Various routing architectures for dynamic multi-hop backhauling cellular network and various methods useful in conjunction therewith

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9451476-B2
Application number	US-201113989589-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 23, 2011
Priority date	Nov 24, 2010
Publication date	Sep 20, 2016
Grant date	Sep 20, 2016

Abstract

A hierarchical cellular network administration system operative to administrate for a hierarchical cellular network having a core, the hierarchical cellular network administration system comprising a link establishment initiator operative to generate link establishment commands; and relay manager functionality operative to establish at least one link between at least one relay in the hierarchical cellular network and all nodes in said cellular network desired to be served by said at least one relay, as per said link establishment commands generated by the link establishment initiator; and to control operation of links thus established.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A mobile communication management system serving a hierarchical cellular network having linked nodes, the nodes including a core, base stations and mobile communication devices, thereby to define a topology of communication links between said nodes, the system comprising:
a processor and memory providing the following functionality:
a topology server including:
a topology learner which dynamically learns the topology and
a topology storing functionality which stores the topology learned by the topology learner as at least one topology map structured as a hierarchy having more than 2 levels,

wherein said server uses said topology map to dynamically route information through at least one downlinks to arrive at a desired destination,
when an error occurs whereby a message fails to reach said desired destination, a message is broadcast to at least one node which may be the desired destination,
and when the desired destination is found, at a new location within the network, at least one local routing table is updated to reflect that said desired destination is now at said new location,
wherein said server uses said topology map to dynamically route information by indicating, for each of at least one levels, a sibling-node at said level via which node the information is to arrive at the desired destination within said map
wherein the server broadcasts data packets intended for a destination node not found at a topological location identified in said map by the server, to at least one base station in the topology map, each of which broadcast to at least one of their “children” nodes in the hierarchal network, and
wherein the topology map defines a set of nodes and wherein the server broadcasts data packets intended for the not-found destination node only to a subset of said set of nodes wherein the subset's node/s are adjacent topologically, in said map, to the topological location identified by the server as having belonged to the destination node.

2. The system according to claim 1 wherein said topology server resides in a single node within said network.

3. The system according to claim 1 wherein said topology-storing functionality stores the topology as a hierarchy tree whose number of levels changes dynamically.

4. The system according to claim 1 wherein said topology server is distributed over a set of nodes within said network such that at least one topology map, representing at least a portion of the topology of the network, resides within each of said set of nodes.

5. The system according to claim 4 wherein at least one node stores a topology map including a list of at least some of its descendants and at least some routing information required to get to the descendants.

6. The system according to claim 1 wherein topology is determined centralistically based on a potential number of hops.

7. The system according to claim 1 wherein topology is determined at distributed locations over the topology based on a backhauling link quality score characterizing at least one inter-node link.

8. The system according to claim 1 and also comprising a local routing manager operative to perform a local process in which information is routed locally from one sibling node to another.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein a message is broadcast to a set of at least one nodes selected to be likely new locations of the destination node, given the last known location thereof, rather than to all nodes.

10. The system according to claim 1 wherein the message broadcast to said at least one node comprises the message which failed to reach its destination node.

11. The system according to claim 1 wherein said error is indicated by receipt of a ‘nack’ message.

12. The system according to claim 1 wherein said error is indicated by a timeout on receipt of an ‘ack’ message.

13. The system according to claim 1 wherein the message is broadcast to all available destinations.

14. The system according to claim 1 wherein the message is broadcast only to a last known branch in the network.

15. The system according to claim 1 wherein the message is broadcast only to a last known destination and its neighbors in the network.

16. A mobile communication management method operative for connecting a mobile communication device with a base station and serving a hierarchical cellular network having linked nodes, the nodes including a core, base stations and mobile communication devices, thereby to define a topology of communication links between said nodes, the method comprising:
providing a cellular communication link topology server including:
providing a cellular communication link topology learner which dynamically learns the topology
providing a cellular communication link topology storing functionality which stores the cellular communication link topology learned by the cellular communication link topology learner as at least one cellular communication link topology map structured as a hierarchy having more than 2 levels and
connecting at least one mobile communication device to at least one base station based on the cellular communication link topology map,
wherein said server uses said topology map to dynamically route information by indicating, for each of at least one levels, a sibling-node at said level via which node the information is to arrive at the desired destination within said map,
wherein the server broadcasts data packets intended for a destination node not found at a topological location identified in said map by the server, to at least one base station in the topology map, each of which broadcast to at least one of their “children” nodes in the hierarchal network.

17. The method according to claim 16 wherein said server uses said topology map to dynamically route information through at least one downlinks to arrive at a desired destination.

18. The method according to claim 17 wherein said server uses said topology map to dynamically route information by indicating, for each of at least one levels, a sibling-node at said level via which node the information is to arrive at the desired destination within said map.

19. The method according to claim 18 wherein the server broadcasts a paging message intended to locate a destination node not found at a topological location, identified within said map by the server, to at least some base stations in the hierarchy, each of which broadcasts to at least one of their “children” nodes in the hierarchy.

20. The method according to claim 19 wherein said not-found destination node sends an ‘ack’, upon receipt of the paging message, to its father node in the hierarchy and said ‘ack’ is transmitted (uplink) through the hierarchy to the topology server.

21. The method according to claim 16 wherein a routing tree is built using a local routing [greedy] manager, backhauling grades are exchanged between relay agents by sending broadcast messages, and the local routing manager computes its backhauling quality grade by combining at least the local routing manager's current grade and a quality grade of the local routing manager's backhauling link.

22. The method according to claim 16 and also comprising distributed cell routing planning including local monitoring of measurement reports of UEs to determine whether or not there are significant changes in the topology,
and wherein if a significant change is reported,
a score is computed on each link and a best serving base station for each camped node i

Assignees

• Shoshan Yaakov
• Koifman Gil
• Schwartz Adi
• Elta Systems Ltd

Inventors

• Shoshan Yaakov
• Koifman Gil
• Schwartz Adi

Classifications

• H04W72/23

  in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal · CPC title

• H04W72/21

  in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network · CPC title

• H04B7/15507

  Relay station based processing for cell extension or control of coverage area, (network planning with network coordinated processing with regard to cell extension H04W16/26; network topologies using dedicated repeater stations H04W84/047; terminal devices adapted for relaying to or from an other terminal H04W88/04) · CPC title

• H04W16/32 Primary

  Hierarchical cell structures · CPC title

• H04W40/22 Primary

  using selective relaying for reaching a BTS [Base Transceiver Station] or an access point · CPC title