On December 26, it was reported that Tianyancha showed that on December 22, Huawei Technologies applied for the publication of an invention patent of "5G base station deployed on satellites" and "an inter-satellite link construction method and communication device", with the publication number CN117278091A, and the application time was June 14, 2022.
According to the "background technology" of the patent specification, at present, various research institutes, communication organizations, and company participants are involved in the research of non-terrestrial networks (NTN) communication technologies and standards, and strive to build space, air, and ground communications into a unified communication network. In NTN communications, large-scale communication satellite constellations are usually designed using the Walker constellation。A constellation consists of several satellites distributed in one or more orbital planes as required. All satellites in the same constellation adopt circular orbits with the same height and inclination, the orbital planes are uniformly distributed along the equator, and the satellites are evenly distributed in the orbit, and there is a certain relationship between the phases of the satellites between different orbital planes. In general, an inter-satellite link can be established with two satellites in the orbital plane, and an inter-satellite link can also be established with satellites in the adjacent orbital plane. ButWhen the orbits of different satellites in a satellite constellation are discrete and not in the same orbit, the method of establishing inter-satellite links using the above-mentioned Walker constellation is no longer applicable
And in the "content of the invention" of this patent,The application provides an inter-satellite link construction method and communication device to establish an inter-satellite link in a satellite constellation with discrete orbits.
Among them,Methods for building inter-satellite linksIt can be carried out by satellite, the satellite can be a stationary satellite, a non-stationary satellite, an artificial satellite, a low-orbit satellite, a medium-orbit satellite and a high-orbit satellite, etc., when the satellite is built an inter-satellite link, it is determined based on the address of the satellite or the satellite number of the satellite, which has nothing to do with the orbit in which the satellite is located, and the inter-satellite link built by this way can adapt to the needs of the satellite constellation with discrete orbits.
Communication devicesIt is characterized in that a functional module comprises a function module that implements the above-mentioned inter-satellite link construction method, comprises at least one processor (the processor is coupled with a memory), can be a chip arranged inside the satellite, and in a possible design, the communication device comprises a processing unit, a transmitting and receiving unit, and is used for realizing the above-mentioned design method.
The specific embodiment is based on the land network communication system architecture shown in Figure 1 belowDescription:, the satellite network routing method provided in the embodiment of the present application can be applied to the NTN communication system,The NTN communication system includes satellite 201 and terminal equipment 202Satellite 201 can also be called a high-altitude platform, a high-altitude aircraft, or a satellite base station, the NTN communication system is linked with the land network communication system, satellite 201 can be regarded as one or more network devices in the architecture of the land network communication system, and the terminal equipment 202 can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a wearable device, a vehicle-mounted equipment and other terminal equipment. Satellite 201 provides communication services to terminal equipment 202, and Satellite 201 can also be connected to the core networkPrepare. The network equipment in the land network communication system and the satellite in the NTN communication system can be uniformly regarded as network equipment, and when the method provided in the embodiment of the present application is applied to the land network communication system, the action performed by the satellite can be applied to the base station or network equipment to perform.
Take 5G, for exampleThe architecture of a 5G satellite communication system is shown in Figure 3 below, and the ground terminal equipment is connected to the network through the 5G new air interfaceThe 5G base station is deployed on satellites and connected to the terrestrial core network via wireless links。At the same time, there is a wireless link between the satellites to complete the signaling interaction and user data transmission between the base station and the base station.
Figure 1: Schematic diagram of a land communication system.
Fig. 2: A schematic diagram of a (NTT) non-terrestrial communication system provided in the embodiment of the present application.
Figure 3: Schematic diagram of the architecture of the 5G satellite communication system provided in the embodiment of the present application.
Fig. 6: Schematic diagram of another communication system architecture provided in the embodiment of the present application.
In fact, the "5G base station deployed on the satellite" in the implementation of this patent belongs to the 3GPP standard for 5G NTN (non-terrestrial network) networking technologyConcept of on-star regeneration mode.
3GPP proposes two typical architectures based on the on-board payload capacity of satellites - transparent** and on-board regeneration. Under the transparent architecture, the 5G base station is deployed behind the ground information customs station as part of the ground network, and the satellite is only used as a link for signal relay, and there is no processing capacity on the satellite, only connecting the UE (user equipment) with the ground information customs station, and playing the function of bending transparent between the UE (user equipment) and the base stationWhileUnder the on-board regeneration architecture, part or all of the functions of the base station are on the satellite, and the satellite has the function of a base stationThe data can be processed and then transmitted to the terminal, and the satellites can also realize the inter-satellite cooperation through the inter-satellite link, which requires increasing the on-board processing capacity and has high requirements for the design of the satellite payload.
Source: "China Telecom 5G NTN Technology***
Obviously, as Huawei said in the background introduction of this patent, the current research institutes, communication organizations, and company participation are all involved in the research of NTN communication technology and standards, and this patent also shows thatHuaweiIn addition to the current cooperation with Telecom's Tiantong Satellite to achieve satellite communication through a private agreement,It is likely that it is also actively investing in R&D related to 5G NTN technology based on the 3GPP standard, which is also expected to further promote the large-scale commercialization of satellite communication technology.