WO2021097638A1 - Array antenna control apparatus and method - Google Patents

Abstract

Embodiments of the preset application provide an array antenna control apparatus and method. The apparatus comprises: multiple beamforming units, respectively corresponding to multiple antennas in an antenna array; a controller, being used for determining, in the multiple antennas, at least one antenna required to be turned on, and generating an indication signal, the indication signal being used for indicating the at least one antenna and used for indicating beamforming parameters of the at least one antenna; a control circuit, being used for receiving the indicating signal, and in response to the indication signal, controlling one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna to be started and controlling the one or more beamforming units to operate at the beamforming parameters. According to the apparatus, the antenna in the antenna array can be controlled to be turned on to control power consumption, and the state of the antenna in operation can be quickly switched.

Description

Array antenna control device and method Technical field

The embodiments of the present application relate to communication technologies, and in particular, to an array antenna control device and method.

Background technique

A multi-antenna system refers to a system in which the sender or both the sender and receiver use multiple antennas for transmission or reception. Multi-antenna technology refers to the use of the spatial channel characteristics provided by the multi-antenna system, in different working scenarios, through appropriate transmission signal form and receiver design, to achieve better spatial channel utilization, thereby increasing system capacity or increasing transmission reliability . Multi-antenna technology can achieve a variety of different types of transmission gains without increasing the total transmission power.

The transceiver antenna will be connected to the radio frequency channel, which includes a variety of radio frequency devices, which makes the radio frequency channel consume a lot of energy. Even when no data is sent, maintaining the static power consumption of the radio frequency device in the radio frequency channel in a normal working state still requires a lot of power consumption overhead. In a multi-antenna system, due to the increase in the number of radio frequency channels, the power consumption caused by the radio frequency channels also increases correspondingly, thereby increasing the overall power consumption of the base station. Therefore, how to reduce the power consumption in the multi-antenna system as much as possible without affecting the quality of service is a problem to be solved urgently.

In the prior art, the work of part of the antennas can be turned off. Specifically, some antennas in the antenna array can be controlled to be turned on, so that the antennas that are not turned on are turned off to achieve power consumption control. With the development of application requirements, the number of antennas that are turned on can be adjusted in real time, that is, switched. However, when an antenna is switched from off to on, how to control the antenna to respond quickly and work in a proper working state becomes a problem. Especially for an antenna array with a large number of antennas, if multiple antennas need to be controlled in real time, such as frequently switching one or more antennas to be turned on in real time and adjusting the working status of these antennas, this problem is even more prominent.

Summary of the invention

The embodiments of the present application provide an array antenna control device and method, which are used to quickly switch the working state of the antenna under the premise of realizing power consumption control.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an array antenna control device. The device includes: multiple beamforming units corresponding to multiple antennas in the antenna array; and a controller for determining among the multiple antennas. At least one antenna that needs to be turned on and generates an indication signal, the indication signal is used to indicate the at least one antenna and the beamforming parameters used to indicate the at least one antenna; the control circuit is used to receive the indication signal, and respond to the indication The signal controls the one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and controls the one or more beamforming units to work on the beamforming parameters.

In the above device, on the one hand, the antennas in the antenna array can be controlled to be turned on, and the antennas that are not turned on are turned off to achieve power consumption control. On the other hand, the controller simultaneously instructs the antenna to be turned on and the beamforming parameters through the instruction signal, that is, simultaneously realizes the control of the beamforming and the antenna turn-on operation through the instruction signal, thereby quickly switching the state of the working antenna.

As a possible implementation manner, the above-mentioned indication signal includes an index, and the above-mentioned control circuit is further configured to obtain the beamforming parameters in the target codebook corresponding to the index and the one or more beamforming units. In this manner, the index included in the indicator signal is used to simultaneously indicate the antenna to be turned on and the beamforming parameters, which can save instruction overhead.

As a possible implementation manner, the above-mentioned indication signal includes an index and a control signal, and the above-mentioned control circuit is also used to obtain the beamforming parameters in the target codebook corresponding to the index and determine the above-mentioned one or more beams according to the control signal. Shaping unit. In this manner, the codebook is indicated by the index in the indication signal, and the number of antennas that need to be turned on is indicated by the control signal in the indication signal, which can reduce the complexity of the control circuit in parsing the indication signal.

As a possible implementation manner, each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units includes a phase shifter, and the beamforming parameters include a phase value of the phase shifter.

As a possible implementation manner, each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units further includes a gain unit, and the beamforming parameters further include a gain value of the gain unit.

As a possible implementation manner, the aforementioned control circuit and the aforementioned multiple beamforming units are located in a radio frequency device, and the aforementioned controller is located in a baseband processing unit.

As a possible implementation manner, the foregoing device further includes: the foregoing multiple antennas located in the foregoing radio frequency device.

As a possible implementation manner, the above-mentioned controller is further configured to determine a target transmission power, and determine the above-mentioned at least one antenna according to the target transmission power.

As a possible implementation manner, it further includes: a receiver, configured to receive instruction information from a network device; and the controller is specifically configured to determine the target transmit power according to the instruction information.

As a possible implementation manner, the controller is further configured to determine the target received power, and determine at least one antenna according to the target received power.

As a possible implementation manner, the foregoing device may be a transmitter or a receiver.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an array antenna control method. The method includes: determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among multiple antennas, and generating an indication signal, where the indication signal is used to indicate the above at least one antenna and In order to indicate the beamforming parameters of the at least one antenna, the multiple antennas respectively correspond to multiple beamforming units; according to the indication signal, one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna are controlled to turn on and control the One or more beamforming units work on the above beamforming parameters.

As a possible implementation manner, the indication signal includes an index; before generating the indication signal, the method further includes: acquiring the beamforming parameter and the one or more beamforming units in the target codebook corresponding to the index.

As a possible implementation, the indicator signal includes an index and a control signal; before the indicator signal is generated, the method further includes: acquiring the beamforming parameter in the target codebook corresponding to the index and determining the beamforming parameter according to the control signal. Said one or more beamforming units.

As a possible implementation manner, each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units includes a phase shifter, and the beamforming parameter includes a phase value of the phase shifter.

As a possible implementation manner, each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units further includes a gain unit, and the beamforming parameter further includes a gain value of the gain unit.

As a possible implementation manner, the foregoing determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas includes: determining a target transmission power; and determining the at least one antenna according to the foregoing target transmission power.

As a possible implementation manner, the foregoing determining the target transmit power includes: receiving instruction information from a network device; and determining the foregoing target transmit power according to the foregoing instruction information.

As a possible implementation manner, the foregoing determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas includes: determining a target received power; and determining the at least one antenna according to the foregoing target received power.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless access network device, and the wireless receiving network device includes the array antenna control device described in the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a terminal device, and the terminal device includes the array antenna control device described in the first aspect.

