Polyphase Digital Bit Generator for Low-Rate Multiband RF Transmission

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Current multi-band RF transceivers face challenges in designing efficient and flexible systems for contiguous and non-contiguous CA transmission due to issues like out-of-band noise, reduced Signal-to-Noise Ratio, and stringent sampling rate requirements, which hinder the development of compact, agile, and reconfigurable radio transceivers capable of supporting multiple standards and bands.

Innovation Solution

A high-speed digital bit generator system that employs digital polyphase interpolation filters, oscillator banks, mixer banks, and parallel digital combiners to achieve two-dimensional parallelization of signals, reducing the sampling rate requirements and enabling efficient multi-band transmission by filtering out-of-band noise and using delta-sigma or PWM pulse encoding for noise shaping.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Use of energy by moving object

If digital upconversion is performed after pulse encoding, then the system can use lower sampling rates, but out-of-band noise distributed over the entire spectrum degrades system performance

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesampling rateVSAvoidsystem performance
Core Design Contradiction:
Use of energy by moving objectVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent inverts the conventional processing order by performing pulse encoding before digital upconversion, rather than after. This inversion allows the signal to be encoded at a lower sampling rate first, then upconverted to the target frequency. The key insight is that pulse encoding creates a constant envelope signal that can be efficiently upconverted without generating excessive out-of-band noise, resolving the contradiction between low sampling rate and system performance.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies preliminary pulse encoding to the baseband signal before upconversion. By encoding the signal into a pulsed representation with constant envelope beforehand, the system prepares the signal in a form that is optimized for subsequent upconversion and amplification. This preliminary action enables efficient processing at lower sampling rates while maintaining signal quality.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If digital upconversion is performed before pulse encoding, then sampling rates must be at least twice the carrier frequency, but this imposes challenging requirements on the Pulse Encoder and analog front-end

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesignal qualityVSAvoidhardware requirements
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent inverts the conventional processing sequence by performing pulse encoding before digital upconversion. Instead of upconverting the baseband signal first and then encoding, the system encodes the baseband signal into a pulsed constant envelope representation first, then performs digital upconversion. This inversion dramatically reduces the sampling rate requirements and simplifies the hardware requirements for both the pulse encoder and analog front-end.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

3Adaptability or versatility

If integer multiples of modulators sampling frequencies are used for multiband transmission, then multiple bands can be supported, but the inherent decrease in Signal-to-Noise Ratio reduces performance

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemulti-band capabilityVSAvoidSignal-to-Noise Ratio
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the multi-band transmission problem by applying independent pulse encoding to each frequency band's baseband signal before upconversion. Rather than processing all bands together through a single modulator, the system encodes each band separately using the inverted approach (pulse encoding before upconversion), then combines the upconverted signals. This segmentation preserves the Signal-to-Noise Ratio for each band while still achieving multi-band transmission capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentEP3808000B1High speed digital bit generator
Publication Date: 2022.11.16 MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP
  • EP3808000B1 patent drawingFigure 1A
  • EP3808000B1 patent drawingFigure 1B
  • EP3808000B1 patent drawingFigure 2

AI summary

A radio frequency (RF) transmitter includes a set of input ports to receive baseband samples of a signal to be transmitted on a set of disjoint frequency bands, a set of filter banks, there is one filter bank for each input port, each filter bank includes a plurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to sample a shifted phase of the corresponding sequence of baseband samples and to interpolate the sampled phases to produce a plurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples with the shifted phase, and a set of oscillators banks, each oscillator bank includes a plurality of polyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS) corresponding to the plurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to generate a plurality of sequences of samples of digital waveform.