Patent Application
20190237880
This application claims priority to China Application Serial Number 201810102118.3, filed Feb. 1, 2018, which is herein incorporated by reference.
The present disclosure relates to an antenna system. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a beam-switching antenna system.
With the rapid development of wireless communication technology, the need of high data transmission rate gradually increases. Various methods have been presented to perform a wireless communication method with high data transmission rate, and the methods include applications of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna, beamforming technology, smart antenna, etc.
One way to implement the above wireless communication method is beam switching. A common beam-switching design uses a plurality of control diodes to conduct metal reflecting boards to ground, so as to switch the radiation pattern. However, when the metal reflecting boards are not conducted by the control diodes, problems of splitting of radiation pattern, nonobvious directivity and insufficient gain are caused.
Therefore, how to design an antenna system with a focused radiation pattern and obvious directivity to cover different user distribution is an important object to be achieved.
The disclosure provides an embodiment of an antenna system, which includes reflecting units and antenna units. The reflecting units are arranged on a substrate separately from each other, and each of the reflecting units includes a corner with a reflecting unit angle. The antenna units are arranged on the substrate and each of the antenna units is disposed in the corner of its corresponding one of the reflecting units. The reflecting units are configured to adjust radiation patterns of the antenna units.
The disclosure further provides an embodiment of an antenna system, which includes a switching circuit and antenna modules. The antenna modules are coupled to the switching circuit and surround the switching circuit, where directions of radiation patterns of the antenna modules extend from the switching circuit. The switching circuit is configured to control the antenna modules to change a radiation pattern of the antenna system.
The disclosure further provides an embodiment of an antenna module, which includes a cross-shaped component, an antenna unit and a reflecting unit. The antenna unit includes two radiation portions, each of the two radiation portions has the same pattern as each of the two ground portions, and the two radiation portions and the two ground portions are arranged on surfaces of the cross-shaped component respectively. The reflecting unit is V-shaped and includes a corner with a reflecting unit angle. The antenna unit is disposed in the corner of the reflecting unit.
As a result, in the present disclosure, the antenna units are arranged in the corners of the v-shaped reflecting units arranged around the switching circuit, and are enabled by the switches in the switching circuit, such that the antenna system can obtain an optimal radiation pattern.
The disclosure can be more fully understood by reading the following detailed description of the embodiment, with reference made to the accompanying drawings as follows.
The following embodiments are disclosed with accompanying diagrams for detailed description. For illustration clarity, many details of practice are explained in the following descriptions. However, it should be understood that these details of practice do not intend to limit the present disclosure. That is, these details of practice are not necessary in parts of embodiments of the present disclosure. Furthermore, for simplifying the drawings, some of the conventional structures and elements are shown with schematic illustrations.
It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected” or “directly coupled” to another element, there are no intervening elements present.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the disclosure. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising”, or “includes” and/or “including” or “has” and/or “having” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, regions, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, regions, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, third etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, these elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element, component, region, layer or section from another element, component, region, layer or section. Thus, a first element, component, region, layer or section discussed below could be termed a second element, component, region, layer or section without departing from the teachings of the present disclosure.
As shown in
In some embodiments, each of the antenna modules 210 is used to receive or transmit a wireless signal, and the antenna modules 210 have radiation patterns with different directions. In some embodiments, the antenna modules 210 may be controlled by, but not limited to, a communication chip to achieve the aforementioned effects. Various electronic components that can be used to generate radiation patterns with different directions by controlling the switching circuit 120 are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, the switching circuit 120 includes a number of switches, and is used to enable or disable an electrical signal path between at least one of the antenna modules 210 and a signal feeding point based on different statuses, thereby generating radiation patterns by the enabled antenna modules 210, in which the arrangement of the switches of the switching circuit 120 will be described later in detail with reference to
In some embodiments, the antenna modules 210 are arranged around the switching circuit 120, and the switching circuit 120 enables or disables one of the antenna module 210 based on different statuses, such that the enabled antenna module 210 operates accordingly, in which the direction of the radiation pattern of the conducted antenna module 210 extends outwardly from the switching circuit 120.
In some embodiments, the antenna unit 110 is used to receive an electrical signal from a signal feeding point 119, so as to generate a corresponding radiation pattern. In some embodiments, the antenna unit 110 is used to receive a wireless signal from a wireless signal source, so as to establish a wireless signal channel.
In some embodiments, the antenna unit 110 is a dual-band antenna, in which the dual-band includes, but not limited to, 2.4-2.5 GHz or 5.15-5.85 GHz. The antenna unit 110 with any frequency is within the scope of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the antenna unit 110 can be realized by, but not limited to, a planar inverted F antenna (PIFA), a dipole antenna and a loop antenna. Any circuit element suitable for implementing the antenna unit 110 is within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, the antenna unit 110 is, but not limited to, a dual-polarized antenna, such that the antenna unit 110 can receive and transmit both a vertical polarized signal and a horizontal polarized signal at the same time. The antenna unit 110 with single polarization is also within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, as shown in
In some embodiments, the reflecting unit 130 has the corner 117 with the reflecting unit angle θ, and is used to adjust the radiation pattern generated by the antenna unit 110. In some embodiments, the reflecting unit 130 includes two reflecting boards 132 and 134, and ends of the two reflecting boards 132 and 134 are connected to each other to form the corner 117. In some embodiments, the reflecting unit 130 is, but not limited to, V-shaped. Various shapes of the reflecting boards 132 and 134, such as a planar shape, a U-shape and an arc-shape that can be used to adjust the radiation pattern generated by the antenna unit 110 are within the scope of the present disclosure. In this embodiment, the reflecting unit 130 is disposed in a manner to reduce radiation radiated from the back of the antenna unit 110 and to achieve better isolation between the antenna units 110.
