Patent Application
20240332789
This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 2023103420009 filed on Mar. 31, 2023, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure relates to the field of antenna technology and, more specifically, to a dual-antenna electronic device and a decoupling method.
With the development of mobile terminal electronic products, the requirements for wireless communication performance have increased. However, due to the thin and light-weight design and metal appearance requirements of the electronic products, the antenna performance will be affected. In addition, due to the space compression of mobile terminal electronic products and the complex structural environment around the antenna, the radiation field pattern has become more directional, resulting in the decrease of the antenna's omnidirectional coverage.
An antenna is often a passive component. After the antenna is designed, its radiation direction and all performance parameters are fixed. If there are many blind spots in the radiation field pattern, it will have a great impact on the overall wireless coverage and user experience of the electronic products.
One aspect of this disclosure provides a dual-antenna electronic device. The dual-antenna electronic device includes a first antenna, a second antenna, and a decoupling circuit. The first antenna and the second antenna have a plurality of operating frequency bands. The decoupling circuit is configured to generate a decoupling signal corresponding to a current operating frequency band based on the current operating frequency band of the first antenna and/or the second antenna to cancel a coupling signal between the first antenna and the second antenna.
Another aspect of the present disclosure provides a decoupling method for a dual-antenna electronic device. The decoupling method includes obtaining a current operating frequency band of a first antenna and/or a second antenna in the electronic device, based on the current operating frequency band, generating a decoupling signal corresponding to the current operating frequency band to cancel a coupling signal between the first antenna and the second antenna.
In order to illustrate the technical solutions in accordance with the embodiments of the present disclosure more clearly, the accompanying drawings to be used for describing the embodiments are introduced briefly in the following. It is apparent that the accompanying drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present disclosure. Persons of ordinary skill in the art can obtain other accompanying drawings in accordance with the accompanying drawings without any creative efforts.
The technical solutions of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. It will be appreciated that the described embodiments represent some, rather than all, of the embodiments of the present disclosure. Other embodiments conceived or derived by those having ordinary skills in the art based on the described embodiments without inventive efforts should fall within the scope of the present disclosure.
In the present disclosure, description with reference to the terms “one embodiment,” “some embodiments,” “example,” “specific example,” or “some examples,” etc., means that specific features described in connection with the embodiment or example, structure, material or feature is included in at least one embodiment or example of the present disclosure. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, materials or characteristics described may be combined in any suitable manner in any one or more embodiments or examples. Furthermore, those skilled in the art may combine the different embodiments or examples described in this specification, as well as the features of the different embodiments or examples, as long as they do not conflict with each other.
In the present disclosure, the terms “first,” “second,” and “third” are only used for descriptive purposes, and should not be understood as indicating or implying relative importance or implying the number of indicated technical features. Thus, a feature described with “first,” “second,” and “third” may expressly or implicitly include at least one of these features, and the order may be changed according to the actual situations.
Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the technical field to which the present disclosure belongs. The terms used herein are only for the purpose of describing the embodiments of the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.
Often, after the antenna is designed, its radiation direction and all performance parameters are fixed. If there are many blind spots in the radiation field pattern, the overall wireless coverage and user experience will be greatly impacted. At present, there are relatively few smart antenna solutions. Generally, a grounding unit is added in the near field of the antenna, and different effects of grounding or disconnection of the grounding unit can be controlled to adjust the radiation field pattern to select and maintain the state with optimal signal reception strength by switching between different states and reading the received signal reception strength in real time.
In view of the above, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a dual-antenna electronic device. By adding a decoupling circuit between the antennas and decoupling them by loading inverted signals, a dual-antenna design can be implemented in the electronic devices, which improves the space utilization of the electronic devices. Accordingly, twice the number of antennas can be installed in the same space, making it easier to implement a 4×4 or a multi-antenna communication system (multiple-input multiple-output, MIMO) for transmitting and receiving signals on consumer electronics systems. In addition, the dual-antenna has different antenna directions, which can achieve pattern diversity characteristics and can be used to dynamically adjust the signal-limited transmitting and receiving directions of the antennas. Antenna directions with higher communication quality in any environment can be selected based on signal quality parameters, thereby effectively improving the performance of electronic device antenna systems.
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a dual-antenna electronic device.
