Patent Description:
There is a strong trend in wireless communication systems towards supporting devices with ultra-low power consumption. These devices may be small sensor nodes where a battery should last many years, or where energy scavenging is used to achieve battery-less operation. When the wireless communication system is to communicate with such devices a receiver must be operated in the device. To achieve a short response time, the receiver must be operated regularly. The power consumption of the receiver must then be limited. A special ultra-low power dedicated receiver, so called wakeup receiver, is thus often used. However, the capabilities of the wakeup receiver are limited, and it is only able to detect the presence of a wakeup request. When such a request is present a higher performance and higher power main receiver is started to be able to receive the actual communication.

To achieve ultra-low power consumption, e.g. below 100uW, the wakeup receivers are often based on amplitude detection of on-off keying (OOK) signals. Generation of accurate local oscillator (LO) signals using power hungry Phase Locked Loops (PLLs) can thereby be avoided. However, since the frequency of the LO signal from a free-running oscillator is not accurate, only modest filtering can be realized prior to amplitude detection.

Due to the limited amount of filtering prior to amplitude detection the wakeup receivers are very vulnerable to interference. All interference and noise entering the amplitude detector having amplitude modulation in the same frequency range as the wakeup signal will mask the wakeup signal. It should here be understood that the same frequency does not imply that the interference is sent using the same frequency channel. Instead, because of the limited ability to filter out signals adjacent to the wakeup signal, it should be understood that also signals transmitted in adjacent frequency channels and potentially even further away will effectively have as detrimental effect as a co-channel interferer. Alternatively, to be able to effectively filter out adjacent interference, the frequency generation must have high accuracy and consume significant power. Furthermore, the amplitude detector is also heavily non-linear and therefore produces very small outputs for weak input signals. Assuming the amplitude detector has a quadratic characteristic for small signals means that the signal to noise ratio falls off by 20dB for each reduction of 10dB of the input signal level. This becomes quickly very unfavorable already with modest amounts of interference at the detector input, as the presence of interference will limit how much the input signal can be amplified. More filtering prior to the amplitude detection is therefore necessary to achieve wakeup receivers with high immunity to interference. However, to employ such filtering an accurate frequency LO signal is needed, so means to create such signals with low power consumption must thus be provided.

It is known from the document <CIT> a processing circuitry that may be configured to decode synchronize fields of a packet, the synchronize fields each comprising an identification, and determine a carrier offset associated with each of the synchronize fields from a corresponding identification, where the carrier offset indicates a frequency offset from a carrier. The processing circuitry may be further configured to determine signal quality metrics for signal reception by the WUR for each carrier offset indicated in the synchronize fields, and configure the WUR to adjust a receive frequency in accordance with one of the carrier offsets based on the signal quality metrics.

It is also known from the document <CIT>a method of operating a first infrastructure equipment in a wireless communications system. The wireless communications system comprises the first infrastructure equipment, a second infrastructure equipment and a communications device. The method comprises receiving a command from the second infrastructure equipment comprising an indication that a downlink message for the communications device to decode should be transmitted by the first infrastructure equipment and that a wake-up signal should be transmitted by the first infrastructure equipment to the communications device in advance of transmitting the downlink message, and transmitting the wake-up signal to the communications device in advance of transmitting the downlink message to provide the communications device with an indication that the downlink message for the communications device to decode will be transmitted, wherein the wake-up signal comprises a preamble formed by a plurality of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed, OFDM, symbols, each of the OFDM symbols being modulated with a reference sequence, and wherein one or more of the OFDM symbols are transmitted having been shifted in frequency with respect to successive others of the OFDM symbols.

It is therefore an object of embodiments herein to provide a method for a wakeup receiver to generate and calibrate oscillator signals in a wireless communication system.

According to a first aspect of embodiments herein, the object is achieved by a method performed in a base station for facilitating frequency calibration of a receiver. The base station generates a first signal with periodic Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) modulation containing two frequency tones, one at a first frequency and one at a second frequency and transmits the first signal as a calibration signal to the receiver to facilitate frequency calibration of the receiver. The base station then transmits a second signal as a wakeup signal to the receiver.

