Method for processing multi-antenna signal based on radio frequency single channel and receiver

Abstract

The invention provides a method for processing a multi-antenna signal based on a radio frequency single channel. The method comprises the following steps: receiving signals of a plurality of antennas; sequentially receiving and splicing the antenna signals according to a time sequence to form a first spliced signal; the length of the first spliced signal is consistent with the signal length of each antenna signal; performing signal processing on the first splicing signal to obtain a second splicing signal; and extracting baseband data of each antenna from the second spliced signal. According to the invention, the receiving mode of the signal is configured and controlled, and the simultaneous processing of the multi-antenna signal is realized at the cost of a very small amount of signal EVM (Error Vector Magnitude) loss under the condition of not changing the hardware structure of the existing radio frequency channel, so that the base band can receive the multi-antenna data at the same time for MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) receiving, and the receiving gain is improved at low cost.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the fields of wireless communication and satellite communication, and in particular to a method and a receiver for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single radio frequency channel. Background Art

[0002] At present, common satellite mobile communication terminals usually use single antenna 1T1R for transceiver, but mobile communication terminals in ground cellular networks, especially NR terminals, have generally supported 2T4R, which means that cellular mobile communication terminals can enjoy array gain and diversity gain due to multi-antenna reception technology when receiving downlink signals. Therefore, increasing the number of receiving antennas of satellite communication terminals to improve the processing gain of the receiver has an important role in improving receiving sensitivity, expanding the application range of terminals, and increasing data transmission rate.

[0003] For 1T1R satellite communication terminals, the receiving link of its Radio Frequency Front End (RFFE) is usually single-channel. In the case of multiple antennas, in order to simultaneously transmit the receiving signals of multiple antennas to the baseband processing, a common idea is to modify the receiving channel design of the RFFE or directly replace the multi-channel RFFE. The former means that the hardware design needs to be changed, while the latter means increasing the cost of the receiver. Summary of the invention

[0004] The embodiments of the present application provide a method and a receiver for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel, which can realize simultaneous processing of reception signals of multiple antennas without changing the single RF channel.

[0005] Other features and advantages of the present application will become apparent from the following detailed description, or may be learned in part by the practice of the present application.

[0006] According to a first aspect of an embodiment of the present application, a method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel is provided, including: receiving signals from multiple antennas; receiving and splicing each antenna signal in chronological order to form a first spliced ​​signal; the length of the first spliced ​​signal is consistent with the length of each antenna signal; performing signal processing on the first spliced ​​signal to obtain a second spliced ​​signal; and extracting baseband data of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal.

[0007] In one embodiment of the present application, the receiving and splicing of the antenna signals in sequence in time to form a first spliced ​​signal specifically includes: selecting corresponding time domain signal slices from the signals of each antenna in sequence in a cyclic manner in time; and splicing the time domain signal slices in time sequence to form a first spliced ​​signal.

[0008] In one embodiment of the present application, a time domain signal slice is selected from the received signal of each antenna with the same time length each time.

[0009] In one embodiment of the present application, before signal processing is performed on each time domain signal slice of each antenna, the initial state of the filter-related register is reset.

[0010] In one embodiment of the present application, extracting the baseband data of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal specifically includes: extracting the time domain signal slices of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal respectively; splicing the time domain signal slices belonging to the same antenna end to end in chronological order to obtain the baseband data of each antenna.

[0011] In one embodiment of the present application, the number of received antenna signals is constrained by the sampling rate of the baseband data.

[0012] According to a second aspect of an embodiment of the present application, a receiver is provided, comprising: N antennas, each receiving a wireless signal in the air; a single-channel RF front end, acquiring signals received by the N antennas, and sequentially splicing the antenna signals in chronological order to form a first spliced ​​signal; the length of the first spliced ​​signal is consistent with the length of each antenna signal; signal processing is performed on the first spliced ​​signal to obtain a second spliced ​​signal, and then baseband data of each antenna is sequentially taken out from the second spliced ​​signal; and a baseband unit, used to filter and sample the baseband data of each antenna.

[0013] In another embodiment of the present application, the single-channel RF front end includes: a first switching unit, which switches in turn at the ports of N antennas according to a preset time length to obtain time domain signal slices of the received signals of each antenna, and inputs them into the RF channel in sequence; the RF channel is used to complete signal processing; and a second switching unit, which is used to extract the time domain signal slices of each antenna from the signal output by the RF channel according to the switching order of the first switching unit, and splice them in sequence to obtain the baseband data of each antenna and then output them.

[0014] In another embodiment of the present application, the radio frequency channel includes: an analog front end for mixing, filtering and gain adjustment of a signal output by the first switch unit; an ADC unit for performing analog-to-digital conversion on an output signal of the analog front end;

[0015] The IQ demodulation unit is used to perform IQ quadrature demodulation on the signal after analog-to-digital conversion; and the radio frequency digital front end is used to perform digital down-conversion and IQ correction processing on the signal after IQ quadrature demodulation.