As shown in
Next, reference is made to
In some embodiments, the switching circuit 120 is used to select at least one of the antenna units 111-116 to perform wireless communication with a user. In some embodiments, the switching circuit 120 can be realized by, but not limited to, an electronic chip. Various circuits that can be used to select at least one transmission antenna from the antenna units 111-116 are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, the processor 170 is used to receive electrical signals from the switching circuit 120 and calculate at least one of the antenna units 111-116 performing wireless transmission. In some embodiments, the processor 170 is used to transmit the electrical signal received from the signal feeding point to the switching circuit 120. In some embodiments, the processor 170 can be realized by, but not limited to, a microprocessor with communication capability. Various communication chips suitable for implementing the processor 170 are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, when the antenna units 111-116 all function as receiving antennas, the antenna units 111-116 convert six received signals into six electrical signals respectively and input the six electrical signals into the switching circuit 120, and the switching circuit 120 generates and outputs at most three corresponding electrical signals to the processor 170. In some embodiments, when the antenna units 111-116 all function as transmitting antennas, the processor 170 inputs at most three corresponding electrical signals to the switching circuit 120, and the switching circuit 120 outputs the at most three corresponding electrical signals to the antenna units 111-116, so as to transmit a corresponding signal to the user who wants to perform wireless communication with the antenna system 100. In some embodiments, the processor 170 receives or transmits at most three electrical signals because the three electrical signals correspond to three of the antenna units 111 to 116, and the main beam width of the radiation patterns of the three of the antenna units 111-116 corresponds to one half of the radiation space in this embodiment. Therefore, the reception and transmission of at most three electrical signals enable the antenna system 100 to be directional. However, the number of the electrical signals received or transmitted by the processor 170 is not limited to 3. Various numbers of electrical signals as the input or output are within the scope of the present disclosure.
As shown in
In some embodiments, the switches 141-144 and 151-156 are used to enable or disable the corresponding antenna units 110 to omni-directionally transceive the wireless signal in any direction. In some embodiments, the switches 141-144 and 151-156 can be realized by, but not limited to, resistive switches or diodes. Various electronic components that can be used to control current flow through or blocked are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, the control unit 160 is used to control the switches 141-144 and 151-156, so as to enable or disable the connection between the processor 170 and at least one of the antenna units 111-116. In some embodiments, the control unit 160 can be realized by, but not limited to, an integrated circuit (IC). Various electronic devices that can be used to control the switches 141-144 and 151-156 are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In practical applications, the processor 170 transmits a control signal to the control unit 160, such that the control unit 160 can control the switches 141-144 and 151-156 to enable or disable at least one of the antenna units 111-116. For example, when desiring to perform the wireless communication with the signal source by using the antenna units 113, 115 and 116, the processor 170 transmits a control signal to the control unit 160 to turn on the switches 141, 143, 144, 153, 155, 156, and to turn off the switches 142, 151, 152 and 154. Under this situation, the antenna system 100 can perform wireless communication with the signal source via the antenna units 113, 115 and 116.
In this operation, the processor 170 compares, but not limited to, the RSSIs corresponding to the antenna units 110. The processor 170 can also compare the data rates or the number of spatial streams corresponding to the antenna units 110. Various indicators that can be used to represent the data transmission between the antenna units 110 and the signal source are within the scope of the present disclosure.
Next, operation S420 is performed to select at least one of the antenna units 111-116 by using the switching circuit 120. In this operation, the processor 170 transmits a control signal to the control unit 160 according to the comparison result of operation S410, such that the control unit 160 turns on the corresponding ones of the switches 141-144 and 151-156 to select the at least one of the antenna units 111-116.
Next, operation S430 is performed to determine whether the selected one of the antenna units 111-116 is correct. In this operation, the processor 170 determines whether the selected one of the antenna units 111-116 is correct according to whether the wireless communication between the selected one of the antenna units 111-116 and the signal source is stable. In some embodiments, the method for the processor 170 to determine whether the wireless communication is stable includes, but not limited to, to determine whether the signal transmission process is interrupted, to determine whether the message is received before timeout and to determine whether a negative acknowledgement (NACK) is received. Various methods for determining whether wireless communication is stable or not are within the scope of the present disclosure.
In some embodiments, when the determination result of operation S430 is “yes”, operation S440 is performed to establish a wireless signal channel. In this operation, the antenna system 100 establishes the wireless signal channel through the at least one of the antenna units 111-116 selected in the operation S420, so as to perform data transmission with the signal source.
In some embodiments, when the determination result of operation S430 is “no”, operation S410 is performed to compare RSSIs of the antenna units 111-116 again, and operation S420 is then performed.
As a result, in the present disclosure, the antenna units 111-116 are arranged within the corner 117 of the v-shaped reflecting units 130 arranged around the switching circuit 120, and are enabled by the switches 141-144 and 151-156 in the switching circuit 120, such that the antenna system 100 can obtain an optimal radiation pattern.
Although the present disclosure has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201810102118.3 | Feb 2018 | CN | national |
