Granted Patent B2

US 12,218,734 · App. 18/093,602 · Granted Feb 4, 2025

Inventors: Michele Polese (Boston, MA); Francesco Restuccia (Boston, MA); Tommaso Melodia (Newton, MA)

Assignee: Northeastern University

H04B7/086H04B7/0695H04B7/088

Abstract

Claims (40)

1. A system for beam management in a wireless network, comprising:

a radio frequency (RF) receiver comprising an antenna array configured to passively receive incoming RF transmissions without coordination between the RF receiver and a source transmitter of the RF transmissions, wherein the incoming RF transmissions do not include a pilot sequence or a synchronization sequence; and

a processing system comprising:

receiver circuitry in communication with the radio frequency receiver to produce in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) input samples from the incoming RF transmissions, and

a learning module comprising a trained classification module operative to receive the I/Q input samples from the receiver circuitry and process the I/Q input samples to determine transmitted beam information of incoming RF transmissions, the learning module further comprising:

a beam inference engine to determine waveform characteristics of the incoming RF transmissions, and

an angle of arrival engine operative to determine angles of arrival of the incoming RF transmissions on the antenna array,

wherein the processing system is further operative to select an incoming RF transmission and angle of arrival based on the determined waveform characteristics for beam management operations; and

an RF transmitter located at a same node with the RF receiver and in communication with the processing system and operative to transmit RF signals at an angle corresponding to the selected angle of arrival without coordination between the system for beam management and the source transmitter of the RF transmissions.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system includes a codebook that comprises a set of codewords corresponding to an identification of the incoming RF transmissions and is operative to select one of the incoming RF transmissions from an identified codeword.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is further operative to associate a quality metric to each of the incoming RF transmissions, the quality metric comprising a received power value, a reference signal received power value, a received signal strength indicator, a reference signal received quality value, a signal-to-noise ratio, or a signal-to-noise-and-interference ratio.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the processing system is further operative to rank the incoming RF transmissions by the quality metric associated with each of the incoming RF transmissions.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is operative to match a selected incoming RF transmission at a selected angle of arrival to a synchronization signal block transmitting from a direction corresponding to the selected angle of arrival and corresponding time and frequency resources.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system includes a protocol stack including a physical layer and a medium access control layer, and the learning module is in communication with one or both of the physical layer and the medium access control layer to:

receive an activation command to trigger the learning module to process the I/Q samples,

transmit the determined transmitted beam information to the protocol stack, or

both receive an activation command to trigger the learning module to process the I/Q samples and transmit the determined transmitted beam information to the protocol stack.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the trained classification module is trained to recognize transitions between occurrences of the I/Q input samples in an I/Q complex plane.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the trained classification module comprises a deep learning neural network comprising a convolutional neural network, a multi-layer perceptron, a feedforward network, a recurrent neural network, a long-short term memory neural network, or a support vector machine.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the learning module comprises learning circuitry including one or more logic devices.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is operative to carry out the beam management operations including providing initial access to a remote transmitter located at a different node than the RF receiver, tracking of transmissions from one or more remote transmitters, and discovery of neighboring transmitters and receivers.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is operative to receive the incoming transmissions having a frequency of at least 450 MHz.

12. A method for beam management in a wireless network, comprising:

passively detecting, at beam management system having a radio frequency (RF) receiver including an antenna array, incoming RF transmissions without coordination between the RF receiver and a source transmitter of the RF transmissions, wherein the incoming RF transmissions do not include a pilot sequence or a synchronization sequence;

producing, by receiver circuitry of a processing system in communication with the RF receiver, in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) input samples from the incoming RF transmissions;

inputting to a learning module of the processing system, in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) input samples from the incoming RF transmissions;

determining, by a trained classification module of the learning module, transmitted beam information of the incoming RF transmissions including:

determining waveform characteristics of the incoming RF transmissions by processing the I/Q input samples in a beam inference engine of the learning module;

determining angles of arrival of the incoming RF transmissions on the antenna array by processing the I/Q input samples in an angle of arrival engine of the learning module;

selecting an incoming transmission beam based on the angle of arrival and the waveforms for beam management operations; and

transmitting, by an RF transmitter located at a same node with the radio frequency receiver, RF signals at an angle corresponding to the selected angle of arrival without coordination between the beam management system and the source transmitter of the RF transmissions.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising performing one or more of the beam management operations, including providing initial access to a transmitter, tracking of transmissions from one or more transmitters, and discovery of neighboring transmitters and receivers.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising, from an RF transmitter located at a same node with the RF receiver, transmitting RF signals at an angle corresponding to the selected angle of arrival.

15. The method of claim 12 , further comprising selecting one of the incoming RF transmissions from an identified codeword in a codebook that comprises a set of codewords corresponding to an identification of the incoming RF transmissions.

16. The method of claim 12 , further comprising associating a quality metric to each of the incoming RF transmissions, the quality metric comprising a received power value, a reference signal received power value, a received signal strength indicator, a reference signal received quality value, a signal-to-noise ratio, or a signal-to-noise-and interference ratio.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising ranking the incoming RF transmissions by the quality metric associated with each of the incoming RF transmissions.

18. The method of claim 12 , further comprising at least one of:

providing initial access to a remote transmitter located at a different node than the radio frequency receiver;

tracking transmissions from one or more remote transmitters; and

discovering neighboring transmitters and receivers.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (3)

References Cited (33)