Description of the drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a mobile communication system applied in an embodiment of the present application;

Figure 2(a) and Figure 2(b) are examples of transmitters and receivers using analog beamforming;

Figure 3(a) and Figure 3(b) are examples of transmitters and receivers using digital beamforming;

Figure 4(a) and Figure 4(b) are examples of transmitters and receivers using fully connected hybrid beamforming;

Figures 5(a) and 5(b) are examples of transmitters and receivers using partially connected hybrid beamforming;

FIG. 6 is a module structure diagram of an array antenna control device provided by an embodiment of the application;

FIG. 7 is a module structure diagram of another array antenna control device provided by an embodiment of the application;

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of an array antenna control method provided by an embodiment of the application.

Detailed ways

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a mobile communication system applied in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 1, the mobile communication system may include a core network device 110, a wireless access network device 120, and at least one terminal device (the terminal device 130 and the terminal device 140 in FIG. 1). The terminal device is connected to the wireless access network device 120 in a wireless manner, and the wireless access network device 120 is connected to the core network device 110 in a wireless or wired manner. The core network device 110 and the radio access network device 120 can be separate and different physical devices, or the functions of the core network device 110 and the logical functions of the radio access network device 120 can be integrated on the same physical device. It is a physical device that integrates part of the functions of the core network device 110 and part of the wireless access network device 120. The terminal device can be a fixed location, or it can be movable. FIG. 1 is only a schematic diagram. The mobile communication system may also include other network devices, such as wireless relay devices and wireless backhaul devices, which are not shown in FIG. 1. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the number of core network equipment 110, radio access network equipment 120, and terminal equipment included in the mobile communication system.

The core network (CN) device 110 may be different devices in different mobile communication systems. For example, in a 3G mobile communication system, it can be a service support node (serving GPRS support node, SGSN) of general packet radio service technology (general packet radio service, GPRS) and/or a gateway support node (gateway GPRS support node, GGSN) of GPRS. ), it can be a mobility management entity (MME) and/or a serving gateway (S-GW) in a 4G mobile communication system, and it can be an access and mobility management function in a 5G mobile communication system ( access and mobility management function (AMF) network element, or session management function (session management function, SMF) network element or user plane function (UPF) network element.

The wireless access network device 120 is an access device that a terminal device connects to the mobile communication system in a wireless manner. It can be the global system for mobile communication (GSM) or code division multiple access. , CDMA) The base transceiver station (BTS) in the network, the node base station (NB) in the wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), and the long term evolution (long term evolution, Evolutional NB (eNB or eNodeB) in LTE, wireless controller in cloud radio access network (CRAN) scenarios, 5G mobile communication system, or new radio (NR) The base station in the communication system, or the base station in the future mobile communication system, the access node in the WiFi system, the access network equipment or the in-vehicle equipment in the future evolved PLMN network, etc., the embodiment of the present application relates to the wireless access network equipment 120 The specific technology and specific equipment form used are not limited. In the embodiments of this application, the terms 5G and NR may be equivalent.

Terminal equipment can also be called terminal (Terminal), user equipment (UE), mobile station (mobile station, MS), mobile terminal (mobile terminal, MT), access terminal, UE unit, UE station, mobile station , Remote station, remote terminal, mobile equipment, UE terminal, wireless communication equipment, UE agent or UE device, etc. Terminal devices can be mobile phones, tablets, computers with wireless transceiver functions, virtual reality (VR) terminal devices, augmented reality (AR) terminal devices, industrial control (industrial control) Wireless terminals in ), wireless terminals in unmanned driving (self-driving), wireless terminals in remote medical surgery, wireless terminals in smart grid (smart grid), wireless terminals in transportation safety (transportation safety) Terminals, wireless terminals in smart cities, wireless terminals in smart homes, cellular phones, cordless phones, session initiation protocol (SIP) phones, wireless local loops , WLL) station, personal digital assistant (PDA), handheld devices with wireless communication functions, computing devices or other processing devices connected to wireless modems, in-vehicle devices, wearable devices, terminals in the future 5G network or Terminals in the public land mobile network (PLMN) network that will evolve in the future.

The wireless access network device 120 and terminal devices can be deployed on land, including indoor or outdoor, handheld or vehicle-mounted; they can also be deployed on the water; they can also be deployed on aircraft, balloons, and satellites in the air. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the application scenarios of the wireless access network device 120 and the terminal device.

The embodiments of the present application may be applied to the wireless access network device 120 or terminal device of the mobile communication system shown in FIG. 1, and the wireless access network device or mobile terminal may support multi-antenna technology. The wireless access network device or terminal device includes a transmitter that transmits signals and a receiver that receives signals. The transmitter and receiver respectively include one or more antenna arrays. The wireless access network device or terminal device transmits and receives signals through beamforming. Beamforming refers to adjusting the excitation of each antenna element in the antenna array according to the channel characteristics to change the shape of the antenna beam pattern to a specified beam shape, so as to achieve the purpose of expanding coverage, improving system capacity, and reducing interference. Beamforming technologies may include analog beamforming, digital beamforming, and hybrid beamforming. Hybrid beamforming may include fully connected hybrid beamforming and partially connected hybrid beamforming.

Figures 2 to 5 are examples of transmitters and receivers using the above-mentioned various beamforming technologies. The transmitter and receiver respectively include a baseband processing unit and a radio frequency device. Among them, the radio frequency device may include an antenna array. The baseband processing unit is used for digital signal processing, and the antenna array is used for analog signal processing. It is worth noting that the antenna array described in the embodiments of the present application not only includes an antenna or an array antenna, but also includes a radio frequency component, and is a transceiver device related to an antenna in a broad sense. Based on different beamforming technologies, the components included in the baseband processing unit and the components included in the antenna array may be different. The following are respectively explained.

Figure 2(a) is an example diagram of a transmitter using analog beamforming. The control of the antenna array by the analog beamforming is achieved through the analog domain. As shown in Figure 2(a), in the transmitter, the baseband processing unit includes a baseband digital processor, and the baseband digital processor can generate digital signals. The antenna array includes a radio frequency transmission link (RF Tx Chain), a power splitter, multiple transmitting units, and multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple transmitting units one-to-one. The digital signal output by the baseband digital processor is processed by digital-to-analog conversion and up-conversion through the radio frequency transmission link. The obtained radio frequency signal is split by the power splitter, and the transmitting unit performs beamforming on each signal. The shaped signal is sent by the antenna connected to the transmitting unit.

Figure 2(b) is an example diagram of a receiver using analog beamforming. As shown in Figure 2(b), in the receiver, the antenna array includes multiple antennas, and multiple receiving units corresponding to the multiple antennas one-to-one. , Combiner and RF receiving link. The baseband processing unit includes a baseband digital processor. The receiving unit performs beamforming to select the required radio frequency signal from the signal received by the antenna. Multiple radio frequency signals are combined by the combiner, and the combined signal is down-converted and analog-to-digital converted by the radio frequency receiving link The digital signal is obtained by processing, and the digital signal is processed by the baseband digital processor for subsequent digital processing. In addition to performing up-conversion or down-conversion, the above radio frequency link may also include a signal amplification function, which is not limited in this embodiment.

