Multi-carrier power pooling

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018014261-A1
Application number	US-201715452402-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 7, 2017
Priority date	Jul 5, 2016
Publication date	Jan 11, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Novel techniques for pooling the available transmit power of a beam across the subcarriers that are or that are scheduled to be in use (and not across all available subcarriers) are disclosed. The scheduled subcarriers may be located in the same or different carriers of a modulation transmitter modulation system, and the pooled transmit power may be allocated or distributed across the scheduled subcarriers of the beam. Modulation symbols or resource elements may be transmitted in accordance with allocated, per-subcarrier power budgets, thereby maximizing the SNIR of signals that are transmitted in the beam via the scheduled subcarriers. Additionally, the allocation of the pooled transmit power to various subcarriers may continuously and/or dynamically vary over time, e.g., based on traffic demands, interference characteristics, etc., as well as based on subsequent scheduling of subcarriers to transmit subsequent modulation symbols or resource elements.

First claim

What is claimed:

1 . A wireless communication system, comprising:
a modulation transmitter configured to wirelessly communicate with a plurality of user terminals via a plurality of carriers, each carrier supporting a plurality of subcarriers; and a controller configured to:
determine a total number of subcarriers that are scheduled to be in use across the plurality of carriers, the total number of scheduled subcarriers being less than a total number of available subcarriers across the plurality of carriers;
allocate, based on the total number of subcarriers that are scheduled to be in use across the plurality of carriers, a respective portion of a per-beam power budget to each subcarrier that is scheduled to be in use across the plurality of subcarriers, the per-beam power budget being a per-beam power limit; and
control, in accordance with the allocated respective portions of the per-beam power budget, resource elements transmitted by the modulation transmitter to communicate with the plurality of user terminals via the subcarriers that are scheduled to be in use across the plurality of carriers.

2 . The wireless communication system of claim 1 , wherein the modulation transmitter forms a plurality of non-overlapping beams radiated by an antenna system, each non-overlapping beam supporting the plurality of carriers, and each non-overlapping beam for establishing a point-to-point connection with a respective user terminal.

3 . The wireless communication system of claim 2 , wherein each non-overlapping beam of the plurality of non-overlapping beams is respectively subject to the per-beam power budget.

4 . The wireless communication system of claim 3 , wherein a first non-overlapping beam has a first bandwidth allocated to a first user terminal, and a second non-overlapping beam has a second bandwidth allocated to a second user terminal.

5 . The wireless communication system of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to:
control a modulation scheme of data to be transmitted via the modulation transmitter to a particular user terminal of the plurality of user terminals based on a channel characteristic corresponding to the particular user terminal, thereby generating a group of modulation symbols; and allocate at least two modulation symbols included in the group of modulation symbols across multiple subcarriers for transmission to the particular user terminal, wherein the allocated multiple subcarriers are included in the subcarriers that are scheduled to be in use across the plurality of carriers.

6 . The wireless communication system of claim 5 , wherein the modulation scheme is an OFDM modulation scheme, and each group of modulation symbols is a respective OFDM symbol.

7 . The wireless communication system of claim 1 , wherein the respective portions of the per-beam power budget allocated to the scheduled subcarriers are an average power budget per resource element.

8 . The wireless communication system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of carriers are included in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed frequency band.

9 . A method of maximizing the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of wireless signals transmitted to a particular user terminal, the method comprising:
at a modulation transmitter system:
forming at least one beam included in a plurality of non-overlapping beams in a frequency band, the frequency band supporting a plurality of carriers, each beam to transmit data to a respective user terminal, and each beam subject to a per-beam power limit;
allocating, to the particular user terminal, a bandwidth of a particular beam of the plurality of non-overlapping beams, the bandwidth of the particular beam being less than a total bandwidth of the frequency band;
determining, based on the bandwidth allocated to the particular user terminal and the per-beam power limit, a respective power budget for each resource element to be transmitted via the particular beam; and
transmitting, to the particular user terminal via the particular beam, a set of resource elements in accordance with the determined respective power budgets.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein a total number of resource elements included in the set of resource elements corresponding to the particular user terminal is based on the bandwidth allocated to the particular user terminal, and wherein the respective power budget for the each resource element is determined, for a particular time interval, based on a ratio of the per-beam power limit and the total number of resource elements.

11 . The method of claim 9 , wherein each resource element included in the set of resource elements is included in a group of modulation symbols, and the method further comprises generating the group of modulation symbols based on a characteristic of a channel corresponding to the particular user terminal.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the modulation transmitter system includes an OFDM transmitter, and wherein the respective group of modulation symbols is included in a respective OFDM symbol.

13 . The method of claim 9 , wherein allocating the bandwidth of the particular beam to the particular user terminal comprises allocating the bandwidth of the particular beam across at least one carrier supported by the particular beam.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein each carrier included in the more than one carrier of the particular beam includes a respective plurality of subcarriers, and wherein allocating the bandwidth of the particular beam to the particular user terminal across the more than one carrier supported by the particular beam comprises allocating a bandwidth including a first subcarrier of a first carrier supported by the particular beam and including a second subcarrier of a second carrier supported by the particular beam.

15 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the set of resource elements transmitted to the particular user terminal is a first set resource elements, and the method further comprises:
allocating an updated bandwidth of the particular beam to the particular user terminal, the updated bandwidth corresponding to an updated set of resource elements allocated to the particular user terminal, the updated set of resource elements having a different total number of resource elements than a total number of the first set of resource elements; determining, based on the updated bandwidth allocated to the particular user terminal and the per-beam power limit, an updated respective power budget for each resource element included in the updated set of resource elements; and transmitting, to the particular user terminal via the particular beam, the updated set of resource elements in accordance with the determined, updated respective power budgets.

16 . The method of claim 9 , wherein forming the plurality of non-overlapping beams in the frequency band comprises forming at least one of the plurality of non-overlapping beams in an unlicensed frequency band.

17 . A method of maximizing the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of wireless signals transmitted to a particular user terminal, the method comprising:
determining, by a controller, a total number of subcarriers that are scheduled to be in use across a plurality of carriers included in a beam formed by a modulation transmitter, the total number of scheduled subcarriers across the plurality of subcarriers being less than a total number of available subcarriers across the plurality of carriers; allocating, by the controller and based on the total number of subcarriers that are scheduled to be in u

Assignees

• Gogo Llc

Inventors

• Miranda Heinz A
• Baker Michael H
• Michels James P
• Liu Yong

Classifications

• H04L5/0007

  the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A) or DMT · CPC title

• H04B7/18506 Primary

  Communications with or from aircraft, i.e. aeronautical mobile service · CPC title

• H04L5/0058

  Allocation criteria · CPC title

• H04W52/346 Primary

  distributing total power among users or channels · CPC title

• H04W52/241

  taking into account channel quality metrics, e.g. SIR, SNR, CIR or Eb/lo · CPC title