Small Base Station Scanning and Acquisition Method
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing wireless communication systems face challenges in providing reliable indoor cellular reception, especially in high-density areas due to interference and limited access, which strains available capacity and complicates seamless integration with outdoor cells.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a method for discovering and acquiring a small base station, such as a femtocell, by accessing stored access information, determining proximity, and scanning to acquire the base station, while avoiding inaccessible alien femtocells and providing geographic-based proximity tolerance to maintain connection even with slight location changes, along with indicating the type of system access for appropriate usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the mobile station continuously scans for femtocells to ensure connection availability, then connection reliability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements periodic scanning with adaptive intervals. The mobile station performs scanning operations at predetermined time intervals rather than continuously, adjusting the scan frequency based on current conditions. This periodic approach maintains connection availability while significantly reducing power consumption compared to continuous scanning.
Solution Approach 2:
The scanning mechanism dynamically adjusts its behavior based on current network conditions and user state. The system can modify scan intervals, selection criteria, and acquisition parameters in real-time to balance connection reliability with power efficiency, adapting to changing environmental factors and user needs.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the mobile station scans for alien femtocells to ensure comprehensive coverage, then system adaptability is improved, but scanning time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates a blacklist mechanism that is updated in advance with known alien or inaccessible femtocells. The mobile station uses this precompiled list to filter out problematic cells during scanning, avoiding time-consuming attempts to acquire alien femtocells while maintaining the ability to discover legitimate femtocells in the environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts and separates alien femtocells from the set of all detected cells by using identification markers and blacklist information. This extraction allows the mobile station to ignore inaccessible cells during acquisition procedures, reducing scanning time while preserving adaptability to legitimate femtocell deployments.
3Reliability
If the mobile station performs detailed acquisition procedures for all detected femtocells to ensure optimal selection, then connection quality is improved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different acquisition and selection criteria to different types of femtocells based on their characteristics and accessibility. Rather than applying uniform detailed procedures to all detected cells, the system tailors the acquisition depth and complexity to the specific cell type, using simplified procedures for clearly identifiable alien cells and more thorough procedures for potentially accessible cells.
Data Source
AI summary
Cellular network may introduce a large number of limited access/limited range (“small”) base stations deployed by end-users such as home base nodes (HNBs) or Femtocells that provide access to access terminals (ATs) or user equipment (UE) to a core network. A selective discovery approach enables UE to discover and to use a small base station without wasting power to discover an alien base station or to search when not within range of any open small base station. Discovery can entail location-dependent determination (e.g., macro base station triangulation, global positioning system, local broadcast channel, etc.) of being within range of an open femtocell whose identity was manually learned, accessed via a distributed neighbor list, etc. The UE can advantageously tolerate small changes in location without having to relearn the identity of the femtocell. The type of access afforded is advantageously communicated to end user via a display indicator.