According to a second aspect of embodiments herein, the object is achieved by a method performed in a wakeup receiver. The wakeup receiver has an envelope detector based architecture. The wakeup receiver comprises at least a frequency down-conversion mixer, a digitally control oscillator (DCO) configured to generate oscillator signals, a first filter with programmable bandwidth, an envelope detector, a second filter with programmable bandwidth and a digital processing and control unit configured to determine if a signal is present and generate a frequency control signal to the DCO and bandwidth control signals to the first and second filters.

The wakeup receiver is set to a first bandwidth by choosing digital settings of the bandwidth control signals to the first and second filters to receive a first signal transmitted by a base station. The first signal is a periodic ASK modulation signal containing two frequency tones, one at a first frequency and one at a second frequency and transmitted for facilitating frequency calibration of the receiver.

The wakeup receiver operates the DCO at different frequencies by sweeping digital settings of the frequency control signal and detects if there is a signal present for each digital setting of the frequency control signal.

The wakeup receiver then stores the digital setting of the frequency control signal when a signal is detected.

The wakeup receiver may be set to a second bandwidth and sweeping the digital settings of the frequency control signal to detect if there is a signal present, wherein the second bandwidth is narrower than the first bandwidth.

According to the embodiments herein, the base station generates a first signal with periodic ASK modulation, e.g. OOK modulation, and transmits the first signal as a preamble or frequency marker signal to facilitate frequency calibration of the receiver. The first signal may be transmitted at or close to the frequency where a wakeup signal is to be transmitted. The receiver sweeps its oscillator frequency to detect if there is a preamble or frequency marker signal present, and at what oscillator frequency setting. When it is determined that there is a signal present, at the corresponding frequency setting, the oscillator frequency of the receiver is calibrated to the transmitting frequency of the base station. The base station then transmits a second signal as a wakeup signal to the receiver. The receiver receives the wakeup signal using the frequency calibrated oscillator.

The signal with periodic ASK/OOK modulation allows a fast acquisition of its frequency, under different signal conditions. The method performed in the wakeup receiver provides a scheme where the receiver may perform a fast frequency sweep to search for preamble signals, followed by a more sensitive selective search at frequencies where preamble signal tones are detected in the first sweep. The properties of ASK/OOK signals allow the frequency to be swept without disrupting reception, while filtering the receiver amplitude demodulated output to find preamble or marker signal frequency tones. After the frequency sweeping, the wakeup receiver oscillator is calibrated to the frequency of the preamble signal. The use of the first signal transmitted by the base station as frequency markers or preambles allows the receiver to use a free-running oscillator with lower power consumption, while still being narrowband for high selectivity.

By using this solution, an ultra-low power wakeup receiver with accurate oscillator frequency generation may be realized and this allows a narrow bandwidth filter to be used, resulting in high selectivity. The combination of ultra-low power and high selectivity is very attractive.

Therefore, the embodiments herein provide an improved method for a wakeup receiver to generate high accuracy oscillator signals by calibrating the frequency of a free-running oscillator based on a preamble signal, which results in an ultra-low power and high selectivity wakeup receiver.

<FIG> shows an example of a wakeup receiver <NUM> with an envelope detector based architecture. As can be seen the wakeup receiver <NUM> comprises a band select filter <NUM> for filtering RF signals received at an antenna, a frequency down-conversion mixer <NUM> configured to convert the received RF signals to baseband or intermediate frequency (IF) signals, a digitally controlled oscillator DCO <NUM> configured to generate oscillator signals to the mixer <NUM>. After the mixer <NUM> comes baseband/IF amplification and filtering. The wakeup receiver <NUM> may further comprise a first baseband/lF amplifier <NUM>, a first baseband/lF filter <NUM> with programmable bandwidth, a second baseband/lF amplifier <NUM> and an envelope detector <NUM>. Since the frequency is low at this point, sharp filtering in the first baseband/IF filter <NUM> may be applied to minimize interference reaching the envelope detector <NUM>. The wakeup receiver <NUM> may further comprise a third amplifier <NUM> after the envelope detector <NUM> and a second baseband/IF filter <NUM> with programmable bandwidth. Then either an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) or a simple comparator <NUM> is used to convert the baseband/IF signals to digital signals, in the form of, e.g. a bit sequence. The wakeup receiver <NUM> further comprise a digital processing and control unit <NUM> configured to receive the digital signals and determine if a signal is present and generate a frequency control signal <NUM> to the DCO <NUM> and bandwidth control signals <NUM>, <NUM> to the first and second filters <NUM>, <NUM>, respectively.

