Adaptive automated load balancing for mobility networks including fifth generation networks and beyond

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11419007-B2
Application number	US-202017106440-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 30, 2020
Priority date	Nov 30, 2020
Publication date	Aug 16, 2022
Grant date	Aug 16, 2022

Abstract

The disclosed technology is directed towards load balancing in an adaptive and automated way for wireless mobility networks to improve the overall harmonic-average UE throughput within each controlled group of cells (e.g., different frequency carriers serving a sector of a base station). A load balancer (e.g., analytics component) obtains various device traffic data including throughput data for cells of a group. Pairs of cells in a group (sharing a site and face) can be selected based on satisfying various criteria, with estimated throughput gain achieved by changing the handoff rates between the cell pairs. The technology iteratively repeats the overall process, driving a system to an optimal equilibrium.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
determining a selected cell pair from a group of cells operating at different frequencies covering a geographical area, the selected cell pair comprising a first cell having a first traffic load and a second cell having a second traffic load; and
relocating part of the first traffic load from the first cell to the second cell, comprising increasing a first handoff rate from the first cell to the second cell, and decreasing a second handoff rate from the second cell to the first cell.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises estimating that relocating the part of the first traffic load from the first cell to the second cell satisfies a pair level threshold harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement criterion.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein estimating that the relocating of the part of the first traffic load from the first cell to the second cell satisfies the pair level threshold harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement criterion comprises determining a volume load distribution value between the first cell and the second cell, determining an estimated pair level throughput improvement value based on the volume load distribution, and evaluating the estimated pair level throughput improvement value with respect to the pair level threshold harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement criterion.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises estimating that the relocating of the part of the first traffic load from the first cell to the second cell satisfies a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain criterion.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises estimating that the relocating of the part of the first traffic load from the first cell to the second cell satisfies a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain percentage criterion.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises obtaining candidate cell pairs, estimating respective harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement values for respective candidate cell pairs, associating respective harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement values with the respective candidate cell pairs, and selecting the selected cell pair based on having a greatest harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement value associated with the selected cell pair relative harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement values of other candidate cell pairs.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the respective harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement values for the respective candidate cell pairs comprise respective face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain rates.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises determining that the group of cells satisfies a group eligibility condition.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the selected cell pair comprises determining that the first cell and the second cell satisfies an eligibility criterion.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the selected cell pair is a first cell pair, and wherein the operations further comprise determining a second cell pair from the group of cells, the second cell pair comprising a third cell having a third traffic load and a fourth cell having a fourth traffic load, and relocating part of the third traffic load from the third cell to the fourth cell, comprising increasing a third handoff rate from the third cell to the fourth cell, and decreasing a fourth handoff rate from the fourth cell to the third cell.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the geographical area comprises a portion of a site, and wherein the group of cells comprises cells that share a combination of a unique site identifier and a face corresponding to the geographical area.

12. A method, comprising:
determining, by a system comprising a processor, a load volume distribution value between a cell pair comprising a first cell and a second cell of a cell group;
estimating, by the system based on the load volume distribution value, a pairwise aggregated throughput improvement value for the first cell and the second cell;
determining, by the system, that the first cell and the second cell satisfy a constraint criterion, comprising determining that the pairwise aggregated throughput improvement value satisfies a threshold harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement criterion; and
in response to determining that the pair level aggregated throughput improvement value satisfies the constraint criterion, decreasing, by the system a first traffic load on the first cell and increasing a second traffic load on the second cell.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein decreasing the first traffic load on the first cell comprises increasing a first handoff rate from the first cell to the second cell, or wherein increasing the load on the second cell comprises decreasing a second handoff rate from the second cell to the first cell, or wherein decreasing the first traffic load on the first cell comprises both increasing a first handoff rate from the first cell to the second cell and decreasing a second handoff rate from the second cell to the first cell.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the constraint criterion is a first constraint criterion, and further comprising estimating, by the system, a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain rate, associating, by the system, the face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain rate with the cell pair, and determining, by the system, that the first cell and the second cell satisfy a second constraint criterion comprising determining that the face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain rate associated with the cell pair satisfies a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput rate criterion.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising determining, by the system, that the first cell and the second cell satisfy a candidate cell pair eligibility criterion, including the first cell and the second cell as candidate cells in response to the determining that the first cell and the second cell satisfy candidate cell pair eligibility criterion, and selecting, by the system, the first cell and the second cell as a selected cell pair from the candidate cells based on the face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput gain rate.

16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the constraint criterion is a first constraint criterion, and further comprising estimating, by the system, a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement percentage, and determining, by the system, that the first cell and the second cell satisfy a second constraint criterion comprising determining that the face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement percentage satisfies a face level harmonic mean user equipment throughput improvement percentage criterion.

17. A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
determining candidate cell pairs of a face associated with base station equipment;
estimating respective throughput improvement values for respective cell pairs of the candidate cell pairs;
associating the respective throughput improvement val

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp
• At & T Mobility Ii Llc

Inventors

• Meempat Gopalakrishnan
• Wang Huahui
• Stawiarski Slawomir
• Dhandapani Senthil Raj
• Yang Huijing
• Kim Dongho
• Kara Kemal
• Raina Ravi
• Ye Weihua
• Lee Hyun Ok

Classifications

• H04W36/22

  for handling the traffic · CPC title

• H04W28/0819 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W28/0812

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W28/0865 Primary

  of different Radio Access Technologies [RATs], e.g. LTE® or Wi-Fi® · CPC title

• H04W28/0862

  of same hierarchy level · CPC title