CN104639216A - Electrically tilting antenna - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides an electronically adjustable antenna, which relates to the field of communication and solves the problem that the antenna design in the prior art is not perfect enough. The electronically adjustable antenna includes a phase shifting unit for adjusting a received signal according to a preset phase and sending it out, and At least one antenna array connected to the phase shifting unit, the antenna array is used to receive and transmit the signal sent by the phase shifting unit, and also includes: a signal splitting and combining unit connected to the base station and the phase shifting unit respectively , for separating one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and sending the two single-system signals to the phase shifting unit. The scheme of the present invention can not only support the base station equipment of the radio frequency unit shared by the two systems, but also realize the independent electrical regulation of the signals of the two systems.

Description

An electric adjustable antenna

technical field

The invention relates to the field of communications, in particular to an electrically adjustable antenna.

Background technique

There are four main technical implementation schemes for existing multi-system shared antennas:

Existing technical solution 1: As shown in Figure 1, the two base station systems A and B are connected to the dual-frequency antenna through the same antenna interface after being combined by an external combiner, and the wireless signals of the two systems pass through the same The antenna beam is emitted.

Existing technical solution 2: As shown in Figure 2, the two base station systems A and B are connected to the dual-frequency antenna through different interfaces of the same antenna, and the signals are not combined internally and externally. The radio signals are emitted through different antenna beams.

Existing technical solution three: As shown in Figure 3, two base station systems A and B are connected to the dual-frequency antenna through different interfaces of the same antenna, and the two signals are synthesized into one signal through the built-in combiner, and the two systems The wireless signals are transmitted through the same antenna beam.

Existing technical solution 4: As shown in Figure 4, the two base station systems A and B share a radio frequency unit and are connected to the dual-frequency antenna through the same antenna interface, and the wireless signals of the two systems are transmitted through the same antenna beam .

The shortcoming of above-mentioned four kinds of prior art schemes mainly contains following two:

1. It cannot adapt to the base station equipment of the two systems A and B sharing the radio frequency unit.

With the continuous development of communication technology and hardware manufacturing level, more and more communication systems can be implemented through the smooth upgrade of the previous generation of equipment. The investment cost can be greatly reduced, and the engineering quantity of equipment replacement can be greatly reduced, the cost of engineering transformation can be saved, and the cooperation needs of the owners can be greatly reduced, and the misunderstanding and obstruction of the owners caused by frequent engineering transformation can be avoided. For example, the implementation of the F-band of the current time-division long-term evolution system TD-LTE can be realized through the smooth upgrade of the existing time-division TD equipment. S can completely share the radio frequency unit (RRU) and FA dual-band antenna. In this way, the original base station basically does not need any modification, and the engineering amount is reduced to a minimum.

However, it can be seen from the above description of the four existing implementation methods that the first to third methods currently do not support the base station equipment of the two systems A and B sharing a radio frequency unit. Only the fourth method is supported.

2. It is impossible to realize the independent electric adjustment of the wireless signals of the two systems A and B.

The antenna is located at the forefront of the wireless communication system and plays a vital role in the quality of the entire wireless network. Different wireless communication systems use different frequency bands, and the propagation characteristics and penetration performance of radio wave signals vary greatly. Moreover, operators usually adopt different network construction strategies when constructing different wireless networks. Therefore, different wireless communication systems Systems, even base station systems on the same site, have different coverage targets and signal strength requirements. Therefore, different network parameters need to be set separately.

The beam downtilt of the antenna is an important parameter of the antenna, and the coverage of the mobile communication base station system can be adjusted by adjusting the beam downtilt of the antenna. With the continuous improvement of multi-network collaborative construction and refined network construction requirements, it is necessary to set different antenna beam downtilt angles for different wireless systems.

At present, in the first and fourth methods, only one signal is input to the antenna, and the existing technology cannot realize independent electric adjustment.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide an electronically adjustable antenna, which can not only support the base station equipment of the two systems sharing the radio frequency unit, but also realize the independent electrical adjustment of the signals of the two systems.

