This application claims priority to an application entitled “Apparatus and Method for Controlling Transmission Power in a Mobile Communication System” filed in the Korean Industrial Property office on Jul. 13, 2001 and assigned Serial No. 2001-42312, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile communication system, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for reducing the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of a base station (BS) in a mobile communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is known, a BS uses an RF (Radio Frequency) power amplifier for amplifying an RF signal including voice and data destined for a mobile station (MS). The RF amplifier is the most expensive device in the entire system and thus a significant component to be considered to reduce system cost. This RF amplifier should be designed to meet two requirements: one is to output RF power at a level strong enough to cover all MSs within the service area of a cell; and the other is to maintain ACI (Adjacent Channel Interference) with the output of the RF power amplifier at or below an acceptable level.
If input power that ensures sufficient RF output power is outside a linear amplification area of a power amplifier, the output signal of the power amplifier has a signal distortion component outside the signal frequency band due to non-linear amplification. In the frequency plane, in other words, spectral regrowth outside the signal frequency band causes ACI. It is very difficult to design a power amplifier satisfying these requirements because the former requires high input power and the latter requires low input power.
Especially, a system having a high PAPR such as CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) must control the input power to enable the power amplifier to operate in the linear amplification area, or use an expensive power amplifier having linearity at maximum input power. In this context, the CDMA system needs an expensive power amplifier that can accommodate a maximum input power 10 dB higher than an average input power to suppress signal distortion. As stated above, however, such a power amplifier decreases power efficiency and increases power consumption, system size, and cost. Moreover, the BS transmits signals with a plurality of frequency allocations (FAs) at the same time using a power amplifier for each FA, thus imposing economic constraints. Therefore, efficient layout and design of power amplifiers is very significant to the design of BS.
One approach to stably operating a power amplifier in the high PAPR system is to use a pre-distortion adjusting circuit for maximum power input. The pre-distortion adjusting circuit measures signal distortion produced in the power amplifier and controls the input signal of the power amplifier based on the measurement. The power amplifier generates an amplified signal from the original input signal by attenuating the distortion.
A very complicated process is involved with the distortion measurement, such as modulation and demodulation, sampling, quantization, synchronization, and comparison between input and output. The pre-distortion adjusting circuit utilizes its input and output signals to meet ACP (Adjacent Channel Power) standards for system implementation. However, optimum distortion compensation cannot be achieved with this pre-distortion adjusting circuit due to its shortcomings associated with efficiency, speed, and complexity.
Another approach is to reduce the PAPR of an input signal in the power amplifier by decreasing the level of the signal at a predetermined rate using maximum input power and the linear amplification characteristics of the power amplifier. All input signals are converted to low power signals by multiplying them by scale factors based on the linear amplification characteristics in order to operate the power amplifier within the linear amplification area. Or the PAPR can be reduced by decreasing the power of an input signal at or above a threshold to an intended level. The decrease of the signal level at a predetermined rate or the decrease of a signal level greater than a threshold to a predetermined level results in drastic changes in the signal level and a power increase outside the signal frequency band. Consequently, the overall system performance is deteriorated.
A third approach is to calculate the strength and power of an I channel input signal and a Q channel input signal and generate cancellation signals for signals having strengths at or above thresholds. The signal strengths are reduced to a desired level by adding the original signals and the cancellation signals at the same time. Signal transmission using this amplification scheme is illustrated in FIG. 1.
Referring to
Although the PAPRs of the signals are adjusted to a desired value in the I and Q baseband combiner s 1-3 and 1-4, they increase in the pulse shaping filters 1-6 and 1-7. As a result, spectral regrowth outside the signal frequency band occurs in the power amplifier 1-9, thus causing ACI.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for increasing the use efficiency of an RF power amplifier to realize a stable, feasible mobile communication system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for stably operating a power amplifier in a linear amplification area in a high PAPR system.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for reducing the PAPR of an input signal of a power amplifier without influencing the performance of an entire system.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for reducing the PAR of a power amplifier and maximizing suppression of spectral regrowth outside a signal frequency band in order to maximize the efficiency of the power amplifier for transmission in a mobile communication system.
