Signalling channel and radio system for power saving in wireless devices

摘要

Wireless devices, transmitters, systems and methods are provided that have a narrow band signaling channel and a wide band channel, for example an OFDM channel. In order to save power, the wireless device is nominally powered down with the exception of a receiver specific to the narrow band signaling channel. Once instructed to do so over the narrow band signaling channel, the wireless device wakes up the rest of its wide band receive circuitry.

主权项

1. A method of signaling to a wideband receiver, the method comprising:
prior to sending wideband signals to the receiver within and spread over a predefined spectrum of frequencies allocated to the receiver, sending one or more narrow band signals to the receiver over respective spaced apart lengths of time so as to thereby alert the receiver to awaken out of a low power mode of the receiver in which a wideband receiving portion of the receiver is turned off and only a narrow band portion of the receiver is, at least from time to time, turned on; and after the receiver has had time to react to the sent one or more narrow band signals by awakening its wideband receiving portion, sending the wideband signals; wherein the one or more narrow band signals occupy a corresponding one or more narrow portions of the allocated spectrum which are substantially smaller than parts of the allocated spectrum that the wideband signals spread over.