Ryan, Mason & Lewis, LLP
Method and apparatus for reducing interference in non-stationary subscriber radio units using flexible beam selection
A method and apparatus are disclosed for beam selection in a non-stationary subscriber radio unit having a multi-beam antenna array. The disclosed multi-beam antenna array acts in an omni-directional manner whenever signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance is sufficient, and excludes individual branches, as necessary, on the basis of SNR performance. A multi-mode approach is used to select appropriate antennas in the multi-beam antenna array. A given mode is established on the basis of the SNR of the received signal. Generally, if the SNR of the received signal satisfies predefined criteria, the non-stationary subscriber radio unit will operate the multi-beam antenna array in an omni-directional-like manner, by equally combining the received signal from each individual narrow-beam antenna branch. If the SNR of the received signal fails to satisfy the predefined criteria, the non-stationary subscriber radio unit will operate the multi-beam antenna array in a flex-beam manner that excludes those branches that have exhibited degraded SNR performance. A branch ordering table lists the branches in the multi-beam antenna array in order of their SNR performance. A flex_counter indicates the number of branches that are currently excluded in a flex operating mode due to poor degraded SNR performance. Thus, during the flex mode, the power is redistributed into the remaining transmitting branches (those in the first part of the branch ordering table), until the SNR performance recovers.
Agere Systems Inc.
H H
H04L H04B
inventional inventional
Ming-Ju Michael Scott Wen-Kai Raymond R.
Ho Rawles Yen Thomas