Patent Application
20240243597
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to telecommunication devices. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to a self-powered base station for telecommunication devices that can be used in a modular house.
The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
The increasing demand for stable and high-speed telecommunication poses great difficulties for the deployment of 4G LTE and 5G base stations across the country. Although nowadays, the reliability of optical fiber backhauls is stronger than wireless approaches, and the cost of optical fiber is not expensive, the deployment of optical fibers in vast land areas and even in cities requires a lot of manpower investment, adding extra cost for optical fiber deployment. In addition, deploying optical fiber needs to occupy land resource, while the private nature of land resources in United States makes the transaction cost of renting land for deployment remain high. Therefore, it is of great importance and urgency to use wireless methods (e.g., microwave backhaul, as an important part of wireless backhaul, is a low-cost and cost-effective approach) to work with optical fibers, and to develop new base station arrangement patterns for achieving better and cost-efficient signal quality and coverage.
Due to the short coverage distance of 5G signal, the number of 5G base stations must be about 3 times that of the 4G ones, if the same coverage of current 4G base stations is to be achieved. On the other hand, the maximum power consumption of a 5G base station is about 3-4 times that of a 4G one. So, in general, the total electricity cost of 5G base stations in the future will reach 9-10 times that of 4G.
The heating issue of a base station is critical for the long-term and efficient operation of the involved electronic devices. Traditionally, heat dissipation of a base station mainly relies on air cooling, such as air conditioning. Air-based cooling is minimally effective and will greatly increase power usage.
As can be seen, there is a need for a self-powered base station that can be incorporated into a modular house or other dwelling and that can adequately cool the base station to reduce issues of overheating.
Embodiments of the present invention aim to solve the aforementioned problems in conventional telecommunication devices by providing a self-powered base station that can be incorporated as a functional unit within a modular house. The self-powered base station can be powered by at least one of a savonius wind turbine and a solar panel array. The self-powered base station can include a water heating system to providing cooling to the components of the base station while further providing warmed water to a dwelling, reducing the energy cost for heating water used in the dwelling.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a self-powered communication base station comprising base station equipment to provide communication between end users and communication towers, wherein the base station equipment includes at least one of an active antenna processing unit (AAU) and a remote radio unit (RRU); a self-contained power supply; and a battery to store power from the self-contained power supply, the battery providing power to operate the base station equipment.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a self-powered communication base station comprising base station equipment to provide communication between end users and communication towers, wherein the base station equipment includes at least one of an active antenna processing unit (AAU) and a remote radio unit (RRU); a self-contained power supply; a battery to store power from the self-contained power supply, the battery providing power to operate the base station equipment; and a water heating system, the water heating system comprising a plurality of cooling panels disposed adjacent at least a portion of the base station equipment, the water heating system including a pump for moving water from water source, through the plurality of cooling panels, and back to a warmed water storage tank.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a self-powered communication base station comprising base station equipment to provide communication between end users and communication towers, wherein the base station equipment includes at least one of an active antenna processing unit (AAU) and a remote radio unit (RRU); a savonius wind turbine rotatably disposed on a pole structure; a solar panel array; a battery to store power from the savonius wind turbine and the solar panel array, the battery providing power to operate the base station equipment; and a water heating system, the water heating system comprising a plurality of cooling panels disposed adjacent at least a portion of the base station equipment, the water heating system including a pump for moving water from water source, through the plurality of cooling panels, and back to a warmed water storage tank, wherein the warmed water storage tank supplies warmed water to a dwelling; and the self-powered communication base station is incorporated as a unit of the dwelling.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.
Some embodiments of the present invention are illustrated as an example and are not limited by the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references may indicate similar elements.
The illustrations in the figures may not necessarily be drawn to scale.
The invention and its various embodiments can now be better understood by turning to the following detailed description wherein illustrated embodiments are described. It is to be expressly understood that the illustrated embodiments are set forth as examples and not by way of limitations on the invention as ultimately defined in the claims.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well as the singular forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one having ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and the present disclosure and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.
In describing the invention, it will be understood that a number of techniques and steps are disclosed. Each of these has individual benefit and each can also be used in conjunction with one or more, or in some cases all, of the other disclosed techniques. Accordingly, for the sake of clarity, this description will refrain from repeating every possible combination of the individual steps in an unnecessary fashion. Nevertheless, the specification and claims should be read with the understanding that such combinations are entirely within the scope of the invention and the claims.
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details.
The present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the invention and is not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments illustrated by the figures or description below.
