Early Uplink Grants for Low-Latency UE Positioning
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing wireless communication systems face significant delays in obtaining location information from user equipment (UEs) due to the need for uplink grants, which can be delayed by network congestion, sleep cycles, and poor signal quality, especially in emergency or low-latency scenarios.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an early uplink grant mechanism initiated by a location server or UE, allowing the UE to respond to location service requests without waiting for a grant, reducing latency by providing upfront grants based on priority or signal quality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If the UE waits for a scheduled uplink grant to send positioning measurement reports, then the network can manage uplink resources efficiently, but the response time for location information increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The base station provides uplink grants in advance before the UE actually needs to transmit positioning measurement reports. The location server requests positioning information, the base station proactively allocates and signals uplink resources to the UE before the measurement report is generated, allowing the UE to transmit immediately without waiting for scheduled grants. This preliminary resource allocation eliminates the time delay between location requests and report transmission.
2Loss of time
If the base station delays uplink grant allocation until needed, then network resource management is simplified, but latency in positioning measurements increases
Solution Approach 1:
The location server sends a request for positioning information to the base station, which then immediately responds with an uplink grant to the UE. This feedback mechanism allows the base station to allocate resources dynamically based on actual positioning needs, ensuring low latency while maintaining manageable complexity through automated grant allocation based on location server requests.
3Loss of time
If the UE transmits positioning reports immediately without waiting for grants, then response time is minimized, but network congestion and signal quality issues are exacerbated
Solution Approach 1:
The base station proactively provides uplink grants before the UE needs to transmit, ensuring that transmission resources are already allocated and ready. This prevents the UE from having to compete for resources during congested periods, as the grant is already in place, thereby maintaining reliability while achieving low latency response times.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
During a positioning session, a user equipment (UE) is provided with an early uplink grant to respond to a request for location service information from a location server. The location service information, for example, may be a request for positioning capabilities, a request for positioning measurements or a position estimate, and may be a request for a single, periodic or triggered location information. The early uplink grant may be requested by the UE prior to needing the uplink grant before the positioning measurements have been completed. The location server may instigate the early uplink grant at or near the same time that the location server sends the request for information to the UE. The early uplink grant may be used during high priority or emergency related positioning sessions in order to reduce the latency in the UE providing a response to the request for location information.