WO2002001808A2

WO2002001808A2 - Adaptive wireless communications system antenna and method

Info

Publication number: WO2002001808A2
Application number: PCT/US2001/020012
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yee Chun Lee; Alexander P. Haig; Elena A. Novakovskaia
Original assignee: Sky Station International, Inc.
Priority date: 2000-06-23
Filing date: 2001-06-22
Publication date: 2002-01-03
Also published as: AU2001271394A1; WO2002001808A3

Abstract

A ubiquitous, seamless and transparent communications system is provided having a Terabits of data per second capacity utilizing an RF communications backbone operating in the submillimeter wave frequency of about 75 to 1,000 preferably about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. The processor controlled communications backbone utilizes adaptive rate control to accommodate changes in BER (Bit Error Rate) in communications links between communications hubs disposed in the backbone as well as novel submillimeter communications nodes. The high capacity backbone can be utilized to integrate messaging, voice, video, broadcast, data, fax, tracking, video conferencing, internet and television into a seamless web while accommodating fiberoptic density signals while adapting and accommodating existing networks.

Description

ADAPTIVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM ANTENNA AND METHOD

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field Of The Invention The invention pertains to an adaptive wireless communications system with a high capacity backbone and method for providing the next generation wireless services while integrating existing wired, fiberoptic, mobile and wireless telecommunications systems. More particularly, the invention pertains to an adaptive processor based wireless telecommunications system and method providing a superstructure for integration with existing systems and increasing the capacity of existing systems or as a new standalone system. The novel adaptive wireless system provides a high capacity backbone for carrying the full duplex transmission of data in the Terabits per second range utilizing a submillimeter RF transmission in the frequency range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. The high capacity backbone provides point to point hubs (which point to point hubs may include branches) for carrying Terabits of digital data signals. Certain point to point hubs may include ADD-DROP multiplexers . The ADD-DROP multiplexers disposed at certain point to point hubs and at point to multipoint hubs which are designed to connect with either existing network nodes and/or novel nodes formed in accordance with the preferred embodiment to create or integrate the novel communications system into existing communications systems . The ADD-DROP multiplexers are generally utilized at regenerative point to point hubs in the backbone and are generally not utilized at repeater point to point hubs in the backbone.

Thβ invention pertains to the use of high speed, high data rate capacity transmissions utilizing frequencies in about the 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz range and preferably about the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range along the backbone to provide a high capacity system providing data transfers in the range of about 1 Gigabits per second to 600 Terabits per second rate and for the seamless integration of various telecommunications services into the novel adaptive high capacity digital communications system. The novel adaptive processor based wireless telecommunications system and method of the invention utilizes a plurality of adaptive techniques including modulation, redundancy, prioritization and the utilization of alternative paths through the backbone of the novel system to maintain operational capacity in the Terabits per second rate to various network nodes under adverse weather conditions for delivery of communications services to highly concentrated populations in large cities or into rural areas. The nodes connected to the high capacity backbone can deliver data to a fixed, portable or mobile communications device such as a cell phone or computer by either a wireless or wired connection. The point to point high capacity backbone of the system and method of the invention takes advantage of radio waves of submillimeter wavelengths to provide high speed, high capacity data rates required to meet the communications demands of the next generation of telecommunications systems. Further the novel system of the invention is fully adaptable and integratable with existing systems to provide a superstructure telecommunications system whereby existing communications networks can be integrated as nodes through one or more gateways into the novel adaptable high speed high data communications backbone of the invention such as for example utilizing existing PSTN (Public Switched

Telephone Network) , PLMN (Public Local Mobile Network) and satellite into the novel adaptive wireless communications system high capacity backbone to serve the telecommunications demand for increased capacity of various areas without the necessity of tearing up streets or disturbing existing infrastructure.

The communications hubs and any necessary point to point regenerative hubs disposed along the novel backbone utilize ADD-DROP multiplexers for managing capacity as well as for integrating with existing fiberoptic cable systems. Repeater point to point hubs in the novel backbone in urban areas separated by about 2 km do not require the use of ADD- DROP multiplexers. As used herein the word "backbone" refers to the point to point hubs as well as any branches in the point to point hubs as well as any point to multipoint hubs linked to the point to point hubs in a line-of-sight configuration. The line-of-sight configuration of the backbone includes branches and line-of-sight links that take any geometrical shape or patterns and includes adaptive geometrical linking paths that allows more than one path for signals to reach the same point. The word "node" as used herein refers to any existing communications network or to a point to multipoint hub which connects to any fixed or mobile communications link utilizing the novel adaptive multipath communications method and system utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz. The method and system of the invention as a result facilitates future growth and modification and replacement of network nodes in accordance with usage demands.

The novel system and method of the invention in the best mode provides novel toroidal shaped multibeam antennas and geodesic shaped antennas at the point to multipoint links that may be configured to transmit narrow beams of one degree or less throughout a 360 degree circle. The narrow beams can be transmitted and received without sectorization and without the large paired frequency requirements for the uplink and downlink required in the prior art . The narrow beams of the novel antenna may be electronically redirected to tilt up or down or shifted to the right or the left.

The novel system and method of the invention in the best mode also provides novel antenna in point to multipoint links to the end user for mobile links either indoors or outdoors utilizing an adaptive multipath finding protocol between the base station antenna and the user antenna which in the best mode utilize frequencies in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. Novel multipath phased array antenna alone or in combination with a novel indoor outdoor antenna are utilized in novel next generation communication nodes that are designed for extremely high capacity data transfer rates of about 300 Megabits per second data speed to the end user. These next generation communications nodes are in the best mode utilized with the novel high capacity backbone to provide all the capacity needed for HDTV, video conferencing and other high speed and capacity communications systems.

The novel system and method of the invention can be integrated with existing systems or can be utilized to provide a standalone wireless local loop or node to provide ultra high bit service as heretofore discussed. The novel system and method may be implemented in a fully developed telecommunications system by utilizing one or more gateways to connect the novel backbone to existing fixed wired systems, either optical or hardwired or to integrate and expand the capacity of existing systems. The novel system and method of the invention may also be implemented in developing countries without existing telecommunications infrastructure where high speed high volume and high capacity telecommunications services are needed.

The novel high capacity high speed telecommunications system of the invention allows for the seamless integration of all telecommunications services including wireless broadcast interactive telecommunications, video-conferencing, telephone, paging, internet and other communications systems to provide an advanced telecommunications network capable of integrating and providing a single seamless multimedia telecommunications syste providing tremendous speed and capacity.

Description Of The Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98

Ever since the invention of the telephone by

Alexander Graham Bell and the demonstration of wireless communications by Guglielmo Marconi there has been an interest in combining the wire-based technologies with the wireless telecommunications systems to provide a seamless web of untethered communication. The pressure in recent years toward combining wireless and wire-based systems in a transparent, seamless and ubiquitous network has been driven by the current IT (information technology) age as well as the digital technology revolution and the demand for integration of all communication into a multimedia system.

Communications today in the United States consists of a combination of copper wire owned by the telephone company, coaxial cables owned by the local cable companies, fiber optic cable which is being implemented by the media companies to keep up with the demand for broadband high capacity communications systems and the wireless communications industry which consists of broadcast, mobile and fixed cellular, satellite and paging networks. IT demand and rapid growth and interactive multimedia systems and applications such as Web TV, Direct TV, video conferencing, Telemedicine, distant learning and the emergence of Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) , Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and directory service has resulted in greater convergence between telecommunications, computer and multimedia systems .

The integration of the copper wire, coaxial cable, fiberoptic cable and wireless communications system as well as their respective spheres of influence is resulting in the integration of information technology with communications. This integration of the various systems has focused attention on the problem of capacity. Local loop copper wire telephone systems in use in the United States have crammed as much information as possible down wire based systems which has resulted in the necessity of laying new copper wire systems or opting for the fiberoptic cable option which is expensive but provides greater capacity but, like cable, forces the tearing up of streets and infrastructure in urban areas to install the fiberoptic cable. Fiberoptic cable also includes its own propagation losses and requires expensive and complicated repeaters and systems to allow the fiberoptic cable to carry the capacity of digital data required by the IT computer age. Similarly, cable companies owning coaxial cable cram as much digital data as possible through their coaxial cable to provide the scope of programming as well as the greater quantity of data that will be demanded by the next generation of digital and high definition television as well as interactive television systems. The method and system of the invention provides the Terabits per second data rates of fiberoptic cable without the problem of destroying streets or infrastructure. Wireless Local Loop (WLL) has recently been considered as a means for supplementing the capacity requirements of the digital IT computer age. The major problems with wireless is the line-of-sight requirements, large antennas and towers required for RF transmissions and the allocation of frequencies for communications purposes. The allocation of frequencies in the United States is controlled by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and internationally by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) . Wireless transmissions in various frequency ranges below 71 Gigahertz are in use for various types of telecommunications services. Generally such wireless applications present problems of antenna size, the disruption of the signal due to landscape and most importantly, the problem of propagation and attenuation losses due to atmospheric conditions such as rain and moisture. For example, frequencies in the neighborhood of 2.4 Gigahertz have been used for local area networks within buildings and other transmissions that are not susceptible to heavy rain and atmospheric attenuation losses.

Absorption or propagation losses due to rain and moisture are well known in the Ku-band of about 12 - 18 Gigahertz (GHz) . These absorption and attenuation losses due to the atmosphere are generally accepted as increasing with frequency and as requiring a reduction of the distance between the transmitter and receiver.

In addition to rain and moisture attenuation it is known that oxygen and other atmospheric constituents are known to interfere with higher frequency signals above 120 Gigahertz. Above 120 Gigahertz it is also generally accepted that propagation and absorption losses will continue to increase and the distance between transmitters and receivers will continue to decrease. As a result frequencies in the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range or frequencies utilizing submillimeter wavelength have not been used because of problems of propagation loss, multipath fading, noise and extremely short ranges.

In the United States the FCC has licensed the frequencies in the 27 to 31 Gigahertz range for fixed wireless networks such as LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution Service) and MMDS (Multi Channel Multipoint Distribution Service) . However, such systems in addition to having cumbersome antennas, towers and limitations as to distances between towers provide only about 2 Mbps (Megabits per second) of data for MMDS and about 45 to 155 Mbps for LMDS systems. As a result, prior art LMDS and MMDS systems do not match the Terabits per second capacity of either the prior art fiberoptic cables or the novel system and method of the invention.

The prior art also recognizes that in present termed "high frequencies" of the Ku-band of 12.0 and 18 Gigahertz bands and above, rain propagation and absorption losses are a primary problem. It is generally believed that RF frequencies above 50 Gigahertz are not useful for fixed wireless applications due to rain and atmospheric attenuation problems. As a result currently accepted "high RF frequencies" are below 50 Gigahertz, and require the use of cumbersome antenna and signal processing techniques with various frequency re-use schemes. These frequency re-use schemes, cumbersome antennas and transmission systems require precise mechanical positioning of the antennas and mechanical realignment of the large antenna after heavy wind storms and replacement when changes in telecommunications capacity requirements occur as a result of shifting demand.

The prior art has provided various types of wireless local loop systems but such systems have not proposed operation in the 275 Gigahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz range. Such prior art systems typically operate in the 27 - 70 Gigahertz range with some prior art suggesting telecommunications systems operating up to possibly as high as 140 Gigahertz. None of the prior art has provided an adaptive communications system to overcome the effects of heavy rain and losses due to atmospheric constituents.

Bugas, et al. Patent Application No. W09748191 pertains to a low power multi cellular broadband communications system which discloses a high capacity system for providing data bit rates of over 1,000 Gigabits per second, i.e. 1 Terabit per second, and in one example describes how vertical and horizontal polarization is used to provide a data rate of 1,300 Gigabits per second (1.3 Terabits) to provide a network for the transmission and reception of voice, video, audio, television and data signals within a point to multipoint network. Bugas, et al. W09748191 uses microwave frequencies above 10 Gigahertz and in the application discusses frequencies in the range of between 200 Megahertz to 140 Gigahertz. Bugas, et al. W09748191, like the prior art, acknowledges the problems resulting from rain and atmospheric absorption losses and multipath fading effects and as a result provides a route diversity instead of an adaptive system to combat rain and multipath fading effects and absorption. Bugas, et al. does not disclose or suggest an adaptive communications system or the utilization of frequencies above 140 Gigahertz or the utilization of submillimeter frequencies in the range of between the 275 Gigahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz to provide data rates in the 1 to 1,000 Terabit range. Further Bugas, et al. WO 9748191, unlike the invention, requires the use of dual polarization together with complex prior art antennas segmented into more than 100 sectors and a 256-QAM modulation (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) together with polarization to provide high data rates. In order for a 256 QAM modulation technique to be utilized with a low Bit Error Rate (BER less than 10 ^~10) the adjacent sector interference needs to be smaller than the carrier level by at least 25 dB. This interference level would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with conventional antennas. Bugas, et al. WO

9748191 does not disclose a special antenna but instead describes available antenna technology from Flan Microwave and Millitek and Gardiner in the United States.

The use of existing antennas with 100 sectors - described in Bugas, et al. WO 9748191 to provide a data rate value of 1.3 Terabits per second requires an antenna aperture of at least 57 cm. To obtain an aperture of 57 cm would require the entire sector antenna array be at least 75 meters in diameter. Such huge prior art antenna arrays are unrealistic in an urban environment to provide the capacity suggested by Bugas, et al. WO 9748191 due to environmental aspects and aesthetics.

The invention in contrast is an adaptive and adaptable telecommunications system that utilizes submillimeter RF frequencies in the range of 275 Gigahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz. The submillimeter wave frequencies utilized in accordance with the invention for a given antenna aperture increases directivity with frequency. Higher directivity enhances the ability to focus the RF signals at a distant receiving antenna to concentrate RF signal power into the receiving antenna to compensate for rain and atmospheric moisture attenuation. It has also been found that rain attenuation saturates around 100 Gigahertz and that rain attenuation actually decreases slightly beyond 120 Gigahertz and that all attenuation including moisture and atmospheric can be compensated for by the adaptive systems of the invention that utilizes changes in BER to result in the processor making adaptive changes in modulation, processing gain, prioritization, alternative transmission paths and FEC (Forward Error Correction) coding rate to compensate BER losses in transmission.

