User Equipment Capability Advertisement in LTE Networks
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for a user equipment (UE) to advertise carrier aggregation (CA) capabilities to an LTE network are inefficient, particularly due to limited space in the uplink grant for capability information, leading to potential network failures and unsatisfactory user experiences.
Innovation Solution
The UE determines the number of available spots to advertise CA combinations, prioritizes LTE bands, and transmits a portion of the list in priority order, while also setting indicators for gapless measurement capabilities based on its capabilities to optimize the transmission of capability information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the UE transmits all CA combinations and gapless measurement capability information in the UL grant, then the network can be fully aware of the UE capabilities, but the limited UL grant space causes transmission failures and network timeouts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the most essential capability information (selected CA combinations and gapless measurement indicators) for transmission in the UL grant, leaving out less critical details. This extraction principle directly resolves the contradiction by reducing the transmitted information volume to fit within the limited UL grant space while maintaining transmission reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments capability information into different priority levels: critical information (transmitted in UL grant) and non-critical information (transmitted later or omitted). This segmentation allows the system to prioritize transmission of essential CA combinations and measurement indicators, resolving the space constraint issue while ensuring reliable delivery of most important capabilities.
2Productivity
If the UE advertises all supported CA combinations, then the network can select the optimal arrangement, but the limited number of advertisement spots prevents efficient transmission of preferred combinations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating between critical and non-critical CA combinations. Instead of treating all combinations equally, it prioritizes advertising preferred combinations (e.g., triple CA over double CA) in the limited advertisement spots. This ensures that the most desirable configurations are transmitted first, improving advertisement efficiency while preventing loss of preferred combination information.
3Measurement precision
If the UE includes gapless measurement capability information for all bands, then the network can determine optimal measurements, but the information occupies significant portion of the limited UL grant space
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential gapless measurement capability indicators (such as IF-GM and IR-GM support flags) for transmission in the UL grant, rather than including detailed measurement information for all bands. This extraction maintains measurement precision by conveying the key capability status while dramatically reducing the information volume to fit the limited UL grant space.
Data Source
AI summary
A device and method for transmitting user equipment capability information to a network. In a first mechanism, the device and method transmits carrier aggregation (CA) combinations supported by the user equipment in a priority order to the network. The priority order may be determined based on most recent camped bands and the neighbor bands of the most recent camped bands. In a second mechanism, the device and method transmits indicators corresponding to types of gapless measurements, where when an indicator is set to the user equipment being incapable of performing the type of gapless measurement, the capability message does not include individual indications for the bands for that type of measurement.