Drone with dynamic antenna diversity
AssigneeParrot Drones
InventorsEric Gasnier, Raphaël Prod'Homme
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The drone comprises M antennas, with in particular two offset antennas located symmetrically at the ends of two arms for the connection to the propulsion units (24), and a ventral antenna under the drone body. The radio transmission is operated simultaneously on N similar RF channels, with 2≤N<M. An antenna switching circuit couples selectively each of the N RF channels to N antennas out of the M antennas according to a plurality of different coupling schemes, dynamically through a piloting logic selecting one of the coupling schemes. The selection is operated as a function of a signal delivered by the drone-borne microprocessor, as a function of the flight and signal transmission conditions, determined at a given instant.
Claims8
A drone comprising:
- a drone body;
- a digital controller circuit;
- a radio-frequency (RF) transmitter stage comprising a baseband processor circuit adapted to deliver an RF signal to be transmitted;
- and
- M fixed antennas integral with the drone body, wherein the RF transmitter stage further comprises:
- an RF dispatcher stage, receiving as an input the RF signal to be transmitted and delivering as an output N RF supply signals, with 2≤N<M;
- an antenna switching circuit, adapted to selectively couple each of the N RF supply signals to each of the N antennas out of the M antennas according to a plurality of different coupling schemes;
- and
- logic piloting the antenna switching circuit and adapted to both dynamically determine one of said coupling schemes as a function of a selection signal delivered by a control circuit, and also dynamically determine one of said coupling schemes also as a function of a synchronization signal delivered by the baseband processor circuit, the logic inhibiting the application of the selection signal to the antenna switching circuit at least for the duration of transmission of a frame of RF signal to be transmitted.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.