Antenna adaptation in a time division duplexing system

Abstract

A method for setting a power level in a wireless communication system given directional setting of an antenna including the steps of determining a gain adjustment factor that depends upon the directional setting of an antenna, and applying the gain adjustment factor to control a power level of a transmitted signal.

1 . A method for setting a power level in a wireless communication system given a directional setting of an antenna, the method comprising the steps of: 
 determining a gain adjustment factor that depends upon the directional setting of an antenna; and    applying the gain adjustment factor to control a power level of a transmitted signal.    
   
   
       2 . A method as in  claim 1  wherein the power control is a closed loop power control.  
   
   
       3 . A method as in  claim 1  wherein the power control is for an uplink channel.  
   
   
       4 . A method as in  claim 1  wherein the power control is for a downlink channel.  
   
   
       5 . A method as in  claim 1  further comprising the step of: applying the gain adjustment factor to a path loss estimate.  
   
   
       6 . A method as in  claim 1  further comprising the step of applying the gain adjustment factor to a reverse link power control setting.  
   
   
       7 . A method for dynamically determining a steering direction of an antenna in a wireless system comprising: 
 providing a transmission quality metric applicable to describe a quality measure of a wireless signal;    applying the quality metric to a current steering position of the antenna;    repainting the antenna to a trial steering position;    reapplying the quality metric to the trial steering position;    comparing the quality metrics of the current and trial steering positions;    repeating the repainting by incrementally selecting a new trial steering position; and    selecting a best steering position by comparing each of the incremented trial steering positions.    
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7  further comprising the step of: 
 repeating the repainting step through the selection step for a plurality of trial steering positions.    
   
   
       9 . A method as in  claim 7  further comprising: determining an active time slot sequence, the active time slots employed for transmission of data; 
 identifying a frame offset in the sequence of the active time slots;    determining non-occupied time slots in the sequence based on a frame offset; and    transmitting information in directional non-active time slots.    
   
   
       10 . A method as in  claim 7  wherein the directional information is indicative of a plurality of the candidate settings.  
   
   
       11 . A method as in  claim 7  further comprising the step of: 
 computing an optimum setting from the directional information transmitted for a plurality of candidate directions.    
   
   
       12 . A method for a user equipment device to acquire signals transmitted from a central base station in a wireless communication system, the method comprising the steps of: 
 selecting an omnidirectional mode for an antenna;    acquiring signals transmitted by one or more base stations with the antenna in the omnidirectional mode, and assigning such detected signals as a detected set;    for each available directional setting provided by the directional antenna, determining a received signal strength for each base station in the detected set;    for each such directional setting, determining a ratio of a detected cell having a higher receive signal strength and a sum of the signal strengths for the other detected cells; and    selecting the base station having the largest such ratio to be used as the active base station.    
   
   
       13 . A method as in  claim 12  wherein the number of available directions is at least three.  
   
   
       14 . A method as in  claim 12  wherein the system is a Time Division Duplex system.  
   
   
       15 . A method as in  claim 12  wherein the signal strength is a Received Signal Power (RCSP) measurement.