The extremely high frequency submillimeter carrier waves of the invention not only provide higher directivity but also support a bandwidth of about 30 Gigahertz within a single carrier at a frequency of 350 Gigahertz even utilizing a prior art antenna at a point to multipoint link in the novel backbone. Further even with a prior art antenna having a beam width for each antenna smaller than 0.3 degrees, more than 100 point to multipoint links can be established from a single point with minimal interbeam interference. As a result 300 Terabits per second capacity per site can easily be achieved due to the narrowness of the individual beams and the fact that the antennas do not have to be neatly arranged in a circle so that the physical dimension of the entire antenna array can be as small as a few meters each direction.

Utilizing the novel antenna of the best mode of the invention in combination with the method and system of the invention allows the novel antenna to be only about 20 to 30 cm in diameter. Such small antennas in the backbone reduces the effects of the wind and environment in contrast to prior art antennas. Further such small antennas are aesthetically compatible on the tops of buildings with the urban environment.

The novel antenna of the best mode includes phased feeder elements which can electronically point and steer a narrow beam width of less than 0.3 degrees which avoid interbeam interference and which allows the same frequency to be used in adjacent beams. The high capacity of multiple Terabits per second of data can be achieved even without utilizing dual polarization and cumbersome prior art antennas by utilizing the novel system and method with frequencies of 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz in accordance with the invention.

Zendle, et al. WO 9904534, like Bugas, et al. WO 9748191, describes an RF telecommunications system using millimeter microwave RF transmissions for point to multipoint broadband communications having at least one service node which is accessible to remote sites via the hubsites and backbone. Zendle, et al. WO 9904534 describes the limitations of wire cable and fiberoptic based systems which requires bringing fiber or cable to buildings resulting in digging up streets, obtaining permits and damage to existing infrastructure. Zendle, et al. WO 9904534 discloses the alternative of utilizing a millimeter microwave wireless system operating at frequencies of 18 Gigahertz and above to transfer data at Megabits per second rate utilizing antennas ranging from 12 to 24 inches in diameter. Zendle, et al. WO 9904534, unlike the invention, does not utilize an adaptive system, submillimeter wave RF communications signals and does not transfer data at Terabits per second rate. Zendle, et al. WO 9904534, like

Bugas, et al. and other prior art, provides a communications hub with prior art antenna divided by sectors of 15 degrees to 90 degrees wide with each sector having its own frequency to reduce co-channel interference. The invention, unlike Zendle, et al. WO 9904534 and the other prior art, provides a novel communications system and antenna, where sectorization is not required at the point to multipoint communications hub. Due to the submillimeter frequencies broadband communications are available which allows the utilization of small novel round shaped omni-directional antennas which like a sectored antenna is capable of projecting or receiving multiple narrow beams such that the narrowness of the beam keeps co- channel interference to a minimum. In other prior art, such as Nowak U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826 and Foster, Jr., et al. U.S. Patent No. 6,016,313 microwave wireless networks are provided which, like the other prior art, utilize RF signals in the 10 to 60 Gigahertz range for providing microwave communication utilizing prior art sectorized antenna systems (Fig. 3) U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826 and Fig. 2B U.S. Patent No. 6,016,313. Foster, Jr., et al. U.S. Patent 5,903,826, like the other prior art, employs a fixed sectorized antenna array and provides a processor based system with a frequency re-use pattern and TDD (Time Division Duplexing) to deal with asymmetric traffic. Foster, Jr., et al. 5,903,826 describes QAM modulation to provide a C/N (Carrier To Noise Ratio) in the nodes as well as FEC coding, redundancy to provide error corrections in the data stream utilizing RF signals in the

10 to 60 Gigahertz range for the transmission of at least 30 Megabit per second to each defined FDM (Frequency Division Multiplexed Channel) of approximately 10 Megahertz. Nowak U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826 and Foster, Jr., et al. 6,016,313 describe manual mechanical adjustment of the antenna and provide for beam steering by utilizing tiers of antenna or dynamically by mechanical adjustment of the antenna.

Nowak U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826 and Foster, Jr., et al. U.S. Patent No. 6,016,313 do not describe a telecommunications system utilizing submillimeter RF wavelengths or a system for providing Terabits of capacity or an adaptive system utilizing CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) for point to multipoint communications employing a high spectrum efficiency of 11 bits/sec/Hz by utilizing a modulation up to 2048 QAM which can be attained at greater than 99% of the time even in regions of heavy rain in point to point links of about 1 to 3 km.

Further neither Foster, Jr., et al. U.S. Patent No. 6,016,313 nor Nowak U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826 utilizes a small beamwidth of less than 1 degree and preferably about 0.3 degrees (U.S. Patent No. 6,016,313 employs a 16 degree beam) to provide more than 100 point to multipoint links with minimal interbeam interference. The prior art does not provide an adaptive communications system which adapts to increases in Bit Error Rate by increasing redundancy of the signal utilizing the tremendous capacity of the data link or a system for prioritizing messages to provide a data transfer rate of less than full capacity to maintain the operation of the system during period of adverse climatic or atmospheric conditions.

The prior art includes a number of circular substantially flat shaped antennas. Some of these circular antennas such as Smith U.S. Patent No. 3,988,736 include mechanical means such as curved guide rails to steer beams. The novel antennas of varying configurations utilized in the best mode of the invention provides an electronic as opposed to a mechanical steering of collimated beams. VanVoorhies U.S. Patent No. 5,952,978 provides a contrawound toroidal antenna that uses its geometry to produce an electrical dipole pattern that is omnidirectional. The novel antennas utilized in the best mode of the invention are high gain directional antennas having digital beam formers.

Sinsky U.S. Patent No. 4,973,791 utilizes a Butler matrix to process the transmit or the receive electromagnetic signals of a constant beamwidth over a frequency range of about 400 to 1,400 Megahertz with a steering of the beam through an angle by a progressive linear phase change from a steering circuit with a Butler matrix. The Antenna Engineering Handbook, Richard C. Johnson (3^rd Ed. 1993), McGraw-Hill, Inc., pp. 17-8 to 17-9 describes and illustrates hourglass antenna having a parabolic reflecting surface and adjacent feed horns. The novel antennas of the invention are -different from these prior art antennas in not only the frequencies at which the antennas operate but also due to the fact the phase modulation of the feeder array is not used to facilitate beam forming. Further the novel antenna utilized in the best mode of the invention utilizes digital beamforming chips instead of a Butler matrix and employs a toroidal reflector antenna, cylindrical lens and holographic phased array antenna or a geodesic dome multibeam beam antenna with feeder array at the point to multipoint hubs. The multiple radiation elements together with the beam formers to form and steer the multiple narrow beams in the horizontal axis is not described in the prior art.

The novel method and system of the invention can also utilize adaptive cross polarization to almost double the 1 Gigabit to 300 Terabits per second data rate.

Steinberger U.S. Patent No. 4,438,530 and Kavekrad U.S. Patent No. 4,644,562 provide for adaptive cross polarization interference cancellation arrangements. This prior art however does not utilize frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz or provide for the transmissions of data in the range of Terabits per second.

Bartlett, et al . WO 99/01964, like Nowak U.S. Patent No. 5,903,826, provides a microwave telecommunications system providing a network of interconnected nodes to provide a redundant system utilizing a plurality of redundant paths to respond to adverse climatic conditions. The system provided in Bartlett, et al. WO 99/01964 utilizes microwave frequencies in the range of 2 to 70 Gigahertz with links of about 5 kilometers.

Bartlett, et al. WO 99/01964, like all of the other prior art, does not disclose the use of submillimeter frequencies, nor does it provide a system wherein Terabits of information can be transmitted through an adaptive system having a novel point to multipoint antenna with the ability to steer beams electronically. The novel system of the invention utilizes a combination of processing gain, QAM modulation and FEC coding and alternative path diversity to accommodate existing and anticipated traffic as well as current weather conditions to accommodate traffic rates and weather conditions.

The only prior art uncovered which discusses frequencies approaching 275 Gigahertz is Reitberger U.S. Patent No. 5,987,305 which indicates that frequencies in the range between 90 Kilohertz and 275 Gigahertz are assigned by the Federal Office for Post and Telecommunications in Germany. There is no disclosure in Reitberger U.S. Patent No. 5,987,305 of any use of a frequency at or above 275 Gigahertz to provide for Terabits of data signals. None of the prior art discloses a high capacity telecommunications system providing adaptive rate control in relation to atmospheric conditions utilizing submillimeter waves with frequencies in the range of 75 to 1,000 and preferably in the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range. None of the prior art discloses the selection of particular frequencies in the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range to provide a high capacity communications system for indoor and outdoor applications for providing a seamless integration of a variety of telecommunications services into a single network. None of the prior art discloses an adaptive system in which communications beams are transmitted at such extremely high frequencies in narrow collimated beams from novel antennas that by virtue of the width of the RF beam can avoid interference between adjacent beams. In addition none of the prior art discloses novel antennas in which the beams can be electronically controlled horizontally and vertically from a remote location to control the communications system. The novel adaptive wireless communications system and method of the invention with the novel antennas of the best mode are adaptable to developed communications systems requiring increased capacity or to emerging communications systems requiring coverage for urban and rural areas. The novel adaptive communications system and method is adaptive to existing stationary and mobile systems as well as providing a startup communications system for mobile and stationary telecommunications systems . The novel adaptive high capacity system is also adaptive outside and inside buildings where small patch antennas provide adaptive multipath communications links that are automatically selected based on signal strength. These applications of the invention are all further adaptive to the weather and climate conditions of the telecommunications site to provide a high speed high capacity system for accommodating the data transfer rates of the next generation of IT multimedia communications devices.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides an adaptive and adaptable, transparent, seamless and ubiquitous communications system for advanced telecommunications and multimedia systems and networks which can integrate various telecommunications systems into a high capacity high speed multimedia network. The invention matches the high capacity advantages of fiberoptic cable systems employing DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) to provide the bidirectional transmission of Terabits of data in the range of 1 to 600 Terabits per second without the expense and destruction of infrastructure as is required by fiberoptic cable systems. The high speed high capacity system of the invention is obtained by utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. It has been found that radio waves of about 0.3 mm to 1 mm in the radio frequency range of between about 275 Gigahertz and 1,000 Gigahertz provide high data rate transfers that can be used in an adaptive system to overcome atmospheric attenuation. In addition the deleterious effects of rain attenuation saturates at 100 Gigahertz and begins to decrease beyond 120 Gigahertz that along with increased capacity at increased frequency can be used in a processor based adaptive system to overcome the effects of atmospheric attenuation.

These discoveries along with adaptability and the use of antennas of high directivity in combination with the submillimeter RF frequencies and extremely narrow beams of less than 1 degree allow the antenna to focus the radio beam on the distant antenna which not only compensates for attenuation due to rain and atmospheric moisture but also allows the submillimeter RF signals to be focused on antennas separated by as much as 3 miles (4.8 km) . The processing gain for the antennas should be about 1 with the ability to narrow the beam to less than 1 to accommodate nearly co-linear terminals with respect to each beam. In the best mode of the invention novel antennas of a round shape such as spherical and toroidal phased array with feeder horns disposed in or around the novel antennas can be utilized in the point to multipoint links to form narrow collimated beams. The novel antennas of the best mode of the invention have a cross-sectional diameter of about 20 - 30 centimeters. The novel antenna at the point to multipoint links include digital beam formers for forming and steering the multiple narrow collimated beams. In all the embodiments of the invention frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz are utilized to provide an advanced multimedia seamless and ubiquitous network for point to point and point to multipoint communications requirements.

The novel method and system of the invention is adaptive and provides adaptability for integration with existing telecommunications systems. The submillimeter wavelength backbone can be integrated into existing overcapacitated networks by interfacing the novel backbone through a gateway into existing wireless and hardwired service nodes and can combine broadcast multimedia and other telecommunications systems into a single seamless telecommunications network. The novel method and system of the invention can also provide one or more new stationary or mobile nodes for integration into the novel backbone. The novel system and method of the invention utilizing the novel high capacity backbone can also be deployed in developing countries with little or no existing telecommunications services to provide the foundation for a modern telecommunications system offering high speed high data rate telecommunications services in an integrated ubiquitous and seamless telecommunications and multimedia network.

The processor based communications system and method of the invention is adaptive in utilizing its high speed and Terabits per second capacity to adapt to local weather and climatic conditions by utilizing Bit Error Rate ratios to compensate for transmission losses. Digital BER (Bit Error Rates) are kept within an acceptable QoS (Quality of Service) parameter during atmospheric and weather changes by searching for the best combination of modulation and FEC (Forward Error Correction) coding. A neural network technique may be utilized throughout the backbone and nodes to optimize BER under a given traffic and atmospheric condition in a particular location. On occasions where severe weather conditions persist at a particular location resulting in high BER, digital signals are prioritized to compensate for increases in Bit Error Rates due to transmission losses.

The present invention is a result of an extensive investigation into high speed high capacity processor controlled telecommunications systems utilizing submillimeter waves with frequencies above 275 Gigahertz to provide a high capacity backbone for providing a seamless communications network having a capacity sufficient to integrate a number of telecommunications systems and networks into a single multimedia system by utilizing capacity in the range of about 1 Gigabits per second to 600 Terabits of data per second. This capacity in the range of about 1 to 600 Terabits per second is achieved by utilizing frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz to provide point to point and point to multipoint telecommunications services in which Bit Error Rate of data transmissions are utilized to maintain a QoS of the communications link during changes in weather and atmospheric conditions by modulating the volume of data in response to any reduction in capacity and increasing redundancy or FEC to preserve the integrity of the communications link.

The novel system and method of the invention utilizes frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz along with antennas having narrow beamwidths of about 1 degree or less and preferably 0.3 degrees or less to focus and direct the RF signals from antennas disposed from each other at from about 1 km (0.62 mi) to 5 km (3.1 mi) to provide data transmissions in the range of about 1 Gigabits per second to 600 Terabits per second from point to point hubs and 1 Megabits per second up to about 600 Terabits per second in the point to multipoint hubs disposed along the communications backbone. ADD-DROP multiplexers are disposed at any required regenerative point to point hubs along the backbone and at each point to multipoint hub so that not all the "trunk" throughput is delivered to a single user. Instead data and capacity is divided up in both the backbone and network nodes to provide a telecommunications system fully adaptable into existing telecommunications systems. The frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and particularly the submillimeter frequencies in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz may be converted to other frequencies in various communications network nodes within the network to integrate and provide adaptability to existing hardwired or wireless systems within the network.

