Abstract:
An antenna assembly includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers and at least one positioning plate. Each of the wireless signal transceivers includes a base fixed on the positioning plate. The positioning plate has an expansion capability for a plurality of bases being fixed thereon, such that a user can add or reduce the number of the wireless signal transceiver independently.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This non-provisional application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) on Patent Application No(s). 095210171 filed in Taiwan, R.O.C. on Jun. 9, 2006, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    1. Field of Invention 
         [0003]    The present invention relates to an antenna assembly, and more particularly to an antenna assembly that has an expansion capability and is fixed on a support interface. 
         [0004]    2. Related Art 
         [0005]    With the rapid development of electronic science and technology, desktop or laptop computers have powerful operating functions, and are widely used by companies, enterprises, and consumers. In order to link the computers effectively to transmit or exchange various information and data, many enterprises chose to use signal cables and servers to construct required internal networks. 
         [0006]    However, the cost for designing and practically wiring wired networks is quite high, the construction of the wired networks and the wiring will cause damages to the buildings, and complicated connections are disadvantageous to management and maintenance. Therefore, many enterprises turn to use wireless networks to construct the required internal networks. 
         [0007]    In order to perform the wireless signal transmission, antenna equipment must be set up at specific positions. According to different places where the antennae are used, they are further classified into indoor antennae and outdoor antennae. An indoor antenna often includes a dedicated stand to support the antenna, and is placed on a desk or hung on a wall, e.g., an example of the indoor antenna disclosed in Taiwan Patent Publication No. M243796. An outdoor antenna is fixed to a round column or a wall with a support base, e.g., a structural design of a base for fixing an antenna disclosed in Taiwan Patent Publication No. 241952. 
         [0008]    Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 6,232,928 provides an antenna fixing member that can be fixed to a round column. The antenna fixing member uses a clamp to fix one end of two support brackets to the round column, and the other end of the two support brackets is connected to an antenna. The support brackets can adjust the relative angle between the antenna and the round column. 
         [0009]    Moreover, in these environments, the wireless signals are often transmitted on various paths or in different spatial dimensions to form a plurality of series flows. In an indoor environment, the obtained capacity increases linearly with the increase of the number of the antennae. Therefore, in order to meet the requirements of increasing the number of the antennae, the antenna supporting or fixing structures must be capable of fixing a plurality of antennae accordingly. 
         [0010]    However, the supporting or fixing structures described above for attaching and positioning an antenna on the desk, wall, or column tube use many components complicated in structure, and can only fix a single antenna. Thus, the manufacturing cost is high, and the assembling and arrangement is difficult, and the signal transmission capacity and signal transmitting and receiving intensity cannot be improved by using more antennae. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0011]    The antenna assemblies described above can fix only a single antenna, but limit the function of increasing or reducing the number of antennae, so the signal transmission capacity cannot be expanded to be adapted to different communication specifications. In view of the above problems, the present invention is directed to providing an antenna assembly with a plurality of wireless signal transceivers, such that a user can adjust the number of the wireless signal transceivers independently to improve transmission quality of wireless signals. 
         [0012]    In order to achieve the aforementioned objective, the present invention provides an antenna assembly, which includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers and at least one positioning plate. Each of the wireless signal transceivers includes a base and a transmitting and receiving portion disposed on the base. The positioning plate is used for connecting the wireless signal transceivers. The bases are fixed to the positioning plate, so as to combine the plurality of wireless signal transceivers into an antenna assembly. The combination of the plurality of wireless signal transceivers enhances a transmitting and receiving intensity of wireless signals or increases a transmission bandwidth. 
         [0013]    In order to achieve the aforementioned objective, the present invention is further directed to providing an antenna assembly, which includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers. Each of the wireless signal transceivers has a base and a transmitting and receiving portion disposed on the base. Each of the bases has a first engaging portion and a second engaging portion matching with each other, so as to connect the bases, and combine the plurality of wireless signal transceivers into the antenna assembly. The combination of the plurality of wireless signal transceivers enhances the transmitting and receiving intensity of wireless signals or increases the transmission bandwidth. 