It is also still another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for simultaneously transmitting signals using a plurality of FAs, using power amplifiers efficiently.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for controlling the input signal of a power amplifier using a power controller between I and Q pulse shaping filters and a frequency converter.
To achieve the above and other objects, in a transmission power controlling apparatus in a mobile communication system supporting a single FA, a channel device group generates an I channel baseband signal and a Q channel baseband signal by performing encoding and modulation on each channel data, a pulse shaping filter filters the baseband signals, a power controller controls the PAPRs of the filtered signals according to a threshold power required for linear power amplification, a frequency converter upconverts the power-controlled signals to RF signals, and a power amplifier amplifies the RF signals.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described herein below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, well-known functions or constructions are not described in detail since they would obscure the invention in unnecessary detail.
Before describing the present invention, terms used herein will be defined. A PAPR or CF (Crest Factor) is a peak to average power ratio. This power characteristic is a significant factor to designing a power amplifier in a CDMA system in which multiple users share common frequency resources. A CFR (Crest Factor Reduction) algorithm is an algorithm that a power controller operates to reduce the PAPR according to the present invention. Backoff is defined to be the ratio of a maximum power required to achieve linear amplification to an average power. The backoff is used to indicate the linear operation area of a power amplifier.
First Embodiment
Referring to
In operation, the channel device group 2-1 generates I and Q channel baseband signals by performing encoding, modulation and channelization on each channel data. Particularly in a CDMA system, the I and Q channel signals are the I and Q channel chip-level sums of common control signals and user data for multiple users.
Since a serious output power change occurs in a system that transmits the sum of multiple channel signals such as a CDMA system, the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4 limit the frequency of each channel signal to reduce ACI. The frequency converter 2-5 at the front end of the power amplifier 2-6 upconverts the IF(Intermediate Frequency) signals received from the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4 to RF signals after digital-analog conversion.
The power amplifier 2-6 is disposed at the front end of an antenna and amplifies the power of its input signal in order to transmit the signal with output power enough for all users within the cell of the BS. The antenna transmits the amplified signal to the MSs.
The power controller 2-8 functions to reduce the PAPR of an input signal to reduce the cost constraints of the power amplifier and prevent deterioration of system performance by suppressing spectral regrowth outside a signal frequency band. The power controller 2-8 is arranged at the rear ends of the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4 to prevent the increase of the PAPR during the operation of the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4.
The outputs of the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4 are applied to the input of the scale determiner 3-1, the signal delays 3-14 and 3-15, and the cancellation signal calculator 3-2. The output signal I2 of the I maximum signal pulse shaping filter 3-12 and the output signal I3 of the I signal delay 3-14 are added into a signal I′ in the I channel summer 3-16. In the same manner, the output signal Q2 of the Q maximum signal pulse shaping filter 3-13 and the output signal Q3 of the Q signal delay 3-15 are added into a signal Q′ in the Q channel summer 3-17.
The power controller 2-8 processes the output signals I and Q of the pulse shaping filters 2-3 and 2-4 to achieve a PAPR required for linearity of the power amplifier 2-6 and thus to suppress the spectral regrowth outside the signal frequency band.
With reference to
The scale determiner 3-1 receives the I channel signal output from the I pulse shaping filter 2-3 (hereinafter, referred to as the original I channel signal) and the Q channel signal output from the Q pulse shaping filter 2-4 (hereinafter, referred to as the original Q channel signal) at I and Q channel level squarers 3-3 and 3-4, samples the original I and Q channel signals at every predetermined period, and measures the levels of the sampled signals. The instant power at each sampling period is calculated by summing the outputs of the I and Q channel level squarers 3-3 and 3-4, that is, P=I2+Q2. The scale value calculator 3-5 calculates the instant power P and a predetermined threshold power Pth in the following way.
The instant power P is compared with the threshold power Pth, which is determined by
Pth=average power(Paverage)×10(backoff/10) (1)
If the instant power P is less than or equal to the threshold power Pth, scale values to be multiplied by the I and Q channel signals are determined to be 1s. This implies that the outputs I1 and Q1 of the cancellation signal calculator 3-2 are 0s and as a result, the power of the original signals is not controlled. On the other hand, if the instant power P is greater than the threshold power Pth, the scale values are determined to be values by which the power of the original signals is adjusted to reduce the PAPR by
Alternatively, the scale values can be obtained referring to a scale table stored in a memory (not shown). These scale values are fed to the cancellation signal calculator 3-2.
