Global Carrier Configuration Message for Multi-Carrier OFDM Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current multi-carrier OFDM systems face inefficiencies in communicating global carrier configurations across the network, leading to unnecessary overhead and difficulty in mobile stations determining supported RF carriers, especially in mixed 3G/4G deployments where frame boundaries may not be aligned.
Innovation Solution
A global carrier configuration message is introduced that contains information for all available RF carriers, including carrier groups, multi-carrier configuration indices, frequency assignment indices, and physical carrier indices, allowing mobile stations to efficiently scan and align sub-carriers, and includes frame boundary information for mixed deployments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If carrier configuration information is broadcast on a carrier-by-carrier basis, then mobile stations can obtain carrier information, but overhead over the air increases and efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges carrier configuration information from multiple carriers into a single global carrier configuration message. Instead of broadcasting separate configuration messages for each carrier, the system consolidates all carrier configuration data (including carrier group information, center frequencies, bandwidths, and sub-carrier alignment parameters) into one unified message that is broadcast once, thereby reducing air interface overhead while ensuring complete information delivery to mobile stations.
Solution Approach 2:
The global carrier configuration message serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides carrier configuration information for all carriers in the system, enables mobile stations to perform efficient scanning and cell search, supports both legacy single-carrier and multi-carrier operations, and facilitates network entry procedures. This multi-functional approach eliminates the need for separate broadcasting mechanisms for each carrier.
2Loss of information
If repeated broadcasting is performed for each carrier, then carrier information is delivered, but scanning time and network entry procedure duration increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary consolidation of all carrier configuration information into a global carrier configuration message before broadcasting. This pre-packaging of information includes all necessary data for every carrier in the system, allowing mobile stations to perform scanning and obtain complete carrier information in a single reception event, thereby dramatically reducing scanning time and accelerating network entry procedures.
3Productivity
If multi-carrier configuration is implemented, then transmission spectrum efficiency improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the multi-carrier system into carrier groups, where each carrier group contains information about multiple contiguous RF carriers. This segmentation approach organizes the complex multi-carrier configuration into manageable units, allowing mobile stations to process carrier information in structured groups rather than as individual carriers, thereby reducing perceived complexity while maintaining high transmission spectrum efficiency through multi-carrier operation.
Data Source
AI summary
A message contains global carrier configuration is provided in a wireless multi-carrier orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. The global carrier configuration contains global carrier configuration information such as the center frequencies for multiple available RF carriers of different base stations in the OFDM network. In one embodiment, the global carrier configuration comprises information of single or multiple carrier groups, each carrier group comprises single or multiple contiguous RF carriers, and each carrier group is associated with a multi-carrier configuration index that refers to carrier configuration information contained in a carrier configuration lookup table and a frequency assignment index that refers to a global frequency location contained in a frequency assignment lookup table.