The DCO <NUM> is the core and major power consumer of the wakeup receiver <NUM>. For achieving ultra-low power consumption, a ring oscillator may be used. When it comes to the mixer <NUM> a passive structure is attractive to minimize power consumption and flicker noise.

Using a comparator produces a single bit, compared to an ADC that may create a multiple bit representation of the signal. The comparator, however, is very low power and being single-bit eliminates the need for Automatic Gain Control (AGC), making it very suitable to ultra-low power receivers.

According to the embodiments herein, a signal is transmitted to aid the wakeup receiver <NUM> to tune its DCO <NUM> frequency. The modulation of this aiding signal may be ASK, e.g. OOK, with a periodic modulation pattern. A method performed in a base station to facilitate frequency calibration of the wakeup receiver <NUM> will now be described with reference to <FIG>. The method comprises the following actions.

The base station generates a first signal with periodic ASK, e.g. OOK, modulation. By using an ASK/OOK aiding signal, which only has information in the amplitude, the DCO frequency of the wakeup receiver <NUM> may be quickly stepped or continuously swept without distorting the received signal notably.

There are different options for the ASK/OOK modulation. The first is to use a single tone modulation, with a relatively high frequency of about e.g. <NUM>. A second option may be to use a lower frequency tone modulation and a third option may be to generate ASK/OOK modulation containing two strong frequency tones, one at lower frequency and one at higher frequency. The ASK/OOK signal containing more than one strong modulation frequency components may still lend itself well to single-bit representation in a power efficient ASK/OOK receiver. To achieve this, effectively a high frequency harmonic may be boosted by replacing each zero crossing in a fundamental frequency square wave with a wavelet of a square wave of the harmonic frequency.

So according to some embodiments herein, the first signal with periodic ASK/OOK modulation may contain a first and a second frequency modulation tones. The OOK signal with multi-tone content may be created by starting from a square wave with the lower frequency. Each zero crossing is then replaced by a piece of a square wave, i.e. a wavelet with the higher frequency, thereby forming multiple zero-crossings to increase the high frequency content of the signal.

So according to some embodiments herein, the first signal may be a periodic OOK signal and may be generated by replacing each zero crossing in a square wave of the first frequency with a wavelet of a square wave of the second frequency.

The base station transmits the first signal as a calibration signal to the receiver to facilitate frequency calibration of the wakeup receiver <NUM>.

The first signal may be used as a preamble to a wakeup signal and may be transmitted at or close to the frequency where the wakeup signal is to be transmitted. The first signal is transmitted for long enough time so that the wakeup receiver <NUM> is likely to find it, and then the actual wakeup signal may be transmitted at the same frequency as the first signal frequency.

The base station transmits a second signal as a wakeup signal to the wakeup receiver <NUM>.

The second signal may be transmitted at the same frequency as the first signal after a time period from the first signal has been transmitted.

An alternative is to transmit the first signal, and then after some time transmit the wakeup signal at an adjacent frequency, while still transmitting the first signal. If not acknowledged by a target device, e.g. the wakeup receiver <NUM>, the transmission of the first signal may then continue while more attempts to contact the target device are made by transmitting wakeup signals. The first signal is in this case used as a frequency marker, indicating the frequency location of the wakeup signal.

Therefore according to some embodiments herein, the first signal may be transmitted continuously and the second signal may be transmitted when a receiver wakeup is to be requested.

According to some embodiments herein, the first signal may be a first frequency marker signal and the second signal may be transmitted at a frequency offset from the first frequency marker signal.

To support the calibration over a larger frequency range and increase the precision of the calibration, two or more frequency marker signals with different frequencies may be transmitted. For example, a second frequency marker signal may be transmitted, for instance at the other side of the wakeup signal frequency. Variations in frequency tuning sensitivity of the DCO in the wakeup receiver <NUM> may then be compensated for, which otherwise may cause some uncertainty when offsetting the DCO frequency from the first marker signal frequency to wakeup signal frequency location.