Multipliers 3-6 and 3-7 in the cancellation signal calculator 3-2 multiply the scale values by the original I and Q channel signals. The outputs of the multipliers 3-6 and 3-7 are target signals of the I and Q channels required for linear operation of the power amplifier 2-6. That is, if the instant power P is greater than the threshold power Pth, the target signal of each channel, which has the threshold power Pth and the same phase as the original channel signal, can be obtained by the multiplication. Subtractors 3-8 and 3-9 subtract the original I and Q channel signals from the target signals and generate the cancellation signals I1 and Q1.
The cancellation signals produced in the above process of making the phases of the target signals equal to those of the original signals have the lowest power of all cancellation signals that reduce the PAPR of the original signals.
The cancellation signals I1 and Q1 are fed to the I and Q maximum signal determiners 3-10 and 3-11.
If pulses input to the I and Q maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 have the same polarity and successive values other than 0s at each sampling period, the pulses are overlapped and have higher signal levels than the cancellation signals in the process of the pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13. The output signals I2 and Q2 of the maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 are summed with the output signals I3 and Q3 of the signal delays 3-14 and 3-15 in the summers 3-16 and 3-17, which may cause another signal distortion.
To solve this problem, the maximum signal determiners 3-10 and 3-11 maintain cancellation signal pulses having the same polarity and maximum levels between pulses at signal level 0 among the cancellation signals received at each sampling period, setting the other cancellation signals to 0s.
That is, the I and Q maximum signal determiners 3-10 and 3-11 select cancellation signals having the highest levels at each sampling period among successive received cancellation signals. Then the I and Q maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 limit the highest level cancellation signals within a desired frequency bandwidth.
As described above, the maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 function to suppress the increase of ACP and out-band distortion by limiting the frequency band of input signals to a desired bandwidth. Therefore, they can be FIR (Finite Impulse Response) or IIR (Infinite Impulse Response) filters for limiting the input signals within the bandwidth of the output signals I3 and Q3 of the signal delays 3-14 and 3-15.
Returning to
The summers 3-16 and 3-17 add the output signal 13 of the delay 3-14 to the output signal I2 of the maximum signal pulse shaping filter 3-12 and the output signal Q3 of the delay 3-15 to the output signal Q2 of the maximum signal pulse shaping filter 3-13. The signals I2 and Q2 are cancellation signals at the highest levels after processing in the maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13. Therefore, the output signals of the summers 3-16 and 3-17 are compensated to have power required for linearity of the power amplifier 2-6.
The cancellation signal calculator 3-2 obtains target signal having the same phase as the original I and Q channel signal and the threshold power by multiplying the original I and Q channel signal by the scale value in step 6-4, and calculates the cancellation signal I1 and Q1 by subtracting the original I and Q channel signal from the target signal in step 6-5. The cancellation signal I1 and Q1 are used to achieve a required PAPR.
The maximum signal determiners 3-10 and 3-11 determine cancellation signal at the highest levels by repeating steps 6-1 to 6-5 at each sampling period in step 6-6. In step 6-7, the maximum signal pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 limit the transmitted bandwidth of the cancellation signal at the highest levels in step 6-7.
The summers 3-16 and 3-17 sum the outputs of the pulse shaping filters 3-12 and 3-13 with the original I and Q channel signals delayed by the delays 3-14 and 3-15 in step 6-8. As a result, the PAPRs of the sums are compensated to a desired level.
Second Embodiment
The second embodiment of the present invention is applied to a BS in a mobile communication system supporting multiple FAs.