[0016] In another embodiment of the present application, the baseband unit includes: a third switching unit, used to input the baseband data of each antenna into the baseband digital front end respectively; and a baseband digital front end, used to filter and sample the baseband data to obtain the baseband signal of each antenna with the sampling rate required for baseband MIMO demodulation.

[0017] In another embodiment of the present application, in the RF digital front end, before signal processing is performed on each time domain signal slice of each antenna, the initial state of the filter related register is reset.

[0018] According to a third aspect of an embodiment of the present application, a receiving system is provided, comprising a memory, a processor, and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the steps of the method described in the first aspect when executing the program.

[0019] According to a fourth aspect of an embodiment of the present application, a computer storage medium is provided, storing computer executable instructions, wherein the computer executable instructions are used to execute the method described in the first aspect.

[0020] It should be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the present application. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0021] The drawings herein are incorporated into the specification and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the present application, and together with the specification are used to explain the principles of the present application. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present application, and for ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative work.

[0022] Figure 1 This is a flow chart of a method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to an embodiment of the present application.

[0023] Figure 2 This is an illustration of signal processing based on a single RF channel to process multi-antenna signals in an embodiment of the present application.

[0024] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of the receiver composition of an embodiment of the present application.

[0025] Figure 4 It is a schematic diagram of simultaneously processing signals received by two antennas based on a single channel according to an embodiment of the present application.

[0026] Figure 5 A schematic diagram of a receiving system according to an embodiment of the present application.

[0027] Figure 6A schematic diagram of the structure of a computer system suitable for implementing the embodiments of the present application.

[0028] Reference numerals:

[0029] 500-receiver, 510-antenna, 520-single-channel RF front end, 530-baseband unit, 521-first switch unit, 522-RF channel, 523-second switch unit, 531-third switch unit, 532-baseband digital front end, 533-root cosine shaping filter unit, 5221-analog front end, 5222-analog-to-digital conversion unit, 5223-IQ demodulation unit, 5224-RF digital front end;

[0030] 600-receiving system, 601-memory, 602-processor;

[0031] 700-computer system, 701-CPU, 702-ROM, 703-RAM, 704-bus, 705-I / O interface, 706-input part, 707-output part, 708-storage part, 709-communication part, 710-drive, 711-removable medium. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] To make the purpose, technical scheme and advantages of the present invention clearer, the technical scheme in the embodiment of the present application will be clearly and completely described below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiment of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiment is only a part of the embodiment of the present application, rather than all the embodiments. Based on the embodiments in the present application, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in the field without making creative work are within the scope of protection of the present application. In the absence of conflict, the embodiments in the present application and the features in the embodiments can be combined with each other arbitrarily. In addition, although the logical order is shown in the flow chart, in some cases, the steps shown or described can be performed in an order different from that here.

[0033] The terms "first" and "second" in the specification and claims of this application and the above-mentioned drawings are used to distinguish different objects, rather than to describe a specific order. In addition, the term "comprising" and any variation thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive protection. For example, a process, method, system, product or device comprising a series of steps or units is not limited to the listed steps or units, but optionally includes steps or units that are not listed, or optionally includes other steps or units inherent to these processes, methods, products or devices.

[0034] How to simultaneously process the received signals of multiple antennas based on the single-channel receiving link of the RF front end is still a technical problem to be solved. One current solution is to use a specially designed constellation mapping method to realize the simultaneous transmission of two streams of signals through one RF channel, which is fundamentally different from the simultaneous reception of wireless signals from multiple antennas through one RF channel. Another solution is to use a RF channel to receive the wireless signal of each directional antenna in turn in time to achieve radio direction finding. Within a period of time, the receiver can only receive and process the signal of a single antenna, and cannot simultaneously receive and process the signals that arrive at multiple antennas at the same time, nor can it use multi-antenna data for MIMO demodulation, which does not meet the real-time requirements of simultaneous reception of multiple antennas. It can be seen that although the existing implementation schemes mention the transmission and reception of single-channel and multi-antenna signals, they do not meet the processing requirements of simultaneously receiving multi-antenna signals through only a single channel without changing the terminal RF single channel.

[0035] Based on this, the embodiment of the present application provides a method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel. Without changing the existing single-channel hardware structure of the RF front end, by configuring and controlling the RF receiving link, the simultaneous reception and processing of multi-antenna signals is achieved at the cost of a very small amount of signal EVM loss, so that the baseband can simultaneously receive multi-antenna data for MIMO demodulation, thereby improving the receiving gain. Please refer to Figure 1 , the specific plan is as follows:

[0036] S100: Receive signals from multiple antennas.

[0037] It should be noted that the embodiments of the present application are mainly applied to multi-antenna, single-channel scenarios, so the single RF channel will receive signals from multiple antennas at the same time.

[0038] S200 , receiving and splicing antenna signals in sequence in time order to form a first spliced ​​signal; the length of the first spliced ​​signal is consistent with the length of each antenna signal.