The conversion of frequencies for the nodes may be provided by a gateway having a DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) link to a network control center for integrating the various telecommunications systems. As a result communications data is delivered from the novel high capacity wireless network backbone to a- user device by means either of a wireless or wired connection through a gateway and a network control center in which the RF signals are converted to a lower frequency from the novel high capacity backbone at each network node to provide compatibility with existing telecommunications devices. In addition multiple gateways may be connected to the novel backbone to utilize the enormous capacity of the novel system of the invention. As a result infrastructure already in operation in developed countries can be integrated with the novel system through existing nodes and gateways for compatibility with existing communications devices utilizing frequencies from about 0.08 Gigahertz to 50 Gigahertz to accommodate existing or newly created in-building microwave LAN or WAN systems connected to the high capacity high speed backbone of the invention. In newly created systems in accordance with the invention frequencies in the 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz range can be utilized for LAN or WAN systems designed to take advantage of the high capacity of the novel system while taking advantage of the absorption and attenuation characteristics of a particular frequency within the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range. For example, a frequency of about

430 Gigahertz exhibits high attenuation due to moisture and atmospheric gases making such transmissions extremely short range. Such short range transmissions are useful for certain applications where attenuation of the signal can be advantageously utilized, for example, in in-building communications applications where high capacity is needed in combination with short communications distances, for example, in a secure conference room, where security of the conference or communications is desired but high data rates and high capacity are needed in the communications conference for audio-visual, video imaging and possibly three-dimensional multimedia applications such as in virtual reality in combination with other video phone and telecommunications services.

The novel high frequency high capacity communications system of the invention, in utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz allows antennas on transmitters and receivers to be extremely small in comparison to antennas used for microwave and millimeter wave communications. As a result antennas of advanced design such as the Yagi-Uda antennas or patch antennas scaled for ultrahigh frequency applications can be used in the point to point and point to multipoint hubs in the novel backbone to provide high gain having relatively small size thus allowing for links with availability of 99.999% or higher. In addition mobile users connected to the novel system can utilize smart antennas with built-in autotracking features for communications with micro cells formed by individual lamp posts in the city and macro cells of about 1.8 km (1 mile) in rural areas without the requirement of frequency re-use patterns of the prior art.

The extensive research into the capacity provided by utilizing frequencies in the 75 to 1,000 and preferably in the 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz^' range has resulted in the discovery that very narrow focused beams of 1 degree or less not only increase range but also virtually eliminate interference and the need to re-use frequencies as required by the prior art to handle capacity. The narrow beamwidths in combination with transmissions in the submillimeter wavelength range resulted in the creation of novel point to multipoint antennas with multipath finding protocol capable of transmitting narrow beams of extremely high frequency in point to multipoint hubs without requiring frequency re-use to handle capacity.

The novel antennas in the point to multipoint hubs in accordance with the best mode of the invention project multiple narrow beams that are electronically steerable by changing the current phase to provide narrow RF beams that are steered electronically from the novel antennas without having to mechanically move the novel antennas. The novel electronically steerable phased array antennas of the best mode of the invention provide a plurality of phased feeder horns to collimate radio waves vertically and a cylindrical phased feeder array to form multiple narrow beams in a horizontal direction. Alternatively the feeder horns may steer collimated radio waves utilizing holographic fringe patterns on a holographic lens or by utilizing reflective mirrors in combination with a multifaceted arrangement of lenses that may be arranged in a type of geodesic pattern. The maximum number of beams provided by the novel antennas are equal to the number of phased feeder horns utilized in combination with the novel phased array antennas. The novel point to point antennas alone or in combination with the novel method and system of the invention eliminate the necessity of mechanically repositioning the antenna or sending a serviceman to realign the antenna after wind storms .

The novel phased array antennas for point to multipoint transmissions as well as the antennas employed for point to point transmissions in the novel backbone utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000

Gigahertz and preferably in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz are small and compact and can be placed on buildings or other structures without requiring the amount of space required by traditional microwave antennas. For example, the prior art traditional microwave antenna utilized on towers or buildings are traditionally about 3 to 50 feet (1 to 15 m in diameter) whereas the novel antennas of the present invention is about 20 to 30 cm in diameter (about 7 3/4 inches to 12 3/4 inches in diameter) . This difference in size allows the submillimeter wave antennas to be placed on buildings and structures in urban areas without aesthetic and environmental objections.

The novel adaptive high capacity system of the invention in utilizing frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz is preferably implemented by using CDM/CDMA code division multiple access in the novel backbone as well as in the nodes. In addition the present invention can be used with TDM/TDMA time division multiple access as well as FDM/FDMA frequency division multiple access. The novel system can be implemented by operating the novel system at about 1 Gigabits per second to 1,000 Terabits per second by utilizing various known systems for increasing capacity such as dual polarization and space division multiplexing. The novel adaptive system and method of the invention as a result of its capacity to transmit Terabits of information per second enables the integration of communications networks and systems into a single master system that provides a seamless ubiquitous communications system for combining existing local networks, rural networks, fixed cable systems such as copper cable as well as fiberoptic cables and satellite communications links. Existing infrastructure and systems can also be linked to communications satellites, high altitude communications platforms such as aircraft and airships and a multitude of high altitude communications technologies.

The novel method and system of the invention can operate along with existing systems or can be used to create a start up communications system for developing countries. The novel system can also be implemented with existing systems and expanded to replace existing systems as demand for capacity increases with technology and IT. The novel system and method of the invention avoids the limitations of capacity limited communications designs and coverage limited communications designs by providing a high capacity communications backbone with the flexibility to accommodate communications changes and demands by adding or removing communications links along the backbone without the necessity of changing existing communications nodes. In the preferred application novel high capacity nodes connected to the high capacity backbone will be utilized together to provide the next generation communications system. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the invention will be more fully discussed in the Detailed Description Of The Invention in conjunction with the following figures which are not to scale but which have been drawn to illustrate the principles and embodiments of the invention in which:

FIG. 1 is a graph illustrating the specific attenuation for frequencies from about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range in standard atmosphere, dry atmosphere and heavy rain;

FIG. 1A is a prior art graph illustrating specific attenuation due to rain in relation to RF frequency in Gigahertz;

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic illustration of a wireless network providing point to point and point to multipoint connections utilizing the system and method of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic illustration of a point to multipoint hub in accordance with the invention; FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic illustration of the indoor/outdoor network created by the multipoint to point hubs in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 5 is a top plan illustration of the novel point to multipoint system of the invention utilizing an omnidirectional antenna in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5A is a comparative top plan prior art view of a point to multipoint access system employing frequency sectorization; FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating the novel adaptive data rate control of the processor controlled communication system and method of the invention;

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a novel toroidal phased antenna with a schematic illustration of the feed horns for point to multipoint transmissions in accordance with one of the preferred embodiments and best mode of the invention;

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of the novel toroidal phased array antenna of FIG. 7 illustrating the feed horns;

FIG. 9 is a diagrammatic illustration of a transmitter portion of a transceiver constructed in accordance with the present invention; FIG. 10 is the diagrammatic illustration of a receiver portion of a transceiver constructed in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a diagrammatic illustration of an adaptive cross-polarization system for doubling the capacity of the novel system of the invention;

FIG. 12 is a perspective view of the application of the novel high capacity system to a high speed rail system;

FIG. 13 is a top plan view similar to FIG. 12 illustrating the relationship between ground-based transmitters and receivers in relation to antennas on a high speed rail application;

FIG. 14 is a top plan view of the novel adaptive communications system and method illustrating an application of the invention;

FIG. 14A is a prior art table illustrating rainfall intensity for various regions of the world as defined by the ITU; FIG. 15 is a graph illustrating the percentage of time the maximum data rate is available in various regions of the world as defined in FIG. 14A;

FIG. 16 is a graph similar to FIG. 15 illustrating the percentage of time the spectrum efficiency is available; FIG. 16A and 16B are graphs similar to FIG. 16 comparing the availability of data bit rates per second under various rain conditions for a point to point 18" antenna aperture at 5 km and 1 km separation respectively;

FIG. 17 is a side elevational view of an indoor and outdoor transmitter and receiver unit constructed in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 18 is a diagrammatic view of the transmitter and receiver of FIG. 17 for providing power requirements and for receiving high speed high volume data; FIG. 19 is a perspective view of a novel wireless high capacity personal computer and communicator (PCC) connected to one of the communication nodes of the invention;

FIG. 20 and FIG. 20A are a top plan views of the novel antenna illustrating a beam from a phased feeder horn array;

FIG. 21 and FIG 21A are top plan views of FIG. 20 illustrating the steering of one of the beams;

FIG. 22 is an algorithm for steering a cylindrical phased array beam with an illustration of the antenna array pattern for steering one of the beams as illustrated in FIG. 20 and 20A;

FIG. 23 is an algorithm for steering multiple beams of FIG. 21 and 21A;

FIG. 24 is a perspective view partly in section of an alternative embodiment of the novel toroidal phased array antenna for point to multipoint transmissions in accordance with one of the preferred embodiments and best mode of the invention;

FIG. 24A is a sectional view of the removed section of the novel toroidal phased array antenna of FIG. 24;

FIG. 24B is a side view of one of the surfaces of the toroidal holographic RF lens of FIG. 24;

FIG. 24C is a frontal view of a horizontal holographic fringe pattern on the outside surface of the toroidal holographic RF lens of FIG. 24;

FIG. 25 is a side view of a faceted spherical shaped antenna having a multifaceted RF lens system in accordance with one of the preferred embodiments and best mode of the invention;

FIG. 25A is a side view of a portion of the faceted spherical shaped antenna illustrating one of the micro mirror and feeder arrays of FIG. 25;

FIG. 26 is a top plan view of a point to multipoint link utilizing multipath finding protocol with the novel faceted spherical shaped antenna of FIG. 25;

FIG. 27 is a perspective view of a novel 3D micro- patch phased antenna array for use in mobile communications devices in accordance with the best mode of the invention;

FIG. 27A is a perspective view of one of the planar arrays utilized to construct the novel 3D micro-patch phased antenna array of FIG. 27; and

FIG. 27B is a perspective view of one of the half wave micro-patch resonators disposed in the planar arrays of the novel 3D micro-patch phased antenna array of FIG. 27.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The invention provides a high capacity high speed method and system for providing a transparent, seamless and ubiquitous communications system for interfacing with existing telecommunications systems in countries and regions already having either a wireless or fixed wire system as well as providing a next generation system to countries and regions currently without communications services. The novel communications system and method of the invention is transparent in adapting to existing networks and allowing growth and modification of the backbone to accommodate growth, demand and communications links and nodes where and when necessary to support a computer based information technology IT age for satisfying high capacity digital data links. The novel communications system and method is seamless in allowing all digital data to be transmitted through the high capacity backbone so that internet, Web TV, broadcast network, cable networks, satellite, paging, telephone, video telephone, facsimile, integrated video voice and graphics can be integrated into portable, mobile or fixed base multimedia terminals. The novel system and method is ubiquitous in providing service everywhere and all the time by providing a high capacity backbone interface for connecting urban with rural and fixed with mobile networks and links.

The novel method and system of the invention utilizes a high capacity wireless backbone operating in the submillimeter wave frequencies of about 75 to 1,000 and preferably 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz having a gateway and one or more nodes connected to the high capacity wireless backbone. The nodes may themselves be a submillimeter wave node or a millimeter wave node operating at a frequency of about 40 Gigahertz to 275 Gigahertz, a microwave node operating at a frequency of about 1 Gigahertz to 40

Gigahertz or an RF frequency node operating at less than 1 Gigahertz. Each of these nodes may be connected to other sub nodes which are interfaced through the processor based gateway which shapes, controls and manages the flow of data through the novel backbone and associated nodes. The novel system and method of the invention utilizing the novel backbone operating in the range of about 275 - 1,000 Gigahertz is able to transmit digital data signals at from about 1 Gigabits to 1,000 Terabits per second. In the point to point backbone frequencies in the preferred range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz are used to provide a bidirectional high capacity system and method of transferring digital data. At a frequency of about 275 Gigahertz the point to point backbone employing links of about 2 km between the point to point hubs under optimum atmospheric conditions can accommodate data transfers in the range of about 0.6 to 300 Terabits per second. At a frequency of about 410 Gigahertz the point to point backbone employing links of about 2 km between the point to point hubs under optimum atmospheric conditions can accommodate data transfers in the range of about 0.4 Terabits per second to 200 Terabits per second. Frequencies above 450 Gigahertz require shorter point to point links in the backbone of about 1 km or less.

The range of data transfer from about 0.4 to 300 Terabits per second can be doubled utilizing dual polarization which increases the capacity to about 0.8 to 600 Terabits per second. The high capacity of the novel system is utilized in the adaptive rate control to compensate for rain and atmospheric conditions along the novel backbone as will be described hereinafter in greater detail.

The distance between the point to point links in the novel backbone are related to the frequency or frequencies utilized in the backbone as well as the width of the beam projected from the point to point antennas and power of the transceivers. With a given power of 10 Watts and a preferred beam of about 0.2 degrees in the backbone to focus the power of the beam and provide a point to point link of about 1 to 7 km (0.6 to 4.4 mi) at a frequency of 275 Gigahertz and about 1 to 3.2 km (0.6 to 2 mi) at a frequency of about 410 Gigahertz.

The digital signals at the point to multipoint hubs can be based on GSM (or DAMPS in the U.S.) TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) or CDMA (code division multiple access) or TDMA. Direct sequence spreading is used in the novel backbone in the best mode of the invention to counteract atmospheric impairment by changing processing gain. As a result when the system reaches beyond full capacity the S/N (Signal to Noise) ratio increases in the form of increased BER (Bit Error Ratio) which in turn is compensated by the novel adaptive rate control by the processor controlled novel communications system.

