Patent ID: 8908609
Filing Date: 2014-12-09
Classification: H04B,H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A multi-hop wireless communications system comprising a plurality of relay equipments and a destination equipment, in which uplink signals may be relayed from at least one source equipment towards the destination equipment via at least one of said plurality of relay equipments, corresponding downlink signals may be relayed from the destination equipment towards the at least one source equipment via at least one of said plurality of relay equipments, and the destination equipment comprises an adaptive antenna array arranged to transmit said corresponding downlink signals, wherein each of said plurality of relay equipments measures the quality of uplink signals received from the at least one source equipment and measures the quality of downlink signals received at the relay equipment from the destination equipment and selects, based on the quality of the received uplink signals and the quality of the received downlink signals forming duplex communication with the uplink signals, an uplink signal to relay, and wherein, responsive to a determination of received signal strength of each selected uplink signal at the destination equipment, the adaptive antenna array is arranged to form a beam pattern, whereby to preferentially receive uplink signals from and preferentially transmit downlink signals towards at least one of said plurality of relay equipments that relays one of the selected uplink signals determined to have the strongest received signal strength at the destination equipment.