Method and system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter. The method comprises: performing a first measurement by means of a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter; performing a second measurement by means of the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter; obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter; determining a position of the measurement system; and taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter. In addition, a system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter is described.

Claims

1. A method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, comprising: performing a first measurement by a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter; performing a second measurement by the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter; obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter, determining a position of the measurement system; and taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter such that at least two different measurement values associated with different transmitters are taken into consideration.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein a ratio or a difference is determined that is based on the first measurement value and the second measurement value, and wherein the ratio or the difference is used to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a model is used, and wherein the measurement values obtained are evaluated in order to identify a best fit of the measurement values with regard to the model applied for estimating the transmission direction of the first transmitter.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein an artificial intelligence is used to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter, wherein the artificial intelligence was trained by training data comprising measurement values of transmitters with known transmission direction, and wherein the artificial intelligence receives the measurement values in order to output the estimated transmission direction of the first transmitter.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein several measurements are performed such that at least one of the first measurement value and the second measurement value are/is determined several times from different measurement directions.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein a metric is generated based on the results of the several measurements performed from the different measurement directions.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first measurement value and the second measurement value comprise at least one of a receive-power, a signal-to-interference-noise ratio, a receive-quality indicator, a delay-spread or any combination thereof.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the position information is obtained from a database or from an estimation result provided by a position-estimation circuit.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the position information of the first transmitter and the position information of the second transmitter are substantially identical since the first transmitter and the second transmitter are co-located.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the position information and the position of the measurement system each comprise geographic position information.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the position of the measurement system is determined by a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) module.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmission direction is estimated with regard to at least one of azimuth and elevation.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measurement values are filtered and interpolated over an angular measurement range.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein a path loss compensation is applied on the measurement values.

15. The method according to claim 1, wherein a joint estimation of the respective transmission direction is performed for the first transmitter and the second transmitter.

16. The method according to claim 1, wherein a probability-density function is taken into consideration for the respective estimation.

17. The method according to claim 1, wherein a confidence interval is calculated for the respective estimation.

18. A system for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, the system comprising: a measurement circuit; a position circuit; and an analysis circuit, wherein the measurement circuit is configured to gather measurement values of a first transmitter and a second transmitter and to forward these measurement values to the analysis circuit such that at least two different measurement values associated with different transmitters are taken into consideration, wherein the position circuit is configured to gather a position of the measurement system itself and to forward the position to the analysis circuit, and wherein the analysis circuit is configured to obtain position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter and to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter based on the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system.

19. The system according to claim 18, wherein the analysis circuit is configured to: determine a ratio or a difference that is based on the first measurement value and the second measurement value; apply a model that is used to identify a best fit of the measurement values with regard to the model applied; and/or use an artificial intelligence that was trained by training data comprising measurement values of transmitters with known transmission direction, wherein the artificial intelligence receives the measurement values in order to output the estimated transmission direction of the first transmitter.

20. A method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter, comprising: performing a first measurement by a measurement system, thereby obtaining a first measurement value of a first transmitter; performing a second measurement by means of the measurement system, thereby obtaining a second measurement value of a second transmitter; obtaining position information of the first transmitter and the second transmitter; determining a position of the measurement system; and taking the first measurement value, the second measurement value, the position information as well as the position of the measurement system into account in order to estimate the transmission direction of the first transmitter such that a possible shadowing of the signals transmitted is cancelled out effectively.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of the claimed subject matter will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

(2) FIG. 1 schematically shows a measurement system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

(3) FIG. 2 schematically shows an overview illustrating a representative method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter; and

(4) FIG. 3 shows a representative flow-chart illustrating the method of estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

(5) The detailed description set forth below in connection with the appended drawings, where like numerals reference like elements, is intended as a description of various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter and is not intended to represent the only embodiments. Each embodiment described in this disclosure is provided merely as an example or illustration and should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. The illustrative examples provided herein are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the claimed subject matter to the precise forms disclosed.

(6) FIG. 1 shows a system 10 for estimating a transmission direction of a transmitter. The system 10 comprises a measurement circuit or module 12, a position circuit or module 14 as well as an analysis circuit or module 16. As shown in FIG. 1, the measurement module 12 as well as the position module 14 are connected with the analysis module 16.

(7) The measurement module 12 gathers measurement values of a first transmitter, labelled with cell c0, and at least a second transmitter that is labelled with cell c1. In the shown embodiment, the measurement module 12 gathers measurement values of several transmitters, namely cells c1 to cn. The respective transmitters are co-located which means that the respective transmitters may be located at a common tower as shown in FIG. 2.

(8) The position module 14 gathers a position of the system 10 itself. For instance, the position module 14 is established by a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) module such as a global positioning system (GPS) module. The respective position of the measurement system 10 gathered is forwarded to the analysis module 16 as shown in FIG. 1. The position concerns to geographic position information.

(9) The analysis module 16 may comprise an internal storage 18 that provides an internal database comprising position information of the respective transmitters, namely geographic position information of the transmitters. Alternatively, the database may be provided on an external device or data store that can be accessed by the system 10 or rather the analysis module 16.

