BACKGROUND

I. Field

Disclosed aspects relate generally to antenna-array processing and ad-hoc networking, and particularly to providing cooperative signal processing between a plurality of wireless terminal devices, such as to improve network access.

II. Description

Wireless data service is an emerging market with high growth potential. However, market growth requires higher bandwidth and better coverage than cellular technologies can provide. Furthermore, state-of-the-art wireless network technologies are mainly focused on the server side, rather than using mobile wireless terminals to extend the network infrastructure.

A peer-to-peer mode of communication is expected to offer distinct performance benefits over the conventional cellular model, including better spatial-reuse characteristics, lower energy consumption, and extended coverage areas. The key advantage of the peer-to-peer network model is the increase in spatial reuse due to its short-range transmissions. Although peer-to-peer networking shows some promise, there are significant drawbacks that prevent conventional peer-to-peer networks from being a technically and commercially viable solution.

Recent analyses of multi-hop networks compared to cellular networks have indicated that the spatial reuse improvement in the peer-to-peer network model does not translate into greater throughput. Rather, the throughput is lower than that observed in the cellular network model. This observation is explained in three parts:Multi-hop Routes: Although the spatial reuse is increased, since a flow traverses multiple hops in the peer-to-peer network model, the end-to-end throughput of a flow, while directly proportional to the spatial reuse, is also inversely proportional to the hop-length. Moreover, since the expected hop-length in a dense network is of the order of O(√n), a tighter bound on the expected per-flow throughput is O(1/√n). While this bound is still higher than that of the dense cellular network model (O(1/n)), the following two reasons degrade the performance even more.Base-Station Bottleneck: The degree of spatial reuse and expected per-flow throughput of the peer-to-peer network model is valid for a network where all flows have destinations within the same cell. In this case, the base station is the destination for all flows (e.g., it is the destination of the wireless path). Thus, any increase in spatial reuse cannot be fully realized as the channel around the base-station becomes a bottleneck and has to be shared by all the flows in the network. Note that this is not an artifact of the single-channel model. As long as the resources around the base-station are shared by all the flows in the network (irrespective of the number of channels), the performance of the flows will be limited to that of the cellular network model.Protocol Inefficiencies: The protocols used in the cellular network model are both simple and centralized, with the base station performing most of the coordination. Cellular protocols operate over a single hop, leading to very minimal performance degradation because of protocol inefficiencies. However, in the peer-to-peer network model, the protocols (such as IEEE 802.11 and DSR) are distributed, and they operate over multiple hops. The multi-hop path results in more variation in latency, losses, and throughput for TCP. These inefficiencies (which arise because of the distributed operation of the medium access and routing layers) and the multi-hop operation at the transport layer translate into a further degraded performance.

Similarly, antenna-array processing has demonstrated impressive improvements in coverage and spatial reuse. Array-processing systems typically employ multiple antennas at base stations to focus transmitted and received radio energy and thereby improve signal quality. In cellular communications, improvements in signal quality lead to system-wide benefits with respect to coverage, service quality and, ultimately, the economics of cellular service. Furthermore, the implementation of antenna arrays at both ends of a communication link can greatly increase the capacity and performance benefits via Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) processing. However, power, cost, and size constraints typically make the implementation of antenna arrays on mobile wireless terminals, such as handsets or PDAs, impractical.

In cooperative diversity, each wireless terminal is assigned an orthogonal signal space relative to the other terminals for transmission and/or reception. In particular, both multiplexing and multiple access in cooperative diversity are orthogonal. In antenna-array processing, either or both multiplexing and multiple access are non-orthogonal. Specifically, some form of interference cancellation is required to separate signals in an array-processing system because transmitted and/or received information occupies the same signal space.

Applications and embodiments relate to ad-hoc networking and antenna-array processing. Embodiments may address general and/or specific needs that are not adequately serviced by the prior art, including (but not limited to) improving network access (e.g., enhancing range, coverage, throughput, connectivity, and/or reliability). Applications of certain embodiments may include tactical, emergency response, and consumer wireless communications. Due to the breadth and scope of the present invention, embodiments may be provided for achieving a large number of objectives and applications, which are too numerous to list herein. Therefore, only some of the objects and advantages of specific embodiments of the present invention are discussed in the Summary and in the Detailed Description.