Figure 3(a) is an example diagram of a transmitter using digital beamforming. The control of the antenna array by digital beamforming is implemented in the digital domain. As shown in Figure 3(a), in the transmitter, the baseband processing unit includes a baseband digital processor, multiple phase shifters (the icon with a circle and an oblique arrow after the baseband digital processor in the transmitter in Figure 3) and multiple phase shifters. The phase shifters correspond to multiple digital up converters (DUC) one by one. The antenna array includes multiple digital-analog converters (DAC), multiple radio frequency transmission links, multiple transmission units, and multiple antennas in one-to-one correspondence with multiple DUCs. The multi-channel digital signal output by the baseband digital processor is subjected to phase adjustment and up-conversion processing through multiple phase shifters and corresponding DUC, and the signal after multi-channel frequency conversion is digital-to-analog conversion by the DAC of the antenna array, and the result is obtained after multiple conversion The analog signal is further up-converted through the radio frequency transmission link to obtain multiple radio frequency signals, and each radio frequency signal is sent to the corresponding transmitting unit for beamforming, and the beamforming signal is sent by the antenna connected to the transmitting unit.

Figure 3(b) is an example diagram of a receiver using digital beamforming. As shown in Figure 3(b), in the receiver, the antenna array includes multiple antennas, and multiple receiving units corresponding to the multiple antennas one-to-one. , RF receiving link and analog-digital converter (analog digital converter, ADC). The baseband processing unit includes a number of digital down converters (digital down converters, DDC), phase shifters, and baseband digital processors that correspond one-to-one with the ADC. Each receiving unit performs beamforming to select the required radio frequency signal from the signal received by the antenna. Each radio frequency signal is down-converted by the corresponding radio frequency receiving link to obtain an analog signal, and the analog signal is converted to ADC for analog-to-digital conversion. The converted digital signal is further down-converted and phase adjusted by the DDC and the phase shifter to obtain the adjusted digital signal. The multi-channel digital signal is processed by the baseband digital processor for subsequent digital processing. In addition to performing up-conversion or down-conversion, the above radio frequency link may also include a signal amplification function, which is not limited in this embodiment.

Figure 4(a) is an example diagram of a transmitter using fully connected hybrid beamforming. As shown in Figure 4(a), the baseband processing unit includes a baseband processor, multiple phase shifters, and one-to-one with multiple phase shifters. Corresponding multiple DUC. The antenna array includes multiple DACs corresponding to multiple DUCs, radio frequency transmission links, and power splitters. Each power splitter is connected to multiple transmitting units. Multiple transmitting units in the antenna array are combined to one antenna through a combiner (the icon with a plus sign in the circle in Figure 4(a)), so that each radio frequency transmission link in the antenna array is connected to multiple antennas . The baseband processing unit of the transmitter is the same as the baseband processing unit of the transmitter in FIG. 3, and will not be repeated here. The DAC in the antenna array performs digital-to-analog conversion on the signal output by the DUC to obtain an analog signal. The analog signal is upconverted through the RF transmission link and split by the power splitter to reach multiple transmitting units. Each transmitting unit responds to the received radio frequency. The signal obtained after beamforming is combined with the corresponding beamforming result of another transmitting unit to obtain a combined signal, and the combined signal is sent by the antenna corresponding to the combiner.

Figure 4(b) is an example diagram of a receiver using fully connected hybrid beamforming. As shown in Figure 4(b), the baseband processing unit includes a baseband processor, multiple phase shifters, and one-to-one with multiple phase shifters. Corresponding multiple DDCs. The antenna array includes multiple ADCs, radio frequency receiving links, and combiners in one-to-one correspondence with multiple DDCs. Each combiner is connected to multiple receiving units. The antenna array also includes a plurality of antennas, and each antenna splits the signal received by the antenna to a plurality of receiving units through a splitter (the icon of D in the circle in Figure 4(b)). Each receiving unit performs beamforming to select the required radio frequency signal from the received split signals. After the multiple radio frequency signals are combined by the combiner, the signal to be processed is obtained, and the signal to be processed is down-converted through the radio frequency receiving link And through the ADC to perform analog-to-digital conversion to obtain a digital signal, the digital signal is sent to the baseband processing unit for processing. The baseband processing unit in the receiver is the same as the baseband processing unit of the receiver in FIG. 3, and will not be repeated here. For Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b), in addition to performing up-conversion or down-conversion, the uplink radio frequency link may also include a signal amplification function, which is not limited in this embodiment.

Figure 5(a) is an example diagram of a transmitter using partially connected hybrid beamforming. As shown in Figure 5(a), the baseband processing unit includes a baseband digital processor, multiple phase shifters, and a combination of multiple phase shifters. One corresponding multiple DUC. The antenna array includes a plurality of antenna sub-arrays, and each antenna sub-array includes a DAC, a radio frequency transmission link, a power divider, a plurality of transmitting units, and a plurality of antennas corresponding to the plurality of transmitting units one-to-one. The baseband processing unit of the transmitter is similar to the baseband processing unit of the transmitter in FIG. 3 described above. The difference is that multiple phase shifters and multiple DUCs in the baseband processing unit form multiple sets of devices, and each set of devices includes a phase shifter and a DUC connected in series. Each group of devices corresponds to an antenna sub-array, and the digital signal processed by the group of devices is output to the antenna sub-array. In each antenna sub-array, the DAC performs digital-to-analog conversion on the digital signal output by the DUC to obtain an analog signal. The analog signal is up-converted through the RF transmission link to obtain the RF signal, and the RF signal is split by the power splitter to reach the There are two transmitting units, and each transmitting unit performs beamforming on the received radio frequency signal and sends it out by the corresponding antenna. The signal processing of each antenna sub-array can be independently executed and controlled.

Figure 5(b) is an example diagram of a receiver using partially connected hybrid beamforming. As shown in Figure 5(b), the baseband processing unit includes a baseband digital processor, multiple phase shifters, and a combination of multiple phase shifters. One corresponding multiple DUC. The antenna array includes multiple antenna sub-arrays, and each antenna sub-array includes an ADC, a radio frequency receiving link, a combiner, multiple receiving units, and multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple receiving units one-to-one. The baseband processing unit in the receiver is similar to the baseband processing unit of the receiver in FIG. 3 described above. The difference is that multiple phase shifters and multiple DDCs in the baseband processing unit form multiple sets of devices, and each set of devices includes a DDC and a phase shifter connected in series. Each group of devices corresponds to an antenna sub-array, and receives the digital signal output by the antenna sub-array. In each antenna sub-array, the receiving unit performs beamforming to select the required radio frequency signal from the signal received by the antenna. The radio frequency signal is combined by the combiner to obtain a radio frequency signal, which passes through the radio frequency receiving chain The digital signal is obtained by down-conversion processing and analog-to-digital conversion by ADC, and the digital signal is sent to the baseband processing unit for further digital processing. The signal processing of each antenna sub-array can be independently executed and controlled. As far as FIG. 5(a) and FIG. 5(b) are concerned, in addition to performing up-conversion or down-conversion, the uplink radio frequency link may also include a signal amplification function, which is not limited in this embodiment.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned transmitters and receivers using various beamforming are only a few examples. In a wireless access network device or terminal device, the antenna of the transmitter and the antenna of the receiver may be independent of each other. It may also be combined into one, which is not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application. In addition, the transmitter and the receiver respectively indicate the beamforming parameters through a codebook (CodeBook). The codebook of the transmitter and the codebook of the receiver may be independent of each other or may be combined into one. There is no specific restriction on this.

