Channel Status Reporting via MAC Layer for M2M Reliability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current wireless communication systems, such as 3GPP and LTE, face challenges in reliably reporting channel status for machine-to-machine (M2M) devices with coverage holes, leading to inefficient radio resource allocation and increased signaling overhead, which impairs normal user equipment (UE) performance.
Innovation Solution
The UE generates and sends channel status reports from the physical layer to the MAC or NAS layer, allowing for timely and efficient reporting of channel status to the network, using triggering events and UL grants to manage resource allocation and reduce overhead.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If channel status reports are transmitted through physical control channels using repetition transmissions to ensure reliability for M2M devices with coverage holes, then the reliability of channel status reporting is improved, but the signaling overhead increases significantly and normal UE performance is impaired
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces the MAC layer as an intermediary between the PHY layer and the network entity. Instead of transmitting channel status reports directly through physical control channels, the MAC layer generates and transmits these reports through the MAC protocol, which uses different resources and mechanisms that do not burden the physical control channels, thereby reducing signaling overhead while maintaining reporting reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the physical layer transmission mechanism with a MAC layer transmission mechanism. By substituting the PHY layer reporting method with MAC layer reporting, the system leverages higher-layer protocol capabilities to transmit channel status information without consuming physical control channel resources, thus reducing overhead on these channels
2Reliability
If repetition transmissions are used for channel status reports to meet reliability requirements for M2M devices, then the reliability is improved, but the burden on physical control channels increases
Solution Approach 1:
The MAC layer serves as an intermediary that handles channel status report transmission, transferring the burden from physical control channels to the MAC protocol layer. This intermediary approach allows reliable reporting without overloading the physical control channels with repetition transmissions
3Reliability
If large amount of radio resources are allocated to repetition transmissions for channel status reporting, then the reliability for M2M devices is improved, but normal UEs without coverage problems are impaired due to radio resource limitation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the channel status reporting function from the physical layer to the MAC layer, creating separate reporting paths. This segmentation allows M2M devices to report channel status through MAC layer resources without competing for physical control channel resources with normal UEs, thus improving reliability for M2M devices while maintaining normal UE performance
Solution Approach 2:
The MAC layer acts as an intermediary that provides an alternative reporting path for channel status information. This intermediary mechanism enables reliable reporting for M2M devices using MAC protocol resources rather than physical control channel resources, preventing resource starvation for normal UEs
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus are provided for a UE to send channel status reports (CSR) to a network entity. In one novel aspect, the CSR is generated at the MAC layer. In one embodiment, the UE detects one or more triggering event, obtains a value of channel status from the PHY layer, generates the CSR based on the value obtained from the PHY layer and transmits the channel status report to an eNB. In another embodiment, the UE starts a timer and waits for a UL grant to transmit the CSR. If no UL grant is received before the timer expires, the UE triggers either a dedicated SR or a random access SR. In another novel aspect, the channel status report is generated in a NAS message and sent to a NAS entity through the NAS layer. In one embodiment, the tracking-area-update procedure is used for the CSR.