Method and apparatus for avoiding interference between multiple radios in a user equipment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9698965-B2
Application number	US-201113877683-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2011
Priority date	Oct 4, 2010
Publication date	Jul 4, 2017
Grant date	Jul 4, 2017

Abstract

In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus, comprising at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code; the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: deciding to switch to a half-duplex mode of operations upon detecting a triggering condition including that multiple radio stacks are activated at the apparatus simultaneously; signaling an associated base station the decision of switching to the half-duplex mode half-duplex mode; and entering the half-duplex mode of operation, is disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory including computer program code;
the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following:
deciding to switch to a half-duplex mode of operations upon detecting a first triggering condition associated with a first threshold including that an intermodulation interference reaches the first threshold and a transmitting power of the apparatus reaches a second threshold;
signaling an associated base station the decision of switching to the half-duplex mode;
entering the half-duplex mode of operation; and
upon detecting a second triggering condition with a second threshold level, causing the apparatus to switch back to a full duplex mode, wherein the second triggering condition comprises the intermodulation interference decreasing to a third threshold that is lower than the first threshold, and the transmitting power of the apparatus decreasing to a fourth threshold that is lower than the second threshold.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein detecting the first triggering condition further comprise one or more of the following:
detecting that the intermodulation interference reaches the fourth threshold;
detecting the interference-prone bands or frequency channels are put in use by the activated radio stacks; and
detecting that at least one transmitting power of the radio stacks at the apparatus reaches a threshold level.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein deciding to switching to the half-duplex mode of operation further comprise recognizing a need to, on at least one pair of carrier frequencies, avoid transmitting on one of the frequencies when receiving on the other.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein signaling the associated base station further comprises sending to the base station a signaling message indicating at least one pair of frequencies f 1 and f 2 so that the apparatus avoids receiving on one of the frequencies f 1 and f 2 and transmitting on the other frequency simultaneously.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein entering the half-duplex mode of operation comprise at least one of:
avoiding transmission to the base station on an uplink while receiving on a downlink from the base station simultaneously; and
avoiding receiving from the base station on the downlink while transmitting to the base station on the uplink simultaneously.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein entering operations in the half-duplex mode comprise staying in the half-duplex mode while in an idle state.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein detecting the second triggering condition comprises at least one of:
detecting that an intermodulation interference decreases to the fourth threshold;
detecting that one or more of multiple radio stacks are deactivated leaving at most one radio stack active;
detecting a less interference-prone band or frequency channel is put in use; and
detecting that at least one transmitting power of the radio stacks at the apparatus decrease to a threshold.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the apparatus is one of a long term evolution (LTE) handset and a generic 4 th -generation mobile station configured to support multiple radio stacks including a wireless local area network (WLAN) radio stack and a LTE radio stack.

9. A method, comprising:
receiving at a base station a first signaling message from a user equipment (UE), in response to detection of a first triggering condition, comprising an indication of a need to switch to a half-duplex mode, the UE is configured with multiple radio stacks, wherein the first triggering condition is associated with a first threshold including that an intermodulation interference reaches the first threshold and a transmitting power of the apparatus reaches a second threshold;
receiving a second signaling message from the UE in response to detection of a second triggering condition of a need to, resume a full duplex mode of operation and reallocate radio resources accordingly, wherein the second triggering condition comprises the intermodulation interference decreasing to a third threshold that is lower than the first threshold, and the transmitting power of the apparatus decreasing to a fourth threshold that is lower than the second threshold; and
adjusting the scheduling of the UE in response to receiving the signaling message.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the first signaling message comprises an indication of at least one pair of frequencies f 1 and f 2 so that the base station avoids receiving on one of the frequencies f 1 and f 2 and transmitting on the other frequency simultaneously.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein adjusting resource allocation for the UE comprises changing at least one a downlink resource allocation and an uplink resource allocation in response to the UE switching to the half-duplex mode.

12. The method of claim 9 further comprising entering the half-duplex mode of operations by performing at least one of:
avoiding transmitting to the UE on a down link while receiving from the UE on an uplink simultaneously; and
avoiding receiving from the UE on the uplink while transmitting to the UE on the downlink simultaneously.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising receiving the second signaling message indicating the absence of a need to restrict scheduling of the UE.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the UE is configured to support at least a long term evolution (LTE) radio stack and a wireless local area network (WLAN) radio stack.

15. A system, comprising:
a user equipment (UE) configured to
upon detecting a first triggering condition, recognize a need to, on at least one pair of carrier frequencies, avoid transmitting on one of the frequencies when receiving on the other; and
signal an associated base station an indication of the recognized need; and
a base station configured to
receive a first signaling message from the UE, in response to detection of the first triggering condition comprising an indication of a need to, on at least one pair of carrier frequencies, avoid transmitting on one of the carrier frequencies when receiving on the other, wherein the first triggering condition is associated with a first threshold including that an intermodulation interference reaches the first threshold and a transmitting power of the apparatus reaches a second threshold;
receive a second signaling message from the UE in response to detection of a second triggering condition of a need to, resume a full duplex mode of operation and reallocate radio resources accordingly, wherein the second triggering condition comprises the intermodulation interference decreasing to a third threshold that is lower than the first threshold, and the transmitting power of the apparatus decreasing to a fourth threshold that is lower than the second threshold, and
adjust scheduling of the UE in response to receiving the signaling message.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the UE is configured to detect the first triggering condition to help recognize the need to, on at least one pair of carrier frequencies, avoid transmitting on one of the frequencies when receiving on the other, by performing at least one of:
detecting that more than one radio stack are activated at the UE simultaneously, the radio stacks sharing same frequency resources;
detecting the interference-prone bands or frequency channels are put in use by the activated radio stacks; and
detecting that a transmitting power of the UE reaches a threshold

Assignees

• Koskinen Henri Markus
• Ojala Jussi Kustaa
• Pii̠Pponen Antti-Veikko
• Zetterman Tommi Juhani
• Nokia Technologies Oy

Inventors

• Koskinen Henri Markus
• Ojala Jussi Kustaa
• Pii̠Pponen Antti-Veikko
• Zetterman Tommi Juhani

Classifications

• H04L5/1453 Primary

  of modulation type · CPC title

• H04L1/0001

  Systems modifying transmission characteristics according to link quality, e.g. power backoff (adaptive data allocation for multicarrier modulation H04L5/0044; controlling transmission power for radio systems H04W52/04) · CPC title

• H04W88/06

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

• H04W72/0453

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

• H04L5/1438

  Negotiation of transmission parameters prior to communication (modified according to link quality H04L1/0001) · CPC title