Base transceiver station interference cancellation for reuse of terrestrial carrier in air-to-ground communication
A terrestrial network node of a terrestrial mobile communication network is operated to simultaneously serve terrestrial and aerial coverage on a same carrier frequency. Such operation includes directing a first reception beam towards an aerial radio node. A second reception beam is directed towards a user equipment in the terrestrial mobile communication network. The signal received in the first reception beam is filtered to create a replica of a signal transmitted by the aerial radio node as received by the second reception beam. The replica is subtracted from the signal received by the second reception beam.
1. A method of operating a mobile communication network node to simultaneously serve a user equipment in a terrestrial mobile communication network and an aerial radio node on a same carrier frequency, the method comprising:
causing the mobile communication network node to perform:
directing a first reception beam towards the aerial radio node and receiving a line-of-sight first signal using the first reception beam;
directing a second reception beam towards the user equipment in the terrestrial mobile communication network and receiving a second signal using the second reception beam;
using the line-of-sight first signal as a reference signal and identifying therefrom a contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal;
filtering the first signal using an adaptive filter to provide a replica signal corresponding to the contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal; and
subtracting the replica signal from the second signal to obtain a desired signal.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a direction of the first reception beam is determined based on Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates associated with the aerial radio node.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
receiving an “Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out” (ADS-B) signal comprising the GPS coordinates associated with the aerial radio node.
4. A mobile communication network node for simultaneous communication with a user equipment in a terrestrial mobile communication network and an aerial radio node on a same carrier frequency, the network node comprising:
a first antenna array to receive a line-of-sight first signal from the aerial radio node;
a first beamformer to adjust antenna weights of the first antenna array to provide a first reception beam directed towards the aerial radio node;
a second antenna array to receive a second signal from the user equipment in the terrestrial mobile communication network;
a second beamformer to adjust antenna weights of the second antenna array to provide a second reception beam directed towards the user equipment in the terrestrial mobile communication network;
an adaptive filter adapted to receive the line-of-sight first signal and the second signal and to use the received line-of-sight first signal as a reference signal to identify therefrom a contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal and to output a replica signal corresponding to the contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal; and
a subtractor to subtract the replica signal from the second signal to obtain a desired signal.
5. The network node of claim 4 , wherein:
the second antenna array is the first antenna array.
6. The network node of claim 4 , further comprising an antenna to receive an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out (ADS-B) signal comprising GPS coordinates associated with the aerial radio node.
7. The network node of claim 6 , further comprising a beam tracker adapted to steer the digital weights of the first beamformer using the GPS coordinates received in the ADS-B signal.
8. The network node of claim 4 , further comprising a controller wherein the controller comprises:
one or more processors adapted to control elements of the network node.
9. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that, when performed by one or more processors, carry out functionality of a method of operating a mobile communication network node to simultaneously serve a user equipment in a terrestrial mobile communication network and an aerial radio node on a same carrier frequency, the method comprising:
causing the mobile communication network node to perform:
directing a first reception beam towards the aerial radio node and receiving a line-of-sight first signal using the first reception beam;
directing a second reception beam towards the user equipment in the terrestrial mobile communication network and receiving a second signal using the second reception beam;
using the line-of-sight first signal as a reference signal and identifying therefrom a contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal;
filtering the first signal using an adaptive filter to provide a replica signal corresponding to the contribution comprising any multipath components associated with the first signal in the second signal; and
subtracting the replica signal from the second signal to obtain a desired signal.