission between the transmitter and the receiver in the same base station, but to realize the connection between the transmitter, the receiver and the antenna feeder system. In practical applications, the base station's transmitter and receiver communicate with a mobile station (such as a mobile phone).

The above is the coexistence of the 2G base station and the 3G base station. In the initial stage of the transition from 2G to 3G, when the 2G base station is upgraded to the 3G base station, as shown in FIG. 6, since the previous GSM base station uses the 2G and 3G base stations to share the RF front end, Supports the functions and performance indicators of the 3G base station. Therefore, in the process of upgrading from 2G to 3G, the RF front end can be replaced, and the RF front end can continue to play the role of the 3G radio frequency front end in the 3G base station. The schematic diagram of the RF front-end function of the upgraded 3G base station, as shown in Figure 7, after the 2G base station is upgraded to the 3G base station, the shared RF front-end in the previous 2G base station continues to be used, and the 3G signal transmitter and the 3G signal receiver are implemented. The role of the signal transceiving function. In addition, after the 2G base station carrier frequency exits the service, the port on the RF front end can continue to be used by the 3G base station carrier frequency.

The embodiment of the present invention further provides a method for sharing a radio frequency front end. As shown in FIG. 8, the method includes the following steps:

Step S801: preset a common radio frequency front end of the base station of at least two different standards; the step is optional. This embodiment also sets the shared RF front end of the 2G and 3G base stations as an example. The common functions, performance indicators and external dimensions of the 2G base station RF front end and the 3G base station RF front end are used to set the common RF front end of the base station.

The method for sharing the radio frequency front end of the embodiment of the present invention has multiple sharing modes, and the low noise amplifier and the splitter, the shared combiner and the shared duplexer are taken as an example. As shown in Figure 9, the 2G and 3G shared RF front ends consist of a shared low noise amplifier and splitter, a shared combiner and a shared duplexer (including a shared receive filter and a shared transmit filter). It shares a low noise amplifier with a splitter, a shared combiner and a shared duplexer Relevant indicators are set to require more stringent indicators in the 2G and 3G indicators. For example: the suppression of the receiving frequency band by the transmit filter in the shared duplexer, the more stringent indicators required by the 2G and 3G base stations, the power capacity of the transmit filter, and the more stringent indicators required by the two base stations; The suppression of the transmit band by the shared receive filter in the duplexer is required to be more stringent in the 2G and 3G base stations; the receive gain of the shared low noise amplifier and splitter, the input channel input ldB compression point and the receive noise Coefficient, you can choose more strict indicators, or you can choose a wider indicator, which needs to be determined according to the design specifications of the 2G and 3G base station receiving links; the number of shunt output ports sharing the low noise amplifier and the splitter The isolation between the split ports meets the higher requirements of the 2G and 3G base stations; the isolation index between the input ports of the combiner meets the more stringent requirements of the 2G and 3G base stations; 2G and 3G share The RF front-end is designed to be installed either at a 2G base station or at a 3G base station.

Take the indicators in the GSM and WCDMA base stations as examples. The GSM/WCDMA shared RF front-end indicators set by the above principles are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: GSM, WCDMA RF front-end indicators and shared RF front-end indicators

GSM/WCDMA indicator name GSM base station front end WCDMA base station front end

Base station shared front end transmit channel

935 ~ 960MHz 935 ~ 960MHz 935 ~ 960MHz frequency range

Transmit insertion loss <1.0dB <l.ldB <l.ldB receive channel

890 ~ 915MHz 890 ~ 915MHz 890 ~ 915MHz frequency range

Receive gain 15 ~ 17dB 18 ~ 20dB 15 ~ 17dB Receive noise figure <2.0dB <1.5dB <2.0dB Receive channel input