<FIG> shows a block diagram of a base station <NUM>. The base station <NUM> comprises e.g. a receiver <NUM>, a transmitter <NUM>, a processing unit <NUM>, a memory <NUM> etc. The base station <NUM> is configured to perform the Actions <NUM>-<NUM> described above.

According to the embodiments herein, a method performed in the wakeup receiver <NUM> for frequency calibration and receiving signals will now be described with reference to <FIG>. The method comprises the following actions which may be performed in any suitable order.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> is set to a first bandwidth by choosing digital settings of the bandwidth control signals <NUM>, <NUM> to the first and second filters <NUM>, <NUM> to receive a first signal. The first signal is a periodic ASK, e.g. OOK modulation signal and transmitted for facilitating frequency calibration of the wakeup receiver <NUM>.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> operates the DCO <NUM> at different frequencies by sweeping digital settings of the frequency control signal <NUM> to detect if there is a signal present.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> sweeps its DCO frequencies, while filtering the output signal from the envelope detector <NUM> for detecting tones of an OOK modulation signal. To facilitate a fast acquisition of the oscillator frequency, a procedure with two frequency sweeps may be performed. A first frequency sweep may be performed with a wider baseband/IF filter bandwidth, to allow for a faster frequency sweep with more frequency shift during modulation tone detection, since if a higher frequency modulation tone is used, the bandwidth of the signal becomes wider. The digital processing and control unit <NUM> may therefore set the bandwidth of the first baseband/lF filter <NUM>. After the first baseband/lF filter <NUM> the signal is envelope detected, and then again filtered by a second baseband/IF filter <NUM> and amplified. Also this second baseband/IF filter <NUM> may be programmable depending on what tone is to be detected, or if the actual wakeup signal is to be received.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> detects if there is a signal present for each digital setting of the frequency control signal <NUM>. The result of the sweep, i.e. detected tone amplitudes versus DCO frequency settings, are stored in a memory. Narrowband digital filters may then be used to find the amplitude of the OOK tone for further contributing to the filtering after the detector, and store the filtered result in a memory, to determine if there is a signal present or not. If the actual wakeup signal is to be received, a correlator may instead be used to find the corresponding bit sequences.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> stores the digital setting of the frequency control signal <NUM> when a signal is detected. That is, for this digital setting, the detected tone amplitude is above a threshold and it is determined that a signal is present. In this way, the DCO is calibrated to the frequency of the first signal.

This action is optional. The wakeup receiver <NUM> may be set to a second bandwidth and sweeping the digital settings of the frequency control signal to detect if there is a signal present, wherein the second bandwidth is narrower than the first bandwidth.

The first frequency sweep will be relatively faster, which combined with the higher bandwidth will result in reduced sensitivity. The first sweep in this case is made to try to find the frequency marker or preamble signal, and where when it is found that a signal is stronger than an average, i.e. a noise level, it may be desired to make a closer examination, i.e. a second search, with a slower sweep. So for those DCO frequencies where the detected amplitude is significantly stronger than an average, if any, a second search may be performed using a lower baseband/IF filter bandwidth. The sensitivity will then be higher, and it will be possible to detect with higher certainty the existence of the marker or preamble signal. In case the signal conditions are good, however, the sensitivity of the first sweep may be sufficient for the decision.

The effective bandwidth of a receiver is equal to the geometric mean of the bandwidths of the first and second filters <NUM>, <NUM>, given that the filtering after the detector, i.e. the second filter <NUM>, is more narrowband. To effectively improve sensitivity thus both filters bandwidths should be reduced at the same time. Only reducing the bandwidth of one filter will not be as effective, as a reduction of <NUM> times is required for a 3dB improvement. In contrast, when both filters bandwidths are reduced together, <NUM> times reduction of bandwidth for each one of the filters results in 6dB improvement of the receiver sensitivity.

Multiple sweeps, full sweeps as well as partial sweeps, may be performed using different filter bandwidths, i.e. with different sensitivities and scanning speeds, before a decision is taken as to what DCO digital setting of the frequency control signal to use for receiving the wakeup signal. The DCO frequency generation may then be both accurate and low power since the free running oscillator in the wakeup receiver is calibrated to the transmitting frequency of the base station.