In some embodiments, the decoupling circuit 103 may also achieve signal transmission through coupling with the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102.
In some embodiments, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may have a plurality of operating frequency bands. For example, the low operating frequency band may be 2400 to 2500 MHZ (that is, 2.4 to 2.5 GHZ), the medium operating frequency band may be 5.15 to 5.85 GHz, and the high operating frequency band may be the 6E band of 5.925 to 7.125 GHz.
In some embodiments, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be inside the dual-antenna electronic device. When the first antenna 101 is in the near radiation field of the second antenna 102, near field coupling will occur, causing a coupling signal to be generated between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102. For example, when the first antenna 101 is in the working state, and the second antenna 102 is in the near radiation field of the first antenna 101, near-field coupling occurs between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102, resulting in a coupling signal between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102. The coupling signals generated by different operating frequency bands may be different.
In some embodiments, the coupling signal may be a coupling current signal generated by the coupling between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102. The decoupling signal may be a current signal with the same amplitude and opposite phase as the coupling current signal such that the decoupling signal can cancel the coupling signal between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102, thereby improving the isolation between the two antennas through the decoupling circuit.
In some embodiments, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be mirror-symmetrically distributed in the electronic device such that the two antennas receive signals and transmit signals in opposite directions. For example, to receive signals from the left side of an electronic device, the first antenna 101 will have a relatively strong reception effect, while the second antenna 102 will have relatively weak receiving capability in the left direction. Similarly, in the right direction, the second antenna 102 will have relatively strong reception effect. Therefore, when the wireless signal is on one side of the electronic device, only one of the first antenna and the second antenna provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure may be in a working state. The current working frequency band may be the working frequency band of the first antenna or the second antenna that is in the working state.
In some embodiments, the operating frequency bands of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be the same. When the first antenna 101 is in the working state, such as when transmitting wireless signals, the second antenna 102 may receive part of the wireless signal emitted by the first antenna 101, resulting in near-field coupling between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102, causing a coupling signal to appear between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102. At this time, both the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 are in the working state, and the current operating frequency band may be the operating frequency band of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102.
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the structure of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be the same or different. For example, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may both be inverted F antennas, or the first antenna 101 may be an inverted F antenna and the second antenna 102 may be an inverted L multi-band antenna.
In some embodiments, when the structures of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 are the same, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be mirror-symmetrically distributed in the electronic device. The distance between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may be less than the preset distance. The preset distance may be much smaller than the operating wavelength of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102, which causes the coupling energy between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 to be very strong, resulting in a coupling signal. There will be significant interference between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102, which will not only cause isolation, but also affect the impedance characteristics of each antenna. Therefore, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the decoupling circuit 103 between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 can generate a decoupling signal corresponding to the current operating frequency band to cancel the coupling signal between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102. Accordingly, effective multi-band isolation between the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 can be realized to eliminate the interference between the two antennas and reduce the physical distance requirement between the antennas to zero.
In some embodiments, in order to realize the miniaturization design of the antenna, the structure of the antenna radiating unit can be optimized. As shown in
In some embodiments, the grounding structure 104 may include a feeder unit and a grounding unit (not shown in
In some embodiments, when the structure of the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 are different, the first antenna 101 and the second antenna 102 may also be distributed in the electronic device at a close distance.
In some embodiments, the decoupling circuit may include a decoupling circuit matching each of the plurality of operating frequency bands of the dual-antenna, where each decoupling circuit may generate a decoupling signal corresponding to the matching operating frequency band to cancel the coupling signal generated by the first antenna and the second antenna in the matching operating frequency band. Here, the matching operating frequency band may refer to the operating frequency bands corresponding to different decoupling circuits, that is, different operating frequency bands may correspond to different decoupling circuits.
In some embodiments, the dual-antenna structure may include a plurality of second decoupling circuits 402 such that the dual-antenna has more operating frequency bands.
It should be noted that the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 may achieve indirect feeding through close coupling with the radiating unit of the first antenna or the second antenna. That is, the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 may be used as a coupling branch of the first antenna and the second antenna such that the first antenna or the second antenna can have multiple operating frequency bands. Take the first antenna as an example, coupling can occur between the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 and the radiating unit of the first antenna within a certain distance to achieve signal transmission. The shapes and sizes of the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 and the radiating unit of the first antenna may be different such that the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 and the radiating unit of the first antenna can be in different operating frequency bands.
