WO2013013410A1 - Mode switching method and device for saving power - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are an operating mode switching method and device for saving power. The method includes: a controller monitoring a service characteristic and/or transmission format characteristic borne by a software radio processing platform of the current software, and when the service characteristic and/or transmission format characteristic meet pre-set condition requirements, the controller activating a coprocessor to participate in signal processing; otherwise, only activating a main processor for signal processing. The method ensures that when the service transmission speed is not high, or the bandwidth is relatively narrow, only a part of the terminal hardware need be activated to participate in signal processing, avoiding the situation where all hardware is in the activated state, thus limiting power consumption, and in turn prolonging the operating time of the terminal battery.

Description

 Description A power saving mode switching method and device

 The present invention relates to the field of wireless communications and software radio, and in particular to a method and device for energy-saving control based on software radio. Background technique

 There are two main types of software radio platforms, one is a dedicated architecture software radio, which uses DSP (Digital Signal Processor), FPGA (Field - Programmable Gate Array), field programmable gate array. ), ASIC build platform, all signal processing functions are realized by the underlying software, for example, the underlying C, VHDL ( Very-High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) / verilog HDL (Verilog Hardware) Description Language, hardware description language) /system C and other languages. This kind of software radio platform architecture is not open, not universal, and the design and development process is relatively complex. Therefore, most of them are aimed at minimizing costs and are based on specific functions, so they cannot flexibly support multiple applications. Scenario; Another type of software radio architecture is a PC-based software radio platform based on the PC (personal computer) industry. It has very good openness, very fast industrial upgrade capability, and very flexible organization. The way, therefore, will dominate the future of software radio trends. This kind of architecture has a very good use basis in the user, and the programming language is a high-level language, the user can not pay too much attention to the formation hardware, so the development process will be very simple, the cycle will be very short, in addition, due to the architecture It is an open architecture and is applied to many fields. Therefore, the supported application scenarios are not designed for fixed-mode scenarios, but for a wide range of application scenarios.

For the current mainstream PC architecture software radio platform, the successful platform is only VANU's platform, Microsoft's SORA (Soft Radio) platform, and Ettus' USRP. (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) series of platforms, these platforms and current applications are only for a single processor, without considering the scenario of processor mixing. Such as CPU (Central Processing Unit) + GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) hybrid application, ARM (Advanced RISC Machines, advanced precision instruction set device) + GPU hybrid application, CPU + APU mix Applications, mixed applications of APU+GPU, mixed applications of DSP+GPU, etc., currently do not propose a suitable processing solution.

 In the case of multi-processor mixed digital signal processing, due to the variety of application scenarios, the ratio: 3⁄4 port sometimes uses GSM (Global System of Mobile communication) transmission mode, sometimes using LTE (Long Term Evaluation) , the long-term evolution system) the same application scenario has different processing complexity requirements, therefore, sometimes it is not necessary for all processors to participate in the processing, and one processor can complete all operations, therefore, support mixing The power consumption problem needs to be considered on the platform of the processor. Take the PC-based software radio as an example. In the hybrid architecture of CPU+GPU, the power consumption of the GPU can reach nearly 300 watts, and the power consumption of the CPU can reach 140 watts, so if Turning off a GPU processor can reduce power consumption by more than 2/3. Therefore, it is necessary to flexibly change the number of processors involved in signal processing, which can extend battery life and is very valuable for the cost of power saving. Summary of the invention

 The invention provides a mode switching method and device for saving power consumption, which is mainly used for a software radio platform to independently determine the required processing amount according to the current bearer service characteristics or according to the current communication system, thereby autonomously selecting to participate in the software radio. The processor entity selects the appropriate hardware entity to participate in the processing, thereby achieving the purpose of saving power. An embodiment of the present invention provides a power saving mode switching method, which is characterized by the following steps:

The controller monitors the service characteristics and/or transmission formats carried by the current software software radio processing platform Characteristic

 When the controller determines that the current service feature and/or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in signal processing;

 Otherwise, only the main processor is turned on for signal processing;

 Preferably, the service characteristics include: a current transmission rate, an occupied bandwidth, a number of occupied physical resources, a service type, a service rate requirement, a modulation mode, a transmission data block size, and a processing complexity;

 Preferably, the transmission system features include: multiple access mode for air interface transmission, multiple access mode, duplex mode, processing complexity, and number of required threads;

 Preferably, when the controller determines that the current service feature or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in the signal processing, and further includes: the main processor also participates in signal processing; preferably, the above The controller is part of a main processor function;

