Management of uplink resources in multi-carrier CDMA system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9253783-B2
Application number	US-201213403683-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 23, 2012
Priority date	Aug 6, 2009
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

The method an apparatus described herein manages uplink resources to increase spectral efficiency and system capacity. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a base station may be assigned two or more downlink carriers for downlink transmission and two or more corresponding uplink carriers. In a multi-carrier mode, the base station may transmit signals on two or more downlink carriers to the same mobile terminal, and receive signals from the mobile terminal on one of the paired uplink terminals. The uplink carriers can be operated at different interference levels and the uplink traffic can be divided between the available uplink carriers based on the type of traffic and/or data transmission parameters. The mobile terminals may also be allowed to switch between the uplink carriers to improve overall efficiency.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. In a multi-carrier communication system, a method implemented by a scheduler in a base station for selecting a carrier for uplink transmissions from a mobile terminal to the base station, said method comprising:
maintaining a first uplink carrier to operate at a first interference level and a second uplink carrier to operate at a second interference level, wherein the first interference level is lower than the second interference level;
receiving a happiness indication from a mobile terminal;
selecting the first uplink carrier when said happiness indication indicates that the mobile terminal would like to transmit at a lower data rate than it is currently granted;
selecting the second uplink carrier when said happiness indication indicates that the mobile terminal would like to transmit at a higher data rate than it is currently granted; and
reassigning said mobile terminal to the selected uplink carrier.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising scheduling uplink transmissions from said mobile terminal using the selected uplink carrier.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein scheduling uplink transmissions from said mobile terminal comprises scheduling the mobile terminal to transmit using code-division multiplexing when the mobile terminal is assigned to the first uplink carrier.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein scheduling uplink transmissions from said mobile terminal comprises scheduling the mobile terminal to transmit using time-division multiplexing when the mobile terminal is assigned to the first second carrier.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first uplink carrier carries a control channel associated with a traffic channel carried by the second uplink carrier.

6. A base station in a multicarrier communication system, said base station comprising:
a transceiver to receive user data transmitted by a plurality of mobile terminals on two or more uplink carriers operating at different interference levels; and
a scheduler for scheduling transmissions from said plurality of mobile terminals on said uplink carriers, said scheduler configured to:
maintain a first uplink carrier to operate at a first interference level and a second uplink carrier to operate at a second interference level, wherein the first interference level is lower than the second interference level;
receive a happiness indication from a mobile terminal transmitting user data indicating a buffer level of said mobile terminal;
select the first uplink carrier when said happiness indication indicates that the mobile terminal would like to transmit at a lower data rate than it is currently granted;
select the second uplink carrier when said happiness indication indicates that the mobile terminal would like to transmit at a higher data rate than it is currently granted; and
reassign said mobile terminal to the selected uplink carrier based on said happiness indication.

7. The base station of claim 6 wherein said scheduler is further configured to schedule uplink transmissions from said mobile terminals on said first and second uplink carriers.

8. The base station of claim 7 wherein said scheduler is further configured to schedule the mobile terminals assigned to the first uplink carrier to transmit using code-division multiplexing.

9. The base station of claim 7 wherein said scheduler is further configured to schedule the mobile terminals assigned to the second uplink carrier to transmit using time-division multiplexing.

10. The base station of claim 7 wherein the first uplink carrier carries a control channel associated with a traffic channel carried by the second uplink carrier.

Assignees

• Wang Yi-Pin Eric
• Wallén Anders
• Grant Stephen
• Ericsson Telefon Ab L M

Inventors

• Wang Yi-Pin Eric
• Wallén Anders
• Grant Stephen

Classifications

• H04W72/52 Primary

  based on load · CPC title

• H04W72/1268

  of uplink data flows · CPC title

• H04W72/0453 Primary

  Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA · CPC title

• H04W72/0486 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic