Opportunistic signal transmission for inter-rat co-existence

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10341876-B2
Application number	US-201815864824-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 8, 2018
Priority date	Oct 6, 2014
Publication date	Jul 2, 2019
Grant date	Jul 2, 2019

Abstract

Various embodiments may be generally directed to techniques for transmitting and receiving one or more reference signals opportunistically within a window over an unlicensed carrier. Various embodiments provide techniques for determining a configuration of the window within an operating environment that may include one or more different radio access technologies (RATs). Various embodiments provide techniques for transmitting the one or more reference signals opportunistically within the window based on an availability of a wireless communications medium. Various embodiments provide techniques for receiving and recovering the one or more reference signals regardless of their location within the window, thereby improving communications in an unlicensed spectrum shared by a variety of different communication devices that may operate according to a variety of different communication protocols.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An evolved node B (eNB), comprising:
memory; and
processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry to:
identify a discovery measurement timing configuration (DMTC) for opportunistic transmission of a reference signal over an unlicensed carrier, the DMTC comprising multiple subframes;
cause transmission of configuration information regarding positioning of the reference signal in one or more selected subframes of the DMTC;
determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC; and
cause transmission of the reference signal over the unlicensed carrier during at least one subframe within the DMTC that is different from the selected subframes within the DMTC when the unlicensed carrier is not available during one of the selected subframes of the DMTC.

2. The eNB of claim 1 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS).

3. The eNB of claim 1 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS) to provide radio resource management (RRM) to include cell identification.

4. The eNB of claim 1 , the reference signal to comprise a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS), a cell specific reference signal (CRS), or a channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CRS-RS).

5. The eNB of claim 1 , the processing circuitry to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a co-existence communications protocol.

6. The eNB of claim 1 , the processing circuitry to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a listen before talk (LBT) protocol.

7. The eNB of claim 1 , comprising radio-frequency (RF) circuitry, the processing circuitry to cause the RF circuitry to transmit configuration information regarding positioning of the reference signal in one or more selected subframes of the DMTC with a periodicity of 40, 80 or 160 milliseconds (ms).

8. The eNB of claim 1 , comprising a memory controller coupled to the memory and processing circuitry.

9. The eNB of claim 1 , comprising one or more RF antennas coupled to an RF transmitter.

10. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed at an evolved node B (eNB) cause the eNB to:
identify a discovery measurement timing configuration (DMTC) for opportunistic transmission of a reference signal over an unlicensed carrier, the DMTC comprising multiple subframes;
cause transmission of configuration information regarding positioning of the reference signal in one or more selected subframes of the DMTC;
determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC; and
cause transmission of the reference signal over the unlicensed carrier during at least one subframe within the DMTC that is different from the selected subframes within the DMTC when the unlicensed carrier is not available during one of the selected subframes of the DMTC.

11. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS).

12. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS) to provide radio resource management (RRM) to include cell identification.

13. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the reference signal to comprise a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS), a cell specific reference signal (CRS), or a channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CRS-RS).

14. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a co-existence communications protocol.

15. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a listen before talk (LBT) protocol.

16. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to transmit configuration information regarding positioning of the reference signal in one or more selected subframes of the DMTC with a periodicity of 40, 80 or 160 milliseconds (ms).

17. User equipment (UE), comprising:
memory; and
a processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry configured to determine a discovery measurement timing configuration (DMTC) for opportunistic transmission of a reference signal over an unlicensed carrier, the DMTC comprising multiple subframes, based on configuration information received by the RF circuitry, the configuration information comprising information regarding positioning of the reference signal in one or more selected subframes of the DMTC; and
the processing circuitry to perform a detection operation on transmissions received on the unlicensed carrier within the DMTC to recover the reference signal transmitted in one or more subframes of the DMTC different from the selected subframes when the unlicensed carrier is not available during one of the selected subframes of the DMTC.

18. The UE of claim 17 , the processing circuitry to recover the reference signal by comparing the transmissions received to one or more known fixed patterns representative of the reference signal.

19. The UE of claim 17 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS).

20. The UE of claim 17 , the reference signal to comprise a discovery reference signal (DRS) to provide radio resource management (RRM) to include cell identification.

21. The UE of claim 17 , the reference signal to comprise a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS), a cell specific reference signal (CRS), or a channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CRS-RS).

22. The UE of claim 17 , the processing circuitry to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a co-existence communications protocol.

23. The UE of claim 17 , the processing circuitry to determine whether the unlicensed carrier is available during the selected subframes of the DMTC based on a listen before talk (LBT) protocol.

24. The UE of claim 17 , the processing circuitry to recover the reference signal by comparing the transmissions received to one or more known fixed patterns representative of the reference signal, the one or more known fixed patterns to include a periodicity and DMTC duration.

25. The UE of claim 17 , the processing circuitry to recover the reference signal by comparing the transmissions received to one or more known fixed patterns representative of the reference signal, the one or more known fixed patterns to include a periodicity of 40, 80 or 160 milliseconds (ms).

26. The UE of claim 17 ,

Assignees

• Intel Ip Corp

Inventors

• Han Seunghee
• Bashar Shafi
• Fwu Jong-Kae
• Jeon Jeongho
• Kwon Hwan-Joon

Classifications

• H04W16/14 Primary

  Spectrum sharing arrangements {between different networks} · CPC title

• H04L5/00

  Arrangements affording multiple use of the transmission path · CPC title

• H04L5/0048

  Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver (allocation of control signalling H04L5/0053; use of control signalling H04L5/0091) · CPC title