An omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on directional antenna array

Abstract

The application discloses an omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array and relates to the technical field of wireless communication.The device comprises N directional antenna units, a structural carrier, a radio frequency signal processing unit and a baseband signal processing unit.The N directional antenna units are arranged on the periphery of the structural carrier according to angles, and 360-degree azimuth plane full coverage is realized by satisfying N x theta >= 360 degrees; the radio frequency signal processing unit provides one transmitting channel and N receiving channels, and realizes radio frequency signal transceiving processing; the baseband signal processing unit realizes antenna polling transmission through timing control, simultaneously performs fusion processing on N-way receiving data, and adaptively selects the optimal way for processing.The application solves the problem that omnidirectional coverage and high-gain transmission are difficult to be considered in the prior art, has the characteristics of high gain, low power consumption, low cost, no mechanical servo and high reliability, is suitable for multi-scene applications such as airborne and vehicle-mounted applications, and can be widely used in multi-node networking, dynamic satellite communication and other wireless communication systems.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of wireless communication technology, and in particular to an omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array. It uses polling transmission of directional antenna array and data fusion of multiple receiving channels, and is suitable for airborne / vehicle-mounted / portable communication scenarios such as mobile communication, multi-node networking, and communication without navigation assistance. Background Technology

[0002] In wireless communication systems, the antenna's coverage and signal transmission distance directly affect the system's operating scenarios and application range. Currently, commonly used communication systems have significant shortcomings in omnidirectional communication: Using an omnidirectional antenna can achieve all-around signal coverage, but the antenna gain is low and the signal transmission distance is limited. Compensating by increasing the device's transmission power will seriously increase the device's power consumption and easily cause electromagnetic interference problems.

[0003] The solution of using a servo mechanism in conjunction with a directional antenna can improve signal gain and transmission distance, but it cannot achieve full-angle coverage. Especially in scenarios such as one-to-many communication and dynamic changes in the positions of communication nodes, the antenna coverage performance and usage flexibility cannot meet the system requirements, and there are also problems such as slow response of the servo mechanism and easy damage to the motor.

[0004] The implementation scheme using phased array antennas has disadvantages such as high complexity, high cost, and difficulty in miniaturization.

[0005] None of the above traditional solutions can simultaneously meet the application requirements of high antenna gain, 360° omnidirectional orientation, low cost, high reliability, and mobile communication. Summary of the Invention

[0006] In view of this, the purpose of this invention is to overcome the defects of the prior art and provide an omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array. Through measures such as multi-directional antenna arrangement, time-division polling transmission, and multi-channel adaptive optimization fusion, it achieves omnidirectional communication in a 360° azimuth plane, while also having the characteristics of high gain, low power consumption, low cost, and high reliability, meeting the needs of many application scenarios such as multi-node networking and mobile communication.

[0007] To achieve the above objectives, the technical solution adopted by the present invention is as follows: A design for an omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array includes N directional antenna elements, a structural carrier, a radio frequency signal processing unit, and a baseband signal processing unit.

[0008] N directional antenna elements: arranged at reasonable angles around the structure carrier. The spacing between antenna elements can be uniform or non-uniform. The beam coverage angle of each element is θ, which satisfies N×θ≥360°, and can completely cover the azimuth plane. The beam coverage areas of adjacent antenna elements have an overlap of 5° to 10° to avoid angular blind spots. Structural carrier: Circular or irregular shapes are acceptable. It is used to fix N directional antenna elements and ensure the stability and accuracy of the spatial layout of the antenna elements. Radio frequency signal processing unit: It has 1 transmitting channel and N receiving channels. The transmitting channel is connected to N antenna elements respectively through N-to-1 switches, and the N receiving channels are connected to N antenna elements respectively, realizing functions such as radio frequency signal amplification, gating, and transmission and reception processing. Baseband signal processing unit: Includes digital circuits and embedded software, and performs functions such as signal transmission and reception, beam scheduling, timing control, multi-channel data optimization, and data fusion.

[0009] Furthermore, the workflow of the device includes: Transmission process: When transmitting data, the baseband signal processing unit receives the data packet to be transmitted and controls the gating switch in the radio frequency signal processing unit according to the timing sequence to transmit the same data packet sequentially from antenna elements 1"2"..."N. At least one antenna covers the node within the 360° azimuth range. The receiving end outputs only one valid data packet through redundancy removal processing and signal quality optimization. Reception process: When receiving data, the baseband signal processing unit receives data transmitted by N antenna units in parallel, performs data fusion processing on the N data, and then outputs data without redundancy.

[0010] The beneficial effects of the above-mentioned technical solution adopted by the present invention are as follows: 1. Balancing high gain and omnidirectional coverage: The directional antenna array has a significantly higher gain than traditional omnidirectional antennas, resulting in a significant increase in communication distance and enabling 360° azimuth coverage. This solves the problem of balancing omnidirectional coverage and high-gain transmission in existing technologies. 2. No mechanical servo, high reliability: No mechanical servo rotation mechanism is required, resulting in fast response speed, high reliability, long lifespan, no reliance on navigation information, no restrictions on the flight speed and movement trajectory of nodes, and adaptability to dynamic scenarios such as mobile communication. 3. Strong adaptability to various scenarios: The compact structure makes it widely applicable to various application scenarios such as airborne, vehicle-mounted, portable, and fixed stations, with strong versatility; 4. Low power consumption and strong anti-interference: There is no need to compensate for insufficient gain by increasing the transmission power, which reduces the power consumption of the equipment, reduces the risk of electromagnetic interference, and the narrow beam can suppress interference and multipath effects, thus improving the system's anti-interference capability. Attached Figure Description

[0011] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of an omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array, as described in an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the layout of the 6-element directional antenna array in an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 3 This is a schematic block diagram of the radio frequency signal processing unit in an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 4 This is a schematic block diagram of the baseband signal processing unit in an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0012] The present invention will now be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0013] 1. Overall Structure This omnidirectional high-gain communication device includes an antenna array, a radio frequency signal processing unit, and a baseband signal processing unit. These units work together to achieve 360° omnidirectional and high-gain communication transmission.