As will be recognized by those skilled in the art the novel method and system of the invention also can be utilized in the novel backbone as well as one or more nodes connected to the backbone to compensate for multipath fading in the mobile environment resulting from buildings and surroundings as well as fading in stationary nodes resulting from fog, humidity, rain and other atmospheric elements that intensify diffusion and absorption which also decrease the S/N ratio which is measured by increased BER and compensated by the adaptive rate control of the processor controlled communications system and method of the invention. BER increases are controlled within predetermined parameters by changes in modulation (i.e. QAM), FEC direct sequence spreading or other forms of providing redundancy as well as in some cases temporarily selecting an alternative transmission path.

Unlike prior art antennas that are either omnidirectional or sectored, the novel antenna is neither omnidirectional nor sectored. As a result one of the advantages of the system and method of the invention in utilizing the novel point to multipoint antenna in accordance with the best mode is that it eliminates the transmitter cell dilemma of the prior art. The transmitter cell dilemma is the greater the transmit power of the base station the larger the cell, however the transmit power cannot be increased arbitrarily as too much power limits frequency reuse. The novel point to multipoint antenna of the best mode eliminates this dilemma by providing very narrow focused beams from the base stations as well as low transmit power as well as multipath finding protocol to select the best communication path between base station and the mobile station.

In recent years it has been recognized that communications, whether wireless or hardwired systems used for telephone, radio, television, internet and multimedia services may all be interconnected to provide a multimedia communications web or network. The limitations to such combinations reside in capacity of the system with fiberoptic DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) providing the greatest capacity but requiring laying of cable and then integration with existing wireless systems which do not support the same high capacity. The system and method of the invention allows the more direct connection of wireless to wireless systems with the ability to also combine wire or fiberoptic based networks through one or more gateways. attached to the novel backbone.

The novel method and system of the invention carries the capacity of fiberoptic systems without the requirement to tear up roads and modify buildings as required by fiberoptic and other hardwired cable systems. The novel high capacity backbone may be connected to existing networks and systems in the form of nodes which may include existing cellular communications, satellite telecommunications as well as existing PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Networks) PLMN (Public Local Mobile Networks) to provide not only cellular phone connections but also internet phone connections. In recent years alliances in the communications field have resulted in the combination of broadcast television with internet telecommunications services, for example Web TV, as well as the combination of cable television with telephone services, and satellite TV with telephone all demonstrate the interconnection between the communications services and that the limitations that exist are capacity limitations resulting from IT. The capacity limitation on the communications services is limited by the amount of data that can be transmitted from point to point in a communications network. This point to point capacity limitation has been resolved by the novel adaptive and adaptable telecommunications system of the invention which utilizes a submillimeter wave communications in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz to provide a backbone capable of data transfers in the range of about 0.2 to 600 Terabits per second.

Referring now to FIG. 1 the high capacity of the novel backbone resulted from the discovery that submillimeter frequencies could be directed in narrow focused beams that would not be attenuated to the degree anticipated by the prior art and that attenuation in some of the more difficult climatic regions as well as localized weather conditions can be overcome by the adaptive facilities provided in accordance with the invention. The specific attenuation due to atmospheric gases is illustrated at 1 Gigahertz intervals in FIG. 1. The specific attenuation in dB/km for standard atmosphere is illustrated by line 20 and for dry atmosphere line 22 and for rain attenuation by line 24. As will be recognized from FIG. 1 and FIG. 1A attenuation in dry atmosphere is most pronounced at about 120 Gigahertz with attenuation decreasing at about 180 to 200 Gigahertz range and remaining fairly stable between the 200 to 300 Gigahertz range. For standard atmosphere attenuation also decreases at about 180 Gigahertz and remains fairly stable between 200 to 300 Gigahertz.

Attenuation due to rain saturates about 100 Gigahertz and remains substantially flat with a slightly decreasing slope between 100 to 1,000 Gigahertz. Certain frequencies (FIG. 1) such as about 475 - 500 and 650 - 700 and 825 - 900 Gigahertz exhibit an attenuation that is fairly consistent in either standard atmosphere and rain which can be utilized for some high capacity communication systems. Other frequencies such as at about 556 Gigahertz and 774 Gigahertz exhibit strong attenuation in standard atmospheric conditions and may be utilized in communications systems where attenuation of the signal is desired in short range applications as will be described hereinafter in greater detail. As illustrated in FIG. 1 standard atmosphere and rain atmosphere has peaks and drops in attenuation throughout the frequencies from 275 Gigahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz.

Referring now to FIGs . 2 and 3 the novel communications system and method of the invention is illustrated having a backbone 30 formed by point to point 32 and point to multipoint 34 communication hubs which backbone carries bidirectional RF submillimeter wave communications. The RF submillimeter wave communications originate from a network control center 36 having a processor 38 and transceiver means 40 for communicating RF signals in the range of about 75 to 1,000 and preferably 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. Transceiver means 40 is connected to an antenna 42 which is mounted on a building or structure 44 that is of a sufficient height as to provide a good line-of-sight communication with various point to point hubs 46, point to point to point hubs 48 and point to multipoint hubs 50.

The difference between point to point hubs 46 and the point to point to point hubs 48 and the point to multipoint hubs 50 is that point to point hubs 46 are transparent hubs that repeat or relay signals in the backbone and are separated by less than 3 km or where after multiple repeating of the signals regeneration is not required while point to point to point hubs 48 and point to multipoint hubs generally include ADD-DROP multiplexers.

The ADD-DROP multiplexers at point to point to point hubs 48 may be regenerative hubs where part of the digital signals that are not needed are dropped and only the signals necessary for transmission further down the novel backbone are regenerated. ADD-DROP multiplexers are provided at point to multipoint hubs particularly where the point to multipoint hubs are connected to a second lower speed existing infrastructure node 52 which is in a node or network that is outside of the control of processor 38 as will be described hereinafter in greater detail. Point to point to point hubs 48 as well as point to multipoint hubs 50 preferably include ADD-DROP multiplexers which are controlled by processor 38 to traffic, shape, control and route communications along novel backbone 38.

The distance between each point to point 32 link (composed of point to point hubs 46 and/or point to point to point hubs 48) and point to multipoint 34 communication link is about 5 km (3 mi) or less and may be shortened by adding intervening point to point 32 or point to multipoint 34 communications links as capacity or future growth requires. Hereinafter and in the claims point to point to point will be referred to collectively as point to point hubs since a point to point to point hub is merely a point to point hub which splits a communications signal. A comparison of FIG. 16A and 16B illustrates that with a given transmission power and antenna aperture a decrease in the distance from 5 km to 1 km increases the data bit rate and hence decreases BER under all weather conditions along the novel backbone. The RF communications signal along the novel backbone is preferably in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz to provide a high capacity communications link with the ability of providing about 0.2 to 600 Terabits per second capacity. With future expansion succeeding links reduce the distance between the hubs and reduce Bit Error Rate (BER) . This expansion by adding additional point to multipoint hubs and point to point hubs serve to increase the capacity of the novel backbone. The RF submillimeter wave communications link between the point to multipoint hub 50 through antenna 54 (FIG. 3) is preferably a narrow RF communications beam that is about 1 degree or less in width to provide a highly focused beam so that the distance between the source S (FIG. 3) and the building or antenna may be up to a distance of about 5 km (3 miles) . Links between two cities having high data capacity requirements such as Washington, D.C. and Baltimore may be accomplished by including one or more repeater towers which may be disposed on elevated platforms or mountains instead of buildings or use existing optical fiber cable or through one or more gateways that connect the two communications systems through suburban links. The telecommunications links along backbone 30 may include internet broadcast television or cable services, telephone, video telephone, video conferencing or other multimedia or internet telecommunications services that are converted into digital signals which are carried at Terabits of data per second along backbone 30.

The RF submillimeter wave transmission received by antenna 54 are processed through an ADD-DROP multiplexer 56 which divides the high density bidirectional digital data signals into digital data signals addressed to a different point to point hubs in the backbone through antenna 58 along backbone 30. Other bidirectional digital data signals addressed to point to multipoint hub 50 can be processed and converted into signals compatible with existing infrastructure and transmitted to suburban and rural areas through a connecting line 60 to an existing link 62 (FIG. 3) which may be either a coaxial cable, copper cable, fiberoptic cable for delivering telecommunications services to an existing rural community 64. The ADD-DROP multiplexer 56 may also take a portion of the digital data signals and retransmit those digital data signals through antenna 58 to another communications hub which could be in the form of a satellite 55 (FIG. 4), high altitude platform 57 which may be an aircraft of any type or category as classified by the FAA whether manned or unmanned or a link to a foreign telecommunications center (not shown) . Another portion of the high density digital data signals addressed to another point to multipoint hub 50 are sent via connecting line 66 to an antenna 68 which may be a prior art sectored antenna for transmission through bidirectional digital data links 70, 72, 74 and 76 with different frequency bands assigned to each node similar to the prior art as illustrated in FIG. 5A using existing infrastructure. The preferred embodiment of the invention does not utilize the prior art sectored antenna array but instead employs a novel faceted spherical multibeam antenna (FIG. 25) or a novel toroidal phased array antenna (FIGs. 7 and 24) such as novel toroidal phased array antenna 68 which provides an omni-beam utilizing Bidirectional Code Divisional Multiple Access (BCDMA) as illustrated in FIG. 5. Preferably the antenna 68 is a phased array antenna as is illustrated in FIGs. 7, 24 or 25 in accordance with the best mode of the invention as will be described hereinafter in greater detail.

Bidirectional data links 70, 72, 74 and 76 may be different frequencies when prior art point to multipoint access antennas are utilized or may be all of the same frequency when the novel point to multipoint omnibeam with BCDMA access is utilized. In either embodiment of the invention each link 70, 72, 74 and 76 connects with an antenna 78 to connect a local customer 80 to the backbone

30. The local customer 80 may have a local area network LAN which may include a plurality of computers 82 requiring high speed data high capacity connections.

Referring now to FIGs. 2-4 a communications network in accordance with the invention is illustrated where network control center 36 includes an antenna 42 for communicating signals in the range of about 75 to 1,000 and preferably about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz range through backbone 30 in point to point 32 or point to multipoint 34 communications links which may include point to point hubs 46, point to point to point hubs 48 or point to multipoint hubs 50. These point to point, point to point to point and point to multipoint communications hubs are bidirectionally linked to the network control center 36. Some of the point to point communications hubs also include point to multipoint hubs 50 which, like the point to point to point hubs 48, include ADD-DROP multiplexers 56 for dividing and routing high density digital data signals from network control center 36. The ADD-DROP multiplexers ensure the entire digital data throughput does not have to travel through the entire system and as a result delivers the needed data where and when needed to the point to multipoint hubs 48 and to customers 80. The links between the point to multipoint hubs 50 to customers 80 may be further divided from customers 80 into local area nodes as illustrated in FIG. 4. These local area nodes can utilize the same frequency or different frequencies in the communications network so that compatibility with existing systems may be maintained. For example, in FIG. 4 the communications links 84 may be in the lower Gigahertz frequencies to connect with existing cell phone communications systems . Preferably however communications links 84 are in the extremely high frequency range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz to allow antennas 86 to be of an extremely small and compact design to allow them to be placed on lightpoles 88.

Within each business office 90 extremely high frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz may be utilized for providing communications services within each building. In such cases frequencies such as 556 Gigahertz that exhibit high attenuated by moisture and atmospheric conditions may be utilized in air-conditioned and controlled atmospheres within a high data capacity building 90 so that extremely small patch antennas 92 and preferably a novel base station phased array antenna 71 (FIG. 26) of about 0.04 to 1 inches or (0.1 to 2.54 centimeters) in size can be used for communications. Wireless internet connections can be made within a community center, hotel or apartment 94 or conference center 98 to allow each conference participant 100 wireless internet access through patch antenna 92 to backbone 30. Small prior art patch antennas can be polarized patch antennas and can be obtained from the Ferro Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio.

Referring now to FIGs. 5 and 5A the invention may be implemented utilizing prior art point to multipoint antennas 110 using sectored arrays which divide cells into multiple sectors as illustrated in FIG. 5A. As illustrated in FIG. 5A the division of frequencies between FI - F4 are divided around 180 degrees with the frequencies FI through F4 being utilized on opposite sides of the cell. In this application of the invention the prior art antennas are utilized to connect prior art systems to the point to multipoint hub 50 which is connected to novel backbone 30.

The prior art antennas and point to multiple point access method of the prior art as illustrated in FIG. 5A can be used to integrate existing prior art systems to the novel backbone 30 to utilize existing RF infrastructure but is not the preferred application in accordance with the best mode of the invention. The utilization of prior art antennas and access methods require the use of cumbersome telecommunications systems using large antennas which include all of the disadvantages of the prior art which include capacity limitations and the necessity of mechanical repositioning antennas to maintain communications links due to wind, shifting of service requirements and limited cell capacity. Such systems however may be in use in rural areas and due to low demand can be integrated as a communications node connected to the novel system and backbone 30 of the invention.

Generally it is preferred to utilize the novel point to multipoint system and novel point to multipoint antennas with electronically steerable beams which include the spherical multibeam antenna (FIG. 25) and novel toroidal phased array antennas (FIG. 7 and 24) of the best mode of the invention as illustrated in FIGs. 5, 7, 8, 24, 24A, 24B, 24C, 25 and 25A. The novel point to multipoint system and method of the invention utilizes an omnidirectional beam with BCDMA (Bidirectional Code Division Multiple Access) which eliminates frequency planning and sectorization to provide high speed and high data rate communications services . The narrow beam provided by the novel point to multipoint antennas with electronically steerable beam antennas provide a beam width of one degree or less which focuses the beam and directs the narrow focused beam of less than 1 degree to each customer terminal so that interference inherent in code division multiple access arrangements are minimized. Problems with nearly co-linear terminals 120 and sharing the same narrow beam 124 from novel toroidal antenna 68 as illustrated in FIG. 5 is accommodated by utilizing a processing gain of less than one to prevent mutual interference in communications.

