Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to a phase shifter, an antenna device and a base station.
In the communications area, a phase shifter (PS) is commonly used in an antenna device to improve the range and accuracy of the antenna beam scan. With the phase shifter, the number of the antenna elements in the antenna device can be reduced, which may in turn save the cost and power consumption of the antenna device.
In recent antenna technologies, various phase shifters have been proposed. For example, a digital phase shifter may comprise diodes and other peripheral circuits to shift phases of signals. Another proposed PS includes a first printed circuit board (PCB), a second PCB in parallel to the first PCB, and a third PCB bending between the first and second PCBs to couple to ends of the first and second PCBs. By moving the first or second PCB in a parallel direction, the phase shifters may continuously shift phases of signals. Improved solutions of phase shifters are still needed.
In general, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide a phase shifter, an antenna device comprising the phase shifter and a base station.
In a first aspect, there is provided a phase shifter. The phase shifter comprises a substrate, a movable assembly and an adjusting assembly. The substrate comprises a group of first conductive members. The movable assembly comprises a second conductive member electronically coupled to the group of first conductive members, and the movable assembly is adapted to move relative to the substrate in a first direction to shift a phase of an electrical signal output by the phase shifter. The adjusting assembly is coupled to the movable assembly and adapted to move the movable assembly to enable at least one of: an alignment of the second conductive member and the group of first conductive members; or a change of a force applied by the movable assembly to the substrate.
In a second aspect, there is provided an antenna device. The antenna device comprises an antenna array and a phase shifter. The phase shifter comprises a substrate, a movable assembly and an adjusting assembly. The substrate comprises a group of first conductive members. The movable assembly comprises a second conductive member electronically connected to the group of first conductive members, and the movable assembly is adapted to move relative to the substrate in a first direction to shift a phase of an electrical signal output by the phase shifter. The adjusting assembly is coupled to the movable assembly and adapted to move the movable assembly to enable at least one of: an alignment of the second conductive member and the group of first conductive members; or a change of a force applied by movable assembly to the substrate.
In a third aspect, there is provided a base station. The base station comprises an antenna device according to the second aspect.
It is to be understood that the summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description.
Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:
Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.
Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. The disclosure described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.
In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.
References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “some example embodiments,” “an example embodiment,” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with some example embodiments, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.
It shall be understood that although the terms “first” and “second” etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “has”, “having”, “includes” and/or “including”, when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof.
As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following:
This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.
As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as 5G New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Non-terrestrial network (NTN), Internet of Things (IoT), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the future fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, and/or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems, including but not limited to a terrestrial communication system, a non-terrestrial communication system or a combination thereof. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.
As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP), for example, a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), a NR NB (also referred to as a gNB), a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), a radio head (RH), a remote radio head (RRH), a relay, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology.
The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), a Subscriber Station (SS), a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS), or an Access Terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but not be limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE), an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HIVID), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and/or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. In the following description, the terms “terminal device”, “communication device”, “terminal”, “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.
Various phase shifters are widely used in the radio product line. For example, multiple phase shifters are coupled to an antenna array of a base station (e.g., a gNB) for adjusting phases of electrical signals. Now communication technologies have evolved to the fifth generation new radio, which is also referred to as 5G NR, and the antenna device is typically comprised of a larger antenna array including massive antenna elements (AEs).
By way of example, the antenna device used in a radio cellular network often includes an antenna array that contains 192 AEs (96 dual polarized patches) to synthesize a desired beam pattern. Every three AEs may share a 3-in-1 feeding network and a port which is coupled to a transmit-receive unit (TRU) of the antenna device. In other words, the antenna array with 192 AEs is electrically connected to 64 TRUs. The TRU is adapted to adjust the phase and amplitude of each port during a beamforming process. On the one hand, the number of TRUs will affect the range and accuracy of beamforming. On the other hand, the increased number of TRUs may lead to an increase in cost and power consumption.
In the example above, if the number of TRUs is reduced from 64 to 32, the cost and power consumption of the antenna device will be halved. In this case, every 6 AEs will share a port and a TRU, which means the number of TRUs arranged in each column of the antenna array will be reduced from 4 to 2, and the number of TRUs arranged in each row still remains 8. Due to the reduced number of TRUs, such a layout has a limited range and accuracy of beam scan in a vertical direction. As a result, there is a demand on decreasing the number of TRUs and meanwhile keeping the beamforming ability of the antenna device.
To improve the range and accuracy of beam scan, a hybrid beamforming system is introduced to the antenna device by integrating one or more phase shifters (PS). These phase shifters may be controlled by extra circuits and mechanical structures to obtain a desired beam scan angle in a vertical direction. As such, the beamforming process will be affected by the digital TRU and the analogue PS together. The phase shifter normally includes a fixed PCB and a movable PCB, and each of the two PCBs includes at least one conductive member, for example, a microstrip line (MSL). The phase shifter adjusts the phase of the input electrical signal by the movement of the movable PCB relative to the fixed PCB, resulting in a change of a total length of the conductive members provided by the fixed PCB and the movable PCB.
