Method and apparatus for adaptive load balancing in wireless networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10064099-B1
Application number	US-201715596457-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 16, 2017
Priority date	May 16, 2017
Publication date	Aug 28, 2018
Grant date	Aug 28, 2018

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, perform operations comprising: identifying a first plurality of cells as a controlled group of cells; determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average number of allocated physical resource blocks; determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a total number of physical resource blocks available to carry payload traffic; determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a metric equal to: (a) the average number of allocated physical resource blocks of the cell divided by (b) the total number of physical resource blocks of the cell available to carry payload traffic; and performing a load balancing of the controlled group of cells based upon the metric. Other embodiments are disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, perform operations comprising:
identifying a first plurality of cells as a controlled group of cells;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average number of allocated physical resource blocks;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a total number of physical resource blocks available to carry payload traffic;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a metric equal to: (a) the average number of allocated physical resource blocks of the cell divided by (b) the total number of physical resource blocks of the cell available to carry payload traffic;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a cell capacity as a product of: (c) the average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks of the cell multiplied by (d) the total number of physical resource blocks of the cell available to carry payload traffic; and
performing a load balancing of the controlled group of cells based upon the metric and the cell capacity.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein:
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks comprises determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells across a plurality of time intervals, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the performing the load balancing comprises:
identifying a new call transaction;
determining which one of the cells of the controlled group of cells has a respective metric with a smallest value; and
attaching the new call transaction to the one of the cells of the controlled group of cells that has the respective metric with the smallest value.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the performing the load balancing comprises:
determining which one of the cells of the controlled group of cells has a respective metric with a smallest value;
determining which one of the cells of the controlled group of cells has a respective metric with a largest value; and
moving an existing call transaction from the one of the cells of the controlled group of cells that has the metric with the largest value to the one of the cells of the controlled group of cells that has the metric with the smallest value.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein:
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks is performed by each respective cell; and
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the total number of physical resource blocks available to carry payload traffic blocks is performed by each respective cell.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein:
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the metric is performed by each respective cell.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 5 , wherein the operations further comprise:
sending to a controller, from each cell of the controlled group of cells, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks that was determined by each respective cell; and
sending, to the controller, from each cell of the controlled group of cells, the total number of physical resource blocks available to carry payload traffic that was determined by each respective cell;
wherein the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the metric is performed by the controller.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 7 , wherein a user equipment device is in communication with a first cell of the controlled group of cells and a second cell, or a plurality of other cells, of the controlled group of cells via a carrier aggregated transaction.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the load balancing of the controlled group of cells is performed by the controller in cooperation with one or more cells of the controlled group of cells.

10. A system comprising:
a processor; and
a memory storing executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform operations comprising:
identifying a first plurality of cells as a controlled group of cells;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average number of allocated physical resource blocks;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, an average carried load as a ratio of: (a) a total number of bits transmitted over a measurement window comprised of m transmission time intervals (TTI's) to (b) m;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a total number of physical resource blocks available to carry payload traffic;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a cell capacity as a product of: (c) the average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks of the cell multiplied by (d) the total number of physical resource blocks of the cell available to carry payload traffic;
determining, for the controlled group of cells, a total load, wherein the total load is determined as a summation of the average carried load for all of the cells of the controlled group of cells;
determining, for the controlled group of cells, a system capacity, wherein the system capacity is determined as a summation of the cell capacity for all of the cells of the controlled group of cells;
determining for each cell of the controlled group of cells, based upon the total load and the system capacity, an optimum target load; and
performing a load balancing of the controlled group of cells based upon the optimum target load for each cell of the controlled group of cells.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein:
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks comprises determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells across a plurality of time intervals, the average number of allocated physical resource blocks; and
the determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, the average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks comprises determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells across a plurality of time intervals, the average throughput of each of the allocated physical resource blocks.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the performing the load balancing comprises:
identifying a new call transaction;
determining, for each cell of the controlled group of cells, a difference between an estimated current load of the cell and the optimum target load, wherein the difference is computed as: (e) the estimated current load of the cell minus (f) the optimum target load;
determining which one of the cells of the controlled group of cells has a difference that is most negative; and
attaching the new call transaction to the one of the cells of the controlled group of cells that has the difference that is most negative.

13. The system of claim 10 , wherein the performing the load balancing comprises:
determ

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Raina Ravi
• Meempat Gopalakrishnan
• Wang Huahui
• Bigler Laurie
• Kafka Henry

Classifications

• H04W48/20

  Selecting an access point · CPC title

• H04W24/08

  Testing, {supervising or monitoring} using real traffic · CPC title

• H04W88/02

  Terminal devices · CPC title

• H04W16/08

  Load shedding arrangements · CPC title

• H04W28/08 Primary

  Load balancing or load distribution (transferring a connection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12) · CPC title