High-precision wireless channel test bench and method based on virtual antenna arrayTechnical field
The invention belongs to the broadband wireless communications field, relate to a kind of wireless channel test bench, especially at the design and optimization demand of wide-band mobile communication system of future generation, can be widely used in high accuracy, various dimensions test and the modeling of MIMO (MIMO) radio propagation channel.
Background technology
Following broadband wireless communication network can provide more high power capacity, more large coverage and faster data transmission speed, and meanwhile, people are more and more deep for the research of wireless channel.Develop rational MIMO wireless channel model to simulate various actual channel environment, it is the existing starting point of the performance of Processing Algorithm at one's leisure of assessment, also be to develop the more sane prerequisite of Processing Algorithm, the basis of simulation and optimization design high-performance MIMO communication system especially when empty.Since beginning to explore the spatial information (si) of signal, people are just interested in especially the test of space channel.The MIMO development communication technologies so far, theory is day by day ripe, and on-the-spot test demands urgently carrying out.It is significant for the MIMO communication technology practicability of marching toward that the development and testing platform carries out on-the-spot test.
High-precision wireless channel test bench is the support platform of mimo channel analysis, modeling and simulation.Utilize wireless channel test bench can gather various actual measurement channel informations, the complex space characteristic of wireless channel is carried out high accuracy analysis, channel model provides reference and guarantee in order to set up accurately.Existing channel test method adopts switched beam antenna usually, is multi-beam antenna again.It has a limited number of, fixing, predefined directional diagram, utilizes a plurality of wave beams to send different signals for simultaneously a plurality of users in same channel by the array antenna technology, and it selects one, detection signal strength from several predefined fixed beams.This type of antenna improves sensitivity on specific direction, thereby improves message capacity and quality.Launching antenna array produces a plurality of wave beams and shines different regions respectively, and especially, the information that sends in each wave beam is different and will not disturb mutually.Multi-beam antenna utilizes a plurality of parallel beams to cover whole reception area, and the sensing of each wave beam is fixed, and beamwidth is also determined with number of antenna elements.When receiver moved, transmitting antenna was selected in different respective beam, made received signal the strongest.
Tradition switched beam antenna a lot of weak points,, the complexity height of Multiple Channel Analysis fast inadequately such as antenna mutual coupling, array architecture restriction, aerial array switch speed, reprocessing are consuming time big etc.
Summary of the invention
The objective of the invention is in order to solve many drawbacks of existing platform,, the complexity height of Multiple Channel Analysis slow as the switch speed of aerial array, reprocessing be consuming time, and to cause channel to resolve precision greatly not high, and utilize a plurality of antenna transmission and receive the problems such as expensive and muting sensitivity that cause, a kind of high-precision wireless channel test bench and method based on virtual antenna array is provided, improve switch speed, increase measuring accuracy.
For reaching above purpose, solution of the present invention is:
A kind of high-precision wireless channel test bench based on virtual antenna array, it comprises transmitter system, antenna system, receiver system, antenna system adopts the virtual antenna array technology based on automatically controlled beam scanning antenna, " scan-type " carried out in the spatial domain to be measured, gather the actual measurement channel response, obtain the fine granularity characteristic of channel, thereby provide effective parameter for the actual channel analysis and modeling in time domain and spatial domain.
Further, described antenna system comprises synchronizer, antenna control unit, scanning antenna.Synchronizer guarantees that the sending and receiving antenna reaches the time precision that switches synchronously on switching time, and antenna control unit is adjusted antenna beam direction according to voltage control signal, realizes the wave beam virtual antenna array that direction changes on horizontal territory and pitching territory.
Described antenna system also comprises Rotation Controllers, slewing, and scanning antenna is supported on the slewing, and Rotation Controllers control slewing is adjusted antenna and supported the virtual antenna array of realizing the scanning antenna change in location.
The scanning antenna of described antenna system, the 3dB width of its wave beam main lobe is the 4-6 degree.
A kind of method of testing based on the high-precision wireless channel of virtual antenna array, it may further comprise the steps:
1) to the system responses calibration of test platform, guarantee that transmitter system and receiver system are synchronous, transmitter system sends radiofrequency signal;
2) before the beam direction of transmitting antenna changed, reception antenna was adjusted beam direction by voltage control signal, and same signal is carried out reception on the different directions;
3) change the beam direction of transmitting antenna by voltage control signal, repeating step 2), until the sample collection amount that reaches expection, finish to send and receive, and the storage data;
4) handle the storage data, carry out the structure of channel characteristics summary and channel statistical model.
The processing of described storage data comprises and directly obtains channel in the space, i.e. the power spectrum of ripple on direction and direction of arrival, and utilize the high accuracy parameter estimation algorithm to obtain channel characteristics.