The embodiments of the present application may be applied to transmitters and/or receivers that use any of the beamforming examples illustrated in FIG. 2, FIG. 3, FIG. 4, and FIG. 5. For ease of description, the following embodiments of the present application illustrate the technical solutions of the present application by taking a transmitter and a receiver using hybrid beamforming as an example.

Fig. 6 is a module structure diagram of an array antenna control device provided by an embodiment of the application. The device is applied to a transmitter. For example, the device may be a transmitter or may be a part of a transmitter. As shown in FIG. 6, the device includes: a plurality of beamforming units 601, a controller 602, and a control circuit 603. Wherein, each beamforming unit 601 is connected to the control circuit 603, and the control circuit 603 is connected to the controller 602. Optionally, the controller 602 may refer to the baseband digital processor described in the foregoing embodiment, or may also refer to a control device in the baseband digital processor. Therefore, the controller 602 is included in the baseband processing unit. Optionally, the beamforming unit 601 may refer to the transmitting unit mentioned in the previous embodiment. It should be understood that the term "connection" mentioned in this embodiment and other embodiments refers to a communication connection or an electrical connection in a broad sense.

Optionally, continue to refer to FIG. 6, in addition to the beamforming unit 601, the controller 602, and the control circuit 603, referring to FIG. 5(a), the above device may further include a phase shifter, DUC, DAC, and radio frequency transmission link. , Power splitter and multiple antennas, the specific function description can refer to the previous introduction. The above-mentioned multiple beamforming units 601 respectively correspond to multiple antennas in the antenna array.

Fig. 6 takes the partially connected hybrid beamforming as an example, which may include multiple antenna sub-arrays, each antenna sub-array includes multiple beam-forming units 601, and the beam-forming units 601 correspond to the antennas one-to-one. It should be understood that if the foregoing device uses other beamforming methods, the correspondence between the beamforming unit 601 and the antenna may also be one-to-many or many-to-many.

In addition, the number of the control circuit 603 may be one or multiple. Take the partially connected hybrid beamforming shown in FIG. 6 as an example. In an example, the number of control circuits 603 can be one (as shown in the example in FIG. 6), and this one control circuit 603 controls each beam in all antenna sub-arrays. Shaping unit 601. In another example, the number of control circuits 603 may be multiple (not shown in the figure), and each control circuit 603 controls each beamforming unit 601 in an antenna sub-array, or controls some of the antenna sub-arrays. Each beamforming unit 601.

Optionally, according to the foregoing division, the transmitter includes a baseband processing unit and a radio frequency device. Based on this, the multiple beamforming units 601 and the control circuit 603 may be located in the radio frequency device, and the radio frequency device may include or be equivalent to For the aforementioned antenna array, the aforementioned controller 602 may be located in the baseband processing unit. The phase shifter and DUC are also located in the baseband processing unit. In addition, continuing to refer to FIG. 6, the DAC, radio frequency transmission link, power splitter, and multiple antennas are also located in the radio frequency device.

In the above device, the controller 602 is used to determine at least one antenna to be turned on among the multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple beamforming units 601, and generate an indication signal, which is the working state parameter configuration state of the array antenna The index of is used to indicate the above-mentioned at least one antenna, and is used to indicate the beamforming parameter and antenna switch of the above-mentioned at least one antenna. In an optional manner, since multiple antenna sub-arrays can be independently controlled, if the transmitter includes multiple antenna sub-arrays as shown in FIG. 6, at least one antenna that needs to be turned on determined by the controller 602 may be Antennas in one antenna sub-array, or alternatively, antennas in different antenna sub-arrays. The process of the controller 602 determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple beamforming units 601 will be described in detail in the following embodiments.

In the above-mentioned device, the control circuit 603 is configured to receive the above-mentioned indication signal, and in response to the above-mentioned indication signal, control the one or more beamforming units 601 corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and control the one or more beamforming units 601 Works with the above beamforming parameters. It is worth noting that if, as illustrated in Figure 6, the antenna array includes a control circuit 603, the controller 602 sends an instruction signal to the control circuit 603, and the control circuit 603 controls one or more antennas. One or more beamforming units 601 in the array are turned on and the beamforming units 601 that are controlled to be turned on work at the beamforming parameters indicated by the controller. If the antenna array includes multiple control circuits 603, the controller 602 can send an instruction signal to each control circuit 603, and each control circuit 603 controls one or more beamforming units in one or more antenna sub-arrays 601 turns on and controls the turned on beamforming unit 601 to work with the beamforming parameters indicated by the controller. Optionally, each antenna sub-array includes a control circuit 603, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In the embodiment of the present application, the controller 602 determines that a certain antenna needs to be turned on. Specifically, it may mean that the beamforming unit 601 corresponding to the antenna needs to be turned on. When the beamforming unit 601 is turned on, it drives the corresponding antenna to work. After the above-mentioned instruction signal is sent by the controller 602 to the control circuit 603, the control circuit 603 sends an on instruction to the beamforming unit 601 corresponding to the antenna to be turned on according to the instruction signal to control the beamforming unit 601 to turn on. At the same time, the control circuit 603 indicates the beamforming parameters to the beamforming unit 601 that needs to be turned on according to the instruction signal. After the beamforming unit 601 is turned on, it performs beamforming according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the control circuit 603.

In an optional manner, the aforementioned beamforming parameters can be expressed by a codebook, and multiple codebooks can be stored or built in the control circuit 603. The controller 602 can carry the index of the codebook in the aforementioned indication signal, and the control circuit 603 After receiving the indication signal, the codebook can be obtained according to the index, and the turned-on beamforming unit 601 can be instructed to perform beamforming according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the codebook. The codebook may include multiple indicator bits or indicator codes indicating beamforming parameters, and the specific form of the codebook is not limited in this embodiment.

In this embodiment, on the one hand, the antennas in the antenna array can be controlled to be turned on, and the antennas that are not turned on are turned off to achieve power consumption control. On the other hand, the controller 602 simultaneously instructs the antenna to be turned on and the beamforming parameters through the instruction signal, that is, simultaneously realizes the control of the beamforming and the antenna turn-on operation through the instruction signal, thereby quickly switching the state of the working antenna, so that The antenna can quickly work with the beamforming parameters after being turned on. It can be understood that the controlled antenna, that is, the antenna that is instructed whether to turn on, may be all or part of the antennas in the array antenna. The antenna that needs to be turned on may be all or part of the antenna to be controlled, which is not limited in this embodiment. Optionally, the above-mentioned indication signal sent by the controller 602 may use any one of the following two optional methods.