In order to solve the above-mentioned technical problems, an embodiment of the present invention provides an electrically adjustable antenna, including a phase-shifting unit used to adjust the received signal according to a preset phase and send it out, and at least one antenna array connected to the phase-shifting unit , the antenna array is used to receive and transmit the signal sent by the phase shifting unit, and also includes:

A signal splitting and combining unit connected to the base station and the phase shifting unit, configured to separate one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and send the two single-system signals to the phase shifting unit.

Among them, the above electric adjustable antenna also includes:

The remote control unit RCU connected to the phase shifting unit is used to drive the phase shifting unit to adjust the phase and control the value of the preset phase.

Wherein, the RCU includes:

a motor, used to drive the phase shifting unit for phase adjustment;

A controller connected to the motor is used to control the value of the preset phase.

Wherein, the antenna array includes at least one antenna array radiating element

Wherein, the signal splitting and combining unit includes:

A divider and combiner, configured to separate the one dual-system signal into two dual-system signals;

The two filters connected to the splitter-combiner are used to filter the two dual-system signals into the two single-system signals and send them to the phase shifting unit.

Wherein, the phase shifting unit includes two phase shifting subunits, at least two combiners respectively connected to the two phase shifting subunits, and a first splitter connected to the combiners in one-to-one correspondence , wherein the phase shifting sub-unit includes at least one phase shifter and a second splitter connected to the phase shifter in a one-to-one correspondence.

Wherein, the antenna array is also used to receive two single-system signals sent by the terminal, and send the signal sent by the terminal to the phase shifting unit;

The signal splitting and combining unit is also used to combine the two single-system signals sent by the phase-shifting unit into one dual-system signal and send it to the base station.

Wherein, the splitter-combiner is further configured to combine the two single-system signals into the one dual-system signal.

The beneficial effects of above-mentioned technical scheme of the present invention are as follows:

In the electronically adjustable antenna according to the embodiment of the present invention, the signal splitting and combining unit first separates one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and sends the two single-system signals to the phase-shifting unit, and then passes through the phase-shifting unit After being adjusted according to the preset phase, it is sent to at least one antenna array connected to the phase shifting unit, and finally the received signal is transmitted by the antenna array. It can not only support the base station equipment of the two systems sharing the radio frequency unit, but also realize the independent ESC of the signals of the two systems.

Description of drawings

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a prior art solution;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of the second prior art solution;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a third prior art solution;

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a fourth prior art solution;

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a base station system in the prior art;

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of the electric adjustable antenna of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a specific embodiment of the electric adjustable antenna of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a detailed structural diagram of a specific embodiment of the electric adjustable antenna of the present invention.

Detailed ways

In order to make the technical problems, technical solutions and advantages to be solved by the present invention clearer, the following will describe in detail with reference to the drawings and specific embodiments.

As shown in Figure 5, the base station system in the prior art is composed of a baseband unit and a radio frequency unit. The base station is connected to the antenna and receives and transmits mobile communication signals through the antenna. The downtilt of the antenna beam is an important parameter of the antenna. By adjusting the antenna The beam downtilt can adjust the coverage of the base station system. According to the different methods of antenna downtilt, the antennas connected to the base station can be divided into: mechanical downtilt antennas, preset electronic downtilt antennas and electronically adjustable antennas.

Embodiments of the present invention provide an electronically adjustable antenna, which can not only support the base station equipment of the two systems sharing a radio frequency unit, but also realize independent electrical adjustment of the signals of the two systems.

As shown in Fig. 6, the electrically adjustable antenna according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a phase-shifting unit for adjusting the received signal according to a preset phase before sending it out, and at least one antenna array connected to the phase-shifting unit, the The antenna array is used to receive and transmit the signal sent by the phase shifting unit, and also includes:

A signal splitting and combining unit connected to the base station and the phase shifting unit, configured to separate one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and send the two single-system signals to the phase shifting unit.

In the electronically adjustable antenna according to the embodiment of the present invention, the signal splitting and combining unit first separates one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and sends the two single-system signals to the phase-shifting unit, and then passes through the phase-shifting unit After being adjusted according to the preset phase, it is sent to at least one antenna array connected to the phase shifting unit, and finally the received signal is transmitted by the antenna array. It can not only support the base station equipment of the two systems sharing the radio frequency unit, but also realize the independent ESC of the signals of the two systems.

