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US 8,571,118 B2Granted
Transmission line directional coupling
AssigneeQUALCOMM Incorporated
InventorJames Zyren
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Coupling signals to a transmission line over a plurality of taps includes coupling a first signal onto a transmission line at a first tap, coupling a second signal onto a transmission line at a second tap, and controlling a phase for at least a portion of the first signal relative to a phase for a corresponding portion of the second signal.
Claims70
An apparatus, comprising:
- multiple transmission line taps including a first tap and a second tap coupled to a transmission line, wherein a distance between the first and second taps is associated with a center wavelength corresponding to a center of a bandwidth over which a spectrum of a signal spans;
- and a signal processing unit in communication with each of the taps, the signal processing unit configured to control a phase for at least a first portion of a signal transmitted by the first tap and to control a phase for a corresponding second portion of the signal transmitted by the second tap, wherein the phases of the first and second portions of the signal are controlled to provide gain in an array factor for signals propagated in a forward transmission direction on the transmission line, and wherein the phases of the first and second portions of the signal are controlled to provide at least a partial null in the array factor for signals propagated in a reverse transmission direction on the transmission line.
A method, comprising:
- coupling a first signal onto a transmission line at a first tap and a second signal onto the transmission line at a second tap, wherein a distance between the first and second taps is associated with a center wavelength corresponding to a center of a bandwidth over which a spectrum of the first and second signals spans;
- and controlling phases for at least a portion of the first signal and a corresponding portion of the second signal, wherein the phases of the first and second signals are controlled to provide gain in an array factor for signals propagated in a forward transmission direction on the transmission line, and wherein the phases of the first and second signals are controlled to provide at least a partial null in the array factor for signals propagated in a reverse transmission direction on the transmission line.
An apparatus, comprising:
- multiple transmission line taps including a first tap and a second tap coupled to a transmission line;
- and
- a signal processing unit in communication with each of the taps, the signal processing unit configured to control a phase for at least a first portion of a signal transmitted by the first tap and to control a phase for a corresponding second portion of the signal transmitted by the second tap,
- wherein the phases of the first and second portions of the signal are controlled to provide gain in an array factor for signals propagated in a forward transmission direction on the transmission line,
- wherein the phases of the first and second portions of the signal are controlled to provide at least a partial null in the array factor for signals propagated in a reverse transmission direction on the transmission line, and
- wherein the phase for the first portion of the signal transmitted by the first tap is equal to a difference between a constant term and a term associated with a frequency of the first portion of the signal and a distance between the first and second taps on the transmission line.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.