The present invention uses the high-precision wireless channel test bench based on virtual antenna array, has merged multinomial advanced theory and technologies such as automatically controlled beam scanning, virtual antenna array, the impulse response that can effectively gather the MIMO wireless channel.Simultaneously, it constitutes virtual aerial array with the beam scanning antenna and replaces actual aerial array, make platform scanning switch speed, sampling rate, satisfy and can carry out effective Testing requirement with parameters such as step calibrations the high speed dynamic channel.Be system of broadband wireless communication, the wireless channel test provides a kind of new thinking.
By making up the aerial array of space multistory shape, remedy the limitation of individual antenna scanning angle.With the scanning angle of adjustment diverse location aerial array, thus the virtual antenna array of formation distributed frame.Can effectively solve the requirement of the aspects such as coherence time, coherence distance and frequency on antenna mutual coupling in the traditional antenna array design, array architecture restriction and the Space Time-frequency domain.
Not by the physical switch conversion, but, therefore can realize fast beam scanning by automatically controlled scan-type antenna.
Can directly obtain transmitting and receiving power spectrum by the comprehensive quick scanning of wave beam, thereby need not complicated matrix computations just can obtain the relation of received power and angle easily, can collect good impulse response, thereby reach pinpoint accuracy.
Saved the data computation necessary time data memory of conventional channel test, thereby real-time is good with the analysis platform antenna system.
By the virtual antenna array technology, make platform scanning switch speed, sampling rate, satisfy the requirement of high-speed mobile with parameters such as step calibrations, be applicable to the channel test under the high-speed mobile scene.
Owing to adopted such scheme, the present invention to have following characteristics:
1, virtual array technology, distributed test architecture.
2, spatial domain scanning flexibly, resolution significantly improves.
3, the redundant data amount is few, and back-end processing is more optimized.
Description of drawings
Fig. 1 is the high-precision wireless channel test bench Organization Chart.
Fig. 2 is a distributed virtual aerial array schematic diagram.
Fig. 3 is antenna control system figure.
Fig. 4 is the beam scanning antenna pattern.
Fig. 5 utilizes voltage-controlled scanning antenna to form the schematic diagram of annular virtual-antenna.
Fig. 6 utilizes voltage-controlled scanning antenna to form the schematic diagram of spherical virtual-antenna.
Fig. 7 is the workflow diagram of the present invention in channel measurement.
Embodiment
The present invention is further illustrated below in conjunction with the accompanying drawing illustrated embodiment.
The present invention is a kind of high-precision wireless channel test bench of suitable laboratory research, it is multinomial advanced theoretical to have merged automatically controlled beam scanning, virtual antenna array etc., the theory that has benefited from " scanning " need not be through complicated signal processing, just can obtain the information of the Space Time-frequency impulse response of channel fast, thereby grasp the mimo channel feature exactly, set up the mimo channel model under the different scenes, for the design and optimization of system of broadband wireless communication provides reference and guarantee.
The high-precision wireless channel test bench Organization Chart of virtual antenna array mainly is made up of transmitter system, antenna system, receiver system as shown in Figure 1.Transmitter system comprises computer, vector signal generator, the synchronizer that is used for producing the instruction of transmitting terminal virtual-antenna scan pattern, produce vector signal by the vector signal generator and transfer to receiver system via antenna system, receiver system then comprises radio-frequency receiver front-end, high-speed data acquisition and memory cell, computer and synchronizer.Wherein radio-frequency receiver front-end receives radio wave signal, and it is converted to baseband signal from radio frequency, gathers and the sampling collection of memory cell realization to baseband signal, the A/D conversion, and preserve, computer can be realized information processing to the radio base band digital signal of storage, obtains channel characteristics.Transmitter system and receiver system are controlled strict synchronism by synchronizer.Characteristics of the present invention are to have introduced the virtual antenna array technology based on automatically controlled beam scanning antenna in antenna system, " scan-type " carried out in the spatial domain to be measured, can effectively improve the wireless channel spatial resolution, by gathering the actual measurement channel response, obtain the fine granularity characteristic of channel, thereby provide effective parameter for the actual channel analysis and modeling in time domain and spatial domain.
The design of antenna system as shown in Figure 3, comprising synchronizer, antenna control unit, Rotation Controllers, slewing and scanning antenna.The equipment of control antenna has antenna control unit and Rotation Controllers.Rotation Controllers control slewing, this slewing is adjusted antenna and is supported, make antenna towards meeting specific direction, and then in conjunction with steerable beam, can allow send signal and cover three dimensions.The effect of antenna control unit comes the beam scanning of control antenna.Synchronizer has two effects, and the one, make and on switching time, realize strict synchronism between the sending and receiving antenna, in the transmitting antenna wave beam switching time once, the reception antenna wave beam need switch fixing number of times, as 10 times.Another effect of synchronizer is to guarantee the time precision that switches, and this is because in channel measurement, the switch speed of antenna beam requires very high, and several microseconds are only arranged each switching time.Antenna control unit is then adjusted antenna beam direction according to voltage control signal.Voltage control signal is produced by the feed voltage module of DSP (Digital Signal Processing): comprise the DC-DC transducer, digital regulation resistance and control unit.Antenna control unit and Rotation Controllers are all controlled by dsp processor.DSP mainly contains three core missions: the system synchronization reset signal is provided; Provide antenna beam scanning required voltage control signal; The control signal of aerial rotating equipment is provided.Can see the directional diagram of beam scanning antenna under the different voltages by Fig. 4, realize automatically controlled beam scanning according to the control routine of this directional diagram design DSP.
The design of virtual antenna array is the key link that high-precision wireless channel test bench is built.Using aerial array in channel measurement mainly is that two purposes are arranged: the one, can obtain enough big resolution in the spatial domain; The 2nd, the radiation of aerial array can be covered the formation in a big way around emission or the receiver.When adopting traditional entity aerial array, above-mentioned two purposes are respectively by increasing the number of antenna, and the radiation main lobe of each antenna is designed to point to different directions reaches.What the present invention adopted is virtual antenna array, on the one hand by the narrow beam of automatically controlled antenna and the mode of the space being carried out intensive scanning, realize bigger spatial resolution, then control the direction of automatically controlled antenna beam on the other hand, enable to point to neatly the direction that needs covering.The 3dB width of the formed wave beam main lobe of voltage-controlled antenna of the present invention is near 5 degree, and by any direction in the about 120 degree angles of different voltage directional antenna one sides, this just mean as rotable antenna not towards, can be in the scope of 120 degree, utilize the mode of intensive scanning, channel response is sampled with the spatial resolution of 5 degree.This spatial resolution is far superior to the spatial discrimination precision that the existing channel testing equipment generally is higher than 15 degree.Because voltage-controlled antenna beam covers only in the scope of 120 degree, so the virtual antenna array that makes up among the present invention also needs voltage-controlled antenna and slewing are combined, by rotable antenna axially, change antenna towards, simultaneously in conjunction with voltage-controlled wave beam, form all standing to the spatial domain.Fig. 5, Fig. 6 have shown how to utilize a voltage-controlled beam antenna in conjunction with whirligig, form annular and hemispheric virtual array.Antenna is supported under the control of slewing among the figure, points to several fixing directions successively.When supporting in one direction fixedly, by to changing the voltage of antenna, for example change to 12V from 3V, can be implemented in antenna is faced upward the territory of bowing towards the horizontal territory of a side 120 degree and about 45 degree covering.The mode of this structure virtual array can also be used to making up other forms of virtual array, as sphere or taper etc.Utilize the different virtual antenna arrays of these structures, Multiple Channel Analysis equipment just can carry out detailed measurement and sampling in different quadrant spatial characters to wireless channel.
In addition, utilize the multichannel Rotation Controllers to control the rotation of a plurality of slewings, can control the virtual-antenna that is positioned at diverse location, thereby form the virtual antenna array of distributed frame, can analyze better like this in the future mobile communications in the complex web structure environment, as multi-point cooperative, the continuous spatial character that passes wireless channel of multiple spot.
Embodiment: the mimo channel feature of the 10*10 under the test high-speed mobile situation 10MHz bandwidth, select the signal of the vector signal generator generation 10MHz of 10MHz for use, by the beam scanning antenna transmission to receiver, receiving terminal goes to baseband signal with the radiofrequency signal of receiving, is collect the then immediately storage of the capture card of 20Msample/s with the 10MHz signal integrity by acquisition rate then.And the wherein work of antenna part, measure the mimo channel of 10*10, need channel in coherence time the transmitting antenna scan-type switch 10 times, the every switching of transmitting antenna once (can be supposed in the horizontal extent of 120 degree and switch), the reception antenna scan-type switches (can suppose in the horizontal extent of 120 degree and switch) 10 times, the voltage of promptly controlling reception antenna needs linear the switching 100 times, usually the high-speed mobile scene can be as short as several milliseconds following coherence time, if cause the channel characteristics analysis accurate inadequately with conventional physical switch switch speed is often undesirable.And adopt automatically controlled beam scanning antenna platform can complete record be via the signal of 100 Channel Transmission in the short time satisfying the relevant utmost point of channel, the complete signal that stores can obtain high-precision channel characteristics via reprocessing analysis again.
Testing procedure:
Step 1 is with transmitter, receiver, antenna system, reach power supply etc. synchronously and set for this platform shown in accompanying drawing 1.
Step 2 is determined the wireless environment of test and the project scene of test.
