Prioritizing Handover Measurement Reports by Signal Strength

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Current cell handover methods often result in selecting a non-ideal candidate for handover, leading to suboptimal handovers due to the order of measurement reports, which can cause decreased throughput, user experience degradation, increased power consumption, and unnecessary additional handovers.

Innovation Solution

The solution involves prioritizing measurement reports by including information from cells that have not yet completed their measurement timers, allowing the network to select the best candidate for handover by delaying the report until additional cells have completed their testing or by listing cells based on signal strength, thereby ensuring the network has sufficient information for optimal handover decisions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Speed

If measurement reports are transmitted immediately when a candidate cell fulfills handover criteria, then the handover procedure is executed quickly, but the network may select a non-ideal candidate due to the order of report transmission

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvehandover execution speedVSAvoidhandover optimality
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by having the user device proactively include measurement information for multiple candidate cells in the measurement report before the network makes a handover decision. Instead of waiting for each cell to be evaluated separately, the device prepares comprehensive measurement data for all candidate cells in advance, allowing the network to select the optimal target cell based on complete information rather than sequential reports.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If the user device waits for all candidate cells to complete measurement before reporting, then the network can select the optimal candidate, but the handover procedure is delayed

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvehandover optimalityVSAvoidhandover procedure time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies partial or excessive action by including measurement information for multiple candidate cells (more than the minimum one) in a single measurement report. This excessive inclusion of measurement data ensures the network has sufficient information to make an optimal handover decision without requiring the device to wait for all possible candidate cells to complete their measurement timers, thus balancing completeness with timeliness.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Reliability

If measurement reports are prioritized by signal strength, then better handover candidates are selected, but additional processing is required to sort and prioritize cell information

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvehandover candidate qualityVSAvoidmeasurement report processing
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by having the user device pre-sort and prioritize candidate cells based on signal strength criteria before including them in the measurement report. The device evaluates multiple candidate cells, ranks them according to signal strength or other quality metrics, and presents the sorted list to the network in advance. This preliminary prioritization eliminates the need for complex real-time sorting at the network side and ensures optimal handover candidates are presented first.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3454602B1Inclusion of additional cells in a measurement report
Publication Date: 2020.04.01 INTEL IP CORP
  • EP3454602B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3454602B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3454602B1 patent drawingFigure 3a

AI summary

Disclosed is a method of wireless cell evaluation for handover, and apparatus and system for same, comprising configuring a first timer for signal measurement of a first neighboring cell; performing a signal measurement on the first neighboring cell during the first timer; configuring one or more additional timers for signal measurement of one or more additional neighboring cells; performing a signal measurement on the one or more additional neighboring cells during the one or more additional timers; determining a subset of the one or more additional neighboring cells according to a measurement progress criterion; evaluating the first cell and the subset of cells for handover according to a sorting criterion; and generating a measurement report according to the evaluation for handover, comprising at least one cell within the first subset.