(10) In a further alternative embodiment, the position information of the transmitters is provided by a position-estimation circuit or module that may be integrated in the system 10 or rather an external one. The position-estimation module may use image analysis techniques in order to estimate the respective positions of the transmitters.

(11) In any case, the position information of the transmitters as well as the position of the system 10 correspond to geographic position information that can be processed by the analysis module 16, for example an internal calculation circuit or unit 20. The calculation unit 20 takes the position information as well as the position into account in order to calculate the measurement direction of the system 10, for example the measurement module 12, with respect to the transmitters.

(12) In addition, the analysis module 16 has a pre-processing circuit or unit 22 that receives the respective measurement values as well as the measurement direction calculated by the calculation unit 20. In the pre-processing unit 22, the measurement values gathered may be filtered and interpolated over an angular measurement range. Thus, empty portions of the entire angular range to be investigated may be filled with appropriate values prior to the interpolation in order to simplify the interpolation appropriately. Furthermore, false measurement values or rather artefacts may be filtered such that they do not disturb the interpolation process.

(13) In addition, the pre-processing unit 22 may perform a path-loss compensation for the respective measurement values. Hence, the respective path loss to be compensated is determined based on the information obtained with regard to the position of the system 10 and the position information of the transmitters, for example the respective measurement direction calculated previously, as well as the measurement values gathered by the measurement module 12.

(14) The path loss compensation scales the measurement values obtained from a far distance such that they appear to be made close to the transmitters. Therefore, more accurate measurement results are obtained, resulting in an improved estimation of the transmission direction of the transmitter of interest.

(15) However, the pre-processing unit 22 is an optional one such that the respective pre-processing steps performed by the pre-processing unit 22 are also only optional.

(16) The (pre-processed) measurement values as well as the measurement direction calculated is forwarded to an estimation circuit or unit 24 of the analysis module 16 that calculates the transmission direction of the first transmitter that is of interest, namely cell c0.

(17) Hereinafter, the respective estimation process is described in more detail while referring to FIGS. 2 and 3 that illustrate the method of estimating the transmission direction of the transmitter in more detail.

(18) In FIG. 2, a typical scenario is shown that illustrates that three different transmitters (labelled with cell c0, cell c1 and cell c2) are located on a single tower, wherein these transmitters correspond to co-located transmitters covering a certain azimuth sector each. In addition, a building 26 is provided that causes a strong shadowing depending on the respective measurement direction of the measurement system 10.

(19) In FIG. 2, several measurement points at which a respective measurement of the three transmitters is performed, are shown in FIG. 2 by the respective dots. It can be derived from FIG. 2 that several measurements will be strongly affected by the shadowing.

(20) Accordingly, at each of the different measurement positions, the respective measurement value has been gathered by the measurement module 12. In addition, the position of the system 10 has also been measured at the respective measurement position(s).

(21) For instance, the receive power of the respective transmitters has been measured such that the respective measurement values correspond to receive power.

(22) Since the respective measurement value(s) has/have been measured several times, for instance k times, the respective receive power values, namely the measurement values, can be denoted by Pjk, wherein j corresponds to the respective transmitter j, namely cell cj. Based on these values, a respective metric can be generated as will be described later in more detail when referring to FIG. 3.

(23) Generally, the respective measurement values correspond to receive power, signal-to-interference-noise ratio, receive-quality indicator, delay-spread or any combination thereof.

(24) When referring to FIG. 3, several measurement values of the respective transmitters as well as the corresponding positions of the system 10 are gathered in a first step S1.

(25) In a second step S2, the measurement direction is calculated by the calculation unit 20 that takes the position of the system 10 as well as the position information of the transmitters into account that may be derived from a database or obtained from a position-estimator module as described above.

(26) In a third step S3 that is optional, a pre-processing of the respective measurement values may take place by the pre-processing unit 22. For instance, a path-loss compensation and/or a filtering and interpolation of the respective measurement values is done.

(27) In a fourth step S4, the (pre-processed) measurement values as well as the measurement direction are forwarded to the estimation unit 24 that calculates the transmission direction of the first transmitter, namely the transmitter of interest that is labelled by cell c0.

(28) In some embodiments, the estimation unit 24 may performs an optimization of a metric that comprises the comparison of the measurement values of the different transmitters.

(29) For instance, a receive-power difference may be calculated for each measurement direction (labelled by “k”), wherein a difference metric is generated based on the receive-power differences. Then, the transmission direction of the first transmitter is estimated based on the measurement direction having the maximum metric.

(30) The respective receive-power difference may be calculated as follows:

(31) $P_{0,k}-\left(\frac{P_{1,k}}{a_1}+\frac{P_{2,k}}{a_2}\mathrm{.Math.}+\frac{P_{n,k}}{a_n}\right),$

(32) wherein the parameters a.sub.1 to a.sub.n are constant scaling parameters, and wherein P.sub.0,k corresponds to the measurement value for the first transmitter, namely the one of interest.

