The present invention relates to the wireless communication technology, and particularly to a method, equipment and system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission.
In order to improve the Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) of received signals of User Equipments (UEs) at the edges of a cell, a Coordinated Multi-point Process (CoMP), in which multiple base stations provide a coordinated transmission service to one UE simultaneously, is introduced into a LTE-A (Long Term Evolution—Advanced) system, thereby forming an architecture with distributed multiple antennae, which can greatly improve the frequency spectrum efficiency of users at the edges of a cell.
However, compared with a single-cell transmission, a downstream coordinated multi-point transmission has the following problems:
In a coordinated multi-point transmission, signals transmitted by different base stations will have some phase differences when they arrive at a UE, while the UE can generally maintain time-frequency synchronization only with the current service base station. Since it is difficult to maintain synchronization with all the coordinated base stations, the signals will generally have phase noises when a UE end combines the received signals.
A method, an equipment and a system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission are provided by the embodiments of the present invention, resolving the problem that there exists phase noise in the signals received by a User Equipment (UE) end in coordinated multi-point transmission.
The embodiments of the present invention adopt the following technical solutions.
A method for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission comprises:
obtaining phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells;
feeding back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation;
receiving signals transmitted by the base stations of the coordinated cells after the phase compensation,
wherein the other coordinated cells are cells among all the coordinated cells other than the current service cell; the channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells are covariance matrixes between channel coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells.
A user equipment comprises:
a phase calculating unit, for obtaining phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells;
a feedback unit, for feeding back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation;
a receiving unit, for receiving signals transmitted by the base stations of the coordinated cells after the phase compensation,
wherein the other coordinated cells are cells among all the coordinated cells other than the current service cell; the channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells are covariance matrixes between channel coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells.
A system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission comprises a user equipment and at least two base stations, wherein the at least two base stations belong to at least two coordinated cells in the mode of coordinated multi-point transmission, respectively, wherein the at least two base stations are configured to transmit pilot signals outwards;
the user equipment is configured to detect the pilot signals corresponding to the at least two base stations, respectively, obtain phase differences between other coordinated cells among the at least two coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells, and feed back the phase differences to the at least two base stations, in order to implement phase compensation;
the at least two base stations are further configured to implement a phase compensation of signals according to the phase differences fed back by the user equipment, and transmit the signals after the phase compensation at least to the user equipment.
In the method, equipment and system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiments of the present invention, the phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell are easily obtained by establishing cross-covariance matrixes between the coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells; and the demodulation performance of signals of a user equipment is improved by feeding back the phase differences to the corresponding base stations by means of limited feedback in order to implement phase compensation of signals at transmitting ends, thereby effectively eliminating the influence on the receiving-transmitting synchronization by the phase noise caused by the phase differences among multiple coordinated cells.
A method, equipment and system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiments of the present invention are described in detail with reference to the drawings.
As shown in
101. Obtaining phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells in a coordinated multi-point transmission system.
Wherein the other coordinated cells are cells among all the coordinated cells in a coordinated multi-point transmission mode other than the current service cell. In a common situation, when an equipment feeds back the phase differences to a transmitting end, a phase reference cell will be determined first; and in the present embodiment, the current service cell in the coordinated multi-point transmission mode is taken as the phase reference cell.
Here, the cross-covariance matrixes between different coordinated cells can be constructed by means of the channel coefficients H (f) of different coordinated cells and the current service cell.
102. Feeding back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation.
Obviously, it is also permitted to feed back a PMI (Preferred Matrix Index) corresponding to the base stations of the other coordinated cells respectively to the base stations of the other coordinated cells; since the PMI is a serial number of a code in a corresponding code table after phase difference quantization, the phase difference corresponding to a PMI will be obtained if the PMI is gotten.
103. Receiving signals transmitted by the base stations of all the coordinated cells after the phase compensation.
In the description of the above method, the subject performing the respective steps may be some user equipment in the coordinated multi-point transmission system.
In order to carry out the above method in a better way, a user equipment for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission is also provided in the present embodiment, and as shown in
a phase calculating unit 21, for obtaining phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells in a coordinated multi-point transmission system;
a feedback unit 22, for feeding back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation;
a receiving unit 23, for receiving signals transmitted by the base stations of the coordinated cells after the phase compensation,
wherein the other coordinated cells are cells among all the coordinated cells other than the current service cell; the channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells are the covariance matrixes between channel coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells.
