Radio communication system, radio communication method, and base station device

Abstract

In a wireless communication system that includes a base station, a plurality of relay stations that are moving, and a plurality of terminal stations in a service area, and performs downlink multiple access from the base station to each of the plurality of terminal stations via one or more relay stations of the plurality of relay stations, the base station includes a downlink multiple access unit configured to identify a relay station of the plurality of relay stations transmitting a signal receivable in the service area based on positions of the plurality of relay stations, frequency multiplex-transmit a data signal in a different frequency band to each of the plurality of terminal stations via the relay station, and spatial multiplex-transmit a data signal to a terminal station of the plurality of terminal stations supporting spatial multiplex transmission in a particular frequency band and via the plurality of relay stations.

Claims

1. A wireless communication system that includes a base station, a plurality of relay stations that are moving, and a plurality of terminal stations in a service area, and performs downlink multiple access from the base station to each of the plurality of terminal stations via one or more relay stations of the plurality of relay stations, wherein the base station is configured to frequency multiplex-transmit data signals to each of the plurality of terminal stations, and spatial multiplex-transmit data signals to terminal stations supporting spatial multiplex transmission; the base station includes a processor; and a storage medium having computer program instructions stored thereon, when executed by the processor, perform to: identify a relay station of the plurality of relay stations transmitting a respective signal receivable in the service area based on positions of the plurality of relay stations, and one of frequency multiplex-transmit the respective data signal in a different frequency band to each of the plurality of terminal stations via at least one relay station, or spatial multiplex-transmit the respective data signal to a given terminal station of the plurality of terminal stations supporting spatial multiplex transmission in a particular frequency band and via the plurality of relay stations, and transmit a downstream control signal, in a distinct frequency band, from the relay station transmitting the respective signal, the downstream control signal including a relay station ID, wherein the given terminal station of the plurality of terminal stations is configured to receive the downstream control signal that is receivable, synchronize with the downstream control signal that is received, estimate channel information between the relay station and the given terminal station from the downstream control signal that is used for synchronization, select one or more relay stations of the plurality of relay stations transmitting a receivable signal based on the channel information, and notify the base station of the one or more relay stations that are selected, and the computer program instructions further perform to allocate the particular frequency band in which the respective data signal addressed to the given terminal station is spatial multiplex-transmitted via the one or more relay stations selected by the given terminal station, notify the given terminal station of information regarding the particular frequency band that is allocated using the downstream control signal, and spatial multiplex-transmit the respective data signal addressed to the given terminal station.

2. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, wherein the downstream control signal and the data signal both addressed to the given terminal station are generated from a baseband signal and are synchronized with each other, and the given terminal station is configured to demultiplex and demodulate the data signal that is spatial multiplex-transmitted using the channel information estimated from the downstream control signal.

3. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, wherein the given terminal station is configured to monitor the downstream control signal of the one or more relay stations, re-select, when a relay station of the plurality of relay stations transmitting the receivable signal changes, a relay station of the plurality of relay stations through which the spatial multiplex transmission is requested to be performed, and notify the base station of the relay station that is re-selected.

4. A wireless communication system that includes a base station, a plurality of relay stations that are moving, and a plurality of terminal stations in a service area, and performs downlink multiple access from the base station to each of the plurality of terminal stations via one or more relay stations of the plurality of relay stations, wherein the base station is configured to frequency multiplex-transmit data signals to each of the plurality of terminal stations, and spatial multiplex-transmit data signals to terminal stations supporting spatial multiplex transmission; the base station includes a processor; and a storage medium having computer program instructions stored thereon, when executed by the processor, perform to: identify a relay station of the plurality of relay stations transmitting a respective signal receivable in the service area based on positions of the plurality of relay stations, spatial multiplex-transmit the respective data signal to a given terminal station of the plurality of terminal stations supporting spatial multiplex transmission in a particular frequency band and via the plurality of relay stations, and transmit a downstream control signal, in a distinct frequency band, from the relay station transmitting the respective signal, the downstream control signal including a relay station ID, wherein the given terminal station of the plurality of terminal stations is configured to receive the downstream control signal that is receivable, synchronize with the downstream control signal that is received, estimate channel information between the relay station and the given terminal station from the downstream control signal that is used for synchronization, select one or more relay stations of the plurality of relay stations transmitting a receivable signal based on the channel information, and notify the base station of the one or more relay stations that are selected, and the computer program instructions further perform to allocate the particular frequency band in which the respective data signal addressed to the given terminal station is spatial multiplex-transmitted via the one or more relay stations selected by the given terminal station, notify the given terminal station of information regarding the particular frequency band that is allocated using the downstream control signal, and spatial multiplex-transmit the respective data signal addressed to the given terminal station.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure.