[0039] In a communication terminal with only a single channel, the RF front end can only select the signal of one antenna for reception and processing at a time. Obviously, this processing method does not meet the real-time requirements of simultaneous reception and processing of multiple antennas. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present application, a new method is adopted to receive the signals of each antenna to form a first spliced ​​signal; the first spliced ​​signal contains the information of all antenna signals, and the length of the spliced ​​signal is the same as the length of each antenna signal. At this time, the RF front end only needs to process the first spliced ​​signal.

[0040] Specifically, at the entrance of the channel, a time domain signal slice at the corresponding moment is selected from the signal of each antenna in chronological order, and is spliced ​​in sequence to form a signal segment, and the time domain signal slice selection and splicing process of each antenna is repeated to obtain multiple signal segments, and then all the obtained signal segments are spliced ​​in chronological order to form a first spliced ​​signal. It should be noted that the time length of each time domain signal slice is the same. It should be supplemented that when receiving the signal, each antenna receives a signal of a certain length, but at a certain moment only the time domain signal slice of one of the antenna signals is selected, and the signals of other antennas at the current moment are discarded. The antenna signal works at a high sampling rate when entering the channel through the receiving system, and the discarded part of the signal does not affect the information loss of the signal. This embodiment actually completes the initial downsampling and channel multiplexing of each antenna signal through accurate time domain signal slice selection and processing, and splices the time domain signal slices of the downsampled signal in sequence, which can ensure the effectiveness and real-time performance of multi-antenna data processing.

[0041] In one embodiment of the present application, the signal of each antenna can be sliced ​​by a one-to-many switch. The one-to-many switch is set at the entrance of the channel, and the multiple input ends of the one-to-many switch are respectively coupled to the ports of each antenna, and the output end is coupled to the channel. By configuring the system or platform and controlling the switching frequency and switching order of the one-to-many switch, time-sharing slicing of the signals received by each antenna can be achieved, forming time domain signal slices for each antenna at different times. The switching frequency of the switch represents the time length of the time domain signal slice. The one-to-many switch is used to switch at high speed in turn at the ports of multiple antennas, so that multiple time domain signal slices of the signal received by each antenna can enter the channel in sequence in a very short time. Please refer to Figure 2 , assuming there are L antennas receiving signals, x l (t)(l=1,2,…,L,t∈[0,T0), T0 represents the signal time length), under the switching control of one-to-many switches, each time with the same time length T seg Select the time domain signal slice of the signal, and each of the L antennas selects a time domain signal slice to form a group with a total length of L·T seg The signal segment of T0 length is divided into segment, M seg The first spliced ​​signal u(t) is obtained by sequentially splicing the segment signals, t∈[0,T IN ),T IN =M seg LT seg :

[0042]

[0043] At this time, the first spliced ​​signal is input into the radio frequency channel, and the first spliced ​​signal u(t) can be directly processed subsequently to achieve simultaneous processing of signals received by multiple antennas.

[0044] S300: Process the first spliced ​​signal to obtain a second spliced ​​signal.

[0045] Since the present application does not modify the existing single-channel hardware structure of the RF front end, the conventional signal processing process is performed in the channel, including: first, the first spliced ​​signal is mixed, filtered, and gain adjusted in sequence, then ADC analog-to-digital conversion and IQ orthogonal demodulation are performed, and finally, the converted digital signal is digitally down-converted and IQ corrected, etc. Among them, digital down-conversion includes mixing, filtering, and down-sampling.

[0046] Please continue to refer to Figure 2 At this time, the first spliced ​​signal u(t) of multi-antenna time division multiplexing obtained by S200 enters the RF channel and is processed by correlation to obtain a digital signal w[m] (m=0,1,…,N w -1). In a signal processing process of this application, let the sampling rate of ADC be After the ADC is sampled, the data signal is downsampled by D1 times by digital down-conversion. Then the sampling rate of the signal w[m] is And the number of sampling points at this time It should be noted here that The selection of D1 needs to satisfy, and The constraint is an integer, so that the time length T of each signal time domain signal slice after downsampling processing seg It contains at least one complete data sampling point.

[0047] Since the RF channel processes the first spliced ​​signal, and the first spliced ​​signal is formed by splicing time domain signal slices of multiple antennas, there may be inter-code crosstalk. Therefore, in one embodiment of the present application, during the processing of digital down-conversion, it is possible to choose whether to reset the initial state of the filter-related register before processing each time domain signal slice of each antenna according to the degradation of the output signal EVM (error vector amplitude). After the reset, the signal correlation between the time domain signal slices will be cut off at the cost of a small deterioration in the signal quality of the first and last signal slices of each time domain signal slice, so as to avoid the inter-code crosstalk caused thereby.

[0048] S400: Extract baseband data of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal.

