Timing Advance Group Allocation for Signaling Overhead Reduction

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Solution Overview

Problem

In non-terrestrial wireless communication systems, frequent updates of Timing Advance (TA) values for user equipment lead to high signaling overhead, and random access preamble collisions occur due to simultaneous transmissions from different locations, resulting in reduced successful access probabilities.

Innovation Solution

Divide the service region into multiple Timing Advance Group (TAG) regions based on location information, allocate user equipment to the same TAG, and transmit corresponding TA values, as well as divide resource regions for preamble transmission to ensure orthogonal resources for different regions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If TA values are updated frequently for each user equipment in non-terrestrial networks, then the accuracy of uplink timing synchronization is improved, but the signaling overhead increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuplink timing synchronization accuracyVSAvoidsignaling overhead

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The service region is divided into multiple TAG regions based on location information, and user equipment are grouped into TAGs. Instead of updating TA values for each individual user equipment, the network updates TA values at the TAG level, significantly reducing signaling overhead while maintaining timing synchronization accuracy for all user equipment within each TAG region.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

Multiple user equipment located in the same geographic region are merged into the same TAG group. The network side device updates and transmits a single TA value to the entire TAG group, combining the timing advance control for multiple user equipment into one operation, thereby reducing the frequency and volume of signaling updates.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

2Productivity

If user equipment from different locations transmit random access preambles using the same resource, then the resource utilization efficiency is improved, but the probability of preamble collision increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveresource utilization efficiencyVSAvoidrandom access success probability

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

Different geographic regions (TAG regions) are assigned different random access preamble resources. User equipment in different locations use different time-frequency resources for preamble transmission, which locally adapts the resource allocation to the geographic distribution of user equipment, reducing collisions while maintaining overall resource utilization efficiency.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Data Source

PatentUS12120058B2Electronic device, user equipment, wireless communication method and storage medium

Publication Date: 2024.10.15 SONY GROUP CORP

AI summary

An electronic device of a network side includes a processing circuit, which is configured to divide a service range of the electronic device into a plurality of timing advance group (TAG) areas according to position information, and to allocate one or more user equipments in each TAG area to the same TAG; and same is also configured to send timing advance (TA) information to the user equipments, wherein the TA information comprises TA values corresponding to the TAGs allocated for the user equipments, such that the user equipments use the TA values corresponding to the TAGs allocated for the user equipments as TA values between the user equipments and the electronic device. By means of the electronic device, a signaling overhead brought about by a TA update can be reduced, and the probability of random access preamble collisions can be reduced, thereby improving the probability of random access success.