(2) FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a base station 10.

(3) FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of relay stations A, B, and C.

(4) FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of terminal stations 1, 2, and 3.

(5) FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a frame format of a downstream control signal.

(6) FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a frame format of an upstream control signal.

(7) FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure of the base station 10 and the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 according to the present disclosure.

(8) FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating another allocation pattern according to the present disclosure.

(9) FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating another allocation pattern according to the present disclosure.

(10) FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating another allocation pattern according to the present disclosure.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

(11) System Configuration

(12) FIG. 1 illustrates a configuration example of a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure.

(13) In FIG. 1, the wireless communication system includes a base station 10, a plurality of moving relay stations A, B, C, . . . , X, and a plurality of (here, three) terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 in a service area, and has a downlink multiple access configuration that enables multiplex transmission to the plurality of terminal stations in the service area by an FDMA mode, and MIMO (spatial multiplex) transmission only to the terminal station capable of performing equalization and demultiplexing for each frequency band. Each of the terminal stations includes one or more antennas. For simplicity, the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 herein each include 1, 2, and 3 antennas, respectively, and MIMO transmission is applicable to the terminal stations 2 and 3 having two or more antennas.

(14) It is assumed that downlink signals from the relay station arranges a control signal and a data signal in different frequency bands, the frequency band of the control signal is fixed and known to the terminal station, and the frequency bands W1, W2, and W3 of the data signal can be dynamically changed. Here, alphabets of the relay stations A, B, and C, the control signals A, B, and C, and the data signals A, B, and C correspond to one another one-to-one, and the relay station A transmits the control signal A and the data signal A.

(15) The base station 10 grasps the position information about the relay stations A to X, and identifies the relay station transmitting a signal receivable in the service area, based on the positions of the relay stations. Here, the signals transmitted from the three relay stations A, B, and C are receivable in the service area. Note that in the case where the relay stations are artificial satellites moving on a predetermined orbit, the base station 10 grasps the current position of each relay station from the orbit information. In the case of the relay stations moving on the ground, the base station 10 acquires position information acquired by each relay station using GPS or the like via a ground network.

(16) The base station 10 causes the relay stations A, B, and C to transmit the control signals A, B, and C receivable in the service area, respectively, which are allocated to different frequency bands. On the other hand, the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 in the service area each receive the receivable control signal among the control signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C to perform synchronization processing, and grasp the relay stations transmitting the receivable signal and the number of the relay stations. Furthermore, the terminal station estimates channel information between the corresponding relay station and the terminal station by using the synchronized control signal, and notifies the base station 10 of information about the relay station for requesting MIMO transmission based on the relay station transmitting the receivable signal and the estimated channel information, via any uplink.

(17) The base station 10 allocates the relay station requested by each terminal station and the frequency band of the data signal, notifies each terminal station of the information using the control signal, and starts MIMO transmission via the corresponding relay station. In the example in FIG. 1, the signal addressed to the terminal station 1 is transmitted from the relay station A in the frequency band W1. Signals addressed to the terminal station 2 are MIMO-transmitted from the relay stations A and B in the frequency band W2. Signals addressed to the terminal station 3 are MIMO-transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C in the frequency band W3. The relay stations A, B, and C basically have only the function of relaying and transmitting the signals received from the base station 10 in a receivable state to the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 by performing frequency conversion and amplification of the signals received from the base station 10.

(18) Note that because the control signal and the data signal are generated from the same baseband signal, the signals are assumed to be synchronized. For this reason, the data signal can be also synchronized by synchronization using the control signal, and the terminal station receives and equalizes the data signal according to the notified information to demodulate data. Furthermore, a weight matrix for the equalization of the MIMO signal is calculated from the channel information of the control signal, and the spatial multiplexed signals of each relay station are separated to demodulate data. Furthermore, in the case where, like the satellite, the relay station performs communication in a line-of-sight environment, and has a channel characteristic with a small frequency selectivity, the synchronization and channel information using the control signal can be reflected on the equalization of the data signal. At this time, by setting a guard band between FDMA signals (G in the figure) to a value that is twice a maximum Doppler frequency Δfmax assumed in the system, inter-carrier interference can be avoided.

(19) Configuration of Base Station 10

(20) FIG. 2 illustrates a configuration example of the base station 10.