[0049] Since the RF channel performs signal processing on the first spliced ​​signal, the second spliced ​​signal obtained after signal processing is still a digital signal spliced ​​from multiple antenna signals, and the subsequent baseband cannot determine the corresponding antenna. Therefore, in an embodiment of the present application, at the exit of the RF channel, the second splicing needs to be demultiplexed to restore the baseband data of each antenna.

[0050] Specifically, at the channel exit, the time domain signal slices of each antenna are respectively taken out from the second spliced ​​signal; and then the time domain signal slices belonging to the same antenna are spliced ​​head to tail in chronological order to obtain complete baseband data of each antenna.

[0051] Similarly, in one embodiment of the present application, a one-to-many switch can be used to select time domain signal slices of the second spliced ​​signal at the channel processing port to restore the complete baseband data of each antenna. The input end of the one-to-many switch is coupled to the output end of the RF channel, and multiple output ends are respectively coupled to the baseband to output the baseband data of the corresponding antennas. The system or platform is configured by the switching sequence and switching time of the one-to-many switch at the entrance, the switching frequency and switching sequence of the one-to-many switch at the exit are controlled, and the time domain signal slices of each antenna signal are taken out from the second spliced ​​signal, and the baseband data of each antenna is output through different output ends of the switch.

[0052] In an embodiment of the present application, after obtaining the baseband data of each antenna, the baseband data of each antenna is further filtered and sampled, and the signal rate is adjusted to the rate required for demodulation while improving the signal quality, and finally the baseband data of multiple antennas is obtained for MIMO demodulation.

[0053] Please continue to refer to Figure 2 Continuing with the second spliced ​​signal w[m] obtained by signal processing in step S300, according to the switching configuration of the one-to-many switch at the channel entrance, including the antenna number l, the time domain signal slice length T seg And the total number of segments M seg , take out the M signals of L antennas from the second spliced ​​signal m[m] in turn seg The signal segments are sequentially spliced ​​together to obtain the baseband data v of each antenna. l [j](j=0,1,…,N v -1), complete demultiplexing. The demultiplexing process can be expressed as:

[0054]

[0055] In the formula, It indicates the number of sampling points of a signal segment formed by splicing a time domain signal slice in the signals of L antennas at the first position before signal demultiplexing. In the demultiplexing process, it is necessary to seg The segment length is The data belonging to the lth antenna is sequentially taken out from the signal segment As the jth data v of the lth antenna l [j].

[0056] It should be noted that when w[m] is demultiplexed to v l In the process of [j], the baseband data of each antenna is downsampled by L times. Therefore, after demultiplexing, the baseband data v of each antenna is l The sampling rate of [j] actually becomes Correspondingly, the number of baseband data points for each antenna is

[0057] Finally, the baseband signal v of the L antennas l [j] After digital filtering and D2-fold sampling processing, it is finally converted to the sampling rate required for baseband MIMO demodulation. The baseband signal y of the L antenna l [k](k=0,1,…,N y -1,l=1,2,…,L), where

[0058] In general, the received signal x of L antennas is l (t) After passing through ADC with F s ADC After rate sampling, it undergoes D1-fold downsampling of the RF single channel, L-fold downsampling achieved by the multiplexing and demultiplexing process, and D2-fold downsampling by the baseband. The entire process of multiplexing the RF single channel with multiple antenna signals works at a high sampling rate. Therefore, as long as the final baseband signal v l Sampling rate of [j] If the Nyquist sampling theorem is satisfied, the process of multiplexing multiple antenna signals into a single RF channel will not introduce inter-signal interference and processing loss.

[0059] For the number of antennas processed simultaneously, L, the preferred value in the embodiment of the present application is L=2 or L=4. However, in a wider range of application scenarios, the value of L is determined by the sampling rate of the receiving system. The downsampling factor D1 of the RF channel, the downsampling factor D2 of the baseband processing, and the baseband signal v l The bandwidth B of [j] l Common constraints, the constraints are also Nyquis sampling theorem:

[0060]

[0061] Further expansion yields:

[0062]

[0063] Through the method of processing multiple antenna signals based on a single RF channel proposed in the embodiment of the present application, without changing the RF hardware channel structure, simultaneous mixing, downsampling, filtering and other processing of signals received by multiple antennas can be achieved only through the configuration and control of the signal processing process.

[0064] In another embodiment of the present application, a receiver 500 is also proposed. Figure 3 The receiver 500 includes L antennas 510, a single-channel RF front end 520 and a baseband unit 530 (BaseBand, BB). In the receiver 500, by configuring and controlling the receiving signal mode of the single-channel RF front end 520, simultaneous mixing, down-sampling, filtering and other processing of the signals received by multiple antennas 510 can be achieved.

[0065] In the embodiment of the present application, L antennas 510 receive wireless signals in the air respectively and send them to the single-channel RF front end 520 at the same time. The number of antennas that can be supported is determined by the input and output sampling rate of the RF channel 522 and the loss degree of the received signal EVM, and can be adjusted according to needs in actual applications.

