MULTIPLE WI-FI ATSC TV ANTENNA RECEIVER

A device is provided. The device comprises of a waveform decompression decoder, Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) Weighted Combining unit for multiple antennas, Frequency Domain Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) Equalizer, Time Domain Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) Equalizer, Equal Gain Combining Unit, and Selective Combining Slicer. The method for producing the device is also provided.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present inventions now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some examples of the embodiments of the inventions are shown. Indeed, these inventions may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.

FIG. 1100—The Invention101—Multiple (one or more) terrestrial TV antennas102—Multiple Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antenna Adapters with waveform compression103—Multiple Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antennas Receiver with waveform decompression for TV, Tablet, Phone, Set-Top-Box, etc.FIG. 2200—Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antenna with Waveform Compression (example uses a single antenna)201—Terrestrial TV Antenna202—TV RF Signal Cable (traditionally plugs in to TV)203—TV Tuner (CAN, Silicon, etc.)204—Analog IF TV Signal205—Digital IF TV Signal206—Analog to Digital Signal Converter (106is optional if the ADC is built-in the Tuner)207—IF AGC Signal208—Waveform Data Compression Unit209—Compressed Digital IF TV Signal210—TV Signal to Wi-Fi Signal Adapter211—Input Signal to Wi-Fi212—High Speed Wi-Fi Device213—Wi-Fi RF SignalFIG. 3300—Multiple Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antenna for TV, Tablet, Phone, Set-Top-Box, etc.301—High Speed Wi-Fi Receiver302—Multiplexed Multiple Antenna Digital IF Signal303—Multiple antenna IF Signal De-multiplexer and Waveform De-compressor304—Single Antenna Digital IF Signal305—IF to Baseband down-conversion and signal synchronization. Includes but not limited to frequency shifting, low-pass filter, symbol timing recovery, carrier recovery, SRRC filter, Field Synchronization, segment synchronization306—Synchronized Baseband Signal for each antenna307—Channel State Estimation and Signal-To-Noise-Ratio (SNR) Estimation for each antenna308—Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) Weighted Combining for multiple antennas309—Frequency Domain Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) Equalizer310—Time Domain Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) Equalizer311—Equal Gain Combining Unite312—Selective Combining Slicer313—Forward Error Correction (FEC) Block: includes Viterbi Decoder, De-interleaver, R.S. Decoder, and De-randomizer314—Selective Combining Unit315—Output Signal as MPEG TS

This invention is described inFIG. 1.

102is Multiple Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antenna Adapters with waveform compression.

FIG. 2is an example of the Wi-Fi ATSC TV Antenna (200).

Any terrestrial TV will have a common TV antenna (201) to receive the radio waveforms. Traditionally, the TV antenna is directly plugged in to the TV thru a TV RF signal cable (202). In this invention, the TV RF signal from the antenna is first connected to the TV tuner (203), which traditionally is inside the TV.

This invention has separated the tuner from the TV console, and put the tuner on the antenna side.

If the tuner has an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) built in, then the output IF ATSC TV signal of the tuner is in digital format (205). If the tuner does not have an ADC built in, then the output IF ATSC TV signal of the tuner is in analog format (204). So, the analog IF ATSC TV signal (204) will be transformed to digital format by the ADC (206).

The tuner needs an IF AGC (Automatic Gain Control) signal (207) to control the tuner's signal dynamic range.

The Digital IF TV Signal (205) is a sampled waveform. The minimum sampling frequency (Nyquist Sampling Rate) is two times the ATSC TV signal baseband symbol rate which is 10.76 MSPS (Mega Symbols per Second). Any sampling frequency above the minimum sampling frequency can be used. In this example, the sampling frequency is 25 MHz and the ADC is 12-bit, therefore the Digital IF TV Signal (205) data rate is 300 Mbps (Mega Bits per Second). Since the bandwidth of the ATSC TV signal is 6 MHz, there is redundant information in the sampled digital IF TV signal (205). The waveform data compression unit (208) is applied to the sampled digital IF TV signal (205) in order to remove the redundancy and reduce the data rate of the signal.

The waveform data compression algorithm in208can be either the ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse-Code Modulation) algorithm or the DPCM (Differential Pulse-Code Modulation) algorithm. For this example, the ADPCM algorithm is used. The output of the Waveform Data Compression Unit (208) is a Compressed Digital IF TV Signal (209) with the data rate of 100 Mbps. The Compressed Digital IF TV Signal (209) is fed in to the TV to Wi-Fi Adapter (210).

The TV to Wi-Fi Adapter (210) generates a Wi-Fi interface digital signal (211). This signal directly feeds in to the high speed Wi-Fi RF signal generator (212). The output is the Wi-Fi RF Signal (213). The TV to Wi-Fi Adapter (210) also generates an AGC signal (207) for the tuner (203).

301converts the received Wi-Fi signal in to a multiplexed multiple antennas digital IF signals (302), feeds in to the de-multiplexer and waveform de-compressor (303). The de-multiplexed single antenna digital IF signal was compressed using ADPCM encoder algorithm as described above inFIG. 2. The de-compressor is composed of ADPCM decoder algorithm to restore the original ATSC digital IF signal for each antenna (304).

Each digital IF signal (304) will feed in to305. This generates a synchronized baseband signal for each antenna (306).

Given a baseband signal from each antenna (306), and the feedback signal from312,307will estimate what the multipath channel looks like and analyze the multipath character and signal-to-noise ratio for each antenna.

Based on the results from each307,308performs weighted combining for normalization of signal-to-noise ratio from multiple antennas based on a newly invented algorithm. This is a new component compared to existing single antenna ATSC HDTV receivers because multiple antennas require weighted combining prior to maximum ratio combining.

The weighted combined signal from308will feed in to both the newly invented frequency domain maximum ratio combining equalizer (309) and the newly invented time domain maximum ratio combining equalizer (310). Then, the results from the two equalizers (309and310) will be further combined using a newly invented equal gain combining unit (311) to generate an optimal time and frequency domain combined signal.

Now there are three signals from309,310and311—these three signals will pass through the newly invented selective combining slicer (312) to generate optimal feedback to307. These three signals will also simultaneously pass thru313(feed forward path).

Now use the selective combining unit (314) to pick the best one output of the three (frequency, time, equal gain). Output will be MPEG TS (315).