In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention point to multipoint antenna have an aperture of less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) to provide narrow beam of less than one degree so that with a power of about 1 mW to 100 mW (Milliwatt) each narrow beam has a range of about 0.5 to 3 km. In the best mode of the invention novel point to multipoint antennas are utilized with electronically steerable beams such as toroidal phased antenna 68 as illustrated in FIGs. 7 and 8, toroidal lens and holographic phased array antenna 69 as illustrated in FIGs. 24, 24A, 24B and 24C and faceted spherical shaped antenna 71 as illustrated in Figs. 25 and 25A.

In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention the point to point antenna have an aperture of about 10 cm to 1 meter to provide a beam of about 0.05 to 0.5 degrees wide so that with a power of 0.1 Watt/Gigahertz to 1 Watt/Gigahertz each beam has a range of about 1 km to 5 km (0.6 to 3 mi). Antennas that may be utilized at each point to point hub include parabolic antennas with a modified feeder to accommodate the high frequency links in the novel backbone can be obtained from Gabrill Electronics, Inc. of Scarborough, Me. under model nos. HE1-380B.

The novel communications system and method of the invention may employ one or more gateways 130 which may be connected by a fiberoptic link 132 to interface existing high capacity systems through a network control center 36 to novel backbone 30. The processor based communications system of the invention makes corrections for the various communications links 32 and 34 along backbone 30 to accommodate traffic and adverse weather conditions and manages faults in the form of increased Bit Error Rate (BER) in^* the system by locating, detecting and making corrections to maintain a minimum (QoS) quality of service as will be described hereinafter in greater detail. The performance management performed by processor 38 includes quality of service management, graphic optimization and security management for the entire system. The novel communication system and method of the best mode of the invention employs submillimeter waves in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz to transmit digital data signals in the range of about 0.2 to 600 Terabits per second over backbone 30 and point to point 32 and point to multipoint 34 communications links while the QoS throughout the entire novel system is monitored and controlled by processor 38. The backbone 30 and communication nodes are monitored and controlled by processor 38 to maintain an acceptable QoS during all phases of operation and under all traffic conditions and weather conditions by maintaining an acceptable Bit Error Rate (BER) . The BER is correlated to weather and climatic conditions of a particular area and BER is adaptively controlled by processor 38 in relation to traffic demand and climatic conditions by changing FEC (Forward Error Correction) and modulation in relation to use as will be described hereinafter in greater detail.

Referring now to FIG. 14, 14A, 15 and 16 the maximum data rate for the novel system and method is compared with the percentage of time the maximum data rate is available at a particular region as illustrated in FIG. 15. This data is utilized by processor 38 for a particular region in the form of FEC spectrum efficiency for various regions of the world as illustrated in FIG. 16 to provide processor 38 with information as to maximum data rates in relation to FEC spectrum efficiency. The climatic conditions for various regions of the world are classified between regions A-H, J-N and P-Q which represent typical climatic conditions of the various regions of the World as illustrated in FIG. 14A as categorized by the ITU. These various regions are distributed between dry desert type regions represented by regions A and B to tropical and subtropical regions N, P and Q as illustrated in FIG. 14A. Regions D-G and K-N are taken as representative examples of regions where the maximum data rate (FIG. 15) and FEC spectrum efficiency (FIG. 16) are compared based upon the percentage of time a high data rate such as 300 Gigabits per second for a particular system can be achieved utilizing a frequency of 340 Gigahertz. As will be recognized from FIGs. 14, 14A, 15 and 16 data rates of about 250 Gigabits per second is available 99.999% of the time even in the worst region, region N as illustrated in FIG. 15. The data rate in even the worst region N .of 250 Gigabits per second for this system can easily be increased to 0.5 Terabits per second utilizing dual polarization as will be discussed hereinafter in greater detail. In most cases the maximum data rate for regions D, E, F, G and K approach 300 Gigabits per second without polarization utilizing a frequency of only 340 Gigahertz. In accordance with the invention the drop in data rate due to an increase in Bit Error Rate to maintain service in an acceptable QoS level may be achieved by a variety of means dependent upon various transmission architecture. In cases where climatic conditions are not the primary reason for a drop in Bit Error Rate the search for the best combination of modulation, FEC coding (Forward Error Correction Coding) and BER (Bit Error Rate) threshold can be achieved by a table, an objective function (e.g. weighted function of time, delay + throughput + BER with the constraint that BER does not exceed a certain limit, a calculated numerical optimization scheme, or a hybrid table lookup/optimization procedure or by a neural network technique utilizing processor 38 based on actual experience with a particular region.

The estimation of the Signal to Noise ratio (S/N) is based upon two criteria, one of which is the averaged raw BER or BERQ and the other is the averaged BER after FEC correction or BER]_.. Either BER₀ or BERj_. alone or together provides signal to noise ratio information for determining the combination of modulation and FEC coding to maintain a particular BER QoS. For example, where BER₀ and BERx are used together to estimate the S/N (Signal to Noise) ratio this ratio is then used to determine the modulation to FEC ratio to estimate BER. If BER agrees with BERj_. they are consistent and can be used to determine the best modulation to FEC ratio. If they are not consistent then the average of the signal to noise ratio estimated from BER₀ and the S/N predicted from BER₀ is used instead. From the data rate and total requested reservation bandwidth the near term data rate can be predicted using linear regression or neural network techniques and the predicted traffic demand can be sent to the receiver end for rate adjustment. Where maximum bit rate is reduced during periods of heavy rain, maximum bit rate is reduced to maintain an acceptable BER to maintain a particular QoS. The QoS requirements are achieved by maximum bit rate reduction through change in the modulation level such as, for example, changing the most efficient QAM rate of 1,024 - QAM to a less efficient but more robust 16 - QAM (Quadrature Amplification Modulation) and/or through the change of the more efficient forward error code rate, from a 0.9 code rate to, for example, a 0.1 code rate. Bit Error Rate may also be reduced by providing alternative transmission paths in the point to point 32 and point to multipoint 34 transmissions links in backbone 30 as will be discussed with reference to FIGs. 2, 6 and 14. Each bidirectional communications link in backbone 30 from point to point 32 and point to multipoint 34 communications are monitored in relation to its particular BER based upon traffic density, distance, weather conditions and factors that affect the BER for that link or node. If, for example, a particular high BER exists between point to multipoint 34 communications link between PMP5 and PMP4 due to a heavy localized weather condition at area 140, the adaptive rate control for fade mitigation can maintain a particular QoS by reshaping traffic control to PMP4 by routing traffic through PMP1 to PMP2 to PMP3 and then to PMP4 without interrupting service to PMP5 and P-P6.

In the event traffic conditions do not allow a rerouting of traffic to PMP4 due to actual and anticipated demand then modulation and FEC threshold can be changed at PMP5 for the point to multipoint link 34 between PMP4 and PMP5 by processor 38 as illustrated by box 142 in FIG. 6. The new best modulation and FEC would then be compared by processor in logic loop 144 back to the running averages of BER₀ and BER₂ in box 146 to determine if BER₂ is greater than threshold in box 148 with an estimate made as to signal to noise ratio for BER₂ in box 150. Since the best modulation/FEC/threshold could not be utilized box 152 makes a determination as to whether BER₂ is so low in view of current traffic demands that certain low priority traffic such as E-mail needs to be stored in memory and sent later. If so, a signal is sent to prioritize traffic at box 154 which signal is sent through logic loop 156 to the corresponding logic circuitry in the transmitter side of the transceiver at box 158 to change the modulation/FEC level at the transmitter. Since the capacity of the high capacity method and system of the invention does not reach zero data can always be transmitted allowing the end customer to prioritize transmissions for example, A priority telephone, B priority internet, C priority television, D priority E- mail, etc.

In some situations extremely adverse weather and atmospheric conditions can occur directly over a point to point hub 48 or a point to multipoint hub 50 such as hub 13 in FIG. 14. For example, if the link between network control center 36 to point to multipoint hub 13 demonstrates a particularly high Bit Error Rate due to climatic conditions of a heavy rain cell over point to multipoint hub 13 transmission may be directed from network control center 36 to PMP hub 10 to PP hub 11 to PP hub 12 to PMP 13 or both routes may be utilized simultaneously with modulation and FEC to maintain a particular QoS. Due to the extremely high capacity of the novel method and system of the invention and due to the generally localized nature of severely adverse weather conditions it is rare that data would need to be prioritized. However, during the few times in the year that severe weather and atmospheric conditions are directly over a hub and severely impact upon the enormous data capacity of the system of the invention digital data can be prioritized. In such unusual conditions of less than 0.1 percent of the year or about 8 hours in a year when conditions are extremely bad the volume of data transmitted can be decreased to reduce BER to an acceptable level by prioritizing signals between network control center 36 and point to point hub 13. Prioritizing data transmissions can be implemented by first removing all data transmissions that involve e-mail and other low speed communications that do not require instantaneous bidirectional response. In addition various types of traffic control in the backbone between PP hub 12 and PP hub 14 can be removed by ADD-DROP multiplexer 56, such as television broadcast, cable television and other data transmissions to either store, delay or make such transmissions unavailable during a period of extreme weather and atmospheric conditions which results in extremely high Bit Error Rates . Further when a particular data transmission, i.e. television, is not being utilized, it can be temporarily removed from service and prioritized based upon systems that are in actual use at point to point hub 13. Bit Error Rate may also be reduced during periods of light traffic to minimize Bit Error Rates for virtual error free transmission. As a result the probability of traffic congestion is minimized through traffic control utilizing the ADD-DROP multiplexers and the adaptive rate control of the invention. Further, traffic control or a traffic back off request may force reprioritization of traffic flows in the operation in PMP hub 13. As a result the best combination of modulation, FEC coding and BER threshold is defined by the maximization of an objective function in relation to capacity and actual use and^' demand. This objective function is the predetermined weight average of BER transmission delay and transmission throughput based on a numerical priority weight factor for each type of data within the traffic flow, for example, traffic delay tolerant traffic such as e-mail may have a low weight factor for time delay such that e-mail may be sent during non-peak data transmission periods or periods where climatic conditions improve. The advantages of the adaptive rate control of the invention include the extremely high availability and high average throughput of the novel system. A minimum throughput of about 100 Megabits per second to 1 Gigabits per second is maintained even during the worst fade conditions without the need of a low speed backup link. Further the utilization of the objective function ratio guarantees a performance level during high traffic periods and provides an almost error free performance under low traffic conditions. Heavy rains are extremely bursty and, as a result, fast adaptive rate control takes advantage of the momentary low fade periods as temporal windows to speed up data delivery. This provides time diversity without the need to use long FEC codes. Further even in heavy rain conditions traffic prioritization ensures that higher priority services receive prompt delivery. The novel system is easily integrated with all local QoS (Quality of Service) protocols which is ATM QoS, IEE802.1 t/q RSVP (Reservation Protocol) standards. In addition the novel system can be arranged in a number of configurations to provide a spatial diversity redundant mesh or ring-type network as has heretofore been described.

Referring to FIGs. 3, 9 and 10 each antenna 54, 58 and 68 includes a transmitter portion (FIG. 9) and a receiver portion (FIG. 10) associated with the antenna for transmitting and receiving submillimeter microwave signals. The transmitter portion and receiver portions are preferably integrated into a single transceiver having both the transmitter front end (FIG. 9) and the receiver front end (FIG. 10) combined. For purposes of illustration the transmitter front end is illustrated connected to antenna 54 and includes a transmitting and receiving duplexer 180 and RF bypass filter 182 and a high pass amplifier 184. The receiver front end includes the same components except directs the received signals through a low-noise amplifier

186. A mixer 188 with an associated local oscillator 190 is connected to an intermediate frequency bandpass filter 192 which is connected to an intermediate frequency amplifier 194. The transmitter front end and receiver front ends of the radio or the transceiver portion of the radio further includes a quadrature processing module 196 having mixers 198 and 200, a local oscillator 202 together with lowpass filters 204 and 206 together with low frequency amplifiers 208 and 210 together with a digital to analog converter 212 and 214 and an analog to digital converter 216 and 218 for the quadrature processing module in the receiver portion of the radio. The components of both the transmitter and receiver portions of the radio or the transceiver radio are preferably created by utilizing Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuits (MMIC) using MMIC technology although other circuitry can be utilized such as discrete or hybrid (MIC) (Microwave Integrated Circuits) . The transceiver radios are disposed at each point to point and point to multipoint hub in the novel backbone. ADD-DROP multiplexers are utilized at regenerative point to point hubs along the novel backbone to allow only a portion of the throughput signal to be delivered other point to point hubs and at point to multipoint hubs to divide data signals for subsequent delivery to individual customers as illustrated in FIG. 3.

Referring now to FIGs. 3, 7 and 8 a novel point to multipoint toroidal phased array antenna 63 is illustrated having a plurality or phased feed horns 220 arranged around the circumference of novel antenna. The top and bottom of the novel toroidal phased array antenna 68 provides a 360 degree base which tapers to provide a parabolic reflector surface 222 that forms a reflector surface to collimate radiation vertically which together with the feed horns 220 forms multiple narrow beams 236 of one degree or less as heretofore described. These narrow beams may be transmitted and received on the same frequency due to the narrowness of the beam or the beams may be transmitted on one frequency and received on another frequency. The collimated beams 224 formed by the combination of feed horn 220 and the reflector surface 222 of antenna 68 are directed from the point to multipoint hub 48 to the individual customers 80 as illustrated in FIG. 2.

The feed horns 220 are supported on a support plate 226 and are connected to a transceiver or radio at the point to multipoint hub in the backbone through a beam forming/power divider network 228 by a fiber feed or wave guide 230. Feed horns 220 preferably include adjustment means 240 for adjusting the phased feed horn 220 at a particular angular position in relation to the parabolic surface 222 of the novel antenna 68 so that additional narrow beams can be added such as beam 261 in FIG. 2, where a new customer 263 is added to the network.

The toroidal multibeam antenna includes a paraboloidal reflector surface 222 and at least one phased feeder horn 220. A plurality of feeder horns 220 may be arranged around the circumference of the parabolic reflecting surface. The radial locations of the phased feeder horns 220 are on the focal cylinder of the reflector. This is so that the submillimeter wave radiating from the feeder horn will be reflected from the reflector surface 222 to form approximately a plane wave. Nominally the feeder horns 220 are also on the median plane, but by moving the feeder horn slightly above or below the median plane, slight up-tilting or down-tilting effect can be achieved. Thereafter adjustment of the beam 224 is achieved electronically by changing the phase relationship of the power supply to feeder horns 220.

