Method in which a mobile station that supports two or more radio access technologies performs communication with two or more networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9295101-B2
Application number	US-201113700697-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 27, 2011
Priority date	May 28, 2010
Publication date	Mar 22, 2016
Grant date	Mar 22, 2016

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus that supports two or more radio access technologies, and to a method in which the apparatus performs communication with two or more networks. A mobile station, which supports two or more radio access technologies and which belongs to a first network, receives a signal from a base station of a second network different from the first network, and transmits feedback information to a base station of the first network in a state in which the access between the mobile station and the base station of the second network is maintained, wherein the feedback information includes channel state information on the received signal, interference level information on the received signal, and/or a reception acknowledgement (ACK) signal or a reception non-acknowledgement (NACK) signal for the receives signal.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for performing, by a mobile station (MS) supporting two or more radio access technologies, communication with two or more networks, the method comprising:
receiving, by the MS while being served in a cellular network and a wireless local area network (WLAN), a signal from the WLAN; and
receiving, by the MS from the cellular network, control information including information about a feedback channel;
transmitting, by the MS to either the cellular network or the WLAN, feedback information regarding the WLAN through the feedback channel,
wherein the cellular network allocates a cellular uplink resource by a non-contention based scheme and the WLAN allocates a WLAN uplink resource by a contention based scheme in which the MS competes with other MSs to obtain the WLAN uplink resource,
wherein, if the MS has failed to obtain the WLAN uplink resource from the WLAN within a predetermined time by the contention based scheme, the feedback information is transmitted to the cellular network via the cellular uplink resource allocated by the non-contention based scheme, and
wherein the information about the feedback channel includes cellular uplink resource allocated for transmitting the feedback information to the cellular network.

2. The method according to claim 1 ,
wherein the feedback information includes:
WLAN channel state information based on the received signal,
WLAN interference level information based on the received signal, and
either WLAN acknowledgement (ACK) or WLAN negative acknowledgement (NACK) information based on the received signal.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the MS simultaneously receives the control information from the cellular network and the signal from the WLAN during a specific subframe interval.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the control information from the cellular network and the signal from the WLAN are received through different frequency bands.

5. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:
if the feedback information includes the WLAN ACK information, receiving a new signal from the WLAN.

6. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:
if the feedback information includes the WLAN NACK information, re-receiving the same signal as the signal received from the WLAN.

7. A mobile station (MS) for communicating with two or more networks, comprising:
a receiver;
a transmitter; and
a processor operatively connected to the receiver and the transmitter, the processor configured to:
while being served in a cellular network and a wireless local area network (WLAN), receive a signal from the WLAN;
receive, from the cellular network, control information including information about a feedback channel; and
transmit, to either the cellular network or the WLAN, feedback information regarding the WLAN through the feedback channel,

wherein the cellular network allocates a cellular uplink resource by a non-contention based scheme and the WLAN allocates a WLAN uplink resource by a contention based scheme in which the MS competes with other MSs to obtain the WLAN uplink resource,
wherein, if the MS has failed to obtain the WLAN uplink resource from the WLAN within a predetermined time by the contention based scheme, the feedback information is transmitted to the cellular network via the cellular uplink resource allocated by the non-contention based scheme, and
wherein the information about the feedback channel includes the cellular uplink resource allocated for transmitting the feedback information to the cellular network.

8. The mobile station (MS) according to claim 7 , wherein the processor is configured to simultaneously receive the control information from the cellular network and the signal from the WLAN during a specific subframe interval.

9. The mobile station (MS) according to claim 7 , wherein the control information from the cellular network and the signal from the WLAN are received through different frequency bands.

10. The mobile station (MS) according to claim 7 , wherein the processor is configured to receive a new signal from the WLAN if the feedback information includes WLAN ACK information.

11. The mobile station (MS) according to claim 7 , wherein the processor is configured to re-receive the same signal as the signal received from the WLAN if the feedback information includes WLAN NACK information.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the feedback information regarding the WLAN is forwarded to the WLAN by the first network.

13. The method according to claim 2 , wherein if the WLAN ACK or the WLAN NACK information is not received in the cellular network in the predetermined time from a transmission time of the signal, the WLAN NACK information is transmitted to the WLAN by the cellular network.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein if the MS has obtained the WLAN uplink resource from the WLAN within the predetermined time by the contention based scheme, the feedback information is transmitted to the WLAN network via the WLAN uplink resource allocated by the contention based scheme.

Assignees

• Lim Dongguk
• Cho Hangyu
• Kwon Yeonghyeon
• Lee Hyunwoo
• Lg Electronics Inc

Inventors

• Lim Dongguk
• Cho Hangyu
• Kwon Yeonghyeon
• Lee Hyunwoo

Classifications

• H04L1/1812

  Hybrid protocols; Hybrid automatic repeat request [HARQ] · CPC title

• H04W36/0072

  of resource information of target access point · CPC title

• H04W36/0066

  of control information between different types of networks in order to establish a new radio link in the target network · CPC title

• H04W36/1446 Primary

  wherein at least one of the networks is unlicensed · CPC title

• H04W88/06 Primary

  adapted for operation in multiple networks {or having at least two operational modes}, e.g. multi-mode terminals · CPC title