SUMMARY

Some of the exemplary embodiments of the disclosure are summarized as follows. Embodiments include beam-forming systems configured to enable spatially separated wireless terminals (WTs) to perform beam-forming operations in a wireless wide area network (WWAN). A wireless local area network (WLAN) couples together the WTs, which may be configured to share WWAN data, access, and control information. A beam-forming system may comprise the WTs, which function as elements of an antenna array. WWAN network access functions (such as monitoring control channels and exchanging control messages with the WWAN) may be provided in a centralized or a distributed manner with respect to the WTs.

Embodiments also include systems and methods configured for allocating network resources among the WTs, load balancing, distributed computing, antenna-switching diversity, WWAN diversity, interference mitigation, hand off, power control, authentication, session management, ad-hoc network control, error correction coding, and interference mitigation. Other embodiments and variations thereof are described in the Detailed Description.

In one embodiment, a computer program comprises a beam-forming weight calculation source code segment adapted to calculate at least one set of beam-forming weights for signaling between at least one group of WTs and at least one WWAN, and a WLAN information-distribution source code segment adapted to distribute at least one of a set of signals between the at least one group of WTs, the set of signals including a plurality of received WWAN signals, a plurality of WWAN transmission data, and the at least one set of beam-forming weights.

In another embodiment. a computer program comprises a beam-forming weight source code segment adapted to calculate at least one set of beam-forming weights for signaling between at least one group of WTs and at least one WWAN, and a MIMO combining source code segment adapted to combine a plurality of weighted received WWAN signals, at least one of the beam-forming weight source code segment and the MIMO combining source code segment including WLAN information-distribution source code adapted to distribute at least one of a set of signals between the at least one group of wireless terminals, the set of signals including a plurality of received WWAN signals, a plurality of WWAN transmission data, at least one channel estimate, and the at least one set of beam-forming weights.

A receiver embodiment of the invention comprises a plurality of WWAN interfaces, wherein each WWAN interface is adapted to receive at least one transmitted WWAN signal; a plurality of baseband processors wherein each baseband processor is coupled to at least one WWAN interface in the plurality of WWAN interfaces, the plurality of baseband processors adapted to generate a plurality of WWAN baseband signals; at least one WLAN coupled to the plurality of baseband processors; and at least one MIMO combiner adapted to receive at least one WWAN baseband signal from the WLAN, the at least one MIMO combiner adapted to perform MIMO combining of a plurality of WWAN baseband signals.

A transmitter embodiment of the invention comprises a plurality of WWAN interfaces wherein each WWAN interface is adapted to transmit at least one WWAN signal; at least one data source adapted to generate at least one data signal for transmission into at least one WWAN; at least one WLAN adapted to couple the at least one data signal to the plurality of WWAN interfaces for generating a plurality of WWAN data signals; and at least one MIMO processor adapted to generate a plurality of complex weights for weighting the plurality of WWAN data signals.

A wireless terminal according to one aspect of the invention comprises at least one WWAN interface; at least one WLAN interface; and at least one cooperative beam-forming system coupled between the WWAN interface and the WLAN interface and adapted to perform beamforming with information received from the WLAN interface.

Receivers and cancellation systems described herein may be employed in subscriber-side devices (e.g., cellular handsets, wireless modems, and consumer premises equipment) and/or server-side devices (e.g., cellular base stations, wireless access points, wireless routers, wireless relays, and repeaters). Chipsets for subscriber-side and/or server-side devices may be configured to perform at least some of the receiver and/or cancellation functionality of the embodiments described herein.

Additional embodiments, objects, and advantages are described and inferred from the following detailed descriptions and figures. Although particular embodiments are described herein, many variations and permutations of these embodiments fall within the scope and spirit of the invention. Although some benefits and advantages of the preferred embodiments are mentioned, the scope of the invention is not intended to be limited to particular benefits, uses, or objectives. Rather, embodiments of the invention are intended to be broadly applicable to different wireless technologies, system configurations, networks, and transmission protocols, some of which are illustrated by way of example in the figures and in the following detailed description. The detailed description and drawings are merely illustrative of the invention rather than limiting, the scope of the invention being defined by the appended claims and equivalents thereof.