During manufacture of such a phase shifter, there may be a mismatch of the fixed PCB and the movable PCB during the assembly process of the phase shifter.
During a service life of the antenna device, it may be difficult to keep the consistency and accuracy of a large number of phase shifters integrated in an antenna device. A poor consistency of the mechanical alignment of the various sub-parts of one or more phase shifter may lead to a series of drawbacks, such as, a reduced antenna gain, a high sidelobe level, a poor range of beam scan, and so on. There is a demand to keep the same phase and amplitude output by the phase shifters.
According to the example embodiments of the present disclosure, there is provided an improved phase shifter and an antenna device comprising the phase shifter. The phase shifter comprises a substrate, a movable assembly and an adjusting assembly. The substrate comprises a group of first conductive members. In some example embodiments, the first conductive members may include transmission lines, such as, microstrip lines. It will be appreciated that in other example embodiments that the microstrip lines could be realized by alternative types of conductive members, for example and not limited to, stripline, coplanar waveguide, slotline, coplanar strips, and so on, some of which may be electromagnetically coupled together to form the overall phase shifter transmission line length. The movable assembly comprises a second conductive member electrically coupled to the group of first conductive members, and the movable assembly is adapted to move relative to the substrate in a first direction to shift a phase of an electrical signal output by the phase shifter. The adjusting assembly is coupled to the movable assembly and adapted to move the movable assembly to enable at least one of: an alignment of the second conductive member and the group of first conductive members; or a change of a force applied by the movable assembly to the substrate. With the adjusting assembly, a contact tightness of the two PCBs of the phase shifter and the alignment of first conductive members on the two PCBs can be accurately adjusted. As such, all the phase shifters are capable of providing the same phase and amplitude outputs after they are assembled and the PCBs aligned during manufacture of the phase shifter before being assembled on the antenna device. Such a consistency can be kept during the service life of the antenna device.
Principle and embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Reference is first made to
The communication network 200 also includes one or more terminal devices, such as a terminal device 214. The terminal device 214 is served and communicated with the network device 212 as long as the terminal device 214 is located within the cell 216. In communication systems, an UL refers to a link in a direction from a terminal device to a network device, and a DL refers to a link in a direction from the network device to the terminal device.
It is to be understood that the number of network devices and terminal devices is only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitations. The communication network 200 may include any suitable number of network devices and terminal devices adapted for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure.
Communications in the communication network 200 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G) and the fifth generation (5G) and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and/or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and/or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.
Reference is now made to
As shown in
The phase shifters 10 are manually mounted on the antenna device 1. As previously mentioned, there is at least one MSL arranged on the fixed PCB and at least one MSL arranged on the movable PCB.
The substrate 20 may be the fixed PCB, while the movable assembly 30 may include the movable PCB, which is adapted to move relative to the substrate 20. Each of the substrate 20 and the movable assembly 30 further includes respective one or more first conductive members, which will be described in details below.
As shown in
The phase shifter 10 further includes the movable assembly 30 which is adapted to move relative to the substrate 20 in a first direction D1. The relative movement in the first direction can be driven by a cantilever 344, which will be discussed in details below. By way of example, the first direction D1 may be parallel or nearly parallel to the direction along which the first group of conductive members 21 and 22 are arranged on the surface of the substrate 20. As discussed above, with the relative movement of the substrate 20 and the movable assembly 30, the phase of the electrical signal output by the phase shifter 10 can be shifted. The movable assembly 30 includes a second conductive member (not shown) electronically connected to the group of first conductive members 21 and 22, a movable plate 32, and an elastic member 33 and a housing 34. In some example embodiments, the movable assembly 30 may further include a pressure plate 35. The pressure plate 35 may be provided between the housing 34 and the elastic member 33. Although the movable plate 32 is illustrated in
As shown, the housing 34 may be connected to a cantilever 344 fixed to the housing 34 at a first end of the cantilever 344. The cantilever 344 includes a pin 345 at its second end which is opposite to the first end. The pin 345 may be designed to match a pathway of a mechanical part of a driving component (not shown), such that the pin 345 can be flexibly moved in the pathway to force the movable assembly 30 to move relative to the substrate 20.
The phase shifter 10 further includes an adjusting assembly 40. In some example embodiments, the adjusting assembly 40 may include at least one adjusting member 41 to 43, which will be discussed in details below. The adjusting assembly 40 is coupled to the movable assembly 30 and adapted to move the movable assembly 30 relative to the substrate 20. Depending on either one movement or a combination of movements of at least one respective adjusting member, the movement driven by the adjusting assembly 40 may enable the alignment of the second conductive member relative to the group of first conductive members 21 and 22, additionally or alternatively, a change of a force applied by movable assembly 30 to the substrate 20.