Referring now to FIGs. 7, 8, 20, 20A, 21 and 21A the novel toroidal phased array antenna is illustrated with its beam steering attributes which can be achieved without mechanically moving the novel antenna 68. In order to project a single beam 242, the algorithm in FIG. 22 can be used. First, a direction is chosen such as East in FIG. 20, and a hypothetical plane wave propagating along that direction is superimposed. In order for the antenna to radiate a beam predominantly in the easterly direction, the phases of the feed horn and, in particular, feed horn 1 in FIG. 20 must be exactly the same as those of the hypothetical plane wave 244 at the location of the feed horn 1 in FIG. 20. It can be readily seen that at any other direction, not all the feed horns 220 are exactly in phase with the corresponding hypothetical plane wave 244. Thus it follows that the coupling of the feed horns 220 is the strongest with respect to the originally chosen hypothetical plane wave, thus the antenna will predominantly radiate along that particular direction. In receiving instead of transmitting, the same relative phase shifts among the feed horns 220 are also maintained. This causes the feed horns 220 to be in "resonance" with the incoming beam most strongly if the beam is propagating in the chosen direction. In effect, this is the so-called "reciprocity" principal.

The phase of the feed horn NI is in phase as illustrated in FIG. 20A with hypothetical plane wave 244 resulting in the propagation of the beam 242 in an easterly direction. A change in the phase of the feed horn 1 as illustrated in FIG. 21A results in the propagation of shifted plane wave 246 resulting in the steering of single beam 242 as a resultant beam 248 which has been steered in a northeasterly direction.

If it is desirable to project (or to receive) multiple beams, the algorithm can be generalized to include multiple hypothetical plane waves as is illustrated in FIG. 23. Again the net phase of each feed horn 220 is determined by the vector superposition of all the complex amplitudes of the hypothetical plane waves. Since there are only N elements, no more than N beams can be projected (or received) by the antenna since there are only N complex degrees of freedom, hence it cannot support more than N beams. In practice, it is desirable to project (or receive) fewer than N beams to minimize mutual interference. Note that the algorithm does not minimize mutual interference among beams . A much more complex adaptive technique can be used to minimize mutual interference with some slight sacrifice in antenna efficiency for each beam. However, such technique requires "training" and its complexity requires very high digital computational power of a computer to execute based on neural network techniques. The adaptive approach allows N beams to be used without significant increase in the mutual interference level.

Another way to provide for beam steering utilizing the novel antennas of the invention is to use multiple feed horns in each azimuthal location of which the vertical or x- azimuthal locations are illustrated by feed horn bank 249 in FIG. 24B. For example, the feed horn can be arranged vertically or horizontally with equal space between them. This introduces more degrees of freedom that can be used to project (or receive) beams that tilt up or down. Again the hypothetical plane wave approach can be used to compute the phase differences required to project (or receive) such beams. And again, adaptive approach can also be used for such purpose using neural network techniques. However, the degree of complexity for such adaptive algorithm is even much higher. A version of this algorithm can be obtained from ArrayComm, Inc. of San Jose, California.

The degree of up-tilt or down-tilt or axial travel needed is slight because the physical distances between buildings are usually much larger than the height differences between buildings. The radial travel however is dependent upon the location of the customer and which angular radial travel may be accommodated by a bank of feed horns in the horizontal or y-azimuthal locations similar to the feed horn bank 249 in FIG. 24B. A bank of feed horns ■ can be used as each feed horn is related to the wavelength utilized and therefore is generally of a submillimeter length. In the preferred application and best mode of the invention a single phased feed horn 220 is preferred along with the electronic steering of the beams as heretofore described.

The novel toroidal antenna with phased feeder horns can be constructed in a variety of configurations such as novel toroidal lens and holographic phase array antenna 69 as illustrated in FIG. 24, 24A, 24B, and 24C. The toroidal lens body 251 in this embodiment of the invention circumscribes the phased feeder horns 220 which provides a convex inner lens surface 251 and a convex outer lens surface 255 for collimating beams 257 through one of the feeder horns 220. Toroidal lens body 251 is composed of a material having a low loss tangent and a high index of refraction and is preferably made of silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, boron aluminate, spinel, magnesium oxide alumine or Duroid® (expoxy glass 5650) or other plastic or glass materials.

The outside surface 255 may include a horizontal holographic fringe pattern 265 (FIG. 24C) made from a holographic plate with a metallization holographic fringe pattern 265 or can be made by photoetching of a printed circuit board with Duroid® substrate. For chip-scale (of the order of 2 mm x 2 mm to 12 mm x 12 mm in size) the holographic pattern can be made using silicon wafer and photolithographic technique. The technique is common to those used in semiconductor industry to fabricate microchips. So it can be mass-produced at low cost using fully automated chip fabrication equipment .

The novel point to multipoint antennas with the phased array of feeder horns 220 may be utilized in outside point to multipoint hubs 50 in novel backbone 30 as well as inside of buildings to serve as point to multipoint antennas. The novel point to multipoint antennas with the phased array of feeder horns 220 can also be constructed of geometrical shapes other than cylindrical or toroidal. For example, in FIGs. 25 and 25A a point to multipoint faceted spherical shaped antenna 71 is illustrated.

The faceted spherical shaped antenna includes a plurality of facets 270 through which collimated beams 271 are transmitted and received by each of the facets. The collimated beams 271 are transmitted and received by phased array feed horns 220 which can be mounted on a base 272 which also carries a micro-mirror array 273 which reflects collimated beams 271 through one of the facets 270. Each micro-mirror array 274 is designed to collimate beams 271 through one of the facets 270 of the novel point to multipoint faceted spherical shaped antenna 71. The novel point to multipoint faceted spherical shaped antenna 71 as well as the novel toroidal shaped antennas 69 and 68 may include non line-of-sight multipath finding protocol for mobile links as will be described hereinafter in greater detail.

The ability to individually project a single narrow beam to a customer essentially allows a single frequency to be reused over and over again. There are exceptions, of course. If two customers are co-linear or almost so, then two beams cannot possibly be projected to both customers without mutually interfering with each other. In this case the processing gain of the CDMA is increased to 3 or more for both customers so as to reduce the effect of mutual interference. The first channel can be checked. If there is no additional channel then in this case this reduces the peak data rate available to each user by roughly a factor of 3. The higher the processing gain, the stronger the immunity of the CDMA signals to interfering noise. The increase in processing gain is achieved by reducing the information rate relative to the "chip" rate. Hence if a beam is relatively interference free, then the processing gain should be set to 1 to maximize peak data rate. It should also be noted that when the processing gain is greater than 1, only QPSK (Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying) or BPSK (Binary Phase-Shift Keying) modulation is possible, further limiting the peak data rate. But when the processing gain is 1, meaning there is basically no spectrum spreading, then higher level modulation schemes such as 16- QAM or 256-QAM can be used to further increase the peak data rate. Higher level modulation, however, increases the signal-to-noise threshold, hence there is an upper limit as to how high a modulation level can be realized without a drastic increase in the BER (Bit-Error-Rate) .

As has heretofore been discussed the novel point to multipoint antenna can be used inside or outside and can be constructed in various geometrical configurations to project narrow beams utilizing the small phased feeder horns 220. The phased feeder horns can provide electronic beam steering capabilities by utilizing multiple phased array feeder horns arranged vertically or horizontally to steer the beam not just in the horizontal plane, but also in the vertical plane. Preferably however the narrow collimated beams are steered electronically utilizing the digital beam formers in combination with the novel point to multipoint antennas employing the phased array feeder horns utilizing the algorithms in FIG. 22 and 23.

The novel system and the method of the invention provides for the use of submillimeter microwave communications to provide data transfers in the 0.2 to 300 Terabit range. This capacity can be augmented by the utilization of various prior art systems, such as TDMA (Time Divisional Multiple Access), FDMA (Frequency Divisional Multiple Access) , as well as dual polarization techniques as is illustrated in FIG. 11. Referring now to FIG. 11 dual polarization can be used to double the capacity of the novel high speed high capacity system of the invention. In providing for an adaptive cross-polarization interference (adaptive XPI) cancellation RF signals are polarized into their polarized X-axes signals 250 and their polarized Y- axes signals 252. The propagation of polarized signals 250 and 252 result in propagation errors in the X-axes as represented by final vector signal 254 and Y final Y-vector signal 256. These propagation errors are corrected by a Complex Adaptive Linear Combining (CALC) device 258 to provide a corrected signal having a polarized X-axis 260 and a polarized Y-axis 262 which correspond to the original polarized X- axis signal 250 and polarized Y-axis signal 252.

Referring now to FIGs. 4, 12 and 13, an application of the invention to mobile service including high speed rail service is illustrated. In FIG. 4 RF signals received from a point to multipoint hub 48 (FIG. 2) may be converted in RF signals compatible with local FCC or ITU licensed frequencies or in the best mode of the invention are submillimeter signals for delivering high speed high capacity telecommunications services to mobile units. In either embodiment of the invention the point to multipoint links are maintained utilizing a structure such as a utility pole 280 (FIG. 12) or a light pole 88 for communicating with mobile users such as a pedestrian 282, a bus 284, an automobile 286 or a train 290 together with a multipath finding protocol as will be described hereinafter in greater detail. Frequencies in the range of 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz are preferred since the antennas 86 utilized for such frequencies would be small and unobtrusive and would not have to be the larger and more cumbersome antennas required for RF frequencies of less than 16 Gigahertz.

Utility structures in the nature of utility poles 280 and lamp posts 88 are spaced evenly at distances of less than 500 meters. With distances of less than 500 meters each of the receiving antennas on vehicles 284, 286 and 290 could use very small antennas having low antenna gain such as a 4 dB almost omnidirectional antenna 292 located on vehicles 284, 286 and 290. These small almost omnidirectional antennas 292 are used where the base station antennas 294 have a relatively high gain of greater than 35 dB so that Megabit data rate transmissions can be attained with about 1 Megahertz of bandwidth and low RF power of less than about 1 Milliwatt. This arrangement provides not only mobile communications for vehicles 284, 286 and 290 but also allow mobile communications for pedestrians 282 (FIG. 3) for outdoor in transit communications.

As a pedestrian 282 or vehicles 284, 286 and 290 move from one area to another during communication the NCC (Network Control Center) assists the handoff by switching the user to the base station with a stronger signal. If the user moves out of the zone controlled by the original local NCC then the original LNCC (Local Network Control Center) will inform the new local network control center to register the mobile user as a "visitor" and a new "care of IP address" will be assigned. Any messages addressed to the original home IP address will then be automatically forwarded to the care of the new IP address. Alternatively, if the user moves from one zone to another, while the user terminal is inactive, the user terminal will automatically re-register itself upon reactivation. Upon registration a "care of IP address" will be assigned to the user terminal by the foreign LNCC as has previously been described. Within each zone the local NCC monitors all radio and gateway resources and performs traffic flow control, traffic shaping and route optimization on a continuous basis.

The primary difference between mobile applications involving pedestrians 282 and vehicles 284 and 294 in cities as compared to railroads is that cities are traditionally laid out with fairly straight streets. Such areas can be covered by providing a straight line-of-sight coverage to accommodate users at various locations in the city. Where city streets are not straight, repeaters can be utilized to cover dead spots or the beam width can be constructed in such a manner as to cover areas that otherwise would be outside of a narrow focused beam. In such cases where a known curvature of a road or track would be outside of a narrow beam the width of the beam is increased to be wide enough to accommodate the curvature of the road or track as is illustrated in FIG. 13. At each location the width of the beam is fixed to be just wide enough in order to accommodate the curvature of the track. Antenna at the train will remain in the main beam of at least one of the nearest trackside antennas.

High gain antennas at both nearest to the train antenna poles will provide continuous high bit rate service. Same antennas are used for wireless connection between poles (shown is mainlobe to mainlobe coupling between antennas on the poles and the train antenna) .

The same setup can also work for cars except that the beam width needs to be dynamically adjusted to accommodate the curvature of the road. As will be recognized rain and moisture attenuation inside vehicles 284, 286 and 290 as well as in buildings 136 and 138 do not present a problem. In such circumstances antenna 150 can be placed inside buildings 138 or vehicles 284, 286 and 290 using extremely high frequency links utilizing LOS (Line-Of-Sight communication) between any two communication nodes .

The physical separation between nodes in indoor use is generally less than 10 to 20 meters and at such distances a sufficient node margin is available to support even multi megabit bit rates when both the terminal antenna and base station antenna are omnidirectional or near omnidirectional. At extremely high frequencies the typical size of a low gain antenna is less than a millimeter. Base station transceivers for outdoor use such as would be available on light poles 88 need to communicate with one another using directional antennas of a slightly larger size, for example a 1.5 centimeter antenna on lamp pole 88 can provide more than 60 megabits per second at distances of 50 meters apart between the two base stations with just ten Megahertz of bandwidth.

For lower bit rate terminal devices and when greater mobility is required or when there is a need to circumvent the LOS (Line-Of-Sight requirement) a frequency and protocol conversion to Blue Tooth, home RF or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) can be utilized. These technologies utilize the unlicenced spectrum of 2.5 Gigahertz to allow effective non-LOS communications speeds from about 500 Kilobits per second to 10 Megabits per second and can be incorporated as a prior art communications node into one or more of the point to multipoint links connected to the novel backbone of the invention. In the preferred embodiment of the invention mobile high capacity communications nodes utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 and preferably about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz are utilized in both stationary and mobile applications to provide a high capacity data link. In stationary applications line-of-sight links are maintained between each point to multipoint antennas and the antenna associated with the communications device such as video telephone, video conferencing device, high definition TV, computer, etc.

In mobile applications conventional prior art mobile communications utilizing omnidirectional antennas for mobile units utilizing frequencies in the 1-2 Gigahertz range can be linked to the novel high capacity backbone as a communications node as has heretofore been discussed. It will be recognized that frequencies in the 1-2 Gigahertz range benefit from insignificant rain and atmospheric attenuation and a much more pronounced diffraction effect that tends to disperse the signal better for high accessibility. The lower frequencies also provide for better penetration through non conducting walls and ceilings. While conventional prior art mobile communications nodes can be linked to the novel backbone through one or more gateways 52 (FIG. 2) submillimeter and millimeter wave frequencies in the range of about 27 to 1,000 Gigahertz can be utilized in novel mobile communications nodes linked to the novel high capacity backbone of the invention in spite of the common belief that mobile communications are not possible with millimeter and submillimeter wave frequencies.