Referring to
In operation, the channel device unit 13-1 has a plurality of channel element groups corresponding to the FAs and each channel element group includes channel devices that are the same in configuration as the channel element group 2-1 illustrated in FIG. 2 and perform encoding, modulation and channelization on each FA baseband signal. The channel device unit 13-1 controls each FA independently. The pulse shaping filter unit 13-2 has a plurality of I and Q pulse shaping filters and limits the frequency bandwidth of I and Q channel signals output from the channel device unit 13-1 for each FA. The outputs of the pulse shaping filter unit 13-2 are applied to the input of the multi-FA power controller 13-3.
The transmission path of the multiple FA signals is similar to that of the single FA signal illustrated in FIG. 2. Specifically, the multi-FA power controller 13-3 outputs a power-controlled signal for the input of an input signal having a high PAPR to ensure the stable operation of the power amplifier 13-4. The power amplifier 13-4 amplifies the output signal of the multi-FA power controller 13-3 to radiate power enough to transmit the signal to all MSs within the coverage area of the cell.
The scale determiner 14-1 receives original multiple FA signals I1, Q1, I2, Q2, . . . , IN, QN at corresponding squarers and calculates their signal levels at each sampling period. A scale calculator 14-2 in the scale determiner 14-1 calculates scale values for the multiple FAs using their signal levels. The scale values are determined referring to a pre-stored scale table or calculated by Eq. (3).
The power controllers 14-3 and 14-10 to 14-11 perform the same operation as the power controller 2-8 as illustrated in
A cancellation signal calculator 14-4 in the power controller 14-3 obtains I and Q channel target signals by multiplying original I and Q channel signals I1 and Q1 by a scale value S1 for FA(1) received from the scale determiner 14-1 and calculates cancellation signals by subtracting the original I and Q channel signals I1 and Q1 from the target signals. A maximum signal determiner 14-5 selects cancellation signals at the highest levels between signals at signal level 0 among the cancellation signals received from the cancellation signal calculator 14-4 at each sampling period, setting the other cancellation signals to 0s. The selected cancellation signals are fed to a pulse shaping filter 14-6.
Meanwhile, a delay 14-7 delays the original I and Q channel signals I1 and Q1 and a summer 14-8 sums the delayed signals with the outputs of the pulse shaping filter 14-6, thereby generating power-controlled signals. A frequency converter 14-9 upconverts the frequency of the power-controlled signal to an RF signal for FA(1) using a different central frequency for each FA.
The power controllers 14-10 to 14-11 operate in the same manner and output signals of FA(2) to FA(N). The summer 14-12 sums the outputs of the power controllers 14-13 and 14-10 to 14-11 and outputs the sum to the power amplifier 13-4.
A signal level change of FA(1) is faster than that of FA(2) and the signal level change of FA(2) is faster than that of FA(3). Hence the level of an instant signal for each FA is not constant but changes periodically on a corresponding circle. Consequently, the maximum output of the summer 14-12 can be represented as a point 15-4. The maximum value is the sum of the signal levels of all FAs. To satisfy the condition that the sum of the instant signal levels is less than a threshold signal level, the scale values must be determined so that the output of the summer 14-12 lies inside the circle 15-5.
Thus, if the sum of the instant signal levels of the original signal for each FA is less than or equal to the threshold signal level, the multi-FA power controller 13-3 sets the scale values for the FAs to 1s. On the other hand, if the sum is greater than the threshold signal level, an appropriate scale value is calculated. Here, the same scale value is applied to all FAs, or a different scale value for each FA.
If each FA has a different scale value, this means that the FAs have different Priority (or Quality of Service), that is, priority levels. Thus, the BS can assign a different priority level to each FA. For example, a CDMA2000 EV-DO (Evolution Data Only) system discriminates an FA for first generation CDMA service from an FA for high speed data rate service. Since the FA supporting the high speed data rate service is sensitive to the quality of a transmission signal in view of the characteristics of the service, it should have a higher priority level than the FA supporting the first generation CDMA service.
√{square root over (Ptotal)} is compared with a predetermined or calculated threshold signal level √{square root over (Pthreshold)} in step 16-2. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is less than or equal to √{square root over (Pthreshold)}, the scale values of all the FAs are set to 1s in step 16-3. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is greater than √{square root over (Pthreshhold)}, the scale values S are calculated in step 16-2 by
The scale values S are fed to the cancellation signal calculators 14-4 to be used for generation of cancellation signals in the case where the original signals have the highest signal levels possible.