[0066] In an embodiment of the present application, the single-channel RF front end 520 is mainly used to sequentially splice the signals received by each antenna 510 in chronological order to form a first spliced ​​signal, the length of which is consistent with the length of each antenna signal; and to perform signal processing on the first spliced ​​signal to obtain a second spliced ​​signal, and then sequentially extract the baseband data of each antenna 510 from the second spliced ​​signal.

[0067] It should be noted that the internal structure design of the single-channel RF front end 520 of the receiver 500 has not been changed. By designing the control method of the switch unit at the channel entrance and exit, the slicing and splicing processing of the received signals of each antenna 510 is realized to solve the problem that the single-channel RF front end 520 can only select the signal of one antenna for receiving and processing. Compared with the traditional solution of modifying the internal receiving channel design of the RF front end or directly replacing the multi-channel RF front end, the receiver 500 proposed in the embodiment of the present application can significantly reduce the cost and meet the real-time requirements of simultaneous reception and processing of multiple antennas.

[0068] In the embodiment of the present application, the single-channel RF front end 520 includes a first switch unit 521 , a RF channel 522 , and a second switch unit 523 .

[0069] Among them, the first switch unit 521 is mainly used to time-slice and splice the signals received by each antenna 510. The first switch unit 521 is coupled to the ports of each antenna 510 and the RF channel 522 respectively, and switches at high speed at the ports of each antenna 510 in turn according to the preset time length, so as to obtain the time domain signal slices of the signal received by each antenna, and input them into the RF channel 522 in sequence, so that in a very short time, multiple time domain signal slices of the signal received by each antenna can enter the RF channel 522 in sequence. At this time, what the RF channel 522 receives is the first spliced ​​signal formed by splicing the time domain signal slices of each antenna. The preset time length is the length of each time domain signal slice. It should be noted that when slicing, each time domain signal slice of each antenna should have the same time length. In an embodiment of the present application, the control method of the first switch unit 521 represents the signal slicing and splicing method, so the control method of the first switch unit 521 needs to be configured, and the main configuration includes the antenna number, switching order and switching frequency, wherein the switching frequency represents the preset time length, and the antenna number and switching order represent the time domain signal slicing and splicing order of each antenna signal.

[0070] Furthermore, when slicing and splicing the antenna signals through the first switch unit 521, only the signal of one of the antennas will be input at the current moment, and the signals of other antennas will be discarded. When the switch is switched, the slicing of the current antenna input signal is completed, and the signal of the next antenna is input. At this time, the slicing of the current antenna signal and the splicing of the next antenna signal are completed at the input port of the RF channel. The time-sharing slicing and splicing of each antenna can be completed by switching the first switch unit 521 according to the preset time length. Through accurate time-sharing slicing processing, the initial downsampling and channel multiplexing of each antenna signal are actually completed, and the time domain signal slices after downsampling are sequentially spliced ​​and processed to ensure the effectiveness and real-time performance of multi-antenna data processing.

[0071] In one embodiment of the present application, the first switch unit 521 can be implemented by a one-to-many switch, and multiple input ends of the first switch unit 521 are respectively connected to the port of each antenna 510 for receiving signals from each antenna 510; the output end is coupled to the RF channel 522 to input the first spliced ​​signal formed after slicing and splicing into the RF channel 522.

[0072] After the first switch unit 521 processes the signals received by each antenna 510 into a first spliced ​​signal, the RF channel 522 can directly complete signal processing on the first spliced ​​signal. Figure 3The RF channel 522 includes an analog front end 5221 (Analog Front End, AFE), an analog-to-digital conversion unit 5222, an IQ demodulation unit 5223, and a RF digital front end 5224 (Digital Front End RF, DFE-RF) which are connected in sequence; wherein the analog front end 5221 is mainly used for mixing, filtering and gain adjustment of the first spliced ​​signal; the analog-to-digital conversion unit 5222 is mainly used for analog-to-digital conversion of the signal; the IQ demodulation unit 5223 is mainly used for IQ orthogonal demodulation processing of the signal; and the RF digital front end 5224 is mainly used for digital down-conversion and IQ correction and other processing of the signal.

[0073] In one embodiment of the present application, the analog front end 5221 includes a low-noise amplifier, a tuner, a filter, and a variable gain amplifier connected in sequence, wherein the low-noise amplifier is used to amplify the first spliced ​​signal; the tuner is used to complete signal mixing; the filter is used to complete signal filtering; and the variable gain amplifier is used to complete signal gain adjustment.

[0074] In one embodiment of the present application, the RF digital front end 5224 includes a tuner, a FIR filter, a sampling rate converter and an IQ correction unit connected in sequence, wherein the tuner is used to complete signal mixing; the FIR filter is used to complete signal filtering; the sampling rate converter is used to complete signal downsampling; and the IQ correction unit is used to complete signal IQ correction.