Mobile communications using millimeter and submillimeter frequencies are linked in accordance with the best mode of the invention to the novel high capacity backbone. At submillimeter wave frequencies even a small antenna can have a very high antenna gain. For example, at 275 Gigahertz a 2.54 cm (1 inch) antenna has a gain of 34 dBi and a 10.16 cm (4 inch) antenna a gain of 35 dBi. The extremely high antenna gain achievable at submillimeter frequencies more than compensates for higher rain and atmospheric attenuation to allow very low power operation of less than 10 mW RF power for a mobile unit. In addition steerable phased array antenna with digital beam forming as heretofore described provides mobility for the high gain antennas.

In addition multipath finding protocol facilitates non line-of-sight communications as illustrated in FIG. 26. A novel faceted spherical shaped antenna 71 is provided at a point to multipoint link or base station 275. The point to multipoint faceted spherical shaped antenna 71 uses multiple scanned beams 276, 277 to search for a mobile communications device such as handset 278. Handset 278 determines the strongest signal which may be either or both be reflected signals such as reflected signal 279 of signal 277 or reflected signal 280 of signal 276. Once the strongest signal such as signal 280 has been determined the handset 278 sends a response signal in the exact opposite direction to base station 275. The base station 275 determines the dominant angle of arrival of the response signal beam and sends an acknowledgment signal back along the best path of signal' signal. This iterative process is repeated until the estimated dominant angle of arrival for both base station 275 and handset 278 converge.

Base station 275 communicates with handset 278 using the best converge beam direction. The base station 275 continuously scans other directions to allow for movement of the handset 278 or other mobile unit. Base station 275 at the same time scans other directions for other powered mobile units. The rate of scanning by base station 275 in a particular direction is determined by both a historical hit rate as well as the most recent communications links. Historical data are used to prevent base station 275 from wasting time in searching in unlikely directions while recent status is used to track, a mobile unit throughout a city or a building with necessary hand- offs to other base stations as needed. The historical hit probability as well as recent status data is constantly updated. The rate of scanning in any particular direction could range from about 1,000 times per second to as low as 1 time per second with the slowest rate of scanning used for historically highly unlikely directions.

Mobile antenna disposed in handset 278 novel personal computer (PCC) 300 (FIG. 19) or other mobile communication devices is preferably a 3D micro-patch phased array antenna 91 as illustrated in FIG. 27. Micro-patch phased array antenna 91 in the preferred embodiment of the invention is constructed of 4 planar modules 290 and each planar module includes 16 metal patches 291 with each metal patch having a pair of leads 292 terminating in a pair of pins 297 which connect to an interface 293 containing 128 pins which connect to a transceiver with a digital beam steering device as heretofore described which allows steering of beams. The 3-dimensional form of the novel 3D micro-patch phased antenna array as a result of its configuration does not require a "pointing" of the antenna in any particular direction since antenna 91 receives beams in any direction with equal proficiency.

Micro-patch phased array antenna 91 in the form of a cube which is about 2 cm by 2 cm and can be as small as 2 5. mm by 2 mm provides extremely high power and capacity of about 300 Megabits per second of digital data. The small dielectric patches 291 on each planar module 290 includes a metal patch 294 and 295 having a dielectric material 296 disposed between metal patches 294 and 295. The small 0 dielectric patches 291 transmit and receive high frequency radio waves in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz. Based on the assumption that only one dominant direction exists for arriving plane waves software in the transceiver computer computes for each dielectric patch 291 the cross 5 correlation coefficients between it and all other patches 291 along the 3 axes. No oblique node pairs are computed for each correlation.

The time used for computation is in the order of 1,000 microseconds or less. If correlation coefficients 0 along any axis agree statistically, then an average of the correlation coefficients is taken along that particular axis and the value is taken to be the directional cosine of the dominant incoming plane wave along that axis. Once the directional cosines of all three axes are determined the 5 direction is determined. If, on the other hand, the cross correlation coefficients along any axis are not statistically consistent, then there may be more than one dominant plane wave. In that case there is a delay of about 100 microseconds and the process is repeated to determine if the scanning direction to the base station has changed either due to the movement of the handset 278 or due to the probability that one of the signals will become dominant so that the next sampling of the waves the correlation coefficients become statistically consistent. As a result mobile communications nodes of the prior art or novel communications nodes utilizing submillimeter frequencies in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz can be linked to the novel backbone through a novel point to multipoint antenna of the invention.

The ubiquitous character of the novel communications and system of the invention allows pedestrians 282 and commuters 298 in vehicle 284 (FIG. 4) or train 290 (FIG. 12) to anytime and anywhere access the internet utilize a high capacity digital video telephone or a novel personal computer communicator (PCC) 300 (FIG. 19) which like current laptops includes a display 302 with an RF antenna 304 for communicating with antennas 86 or 92. The novel computer communicator 300 also includes a built-in telephone with a telephone keypad 306, a speaker 308 and microphone 310 as well as headset 309 which allows novel PCC to operate as a combination cell phone and as a laptop computer. Further novel computer 300 may include a video camera 312 for capturing digital images so that digital data transmitted to antenna 304 from antenna 86 or 92 can be either internet, telephone connection, video telephone conferencing or television broadcast signals so that each person having a novel PCC computer 300 has a multimedia connection for bringing not only internet, telephone and video-conferencing capabilities but also cable, television broadcast, movies on demand or network broadcast that are channeled through the novel high capacity system of the invention. Each user terminal for either a mobile computer communicator 300 or a fixed computer (not shown) or television or other receiving means is initially registered with the local NCC (Network Control Center) to obtain a home IP address which after authentication processes the user's unique ID. The authentication may be provided for through the nearest base station which transmits an encrypted and hashed ID to the NCC for verification. Other types of processes or systems may be utilized such as, "challenge and response" or "handshake" or other types of ID confirmation. When the stationary computer or mobile computer communicator 300 or other communication device is connected to the novel network the NCC monitors its usage and its average Bit Error Rate periodically through polling to ensure a particular quality of service (QoS) . When the adaptive rate control module reports a higher than usual bandwidth request backlog or when the Bit Error Rate exceeds the permissible threshold value the NCC can either attempt to reroute the communication using a less congested and/or a higher quality link route or begin prioritizing data communications where the device is located in an area of a severe weather condition. It is important to note that communication remains open at all times and that prioritization occurs through redundancy, alternative links or prioritizing bandwidth allocation based upon the priority level of the communication as has heretofore been described.

Referring now to FIG. 17 and 18 the invention provides a ubiquitous seamless multimedia telecommunications system utilizing frequencies in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz to provide Terabits of data through RF transceivers without the requirement of hardwire or cabled systems. The invention is fully compatible with prior art hardwired systems and may utilize hardwired systems within a dwelling of a particular customer utilizing a prior art communications node linked to the novel high capacity backbone. In the best mode of the invention an indoor outdoor RF powered unit 320 is provided having an outside transceiver portion 324 mounted to an exterior wall 326 of the building and an inside transceiver portion 328. The exterior wall may be glass, wood or other building material to which indoor-outdoor RF powered unit 320 is attached. The outside transceiver portion 324 of unit 320 wirelessly transmits data signals to inside transceiver portion 328 which includes an antenna 330 which communicates with antenna 304 of portable computer communicator 300 or with a television, fixed computer or other multimedia device in the customer's home. The RF signals can be transmitted from antenna 330 to a computer, a television which may be a Web TV, AOL TV or other computer communication device which can provide multimedia entertainment. Alternatively antenna 330 can transmit signals to transceiver antenna in the customer' s house to interface with existing hardwired systems such as the telephone or existing telephone internet connections. In the best mode of the invention the indoor outdoor RF powered unit 320 is powered by a magnetic radio frequency coupling between a magnetic coil 346 of the outdoor transceiver portion 324 and the matching coil 344 of the inside transceiver portion 328. Power for the inside transceiver portion 328 is supplied by power unit 342. The RF (radio frequency) power is transferred from coil 344 to coil 346 through a magnetic coupling and is rectified by the outdoor transceiver portion 324 to generate DC power for the outdoor unit and is preferably also used to charge a high capacity capacitor 350 for energy storage. The high capacity capacitor 350 is preferably an ultra capacitor.

The RF frequency for powering the magnetic coil 346 of the outdoor transceiver portion 324 should be below 50 Megahertz to provide for efficient RF power transfer through wall 326 where as in most instances the separation of outdoor transceiver portion 324 is separated from inside transceiver portion 328 by a separation distance of less than one meter. The inside transceiver portion 328 preferably includes a Blue Tooth transceiver module to communicate with all Blue Tooth indoor devices such as a Blue Tooth enabled laptop computer such as personal computer communicator 300, a Web phone, AOL TV, or Web TV. The outdoor transceiver portion 324 contains a submillimeter transceiver for communicating with a point to multipoint base station such as point to multipoint hub 50 (FIG. 3) . Outdoor transceiver portion 324 can communicate with the indoor transceiver portion 328 either through the same low frequency coupling used for power transfer or through different RF frequencies.

The bidirectional communications between the indoor transceiver portion 328 and the outdoor transceiver portion 324 can be either TDD (Time Division Duplex) or FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) . Since Blue Tooth uses TDD, TDD is preferred. The outdoor transceiver portion 324 can convert submillimeter wave signals all the way down to the baseband level to perform signal regeneration and forward error correction before upconverting it to an intermediate RF frequency for data transfer to the indoor transceiver portion 328. For return path data transfers this process is reversed. In the preferred embodiment the outdoor transceiver portion 324 directly down converts the submillimeter wave signals to the intermediate frequency used by the magnetic coupling to also transfer data without going through the more expensive baseband digital processing. For this return path data transfer this process can also be reversed.

The invention as will be recognized by those skilled in the art is susceptible to various changes and modifications in the implementation of the invention in utilizing submillimeter wave communications in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz and preferably in the range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz for transmitting Terabits of information to provide a high capacity high speed multimedia communication network that provides a ubiquitous, transparent and seamless integrated communications network. It will be further recognized the invention may be implemented in a variety of ways in which only some of the enormous capacity of the novel system is utilized for only one communications service such as wireless telephone, wireless internet, broadcast, entertainment, business teleconferencing or the invention may be implemented by combining the various communications systems into a multimedia communications system.

The novel backbone for carrying Terabits of data per second may be implemented as the primary or only communications system or may be implemented as an integrating mechanism for integrating existing systems into a multimedia communications system. The novel backbone may also be used with existing systems as a means for expanding the capacity of existing systems. The novel backbone and method of the invention may also be used as a superstructure to integrate various incompatible systems such as analog systems such as AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) , NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone) , TACS (Total Access Communications Systems) and digital systems such as GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) as well as various POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) used in many parts of the world.

It will further be recognized that the novel method and system of the invention may be implemented and expanded by adding compatible links and infrastructure. It will also be recognized that not all aspects of the invention need to be implemented at the same time and that certain systems and components may be implemented at different times and stages after the utilization of the novel backbone system and method of the invention. For example, the novel method of designing a high capacity multimedia system by integrating various communications services into the novel high capacity backbone may be implemented all at the same time or at different times to utilize the enormous capacity of the method and system of the invention.

It will further be recognized that the invention may be implemented utilizing the submillimeter wave frequencies of the invention utilizing existing and standard antennas and that the novel antennas and subcomponents which represent the best mode of the invention may be utilized alone or together with the novel telecommunications method and system of the invention. It will be further recognized that the method and system of the invention for terrestrial telecommunications utilizing the submillimeter wave frequencies may be utilized to provide less than the full Terabit per second capacity and that the system may be integrated with existing systems if Terabit per second capacity is desired only in one particular location. These and other implementations of the invention are deemed to be included within the scope of the appended claims.

As used herein and in the following claims, the word comprising' or ^Λcomprises' is used in its technical sense to mean the enumerated elements include but do not exclude additional elements which may or may not be specifically included in the dependent claims. It will be understood such additions, whether or not included in the dependent claims, are modifications that both can be made within the scope of the invention. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that a wide range of changes and modification can be made to the invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims:

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A high capacity communications system comprising: (a) a submillimeter wave communications backbone for communicating data; (b) a communications node adapted to communicate with said submillimeter wave communications backbone; and (c) a processor for controlling the amount of data communicated over said submillimeter wave communications backbone.

2. The high capacity communications system of claim 1 wherein said processor controls the amount of data transmitted over said submillimeter wave communications backbone by adaptive . rate control.

3. The high capacity communications system of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of point to point communications hubs distributed along said submillimeter wave communications backbone.

4. The high capacity communications system of claim 3 wherein at least one of said plurality of point to point communications hubs include an ADD-DROP multiplexer.

5. The high capacity communications system of claim 3 wherein at least one of said plurality of point to point communications hubs include at least one point to multipoint hub connected to said backbone.

6. The high capacity communications system of claim 5 wherein said submillimeter wave communications backbone operates in the frequency range of about 275 to 1,000 Gigahertz.

7. The high capacity communications system of claim 6 wherein said at least one of said plurality of point to multipoint communications hubs connected to said backbone operates in a frequency range of about 71 Megahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz.

The high capacity communications system of claim 3 wherein said processor controls the amount of data communicated over said backbone to said communications node.

9. The high capacity communications system of claim 8 wherein said communications node is a point to multipoint communications hub.

10. The high capacity communications system of claim 8 further wherein said communications node is a plurality of communications nodes.

11. The high capacity communications system of claim 10 further comprising a plurality of point to multipoint communications hubs.

12. The high capacity communications system of claim 10 wherein each of said plurality of communications nodes is connected to at least one of said plurality of point to multipoint communications hubs.

13. The high capacity communications system of claim 12 wherein each of said plurality of point to point communications hubs and each of said plurality of point to multipoint communications hubs are separated by a distance of about 0.1 to 7 kilometers.

14. The high capacity communications system of claim 12 wherein said processor controls the amount of data communicated over said submillimeter wave communications backbone by comparing the signal to noise ratio.