Among them, the electrically adjustable antenna in the embodiment of the present invention may also include:

The remote control unit RCU connected to the phase shifting unit is used to drive the phase shifting unit to adjust the phase and control the value of the preset phase.

At this time, the remote control of the phase shifting unit can be realized through the RCU, thereby realizing the adjustment of the downtilt of the antenna beam, which is easy to operate and convenient to implement.

Specifically, the RCU includes:

a motor, used to drive the phase shifting unit for phase adjustment;

A controller connected to the motor is used to control the value of the preset phase.

At this time, the phase shifting unit is driven by the motor to adjust the phase, and then the value of the preset phase is controlled by the controller to realize the adjustment of the downtilt of the antenna beam, which is easy to operate and convenient to implement.

Wherein, the antenna array includes at least one antenna array radiating unit.

At this time, the antenna array receives and transmits signals through the antenna array radiation unit.

A specific embodiment, as shown in Figure 7, the signal splitting and combining unit connected to the base station separates one dual system signal sent by the base station into two single system signals, and transmits the two single system signals to the phase shifting unit, The phase shifting unit adjusts the phases of the two single-system signals respectively and sends them to M antenna arrays, wherein each antenna array includes N antenna array radiation units. Further, the phase shifting can be realized through the RCU connected to the phase shifting unit. The remote control of the unit, specifically, the phase shifting unit is driven by the motor to adjust the phase, and then the value of the preset phase is controlled by the controller to realize the adjustment of the downtilt of the antenna beam. In this way, it supports the base station equipment of the two systems to share the radio frequency unit, and realizes the independent electric adjustment of the signals of the two systems.

In a specific embodiment of the present invention, the signal splitting and combining unit includes:

A divider and combiner, configured to separate the one dual-system signal into two dual-system signals;

The two filters connected to the splitter-combiner are used to filter the two dual-system signals into the two single-system signals and send them to the phase shifting unit.

At this time, through the functions of the splitter, combiner and two filters, one dual-system signal sent by the base station can be separated into two single-system signals, realizing independent ESC for the two system signals.

Wherein, the phase shifting unit includes two phase shifting subunits, at least two combiners respectively connected to the two phase shifting subunits, and a first splitter connected to the combiners in one-to-one correspondence , wherein the phase shift sub-unit includes at least one phase shifter and a second splitter connected to the phase shifter in a one-to-one correspondence.

At this time, the phases of the two single-system signals can be adjusted separately through the two phase-shifting sub-units, so as to realize the independent electric adjustment of the two system signals.

The specific embodiments of the present invention are illustrated as follows below.

As shown in Figure 8, the signal splitter-combiner unit is composed of splitter-combiner S1 and two filters F1, F2, and the phase-shift unit includes two phase-shift sub-units, five A combiner D and five first splitters S21 connected one-to-one with the combiner D, wherein each phase-shifting subunit includes four phase shifters P and one-to-one connection with the phase shifter P 4 second splitters S22, the antenna array is composed of 10 antenna array radiation units.

The base station sends a signal containing two systems A and B to the signal splitting and combining unit. Among them, system A is a time division synchronous code division multiple access system TD-SCDMA, which works in the 2010-2025 MHz frequency band, and system B is a time division long-term The evolved system TD-LTE works in the 1880-1920 MHz frequency band. The splitter S1 in the signal splitter unit first separates the received dual-system signal into two dual-system signals, and then passes through F1 and F2 to separate The two dual-system signals are filtered into two single-system signals and sent to the phase shifting unit, where F1 extracts the system A signal, and F2 extracts the system B signal. In the phase shifting unit, the system A signal and the system B signal pass through two The phase shifter P and the second splitter S22 in the phase shifting subunit function, each of which is divided into 5 sub-signals with a fixed phase difference, and then sent to the antenna array after the action of the combiner D and the first splitter S21, Emitted by the antenna array radiating elements in the antenna array. Among them, the two phase-shifting sub-units in the phase-shifting unit are independent of each other, and the preset phases of the phase shifter P in the two phase-shifting sub-units can be adjusted respectively through the RCU, so as to control the sub-signal of system A or B The phase difference reaching the radiating unit of the antenna array achieves the purpose of controlling the downtilt of the antenna beam, realizes the independent electric adjustment of the signals of the two systems, and supports the base station equipment of the two systems sharing the radio frequency unit.