[0075] After completing the signal processing of the first spliced ​​signal in the RF channel 522, a second spliced ​​signal is obtained. The second spliced ​​signal is still a digital signal spliced ​​by slicing time domain signals of multiple antennas. The subsequent baseband unit 530 cannot determine the corresponding antenna. Therefore, in an embodiment of the present application, a second switch unit 523 is added at the outlet of the RF channel 522. The second switch unit 523 is mainly used to extract the baseband data corresponding to each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal. Specifically, the second switch unit 523 is coupled to the outlet of the RF channel 522 and the baseband unit 530 respectively, and its control method is the same as the switching configuration of the first switch unit 521. By switching and controlling the second switch unit 523, the time domain signal slices of the signal received by each antenna in the second spliced ​​signal can be taken out one by one, and the time domain signal slices belonging to the same antenna are output through the same port of the second switch unit 523, and the complete baseband data of each antenna can be obtained from different ports.

[0076] In one embodiment of the present application, the second switch unit 523 can also be implemented using a one-to-many switch. The input end of the first switch unit 521 is coupled to the outlet of the RF channel 522 to receive the second spliced ​​signal processed by the RF channel 522; and multiple output ends respectively output the baseband data of each antenna.

[0077] Through the switch unit in the single-channel RF front end 520 in the embodiment of the present application, multiple time domain signal slices of the signal received by each antenna can enter the RF channel 522 in sequence in a very short time, and the data of multiple antennas can be taken out in sequence at the exit of the RF channel 522 according to the switch switching configuration sequence, thereby achieving the effect of multiplexing the RFFE single channel to process multiple antenna signals at the same time.

[0078] Please continue to refer to Figure 3 In an embodiment of the present application, the baseband unit 530 includes a third switch unit 531 and a baseband digital front end 532 (Digital Front End BaseBand, DFE-BB); wherein the third switch unit 531 is used to input the baseband data of each antenna into the baseband digital front end 532 respectively; and then the FIR filter and the sampling rate converter in the baseband digital front end 532 respectively complete filtering and downsampling, and adjust the signal rate to the rate required for demodulation while improving the signal quality, and finally obtain the baseband data of multiple antennas for MIMO demodulation.

[0079] It should be noted that since the RF channel 522 processes the first spliced ​​signal formed by splicing time domain signal slices of multiple antenna signals, inter-code crosstalk may be generated. Therefore, when the RF digital front end 5224 of the receiver 500 performs signal processing, it can be selected whether to reset the initial state of the FIR filter related registers before processing each time domain signal slice of each antenna based on the degradation of the output signal EVM. After the reset, the signal correlation between the time domain signal slices will be cut off at the cost of a slight deterioration in the signal quality at the beginning and end of each time domain signal slice, so as to avoid the inter-code crosstalk caused thereby.

[0080] In order to make the technical solution of the present invention clear and easy to understand, it will be explained below in conjunction with an example of two-antenna signal multiplexing single channel. It should be noted that this example is only a typical configuration scheme of the present application, and the number of antennas can be adjusted according to needs, but the corresponding constraints need to be met.

[0081] Please refer to Figure 4 The target signal to be received is a QPSK single-carrier signal with a data symbol rate of 16ksps and a root raised cosine (RRC) shaping filter. In order to further investigate the impact of adjacent channel interference on the receiver 500, two single-carrier adjacent channel interference signals of equal power are distributed near the target signal carrier of antenna 1.

[0082] The received signals x1(t) and x2(t) (t∈[0,T0), T0=12ms) of the two antennas are switched under the control of the first switch unit 521, each time with the same time length T seg=3.90625us Select the time domain signal slice, and the two antennas select a time domain signal slice respectively to form a group with a total length of 2T seg = 7.8125us signal segment, that is, each signal segment consists of a time domain signal slice of antenna 1 and a time domain signal slice of antenna 2. The 12ms signal is divided into M seg =1536 segments, and these 1536 segments of signals are spliced ​​in sequence to obtain the first spliced ​​signal u(t), t∈[0,12ms).

[0083] The first spliced ​​signal u(t) of multi-antenna time division multiplexing enters the RF channel 522 and completes signal processing in sequence. Before processing each time domain signal slice of each antenna, the initial state of the filter related register is reset to obtain the second spliced ​​signal w[m] (m=0,1,…,N w -1); let the sampling rate of ADC be The RF digital front end 5224 performs D1=80 times downsampling on the data signal sampled by the ADC, so the sampling rate of the signal w[m] is And N w =3072.

[0084] According to the slice configuration of the first switch unit 521, the second switch unit 523 is used to sequentially extract the M of the two antennas from the second spliced ​​signal w[m]. seg = 1536 signal segments and concatenate them in sequence to obtain the baseband signals v1[j] and v2[j] (j = 0, 1, ..., N v -1), after demultiplexing, the sampling rate of the two antenna baseband data actually becomes Number of sampling points N v =1536, the demultiplexing process is as follows, where

[0085]

[0086] The baseband signals v1[j] and v2[j] of the two antennas are then filtered by FIR low-pass filtering, D2=2 times downsampling and root cosine shaping filtering unit 533 in the baseband unit 530, and finally converted into the sampling rate required for baseband MIMO demodulation. The two-antenna baseband signals y1[k] and y2[k] (k=0,1,…,N y -1), where N y =768.