15. The high capacity communications system of claim 14 wherein said signal to noise ratio is measured as Bit Error Rate.

16. The high capacity communications system of claim 15 wherein the Bit Error Rate is monitored at each of said point to point communications hubs distributed along said submillimeter microwave communications backbone.

17. The high capacity communications system of claim 16 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by a change in modulation.

18. The high capacity communications system of claim 17 wherein said change in modulation is lowered from about 2048 Quadrature Amplitude modulation.

19. The high capacity communications system of claim 17 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by reducing the forward error correction coding rate.

20. The high capacity communications system of claim 17 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by a change in modulation and forward error correction coding rate.

21. The high capacity communications system of claim 17 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by increasing processing gain.

22. The high capacity communications system of claim 16 wherein increases in Bit Error Rate are reduced by reducing the rate of data transmitted over a particular segment of said submillimeter communications backbone.

23. The high capacity communications system of claim 22 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by increasing the redundancy of data transmitted over a particular segment of said submillimeter communications backbone.

24. The high capacity communications system of claim 16 wherein said submillimeter microwave communications backbone includes a plurality of alternative links to each of said plurality of communications nodes.

25. The high capacity communications system of claim 24 wherein Bit Error Rate is adjusted by utilizing one of said plurality of alternative links to one said plurality of communications nodes.

26. The high capacity communications system of claim 5 wherein said point to multipoint communications hubs utilizes a phased array antenna having a plurality of feed horns .

27. The high capacity communications system of claim 26 wherein said phased array antenna is of a toroidal shape.

28. The high capacity communications system of claim 27 wherein said toroidal phased array antenna provides a narrow beam width of less than 1 degree.

29. The high capacity communications system of claim 28 wherein said toroidal phased antenna array includes electronic steering means for steering said narrow beam width.

30. The high capacity communications system of claim 2 wherein said submillimeter wave communications backbone utilizes CDMA coding.

31. The high capacity communications system of claim 30 wherein said submillimeter wave communications backbone utilizes FDMA.

32. The high capacity communications system of claim 30 wherein said submillimeter wave communications backbone utilizes dual polarization.

33. An adaptive communications network comprising: (a) a submillimeter wave communications backbone; (b) at least one communications hub disposed in said backbone; (c) at least one communications node adapted to communicate with said backbone; and (d) a processor for controlling the amount of data communicated over said backbone.

34. The adaptive communications network of claim 33 wherein said at least one communications hub includes an ADD-DROP multiplexer.

35. The adaptive communications network of claim 34 further comprising a gateway connected to said at least one communications node and said backbone.

36. The adaptive communications network of claim 35 wherein said gateway is connected to a public switched telecommunications network.

37. The adaptive communications network of claim 36 wherein said processor measures the amount of data communicated over said backbone and the Bit Error Rate.

38. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein Bit Error Rate is modified by changing modulation.

39. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein Bit Error Rate is modified by changing the forward error correction coding rate.

40. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein Bit Error Rate is reduced by prioritizing and removing data traffic communicated over said backbone.

41. The adaptive communications network of claim 40 wherein said data traffic removed from said backbone is delay tolerant data.

42. The adaptive communications network of claim 41 wherein said delay tolerant data is e-mail.

43. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein said backbone includes a plurality of communications hubs providing alternative communication paths to said at least one node.

44. The adaptive communications network of claim 43 wherein said Bit Error Rate is modified by communicating to said at least one node through an alternative communications path.

45. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein code division multiple access is utilized to transmit data along said backbone.

46. The adaptive communications network of claim 37 wherein dual polarization is utilized to transmit data along said backbone.

47. The adaptive communications network of claim 45 further comprising at least one point to multipoint hub connected to said backbone.

48. The adaptive communications network of claim 47 wherein said point to multipoint hub includes at least one communications node connected to said point to multipoint hub.

49. The adaptive communications network of claim 48 wherein said point to multipoint hub is an elevated platform.

50. The adaptive communications network of claim 48 wherein said point to multipoint hub utilizes a multipath finding protocol to maintain a communications link with said at least one communications node.

51. A communications network comprising: (a) a submillimeter wave communications backbone; (b) a plurality of point to point communications hubs; (c) a plurality of point to multipoint communications hubs disposed in said backbone; (d) at least one ADD-DROP multiplexer disposed in said backbone; (e) a plurality of nodes connected to said backbone; and (f) a processor for controlling the amount of data communicated over said backbone.

52. The communications network of claim 51 further comprising a gateway connected to said backbone.

53. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of -said plurality of nodes is a public switched telephone network.

54. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a public broadcast network.

55. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a cellular phone network.

56. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a satellite communications network.

57. The communications network of claim 56 wherein said satellite communications network is a telephone network.

58. The communications network of claim 56 wherein said satellite communications network is a broadcast network.

59. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is the internet.

60. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a microwave communications network.

61. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a millimeter wave communications network.

62. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is an optical communications network.

63. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a cable network.

64. The communications network of claim 52 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a high altitude communications network.

65. The communications network of claim 51 wherein at least one of said plurality of nodes is a submillimeter wave communications network.

66. The communications network of claim 65 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a local area network (LAN) .

67. The communications network of claim 51 wherein said at least one of said plurality of nodes is a wireless mobile communications network.

68. The communications network of claim 67 wherein said wireless mobile communications network is provided for passengers in vehicles.

69. The communications network of claim 68 wherein said vehicles are trains.

70. The communications network of claim 67 wherein said wireless mobile communications network utilizes a multipath finding protocol.

71. The communications network of claim 70 wherein said multipath finding protocol is provided for in buildings .

12 . A toroidal phased array antenna comprising: (a) a top surface of a substantially circular configuration; (b) a bottom surface of a substantially circular configuration; (c) an exterior parabolic shaped side surface connecting said top surface to said bottom surface; (d) a frustro conical shaped feed horn disposed laterally adjacent to a median plane of said parabolic shaped side face; and (e) power means for providing energy to said feed horn.

73. The toroidal phased array antenna of claim 72 wherein said power means includes digital beam forming chips.

74. The toroidal phased array antenna of claim 73 wherein said exterior parabolic shaped side face is concave and said frustro conical shaped feed horns are disposed laterally adjacent to said exterior parabolic shaped side face.

75. The toroidal phased array antenna of claim 73 wherein said exterior parabolic shaped side face is convex and said frustro conical shaped feed horns are disposed on the side opposite to said exterior parabolic shaped side face.

76. The toroidal phased antenna of claim 73 further comprising multiple phase modifying means said multiple phase modifying means including digital or analog phase shifters to steer multiple beams azimuthally around said parabolic shaped side surface.

77. A method of providing a high capacity communications network comprising: (a) establishing a communications backbone composed of a plurality of point to point communications hubs interconnected by line-of-sight; (b) connecting at least one communications node to said communications backbone; (c) communicating RF submillimeter wave digital signals along said backbone; (d) tracking the number of digital signal errors communicated along said backbone at each of said plurality of point to point communications hubs; and (e) changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone in response to said number of digital signal errors.

78. The method of claim 77 further comprising the step of increasing the capacity of said communications by utilizing dual polarization.

79. The method of claim 77 further comprising the step of connecting a gateway to said communications backbone.

80. The method of claim 77 further comprising the step of providing alternative path communications links between said plurality of point to point communications hubs in said backbone.

81. The method of claim 77 further comprising the step of providing an ADD-DROP multiplexer at at least one of said plurality of point to point communications hubs in said backbone.

82. The method of claim 81 wherein said RF submillimeter wave digital signals are communicated at from about 275 Gigahertz to 1,000 Gigahertz.

83. The method of claim 81 wherein at least one of said point to point communications hubs is a point to multipoint communications hub.

84. The method of claim 83 further comprising the step of connecting said point to multipoint communications hub to a communications node.

' 85. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the volume of digital signals communicated along said backbone is achieved by changing Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding.

86. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone is achieved by changing modulation.

87. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone is achieved by changing the processing gain.

88. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone is achieved by storing a portion of the low priority messages.

89. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone is achieved by providing alternative path communications links between said plurality of point to point communications hubs in said backbone.

90. The method of claim 77 wherein said step of changing the rate of digital signals communicated along said backbone is determined by neural network techniques.

91. A submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna comprising: (a) an indoor outdoor transceiver unit having an indoor transceiver for communicating with an indoor communication device; (b) a power supply means for supplying power^' to said indoor transceiver unit; and (c) an outdoor transceiver unit having an outdoor transceiver for communicating with said indoor transceiver and a submillimeter RF frequency bsfse station.

92. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 91 further comprising a Blue Tooth transceiver module for communicating with said indoor communication device.

93. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 91 further comprising an outdoor electromagnetic coil for providing power to said outdoor transceiver unit and an indoor electromagnetic coil for providing power to said outdoor electromagnetic coil.

94. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 93 further comprising a capacitor disposed in said outdoor transceiver unit.

95. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 94 wherein said capacitor is an ultra high capacitor.

96. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 94 wherein said indoor electromagnetic coil provides power to said outdoor electromagnetic coil at a frequency of less than 50 Megahertz.

97. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 96 wherein said indoor transceiver communicates with said outdoor transceiver on the same frequency used by said indoor electromagnetic coil and said outdoor electromagnetic coil.

98. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 97 wherein said indoor transceiver communicates with said outdoor transceiver in TDD (Time Division Duplex) .

99. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 98 wherein said indoor transceiver utilizes Blue Tooth communication with indoor communication devices.

100. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 98 wherein said indoor transceiver communicates with said outdoor transceiver in FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) .

101. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 94 wherein said outdoor transceiver unit converts submillimeter wave signals to the baseband level before converting it to a common communication frequency between said indoor transceiver and said outdoor transceiver.

102. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 101 wherein said outdoor transceiver unit performs signal regeneration and forward error correction before converting the signal to said common communication frequency.

103. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 101 wherein said indoor transceiver communicates with said outdoor transceiver in TDD (Time Division Duplex) .

104. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 101 wherein said indoor transceiver communicates with said outdoor transceiver in FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) .

105. The submillimeter indoor outdoor antenna of claim 101 wherein said indoor transceiver unit includes multipath finding protocol means.

106. A point to multipoint phased array antenna comprising: (a) a substantially round antenna body having a collimating surface and an inside surface and an outside surface; (b) a plurality of frustro conical feed horns disposed laterally adjacent to said collimating surface of said substantially round antenna body; and (c) power means for providing RF energy to said plurality of frustro conical feed horns.

107. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 106 wherein said substantially round antenna body is of a substantially spherical shaped form and said collimating surface is a plurality of facets disposed on the outside surface of said substantially spherical shaped form.

108. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 107 wherein said plurality of feed horns are disposed on a feeder array module disposed inside said substantially spherical shaped form.

109. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 108 wherein said feeder array module includes a micro mirror array.

110. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 108 wherein said plurality of facets are a plurality of hexagonal shaped faceted lens.

111. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 110 wherein said plurality of hexagonal shaped faceted lens are constructed of a lens material having a high index of refraction selected from the group consisting essentially of silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, boron aluminate, spinel, magnesium oxide, alumina and epoxy glass 5650.

112. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 106 wherein said substantially round antenna body is of a substantially toroidal shaped form and said collimating surface is a convex surface on said outside surface.

113. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 112 wherein said plurality of feed horns are disposed on a feeder array module disposed on a feeder array module disposed inside said substantially toroidal shaped form.

114. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 113 wherein said collimating surface includes a holographic fringe pattern.

115. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 114 wherein said holographic fringe pattern is a horizontal holographic fringe pattern.

116. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 112 wherein said substantially toroidal shaped form is constructed of a lens material having a high index of refraction selected from the group consisting essentially of silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, boron aluminate, spinel magnesium oxide and alumina.

117. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 112 further comprising multiple phase modifying means for steering multiple beams azimuthally around said substantially toroidal shaped form.

118. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 106 wherein said substantially rounded antenna body is of a substantially toroidal shaped form and said collimating surface is a concave surface on said outside surface.

119. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 118 wherein said plurality of feed horns are disposed laterally adjacent to said outside surface.

120. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 118 further comprising multiple phase modifying means for steering multiple beams azimuthally around said substantially toroidal shaped form.

121. The point to multipoint phased array antenna of claim 106 further comprising multipath finding means.

122. A micro array mobile antenna for submillimeter frequency communications comprising: (a) a plurality of micro-patch resonators disposed on a planar dielectric substrate; (b) a plurality of planar dielectric substrates having a plurality of micro-patch resonators disposed in a three-dimensional array; and (c) a connector for connecting said micro- patch resonators and said planar dielectric substrates.

123. The micro array mobile antenna of claim 122 wherein said plurality of micro-patch resonators are composed of metal patches with a dielectric material disposed therebetween.

124. The micro array mobile antenna of claim 123 wherein said metal patches are each a half wavelength.

125. The micro array mobile antenna of claim 122 further comprising multipath finding protocol means.

126. A personal computer communicator device comprising: (a) a microprocessor; (b) a transceiver for receiving and transmitting RF digital data signals in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz; (c) an antenna for receiving and transmitting RF digital data signals in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz; (d) a display means for displaying graphic digital data signals; (e) a speaker for playing audio digital data signals; and (f) a user interface for communicating with said microprocessor.

127. The personal computer communicator device of claim 126 wherein said user interface includes a keyboard.

128. The personal computer communicator device of claim 127 wherein said keyboard includes a PSTN keypad.

129. The personal computer communicator device of claim 127 further comprising a headset.

130. The personal computer communicator device of claim 126 wherein said antenna is a micro-patch phased array antenna.

131. The personal computer communicator device further comprising multipath finding protocol means.

132. A high data capacity building comprising: (a) an antenna for transmitting and receiving submillimeter wave communications; (b) a processor for converting said submillimeter wave communications into digital data; and (c) a plurality of point to multipoint antenna for communicating with said processor.

133. The high data capacity building of claim 132 wherein said plurality of point to multipoint antenna communicate with said processor in the range of about 75 to 1,000 Gigahertz.

134. The high data capacity building of claim 132 wherein said processor includes a multipath finding protocol module .

135. The high data capacity building of claim 132 wherein said processor includes a signal regeneration module.