In the method and equipment for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiments of the present invention, the phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell are easily obtained by establishing cross-covariance matrixes between the coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells; and the demodulation performance of signals of a user equipment is improved by feeding back the phase differences to the corresponding base stations by means of limited feedback in order to implement phase compensation of signals at transmitting ends, thereby effectively eliminating the influence on the receiving-transmitting synchronization by the phase noise caused by the phase differences among multiple coordinated cells.
The method for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided in an embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to a specific embodiment.
First, a scenario as below is assumed: the antenna configuration for each cell is 4-transmitting and 2-receiving, and a UE starts a CoMP coordinated transmission mode by means of a cell wireless scenario analysis; wherein, the original signal sent by a cell to the UE side is s(t), an expression in a time domain of a channel coefficient between a cell and a UE is h (t), and the corresponding expression in a frequency domain thereof is H(f); h(t) or H(f) herein can be obtained by channel estimation.
As shown in
301. Multiple coordinated cells participated in a CoMP coordinated transmission transmit pilot signals outwards periodically.
302. A UE obtains channel coefficients H (f) between the UE and the multiple coordinated cells by channel estimation, after detecting and receiving the pilot signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells.
303. The signal phase differences between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells are calculated by means of channel cross-covariance matrixes; and the other coordinated cells herein refer to the coordinated cells other than the current service cell among all the coordinated cells in the CoMP transmission mode. Specifically,
If the channel coefficient of the current service cell is Hx (f) and the channel coefficient of a coordinated cell among the other coordinated cells is Hy (f), then the channel cross-covariance matrix between the current service cell and the cell among the coordinated cells is:
Wherein Hx(f)H is the transposition of Hx(f); the calculated arguments of elements R11, R22, R33 and R44 on the main diagonal of Rxy(f) are the phase differences of the signals transmitted by 4 antennae of the cell among the other coordinated cells with respect to the current service cell.
In order to maintain a relatively stable pre-estimation and feedback, the above cross-covariance matrix can be updated continuously by using a sliding averaging way:
That is,
is calculated according to a channel cross-covariance matrix Rxy(k) at time k and a channel coefficient vector H(k) at time k, and the calculation result is taken as the channel cross-covariance matrix Rxy(k+1) at time k+1, wherein, Nd is the window size of a Fast Fourier Transform when the UE performs the diversity combination; p is a set weighing value; k denotes time k, and the sum of Rxy(k) at time k and current Nd channel cross-covariance matrixes are weight-averaged so that Rxy(k+1) at time k+1 can be obtained.
304. The UE feeds back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation.
305. The respective coordinated cells implement the phase compensation according to the phase difference information they have received, respectively, and then all the coordinated cell transmit signals to one UE in a coordinated way.
306. After the UE receives the signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells, it selects one of them as a reference cell in turn, takes the k-th path from the reference cell to the UE as a reference path, takes the time delay of the reference cell with respect to the current service cell as a reference time delay, and calculates the time delay differences τ of the time delay of the paths to the UE of the other coordinated cells with respect to the reference time delay (i.e. with respect to the current service cell).
307. A weighting value for the signals transmitted by each of said coordinated cells when performing a diversity combination at the UE end is calculated according to the time delay reference τ corresponding to the coordinated cell; and specifically, the weighting value can be calculated by the following formula 3:
Wherein, Tu is the width of an OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) symbol, which does not include a Cyclic Preamble (CP); and TCP is the length of the Cyclic Preamble. Actually, the weighting value calculated according to the time delay difference corresponding to each coordinated cell is an effective proportion of the other multiple paths (including all the coordinated cell signals) received in the window calculated by using FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) when performing the diversity combination at the UE end.
In the above Formula 3, Situation (1) denotes that the path arrives at the UE prior to the reference path, i.e. the time delay difference is less than 0, and the difference exceeds one OFDM symbol width; Situation (2) denotes that the path arrives at the UE prior to the reference path, but the difference does not exceed one OFDM symbol width; Situation (3) denotes that the path arrives at the UE behind the reference path, i.e. the time delay difference is larger than 0, but the difference does not exceed the CP width; Situation (4) denotes that the path arrives at the UE behind the reference path, and the difference exceeds the CP width but is less than the whole symbol width (including the CP); and Situation (5) denotes that the path arrives at the UE behind the reference path, and the time delay difference exceeds the whole symbol width (including the CP).
