Uplink coordinated multipoint communications in a wireless network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9820273-B2
Application number	US-201113037213-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2011
Priority date	Mar 2, 2010
Publication date	Nov 14, 2017
Grant date	Nov 14, 2017

Abstract

Devices, systems, methods and/or computer program products are provided to facilitate coordinated multipoint transmission and reception of communications in a wireless network. In some scenarios, different set of resources are allocated for uplink transmissions of multiple user equipment. In other scenarios collision avoidance and/or multiplexing techniques are used to enable reception and decoding of multiple uplink transmissions on the same or overlapping resources at the same time. This Abstract is provided for the sole purpose of complying with the Abstract requirement rules that allow a reader to quickly ascertain the disclosed subject matter. Therefore, it is to be understood that it should not be used to interpret or limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for wireless communication, comprising:
identifying, by a serving eNodeB, one or more non-serving eNodeBs that together with the serving eNodeB form a coordinated multipoint (CoMP) set;
transmitting uplink configuration information from the serving eNodeB to the one or more non-serving eNodeBs to facilitate coordinated uplink operation of the CoMP set, the uplink configuration information comprising an indication to a second eNodeB in the CoMP set of scheduling information and authorizing the second eNodeB to use a second set of resources for uplink transmissions that at least partially overlap with a first set of resources allocated by a first eNodeB in the CoMP set for scheduled uplink transmissions of a first user equipment, wherein the second set of resources at least partially overlap with the first set of resources in one or both of a time domain and a frequency domain, the uplink configuration information further comprising an indication of a spatial division multiple access (SDMA) technique used for the uplink transmissions on the first and second set of resources, wherein a rank of a user equipment associated with the CoMP set is determined in accordance with Min{Tx, Rx(all)}, where Min represents the minimum value, Tx represents the number of transmit channels of the user equipment and Rx(all) represents the number of receive channels of all eNodeBs in the CoMP set; and
receiving, at the serving eNodeB, uplink communications originated from one or more user equipment, the received uplink communications having been transmitted in accordance with the uplink configuration information.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first eNodeB is the serving eNodeB and the second eNodeB is a non-serving eNodeB.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first set of resources are allocated by the serving eNodeB for scheduled uplink transmissions of the first user equipment on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and
the uplink configuration information further authorizes a non-serving eNodeB in the CoMP set to schedule uplink transmissions for a second user equipment on the second set of resources.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the SDMA technique comprises at least one of coordinated beam forming or precoding techniques.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein a bitwidth allocation associated with the rank indicator in an uplink grant is determined in accordance with Min {Tx, Rx(all)}.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the uplink communications received at the serving eNodeB comprise uplink transmissions that are initially received at a particular non-serving eNodeB and subsequently conveyed to the serving eNodeB by the particular non-serving eNodeB.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the serving eNodeB is configured to receive the conveyed uplink transmissions over a backhaul communication channel or an over-the-air communication channel.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising transmitting an acknowledgment (ACK) by the serving eNodeB to the user equipment from which the uplink communications were originated.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first set of resources are allocated for transmission of sounding reference signal (SRS) transmissions associated with the serving eNodeB; and
the uplink configuration information further identifies one or more parameters associated with a multiplexing technique for transmission of sounding reference signals (SRSs) associated with the one or more non-serving eNodeBs in the CoMP set on the second set of resources.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the multiplexing technique is selected from a group of multiplexing techniques consisting of:
code division multiplexing,
frequency division multiplexing, and
time division multiplexing.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first set of resources are allocated for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmissions from the first user equipment associated with the serving eNodeB; and
the uplink configuration information further authorizes PUCCH transmissions from a second user equipment on the second set of resources.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the PUCCH transmissions are carried out in accordance with a multiplexing technique selected from a group of multiplexing techniques consisting of:
code division multiplexing,
frequency division multiplexing, and
time division multiplexing.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein one or more eNodeBs in the CoMP set dynamically or semi-statically configure the first and the second set of resources.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first set of resources are allocated for physical random access channel (PRACH) transmissions from the first user equipment; and
the uplink configuration information further authorizes PRACH transmissions from a second user equipment on the second set of resources.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the uplink configuration information further identifies orthogonal PRACH sequences for PRACH transmissions on the first and second set of resources.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the serving eNodeB utilizes an interference cancellation technique to process a multiplicity of received uplink communications.

17. A method for wireless communication, comprising:
receiving uplink configuration information from a serving eNodeB at a non-serving eNodeB, wherein the non-serving eNodeB is a member of a CoMP set that includes the serving eNodeB, and wherein the received uplink configuration information relates to coordinated uplink operation of the CoMP set; and
allocating resources for uplink transmissions of a first user equipment associated with the non-serving eNodeB in accordance with the received uplink configuration, the uplink configuration information comprising an indication to a second eNodeB in the CoMP set of scheduling information and authorizing the second eNodeB to use a second set of resources for uplink transmissions that at least partially overlap with a first set of resources allocated by a first eNodeB in the CoMP set for scheduled uplink transmissions of another user equipment, wherein the second set of resources at least partially overlap with the first set of resources in one or both of a time domain and a frequency domain, the uplink configuration information further comprising an indication of a spatial division multiple access (SDMA) technique used for the uplink transmissions on the first and second set of resources, wherein a rank of a user equipment associated with the CoMP set is determined in accordance with Min{Tx, Rx(all)}, where Min represents the minimum value, Tx represents the number of transmit channels of the user equipment and Rx (all) represents the number of receive channels of all eNodeBs in the CoMP set.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:
receiving, at the non-serving eNodeB, uplink communications originated from a second user equipment, the received uplink communications having been transmitted in accordance with the uplink configuration information; and
conveying at least a portion of the received uplink communications to the serving eNodeB.

19. A wireless communications device, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising executable code which, when executed by the processor, configures the wireless communications device to:
identify, at a serving eNodeB, one or more non-serving eNodeBs that together with the serving eNodeB form a coordinated multipoint (CoMP) set;
transmit uplink configuration inform

Assignees

• Zhang Xiaoxia
• Xu Hao
• Wang Renqiu
• Fan Zhifei

Inventors

• Zhang Xiaoxia
• Xu Hao
• Wang Renqiu
• Fan Zhifei

Classifications

• H04W72/27 Primary

  between access points · CPC title

• H04W72/0426 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W72/04

  Wireless resource allocation · CPC title

• H04W72/21

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

• H04B7/0697

  using spatial multiplexing · CPC title