 Preferably, the main processor and the coprocessor are two independent hardware entities;

 Preferably, the main processor includes a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;

 Preferably, the coprocessor includes a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;

 The local invention embodiment further provides a software radio device, comprising: a monitoring module, a control module, a main processor, and a coprocessor:

 a monitoring module, configured to monitor a feature of a service feature carried by the current software radio processing platform for digital signal processing and/or a wireless transmission indication used by the software radio platform;

 a control module, configured to determine whether the monitoring indicator of the monitoring module meets a preset condition, and if so, the coprocessor is turned on to participate in processing of the digital signal; otherwise, only the main processor is used for signal processing; the main processor is used for Processing wireless digital signals of the software radio platform, the operations performed by which are indicated by the control module;

a coprocessor, a wireless digital signal for processing a software radio platform, the operations performed by the control module being indicated by the control module; The beneficial effects of the present invention are as follows:

 In the implementation of the present invention, the controller monitors the service features and/or transmission system features carried by the current software software radio processing platform; when the controller determines that the current service feature and/or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirements, the controller starts the coprocessor. Participate in signal processing; otherwise, only turn on the main processor for signal processing; after these operations, the software radio platform can realize the autonomous decision based on the current bearer service characteristics or according to the current communication system. The processor entity participating in the software radio selects the appropriate hardware entity to participate in the processing, thereby achieving the purpose of saving power. DRAWINGS

 1 is a schematic flowchart of a method for implementing a power saving mode switching method according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a software radio device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

 3 is a schematic flowchart of a mode switching method for implementing an APU/CPU+GPU hybrid software radio platform according to an embodiment of the present invention;

detailed description

 Specific embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

 As shown in FIG. 1 , an implementation process of a power saving mode switching method according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: Step 10: A controller monitors a service feature and/or a transmission system feature carried by a current software software radio processing platform;

 Step 20: When the controller determines that the current service feature and/or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in signal processing;

 Otherwise, only the main processor is turned on for signal processing;

Preferably, the service characteristics include: a current transmission rate, an occupied bandwidth, a number of occupied physical resources, a service type, a service rate requirement, a modulation mode, a transmission data block size, and a processing complexity; Preferably, the transmission system features include: multiple access mode for air interface transmission, multiple access mode, duplex mode, processing complexity, and number of required threads;

 According to the above two features or one of the features, the controller can determine the current processing complexity requirement, for example, if the current transmission system is a convolutional coding of the cartridge, and a QPSK modulation of the cartridge, the single carrier, the FDMA access mode At this time, the controller can judge that the processing capability of the current main processor can fully satisfy the processing requirement, and at this time, the slave processor can be turned off to achieve the purpose of power saving.

 Preferably, when the controller determines that the current service feature or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in the signal processing, and further includes: the main processor also participates in signal processing; preferably, the above The controller is a part of the main processor function; the function of the controller is generally implemented by the logic circuit in the main processor, mainly because the function of this part is not complicated, and it is not realistic to use one controller alone. So this way is the most cost effective.

 Preferably, the main processor and the coprocessor are two independent hardware entities; when such an architecture is closed, the hardware is turned off, and the effect is more obvious from the viewpoint of power saving;

 Preferably, the main processor includes a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;

 Preferably, the coprocessor includes a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;

 Combined with the above, it can be seen that the combination of the main processor and the coprocessor can be in various ways, such as: CPU+GPU, APU+GPU, CPU+ASIC, APU+ASIC, ARM+GPU, DSP+GPU, etc.; Although patents are best suited for PC-based software radio platforms, they are equally applicable to traditional traditional software-based radio platforms (DSPs, FPGAs). As shown in FIG. 2, the structure of the software radio device in the embodiment of the present invention includes:

The monitoring module 10 is configured to monitor a service feature carried by the current software radio processing platform during digital signal processing and/or a feature of a wireless transmission indication used by the software radio platform; the monitored parameter may include a current transmission rate, an occupied bandwidth, and an occupation. Number of physical resources, service type, and service rate Find, modulation mode, transmission block size, multiple access mode for air interface transmission, multiple access mode, duplex mode, number of required threads, etc.

