Systems and methods for designing a distributed MIMO network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11770717-B2
Application number	US-201917056528-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 24, 2019
Priority date	May 18, 2018
Publication date	Sep 26, 2023
Grant date	Sep 26, 2023

Abstract

Systems and methods for determining an assignment of radio resources to antennas are provided. In some embodiments, a method includes obtaining an antenna deployment including antennas and corresponding locations for the antennas; determining a cell assignment for the antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one cell out of one or more cells; and, based on the cell assignment, determining a resource assignment for the antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one radio resource out of one or more radio resources. In this way, some embodiments disclosed herein provide a lightweight and efficient method to design a distributed antenna deployment. In some embodiments, the resulting network is optimized in terms of the total area where a high rank is achieved.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a computation node for determining an assignment of radio resources to antennas, the method comprising:
obtaining an antenna deployment comprising a plurality of antennas and corresponding locations for the plurality of antennas;
determining a cell assignment for the plurality of antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one cell out of one or more cells; and
based on the cell assignment, determining a resource assignment for the plurality of antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one radio resource out of one or more radio resources;
wherein determining the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas comprises:
determining a source antenna; and
assigning a closest antenna to the source antenna to a cell corresponding to the source antenna;

wherein determining the source antenna comprises:
when none of the plurality of antennas is assigned to a cell, determining a most remote antenna to be the source antenna; and
when at least one of the plurality of antennas is assigned to a cell, determining an antenna that is closest to all assigned antennas of the plurality of antennas to be the source antenna.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
calculating a performance metric of the antenna deployment based on the cell assignment and the resource assignment for the plurality of antennas in the antenna deployment.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the antenna deployment comprises receiving the antenna deployment.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the antenna deployment comprises determining the antenna deployment by the computation node.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas comprises:
determining a source antenna; and
assigning a closest antenna to the source antenna to a cell corresponding to the source antenna.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the determining and assigning steps are repeated until each of the plurality of antennas is assigned to one cell out of the one or more cells.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein a proximity of a first antenna to a second antenna is based on a physical location of the first antenna and the second antenna.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proximity of the first antenna to the second antenna is based on a propagation property of at least one of the first antenna and the second antenna.

9. The method of claim 5 , wherein assigning the closest antenna to the source antenna to the cell corresponding to the source antenna further comprises basing the cell assignment on a maximum number of antennas for a given cell.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas further comprises regrouping the plurality of antennas using a variation of a K-means algorithm based on proximity of the plurality of antennas.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the resource assignment for the plurality of antennas comprises, for one cell out of the one or more cells:
determining a best antenna in the one cell;
assigning the best antenna to one radio resource out of the one or more radio resources that corresponds to a first data stream; and
for each unassigned antenna of the plurality of antennas, assigning one of the other unassigned antennas of the plurality of antennas to a radio resource out of the one or more radio resources that optimizes rank in the covered area.

12. The method of claim 5 , wherein the determining and assigning steps are repeated until each of the one or more cells has been processed.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the determining the best antenna in the one cell comprises determining the best antenna in the one cell based on propagation properties of the plurality of antennas.

14. A computation node for determining an assignment of radio resources to antennas, the computation node comprising:
processing circuitry configured to:
obtain an antenna deployment comprising a plurality of antennas and corresponding locations for the plurality of antennas;
determine a cell assignment for the plurality of antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one cell out of one or more cells; and

based on the cell assignment, determine a resource assignment for the plurality of antennas such that each antenna is assigned to one radio resource out of one or more radio resources;
wherein determining the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas comprises the processing circuitry being configured to:
determine a source antenna; and
assign a closest antenna to the source antenna to a cell corresponding to the source antenna;

wherein determining the source antenna comprises:
when none of the plurality of antennas is assigned to a cell, determine a most remote antenna to be the source antenna; and
when at least one of the plurality of antennas is assigned to a cell, determine an antenna that is closest to all assigned antennas of the plurality of antennas to be the source antenna.

15. The computation node of claim 14 wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
calculate a performance metric of the antenna deployment based on the cell assignment and the resource assignment for the plurality of antennas in the antenna deployment.

16. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to obtain the antenna deployment comprises the processing circuitry being configured to receive the antenna deployment.

17. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to obtain the antenna deployment comprises the processing circuitry being configured to determine the antenna deployment by the computation node.

18. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to determine the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas comprises the processing circuitry being configured to:
determine a source antenna; and
assign a closest antenna to the source antenna to a cell corresponding to the source antenna.

19. The computation node of claim 18 , wherein the determining and assigning steps are repeated until each of the plurality of antennas is assigned to one cell out of the one or more cells.

20. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein a proximity of a first antenna to a second antenna is based on a physical location of the first antenna and the second antenna.

21. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the proximity of the first antenna to the second antenna is based on a propagation property of at least one of the first antenna and the second antenna.

22. The computation node of claim 18 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to assign the closest antenna to the source antenna to the cell corresponding to the source antenna further comprises the processing circuitry being configured to base the cell assignment on a maximum number of antennas for a given cell.

23. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to determine the cell assignment for the plurality of antennas further comprises the processing circuitry being configured to regroup the plurality of antennas using a variation of a K-means algorithm based on proximity of the plurality of antennas.

24. The computation node of claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry being configured to determine the resource assignment for the plurality of anten

Assignees

• Ericsson Telefon Ab L M

Inventors

• Ahmad Hazik
• Elahi Aroosh
• Gohary Ramy H
• Lambadaris Ioannis
• Skevakis Emmanouil

Classifications

• H04W16/12 Primary

  Fixed resource partitioning · CPC title

• H04B7/0413

  MIMO systems · CPC title

• H04W16/18 Primary

  Network planning tools · CPC title

• H04B7/024

  Co-operative use of antennas of several sites, e.g. in co-ordinated multipoint or co-operative multiple-input multiple-output [MIMO] systems · CPC title