Accordingly, when the first antenna is in the first operating frequency band, the first decoupling circuit 401 matching the current first operating frequency band may cancel the coupling signal corresponding to the first operating frequency band between the first radiating unit of the first antenna and the second radiating unit of the second antenna. When the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 coupled to the first antenna is in the second operating frequency band, the second decoupling sub-circuit 4022 may cancel the coupling signal corresponding to the second operating frequency band between the two first decoupling sub-circuits 4021.
In some embodiments, the first antenna may be in multiple operating frequency bands at the same time, that is, transmitting wireless signals corresponding to different operating frequency bands. Therefore, the first radiating unit of the first antenna and the first decoupling sub-circuit 4021 may transmit signals in different frequency bands at the same time such that the first decoupling circuit 401 and the second decoupling sub-circuit 4022 can generate different decoupling signals at the same time to cancel the different coupling signals between the first antenna and the second antenna to improve the isolation between the first antenna and the second antenna.
In some embodiments, the decoupling circuit may be composed of microstrips, capacitors, or inductors connected in series and parallel. For example, as shown in
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the microstrips may be used to achieve phase adjustment. The reactance of the microstrip may be X=0, the reactance of the capacitor may be X<0, and the reactance of the inductor may be X>0. In some embodiments, the reactance may refer to the resistance to alternating current.
In some embodiments, due to circuit characteristics, the direct connect network applicable to different frequency bands may only be effective for this frequency band and cannot cover all frequencies. In order to achieve anti-interference optimization in different frequency bands of multi-frequency antennas, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, a decoupling circuit may be placed between the two antennas to obtain a decoupling signal targeting different frequency characteristics, and the decoupling signal may be used to cancel the decoupling signal between the two antennas to optimize the interference between the two antennas.
In some embodiments, the first branch 701 and the second branch 702 of the first antenna 101 may have different resonant frequencies such that the first branch 701 and the second branch 702 can be in different operating frequency bands respectively. For example, the first branch 701 may be at 2.4 to 2.5 GHZ, and the second branch 702 may be at 5.15 to 5.85 GHz.
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the first branch 701 and the third branch 703 may have a third operating frequency band, and the second branch 702 and the fourth branch 704 may have a fourth operating frequency band, the third operating frequency band being different from the fourth operating frequency band. The decoupling circuit may be connected to the second branch 702 and the fourth branch 704 respectively. The decoupling circuit may adopt the decoupling circuit structure shown in
In the present disclosure, in order to achieve omnidirectional radiation of the dual-antenna electronic device, the controller may control the first antenna 8011 in the dual-antenna 801 on the left side of
Based on the dual-antenna electronic device described above, embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a switching method for the dual-antenna electronic device. The execution subject of the method may be a controller of the electronic device. The switching method of the dual-antenna electronic device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented in the following manner.
First, wireless connection parameters of the electronic device may be obtained, the wireless connection parameters including at least signal reception strength and signal direction. Subsequently, in response to the signal reception strength and/or the signal direction meeting a switching condition, control the first antenna or the second antenna in each dual-antenna structure to be in a working state to switch the antenna structure and radiation field pattern of the dual-antenna electronic device.
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, signal reception strength may refer to the receive signal strength indicator (RSSI) of the wireless network card in the electronic device, which can be used to characterize the signal reception strength between the transmitter and the receiver. The signal direction may refer to the direction in which the wireless signals are transmitted and received.
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the signal reception strength of dual-antenna electronic devices under different antenna structure can be obtained, and the antenna structure with higher signal reception strength can be selected as the current structure for receiving or transmitting wireless signals to achieve optimal performance of dual-antenna electronic devices.
In some embodiments, detection and comparison of wireless signal reception strengths under different antenna structures of the electronic device may be performed. The comparison may be performed in real time such that the wireless performance of the electronic device can be maintained at the optimal state. Alternatively, the comparison may be performed at a preset period of time, as each preset period of time passes, the signal reception strengths corresponding to different antennas in the current electronic device may be detected, which reduces the amount of calculation of the controller while maintaining the wireless performance of the electronic device.
In some embodiments, the signal direction of the wireless signal may be detected in real time, and the first antenna or the second antenna in each dual-antenna structure may be controlled to be in the working state based on the signal direction to maintain optimal performance of the dual-antenna electronic device.