[0087] from Figure 4According to the simulation results, the receiving signals of the two antennas have normally completed the time multiplexing of the RFFE single channel, and the two baseband signals finally received have only a very small amount of EVM degradation (within 1%), which is much lower than the requirement of TS38.141 for QPSK demodulation EVM (18.5%), and can be used normally for baseband demodulation.

[0088] The present application provides a method and receiver for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel. By configuring and controlling the RF receiving link by the system or platform, it is possible to realize simultaneous reception and processing of multi-antenna signals at the expense of a very small amount of signal EVM loss without changing the existing RF channel hardware structure, thereby enabling the baseband to simultaneously receive multi-antenna data for MIMO reception, thereby improving the receiving gain at a low cost.

[0089] The following describes an embodiment of the receiving system of the present application, which can be used to execute the method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel in the above embodiment of the present application. For details not disclosed in the embodiment of the receiving system of the present application, please refer to the embodiment of the above method of the present application.

[0090] Reference Figure 5 As shown, a receiving system 600 according to an embodiment of the present application includes: a memory 601 and a processor 602, wherein the memory 601 stores a computer program corresponding to the method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel that can be loaded and executed by the processor 602.

[0091] Figure 6 A schematic diagram of the structure of a computer system suitable for implementing a receiving system of an embodiment of the present application is shown.

[0092] It should be noted that Figure 6 The computer system 700 of the receiving system shown is only an example and should not bring any limitation to the functions and scope of use of the embodiments of the present application.

[0093] like Figure 6As shown, the computer system 700 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 701, which can perform various appropriate actions and processes according to the program stored in the read-only memory (ROM) 702 or the program loaded from the storage part 708 to the random access memory (RAM) 703, such as executing the method described in the above embodiment. In the RAM 703, various programs and data required for system operation are also stored. The CPU 701, ROM 702 and RAM 703 are connected to each other through a bus 704. An input / output (I / O) interface 705 is also connected to the bus 704.

[0094] The following components are connected to the I / O interface 705: an input section 706 including a keyboard, a mouse, etc.; an output section 707 including a cathode ray tube (CRT), a liquid crystal display (LCD), etc., and a speaker, etc.; a storage section 708 including a hard disk, etc.; and a communication section 709 including a network interface card such as a LAN (Local Area Network) card, a modem, etc. The communication section 709 performs communication processing via a network such as the Internet. A drive 710 is also connected to the I / O interface 705 as needed. A removable medium 711, such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, etc., is installed on the drive 710 as needed so that a computer program read therefrom is installed into the storage section 708 as needed.

[0095] In particular, according to an embodiment of the present application, the process described above with reference to the flowchart can be implemented as a computer software program. For example, an embodiment of the present application includes a computer program product, which includes a computer program carried on a computer-readable medium, and the computer program includes a program code for executing the method shown in the flowchart. In such an embodiment, the computer program can be downloaded and installed from a network through a communication section 709, and / or installed from a removable medium 711. When the computer program is executed by a central processing unit (CPU) 701, various functions defined in the system of the present application are executed.

[0096] It should be noted that the computer-readable medium shown in the embodiment of the present application may be a computer-readable signal medium or a computer-readable storage medium or any combination of the above two. The computer-readable storage medium may be, for example, - but not limited to - an electrical, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, device or device, or any combination of the above. More specific examples of computer-readable storage media may include, but are not limited to: an electrical connection with one or more wires, a portable computer disk, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a flash memory, an optical fiber, a portable compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the above. In the present application, a computer-readable storage medium may be any tangible medium containing or storing a program, which may be used by an instruction execution system, device or device or used in combination with it. In the present application, a computer-readable signal medium may include a data signal propagated in a baseband or as part of a carrier wave, wherein a computer-readable program code is carried. Such propagated data signals may take a variety of forms, including but not limited to electromagnetic signals, optical signals, or any suitable combination of the above. Computer-readable signal media may also be any computer-readable medium other than computer-readable storage media, which may send, propagate, or transmit programs for use by or in conjunction with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The program code contained on the computer-readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to: wireless, wired, etc., or any suitable combination of the above.

[0097] The flowchart and block diagram in the accompanying drawings illustrate the possible architecture, functions and operations of the system, method and computer program product according to various embodiments of the present application. Wherein, each box in the flowchart or block diagram can represent a module, a program segment, or a part of the code, and the above-mentioned module, program segment, or a part of the code contains one or more executable instructions for realizing the specified logical function. It should also be noted that in some alternative implementations, the functions marked in the box can also occur in a different order from the order marked in the accompanying drawings. For example, two boxes represented in succession can actually be executed substantially in parallel, and they can sometimes be executed in the opposite order, depending on the functions involved. It should also be noted that each box in the block diagram or flowchart, and the combination of boxes in the block diagram or flowchart can be implemented with a dedicated hardware-based system that performs a specified function or operation, or can be implemented with a combination of dedicated hardware and computer instructions.