308. The reference energy values after combining the received signals are calculated according to the weighting value corresponding to each coordinated cell, and the reference cell corresponding to the maximum value of the reference energy values is determining as a first cell, wherein the time start point after removing the Cyclic Preamble of the signals of said first cell is the start point of the window of the FFT.
Specifically, the energy after diversity combining the multi-path signals received by the UE is:
Wherein, N is the number of the coordinated cells, L is the number of multiple paths of each cell signal to the UE (assuming the number of multiple paths of each cell signal to the UE is the same), τn,l is the time delay of the l-th path of the cell n to the UE, and τi,k is the channel time-domain impulse response of the k-th path of the cell i to the UE.
Then, the time delay of the reference cell, which can maximize the energy after the diversity combination, with respect to the current service cell should be
In the present embodiment, the above Formula 5 can further be reduced; and assuming that there is a fixed time delay difference between the signals from any two cells to the UE, and the time delay differences existing among different multiple paths of one same cell are ignored, τn,l in the above Formula 5 satisfies τn,1=τn,2= . . . =τn,l, and thus Formula 5 can be reduced as:
That is, only the 1st path among the multiple paths from each coordinated cell to the UE is used as a reference for the optimum window selection, so as to reduce the search time.
The time delay difference that can maximize the signal-combination energy can be obtained according to Formula 6, the reference cell corresponding to the maximum time delay difference is taken as the first cell, and the time start point after removing the Cyclic Preamble of the signals of the first cell is the start point of the window of the FFT.
309. The received signals are combined by using the FFT algorithm, according to the determined start point of the window of the FFT.
Specifically, at a sub-carrier k, the frequency-domain channel coefficient from the transmitter of the n-th cell to the UE end can be expressed as:
Wherein, L is the number of multi-path sub-channels, kW is the channel time-domain impulse response, hn,i is the time-domain impulse response of the l-th sub-path, τn,i is the time delay of the l-th sub-path with respect to the first path. For example, the frequency channel coefficients from the 1st cell and the 2nd cell to the current UE are:
Since the distance between the 1st cell and the UE and the distance between the 2nd cell and the UE are different, the times when the signals arrive at the UE are also different, and there exists a certain relative time delay. If the time start point after removing the CP of the signal from the 1st cell to the UE is taken as the start point of the window of the receiver FFT, and the time difference between the time when the 2nd cell signal arrives at the UE and the time when the 1st signal arrives at the UE (the 1st path time difference) is defined as Δτ2,1, then when performing signal combination, the frequency-domain channel coefficient H′2(fk) between the 2nd cell and the UE can be equivalent as:
and then the final equivalent combination channel coefficient is:
H(fk)=H1(fk)+H′2(fk)=H1(fk)+H2(fk)·e−j2πf
If the number of the coordinated cells is extended to M, and the FFT window of the 1st coordinated cell is still taken as the combined FFT window, the combined channel coefficient can be expressed as:
In Formula 10, the time start point after removing the CP of the signal of the 1st cell that is determined in the step 308 is taken as the window start point of the FFT, and Δτm,l is the time delay of the m-th coordinated cell with respect to the first cell, i.e. the time delay of the m-th coordinated cell with respect to said phase reference cell.
Then, the combined signal is calculated according to the calculated channel coefficient H(fk) after the combination.
Furthermore, in the present embodiment, the signal powers of signals transmitted by a coordinated cell can further be calculated by calculating the channel auto-covariance matrix of said coordinated cell; more specifically,
If the channel coefficient of said coordinated cell is Hz (f), the channel covariance matrix corresponding to the coordinated cell is:
Wherein, the moduli of elements R′11, R′22, R′33 R′44 on the main diagonal in the matrix, which are the powers of CSI-RSs (Channel State Info-Reference Signals) transmitted by four antennae of the coordinated cell, correspond to the signal intensities of the four CSI-RSs (Received Signal Strength Indicator, RSSI).
Likewise, in order to maintain a relatively stable pre-estimation and feedback, the above covariance matrix can be updated continuously by using a sliding averaging way:
That is,
is calculated according to a channel covariance matrix Rxx(k) at time k and a channel coefficient vector H(k) at time k, and the calculation result is taken as the channel covariance matrix Rxx(k+1) at time k+1, wherein, Nd is the window size of a Fast Fourier Transform when the UE performs the diversity combination; ρ is a set weighing value.