         [0014]    The advantage of the present invention lies in that the antenna assembly is formed with a plurality of wireless signal transceivers, and can realize the transmission of the wireless signals. Thus, the present invention has the expansion capability by increasing the number of the wireless signal transceivers, so as to increase the transmission capacity of the wireless signals. Furthermore, the wireless signal transceivers can be arranged flexibly to meet the requirements of different communication specifications. Moreover, for new communication specifications in the future, the design of the wireless signal transceivers needs not to be varied significantly. In addition, the complexity of the supporting or fixing structure is reduced as the present invention does not use too many components, and the user can add or remove the wireless signal transceivers through simple fixing means. 
         [0015]    Detailed features and advantages of the present invention are described in the embodiments below, and their content is adequate for those skilled in the art to understand the technical content of the present invention and to implement the present invention. According to the content disclosed in the specification, the claims, and the drawings, those skilled in the art can easily understand the objects and advantages of the present invention. 
         [0016]    Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description. 
     
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0017]    The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given herein below for illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein: 
           [0018]      FIG. 1A  is an exploded structural view of the first embodiment; 
           [0019]      FIG. 1B  is a combined structural view of the first embodiment; 
           [0020]      FIG. 2  is an exploded structural view of the second embodiment; 
           [0021]      FIG. 3A  is an exploded structural view of the third embodiment; 
           [0022]      FIG. 3B  is a combined structural view of the third embodiment; 
           [0023]      FIG. 4  is a perspective appearance view of the fourth embodiment; and 
           [0024]      FIG. 5  is a perspective appearance view of the fifth embodiment. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0025]    Referring to  FIGS. 1A and 1B , an antenna assembly  30  according to a first embodiment of the present invention is shown, which includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31  and at least one positioning plate  32 . The number of the wireless signal transceivers&#39;  31  is determined according to actual requirements. Each of the wireless signal transceivers  31  has a base  33  and a transmitting and receiving portion  34  disposed on the base  33 , and each base  33  is fixed to the positioning plate  32 . The transmitting and receiving portions  34  are used to transmit or receive wireless signals, such that the wireless signal transceivers  31  function normally in corresponding frequency ranges. Each of the bases  33  has a fixing hole  331  formed on a side surface thereof. One end of the transmitting and receiving portion  34  is screwed or inserted into the fixing hole  331 . The base  33  and the transmitting and receiving portion  34  can also be formed monolithically, or the transmitting and receiving portion  34  is disposed inside the base  33 . The other side of each of the bases  33  has a fixing portion  332 , and the positioning plate  32  has a positioning portion  321  corresponding to the fixing portion  332 . The fixing portion  332  includes a plurality of positioning posts  332 A, and the positioning portion  321  has a plurality of corresponding positioning holes  321 A. The positioning posts  332 A are inserted into the positioning holes  321 A, so as to make fixing portion  332  being coupled to the positioning portion  321 , and further to fix the base  33  to positioning plate  32  (as shown in  FIG. 7B ). Thus, the plurality of wireless signal transceiver  31  is combined into the antenna assembly  30 . The combination of the plurality of wireless signal transceiver  31  enhances the intensity of transmitting and receiving the wireless signals, or enables the wireless signal transceivers  31  to work at different frequencies, thereby improving the transmission bandwidth of the entire antenna assembly  30 , and increasing the data transmission rate. The transmitting and receiving portions  34  of the wireless signal transceivers  31  are spaced at predetermined distances according to characteristics of the wireless signals, such that the wireless signal transceivers  31  do not interfere with one another in operation. 