In the first optional manner, the above-mentioned indication signal may include an index. The index corresponds to a target codebook, and at the same time, the index also corresponds to one or more beamforming units 601 that need to be turned on. The following uses an example to illustrate the above optional methods. The following Table 1 is an example of the correspondence between indexes, codebooks, and beamforming units 601 that need to be turned on. As shown in Table 1, each index corresponds to a codebook and beamforming unit control information. Assuming that the antenna array includes a total of 4 beamforming units 601, in the beamforming unit control information, 1 indicates that a corresponding beamforming unit 601 is turned on, and 0 indicates that the corresponding beamforming unit 601 is not turned on. In addition, in the beamforming unit control information, the rightmost bit corresponds to the first antenna in the antenna array, and so on.

Table 1

Taking the above index 0 as an example, index 0 corresponds to the codebook with index 0. After receiving the index, the control circuit 603 can obtain the beamforming parameters of the corresponding codebook according to the index, and at the same time, the beamforming corresponding to index 0 The unit control information is 1111, indicating that all 4 beamforming units 601 need to be turned on. After receiving the index, the control circuit 603 controls all 4 beamforming units 601 to turn on or off according to the index, and control the beamforming units 601 works according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the codebook. If the original working antenna is different from the current working antenna indicated by the above indicator signal, the above indicator signal can simultaneously implement the two operations of antenna on indicator and beamforming parameter indicator, which helps to achieve fast antenna switching.

Take the above index 3 as an example again. Index 3 corresponds to CookBook3. After the control circuit 603 receives the index, the CookBook3 parameters can be obtained according to the index. The beamforming unit control information corresponding to index 3 is 0011, which means that the first one needs to be turned on. And the second beamforming unit 601, after receiving the index, the control circuit 603 controls the first beamforming unit 601 and the second beamforming unit 601 to turn on according to the index, and controls the two beamforming units 601 Work according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the codebook.

In the second optional manner, the above-mentioned indication signal may include an index and a control signal. The index corresponds to a target codebook. The control signal is used to instruct the beamforming unit 601 that needs to be turned on. Although the index and control signal are not one signal in the indication signal provided in this optional way, they are carried in the indication signal and provided to the control circuit 603 at the same time, and the effect similar to the first alternative way can still be achieved, that is, at the same time. Realizing two operations, antenna opening indication and beamforming parameter indication, helps to realize fast antenna switching.

In this optional manner, the above-mentioned indication signal may specifically include two signals, one signal is used to send the above-mentioned index corresponding to one target codebook, and the other signal is the above-mentioned control signal. The following Table 2 is an example of this second alternative method. As shown in Table 2, each index corresponds to a codebook, and the control circuit 603 obtains the codebook based on the index. At the same time, the control circuit 603 controls the beamforming unit 601 to turn on or off based on the control signal.

Table 2

index	control signal	Remarks
0	1111	Turn on 4 beamforming units
1	1111	Turn on 4 beamforming units
2	0011	Turn on 2 beamforming units
3	0011	Turn on 2 beamforming units
4	0110	Turn on 2 beamforming units
5	1100	Turn on 2 beamforming units
6	0001	Turn on 1 beamforming unit

It should be understood that the controller 602 sends the index and the aforementioned control signal at the same time. Correspondingly, the control circuit 603 can receive the two signals at the same time. Furthermore, the control circuit 603 obtains a codebook corresponding to the index based on the index. At the same time, the control circuit 603 obtains the beamforming unit that needs to be turned on according to the above control signal, and controls the beamforming unit to work according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the codebook.

It should be understood that in the above embodiment, multiple codebooks are built into the control circuit 603, and the control circuit 603 includes the content information of the multiple codebooks, and can perform a search operation based on the index, so as to obtain one corresponding to the index. Codebook. It should be understood that the content information and search function logic of the above multiple codebooks can be built into the control circuit 603 in the form of digital or analog circuits, so that the control circuit 603 implements a hardware-based search operation. Optionally, in each of the aforementioned beamforming units 601, the internal circuit controlled by the controller 602 may have any of the following structures.

In the first optional manner, the beamforming unit 601 includes a phase shifter. The control circuit 603 turns on one or more beamforming units 601 according to the instruction signal. At the same time, the control circuit 603 controls the phase shifter of the beamforming unit 601 that is turned on to perform phase adjustment according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the instruction signal of the controller 602. Therefore, the beamforming parameters may specifically include the phase value of the phase shifter.

In the second optional manner, the beamforming unit 601 includes a phase shifter and a gain unit. The control circuit 603 turns on one or more beamforming units 601 according to the instruction signal. At the same time, the control circuit 603 controls the phase shifter of the enabled beamforming unit 601 to perform phase adjustment according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the indicator signal of the controller 602, and controls the gain unit of the enabled beamforming unit 601 to perform gain. Adjustment. Therefore, the beamforming parameters may include the phase value of the phase shifter and the gain value of the gain unit.

The following describes in detail the aforementioned process of the controller 602 determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on. The controller 602 needs to determine the number of antennas to be turned on and the specific antennas to be turned on. It should be understood that turning on the antenna refers to turning on the beamforming unit 601 corresponding to the antenna. For the transmitter, the transmitter gain needs to meet the channel loss requirement, and the channel loss requirement can be reflected by the transmitter's transmit power. Therefore, the transmitter gain needs to meet the transmit power. In the embodiments of the present application, the transmission power that needs to be satisfied by the transmitter gain is referred to as the target transmission power. Therefore, the controller 602 is also used to determine the target transmission power, and determine at least one antenna that needs to be turned on according to the target transmission power.

In an optional manner, assuming that the transmitter is located in the terminal device as an example, for the transmitter, the target transmission power may be indicated by the network device sending instruction information. Wherein, the aforementioned network device may refer to the aforementioned wireless access network device shown in FIG. 1. Optionally, the receiver in the terminal device may receive the indication information from the network device. In this way, the network device can directly indicate the target transmission power of the transmitter, or the network device can also indicate the correction value of the target transmission power, and the transmitter can perform the current transmission power according to the correction value and the current transmission power. Adjust to get the target transmit power.

In another optional manner, for the wireless access network device, the target transmission power can be determined according to the cell coverage radius of the wireless access network device, the location of the terminal device, and the like. Optionally, when the difference between the transmitter gain and the target transmission power is less than a first preset threshold, it can be considered that the transmitter gain meets the target transmission power. In the transmitter, the transmitter gain includes the transmitter radio frequency link gain and the transmitter array antenna gain. Taking the partially connected hybrid beamforming transmitter shown in FIG. 6 as an example, the transmitter RF link gain is mainly generated by the RF transmission link, and the transmitter array antenna gain is mainly generated by the beamforming unit 601 and the array antenna. The transmitter gain needs to meet the target transmission power (specifically, it may be within a certain error range of the target transmission power). Under the condition of satisfying the transmitter gain, first use the RF link gain other than the array antenna gain to meet the gain requirements, and try to reduce the array antenna gain of the array antenna. Therefore, the number of antennas that are turned on can be minimized. Under a certain fixed RF link gain (for example, when the RF link gain reaches the upper limit, that is, the signal amplification factor of the RF link is the largest), the transmitter gain can be determined by the number of antennas that are turned on. Therefore, the number of antennas that are turned on It has a specific corresponding relationship with the transmitter gain. Table 3 below is an example of the correspondence between the number of antennas turned on and the gain of the transmitter. As shown in Table 3 below, the number of antennas that are turned on corresponds to a transmitter gain.

table 3

Number of antennas turned on	Transmitter gain
1	G1
2	G2
4	G4
8	G8
16	G16
...	...

Optionally, the transmitter gain corresponding to each number of turned-on antennas is obtained in advance through a calibration method. An exemplary calibration method is: placing the calibrated transmitter in a microwave anechoic chamber, controlling the beam scanning of the antenna array through a scanning controller, and measuring the gain of the array antenna through a network analyzer. Specifically, the gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain) can be set first. As an example, the gain can be set to the maximum gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain); turn on a beamforming unit and measure the gain of the array antenna. Then turn on the two beamforming units, and measure the gain of the array antenna. By analogy, instruct to turn on all beamforming units and measure the array antenna gain. After the calibration is completed, the corresponding relationship between the number of turned-on antennas and the transmitter gain as shown in Table 3 above can be obtained. If the gain setting of the radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain) is not its maximum gain, and is different from the maximum gain by X dB, the transmitter gain obtained by calibration is added to X dB as the result. After the controller 602 determines the target transmit power, it can determine the number of antennas that need to be turned on according to the correspondence between the number of antennas that are turned on and the gain of the transmitter. Assuming that the correspondence between the number of antennas on the transmitter and the transmitter gain is the correspondence shown in Table 3 above, the controller 602 can first determine from Table 3 the transmitter gain whose difference with the target transmit power is less than the threshold. Furthermore, the number of antennas corresponding to the transmitter gain is selected as the number of antennas that need to be turned on.

Optionally, for the transmitter, a radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain) gain other than the array antenna gain can be used first to meet the transmitter gain requirements, so as to minimize the array antenna gain of the array antenna. After the gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain) is exhausted, according to the needs of the transmitter gain, the gain of the array antenna is increased to meet the needs of the transmitter gain. It is worth noting that the first use of the RF link (Rf Tx Chain) gain and minimize the array antenna gain is assuming that the power consumption of the RF link (Rf Tx Chain) under different gains has little difference, and the system power consumption mainly depends on In terms of the number of antenna elements. In this case, the more the gain of the RF link (Rf Tx Chain) is used, the less the gain of the array antenna is used, and the less system power consumption is, but whether the gain of the RF link (Rf Tx Chain) is used up first, and It is not a necessary condition for the application of the embodiments of this application. In addition, if the increase in power consumption caused by the increase in the gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Tx Chain) exceeds the power consumption caused by the increase in the gain of the array antenna, the gain of the array antenna can also be increased first.

After the controller 602 determines the number of antennas that need to be turned on, it can optionally be combined with the beam direction to determine the antennas that need to be turned on and the beamforming parameters. Optionally, if the antennas of the transmitter are all omnidirectional antennas, and the number of antennas that need to be turned on is 1, the controller 602 can randomly select an antenna from the antennas of the antenna array, and use the selected antenna as the antenna that needs to be turned on. , And determine the codebook according to the beam direction. If the number of antennas to be turned on is 1 and the transmitter’s antenna includes non-omnidirectional antennas, or if the number of antennas to be turned on is greater than 1, select the number of antennas to be turned on from the antennas of the antenna array according to the beam direction, And determine the codebook. After the controller 602 makes a decision, it instructs the control circuit 603 to start control through the indication signal mentioned in the foregoing embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a module structure diagram of another array antenna control device provided by an embodiment of the application. The device is applied to a receiver. For example, the device may be a receiver or may be a part of a receiver. As shown in FIG. 7, the device includes: multiple beamforming units 701, a controller 702, and a control circuit 703. Wherein, each beamforming unit 701 is connected to the control circuit 703, and the control circuit 703 is connected to the controller 702. Optionally, the controller 702 may refer to the baseband digital processor described in the foregoing embodiment, or may also refer to a device in the baseband digital processor. Therefore, the controller 702 is included in the baseband processing unit. Optionally, the beamforming unit 701 may refer to the receiving unit mentioned in the previous embodiment.

Optionally, referring to FIG. 7, in addition to the beamforming unit 701, the controller 702, and the control circuit 703, referring to FIG. 5(b), the above device may also include a phase shifter, DDC, ADC, radio frequency receiving link, Combiner and multiple antennas, the specific function description can refer to the previous introduction. The above-mentioned multiple beamforming units 701 respectively correspond to multiple antennas in the antenna array.

Fig. 7 takes the partially connected hybrid beamforming as an example, which may include multiple antenna sub-arrays, each antenna sub-array includes multiple beam-forming units 701, and the beam-forming units 701 correspond to the antennas one-to-one. It should be understood that if the foregoing device uses other beamforming methods, the correspondence between the beamforming unit 701 and the antenna may also be one-to-many or many-to-many.

In addition, the number of control circuits 703 may be one or multiple. Taking the partially connected hybrid beamforming shown in FIG. 7 as an example, in an example, the number of control circuits 703 can be one (as shown in the example in FIG. 7), and this one control circuit 703 controls each beam in all antenna sub-arrays. Shaping unit 701. In another example, the number of control circuits 703 can be multiple (not shown in the figure), and each control circuit 703 controls each beamforming unit 701 in an antenna sub-array, or controls some of the antenna sub-arrays. Each beamforming unit 601.

Optionally, according to the foregoing division, the receiver includes a baseband processing unit and a radio frequency device. Based on this, the multiple beamforming units 701 and the control circuit 703 may be located in the radio frequency device, and the radio frequency device may include or be equivalent to The antenna array mentioned earlier. The aforementioned controller 702 may be located in the baseband processing unit. The DDC and phase shifter are also located in the baseband processing unit. In addition, continuing to refer to FIG. 7, the ADC, the radio frequency receiving link, the combiner, and multiple antennas are also located in the radio frequency device.

In the above device, the controller 702 is located in the baseband processing unit, and is used to determine at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple beamforming units 701, and generate an indication signal, which is an array antenna The index of the working state parameter configuration state is used to indicate the above-mentioned at least one antenna and the beamforming parameter and antenna switch of the above-mentioned at least one antenna. In an optional manner, since multiple antenna sub-arrays can be independently controlled, if the receiver includes multiple antenna sub-arrays as shown in FIG. 7, at least one antenna that needs to be turned on determined by the controller 702 may be Antennas in one antenna sub-array, or alternatively, antennas in different antenna sub-arrays. The process of the controller 702 determining at least one antenna to be turned on among the multiple antennas corresponding to the multiple beamforming units 701 will be described in detail in the following embodiments.