In the method for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the phase differences between the signals of the current service cell and respective other coordinated cells are fed back to corresponding cell base stations by means of limited feedback in order to implement phase compensation of signals at transmitting ends, and the demodulation performance of signals of the user equipment is improved by determining the start point of the window of the FFT when performing diversity combination according to the principle of maximum energy after combining the signals received by the user equipment, and further by combining the signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells using the FFT algorithm, thereby effectively eliminating the influence on the receiving-transmitting synchronization by the phase noise caused by the phase differences among multiple coordinated cells.
Furthermore, the present embodiment further provides a method for obtaining parameters such as the signal intensity, phase difference and so on of different coordinated cells by means of a channel covariance matrix/cross-covariance matrix, which simplifies the prior art method of sensing and measuring signal parameters.
With regard to the method provided in the Second Embodiment, the present embodiment provides a user equipment for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission.
As shown in
a phase calculating unit 41, for obtaining phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells in a coordinated multi-point transmission system; wherein the other coordinated cells are cells among all the coordinated cells other than the current service cell;
a feedback unit 42, for feeding back the phase differences to corresponding base stations of the other coordinated cells, respectively, to implement phase compensation;
a receiving unit 45, for receiving signals transmitted by the base stations of all the coordinated cells after the phase compensation,
In the present embodiment, the channel cross-covariance matrixes Rxy(f) are the covariance matrixes between channel coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells, i.e.
R
xy(f)=Hx(f)HHy(f)
wherein Hx(f) is the channel coefficient vector of the current service cell; Hx(f)H is the transposition of Hx(f); and Hy(f) is the channel efficient vector of a cell among the other coordinated cells. Then,
the phase calculating unit 41 further comprises:
a cross-covariance calculating module 411, for calculating a channel cross-covariance matrix between the current service cell and the other coordinated cell according to a formula of
R
xy(f)=Hx(f)HHy(f);
an argument value calculating module 412, for calculating an argument of each element on the main diagonal of Rxy(f), wherein values of the arguments are the phase differences of the signals transmitted by multiple antennae of the cell among the other coordinated cells with respect to the current service cell.
Furthermore, the user equipment provided in the present embodiment further comprises:
a power calculating unit 43, for calculating powers of signals transmitted by multiple antennae of each coordinated cell by means of the channel covariance matrix;
and, the channel covariance matrix Rxx(f) is the auto-covariance matrix of channel coefficients of a cell among the coordinated cells, i.e.:
R
xx(f)=Hx(f)HHx(f)
Wherein, Hx(f) is the channel coefficients of the cell among the coordinated cells; then,
the power calculating unit 43 comprises:
a covariance calculating module 431, for calculating the channel cross-covariance matrix of a coordinated cell according to a formula of Rxx(f)=Hx(f)HHx(f) in turn;
a modulus value calculating module 432, for calculating modulus of each element on the main diagonal in Rxx(f), wherein the obtained moduli are powers of signals transmitted by multiple antennae of said coordinated cell.
Furthermore, the user equipment provided in the present embodiment can further comprise: an update unit 44, for modifying the channel covariance matrix or the channel cross-covariance matrix by means of the formula
i.e. calculating
by means of a channel covariance matrix or a channel cross-covariance matrix R(k) at time k and a channel coefficient vector H(k) at time k, thereby obtaining a channel covariance matrix or a channel cross-covariance matrix R(k+1) at time k+1; wherein, Nd is the window size of a Fast Fourier Transform. Specifically, the update unit 44 further comprises:
a first update module, for modifying the channel cross-covariance matrix calculated by the cross-covariance calculating module 411, wherein, the R(k+1) in the above Formula 13 is Rxy;
a second update module, for modifying the channel covariance matrix calculated by the covariance calculating module 431, wherein, the R(k+1) in the above Formula 13 is Rxx.
Furthermore, the user equipment provided in the present embodiment further comprises the following structures for accomplishing the procedure of combining the signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells; specifically, the user equipment further comprises:
a determining unit 51, for determining the start point of the window of the Fast Fourier Transform according to a principle of maximum combination energy;
a combining unit 52, for combining the signals received after the phase compensation by using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm.
Here, the determining unit 51 comprises:
a time delay calculating module 511, for calculating the time delay differences of the other coordinated cells with respect to a reference cell, by taking the multiple coordinated cells as the reference cell in turn and taking the time delay of the reference cell with respect to the current service cell as a reference time delay;
a weighting value calculating module 512, for calculating a weighting value for the signals transmitted by each of said coordinated cells when combining, according to the time delay difference of each coordinated cell with respect to the reference cell; and
a determining module 513, for obtaining reference energy values corresponding to the multiple reference cells, respectively, by calculating reference energy values after combining the received signals according to the weighting value corresponding to each coordinated cell, and determining, as a first cell, a reference cell corresponding to the maximum value of the multiple reference energy values, wherein the time start point after removing the Cyclic Preamble of the signals of said first cell is the start point of the window of the Fast Fourier Transform.