(33) Alternatively or additionally, a receive-power ratio may be calculated for each measurement direction (labelled by “k”), wherein a ratio metric is generated based on the receive-power ratios. Then, the transmission direction of the first transmitter is estimated based on the measurement direction having the maximum metric.

(34) The respective receive-power ratio may be calculated as follows:

(35) $\frac{P_{0,k}}{\frac{P_{1,k}}{a_1}+\frac{P_{2,k}}{a_2}\mathrm{.Math.}+\frac{P_{n,k}}{a_n}+a_0},$

(36) wherein the parameters a.sub.0 to a.sub.n are constant scaling parameters, and wherein P.sub.0,k corresponds to the measurement value for the first transmitter, namely the one of interest.

(37) Alternatively or additionally, the estimation unit 24 may use a model wherein the respective measurement values of the different transmitters are evaluated in order to identify a best fit of the measurement values with regard to the model applied.

(38) Alternatively or additionally, an artificial intelligence is used by the estimation unit 24, wherein the artificial intelligence was trained previously by training data that comprises measurement values of transmitters with known transmission direction. Thus, the trained artificial intelligence receives the (pre-processed) measurement values of the different transmitters in order to output the estimated transmission direction of the first transmitter.

(39) Accordingly, the transmission direction may be estimated by one or any combination of the above-mentioned methods.

(40) Furthermore, known methods may also be combined with any of the above-mentioned methods, for instance an additional power-metric-approach that only takes the receive power of the transmitter of interest into account and/or a naïve approach that only outputs the maximum receive power without any pre-calculation or rather pre-processing.

(41) Moreover, the estimation unit 24 may further perform a joint estimation of the transmission directions for several transmitters simultaneously, for example all transmitters.

(42) In addition, the estimation unit 24 may be used to consider a-priori information about the transmission direction in form of a probability-density function for estimating the transmission direction(s) more accurately.

(43) In addition, the estimation unit 24 may also calculate a confidence interval for the respective transmission direction. Thus, it can be also outputted whether or not the transmission direction estimated is a good estimate or not. In some embodiments, bad measurements may have a confidence interval about +/−180°, whereas good measurements will have a confidence interval about +/−30°.

(44) Accordingly, the system as well as the method use measurement values of more than the transmitter of interest in order to calculate or rather estimate the transmission direction of the respective transmitter of interest.

(45) In some embodiments, the transmission direction may relate to an azimuth transmission direction or rather an elevation transmission direction. Moreover, a combination of both directions may be estimated appropriately.

(46) The azimuth transmission direction can be estimated by a vehicle driving in the area of interest. The elevation transmission direction can be estimated by a drone or any other flying object.

(47) Since the measurement values of several transmitters are taken into consideration, the accuracy of the estimation is improved.

(48) Certain embodiments disclosed herein utilize circuitry (e.g., one or more circuits) in order to implement standards, protocols, methodologies or technologies disclosed herein, operably couple two or more components, generate information, process information, analyze information, calculate information, generate signals, encode/decode signals, convert signals, transmit and/or receive signals, control other devices, etc. Circuitry of any type can be used.

(49) In an embodiment, circuitry includes, among other things, one or more computing devices such as a processor (e.g., a microprocessor), a central processing unit (CPU), a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a system on a chip (SoC), or the like, or any combinations thereof, and can include discrete digital or analog circuit elements or electronics, or combinations thereof. In an embodiment, circuitry includes hardware circuit implementations (e.g., implementations in analog circuitry, implementations in digital circuitry, and the like, and combinations thereof).

(50) In an embodiment, circuitry includes combinations of circuits and computer program products having software or firmware instructions stored on one or more computer readable memories that work together to cause a device to perform one or more protocols, methodologies or technologies described herein. In an embodiment, circuitry includes circuits, such as, for example, microprocessors or portions of microprocessor, that require software, firmware, and the like for operation. In an embodiment, circuitry includes one or more processors or portions thereof and accompanying software, firmware, hardware, and the like.

(51) The present application may reference quantities and numbers. Unless specifically stated, such quantities and numbers are not to be considered restrictive, but exemplary of the possible quantities or numbers associated with the present application. Also in this regard, the present application may use the term “plurality” to reference a quantity or number. In this regard, the term “plurality” is meant to be any number that is more than one, for example, two, three, four, five, etc. The terms “about,” “approximately,” “near,” etc., mean plus or minus 5% of the stated value. For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “at least one of A and B” is equivalent to “A and/or B” or vice versa, namely “A” alone, “B” alone or “A and B.”. Similarly, the phrase “at least one of A, B, and C,” for example, means (A), (B), (C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B, and C), including all further possible permutations when greater than three elements are listed.

(52) The principles, representative embodiments, and modes of operation of the present disclosure have been described in the foregoing description. However, aspects of the present disclosure which are intended to be protected are not to be construed as limited to the particular embodiments disclosed. Further, the embodiments described herein are to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive. It will be appreciated that variations and changes may be made by others, and equivalents employed, without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it is expressly intended that all such variations, changes, and equivalents fall within the spirit and scope of the present disclosure, as claimed.