Enhanced local access in mobile communications with FDD resource allocation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9544827-B2
Application number	US-201214344492-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 12, 2012
Priority date	Sep 12, 2011
Publication date	Jan 10, 2017
Grant date	Jan 10, 2017

Abstract

A hybrid user equipment and small-node device data offloading architecture is provided. In this hybrid architecture, the small-node device includes a backhaul link to a telecommunication network and/or the Internet. The user equipment can send and receive data through the small-node device using the backhaul link according to a half-duplex FDD radio resource assignment in a wireless link between the user equipment and the small-node device.

First claim

I claim:

1. A small-node device for offloading data traffic in a cellular telecommunications system, comprising:
a base-station-to-the-small-node-device (BS2D) communication section configured to receive a first control-plane message from the base station over a BS2D link;
a small-node-device-to-user-equipment (D2UE) communication section configured to transmit downlink (DL) user-plane data in a first set of time slots over a first frequency resource to a user equipment using a wireless D2UE link established responsive to the first control-plane message, wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to receive uplink (UL) user-plane data from the user equipment over the D2UE link in a second set of time slots over a second frequency resource group, and wherein the time slots in the second set alternate with the time slots in the first set such that the UL and DL transmissions over the D2UE link do not occur simultaneously; and
a backhaul communication section configured to receive the user-plane traffic data from a server over a backhaul link.

2. The small-node device of claim 1 , wherein the first frequency resource group and the second frequency resource group are separated by a guard band.

3. The small-node device of claim 2 , wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to transmit a control signal to the user equipment to identify the first and second frequency resource groups and to identify whether these groups are assigned to UL or DL transmissions.

4. The small-node device of claim 3 , wherein the first and second frequency resource groups are each divided into a plurality of small frequency resources (SFRs), and wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to transmit the DL user-plane data in just a subset of the SFRs within the first frequency resource group.

5. The small-node device of claim 4 , wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to transmit a control signal to the user equipment to assign a subset of the SFRs within the second frequency group such that the received UL user-plane data is received only in the assigned subset of SFRs within the second frequency group.

6. The small-node device of claim 1 , wherein the BS2D link is a modified X2 interface having a master-slave relationship between the base station and the small-node device.

7. The small-node device of claim 1 , wherein the BS2D link is an LTE link.

8. The small-node device of claim 5 , wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to transmit a control signal to the user equipment to assign a transmit power for the UL user-plane data transmission.

9. The small-node device of claim 3 , wherein the D2UE link supports a plurality of more than two frequency resource groups, and wherein the control signal that identifies the first and second resource groups identifies these groups with regard to the plurality of more than two frequency resource groups.

10. A user equipment (UE) configured to receive offloaded data from a small-node device in a cellular telecommunication system, comprising:
a macro-base-station-to-the-user-equipment (BS2UE) communication section configured to receive a first control-plane message and user-plane data from the base station over a wireless BS2UE link; and
a small-node-device-to-the-user-equipment (D2UE) communication section configured to configured to transmit uplink (UL) user-plane data in a first set of time slots and in a first frequency resource to a small-node device using a wireless D2UE link established responsive to the first control-plane message,
wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to receive downlink (DL) user-plane data from the small-node device over the D2UE link in a second set of time slots and in a second frequency resource group, and
wherein the time slots in the second set alternate with the time slots in the first set such that the UL and DL transmissions over the D2UE link do not occur simultaneously.

11. The UE of claim 10 , wherein the first frequency resource group and the second frequency resource group are separated by a guard band.

12. The UE of claim 11 , wherein the BS2UE communication section is further configured to receive a second control signal from the base station to identify the first and second frequency resource groups and to identify whether these groups are assigned to UL or DL transmissions.

13. The UE of claim 12 , wherein the D2UE link supports a plurality of more than two frequency resource groups, and wherein the control signal that identifies the first and second resource groups identifies these groups with regard to the plurality of more than two frequency resource groups.

14. The UE of claim 11 , wherein the first and second frequency resource groups are each divided into a plurality of small frequency resources (SFRs), and wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to transmit the UL user-plane data in just a subset of the SFRs within the first frequency resource group.

15. The UE of claim 14 , wherein the BS2UE link is an LTE link.

16. The UE of claim 14 , wherein the D2UE communication section is further configured to receive a control signal from the small-node device to identify the first and second frequency resource groups and to identify whether these groups are assigned to UL or DL transmissions.

17. A base station for controlling a user equipment (UE) and a small-node device in a cellular telecommunications network, comprising:
a base-station-to-the-UE (BS2UE) communication section configured to exchange user-plane and control-plane data with the UE using a wireless BS2UE link;
a base-station-to-the-small-node-device (BS2D) communication section configured to exchange control-plane data with the small-node device using a BS2D link; and
a D2UE control unit configured to control an establishment and also a release/reconfiguration/handover of a small-node-device-to-the-UE (D2UE) link through a first control-plane message transmitted to at least one of the UE and the small-node device using a respective one of the BS2UE and BS2D links,
wherein the D2UE control unit is further configured to control a half-duplex FDD radio resource allocation within the D2UE link using a second control-plane message, and
wherein the user equipment communicates with the base station and the small-node device simultaneously at a predetermined time.

18. The base station of claim 17 , wherein the D2UE control unit is further configured to control the half-duplex FDD radio resource allocation using the second control-plane message such that the UE transmits uplink (UL) user-plane data in a first set of time slots and in a first frequency resource in the D2UE link and such that the UE receives downlink (DL) user-plane data in a second set of time slots and in a second frequency resource group in the D2UE link, and wherein the time slots in the second set alternate with the time slots in the first set such that the UL and DL transmissions over the D2UE link do not occur simultaneously.

19. The base station of claim 18 , wherein the D2UE control unit is further configured to control the half-duplex FDD radio resource allocation such that the first and second frequency resource groups are separated by a guard band.

20. The base station of claim 18 , wherein the first and second frequency groups are each divided into a plurality of small frequency resources (SFRs), and wherein the D2UE control unit is further configured to control the half-duplex FDD radio resourc

Assignees

• Ishii Hiroyuki
• Ntt Docomo Inc

Inventors

• Ishii Hiroyuki

Classifications

• H04W84/045

  using private Base Stations, e.g. femto Base Stations, home Node B · CPC title

• H04W36/22 Primary

  for handling the traffic · CPC title

• H04W28/08

  Load balancing or load distribution (transferring a connection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12) · CPC title