[0098] The units involved in the embodiments described in this application may be implemented by software or hardware, and the units described may also be set in a processor. The names of these units do not, in some cases, constitute limitations on the units themselves.

[0099] As another aspect, the present application further provides a computer program product or a computer program, which includes a computer instruction stored in a computer-readable storage medium. A processor of a computer device reads the computer instruction from the computer-readable storage medium, and the processor executes the computer instruction, so that the computer device executes the method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel as described in the above embodiment.

[0100] As another aspect, the present application also provides a computer-readable medium, which may be included in the electronic device described in the above embodiment; or may exist independently without being assembled into the electronic device. The above computer-readable medium carries one or more programs, and when the above one or more programs are executed by an electronic device, the electronic device implements the method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel described in the above embodiment.

[0101] It should be noted that, although several modules or units of the equipment for action execution are mentioned in the above detailed description, this division is not mandatory. In fact, according to the embodiments of the present application, the features and functions of two or more modules or units described above can be embodied in one module or unit. On the contrary, the features and functions of one module or unit described above can be further divided into being embodied by multiple modules or units.

[0102] Through the description of the above implementation methods, it is easy for those skilled in the art to understand that the example implementation methods described here can be implemented by software or by combining software with necessary hardware. Therefore, the technical solution according to the implementation methods of the present application can be embodied in the form of a software product, which can be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which can be a CD-ROM, a USB flash drive, a mobile hard disk, etc.) or on a network, and includes several instructions to enable a computing device (which can be a personal computer, a server, a touch terminal, or a network device, etc.) to execute the method according to the implementation methods of the present application.

[0103] For those skilled in the art, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood in specific situations; the drawings in the embodiments are used to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Generally, the components of the embodiments of the present invention described and shown in the drawings herein can be arranged and designed in various different configurations.

[0104] Although the embodiments of the present application have been shown and described above, it can be understood that the above embodiments are exemplary and cannot be understood as limitations on the present application. Ordinary technicians in this field can change, modify, replace and modify the above embodiments within the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single radio frequency channel, characterized in that: include: Receive signals from multiple antennas; receiving and splicing the antenna signals in sequence in time to form a first spliced ​​signal; the length of the first spliced ​​signal is consistent with the length of the antenna signals; Performing signal processing on the first spliced ​​signal to obtain a second spliced ​​signal; The baseband data of each antenna is extracted from the second spliced ​​signal.

2. The method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to claim 1, characterized in that: The receiving and splicing of the antenna signals in sequence in time to form a first spliced ​​signal specifically includes: Selecting corresponding time domain signal slices from the signals of each antenna in a cyclic manner in time sequence; The time domain signal slices are spliced ​​in time sequence to form a first spliced ​​signal.

3. The method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to claim 2, characterized in that: A time domain signal slice is selected from the received signal of each antenna with the same time length each time.

4. The method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to any one of claims 2 or 3, characterized in that: Before signal processing is performed on each time domain signal slice of each antenna, the initial state of the filter related registers is reset.

5. The method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that: The extracting the baseband data of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal specifically includes: Extracting time domain signal slices of each antenna from the second spliced ​​signal respectively; The time domain signal slices belonging to the same antenna are concatenated head to tail in chronological order to obtain the baseband data of each antenna.

6. The method for processing multi-antenna signals based on a single RF channel according to claim 1, characterized in that: The number of antenna signals received is constrained by the sampling rate of the baseband data.

7. A receiver, characterized in that: include: N antennas, each receiving wireless signals in the air; A single-channel radio frequency front end obtains signals received by N antennas, and sequentially splices the antenna signals in chronological order to form a first spliced ​​signal; the length of the first spliced ​​signal is consistent with the length of each antenna signal; the first spliced ​​signal is signal processed to obtain a second spliced ​​signal, and then the baseband data of each antenna is extracted from the second spliced ​​signal; as well as The baseband unit is used to filter and sample the baseband data of each antenna.

8. The receiver according to claim 7, characterized in that The single-channel radio frequency front end comprises: The first switch unit switches in turn at the ports of the N antennas according to a preset time length, obtains time domain signal slices of the received signals of each antenna, and inputs them into the radio frequency channel in sequence; RF channels for signal processing; and The second switch unit is used to extract the time domain signal slices of each antenna from the signal output by the radio frequency channel according to the switching order of the first switch unit, and sequentially splice the obtained baseband data of each antenna and then output them.

9. The receiver according to claim 8, characterized in that In the radio frequency channel, before signal processing is performed on each time domain signal slice of each antenna, the initial state of the filter related register is reset.

10. A receiving system, characterized in that: The method comprises a memory, a processor and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1 to 6 when executing the program.

11. A computer storage medium storing computer executable instructions, characterized in that: The computer executable instructions are used to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 6.

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