After the calibration, the wakeup receiver <NUM> may receive a second signal transmitted by a base station as a wake up signal.

When the wakeup signal is transmitted at the same frequency as the first signal, the wakeup receiver <NUM> may operate the DCO with the digital setting of the frequency control signal where the first signal is detected to receive the second signal.

When the wakeup signal is transmitted at a frequency offset from the first signal, the wakeup receiver <NUM> may operate the DCO with a digital setting offset from the digital setting of the frequency control signal where the first signal is detected to receive the second signal.

When two or more of the first signals are transmitted at different frequencies from the base station, the wakeup receiver <NUM> may operate the DCO with a digital setting calculated from two or more digital settings achieved when two or more of the first signals with different frequencies are detected, to receive the second signal. The calculation may be interpolation or extrapolation from the two or more digital settings, which allows operating the DCO at a frequency not only between the frequency markers, i.e. interpolation, but also outside the frequency markers, i.e. extrapolation.

The embodiments herein are described with the wakeup receiver <NUM> as an example architecture of a receiver where e.g. a simple comparator is used, however, the embodiments herein are also applicable in different receiver architectures, e.g. where an ADC may be used. That is, the transmission of a preamble signal makes it feasible for wakeup receivers with any type of architecture to employ power efficient and accurate frequency generation.

The wakeup receiver <NUM> may be implemented in a wireless communication device. The wireless communication device may be a device with ultra-low power consumption, such as small sensor nodes, or any of a wireless communication terminal, a user equipment, a Machine Type Communication (MTC) device, a Device to Device (D2D) terminal, or any type of node in the wireless communication system, e.g. smart phone, laptop, mobile phone, relay, mobile tablets or even a small base station communicating within a cell. According to the embodiments herein, the wakeup receiver <NUM> may be configured to perform any one or all of the method steps or Actions <NUM>-<NUM> described above.

To detect the signal with different OOK modulations, there are different bandwidth settings for the wakeup receiver <NUM>. A simplified spectrum of the different modulation signal options and filter options is shown in <FIG>.

The task of the baseband/IF filter is to pass the modulation tones, with sufficient margins to allow for short term oscillator drift, and in case of performing a frequency sweep, margin to allow for frequency shift during post detector filter settling. Some different filter options are indicated in <FIG>. Filter <NUM> selects both the low frequency and high frequency tones plus some margin for sweep frequency shift. This is suitable for the fast sweep if either the low frequency tone, high frequency tone, or both tones are used in OOK modulation signal. Filter <NUM> is similar to filter <NUM>, but a bit less wideband. It is suitable for the second sweep to detect the high frequency tones and if present also for the lower frequency tones, or for the fast sweep to detect the lower frequency tones. Filter <NUM> is tailored to the second sweep to detect the high frequency tones, and thanks to its narrower bandwidth and rejection of potential low frequency interference, it will provide increased receiver sensitivity compared to using Filter <NUM>. Filter <NUM> is suitable for the second sweep to detect the low frequency tones. Not indicated in the figure is notching of DC, which may be performed with Filters <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> to eliminate DC offsets.

For example, for a single tone OOK modulation, with a relatively high frequency of say about <NUM>, a baseband/IF bandwidth of e.g. four times the modulation tone frequency may create sufficient margin to allow a high scanning speed in the first sweep. In the second sweep, where different frequency tuning settings are tried individually, a much tighter filtering may be used. If a homodyne receiver is used, bandpass filters may then be used around the modulation frequency.

For a single tone OOK modulation with a relatively lower frequency tone modulation, in the second sweep a narrower band low-pass filter may be used, which is less complex than the bandpass filter. However, at lower frequencies there is an increased risk for noise and disturbances.

For a signal with OOK modulation containing two strong tones, one at lower frequency and one at higher frequency, it is then possible for the wakeup receiver <NUM> to choose which tone frequency to search for, and what baseband/IF filters to implement. The drawback of the two-tone modulation signal is that transmitting with the same power as for the single tone signal, each tone will have slightly less signal strength. A benefit of the dual tone signal, however, is that it reduces the risk for errors in the wakeup receiver, by ensuring presence of both tones, for instance by detecting the higher frequency tones in the first sweep and the lower one in the second sweep.

