UE Antenna Panel Mapping for Carrier Aggregation Beam Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Wireless networks face challenges in efficiently managing bandwidth and response times due to multiple devices sharing resources, with limitations from communication protocols and hardware bandwidth, particularly when operating with both new and legacy protocols.
Innovation Solution
Implementing carrier aggregation (CA) in wireless networks, where user equipment (UE) maps component carriers to antenna panels for downlink reception, and communicates this mapping through RRC signaling to the base station, allowing for optimized beam management and resource allocation across multiple frequency bands.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If carrier aggregation is implemented to increase bandwidth utilization, then network capacity and throughput are improved, but device complexity and protocol management overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the carrier aggregation management by separating component carrier mapping to different antenna panels. Each panel can be independently configured and managed, allowing the system to handle multiple carriers through distributed panel operations rather than centralized complex coordination, thus improving bandwidth utilization while reducing overall system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic beam management where beam refinement and training periods are adaptively scheduled based on channel conditions and carrier requirements. This dynamic approach allows the system to optimize performance across aggregated carriers without requiring static complex configuration, resolving the contradiction between bandwidth utilization and protocol management complexity
2Measurement precision
If multiple antenna panels are used for downlink reception across multiple component carriers, then beam management precision and signal quality are improved, but scheduling complexity and training period coordination increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the beam management process into panel-specific operations where each antenna panel independently performs beam refinement and training for its assigned component carriers. This segmentation allows high measurement precision through dedicated panel beams while reducing scheduling complexity by eliminating the need for centralized coordination of all panels across all carriers
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary beam refinement procedures where antenna panels perform beam training and establish optimal beam directions before actual data transmission on aggregated carriers. This preliminary action ensures high beam management precision is achieved in advance, simplifying the real-time scheduling operations and reducing coordination complexity during active communication
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of a User Equipment (UE), Next Generation Node-B (gNB) and methods of communication are generally described herein. The UE may be configured for carrier aggregation (CA) in which a plurality of component carriers (CCs) are aggregated. The UE may determine a mapping of the CCs to a plurality of antenna panels for downlink reception, wherein a subset of the CCs are mapped to each antenna panel. The UE may transmit, to the gNB, radio resource control (RRC) signaling that indicates information related to the mapping. The gNB may, based at least partly on the mapping, determine, for each CC: a first scheduled time period for transmit beam refinement, and a second scheduled time period for receive beam refinement at the UE.