Paging system with spacial, frequency and time diversity

[0002] The present application is:

[0003] a) a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/971,693 filed Nov. 4, 1992 now abandoned,

[0004] b) which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/529,011 filed May 25, 1990 now abandoned.

[0005] The present application is also:

[0006] c) a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 07/981,968 filed Nov. 25, 1992 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,552,779,

[0007] d) which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/568,932 filed Aug. 17, 1990 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,271.

[0008] The present invention relates to radio paging systems and more particularly to a highly reliable radio paging system.

[0009] A variety of different types of radio paging systems are in widespread use. For example a radio paging system that uses a variation of the well known POCSAG protocol is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,192 (Moore) and a system that broadcast messages using an FM subcarrier is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808 (Gaskill). None of the known systems is absolutely reliable, that is, none of the known systems can guarantee that one hundred percent of the messages transmitted will be received by the intended receiver. Problems associated with message reception reliability are accentuated when the size of the receivers is decreased. For example the wristwatch like receiver shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808 (Gaskill) imposes severe restrictions on battery size and on the antenna, thereby creating sensitivity or message completion reliability problems.

[0010] The present invention provides a highly reliable radio paging system. The radio paging system of the present invention provides a combination of time, frequency and spacial diversity in order to increase the reliability of the system. Time diversity is provided by broadcasting the same message at a number of different times. Spacial diversity is achieved by broadcasting the same message from a number of different locations. Frequency diversity is achieved by broadcasting the same message at a number of different frequencies. The paging receiver according to the present invention is designed to receive messages on a number of different frequencies; however, the pager only responds to a message the first time that it receives the particular message. The combination of time, frequency, and spacial diversity provided by the present invention results in a highly reliable radio paging system.

[0011] FIG. 1 is an overall block diagram of the system.

[0012] FIG. 2 shows how the system divides time into frames, subframes and time slots.

[0013] FIG. 3 shows how the transmissions from the stations are offset in time.

[0014] FIG. 4 is a block diagram of one of the radio pagers shown in FIG. 1.

[0015] FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of the operation of one of the radio pagers.

[0016] The embodiment of the invention shown herein is an extension of the system shown in application Ser. No. 06/802,844 filed Nov. 15, 1987 [now U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808 (Gaskill)]. The overall system as shown in FIG. 1 of this application includes three radio transmitters 15A, 15B and 15C and a number of individually addressable radio pagers 10. Messages for the pagers 10 are sent from a normal telephone 16 to a message clearinghouse 17 and then to transmitters 15. The messages are transmitted by radio from transmitter antennas 16 to receiver antennas 15. As will be explained, each receiver only responds to messages that are intended for the particular receiver.

[0017] For convenience of illustration, only five individually addressable radio pagers 10A to 10E are shown in FIG. 1; however, it should be understood that a system could include many thousand such receivers.

[0018] Each of the radio transmitters 15 is a conventional FM broadcast transmitter. The transmitters 15 broadcast both conventional FM radio programming and pager messages as an FM subcarrier using th e technique described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808. Each of the transmitters 15A, 15B and 15C operates at a different frequency and is at a different physical location as is often the case where there are multiple commercial FM stations in an area. The system operates according to a time slot protocol as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808. The description from U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,808 is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

[0019] The paging receivers 10 are frequency agile and they can receive messages from any one of the stations 15A, 15B or 15C. Each receiver 10 has an assigned time slot and each receiver initially tunes to one of the stations 15A, 15B or 15C. If a receiver does not receive a packet in its assigned time slot the receiver automatically tunes to the next station. It is noted that a receiver may receive a packet in its assigned time slot and the packet may not contain a message directed to the particular receiver. In this case the receiver will not tune to the next transmitter since by receiving a packet which does not contain a message the receiver knows that a message has not been missed. A receiver will tune to the next station when it tries to receive a packet in its assigned time slot and no packet is received. In this case a message may have been missed and the receiver tunes to the next station.

[0020] All of the messages being sent to the individually addressable paging receivers 10 are broadcast on each of the transmitters 15A, 15B and 15C. Thus, each message is broadcast from three different transmitters. While each of the three stations broadcasts the same set of messages, the transmissions are offset in time thereby providing the system with time diversity.

[0021] The three radio transmitters 15A, 15B and 15C are located at different physical locations, thereby providing the system with spacial diversity. Each of the transmitters 15A, 15B and 15C operates at a different frequency, thereby providing the system with frequency diversity.

[0022] The manner in which the system divides time into frames and subframes is shown in FIG. 2. Time is divided into repetitive frames and each frame is divided into sixty-four subframes. Each subframe is in turn divided into 1027 time slots. Three of the time s lots designated C1, C2 and C3 in each subframe are used to transmit control information and time slots 0 to 1023 are used for messages. Each individually addressable pager is assigned or associated with certain particular time slots. More particularly each pager is assigned eight time slots in each frame or one time slot every eight subframes. During normal operation, each pager is inactive (i.e. in a low power state) except during the time periods when its associated time slots occurs. Periodically the receiver is also active when the control slots occur. Thus, the receivers are generally in a low power state and they are only activated for a short period eight times during each frame to receive message packets and periodically to receive control packets. The total length of a frame is 14.96 minutes, hence, in normal operation each pager is activated once every 1.87 minutes.

[0023] FIG. 3 shows how the time frames in each of the three stations are offset. One offset is 1047 time slots long. Thus, there are sixty four possible offsets. The sixty fourth and the first offset are only separated by 19 time slots, hence either the first or the last offset is not normally used. The offset length was chosen because each receiver 10 can at most handle seven stations and if a receiver did have a list of seven stations, the offsets would be relatively evenly spaced.

[0024] An overall block diagram of the individually addressable radio pagers 10 is shown in FIG. 4. The major components of the receiver are a frequency agile FM radio receiver 41, a filter 42 a microprocessor 43 and a display 44. Receiver 41 receives the signal and generates a baseband audio signal. Filter 42 extracts the data signal from the base band audio generated by receiver 41. Microprocessor 43 decodes the packets, controls the frequency and power or “on-off” of the receiver 41. Microprocessor 43 also controls display 44. Time keeping apparatus is also included in receivers 10, but the time keeping apparatus is not shown in FIG. 4 since it is not particularly relevant to the present invention. Additional detail concerning the structure and operation of receivers 10 is shown in issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,719 (Gaskill), U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,470 (King) U.S. Pat. No. 4,999,516 (Suter), U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,835 (Gaskill), U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,341 (Gehring) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,802 (Ragan), the description from which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

[0025] The overall operation of the system is shown diagrammatically in FIG. 5. Initially a receiver 10 scans the frequency spectrum until it locks onto a station (block 50). As explained in detail in the previously referenced copending applications, once a receiver locks onto a station it extracts a station list (block 51) from the control packets. The station list gives the frequency of the stations in the local area and the time offset of each station. After receiving a station list the receiver tunes to the first station on the list of stations and it turns off until its assigned time slot occurs. As illustrated by box 55, during its assigned time slot the receiver attempts to receive a message packet. If a packet is received (block 55) the receiver decodes the packet to determine if the packet has a message with the ID number of the particular receiver. If the packet contains a message, the message is displayed (box 55). If no message is received the receiver is deactivated (box 56) until the next assigned time slot.

[0026] If a receiver does not receive a packet in its assigned time slot (box 56) the receiver changes frequency and offset and listens to a different station. The process then repeats.

[0027] A more detailed description of the operation of the receiver is given in the previously referenced patent applications.

[0028] While the invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the scope of the invention.