A BASE STATION FOR INTERFERENCE REJECTION COMBINING AND DOWNLINK BEAMFORMING IN A CELLULAR RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

摘要

A base station for interference rejection combining and downlink beamforming in a cellular radiocommunications system for transmitting information symbols, said base station comprising an antenna array consisting of at least two antennas for receiving an uplink radio signal and transmitting a downlink radio signal, wherein each antenna generates a stream of received samples from the received radio signal, an interference reduction cancellation receiver (IRC) for combining information provided by the streams of received samples from the antennas to generate detected information symbols, and a radio transmitter for generating downlink radio signals; characterized by : an impairment correlation unit in the receiver for determining direction of arrival information for the received uplink radio signal; a power divider for dividing the downlink radio signals generated by the transmitter into at least two output signals, wherein each of the output signals is coupled to a respective one of the antennas, and a beam steering controller for receiving the direction of arrival information from the receiver and using the direction of arrival information to generate at least one phase offset, wherein the at least one phase offset is used to adjust a phase of at least one of the output signals from the power divider, thereby steering the downlink radio signals in the direction of arrival of the uplink radio signals, and improving downlink performance.