In the above-mentioned device, the control circuit 703 is configured to receive the above-mentioned instruction signal, and in response to the above-mentioned instruction signal, control the one or more beamforming units 701 corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and control the one or more beamforming units 701 Works with the above beamforming parameters. It is worth noting that if the antenna array includes a control circuit 703 as illustrated in Figure 7, the controller 702 sends an instruction signal to the one control circuit 703, and the control circuit 703 controls one or more antennas. One or more beamforming units 701 in the array are turned on and the beamforming units 701 that are controlled to be turned on work at the beamforming parameters indicated by the controller. If the antenna array includes multiple control circuits 703, the controller 702 can send an instruction signal to each control circuit 703, and each control circuit 703 controls one or more beamforming units in one or more antenna sub-arrays The beamforming unit 701 that is turned on and controlled to be turned on in 701 works at the beamforming parameters indicated by the controller. Optionally, each antenna sub-array includes a control circuit 703, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In the embodiment of the present application, the controller 702 determines that a certain antenna needs to be turned on. Specifically, it may mean that the beamforming unit 701 corresponding to the antenna needs to be turned on. When the beamforming unit 701 is turned on, it drives the corresponding control antenna to work. After the above-mentioned instruction signal is sent by the controller 702 to the control circuit 703, the control circuit 703 sends an on instruction to the beamforming unit 701 corresponding to the antenna to be turned on according to the instruction signal to control the beamforming unit 701 to turn on. At the same time, the control circuit 703 indicates the beamforming parameters to the beamforming unit 701 that needs to be turned on according to the instruction signal. After the beamforming unit 701 is turned on, it performs beamforming according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the control circuit 703.

In an optional manner, the above-mentioned beamforming parameters may be expressed by a codebook. For details, refer to the description of the corresponding embodiment in FIG. 6, which will not be expanded here.

In this embodiment, on the one hand, the antennas in the antenna array can be controlled to be turned on, and other antennas that are not turned on are turned off, thereby achieving power consumption control. On the other hand, the controller 702 simultaneously instructs the antenna to be turned on and the beamforming parameters through the instruction signal, that is, simultaneously realizes the signal reception processing and the control of the antenna turn-on operation through the instruction signal, thereby quickly switching the state of the working antenna, so that The antenna quickly works with the beamforming parameters.

Optionally, the indication signal sent by the controller 702 may use any one of the two optional modes of the aforementioned transmitter, that is, the index is included in the indication signal, or the index and the control signal are included in the indication signal. For the specific processing process, please refer to the foregoing embodiment, except that the sending and receiving functions are changed, and the indication signal part remains unchanged, and will not be repeated here. Optionally, in each of the aforementioned beamforming units 701, the internal circuit controlled by the controller 702 may have any of the following structures.

In the first optional manner, the beamforming unit 701 includes a phase shifter. The control circuit 703 turns on one or more beamforming units 701 according to the instruction signal. At the same time, the control circuit 703 controls the phase shifter of the beamforming unit 701 that is turned on to perform phase adjustment according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the instruction signal of the controller 702. Therefore, the beamforming parameters may specifically include the phase value of the phase shifter.

In the second optional manner, the beamforming unit 701 includes a phase shifter and a gain unit. The control circuit 703 turns on one or more beamforming units 701 according to the instruction signal. At the same time, the control circuit 703 controls the phase shifter of the enabled beamforming unit 701 to perform phase adjustment according to the beamforming parameters indicated by the indicator signal of the controller 702, and controls the gain unit of the enabled beamforming unit 701 to perform gain. Adjustment. Therefore, the beamforming parameters may include the phase value of the phase shifter and the gain value of the gain unit.

The following describes in detail the aforementioned process of the controller 702 determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on. The controller 702 needs to determine the number of antennas to be turned on and the specific antennas to be turned on. It should be understood that turning on the antenna refers to turning on the beamforming unit 701 corresponding to the antenna. For the receiver, the receiver gain needs to meet the channel loss requirements, and the channel loss requirements can be reflected by the receiver's received power. Therefore, the receiver gain needs to meet the received power. In the embodiments of the present application, the received power that needs to be satisfied by the receiver gain is referred to as the target received power. Optionally, the target received power of the receiver may refer to a demodulation threshold when the radio access network device or terminal device performs signal demodulation, and the demodulation threshold limits the received power that can effectively demodulate the received signal. Optionally, the controller 702 is further configured to determine the target received power, and determine at least one antenna that needs to be turned on according to the target received power. Optionally, when the difference between the gain of the receiver and the target received power is less than the second preset threshold, it can be considered that the gain of the receiver meets the target received power.

In the receiver, the receiver gain includes the receiver radio frequency link gain and the receiver array antenna gain. Taking the partially connected hybrid beamforming receiver shown in FIG. 7 as an example, the receiver RF link gain is mainly generated by the RF receiving link, and the receiver array antenna gain is mainly generated by the beamforming unit 701 and the array antenna. The receiver gain needs to meet the target received power (specifically, it may be within a certain error range of the target received power). Under the condition of satisfying the receiver gain, first use the RF link gain other than the array antenna gain to meet the gain requirements, and minimize the array antenna gain of the array antenna. Therefore, the number of antennas that are turned on can be minimized. Under a certain fixed radio frequency link gain (for example, when the radio frequency link gain reaches the upper limit), the receiver gain can be determined by the number of turned-on antennas. Therefore, the number of turned-on antennas has a specific corresponding relationship with the receiver gain. Table 4 below is an example of the correspondence between the number of antennas that are turned on and the gain of the receiver. As shown in Table 4 below, the number of antennas that are turned on corresponds to a receiver gain.

Table 4

Number of antennas turned on	Receiver gain
1	M1
2	M 2
4	M 4
8	M 8
16	M 16
...	...

Optionally, the receiver gain corresponding to each number of antennas turned on is obtained in advance through a calibration method. The calibration method is the same as the calibration method in the aforementioned transmitter, and will not be repeated here. After the calibration is completed, the corresponding relationship between the number of turned-on antennas and the gain of the receiver as shown in Table 4 above can be obtained. If the gain setting of the radio frequency link (Rf Rx Chain) is not its maximum gain, and is X dB away from the maximum gain, the receiver gain obtained by calibration is added to X dB as the result.

After the controller 702 determines the target received power, it can determine the number of antennas that need to be turned on according to the correspondence between the number of antennas that are turned on and the gain of the receiver. Assuming that the corresponding relationship between the number of antennas turned on and the receiver gain of the receiver is the corresponding relationship shown in Table 4, the controller 702 can first determine from Table 4 the receiver gain whose difference with the target received power is less than the threshold. Furthermore, the number of antennas corresponding to the gain of the receiver is selected as the number of antennas that need to be turned on.