As is well known to those skilled in the art, many careful considerations and compromises typically must be made when designing for the optimal configuration of a commercial implementation of any system, and in particular, the embodiments of the present invention. A commercial implementation in accordance with the spirit and teachings of the present invention may be configured according to the needs of the particular application, whereby any aspect(s), feature(s), function(s), result(s), component(s), approach(es), or step(s) of the teachings related to any described embodiment of the present invention may be suitably omitted, included, adapted, mixed and matched, or improved and/or optimized by those skilled in the art, using their average skills and known techniques, to achieve the desired implementation that addresses the needs of the particular application.
Broadly, embodiments of the present invention provide a self-powered mobile base station unit, intended for modular houses and other dwellings, that is connected via optical fiber or microwave backhaul to provide for a better and more practical arrangement pattern of communication base station networks to cater for the fast development of high-speed LTE and 5G networks in the country. Baseband unit (BBU), remote radio unit (RRU) and antenna (or active antenna unit (AAU) for 5G), optical fiber or parabolic antenna (microwave backhaul), power and battery, solar energy panels and savonius wind turbine, and any other accessories like a lifting platform, air conditioning and monitoring, are included into the mobile self-powered base station unit. The energy harvesting devices can cover the energy consumption of the base station system and can provide extra electricity for the resident of the modular house.
Modular houses, providing a more convenient way for dwelling in the upcoming years, can be tailored with various functional units and assembled together. These functional units can include fitness units, office units and entertainment units, for example. Developing a mobile base station unit, which is compatible with modular houses and other dwellings, is of great value for telecommunication operators to easily establish a better telecommunication network around the country. Moreover, solar and wind energy harvesting devices can be integrated into the base station unit for powering the resident and covering the consumption of base station system.
As discussed above, air-based cooling is less effective and will greatly increase power usage compared to a liquid cooling method. Aspects of the present invention provide a liquid cooling plate fixed on the main heat-generating device (e.g., AAU, RRU, and BBU), and the heat is taken away by the liquid flowing through the cold plate to achieve the purpose of heat dissipation. The liquid in the cold plate does not touch the cooled device, and the heat conduction plate is used in the middle to transfer heat, which has high safety.
The figures are briefly described below, followed by a broader discussion of each figure and the components therein.
Referring again to
Referring to
The base station equipment 36 can include one or more of the RRU or AAU, the lifting platform, the water pump, cooling equipment, monitors, microwave antennas, cooling panels, or the like, as described in greater detail below.
The water heating system 22 can include a plurality of cooling panels 40. The cooling panels 40, as illustrated by an exemplary cooling panel 70 in
Referring to
As shown in
A savonius wind rotor 80 has many advantages over other vertical axis wind turbines including being a simple and inexpensive design. In addition, the savonius wind rotor 80 is independent of the wind direction, where there is no need to adjust the orientation of this base station unit, and has a good starting torque at a lower wind speed. To further improve the energy harvesting performance of the wind turbine 24, a configuration of double staged S-type rotor with two blades 84 in each stage is applied. As shown in
All the features disclosed in this specification, including any accompanying abstract and drawings, may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.
Claim elements and steps herein may have been numbered and/or lettered solely as an aid in readability and understanding. Any such numbering and lettering in itself is not intended to and should not be taken to indicate the ordering of elements and/or steps in the claims.
Many alterations and modifications may be made by those having ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, it must be understood that the illustrated embodiments have been set forth only for the purposes of examples and that they should not be taken as limiting the invention as defined by the following claims. For example, notwithstanding the fact that the elements of a claim are set forth below in a certain combination, it must be expressly understood that the invention includes other combinations of fewer, more or different ones of the disclosed elements.
The words used in this specification to describe the invention and its various embodiments are to be understood not only in the sense of their commonly defined meanings, but to include by special definition in this specification the generic structure, material or acts of which they represent a single species.
The definitions of the words or elements of the following claims are, therefore, defined in this specification to not only include the combination of elements which are literally set forth. In this sense it is therefore contemplated that an equivalent substitution of two or more elements may be made for any one of the elements in the claims below or that a single element may be substituted for two or more elements in a claim. Although elements may be described above as acting in certain combinations and even initially claimed as such, it is to be expressly understood that one or more elements from a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from the combination and that the claimed combination may be directed to a subcombination or variation of a subcombination.
Insubstantial changes from the claimed subject matter as viewed by a person with ordinary skill in the art, now known or later devised, are expressly contemplated as being equivalently within the scope of the claims. Therefore, obvious substitutions now or later known to one with ordinary skill in the art are defined to be within the scope of the defined elements.
The claims are thus to be understood to include what is specifically illustrated and described above, what is conceptually equivalent, what can be obviously substituted and also what incorporates the essential idea of the invention.
