Claims
- 1. A method for setting a direction for an antenna in a wireless communication system having both uplink and downlink communication channels, the method comprising the steps of:
setting the antenna to a candidate setting; measuring a metric associated with utilization of the antenna at the candidate setting; determining an optimum setting based upon such metrics measured for at least two candidate settings; and using different metrics for determining the optimum setting for the uplink and downlink communication channels.
- 2. A method as in claim 1 wherein different optimum settings are determined for the uplink and downlink channels.
- 3. A method as in claim 1 wherein the candidate settings include an omni-directional setting.
- 4. A method as in claim 1 wherein an optimum setting for the antenna in an uplink channel is determined from a metric measured from a signal received on a downlink channel.
- 5. A method as in claim 1 wherein multiple metric measurements are averaged before determining the optimum setting.
- 6. A method as in claim 1 wherein the metric is taken from a received pilot channel signal.
- 7. A method as in claim 1 wherein the metric is taken from a received data payload signal.
- 8. A method as in claim 1 wherein the system is a Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, and the uplink and downlink channels are time slotted.
- 9. A method as in claim 8 wherein the metric is taken during inactive time slots.
- 10. A method as in claim 8 wherein active time slots are scheduled in advance.
- 11. A method as in claim 10 wherein active time slots are scheduled by a central base station.
- 12. A method as in claim 8 wherein metrics for the antenna candidate settings are measured during unused time slots.
- 13. A method as in claim 8 additionally comprising the step of:
storing optimum positions determined for different time slots as needed, in synchronization with active time slot assignments.
- 14. A method as in claim 13 additionally comprising the step of:
reading at the stored optimum settings.
- 15. A method for setting a power level in a wireless communication system given a directiona; setting of an antenna, the method comprising the steps of:
determining a gain adjustment factor that depends upon the directional setting of an antenna; and applying the gain adjustment factor to control a power level of a transmitted signal.
- 16. A method as in claim 15 wherein the power control is a closed loop power control.
- 17. A method as in claim 16 wherein the power control is for an uplink channel.
- 18. A method as in claim 16 wherein the power control is for a downlink channel.
- 19. A method as in claim 15 additionally comprising the step of:
applying the gain adjustment factor to a path loss estimate.
- 20. A method as in claim 15 additionally comprising the step of
applying the gain adjustment factor to a reverse link power control setting.
- 21. A method for dynamically determining a steering direction of an antenna in a wireless system comprising:
providing a transmission quality metric applicable to describe a quality measure of a wireless signal; applying the quality metric to a current steering position of the antenna; repainting the antenna to a trial steering position; reapplying the quality metric to the trial steering position; comparing the quality metrics of the current and trial steering positions; repeating the repointing by incrementally selecting a new trial steering position; and selecting a best steering position by comparing each of the incremented trial steering positions.
- 22. The method of claim 21 further comprising the step of:
repeating the repointing step through the selection step for a plurality of trial steering positions.
- 23. A method as in claim 8 additionally comprising
determining an active time slot sequence, the active time slots employed for transmission of data; identifying a frame offset in the sequence of the active time slots; determining non-occupied time slots in the sequence based on a frame offset; and transmitting information in directional non-active time slots.
- 24. A method as in claim 23 wherein the directional information is indicative of a plurality of the candidate settings.
- 25. A method as in claim 24 further comprising the step of:
computing an optimum setting from the directional information transmitted for a plurality of candidate directions.
- 26. A method for a user equipment device to acquire signals transmitted from a central base station in a wireless communication system, the method comprising the steps of:
selecting an omnidirectional mode for an antenna; acquiring signals transmitted by one or more base stations with the antenna in the omnidirectional mode, and assigning such detected signals as a detected set; for each available directional setting provided by the directional antenna, determining a received signal strength for each base station in the detected set; for each such directional setting, determining a ratio of a detected cell having a higher receive signal strength and a sum of the signal strengths for the other detected cells; and selecting the base station having the largest such ratio to be used as the active base station.
- 27. A method as in claim 26 wherein the number of available directions is at least three.
- 28. A method as in claim 26 wherein the system is a Time Division Duplex system.
- 29. A method as in claim 26 wherein the signal strength is a Received Signal Power (RCSP) measurement.
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/378,698, filed on May 7, 2002, U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/378,908, filed on May 7, 2002 and U.S. Provisional Application No.______ filed on Apr. 29, 2003 (Attorney Docket No. 2479.2185-000), entitled “Application of User Equipment Antenna to Time Division Duplex System”, all of which are assigned to Tantivy Communications Corporation, the assignee of this application. The entire teachings of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.
Provisional Applications (2)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60378698 |
May 2002 |
US |
|
60378908 |
May 2002 |
US |