Computing device with configurable antenna
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsAmer A. Hassan, Christian Huitema
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A computing device with a configurable antenna. The antenna is configured through a switching circuit operating under software control. Operating characteristics of the antenna are configured based on connections between conducting segments established by the switching circuit, allowing the nominal frequency, bandwidth or other characteristics of the antenna to be configured. Because the switching is software controlled, the configurable antenna may be integrated with a software defined radio. The radio and antenna can be reconfigured to support communication according to different wireless technologies at different times or to interleave packets according to different wireless technologies to support concurrent sessions using different wireless technologies.
Claims19
A method of operating a computing device with a configurable antenna and a configurable radio, the method comprising:
- establishing a network connection on behalf of an application;
- based on the first wireless technology specification, configuring the radio to operate according to a first wireless technology using a frequency spectrum having a nominal frequency and a bandwidth around the nominal frequency;
- based on the first wireless technology specification, configuring the antenna to selectively transmit and/or receive signals having the nominal frequency and the bandwidth;
- reconfiguring the radio and the antenna to operate according to a second wireless technology;
- and
- passing first and second signals of the network connection via the antenna configured according to the first and second wireless technologies, respectively,
- wherein, during the reconfiguring of the antenna and the passing of the first and second signals of the network connection via the antenna configured according to the first and second wireless technologies, respectively, the network connection is maintained and connection information corresponding to the network connection is unchanged.
A computing device, comprising:
- a configurable antenna having an input/output port adapted to pass a signal and control inputs;
- a computer storage media having stored thereon a data structure comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising:
- a first field containing data representing parameters of the signal, and
- a second field containing data representing a configuration of the antenna;
- and
- a control component configured to access the data structure based on the parameters of the signal, obtain configuration data representing the configuration of the antenna and apply values to the control inputs of the antenna based on the obtained configuration data,
- wherein the computer storage media further has stored thereon computer-executable instructions for, when executed:
- receiving a specification of the signal, the specification not corresponding to any record in the data structure;
- selecting from the data structure a first record that best matches frequency characteristics of the specification, based on an heuristic;
- and
- applying to the configurable antenna control signals derived from the first record.
One or more computer storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for, when executed on a computing device having a configurable antenna:
- identifying a frequency characteristic of a signal;
- selecting an antenna configuration, from a plurality of antenna configurations corresponding to a respective plurality of antenna frequency characteristics that do not match the frequency characteristic of the signal, the selected antenna configuration corresponding to an antenna frequency characteristic that approximate the frequency characteristic of the signal;
- and
- configuring the configurable antenna in accordance with the selected antenna configuration.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.