Dynamic wireless circuitry configuration for carrier aggregation component carriers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10165512-B2
Application number	US-201514729936-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 3, 2015
Priority date	Oct 9, 2012
Publication date	Dec 25, 2018
Grant date	Dec 25, 2018

Abstract

Methods, apparatuses and computer readable media are described that configure wireless circuitry in a wireless communication device. The wireless communication device establishes a connection via one or more component carriers to a wireless network using wireless circuitry that includes multiple radio frequency receive signal chain. The wireless communication device monitors traffic activity and measures downlink radio frequency receive signal conditions for each component carrier. The wireless communication device reconfigures the wireless circuitry to use a number of RF receive signal chains that matches a maximum supportable modulation and coding scheme (MCS) value for each component carrier to MCS values assigned by the wireless network to the respective component carrier. The wireless communication device reduces the number of RF receive signal chains for a component carrier only when reliable decoding of the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and/or the physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH) can be reliably decoded.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method to configure wireless circuitry in a carrier aggregation (CA) capable wireless communication device, the method comprising:
by the CA capable wireless communication device:
establishing a connection via a component carrier to a wireless network using wireless circuitry that includes a first radio frequency (RF) receive signal chain and a second RF receive signal chain;
monitoring traffic activity communicated between the wireless communication device and the wireless network over the connection via the component carrier;
measuring downlink RF receive signal conditions at the wireless communication device for the component carrier; and
configuring the wireless circuitry to use both the first and second RF receive signal chains or to use only one of the first and second RF receive signal chains for communication via the component carrier at the wireless communication device based on the monitored traffic activity and the measured downlink RF receive signal conditions,
wherein the monitoring traffic activity includes determining whether any uplink radio resource allocation grants from the wireless network are pending.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the monitoring traffic activity further includes measuring a level of data traffic communicated via the component carrier between the wireless communication device and the wireless network during a sliding window time period of M sub-frames when the wireless circuitry is configured to use both the first and second RF receive signal chains, and
the configuring the wireless circuitry includes using only one of the first and second RF receive signal chains when the measured level of data traffic equals or falls below a data activity threshold and the measured downlink RF receive signal conditions allow reliable decoding of at least one downlink signaling control channel using only one of the first and second radio RF signal chains.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the data activity threshold for the measured level of data traffic communicated via the component carrier is zero.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the measuring the level of data traffic communicated via the component carrier includes counting a number of sub-frames in the sliding window time period of M sub-frames that include a downlink radio resource allocation grant assigned to the component carrier for the wireless communication device, and
the data activity threshold includes a non-negative integer number of sub-frames.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the measuring the level of data traffic includes determining a percentage of sub-frames in the sliding window time period of M sub-frames that include a downlink radio resource allocation grant for the component carrier, and
the data activity threshold includes a non-negative integer percentage value.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the at least one downlink signaling control channel comprises a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and
the wireless network operates in accordance with a long term evolution (LTE) or long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) wireless communication protocol.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein when uplink radio resource allocation grants are pending, the at least one downlink signaling control channel further comprises a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH).

8. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
sending at least one channel status report to the wireless network including a rank indicator (RI) value of one before configuring the wireless circuitry to use only one of the first and second RF receive signal chains for communication via the component carrier.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the monitoring traffic activity further includes measuring a level of data traffic communicated between the wireless communication device and the wireless network during a sliding window time period of N sub-frames via the component carrier when the wireless circuitry is configured to use only one of the first and second RF receive signal chains, and
the configuring the wireless circuitry further includes using both the first and second RF signal chains for communication via the component carrier when:
the measured level of data traffic equals or exceeds a data activity threshold, or
the measured downlink radio frequency receive signal conditions does not allow reliable decoding of at least one downlink signaling control channel using only one of the first and second radio frequency receive signal chains.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein
the measured level of data traffic is one during the sliding window time period of N sub-frames.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein N=1.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the at least one downlink signaling control channel comprises a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein when uplink radio resource allocation grants are pending, the reconfiguring the wireless circuitry further includes using both the first and second RF signal chains for communication via the component carrier when the at least one downlink signaling control channel comprises a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH).

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the component carrier is a primary component carrier or a secondary component carrier used for carrier aggregation by the CA capable wireless communication device for the connection to the wireless network.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the measuring downlink RF receive signal conditions at the wireless communication device for the component carrier comprises estimating a maximum supportable modulation and coding scheme (MCS) value based on channel state information reported to the wireless network over a sliding window time period,
the monitoring traffic activity communicated via the component carrier further comprises averaging MCS values received from the wireless network for the component carrier over the sliding window time period, and
the configuring the wireless circuitry to use both the first and second RF receive signal chains or to use only one of the first and second RF receive signal chains for the component carrier is further based on comparing the estimated maximum supportable MCS to an average MCS value received from the wireless network for the component carrier over the sliding window time period.

16. A carrier aggregation (CA) capable wireless communication device comprising:
wireless circuitry including plurality of radio frequency (RF) receive signal chains;
one or more processors coupled to the wireless circuitry; and
a memory coupled to the one or more processors,
wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute computer-executable instructions stored within the memory to cause the wireless communication device to:
establish a connection via a component carrier to an LTE wireless network using the wireless circuitry;
monitor modulation and coding scheme (MCS) values received from the LTE wireless network for the component carrier over a sliding window time period;
estimate Flail maximum supportable MCS values for the component carrier over the sliding window time period for at least two different configurations of the wireless circuitry, each configuration using a different numbers of RF receive signal chains; and
configure the wireless circuitry to use a configuration of RF receive signal chains for the component carrier based on a comparison of the maximum supportable MCS values for the at least two different configurations of the wireles

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Karri Sai Sravan Bharadwaj
• Damji Navid
• Sane Sachin J

Classifications

• H04W52/0274 Primary

  by switching on or off the equipment or parts thereof · CPC title

• Y02D70/142

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• Y02D70/166

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• Y02D70/144

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• H04W52/0232

  according to average transmission signal activity · CPC title