>-4dBm >-6dBm >-4dBm into ldB compression point

Transmit channel to receive

>90dB >100dB >100dB band suppression

Receiving channel pair transmission

>90dB >100dB >100dB band suppression Receiving branch

4 2 4 number of ports

Receiving branch

>22dB >25dB >25dB Inter-port isolation

Launch combined

2 2 2 Number of input ports

Launch combined input

>40dB >50dB >50dB Inter-port isolation

Power capacity >100W >200W >200W The shared RF front-end set according to Table 1 can be used in the GSM base station or in the WCDMA base station or shared by the two base stations. Then, the external RF front-end structure is designed to be compatible with the two base stations, and the shared RF front-end can be finally shared between the two base stations. Structurally compatible requirements are also achievable. Because in the shared RF front-end, the duplexer and filter occupy most of the structure space, and the volume of the duplexer and filter is mainly determined by the volume and number of resonators constituting the duplexer and the filter. The structure and volume of the resonator in the same frequency band can be basically used in general, and the suppression index of the number of resonators is unified by the previous electrical performance setting. Therefore, the duplexer and filter occupying most of the volume in the structure can be set to a general structure. The rest is mainly active circuits, which are partly set to a common structure due to their high integration and small footprint. The shared RF front-end set up in the above table increases the flexibility of networking and reduces the cost of network upgrades. It should be noted that the radio frequency front end described in this embodiment may include: a duplexer, a transmit combiner, a receive low noise amplifier, a splitter, and an auxiliary detection control unit, such as a receive channel attenuation control, resident. The sharing of wave alarm detection and so on. However, in practical applications, the radio frequency front end may share a radio frequency transceiver, a power amplifier, and the like in addition to the above-disclosed devices.

Step S802: Send and receive at least one of base station carrier frequencies in at least two different systems by using a pre-selected shared radio frequency front end. In this embodiment, the 2G and 3G base stations use the common RF front-end to transmit and receive signals as an example. The signal transmission and reception process involves the problem of whether to combine the 2G and/or 3G signals:

If you do not combine 2G and / or 3G signals, you need to configure different 2G and 3G base stations. The antenna feeder system inputs the 2G and/or 3G transmission signals into different antenna feeders respectively. In this configuration, the 2G and/or 3G transmission signals are not combined in the same transmission channel, and the transmission signals in this manner are not combined. Road insertion loss, but the number of carrier frequencies is limited by the number of antenna feeder systems;

If the 2G and / or 3G signals are combined, it includes: broadband combining and filtering combining, and broadband combining means connecting two or more channels through a broadband combiner, such as a 3dB coupler. The 2G and/or 3G signals are combined and input into the same transmitting channel to transmit in the same transmitting channel. The bandwidths of the combined input port and the combined output port include the corresponding working frequency bands of the 2G and 3G carrier frequencies. In this way, the combined signal insertion loss is large; the filter combination means that two or more 2G and/or 3G signals are combined by a filter combiner, such as a common cavity combiner. And input the same transmitting channel, transmitting in the same transmitting channel, the center frequency of the combined input port can be adjusted, the bandwidth is narrower than the corresponding working frequency band of the corresponding 2G, 3G carrier frequency, but at least covers the bandwidth of one channel of 2G and 3G . The bandwidth of the combined output port contains the entire working frequency band of the corresponding 2G and 3G carrier frequencies. In this way, the transmit signal combined insertion loss is relatively small.

It should be noted that the 2G and 3G signal inputs can also be transmitted through different transmission channels and received through different receiving channels. The specific implementation process is similar to transmitting and receiving in the same transmission channel, and will not be described in detail herein.

In addition, if the duplexer transmit port and combiner of the RF front end are independent, then in the 2G base station, since the 2G carrier frequency may not support multi-carrier transmission, the multi-channel transmit signal may be first transmitted through the combiner. In the 3G base station, since the carrier frequency of the 3G supports multiple carriers, the combiner can be skipped and the multi-carrier transmit signal can be directly sent to the duplexer transmit port.

It can be seen that the embodiment of the present invention reduces the type and number of radio frequency front ends when the 2G and 3G base stations coexist, thereby reducing the cost of the base station; when the 2G base station is upgraded to the 3G base station, the original radio frequency front end can be retained without replacement. The cost of upgrading the 2G base station to the 3G base station is reduced; and the flexibility of the configuration when the 2G and 3G base stations are jointly set up is also improved.

