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Technical White Paper For The Easyret Antenna Solution: Huawei Technologies Co., LTD
Technical White Paper For The Easyret Antenna Solution: Huawei Technologies Co., LTD
Author xingzengwu193651
Issue 01
Date 2012-08-27
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Website: http://www.huawei.com
Email: support@huawei.com
Contents
5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 15
6 Acronyms and Abbreviations ................................................................................................... 16
With the coming of the mobile broadband (MBB) Era, radio networks are optimized more and
more frequently, and the antenna optimization cost is higher and higher. Currently, a
traditional remote electrical tilt (RET) antenna is confronted with problems such as frequent
mistakes in manual operations, high installation and maintenance cost, and poor reliability in
long-term operation. The EasyRET antenna solution can effectively resolve these problems.
This solution facilitates installation, maintenance, and usage of the RET antenna; therefore,
the O&M efficiency is improved. The solution has the following features:
Free of configuration
Free of calibration
Free of RCU installation
Free of manual recording of bar codes
High reliability
Excellent performance
Based on the category of tilt angles, there are two types of electrical tilt antennas on base
stations.
Mechanical electrical tilt (MET) antenna
The tilt angle of this type of antenna can be adjusted using the following methods:
Manually adjusting the mechanical gauge to pull the internal phase shifter
Installing an external remote control unit (RCU) connected to a portable control unit
(PCU) and adjusting the tilt angle using the PCU
Figure 2-1 Shows the solution for manually adjusting the tilt angle of the MET antenna
Figure 2-2 Shows the solution for adjusting the tilt angle of the MET antenna using the PCU
RET antenna
The network management system (NMS) is adopted to remotely adjust the tilt angle of a
RET antenna. This method allows constant and dynamic adjustment of the tilt angle of
an antenna beam. A site does not need to be powered off during the adjustment, which
enables continuous service provisioning.
A RET antenna is installed vertically. No clearance is required for a tilt angle of the RET
antenna. The installation components are simple and reliable. The monitoring database
stores the current and historical data of antenna beams at each site on the live network to
facilitate remote monitoring and analysis. Currently, RET antennas are preferred, which
improves the operator's operation and maintenance (O&M) efficiency.
Figure 2-3 shows the solution for remotely adjusting the tilt angle of the MET/RET
antenna with an external RCU
Figure 2-3 Solution for remotely adjusting the tilt angle of the MET/RET antenna with an external
RCU
The installation procedure includes operations on and under the tower, which increases the
duration of base station deployment.
The commissioning is conducted manually. Test engineers must confirm the execution status
and participate in the entire configuration process. The configuration of a single site takes
more than 12 minutes.
4.1 Overview
The EasyRET antenna solution effectively resolves problems confronted by traditional RET
antenna solutions. With comparison to the existing RET solution, the EasyRET solution has
the following characteristics:
The antenna integrates with electrical tilt devices such as the RCU and SBT. The One
Box provides all components of an electrical tilt antenna, reducing the connector
quantity and site installation requirements to the minimum.
An electrical tilt device can be identified remotely, requires no configuration or
calibration on site, and provides accurate phase control. Meanwhile, an electrical tilt
device allows a piece of AISG main equipment to manage multiple electrical tilt units or
allows two pieces of AISG main equipment to manage one or multiple electrical tilt units
respectively.
Figure 4-1 shows the EasyRET solution for remotely adjusting the tilt angle of an electrical
tilt antenna.
Figure 4-1 EasyRET solution for remotely adjusting the tilt angle of an electrical tilt antenna
4.2 Advantages
The EasyRET antenna solution has the following advantages:
The EasyRET antenna solution reduces jumpers and mechanical connections, improves
the installation efficiency, and reduces the error probability.
Figure 4-2 shows the schematic drawing of the traditional antenna solution with an
external RCU. Figure 4-3 shows the schematic drawing of the EasyRET antenna
solution.
Figure 4-2 Schematic drawing of the traditional antenna solution with an external RCU
AISG cable 4 1
STMA 1 1
RCU 4 0
connector
AISG 8 2
connector
The EasyRET antenna solution reduces the number of components from 17 in a RET
solution to 4, which facilitates component installation and greatly reduces the number of
connections. A multi-frequency antenna connects to only one ASIG cable with no
mechanical interface exposed. This reduces problems caused by interfaces. Meanwhile,
water ingress problems are greatly reduced owing to the protection provided by the
radome. Onsite operations are reduced and problems or risks caused by mistakes are also
reduced. Figure 4-4 shows the comparison of a traditional RET antenna and an EasyRET
antenna.
The electrical tilt device can be identified remotely without configuration or calibration,
which improves site deployment efficiency.
Before an EasyRET antenna solution is delivered, the electrical tilt components and the
antenna are strictly matched. Meanwhile, related configuration data is loaded and
calibrated. This omits the data configuration and calibration during the installation of a
RET antenna and improves the RET configuration efficiency significantly.
The EasyRET antenna solution adopts the creative Color Coding technology. The RCU
can be identified automatically and remotely and different ports are marked by various
colors and shapes. The EasyRET antenna solution resolves problems caused by multiple
cascaded RCUs in a RET solution, including incorrect configuration, heavy workload
generated from manual bar code recording, and incorrect feeder connections.
The Color Coding technology is defined by the ASIG. Antenna radio frequency (RF)
ports of various frequency bands and types are differentiated by color and shape to
ensure correct connections of antennas and feeders. Figure 4-5 shows the schematic
drawing of three antenna port types identified using the Color Coding technology.
Figure 4-5 Schematic drawing of three antenna port types identified using the Color Coding
technology
After an EasyRET antenna is powered on, the antenna automatically reports the RCU bar
code to the network management center (MNC). The MNC saves the RCU bar code and
matches the EasyRET antenna with the port and frequency band automatically. If a
frequency band needs to be adjusted, an RCU bar code can be queried from the NMS
directly, which reduces manual recording of RCU bar codes and prevents adjustment
errors caused by incorrect RCU bar codes.
The EasyRET antenna resolves reliability problems of a RET antenna. Table 4-1 lists the
comparison between an EasyRET antenna solution and a RET antenna solution from
aspects such as waterproof performance, lightning protection capability, and corrosion
resistance capability.
Table 4-1 Comparison of an EasyRET antenna solution and a RET antenna solution
The EasyRET antenna adopts high reliability design and assurance measures to ensure
the product quality and long-term reliability, including:
1. Reliability is ensured using electric engines that have been deployed in batches on the
network, with passing environment tests and EMS tests:
5 Conclusion
The EasyRET antenna solution resolves problems confronted by traditional RET antenna
solutions such as complex installation, long duration, high cost, frequent problems occurrence,
and poor reliability. The EasyRET solution improves the installation accuracy, the
construction efficiency, and the reliability of the antenna system. The EasyRET solution can
effectively avoid high maintenance costs due to secondary site deployment and help operators
reduce the network optimization investment and maintenance cost.
A
AISG Antenna Interface Standard Group
M
MET Mechanical electrical tilt
MBB Mobile broadband
P
PCU Portable control unit
R
RET Remote electrical tilt
S
SBT Smart Bias-Tee
STMA Smart tower mounted amplifier