Virtual Antenna Selection for Wireless Power Utilization
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Solution Overview
Problem
In wireless communication systems, the existing methods fail to effectively utilize the transmit power of multiple antennas, leading to wasted power when fewer antennas are used for transmission, as the peak transmit power is limited by the associated power amplifier and regulatory constraints.
Innovation Solution
The technique involves forming virtual antennas by combining physical antennas using vectors of coefficients, allowing for efficient power distribution across multiple virtual antennas, and selecting the set of virtual antennas that provides the best performance based on metrics like signal quality and throughput, enabling full utilization of the total transmit power.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If fewer than T transmit antennas are used for transmission, then interference between transmit antennas is reduced and performance is improved, but the transmit power for the unused antennas is wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the T transmit antennas into multiple groups, where each group is associated with a virtual antenna. This allows the system to selectively activate specific groups (and thus specific virtual antennas) based on channel conditions, rather than using all physical antennas simultaneously or none at all. The segmentation enables fine-grained control over which antenna resources are active, reducing both interference and power waste.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces virtual antennas as intermediaries between the physical transmit antennas and the communication channel. Each virtual antenna is formed by combining signals from multiple physical antennas through a vector of coefficients. This intermediary layer allows the system to distribute transmit power across multiple virtual antennas, where each virtual antenna can be independently controlled and optimized, thereby utilizing the full transmit power capability of all physical antennas without the interference problems of direct simultaneous transmission.
2Productivity
If all T transmit antennas transmit simultaneously, then throughput is improved, but interference between transmit antennas increases and performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the T transmit antennas into multiple groups, with each group associated with a virtual antenna. This segmentation allows the system to manage multiple antenna transmissions in an organized manner, where each virtual antenna represents a coordinated group of physical antennas. The segmentation enables the system to achieve high throughput by utilizing all antennas while maintaining signal quality through structured signal combination within each virtual antenna group.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges signals from multiple physical antennas to form each virtual antenna using a vector of coefficients. This combining process allows the system to aggregate the transmit capabilities of multiple physical antennas into unified virtual antenna streams, achieving high throughput through parallel transmission while the coherent combining maintains signal quality by constructively adding the signals according to channel conditions.
3Object-generated harmful factors
If the peak transmit power of each antenna is limited by power amplifier constraints, then regulatory compliance is achieved, but the total available transmit power is underutilized
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes each physical antenna serve multiple functions by having it contribute to multiple different virtual antennas through different coefficient vectors. A single physical antenna can be part of virtual antenna 1 with one set of coefficients, and simultaneously part of virtual antenna 2 with a different set of coefficients. This multi-functionality allows the system to distribute and utilize the total transmit power across multiple virtual antennas, fully exploiting the available power capacity of all physical antennas while each individual antenna remains within its power amplifier limits and regulatory constraints.
Data Source
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AI summary
Techniques for transmitting data from virtual antennas instead of physical antennas are described. Each virtual antenna may be mapped to some or all physical antennas by a different mapping. The performance of different sets of at least one virtual antenna is evaluated based on one or more metrics such as signal quality, throughput, overall rate, and so on. The virtual antenna set with the best performance is selected for use. If the virtual antenna selection is performed by the receiver, then channel state information for the selected virtual antenna set may be sent to the transmitter. The channel state information may convey the selected virtual antenna(s), the signal quality or rate(s) for the selected virtual antenna(s), one or more precoding matrices used to form the selected virtual antenna(s), and so on. The transmitter and/or receiver use the selected virtual antenna(s) for data transmission.