Femtocell Proximity Detection for Seamless Handover
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Solution Overview
Problem
In high-density femtocell environments, user equipment experiences interference and excessive control messages due to futile attempts to connect to inaccessible femtocells, making it difficult to manage neighbor lists and efficiently hand over connections.
Innovation Solution
A method where user equipment sends proximity messages to the serving base station to activate or increase transmission power of nearby femtocells for seamless handover, reducing unnecessary message exchanges by only activating femtocells when the user equipment is in range and ensuring authorized access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If user equipment attempts to connect to all femtocells in the area, then connection opportunities increase, but interference and control messages increase
Solution Approach 1:
The network performs preliminary action by pre-configuring and filtering the neighbor list of femtocells based on user equipment authorization status before connection attempts. This prevents user equipment from attempting to connect to unauthorized femtocells, thereby reducing futile connection attempts and associated interference while maintaining connection opportunities for authorized femtocells.
2Adaptability or versatility
If all femtocells are included in the neighbor list, then search coverage increases, but message overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and removes unauthorized femtocells from the neighbor list configuration. By filtering out femtocells that user equipment is not authorized to access, the system maintains comprehensive search coverage for authorized femtocells while significantly reducing the number of control messages exchanged during the connection search process.
3Measurement precision
If paging packets are sent through all femtocells, then user equipment location accuracy increases, but network resources are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The invention applies local quality by differentiating the treatment of authorized versus unauthorized femtocells in the paging process. Paging packets are selectively sent only through authorized femtocells where the user equipment can actually access, rather than attempting to page through all femtocells in the tracking area. This maintains location accuracy for accessible femtocells while avoiding waste of network resources on unauthorized ones.
Data Source
AI summary
The described method provides for an efficient method for user equipment (104) to identify when it is in proximity to an assigned femtocell (108) in order to be handed over to a femtocell from a macro cell. As the user the equipment moves within a macro cell (106) that is defined by a serving base station (102), it is determined (202) that it is in the range of or in proximity to the femtocell to which it is registered or subscribed. Upon notification that it is near the femtocell, the user equipment sends (204) a message to the serving base station of the macro cell indicating the user equipment has identified its femtocell. The serving base station then sends (208) a message to femtocell to turn on the femtocell so that a handover of the user equipment from the macro cell and serving base station and the femtocell can be initiated. The serving base station sends (212) a response to the user equipment indicating that the femtocell is ready to receive the user equipment as a part of handover procedure.