[0014] 2. Antenna Array Embodiment In this embodiment, the number of directional antenna elements is N=6, the horizontal beamwidth of each antenna element is 70°, and the included angle between adjacent antenna elements is 60°. They are evenly distributed around the periphery of the structural carrier. This layout design ensures that the coverage areas of adjacent antennas overlap, there are no angular blind spots, and that each node is within the effective coverage area of ​​at least one antenna at any azimuth angle, achieving 360° omnidirectional coverage.

[0015] 3. RF Signal Processing Unit Embodiment The radio frequency signal processing unit consists of one transmit channel and six receive channels, with the following specific structure: Transmission channel: After amplifying the input signal, it is connected to 6 directional antenna elements through a 6-to-1 selection switch. According to the timing instructions of the baseband signal processing unit, the signal transmission channel is switched among the 6 antenna elements to achieve polling transmission. Receiving channels: Six parallel receiving channels are set up. Each receiving channel independently processes the radio frequency signal transmitted by the antenna unit. After processing, the six signals are sent to the baseband signal processing unit. Frequency division mode adaptation: When the system operates in transmit and receive frequency division mode, the transmit channel and the receive channel are combined through a duplexer and connected to the same directional antenna unit, realizing the sharing of transmit and receive antennas and improving channel utilization.

[0016] 4. Baseband Signal Processing Unit Embodiment The baseband signal processing unit mainly consists of one programmable logic device (FPGA) and three broadband RF transceiver chips (AD9361 chips), and its specific functions are implemented as follows: Hardware configuration: Each AD9361 chip has 2 receiving channels, and 3 AD9361 chips work together to realize the signal reception and preprocessing of 6 receiving channels; the FPGA serves as the core control chip, completing the overall timing control, digital calculation and other functions. Transmission processing: After receiving the data to be transmitted, the baseband signal processing unit generates a switching command according to the timing sequence, and controls the 6-to-1 switch of the radio frequency signal processing unit to switch to 6 directional antenna units in sequence. After the data to be transmitted is amplified by the transmission channel, it is radiated outward through each antenna unit to ensure that the receiving node in any direction within a 360° range can receive the signal. Reception and processing: The six directional antenna elements at the receiving end simultaneously receive radio frequency signals from the environment. Each signal is processed independently by the radio frequency signal processing unit and then sent to the baseband signal processing unit. The embedded software in the FPGA performs data fusion on the six signals, selects the optimal signal based on criteria such as signal strength and signal quality, demodulates it, removes redundant data, and outputs valid data to complete signal reception.

[0017] To avoid problems such as data redundancy, wasted computing power, link crosstalk, and abnormal data parsing caused by multiple directional antennas receiving the same signal simultaneously, and to effectively improve reception stability, this invention establishes a multi-parameter fusion hierarchical channel quality quantification evaluation model.

[0018] This model overcomes the limitations of single-index judgment by selecting five core parameters for comprehensive evaluation: signal-to-noise ratio, equivalent field strength gain, time-domain waveform steady-state coefficient, channel bit error rate, and multipath fading factor. First, the various parameters are normalized and their dimensions are unified. Then, weights are dynamically allocated based on actual operating conditions, and a weighted calculation is performed to obtain the comprehensive channel score for each directional antenna link.

[0019] All channel scores are sorted in descending order, and the single signal with the best performance is automatically selected. After demodulation and filtering, the selected signal is transmitted to the back-end module, while the remaining receiving channels are directly shut down and no longer participate in data processing. This ensures the anti-interference, integrity, uniqueness, and transmission reliability of the output signal.

[0020] This embodiment is merely an illustrative example of the present invention and is not intended to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. Conventional substitutions and adjustments made by those skilled in the art, based on the core technical solutions of the present invention, to the number of antenna elements, layout, radio frequency channel configuration, etc., should all fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. An omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array, characterized in that, include: N directional antenna elements are deployed around the structure carrier. The beam coverage angle of each element is θ, which satisfies N×θ≥360°. The beam coverage areas of adjacent antenna elements overlap. A structural carrier used to fix N directional antenna elements; The radio frequency signal processing unit has N transceiver channels, which are respectively connected to N directional antenna units to realize the transmission and reception processing of radio frequency signals; The baseband signal processing unit is connected to the radio frequency signal processing unit. When transmitting data, it polls and transmits data among the N directional antenna units in a time sequence. When receiving data, it performs fusion processing on the data received by the N directional antenna units and adaptively locks the optimal signal based on the received signal strength.

2. The omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array according to claim 1, characterized in that, The radio frequency signal processing unit includes one transmit channel and N receive channels. The transmit channel is connected to N directional antenna elements through an N-to-1 selector switch. The receive channels are N parallel receive channels, and each receive channel independently processes the signal of its corresponding antenna element.

3. The omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array according to claim 2, characterized in that, When the system operates in frequency division multiplexing mode, the transmit and receive channels of the radio frequency signal processing unit are combined by a duplexer and then connected to the same directional antenna unit.

4. The omnidirectional high-gain communication device based on a directional antenna array according to claim 1, characterized in that, The baseband signal processing unit includes an FPGA processor and embedded software. The embedded software controls the N-to-1 selection switch of the radio frequency signal processing unit to realize the polling switching of the antenna unit.

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