560 results about "Soft handover" patented technology

A method and system for dynamic soft handoff resource allocation in a wireless communications network includes determining a wireless path characteristic individually for each path of a macro diversity connection between a mobile device and a plurality of wireless sites. Wireless resources are allocated for the macro diversity connection between the mobile device and the wireless sites based on the wireless path characteristic. The wireless path characteristic includes a location-based characteristic, a congestion-based characteristic, a subscriber-based characteristic and / or a performance-based characteristic.

The present invention relates to soft handoffs in an OFDM system. Each mobile terminal measures pilot signal strengths of transmissions from adjacent base stations. If the pilot signal strength for a base station exceeds the defined threshold, that base station is added to an active set list. Each mobile terminal notifies the base stations of their active set lists. By providing the set list to the base station controller and the servicing base station, the mobile terminal identifies the sole servicing base station or triggers a soft handoff mode when multiple base stations appear on the active set list. The soft handoff mode uses a combination of scheduling and space-time coding to affect efficient and reliable handoffs.

A system and method for canceling interference present in a code-division multiple access (CDMA) channel signal received at a CDMA receiver that is caused by multipath components of a transmitted pilot channel signal or by soft handoff conditions is computationally efficient because it operates at symbol rates. The channel signal from which such multipath interference is canceled can be either a traffic (data) channel or the pilot channel itself. Interference signals are produced in groups corresponding to the fingers of the CDMA rake receiver. The interference signals corresponding to each finger are used to cancel interference in the other fingers.

A method for supporting handover in a BWA communication system is provided. The system includes an MS, a serving BS, and a plurality of neighbor BSs. The coverage area of each of the BSs is divided into sectors using different subcarrier bands. The MS collects information broadcast from the serving BS on the serving BS and the neighbor BS, measures a signal level for each of the sectors of the serving BS and the neighbor BSs according to the collected information, and sends a handover request based on the measured signal level for each of the sectors. The serving BS broadcasts information on the serving BS and the neighbor BS to the MS, determines if the MS can perform a soft handover from its current sector to another sector upon receiving the handover request from the MS, and permits the MS to perform the soft handover if possible.

The soft handoff in an OFDMA system. If the pilot signal strength for a base station exceeds the defined threshold, the base station is added to an active set list. Subcarriers in a plurality of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols are divided and allocated into subchannels. The OFDM symbols are divided and multiplexed. A soft handoff zone with a first dimension of the subchannels and a second dimension of the divided and multiplexed OFDM symbols is defined. The soft handoff zone have subcarriers with a subchannel definition, for example, an identical permutation.

A mobile station according to the present invention that is capable of connecting simultaneously to a plurality of base stations comprises a reception radio portion and TPC bit detecting portions, for receiving and detecting TPC bits (transmission power control signals) from the plurality of base stations during soft handover; a combining portion, for combining the detected TPC bits to determine a combination signal; and a transmission power control deciding portion, for controlling the transmission power of the mobile station based on the combination signal determined by the combining portion. A method according to the present invention governs use of the mobile station hereof.

In a cellular system, each mobile station concurrently linked to plural link base stations in soft handover state and receiving packet from the packet-transmitting base station controls a transmission power of an up-link dedicated physical channel based on a first transmission power control information included in down-link dedicated physical channels of the link base stations. In other state, the mobile station controls the transmission power based on a second transmission power control information included in a down-link dedicated physical channel of the packet-transmitting base station. This accelerates the power increase up to a target power level causing that the measured signal-to-interference-ratio at the packet-transmitting base station reaches a target signal-to-interference-ratio, thereby improving receiving quality of control signal from the mobile station at the packet-transmitting base station.

A method of combining soft-handoff with a hybrid ARQ scheme to maximize throughput and gain in a communications system. After receiving a frame from the MS (110), the BTSs (104 and 106) will process the frame and communicate to the MS over a forward control channel whether the frame contained any errors. If all BTSs communicate that the frame contains errors, the MS will retransmit the same frame to all BTSs with a flush bit set to instruct the BTSs 104 and 106 to combine the retransmitted frame with the original frame. If only some BTSs communicate that the frame contains errors, the MS will transmit the next frame to all BTSs that successfully decoded the frame with the flush bit set to instruct the BTSs to erase the previous frame from memory and not to combine the previous frame with the current frame. The MS will retransmit the frame to the BTSs that did not successfully decode the frame with the flush bit set to instruct the BTSs to combine the previous frame with the retransmitted frame.

Multiple standards based radio (“SBR”) devices, each having a high-gain directional antenna, are utilized in a remote sensor interface (“RSI”) unit to optimize detection and reception by the RSI of radio signals from gateway controllers, hopping radios, and other wireless devices.

The invention relates to a mobile terminal communicating resource requests for dedicated uplink channel resources in a mobile communication system. Further, the invention also relates to a method for communicating resource requests for dedicated uplink channel resources in a mobile communication system. To allow the serving cell to detect “DOWN” commands from non-serving cells during soft handover the invention suggests a new definition of criteria for setting the “happy bit” in the control information associated to data transmitted on dedicated uplink channels. According to these criteria the mobile terminal may not indicate an unhappy condition while ramping up resource utilization. Only if resources equivalent to the maximum serving grant are utilized, the transmission buffer status requires to and the power status of the terminal allows for the happy bit is set to indicate a unhappy condition.

The invention relates to a method for scheduling mobile terminals within a mobile communication network and to a base station performing this method. Further, the invention relates to a method for acting upon the reception of scheduling grants in a mobile communication system and to a mobile terminal performing this method. To allow the serving cell to control resource utilization for uplink transmissions of UEs in soft-handover, without thereby decreasing the system throughput of UEs in the serving cell which are not in soft-handover, the invention proposes to use control information transmitted via a shared absolute grant channel to the UEs along with an absolute grant, wherein the control information indicate whether the absolute grant is valid for mobile terminals in soft-handover only.

The present invention relates to methods for controlling a plurality of base stations in a mobile communication system comprising a communication terminal, the plurality of base stations and a control unit connected to the plurality of base stations, wherein the communication terminal is in a soft handover. Further, the present invention relates to methods for signaling uplink channel quality characteristics, that are considered when controlling the plurality of base stations. Finally, the present invention relates to a base station, the control unit and the communication terminal which are specifically adapted to perform the control method and the signaling method respectively. To reduce the signaling load on the wired interface between a base station and a control unit the present invention selects a serving base station based on uplink channel quality characteristics and controls one or more of the base stations except the serving base station not to transmit data via the wired interface.

A base station inserts an overhead message into a broadcast stream transmitted to a mobile station. To support autonomous soft handoff by the mobile station, the base station inserting the overhead message sends a notification message to one or more of the base stations transmitting the same broadcast stream. The notification message indicates the time when the overhead message will be sent and the duration and / or length of the overhead message. The broadcast channel may be divided into multiple time slots to support mixed flows. Base stations supporting a mobile station in soft handoff can agree on the time slots allocated for a designated broadcast stream.

Disclosed is a method for supporting a serving BS currently providing an MS with a communication service to perform handover in a broadband wireless access communication system which includes the MS, the serving BS and a target BS to which handover of the MS is directed. In such a method, the serving BS allocates the same sub-channel as that allocated to the MS in a specific time period by the target BS in the same time period, and information about the allocated sub-channel is transmitted to the MS.

The present invention relates to soft handoffs in an OFDM system. Each mobile terminal measures pilot signal strengths of transmissions from adjacent base stations. If the pilot signal strength for a base station exceeds the defined threshold, that base station is added to an active set list. Each mobile terminal notifies the base stations of their active set lists. By providing the set list to the base station controller and the servicing base station, the mobile terminal identifies the sole servicing base station or triggers a soft handoff mode when multiple base stations appear on the active set list. The soft handoff mode uses a combination of scheduling and space-time coding to affect efficient and reliable handoffs.

A method and apparatus selects serving scheduling Node B for efficiently controlling and scheduling uplink traffic transmission from user equipments (UEs) located in a soft handover region. The UE selects a serving scheduling cell among cells included in its active set and transmits information on the selected serving scheduling cell to a Node B through uplink signaling. A service scheduling cell and non-serving scheduling cells efficiently control uplink traffic from the UE through independent scheduling. The efficient use of uplink resources contributes to an increase in the entire system performance and system stability.

A method for rate selection by a communication device for enhanced uplink during soft handoff in a wireless communication system includes a first step of receiving information from a scheduler. This information can include one or more of scheduling, a rate limit, a power margin limit, and a persistence. A next step includes determining a data rate for an enhanced uplink during soft handoff using the information. A next step includes transmitting to a serving base station on an enhanced uplink channel at the data rate determined from the determining step.

A telecommunications system has a source base station (BSS) and a destination base station (BSD), and a handover unit (100) having a dynamic offset threshold determination unit (102) which establishes a dynamic offset threshold for starting soft handover. When the dynamic offset threshold for soft handover is exceeded, a preliminary portion of a handover sequence is initiated at the destination base station. The preliminary portion of the handover sequence is initiated so that a time-critical handover sequence activity (such as L1 uplink synchronization) is well underway, if not completed, by the time the soft handover is actually needed. The dynamic offset threshold for starting handover is based on a probability that the mobile station will engage in the handover. The probability is a statistical probability that handover will actually occur based on handover history of other mobile stations previously and similarly traveling and of the same signal strength. Another portion of the soft handover sequence (e.g., a remaining portion of the soft handover sequence) is initiated when the signal strength from the destination base station as received at the specified mobile station has a predetermined relationship to a fixed offset threshold.

A system and method for implementing soft handoffs in a cellular communications system on a mobile platform. The system employs an antenna controller in communication with a beam forming network that generates two independently aimable lobes from a single beam. The single beam is radiated by a phased array antenna on the mobile platform. In an Air-to-Ground implementation involving an aircraft, a base transceiver station (BTS) look-up position table is utilized to provide the locations of a plurality of BTS sites within a given region that the aircraft is traversing. The antenna controller controls the beam forming network to generate dual lobes from the single beam that facilitate making a soft handoff from one BTS site to another. In a ground-based application, one lobe of the beam is used to maintain a communications link with one BTS site while a second lobe of the beam is continuously scanned about a predetermined arc to receive RF signals from other BTS sites and to determine when a new BTS site has become available that will provide a higher quality link than the link presently made with the one BTS site. A soft handoff is then implemented from the one BTS site to the new BTS site.

A system and method for transmitting packet data from a user equipment (UE) in a soft handover region to Node Bs in a code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile communication system. Scheduling is performed such that although the UE using an Enhanced Uplink Dedicated transport Channel (EUDCH) service in a soft handover region receives different scheduling commands from a plurality of active Node Bs, the EUDCH service can be performed in an optimal radio environment, contributing to improvement in data reception performance.

A method and apparatus for determining soft handover in a CDMA mobile communication system supporting Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service (MBMS) is provided. In the asynchronous CDMA mobile communication system supporting MBMS, when a UE moves to a region where it can receive data from a plurality of Node Bs, the UE determines whether to perform soft combining using a measurement value of a dedicated pilot channel signal, in performing soft handover. In this way, the UE can determine whether to perform soft combining on MBMS data received from a plurality of Node Bs by itself. Therefore, even though an MBMS user moves from a current or existing cell to a new cell, a stable MBMS service is provided to the user, thereby contributing to the user's convenience.

A communications network which is capable of effectively and efficiently handling mobility of wireless user terminals between access point nodes of a packet-switched network with minimal overhead and packet loss, and a method for using the same. The communications network employs a packet-switched core network and a plurality of access points coupled to the core network. Each access point is adapted to provide any user terminal with wireless communications access to the core network when that user terminal becomes affiliated with that access point. The system and method further employ ad-hoc routing techniques during handoff of a wireless user terminal between access point nodes of the core network to enable the network to maintain multiple paths via which data packets are provided to the user terminal during handoff to substantially eliminate packet loss during handoff.

Soft-handoff methods involve receiving an uplink signal from a user equipment at more than one basestation. The uplink signals are processed at each basestation before being backhauled to a common point for use to derive a single signal from the user equipment. One problem with previous types of soft-handoff methods is that relatively complex processing is required at each basestation in order to demodulate and decode the signals. It is also desired to further increase uplink capacity as compared with known types of soft-handoff methods. This is achieved by backhauling signals without carrying out any decoding of the uplink signal at the basestation. The backhauled signals are combined at a common point using maximal ratio combining before being fully demodulated and decoded. As a result capacity is increased and required user equipment transmit power is reduced.

A method for supporting a handover in a broadband wireless access communication system including an MSS, a serving BS providing service to the MSS, and a plurality of neighbor base stations, in which each of the BSs includes cells using different sub-channel bands. The method includes: measuring, by the BSS, intensities of signals received from the BSs, transmitting to the serving BS a request for a handover based on the measured signal intensities, establishing a connection with a target BS, to which a handover of the MSS is requested, from among the neighbor BSs before terminating a connection with the serving BS, and performing a soft handover by establishing a simultaneous connection with the two BSs in a handover area. The serving BS and the target BS allocate the same sub-channel including the same sub-carriers to the MSS when the mobile subscriber station performs the soft handover.

A radio network controller 3 is so constructed as to divide a plurality of base stations 2 into a group of base stations included in an E-DCH active set and a group of base stations included in an active set for soft handovers (i.e., a prior art active set) according to a status of reception of data in each of the plurality of base stations 2.

A packet transferring / transmitting method is provided for use in a mobile communication system 50. In this packet transferring / transmitting method, an upper node 1 determines the implementation of handover (determination step), and a handover addressing node 2 transfers, of a plurality of packets, a non-transmitted residual packet to a handover addressed node 3, and the upper node 1 transmits a new packet to the handover addressed node 3 (transfer / transmission step). This enables maintaining the number of users to be accommodated while securing a wide bandwidth, sharing a line with high efficiency at soft handover, avoiding data residual in the case of the employment of variable communication rate, and preventing an increase in retransmission.

A neighbor sector is automatically set to effectively perform soft handover. A base station corresponding to a first sector to communicate with a wireless terminal and a base station corresponding to a second sector to start communication with the wireless terminal due to movement of the wireless terminal or the like transmit a terminal identifier acquired from the wireless terminal, a time and a sector identifier to a base station control part (control part in the following). The control part successively stores the received sector identifier into a table correspondingly to the terminal identifier and the time received from the base station. Besides, the control part refers to the table, judges whether different sector identifiers are stored in a previously determined time range, regards a pair of the two different sector identifiers as neighbor sector candidates and counts the number of times they are regarded as the neighbor sector candidates. With respect to the neighbor sector candidates in which the counted number of times is a threshold or more, the control part transmits, to the base station corresponding to one sector of the neighbor sector candidates, a change request including the neighbor sector information concerning the other sector.

A method and apparatus for scheduling uplink data transmission for a UE in a mobile communication system supporting an uplink packet data service are provided. A serving Node B and at least one non-serving Node B are included in an active set of a UE located in a soft handover region. The UE receives a dedicated scheduling grant from the serving Node B by dedicated scheduling and a common scheduling grant from the at least one non-serving Node B, controls an uplink data rate not to exceed a previous uplink data rate during a predetermined validity duration, if the common scheduling grant indicates a rate-down, and transmits uplink data at the controlled uplink data rate.