Step 3 is calibrated the response of system, determines between the transceiver synchronous.
Step 4 is implemented to measure.The concrete system configuration and the handoff procedure of virtual array are as follows: transmitter sends the 10MHz bandwidth signal, and power supply sets the two-way output voltage waveforms, and wherein one road output voltage switches 10 times (3 for transmitting antenna 5ms internal linear, 4,5 ..., 12V), another road output voltage switches for repeating 10 times in the reception antenna 5ms, the each switching 10 times (3,4,5,, 12V).Detailed process is as follows, when 5ms begins, when being carried in voltage on the transmitting antenna and being 3V, and be carried in voltage on the reception antenna from 3V, be transformed into 4V, 5V successively, until 12V, voltage on the transmitting antenna switches to 4V more then, the voltage that is carried on the reception antenna begins to be incremented to 12V from 3V again, and the voltage on the transmitting antenna is changed to 5V more subsequently, by that analogy.Like this when 5ms finishes, on transmitting antenna and the reception antenna the combination between the voltage that might load all occurred once.Can guarantee like this in the time of 5ms, in the channel different transmit and receive on the direction 100 sub-channel measurements once.The radiofrequency signal that receives arrives base band through the receiving system front-end processing through medium-frequency transformation.Finish channel measurement in the manner described above within a certain period of time.
Step 5 in regulation constantly, after each scan period end, is gathered base band data and also is stored to disk array.
Step 6 is carried out reprocessing to the data that store.In view of the characteristics of signal collecting device, this processing procedure is divided into two parts.First can directly obtain channel in the space, i.e. the power spectrum of ripple on direction and direction of arrival.Second portion, then be to utilize the high accuracy parameter estimation algorithm, comprise MUSIC algorithm (document that sees reference [1]), and extract the distribution characteristics of channel in other parameter fields with the SAGE algorithm (document that sees reference [2]) that iterative manner is similar to maximum likelihood method based on the subspace.Simultaneously, at long measurement, also can extract channel Changing Pattern in time.
Step 7 utilizes the result who obtains to carry out the structure of channel characteristics summary and channel statistical model.
This shows that the conventional channel method of testing is the aerial array that adopts physically, successively antenna element is connected to transmitter or receiver by speed-sensitive switch, switch speed is often unsatisfactory.And the present invention points to by the difference of the continuous variation realization scanned antenna beams of control input voltage, does not have change over switch physically, can overcome the slow problem of switch speed of physical switch in the conventional channel method of testing.
Calculating channel is when the power spectrum in space, traditional method is at first to come received signal with predefined a plurality of antennas, the radiation direction of antenna and gain are understood in advance, and then handle the signal matrix that receives by the array computation method, normally in time domain-frequency domain and spatial domain Combined Treatment, obtain the joint Power spectrum of channel.The shortcoming of this method is the space power spectrum that can not directly obtain channel, handles the complexity height, and the time of consumption is long, is not suitable for measuring in real time.And the present invention adopts virtual antenna array to utilize automatically controlled beam scanning technology to carry out beam scanning to comprehensive.The characteristics of this automatically controlled beam scanning antenna are that its wave beam is unfixing, by changing the variation that the antenna input voltage comes control antenna beam direction and width.In coherence time by control voltage switch fast, control antenna a plurality of angles in the scan sector successively, then can directly obtain the signal strength signal intensity that receives on each direction by measuring-signal, thereby can obtain transmitting and receiving the angular distribution spectrum of power easily, saved the necessary time data memory of data computation, thereby real-time is good.
Automatically controlled beam scanning antenna volume used in the present invention is little, be convenient to set up, cost is lower, at environment facies to also testing under the specific conditions.Adopt high precision synchronous equipment, so make platform scanning switch speed, sampling rate, satisfy the requirement of high-speed mobile with parameters such as step calibrations, be applicable to the channel test under the high-speed mobile scene.
The above-mentioned description to embodiment is can understand and apply the invention for ease of those skilled in the art.The person skilled in the art obviously can easily make various modifications to these embodiment, and needn't pass through performing creative labour being applied in the General Principle of this explanation among other embodiment.Therefore, the invention is not restricted to the embodiment here, those skilled in the art should be within protection scope of the present invention for improvement and modification that the present invention makes according to announcement of the present invention.
List of references:
[1].Schmidt,R.O.Multiple?Emitter?Location?and?Signal?Parameter?Estimation,IEEETransaction?on?Antennas?and?Propagation,1986,AP-34,276-280
[2].Fleury,B.H.;Tschudin,M.;Heddergott,R.;Dahlhaus,D.&Pedersen,K.L.ChannelParameter?Estimation?in?Mobile?Radio?Environments?Using?the?SAGE?Algorithm,IEEEJournal?on?Selected?Areas?in?Communications,1999,17(3),434-450