(21) In FIG. 2, the base station 10 includes a relay station position calculation unit 11 and a relay station frequency band allocation unit 12, and allocates frequency to the downstream control signal according to the position of each relay station. The base station 10 further includes a downstream control signal and data signal generation unit 13, an upstream control signal reception unit 14, a terminal station detection unit 15, a requesting relay station detection unit 16, and a relay station selection unit 17.

(22) Configuration of Relay Stations A, B, and C

(23) FIG. 3 illustrates a configuration example of the relay stations A, B, and C.

(24) In FIG. 3, the relay stations A, B, and C each include a signal reception unit 21, a frequency conversion and amplification unit 22, and a signal transmission unit 23. The relay stations A, B, and C of the wireless communication system basically have a function of receiving signals from the base station 10 and performing only frequency conversion and signal amplification for transmission of the signals to the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3.

(25) Configuration of Terminal Stations 1, 2, and 3

(26) FIG. 4 illustrates a configuration example of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3.

(27) In FIG. 4, the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 each include a downstream control signal reception and synchronization unit 31, a relay station detection unit 32, a downlink channel estimation unit 33, a channel correlation calculation unit 34, a requesting relay station selection unit 35, an upstream control signal generation unit 36, a target terminal station detection unit 37, a reception equalization matrix generation unit 38, and a reception signal equalization and demodulation unit 39.

(28) Frame Format of Downstream Control Signal and Upstream Control Signal

(29) FIG. 5 illustrates a frame format of the downstream control signal.

(30) In FIG. 5, the downstream control signal includes a known signal for synchronization and estimation, a relay station ID, a target terminal station ID, and data signal frequency band information. Here, on the basis of the upstream control signal received from the terminal station, the relay station for the terminal station is selected, and the frequency band for transmitting the data signal is allocated to transmit the downstream control signal and the data signal.

(31) FIG. 6 illustrates a frame format of the upstream control signal.

(32) In FIG. 6, the upstream control signal includes a known signal for synchronization, a terminal station ID, and a requesting relay station ID.

EXAMPLES

(33) FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a processing procedure of the base station 10 and the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 according to the present disclosure. Here, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the relay stations A, B, and C are located to be communicable with the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 in the service area.

(34) In FIGS. 1 to 4 and FIG. 7, the relay station position calculation unit 11 of the base station 10 identifies the relay stations A, B, and C that transmit the signal receivable in the service area of the wireless communication system, for example, based on the position of each relay station calculated from known orbit information (S1). The relay station frequency band allocation unit 12 of the base station 10 allocates the downstream control signals A, B, and C to the different frequency bands as illustrated in FIG. 1 such that the downstream control signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C do not interfere with each other. The downstream control signal and data signal generation unit 13 of the base station 10 generates the downstream control signals unique to each relay station, and transmits the downstream control signals to the service area via the relay stations A, B, and C (S2).

(35) The terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 in the service area receive the receivable downstream control signal among the downstream control signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C at the downstream control signal reception and synchronization unit 31, and executes synchronization processing to acquire control information (S3). For example, in the case of FIG. 1, the terminal station 1 can receive the downstream control signal A of the relay station A, and the terminal stations 2 and 3 can receive the downstream control signals A, B, and C of the relay stations A, B, and C.

(36) The relay station detection unit 32 of each of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 detects the relay station based on the relay station ID of the received and performed synchronization processing downstream control signal. The downlink channel estimation unit 33 uses a known signal of the downstream control signal to estimate channel information about a downlink between the detected relay stations and the terminal station (S4). The channel correlation calculation unit 34 calculates the correlation from the channel information of each relay station, and the requesting relay station selection unit 35 selects the relay station that has a low channel correlation and requests MIMO transmission to the relay station that is selected (S5). For example, given that a channel matrix 3×3 generated from the channel information between the three antennas of the terminal station 3 and relay stations A, B, and C is H, the higher a determinant det|H|, the lower the channel correlation and the higher the transmission capacity. Thus, the requesting relay station selection unit 35 may set the presence or absence of MIMO transmission based on the value of a determinant det|H| of a matrix H generated by estimating the channel information at the terminal station 3.

(37) Also, it is not necessary to select all of the relay stations that transmit the receivable signal. For example, the terminal station 2 of FIG. 1 can receive the downstream control signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C. However, when the correlation between relay stations B and C is high, a combination of the relay stations A and B (the example in FIG. 1) or relay stations A and C (a below-mentioned example in FIG. 8) may be selected to request MIMO transmission. In addition, because the number of antennas owned by the terminal stations 1 and 2 is lower than the number of relay stations, it is necessary to select the relay station(s) at or below the number of antennas of the terminal stations.