In the present embodiment, the combining unit 52 comprises:
a coefficient calculating module 521, for obtaining channel coefficients after combining the signals received after the phase compensation, by accomplishing the calculation of the Formula 10 of by using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm, wherein, M is the number of the coordinated cells, and Δτm,l is the time delay of the m-th coordinated cell with respect to the first cell;
a combining module 522, for calculating signals after combining according to the channel coefficients after combining.
In the user equipment for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the phase differences between the signals of respective coordinated cells and the current service cell are fed back to corresponding cell base stations by means of limited feedback in order to implement phase compensation of signals at transmitting ends, and the demodulation performance of signals of the user equipment is improved by determining the start point of the window of the FFT when performing diversity combination according to the principle of maximum energy after combining the signals received by the user equipment, and further by combining the signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells using the FFT algorithm, thereby effectively eliminating the influence on the receiving-transmitting synchronization by the phase noise caused by the phase differences among multiple coordinated cells.
Furthermore, the user equipment further provided by the present embodiment can further obtain parameters such as the signal intensity, phase difference and so on of different coordinated cells by means of a channel covariance matrix/cross-covariance matrix, which simplifies the prior art procedure of sensing and measuring signal parameters.
An embodiment of the present invention further provides a system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission, which, as shown in
the at least two base stations 62 are configured to transmit pilot signals outwards;
the user equipment 61 is configured to detect the pilot signals corresponding to the at least two base stations, respectively, obtain phase differences between other coordinated cells among the at least two coordinated cells and a current service cell by calculating channel cross-covariance matrixes between the current service cell and the other coordinated cells in the coordinated multi-point transmission system, and feed back the phase differences to the at least two base stations 62, in order to implement phase compensation;
the at least two base stations 62 are further configured to implement a phase compensation of signals according to the phase differences fed back by the user equipment, and transmit the signals after the phase compensation at least to the user equipment.
Furthermore, in order to successfully accomplishing the procedure of combining the signals transmitted by the multiple coordinated cells, in the system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the present embodiment, the user equipment 61 is further configured to determine the start point of the window of a Fast Fourier Transform according to a principle of maximum combination energy, and combine the signals received after the phase compensation by using the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm.
For the specific working principle of the system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided in the present embodiment, the description of the method in the Second Embodiment can be referred to, and thus it will not be repeated here.
In the system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the phase differences between other coordinated cells and a current service cell are easily obtained by establishing cross-covariance matrixes between channel coefficients of the current service cell and the other coordinated cells; and the demodulation performance of signals of a user equipment is improved by feeding back the phase differences to the corresponding base stations by means of limited feedback in order to implement phase compensation of signals at transmitting ends, thereby effectively eliminating the influence on the receiving-transmitting synchronization by the phase noise caused by the phase differences among multiple coordinated cells.
Furthermore, the start point of the window of the Fast Fourier Transform is determined according to the principle of maximum energy after combining the signals received by the user equipment, and the received signals are combined using the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm, so as to not only maximize the combination energy and also reduce the processing time for signal combination, thereby improving the efficiency of operating.
The method, equipment and system for implementing coordinated multi-point transmission provided in the embodiments of the present invention can be applied to the network MIMO (Multi-Input Multi-Output) in the Wimax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) system, the wireless ad-hoc network, the wireless sensor network or the coordinated communication in the wireless Mesh network, etc., and it can also be applied to the fields of wireless ranging, radar interference source location and so on.
Through the description of the embodiment above, it will be clear to a person skilled in the art that the present invention can be carried out by way of software plus necessary hardware platform, and of course can be carried out all by hardware. Based on such an understanding, all or part of the contribution of the solution of the present invention over the background art can be embodied at a form of software product, and the computer software product can be stored in a storage medium, such as a ROM/RAM, a magnetic disk, an optical disk and so on, which includes several instructions for enabling a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to implement the method(s) described in the respective embodiments or some parts of the embodiments of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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200910260758.8 | Dec 2009 | CN | national |
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2010/078713, filed on Nov. 15, 2010, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 200910260758.8, filed with the Chinese Patent Office on Dec. 31, 2009, which is incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/CN2010/078713 | Nov 2010 | US |
Child | 13338358 | US |