Radio Base Station Antenna Virtualization for Power Balance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Radio communication systems face challenges in maintaining good transmission quality when the number of antennas in a radio base station exceeds the number of transmission layers for downlink control channels, broadcast channels, and cell-specific reference signals, leading to issues like imbalance between antennas and reduced coverage.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an antenna virtualization technique using precoding to make a smaller number of virtual antennas than actual antennas, ensuring equal average transmission power and preventing interference, allowing for efficient transmission of downlink control channels, broadcast channels, and cell-specific reference signals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the number of transmitting antennas is increased beyond the number of transmission layers for downlink control channels, broadcast channels and cell-specific reference signals, then the communication capacity and coverage are improved, but the transmission power becomes imbalanced and interference increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies antenna virtualization by creating virtual antennas that correspond to transmission layers. Instead of directly mapping each physical antenna to a transmission layer, the system creates a virtual antenna representation that matches the number of transmission layers (4 layers), even when more physical antennas (8 antennas) are available. This virtual copying approach allows the downlink control channels, broadcast channels and cell-specific reference signals to be transmitted without power imbalance or interference, while the remaining physical antennas can be used for other purposes such as data transmission or coverage enhancement.
2Reliability
If precoding weights are applied to balance transmission power across antennas, then transmission quality is maintained, but the complexity of the transmission system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating the treatment of different antenna groups. The virtual antennas corresponding to downlink control channels, broadcast channels and cell-specific reference signals are assigned specific precoding weights to ensure balanced transmission power and high transmission quality. Meanwhile, the remaining physical antennas not mapped to these critical channels can use different or simplified precoding strategies, allowing the system to maintain high reliability for control functions without unnecessarily complicating the entire transmission system.
3Reliability
If all transmitting antennas are used for downlink control channels, broadcast channels and cell-specific reference signals, then transmission quality is maximized, but the coverage area is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the transmitting antennas into different functional groups. A subset of physical antennas (4 virtual antennas) is dedicated to transmitting downlink control channels, broadcast channels and cell-specific reference signals with optimized precoding for high transmission quality. The remaining physical antennas (4 additional antennas) are available for other functions such as data transmission or can be used to extend coverage area through additional beams or spatial diversity, thus resolving the conflict between transmission quality and coverage area.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention is designed to implement radio communication to maintain good communication quality even when the number of antennas provided in a radio base station apparatus is greater than the number of transmission layers of a downlink control channel, a broadcast channel, and cell-specific reference signals. When, from a radio base station apparatus (200) having a plurality of transmitting antennas, at least one of a downlink control channel, a broadcast channel and a cell-specific reference signal is transmitted with fewer transmission layers than the number of all transmitting antennas, a smaller number of antennas than the number of all transmitting antennas are made virtual in a precoding weight multiplication section (205), and also transmission weights that make the average transmission power of the transmitting antennas or transmission streams the same are multiplied, and the signals multiplied by the transmission weights are transmitted from the transmitting antennas on the downlink.