Consistent with the present disclosure, by detecting the wireless signal reception strength and the signal direction of the electronic device, the antenna structure and radiation field pattern can be automatically adjusted, allowing the electronic device to maintain optimal wireless performance, thereby effectively improving wireless connection performance in complex environments.
Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a decoupling method for the dual-antenna electronic device. The execution subject of the method may be a controller of the electronic device. The switching method of the dual-antenna electronic device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented in the following manner.
First, the current operating frequency band of the electronic device may be obtained. Subsequently, based on the current operating frequency band, a decoupling signal corresponding to the current operating frequency band may be generated to cancel the coupling signal between the first antenna and the second antenna.
Consistent with the present disclosure, in the dual-antenna electronic device, the coupling signal between the first antenna and the second antenna can be cancel through the decoupling circuit between the two antennas. Accordingly, the mutual interference between the two antennas is eliminated, the physical distance requirement between the two antennas is reduced to zero, which greatly improves the space utilization of the electronic device. At the same time, the two antennas provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure can control the working state of different antennas in the dual-antenna, which not only realizes the controllability of the radiation field pattern of the electronic device, but also builds a communication system for electronic devices to send and receive signals through multiple antennas, thereby improving the efficiency of wireless signal transmission.
Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide an application of a dual-antenna electronic device switching method in actual scenarios.
Embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a miniaturized antenna design method and a dual-antenna structure for switching far-field radiation patterns. By adding a connection path (i.e., the decoupling circuit) between the two antennas to decouple them by loading inverted signals, the dual-antenna design is realized in the original antenna space, and the space utilization is greatly improved. Double the number of antennas can be installed in the same space, making it easier to implement 4×4 and large-capacity MIMO communication systems on the electronic device. In addition, the dual-antenna structure has different antenna directions, which can achieve pattern diversity characteristics, and can be used to dynamically adjust the antenna radiation direction. Antenna directions with higher communication quality in any environment can be selected based on signal quality parameters to effectively improve the wireless performance of the electronic device.
Since the physical distance between the two antennas is much smaller than their operating wavelength, the coupling energy is very strong and there is serious interference between the two antennas. This not only causes isolation between the two antennas, but also affects the impedance characteristics of each antenna. Generally, antennas need to work in multiple frequency bands (e.g., WIFI antennas need to cover 2.4 GHz, 5 GHZ, and 6 GHz frequency bands). In order to minimize the mutual interference between the two antennas, effective isolation of multiple frequency bands is needed. Therefore, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, branch decoupling circuits can be used to cancel the coupling signal between the two antennas in frequency bands.
In some embodiments, when the dual-antenna works in the low frequency band, such as 2.4 GHz, through a decoupling network (i.e., the decoupling circuit) connected by the open ends of the dual-antenna, a directly transmitted inverted signal can be obtained between the two antennas. By changing the parameters of the decoupling network, the inverted signal transmitted by the decoupling network can have the opposite phase and the same amplitude as the spatial coupling signal between the two antennas. Here, opposite phase may refer to a phase difference of 180 degrees to cancel the spatial coupling signal. The parameters of the decoupling network may refer to the high-frequency characteristics of the circuit (such as resistance, inductive reactance, capacitive reactance and delay characteristics), which are used to control the circuit transmission impedance and phase. The inverted signal transmitted through the decoupling network can cancel the coupling signal between the two antennas such that isolation in the low frequency band can be significantly improved.
In some embodiments, the decoupling network may include a single reactance (capacitive reactance X<0 and inductive reactance X>0) or a microstrip for phase adjustment (X=0), or a combination of the two for phase adjustments based on needs, and a L/T/x type circuit or single form may be selected based on needs.
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the decoupling network applicable to different frequency bands can only be effective for a certain frequency band and cannot cover all frequency bands of the antenna. Therefore, in order to realize anti-interference optimization in different frequency bands of a multi-frequency antenna, there is a need to obtain direct transmission signals (i.e., the decoupling signals) with different frequency characteristics between the two antennas, and control these direct transmission signals to cancel the coupling signals in different frequency bands,
In the embodiments of the present disclosure, coupling branches of different frequencies may be added to the dual-antenna.
It should be noted that the coupling branch 1 and the coupling branch 4 may have the same shape and size, and the coupling branch 2 and the coupling branch 3 may have the same shape and size. Accordingly, the coupling branch 1 and the coupling branch 4 can be in the same operating frequency band, and the coupling branch 2 and the coupling branch 3 can be in the same operating frequency band.
Consistent with the present disclosure, by adding coupling branches differentiated by frequency to eliminate the multi-band mutual interference between the two antennas, the structure is simple, the circuit characteristics needed for different frequencies can be flexibly adjusted, and operations at the open ends have minimal impact on the antenna characteristics.
In addition, by selecting the feeding point positions (i.e., the feeding units) of antenna 1 and antenna 2, the mutual coupling energy between the two antennas is reduced, the isolation is improved, and the radiation energy is reflected from each other. Accordingly, by changing the radiation filed distribution of the ordinary inverted F-shaped antenna, the dual-antenna can have stronger directivity and complementary directions to achieve pattern diversity. For example, an inverted F antenna (IFA) will have a feed (i.e., the feeding unit) and a ground pin (i.e., the grounding unit). If the feeds of the two antennas are isolated by a ground pin, and the distance between the two feed points (i.e., the point where the feeding unit is connected to the ground structure) is controlled such that the two feed points are at positions near the zero point of the current, the interference between the two antennas can also be reduced.
Miniaturized antennas can be realized through the dual-antenna structure provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure. Accordingly, more antennas can be integrated into the original system space, which is beneficial to implement a large-capacity MIMO communication system. In addition, the far-field radiation direction of the antenna in the dual-antenna structure has complementary characteristics. The combination of antennas is also suitable for dynamic control of the radiation direction of the antenna system. By intelligently selecting the antenna direction, the communication performance in actual working environments can be improved.
Consistent with the present disclosure, a miniaturized symmetrical design can be adopted to realize collaborative design of two antennas at the same position, which greatly reduces the size and space needed for antennas and improves the system's ability to integrate more antennas for MIMO application. Through the design of direct connection networks with different characteristics, mutual interference between antennas can be eliminated and the physical distance requirement between antennas can be reduced to zero. In addition, by adding independent coupling branches based on different frequency bands, and carrying out proprietary direction connection network design for different frequencies, the anti-interference of multi-frequency band can be eliminated to realize multi-frequency antenna application solutions. Mirror design can control the coupling and reflection effects and improve the directivity of the radiation field pattern. The two antennas have complementary pointing directions to a certain extent, thereby realizing the function of pattern diversity, making it easy to distinguish and control the point directions of the antennas, and enabling flexible planning or indigent control of the overage direction within the entire range.
In the present disclosure, description with reference to the terms “one embodiment,” “some embodiments,” “example,” “specific example,” or “some examples,” etc., means that specific features described in connection with the embodiment or example, structure, material or feature is included in at least one embodiment or example of the present disclosure. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, materials or characteristics described may be combined in any suitable manner in any one or more embodiments or examples. Furthermore, those skilled in the art may combine the different embodiments or examples described in this specification, as well as the features of the different embodiments or examples, without conflicting each other. In various embodiments of the present disclosure, the size of the sequence numbers of the above-mentioned processes does not mean the sequence of execution, and the execution sequence of each process should be determined by its functions and internal logic, rather than the implementation process of the embodiments of the present disclosure. The above-mentioned serial numbers of the embodiments of the present application are only for description, and do not represent the advantages or disadvantages of the embodiments.
In the present disclosure, the terms “comprising,” “including” or any other variation thereof are intended to encompass a non-exclusive inclusion such that a process, method, article or device comprising a list of elements includes not only those elements, but also others not expressly listed elements, or also include elements inherent to such a process, method, article or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element qualified by the phrase “comprising a . . . ” does not preclude the presence of additional identical elements in a process, method, article or apparatus that includes the element.
Various embodiments have been described to illustrate the operation principles and exemplary implementations. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure is not limited to the specific embodiments described herein and that various other obvious changes, rearrangements, and substitutions will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Thus, while the present disclosure has been described in detail with reference to the above described embodiments, the present disclosure is not limited to the above described embodiments, but may be embodied in other equivalent forms without departing from the scope of the present disclosure, which is determined by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202310342000.9 | Mar 2023 | CN | national |