To maximize the performance of detecting the preamble/marker signal with two-tone when processed by the single-bit wakeup receiver <NUM>, the OOK modulations should have an effective average level of <NUM>%, both in the high frequency regions and over a longer time interval corresponding to a period of the low frequency tone. This will maximize the noise margins of the two detected amplitude levels corresponding to digital zero and digital one for both tones. <FIG> shows such a composite OOK waveform with two strong tones, where a fundamental tone is at <NUM> and a 9th harmonic tone is at <NUM>. As can be seen filtering out the DC of <NUM> in the waveform will result in clear decisions for both <NUM> and <NUM> for both the high and low frequency tones.

<FIG> shows an amplitude waveform of a 9th harmonic, i.e. the square wave shown on top, together with one period of the composite waveform of <FIG>, i.e. the waveform shown at bottom, equidistant time markers are also drawn in the figure. As can be seen all edges are aligned with the equidistant time markers, so additional oversampling beyond what is required by the 9th harmonic is not necessary. It can also be observed that all wavelets e.g. indicated by reference number <NUM>, <NUM>, in the composite waveform are in phase with the 9th harmonic square wave, resulting in maximum magnitude of this frequency component in the composite waveform.

<FIG> shows the frequency spectrum of the waveform in <FIG>, which shows strong power at both the fundamental and the 9th harmonic. As can be seen, the waveform contains DC, the fundamental tone and the odd order harmonics only. The 9th harmonic is the strongest of the odd order harmonics and has similar magnitude as the fundamental. So the OOK signal may contain more than one strong modulation frequency tone, while still lending itself well to single-bit representation in a power efficient OOK receiver.

For comparison, the spectrum of a plain square wave with <NUM>% duty cycle and the same fundamental frequency of <NUM> as the waveform in <FIG>, is shown in <FIG>. As can be seen the 9th harmonic in this case has much less amplitude, about -23dB, compared to the fundamental tone of about -<NUM>.

<FIG> shows the two signal spectrums of <FIG> and <FIG> together. The spectrums of the waveform in <FIG> are marked by circles, and the spectrums of the ordinary square wave are marked by crosses. This facilitates comparison of the amplitudes of the tones in the two waveforms. The fundamental tone power drops from - <NUM>. 9dB to -<NUM>. 6dB when using the dual tone signal instead of a regular square wave, i.e. a drop by <NUM>. At the same time the 9th harmonic increases from -<NUM>. 0dB to -<NUM>. 0dB, i.e. an increase by 14dB. It thus has exchanged a drop of <NUM>. 7dB in fundamental tone power for an increase of 14dB in the 9th harmonic, and is an attractive trade-off.

To summarize, the embodiments herein provide a method performed in a base station to facilitate receiver frequency calibration by transmitting a signal with periodic OOK as a preamble or frequency marker signal. The wakeup receiver performs a frequency sweep to search for frequency marker or preamble signals and calibrates its oscillator frequency to the frequency of the preamble or frequency marker signal. The wakeup receiver may then receive a wakeup signal using the calibrated oscillator. The properties of OOK allow the frequency to be swept without disrupting reception, while filtering the receiver AM-demodulated output to find preamble/marker signal tones. The use of signals transmitted by the base station as frequency markers or preambles allows the receiver to use a free-running oscillator, while still being narrowband for high selectivity. High selectivity may thus be achieved with ultra-low receiver power consumption.

When using the word "comprise" or "comprising" it shall be interpreted as nonlimiting, i.e. meaning "consist at least of".

Claim 1:
A method performed in a base station (<NUM>) for facilitating frequency calibration of a receiver (<NUM>), the method comprising:
generating (<NUM>) a first signal with periodic ASK modulation containing two frequency tones, one at a first frequency and one at a second frequency;
transmitting (<NUM>) the first signal as a calibration signal to the receiver to facilitate frequency calibration of the receiver; and
transmitting (<NUM>) a second signal as a wakeup signal to the receiver.