The scale values for N FAs can be calculated using weighting factors or using threshold signal levels according to service classes.
In the former method, a different weighting factor is assigned to each FA signal to calculate the scale value of the FA.
Referring to
√{square root over (Ptotal)} is compared with a predetermined or calculated threshold signal level √{square root over (Pthreshold)} in step 17-2. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is less than or equal to √{square root over (Pthreshold)}, the scale values of all the FAs are set to is in step 17-3. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is greater than √{square root over (Pthreshold)}, a weighting factor αi for FA(1) is calculated according to the service class of FA(1) in step 17-4. The weighting factor αi is a weighting factor for an ith FA. The original signals for all FAs with their weighting factors assigned are expressed as α1√{square root over (P1)}, α2√{square root over (P2)}, . . . , αN√{square root over (PN)}. A greater weighting factor must be assigned to a higher priority FA. The weighting factor of an FA can be determined to be the priority rate of the FA. If all FAs are categorized into service class 1 or service class 2 and service class 1 has priority over service class 2, a weighting factor 2 is assigned to the FAs of service class 1 and a weighting factor 1 to the FAs of service class 2.
In step 17-5, a global scale value Sglobal is then calculated by
The scale value Si is calculated by multiplying the global scale value Sglobal by a corresponding weighting factor αi in step 17-6.
The scale values for the FAs are fed to the cancellation signal calculators 14-4. The weighting factors affect determination of the scale values for the FAs and the transmission power of a higher priority FA signal is limited less. Therefore, the efficiency of available transmission power is maximized.
Now a description will be made of a method of calculating the scale values according to the service classes with reference to
Specifically, multiple FAs are first categorized into service class l to service class k in a descending order and a threshold signal level √{square root over (Pth-1)},√{square root over (Pth-2)}, . . . √{square root over (Pth-k)} is set for each FA. √{square root over (Pth-i)} is the threshold level for an ith FA according to its service class and a higher threshold signal level is set for a higher service class. That is, √{square root over (Pth-1)}>√{square root over (Pth-2)}> . . . >√{square root over (Pth-k)}. The sum of the threshold signal levels √{square root over (Pth-1)}+√{square root over (Pth-2)}+ . . . +√{square root over (Pth-k)}is less than or equal to the whole threshold signal level required in the system, √{square root over (Pthreshold)}.
In the CDMA2000 EV-DO system, the FAs supporting high speed data service and the FAs supporting the first generation CDMA service are categorized into service class 1 and service class 2, respectively.
Referring to
Referring to
√{square root over (Ptotal)} is compared with a predetermined(or calculated) whole threshold signal level √{square root over (Pthreshold)} in step 19-2. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is less than or equal to √{square root over (Pthreshold)}, the scale values of all the FAs are set to 1s in step 19-3. If √{square root over (Ptotal)} is greater than √{square root over (Pthreshold)}, the scale value of each FA is calculated according to its priority level.
The average of the instant signal levels of FAs with service class 1 √{square root over (P1)} is first compared with the threshold signal level for service class 1, √{square root over (Pth
In the same manner, the average √{square root over (P2)} of the instant signal levels of FAs with service class 2 is compared with the updated threshold signal level √{square root over (Pth
When the scale value for FAs with the lowest service class k is determined in steps 19-10, 19-11, and 19-12, the scale values are fed to the cancellation signal calculators 14-4. The control of the threshold signal levels ensures minimum performance according to the characteristics of each FA signal.
In accordance with the present invention as described above, (1) the power controller can be simply realized for variable systems including DS-CDMA, W-CDMA and MC-CDMA and used together with a pre-distortion adjusting circuit; (2) the inefficient operation of a power amplifier caused by a high PAPR due to the sum of control signals and user data for multiple users in a system such as CDMA can be improved; (3) performance deterioration is minimized without using an expensive power amplifier, thereby decreasing the overall system cost; and (4) especially in a multi-FA mobile communication system, minimum performance can be ensured according to the characteristics of each FA signal during transmission of multi-FA signals and the efficiency of power use can be maximized in the process of controlling a scale value for each FA signal.
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
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