Optionally, for the receiver, a radio frequency link (Rf Rx Chain) gain other than the array antenna gain can be used first to meet the receiver gain requirement, so as to minimize the array antenna gain of the array antenna. After the gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Rx Chain) is exhausted, according to the requirements of the receiver gain, the gain of the array antenna is increased to meet the requirements of the receiver gain. It is worth noting that the first use of the RF link (RxChain) gain to minimize the array antenna gain is assuming that the power consumption of the RF link (RxChain) under different gains has little difference, and the system power consumption mainly depends on In terms of the number of antenna elements. In this case, the more the gain of the RF link (Rf Rx Chain) is used, the less the gain of the array antenna is used, and the less system power consumption is, but whether to use up the gain of the RF link (Rx Chain) first, and It is not a necessary condition for the application of the embodiments of this application. In addition, if the increase in power consumption caused by the increase in the gain of the radio frequency link (Rf Rx Chain) exceeds the power consumption caused by the increase in the gain of the array antenna, the gain of the array antenna can also be increased first.

After the controller 702 determines the number of antennas that need to be turned on, it can further determine the antennas that need to be turned on and the beamforming parameters. After the controller 702 makes a decision, it instructs the control circuit 703 to start control through the indication signal mentioned in the foregoing embodiment. The above scheme simultaneously realizes the two operations of antenna opening indication and beamforming parameter indication, which is helpful for realizing fast antenna switching. Especially for the scenario of an antenna array with a large number of antennas, if you need to control multiple antennas in real time, for example, you need to frequently switch multiple antennas that need to be turned on in real time and adjust the working status of these antennas. The above scheme can achieve a better switching effect and avoid The switching is delayed and the switching flexibility is strong.

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of an array antenna control method provided by an embodiment of the application. As shown in FIG. 8, the method includes:

S801. Determine at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas, and generate an indication signal, where the indication signal is used to indicate the at least one antenna and the beamforming parameters of the at least one antenna, and the multiple antennas respectively correspond to For multiple beamforming units.

S802. Control one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and control the one or more beamforming units to work on the beamforming parameters according to the above indication signal. For the specific execution process of the foregoing steps S801-S802, reference may be made to the foregoing apparatus embodiment, which will not be repeated here. For the process of the specific solution, reference may be made to the foregoing device embodiment, which will not be repeated here.

It can be understood that the above digital baseband processors may include but are not limited to at least one of the following: central processing unit (CPU), microprocessor, digital signal processor (DSP), microcontroller (microcontroller unit, MCU) , Or artificial intelligence processors and other computing devices that run software. The digital baseband processor implements digital signal processing, communication protocol processing or control functions by running necessary software, such as communication protocol software or driver software. The digital baseband processor may further include any of a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a PLD (programmable logic device), a logic circuit that implements dedicated logic operations, a hardware accelerator, or a non-integrated discrete device Or any combination. The software run by the digital baseband processor may include software instructions, and the software instructions are stored in the memory. The digital baseband processor generates the indication signals mentioned in the previous embodiments by running the software instructions, which will not be repeated here.

The above-mentioned memory includes, but is not limited to, volatile memory or non-volatile memory, or may include both volatile and non-volatile memory. Among them, the non-volatile memory can be read-only memory (ROM), programmable read-only memory (programmable ROM, PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (erasable PROM, EPROM), and electrically available Erase programmable read-only memory (electrically EPROM, EEPROM) or flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (RAM), which is used as an external cache. By way of exemplary but not restrictive description, many forms of random access memory (RAM) are available, such as static random access memory (static RAM, SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and synchronous dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Access memory (synchronous DRAM, SDRAM), high bandwidth memory (HBM), enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (enhanced SDRAM, ESDRAM), synchronous connection dynamic random access memory (synchlink DRAM, SLDRAM) and Direct RAM Bus RAM (DRRAM).

The above are only specific implementations of this application, but the protection scope of this application is not limited to this. Any person skilled in the art can easily think of changes or substitutions within the technical scope disclosed in this application. Should be covered within the scope of protection of this application. Therefore, the protection scope of this application should be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (18)

1. An array antenna control device, characterized in that it comprises:

   Multiple beamforming units, respectively corresponding to multiple antennas in the antenna array;

   The controller is configured to determine at least one antenna that needs to be turned on among the multiple antennas, and generate an indication signal, where the indication signal is used to indicate the at least one antenna and the beamforming of the at least one antenna parameter;

   The control circuit is configured to receive the indication signal, control the one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and control the one or more beamforming units to work in the Beamforming parameters.
2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the indication signal comprises an index; the control circuit is further configured to obtain the beamforming parameter and the one or the one in the target codebook corresponding to the index Multiple beamforming units.
3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the indication signal comprises an index and a control signal, and the control circuit is further used to obtain the beamforming parameter in the target codebook corresponding to the index and according to The control signal determines the one or more beamforming units.
4. The apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units includes a phase shifter, and the beamforming parameter includes the shifter. The phase value of the phaser.
5. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units further comprises a gain unit, and the beamforming parameter further comprises a gain value of the gain unit .
6. The device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the control circuit and the plurality of beamforming units are located in a radio frequency device, and the controller is located in a baseband processing unit.
7. The device according to claim 6, further comprising: the multiple antennas located in the radio frequency device.
8. The device according to any one of claims 1-7, wherein the controller is further configured to determine a target transmission power, and determine the at least one antenna according to the target transmission power.
9. The apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising: a receiver, configured to receive instruction information from a network device; and the controller is specifically configured to determine the target transmission power according to the instruction information.
10. The device according to any one of claims 1-7, wherein the controller is further configured to determine a target received power, and determine the at least one antenna according to the target received power.
11. An array antenna control method, characterized in that it comprises:

    At least one antenna that needs to be turned on is determined among multiple antennas, and an indication signal is generated, and the indication signal is used to indicate the at least one antenna and the beamforming parameters of the at least one antenna. Corresponding to multiple beamforming units respectively;

    According to the indication signal, control one or more beamforming units corresponding to the at least one antenna to turn on and control the one or more beamforming units to work on the beamforming parameters.
12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the indication signal comprises an index; before the generating the indication signal, the method further comprises:

    Acquiring the beamforming parameter and the one or more beamforming units in the target codebook corresponding to the index.
13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the indication signal comprises an index and a control signal; before the generating the indication signal, the method further comprises:

    Acquiring the beamforming parameters in the target codebook corresponding to the index and determining the one or more beamforming units according to the control signal.
14. The method according to any one of claims 11-13, wherein each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units includes a phase shifter, and the beamforming parameters include the shifter. The phase value of the phaser.
15. The method according to claim 14, wherein each beamforming unit in the one or more beamforming units further comprises a gain unit, and the beamforming parameter further comprises a gain value of the gain unit .
16. The method according to any one of claims 11-15, wherein the determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on from among the multiple antennas comprises:

    Determine the target transmit power;

    The at least one antenna is determined according to the target transmission power.
17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the determining the target transmission power comprises:

    Receive instruction information from network equipment;

    Determining the target transmit power according to the instruction information.
18. The method according to any one of claims 11-15, wherein the determining at least one antenna that needs to be turned on from among the multiple antennas comprises:

    Determine the target received power;

    The at least one antenna is determined according to the target received power.

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