 The control module 20 is configured to determine whether the monitoring parameter of the monitoring module meets a preset condition, and if so, the coprocessor is turned on to participate in the processing of the digital signal; otherwise, only the main processor is used for signal processing; The above is indirect judgment of the complexity of the digital signal processing according to the monitoring parameters. If the complexity is low, only the main processor is used for processing. Otherwise, the main processor and the co-processing are to be turned on, so that when the computational complexity requirement is low, It can achieve the purpose of saving electricity;

 a main processor 30 for processing a wireless digital signal of a software radio platform, the operations performed by the control module being indicated by the control module;

 a coprocessor 40 for processing a wireless digital signal of a software radio platform, the operations performed by the control module being indicated by the control module;

 When the control module controls the co-processing to be in the off state, the main process processes the related processes of digital signal processing, such as encoding and decoding, synchronization, channel estimation, detection, etc.; if the control module controls the co-processing to participate in signal processing, the above Part of the function will be implemented on the co-processing to share the load of the main processing. It is because of this operation that a suitable processor can be used to handle the appropriate scene for power saving purposes.

 As shown in FIG. 3, the mode switching method of the APU/CPU+GPU hybrid software radio platform in the embodiment of the present invention, the main processor is a CPU or an APU, and the coprocessor is a GPU, and the monitoring module and the control module are all located in the main processing. In the device, it is implemented by a part of its internal circuit. When implemented, the CPU/APU is responsible for judging the service characteristics and transmission characteristics, thereby estimating the required computational complexity, and judging whether the coprocessor is required to participate according to the transportation complexity, if the operation complexity If the processing range of the main processor is exceeded, the coprocessing load sharing is called. Otherwise, if the CPU/APU processing capability is not exceeded, the GPU is not turned on to save power.

According to all the above illustrations, we can see that because of the pre-judgment of the processing complexity, we choose which processors to participate in the operation, so that in some scenarios where it is not necessary for all processors to participate in the operation, it can be turned off. Part of the processor, which is very significant for saving power. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that embodiments of the present invention can be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment, or a combination of software and hardware. Moreover, the present invention may employ computer-usable storage media (including but not limited to disk storage, in one or more of the computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The form of a computer program product implemented on a CD-ROM, optical storage, etc.).

 The present invention has been described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (system), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flow and/or blocks in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, an embedded processor or other programmable data processing device to produce a machine such that a block or more is calculated by computing a flow or processes and/or block diagrams The device of the function specified in the box.

 The computer program instructions can also be stored in a computer readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing device to operate in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable memory produce an article of manufacture comprising the instruction device. The apparatus implements the functions specified in one or more blocks of a flow or a flow and/or block diagram of the flowchart.

 These computer program instructions can also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing device such that a series of operational steps are performed on a computer or other programmable device to produce computer-implemented processing for execution on a computer or other programmable device. The instructions provide steps for implementing the functions specified in one or more of the flow or in a block or blocks of a flow diagram.

 While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been described, it will be understood that Therefore, the appended claims are intended to be interpreted as including the preferred embodiments and the modifications and modifications The spirit and scope of the Ming. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of the inventions

Claims

Claim  A power saving mode switching method, comprising the steps of: monitoring, by a controller, a service feature and/or a transmission system feature carried by a current software software radio processing platform;  When the controller determines that the current service feature and/or the transmission system feature meets the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in signal processing;  Otherwise, only the main processor is turned on for signal processing;  The method according to claim 1, wherein the service feature comprises: a current transmission rate, an occupied bandwidth, a number of occupied physical resources, a service type, a service rate requirement, a modulation mode, a transmission data block size, and a complicated processing. Degree  The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmission system features include: a multiple access mode for the air interface transmission, a multiple access mode, a duplex mode, a processing complexity, and a required number of threads; The method according to claim 1, wherein, when the controller determines that the current service feature or the transmission system feature satisfies the preset condition requirement, the controller starts the coprocessor to participate in the signal processing, and further includes: Also participate in signal processing;  5. The method of claim 1, 2, 3, 4, wherein the controller is part of a main processor function;  6. The method of claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, wherein the main processor and the coprocessor are two separate hardware entities;  7. The method according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, wherein the main processor comprises a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;  8. The method according to claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, wherein the coprocessor includes a CPU, an APU, an ARM processor, a DSP, an FPGA, or an application specific integrated circuit chip;  9. A software radio device, comprising: a monitoring module, configured to monitor a feature of a service feature carried by the current software radio processing platform for digital signal processing and/or a wireless transmission indication used by the software radio platform; a control module, configured to determine whether the monitoring indicator of the monitoring module meets a preset condition, and if so, the coprocessor is turned on to participate in processing of the digital signal; otherwise, only the main processor is used for signal processing; the main processor is used for Processing wireless digital signals of the software radio platform, the operations performed by which are indicated by the control module;  a coprocessor, a wireless digital signal for processing a software radio platform, the operational control module of which is executed;