The above disclosure is only a few specific embodiments of the present invention, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and any changes that can be considered by those skilled in the art should fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

Rights request

A base station, comprising: a shared radio frequency front end and at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies, wherein

2. The base station according to claim 1, wherein the carrier frequency of the at least two different systems comprises at least: a third generation mobile communication technology 3G base station carrier frequency and/or a second generation mobile communication technology 2G base station Frequency, where,

The carrier frequency of the 3G base station is used for transmitting and receiving a 3G signal with the shared radio frequency front end;

The 2G base station carrier frequency is used for transmitting and receiving 2G signals between the 2G base station and the shared RF front end.

3. The base station according to claim 2, wherein the shared radio frequency front end comprises: a shared low noise and split unit, a shared combining unit, and a shared signal transceiver duplex unit.

The shared signal transceiver duplex unit is configured to send and receive the 2G and/or 3G signals;

The shared low noise and splitting unit is connected to the shared signal transceiver duplex unit for performing low noise amplification and shunting on the 2G and/or 3G signals;

The shared combining unit is connected to the common signal transceiving duplex unit for combining the 2G and/or 3G signals.

The base station according to claim 3, wherein the common signal transceiving duplex unit comprises: a common receiving filtering subunit and a common transmitting filtering subunit,

The shared receiving filter subunit is configured to receive the 2G and/or 3G signals and perform interference filtering on the 2G and/or 3G signals;

The shared transmit filter sub-unit is configured to filter and filter at least one of the base station carrier frequencies of the at least two different systems and send the signal to the antenna.

5. A shared RF front end, characterized by: comprising: a shared low noise amplifier and a splitting unit, Transceiving duplex units with a combination unit and a shared signal,

The shared signal transceiver duplex unit is configured to perform transmission and reception processing on at least one of base station carrier frequencies of at least two different systems;

The shared low noise and splitting unit is connected to the shared signal transceiver duplex unit for performing low noise amplification and splitting on at least one of the base station carrier frequencies of the at least two different systems;

The shared combining unit is connected to the shared signal transceiver duplex unit for combining at least one of the base station carrier frequencies of the at least two different systems.

The shared radio frequency front end according to claim 5, wherein the common signal transceiving duplex unit comprises: a shared receiving filtering subunit and a common transmitting filtering subunit,

The shared receiving and filtering subunit is configured to receive at least one of base station carrier frequencies of at least two different systems, and perform interference filtering on at least one of the at least two different modes;

7. The shared radio frequency front end according to claim 5 or 6, wherein at least one of the at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies comprises: 2G and/or 3G signals.

8. A method for sharing a radio frequency front end, the method comprising:

At least one of at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies is transmitted and received using a pre-configured shared radio frequency front end.

The method for sharing a radio frequency front end according to claim 8, wherein a common radio frequency front end of at least two different types of base stations is preset.

10. A method of sharing a radio frequency front end according to claim 8 or 9, wherein at least one of the at least two different types of base station carrier frequencies comprises: 2G and/or 3G signals.

The method for sharing a radio frequency front end according to claim 10, wherein the transmitting and receiving the at least one of the base station carrier frequencies of the at least two different systems by using the preset common radio frequency front end further comprises:

Combine 2G and / or 3G signals, and

Split the 2G and / or 3G signals.

The method for sharing a radio frequency front end according to claim 11, wherein the combining the 2G and/or 3G signals comprises: a wideband combining and a filtering combining, The broadband combining method is to combine multiple 2G and/or 3G signals into one channel for transmission through a broadband combiner;

The filtering combination is to synthesize multiple channels of 2G and/or 3G signals for transmission through a filter combiner.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the splitting of the 2G and/or 3G signals comprises: a broadband splitting and a filtering splitting,

The wideband splitting branches the 2G and/or 3G signals through a wideband splitter; the splitting splits split the 2G and/or 3G signals through a shunt filter.

The method for sharing a radio frequency front end according to claim 10, wherein the transmitting and receiving the at least one of the base station carrier frequencies of the at least two different systems by using the preset shared radio frequency front end further comprises: The 2G and 3G signals are input to different transmit channels for transmission and are received through different receive channels.