(38) The upstream control signal generation unit 36 of each of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 adds the requesting relay station information to the requesting relay station ID of the upstream control signal, and notifies the base station 10 of it (S6). The notification method at this time may be any method, and may be performed via any relay station or via another transmitting means.

(39) The upstream control signal reception unit 14 of the base station 10 receives the upstream control signals from the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3, and the terminal station detection unit 15 detects the terminal station IDs. Then, the requesting relay station detection unit 16 detects requesting relay stations in which the terminal stations request MIMO transmission (S7). The relay station selection unit 17 allocates the relay station and the frequency band at which the data signal of each of the relay stations 1, 2, and 3 is transmitted, based on the requesting relay station collected from each of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 (S8).

(40) The downstream control signal and data signal generation unit 13 of the base station 10 generates the data signals addressed to the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3, which are transmitted in the frequency bands of the relay stations A, B, and C selected by the relay station selection unit 17. Furthermore, the downstream control signal and data signal generation unit 13 generates downstream control signals indicating the correspondence between the data signals addressed to the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 and the frequency bands, and transmits the resulting downstream control signals to the respective terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 via the respective relay station (S9).

(41) In the example in FIG. 1, for the data signal addressed to the terminal station 1, the data signal A transmitted from the relay station A is allocated to the frequency band W1. For the data signal addressed to the terminal station 2, the data signals A and B transmitted from the relay stations A and B are multiplexed in the frequency band W2, and are MIMO-transmitted. For the data signal addressed to the terminal station 3, the data signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C are multiplexed in the frequency band W3, and are MIMO-transmitted.

(42) In the example in FIG. 8, for the data signal addressed to the terminal station 2, the data signals A and C transmitted from the relay stations A and C are multiplexed in the frequency band W2, and are MIMO-transmitted. The allocation of the data signals addressed to the terminal stations 1 and 3 is the same as the allocation in the example in FIG. 1.

(43) In the example illustrated in FIG. 9, the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 each include three antennas, and use requesting relay stations A, B, and C. For the data signals addressed to the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3, the data signals A, B, and C transmitted from the relay stations A, B, and C are multiplexed in the frequency bands W1, W2, and W3, respectively, and are MIMO-transmitted.

(44) In the example in FIG. 10, the number of antennas in each of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 is one, and there is no terminal station capable of performing MIMO transmission. For the data signal addressed to the terminal station 1, the data signal A transmitted from the relay station A is allocated to the frequency band W1, for the data signal addressed to the terminal station 2, the data signal B transmitted from the relay station B is allocated to the frequency band W2, and for the data signal addressed to the terminal station 3, the data signal C transmitted from the relay station C is allocated to the frequency band W3.

(45) Furthermore, when the number of the terminal stations is larger than the number of the relay stations, each frequency band can be addressed by adopting a multiple access scheme such as TDMA. In this case, it can be contemplated to control the allocation of the frequency band according to the distribution of the number of requesting relay stations.

(46) The target terminal station detection unit 37 of each of the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 detects the downstream control signal addressed thereto from among the downstream control signals A, B, and C. Then, the reception equalization matrix generation unit 38 generates a reception weight matrix using the channel information estimated by the downlink channel estimation unit 33. Next, the reception signal equalization and demodulation unit 39 receives and equalizes the data signal addressed thereto using the reception weight matrix to demodulate data (S10).

(47) Furthermore, similarly to step S3, the terminal stations 1, 2, and 3 sequentially monitor the downstream control signals of the base station 10, and when changing the requesting relay station that can receive the signals due to movement of the relay station or the terminal station, returns to the step S4 to make a request again (S11).

(48) Note that the terminal stations in the service area know the center frequency of the downstream control signal, but recognize the relay station that transmits the downstream control signal by receiving the relay station ID of the downstream control signal illustrated in FIG. 5.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST

(49) 1, 2, 3 Terminal station 10 Base station A, B, C Relay station 11 Relay station position calculation unit 12 Relay station frequency band allocation unit 13 Downstream control signal and data signal generation unit 14 Upstream control signal reception unit 15 Terminal station detection unit 16 Requesting relay station detection unit 17 Relay station selection unit 21 Signal reception unit 22 Frequency conversion and amplification unit 23 Signal transmission unit 31 Downstream control signal reception and synchronization unit 32 Relay station detection unit 33 Downlink channel estimation unit 34 Channel correlation calculation unit 35 Requesting relay station selection unit 36 Upstream control signal generation unit 37 Target terminal station detection unit 38 Reception equalization matrix generation unit 39 Reception signal equalization and demodulation unit