Method and apparatus for LTE cell search using multiple receivers of a mobile device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9877271-B2
Application number	US-201414498879-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 26, 2014
Priority date	Sep 30, 2013
Publication date	Jan 23, 2018
Grant date	Jan 23, 2018

Abstract

A method using multiple receivers of a wireless communication device to accelerate cell selection and reselection is disclosed. Multiple receivers of the wireless device are used to implement carrier aggregation in LTE connected mode. The multiple receivers of the wireless device are used to search for cells concurrently across multiple radio frequency bands and/or multiple radio access technologies during cell selection and/or cell reselection procedures. A first receiver and a second receiver of the wireless device each search for cells over different radio frequency bands simultaneously, and accordingly the cell selection and reselection time is effectively reduced compared to using only one receiver. Multiple receivers are also used concurrently, in parallel, to accelerate inter-frequency cell detection and measurement and for inter-RAT searches and measurements.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A mobile device configurable for fast cell selection and reselection using multiple receivers, the mobile device comprising:
wireless circuitry comprising a first receiver, a second receiver, and a single transmitter; and
one or more processors communicatively coupled to the wireless circuitry and to a storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the mobile device to:
search concurrently a first set of cells associated with a first radio access technology (RAT) using the first receiver and a second set of cells associated with a second RAT using the second receiver;
generate a list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition; and
select a cell on which to camp using the list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition,
wherein the first set of cells of the first RAT operates on radio frequency bands that are different from radio frequency bands on which the second set of cells of the second RAT operates such that radio frequency bands of the second set of cells searched by the second receiver are distinct from radio frequency bands of the first set of cells searched by the first receiver.

2. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the mobile device selects the cell on which to camp using the list of candidate frequencies by obtaining at least one performance metric for each candidate frequency in the list of candidate frequencies and selecting the cell based on a set of performance metrics obtained for the list of candidate frequencies.

3. The mobile device of claim 2 , wherein the at least one performance metric includes a signal strength or a signal quality.

4. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the wireless circuitry further includes a third receiver used by the mobile device to search concurrently a third set of cells associated with a third RAT,
wherein the third set of cells of the third RAT operates in radio frequency bands different from the radio frequency bands of either the first set of cells of the first RAT or the second set of cells of the second RAT.

5. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the wireless circuitry further includes a third receiver used by the mobile device to perform a fast search for the first RAT using both the first receiver and the third receiver to search concurrently the first set of cells associated with the first RAT.

6. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein: the wireless circuitry further includes a third receiver used by the mobile device, the second RAT has a higher priority than the first RAT, and the mobile device searches concurrently the second set of cells associated with the second RAT using both the second receiver and the third receiver.

7. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the first receiver and the second receiver are configurable for carrier aggregation, in LTE connected mode, using multiple carriers simultaneously to aggregate multiple radio frequency bands to increase a downlink data rate.

8. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein:
the first RAT comprises a legacy RAT;
the second RAT comprises a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT;
the mobile device searches the first set of cells and the second set of cells concurrently following release of a Circuit Switched Fallback (CSFB) voice call on a legacy network, and execution of the instructions further causes the mobile device to:
camp on a cell of the legacy network using the first receiver, when the search is unable to locate an LTE cell for cell acquisition;
continue to search for LTE cells using the second receiver while camped on the legacy network; and
camp on a located LTE cell when found by the continuing search.

9. The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the first set of cells operates on radio frequency bands different from radio frequency bands on which the second set of cells operates such that the first receiver searches cells in radio frequency bands that are not searched by the second receiver.

10. A method for fast Long Term Evolution (LTE) cell selection and reselection in a wireless device comprising a single transmitter and at least two receivers, the method comprising:
by the wireless device following release of a Circuit Switched Fallback (CSFB) voice call on a legacy network:
concurrently searching a first set of cells of the legacy network using a first receiver of the wireless device and a second set of cells of an LTE network using a second receiver of the wireless device, wherein the second set of cells of the legacy network operates on radio frequency bands that are different from radio frequency bands on which the first set of cells of the LTE network operate such that radio frequency bands of the legacy network searched by the second receiver are distinct from radio frequency bands of the LTE network searched by the first receiver;
generating a list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition;
selecting an LTE cell on which to camp when finding at least one LTE cell in the list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition; and
continuing to search for LTE cells using the second receiver while camping on a legacy cell using the first receiver when unable to find at least one LTE cell in the list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein generating the list of candidate frequencies for cell acquisition comprises obtaining at least one performance metric for each candidate frequency in the list of candidate frequencies and selecting the LTE cell on which to camp based on a set of performance metrics obtained for the list of candidate frequencies.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the at least one performance metric includes a signal strength or a signal quality and the method further comprises:
selecting the LTE cell using the candidate frequency in the list of candidate frequencies having a highest value for the signal strength or the signal quality.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the signal strength comprises one or more of: a received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a received signal code power (RSCP), or a reference signal received power (RSRP).

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the signal quality comprises one or more of: a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), or a reference signal received quality (RSRQ).

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the wireless device includes a third receiver and the method further comprises:
concurrently searching a third set of cells of the LTE network using the third receiver to accelerate the search for LTE cells following release of the CSFB voice call or during the continuing search while camped on the legacy cell.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the legacy network uses a radio access technology (RAT) comprising one or more of wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), CDMA2000, universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), or global system for mobile communications (GSM).

17. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a wireless device comprising a single transmitter and a plurality of receivers, cause the wireless device to:
determine a received signal code power (RSCP) of a present serving Long Term Evolution (LTE) cell; and
when the RSCP of the present serving LTE cell falls below a first threshold and exceeds a second threshold:
perform an LTE inter-frequency cell detection and measurement procedure concurrently for a first set of LTE cells using a first receiver and for a second set of LTE cells using a second receiver, wherein radio frequency bands on which

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Su Li

Classifications

• H04W48/16 Primary

  Discovering, processing access restriction or access information · CPC title

• H04W36/0022

  for transferring data sessions between adjacent core network technologies · CPC title

• H04W36/00224

  between packet switched [PS] and circuit switched [CS] network technologies, e.g. circuit switched fallback [CSFB] · CPC title