Specifically, the motor in the RCU serves as a power drive device and can drive the phase shifter P in the phase shift unit to move through the transmission device, thereby realizing the adjustment of the downtilt of the antenna beam.

In a specific embodiment of the present invention, the antenna array is also used to receive two single-system signals sent by the terminal, and send the signal sent by the terminal to the phase shifting unit;

The signal splitting and combining unit is also used to combine the two single-system signals sent by the phase-shifting unit into one dual-system signal and send it to the base station.

At this time, the two single-system signals sent by the terminal can be combined into one dual-system signal by the signal splitting and combining unit and fed back to the base station, so that the base station can smoothly receive the information fed back by the terminal.

Specifically, the splitter-combiner is also used to combine the two single-system signals into the one dual-system signal.

It should be noted that the electronically adjustable antenna in the embodiment of the present invention performs signal separation on a dual-system signal sent by the base station, and the signal separation will perform power splitting and filtering on the signal, which will cause a certain loss to the signal. It is difficult to perform power compensation, so it has a certain impact on the coverage distance of mobile communication base stations.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the electronically adjustable antenna in the embodiment of the present invention is suitable for areas that require refined construction in urban areas and have high requirements for independent electrical regulation. In such areas, the distance between sites is usually relatively small, and the requirements for downlink power are not high. The loss will not affect the coverage much.

The electronically adjustable antenna in the embodiment of the present invention can adapt to the base station equipment that two systems share the radio frequency unit. For the network equipment that supports multiple systems through a smooth upgrade method, there is no need to make any modifications to the interface and connection mode between the radio frequency unit and the antenna. , which can effectively protect the effective use time of the existing network equipment, protect the investment cost of the operator, and can greatly reduce the engineering quantity of equipment replacement and save the cost of engineering transformation.

The electronically adjustable antenna in the embodiment of the present invention can not only support the base station equipment that the two systems share a radio frequency unit, but also realize independent electronically adjustable signals of the two systems.

The above description is a preferred embodiment of the present invention, it should be pointed out that for those of ordinary skill in the art, without departing from the principle of the present invention, some improvements and modifications can also be made, and these improvements and modifications can also be made. It should be regarded as the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims (8)

1. An electrically adjustable antenna, comprising a phase shifting unit used to adjust the received signal to a preset phase and send out, and at least one antenna array connected to the phase shifting unit, the antenna array is used for receiving and transmitting The signal sent by the phase shifting unit is characterized in that it also includes: A signal splitting and combining unit connected to the base station and the phase shifting unit, configured to separate one dual-system signal sent by the base station into two single-system signals, and send the two single-system signals to the phase shifting unit. 2. The electric adjustable antenna according to claim 1, further comprising: The remote control unit RCU connected to the phase shifting unit is used to drive the phase shifting unit to adjust the phase and control the value of the preset phase. 3. The electric adjustable antenna according to claim 2, wherein the RCU comprises: a motor, used to drive the phase shifting unit for phase adjustment; A controller connected to the motor is used to control the value of the preset phase. 4. The electrically adjustable antenna according to claim 1, wherein the antenna array comprises at least one antenna array radiating element. 5. The electronically adjustable antenna according to claim 1, wherein the signal splitting and combining unit comprises: A divider and combiner, configured to separate the one dual-system signal into two dual-system signals; The two filters connected to the splitter-combiner are used to filter the two dual-system signals into the two single-system signals and send them to the phase shifting unit. 6. The electrically adjustable antenna according to claim 1, wherein the phase-shifting unit comprises two phase-shifting subunits, at least two combiners connected to the two phase-shifting subunits, and The combiners are one-to-one connected to the first splitter, wherein the phase shift sub-unit includes at least one phase shifter and a second splitter connected to the phase shifter in one-to-one correspondence. 7. The electrically adjustable antenna according to claim 5, wherein the antenna array is also used to receive two single-system signals sent by the terminal, and send the signal sent by the terminal to the phase shifting unit; The signal splitting and combining unit is also used to combine the two single-system signals sent by the phase-shifting unit into one dual-system signal and send it to the base station. 8 . The electronically adjustable antenna according to claim 7 , wherein the splitter/combiner is also used to combine the two single-system signals into the one dual-system signal.