         [0026]    Referring to  FIGS. 1A and 1B  again, when the present invention is applied, the fixing portion  332  of the base  33  of each of the wireless signal transceivers  31  is attached towards the positioning portion  321  of the positioning plate  32 . The positioning posts  332 A of the fixing portion  332  are inserted in the positioning holes  321 A, so as to fix the base  33  to the positioning plate  32 . Moreover, the projected area of the base  33  is slightly smaller than the area of the positioning plate  32 , such that one of the wireless signal transceivers  31  is fixed at the middle of the positioning plate  32 . At this time, the positioning plate  32  will protrude relative to an edge of the base  33  of this wireless signal transceiver  31 . When it is desired to increase the number of the wireless signal transceivers  31 , the wireless signal transceivers  31  are sequentially fixed on the periphery of the positioning plate  32 , such that the opposite sides of the bases  33  are abut to one another, thereby realizing the effect of adding the wireless signal transceivers  31  flexibly (as shown in  FIG. 1B ). The bases  33  are in the shape of a regular polygon, but are not limited to be so. 
         [0027]    Referring to  FIG. 2 , an antenna assembly  30  according to a second embodiment of the present invention is shown, which includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31  and at least one positioning plate  32 . The overall structure of the second embodiment is similar to that of the first embodiment, while the difference lies in that the fixing portion  332  of each of the bases  33  has a plurality of positioning holes  332 B, and the positioning portion  321  of the positioning plate  32  has a plurality of corresponding positioning posts  321 B. The positioning posts  321 B of the positioning plate  32  engaged in the positioning holes  332 B of the base  33 , so as to fix the base  33  to the positioning plate  32 . 
         [0028]    The present invention has disclosed the engagement design of the positioning plate in the first and the second embodiments, while the configuration of the positioning plate naturally is not limited to the engagement. Therefore, a screw design of the configuration of the positioning plate is further disclosed as a third embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0029]    Referring to  FIGS. 3A and 3B , an antenna assembly  30  according to the third embodiment of the present invention is shown, which also includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31  and at least one positioning plate  32 . The overall structure of the third embodiment is also similar to that of the first embodiment, while the difference lies in that the antenna assembly  30  further includes a plurality of fixing members  40 . Furthermore, the positioning portion  321  and the fixing portion  332  further have bolt holes  321 C and  332 C respectively. Therefore, when attaching the fixing portion  332  of the base  33  towards the positioning portion  321  of the positioning plate  32 , the fixing members  40  pass through the bolt holes  321 C and  332 C respectively, i.e., the fixing members  40  pass through the positioning portion  321  and are fixed to the fixing portion  332 , so as to fix the base  33  to the positioning plate  32  (as shown in  FIG. 3B ). The fixing members  40  are screws, but are not limited to be screws. 
         [0030]    As the projected area of each of the bases is slightly smaller than the area of the positioning plate, and the shape of the positioning plate is not limited to be the regular polygon of the first embodiment, but can be in different arranging configurations according to the requirements of the communication specifications. Therefore, an antenna assembly is further described as a fourth embodiment of the present invention. 
         [0031]    Referring to  FIG. 4A , an antenna assembly  30 A includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31 A and at least one positioning plate  32 A. The structure and composition of the fourth embodiment is also similar to that of the first embodiment, while bases  33 A are in a triangular shape, and do not contact one another, and the shape of the section of transmitting and receiving portions  34 A is also different from the shape of the base  33 A. 
         [0032]    Referring to  FIG. 5 , an antenna assembly  30  according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention is shown, which includes a plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31  connected with one another. Each of the wireless signal transceivers  31  has a base  33  and a transmitting and receiving portion  34  disposed on the base  33 . A first engaging portion  335 A and a second engaging portion  335 B matching with each other are arranged on sides of each of the bases  33 . The first engaging portion  335 A and the second engaging portion  335 B are an engaging block and an engaged hole matching with each other. The first engaging portion  335 A of a wireless signal transceiver  31  is engaged with the second engaging portion  335 B of another wireless signal transceiver  31 , so as to combine the two wireless signal transceivers  31 . Thus, the antenna assembly  30  of this embodiment is formed by combining the plurality of wireless signal transceivers  31  sequentially. 
         [0033]    The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims.