Coordinated RRC Container for LTE-NR Dual Connectivity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current radio resource control (RRC) coordination between LTE eNB and NR NB nodes in 5G wireless networks faces challenges in ensuring seamless communication and compliance with user equipment (UE) capabilities, leading to potential misconfigurations and inefficiencies due to differences in protocol stacks and capabilities between the two nodes.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a coordinated RRC container that includes shared parameters, allowing NR NB and LTE eNB to coordinate and verify UE configurations, ensuring that configurations do not exceed UE capabilities, and providing separate containers for coordination and UE configuration to facilitate efficient and compatible protocol stack configurations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If separate RRC configurations are used for LTE eNB and NR NB nodes, then each node can operate independently with its own protocol stack, but coordination between nodes becomes complex and error-prone leading to misconfigurations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines separate RRC configuration processes into a unified coordinated RRC configuration framework. The master node and secondary node both participate in configuring the UE through coordinated containers that share common parameters, ensuring consistency across different protocol stacks while reducing coordination complexity through centralized management.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces coordination containers as intermediary structures that facilitate RRC configuration exchange between master and secondary nodes. These containers act as standardized interfaces that simplify the coordination process by providing a common format for sharing UE configuration parameters across different node types and protocol stacks.
2Reliability
If comprehensive UE capability verification is performed across all RRC parameters, then configuration compliance is ensured, but the verification process becomes time-consuming and reduces network efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and separates shared RRC parameters from the complete configuration set into dedicated coordination containers. This allows the system to focus verification efforts only on the critical shared parameters that affect UE capability compliance, rather than verifying every single RRC parameter, thereby maintaining reliability while improving efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary verification of UE capabilities and shared parameters during the configuration preparation phase before actual configuration deployment. The master node prepares coordination containers with pre-verified parameters that are guaranteed to comply with UE capabilities, eliminating the need for time-consuming post-deployment verification and reconfiguration.
3Loss of information
If detailed coordination containers with all shared parameters are exchanged between nodes, then complete configuration information is available for verification, but message size and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complete RRC configuration into distinct components: shared parameters contained in coordination containers and node-specific parameters handled separately. This segmentation allows the system to exchange only the essential shared information between nodes through compact coordination containers, maintaining information completeness for verification while minimizing message data volume and processing overhead.
Data Source
AI summary
Coordination of RRC configurations between an LTE NB and an NR NB in dual connectivity with a UE are performed using an RRC container that includes shared or coordinated parameters. For example, an NR NB determines to alter a configuration of a UE. The NR NB transmits a coordinated RRC container with coordinated UE parameters to an LTE NB and transmits a UE parameter RRC container to the LTE NB. The LTE NB evaluates the coordinated container for compliance with the UE capability. If satisfied, the LTE NB can send both containers (in a single RRC message or multiple RRC messages) to the UE.