In some example embodiments, the phase shifter 10 may include the enclosure 50. As mentioned above, the enclosure 50 is fixed on the substrate 20 and receives the movable assembly 30. Details of the configuration of the phase shifter 10 will be described below with respect to
The movable plate 32 further includes at least one protrusion 321 and 322, which protrude from a first side 323 in a second direction D2 perpendicular to the movable plate 32. As shown in
In some example embodiments, the movable plate 32 may not include the protrusions 321 and 322, as shown in
As shown in
By way of example, the adjusting member 90 is shown as a screw with screw thread on the body 902 and a tapered end 901. It should be understood that such a particular implementation is given for illustrative purpose only, and any other suitable implementation of the adjusting member is also possible. For example, in some example embodiments, the adjusting member 90 may be a cylinder. For example, the adjusting member 90 may alternatively be a bolt. Additionally or alternatively, the adjusting members 41 to 43 may have the same or different configurations as shown in
The elastic member 33 is provided between the adjusting member 41 and the movable plate 32. As such, if the first adjusting member 41 moves towards the movable plate 32, the elastic member 33 is compressed to provide a proper pressure to the movable plate 32, and the force applied by the movable assembly 30 to the substrate 20 is increased. In this case, a sliding friction force between the movable plate 32 and the substrate 20 will be also increased.
In a case where the first adjusting member 41 moves away from the movable plate 32, the force is decreased and thus the sliding friction force between the movable plate 32 and the substrate 20 will be also decreased. As such, the adjusting assembly 40 enables a change of the force applied by the movable assembly 30 to the substrate 20. It is to be understood that the first adjusting member 41 may be designed to be in a shape that is different from the shape shown in
By way of example, in a case where the first adjusting member 41 moves towards the movable plate 32, for example, by being screwed tightly, the pressure plate 35 moves downward to press the elastic member 33, which compresses the movable plate 32 and the substrate 20. In a case where the first adjusting member 41 moves away from the movable plate 32 by being screwed loosely, the pressure on the elastic member 33 will be decreased and thus the force applied by the movable assembly 30 to the substrate 20 will be also decreased. In this way, the sliding friction between the movable plate 32 and the substrate 20 can be adjustable.
As previously mentioned, since there are gaps between the first wall and the second wall of the housing 34 and the movable plate 32, the movable plate 32 can be driven by at least one of the adjusting members 42 and 43 to move within the cavity of the housing 34. Specifically, the adjusting members 42 and 43 are adapted to abut against the first side in response to a movement toward the movable plate 32. As the adjusting members 42 and 43, either alone or in combination, move towards the movable plate 32, the movable plate 32 is pushed towards the second wall of the housing 34, and the elastic member 33 is arranged to abut against the inner wall of the housing 34 to be elastically deformed. As such, the second conductive member 31 on the movable plate 32 may move relative to the first conductive members 21 and 22 on the substrate 20, as either or both of the adjusting members 42 and 43 move towards the movable plate 32.
By moving at least one of the second adjusting member 42 and the third adjusting member 43, for example, by screwing the adjusting members tightly or loosely to various extent, it may cause a translation movement or a rotation movement of the second conductive member 31 relative to the first conductive members 21 and 22. In this way, the second conductive member 31 can be moved to align with the overlap with the first conductive members 21 and 22. In other words, the second adjusting member 42 and the third adjusting member 43 are provided for adjusting the second conductive member 31 to overlap with the first conductive members 21 and 22 as much as possible.
As an example, by moving the second adjusting member 42 and the third adjusting member 43 towards the movable plate 32 for the same distance, it may cause a translational movement of the second conductive member 31 relative to the first conductive members 21 and 22. As another example, by moving either the second adjusting member 42 or the third adjusting member 43, or alternatively, by moving them for different distances, it may cause a rotational movement of the second conductive member 31 relative to the first conductive members 21 and 22.
Further, by moving the second adjusting member 42 and the third adjusting member 43, either alone or in combination, away from the movable plate 20, the elastic member33 after elastic deformation tends to revert to its original shape, which will drive the movable plate 32 away from the second wall of the housing 34.
It should be understood that the adjusting assembly 40 can include one or more of the adjusting members 41 to 43, and the adjusting members 41 to 43 can be used separately or in any combination. Although three adjusting members are illustrated, other numbers of adjusting members is possible, including only one adjusting member.
According to the example embodiments of the present disclosure, by moving one or more adjusting members of the adjusting assembly 40, the phase shifter can flexibly adjust the matching and alignment of the movable PCB and the fixed PCB, and thereby realizing a desired phase. In addition, after adjustment, the adjusting members of phase shifter can be fixed on the housing, for example, by glued in respective engaging holes, so that the desired phase can be kept, which may further improve the consistency among a plurality of phase shifters in the antenna device.
Further, while operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.
Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2020/130023 | 11/19/2020 | WO |