Wireless Feeder Network Sounding via Visibility Matrix
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing demand for bandwidth and the need for smaller, more deployable access base stations in various locations, such as on street furniture, while maintaining a spectrally efficient wireless backhaul connection, are hindered by the high costs and interference issues in existing wired and wireless backhaul solutions.
Innovation Solution
A wireless feeder network is established with a sounding schedule determined using a visibility matrix to coordinate channel sounding processes among feeder base stations and terminals, avoiding interference and ensuring accurate channel metrics, allowing for simultaneous sounding procedures where feasible, and periodic updates to maintain network optimization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If cell splitting techniques are used to increase system capacity by adding more access base stations, then bandwidth demand is met, but the cost of providing wired or wireless point-to-point backhaul connections increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the access network and backhaul network into a single integrated wireless feeder network. Feeder base stations and access base stations share the same wireless infrastructure and frequency resources, eliminating the need for separate dedicated backhaul connections. This combining approach allows traffic to be routed through multiple paths dynamically, reducing the overall backhaul infrastructure required while maintaining system capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The wireless feeder network provides multi-functionality by serving both as an access network for user equipment and as a backhaul network for connecting access base stations to the core network. The same wireless links and base stations perform dual roles, eliminating the need for separate dedicated backhaul infrastructure and reducing overall network cost while maintaining scalability.
2Reliability
If dedicated wireless backhaul connections are provided for each access base station, then reliable connectivity is achieved, but scarce radio frequencies must be allocated in advance and cannot change, reducing spectral efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic resource allocation where the roles of base stations (access or feeder) and the allocation of frequency resources are not fixed but can change over time based on network conditions, traffic demands, and channel quality. This dynamic approach allows the network to adaptively reuse spectral resources across different functions and time periods, maintaining reliable connectivity while maximizing spectral efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The network dynamically changes operational parameters including frequency allocation, base station roles, and routing paths based on real-time conditions. This allows the same physical infrastructure to support multiple functions at different times, providing both reliable connectivity and high spectral efficiency through parameter adaptation rather than fixed allocations.
3Device complexity
If relay traffic is used to pass traffic between base stations, then backhaul connection costs are reduced, but a significant amount of the total resource provided within the access network is consumed for handling relay traffic
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the network into distinct feeder base stations and access base stations with clear functional separation. Feeder base stations are specifically designated to handle backhaul traffic to the core network, while access base stations focus on user equipment service. This segmentation allows efficient routing where relay traffic is minimized and only used when necessary, rather than all traffic being handled through access base stations as relays.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces feeder base stations as intermediary nodes between access base stations and the core network. These dedicated intermediary nodes handle the backhaul function, freeing up access base station resources for user equipment service. This intermediary approach reduces the resource consumption of access base stations for relay traffic while maintaining cost-effective wireless backhaul connections.
4Ease of manufacture
If access base stations are made smaller and placed on street furniture for easier deployment, then deployment flexibility is improved, but maintaining spectrally efficient wireless backhaul connections becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the wireless infrastructure universal by having base stations perform multiple functions (access and backhaul) through software configuration rather than requiring separate dedicated hardware for each function. This allows small, easily deployable base stations on street furniture to be flexibly configured as either access base stations or feeder base stations, maintaining deployment flexibility while enabling spectrally efficient wireless backhaul through intelligent resource allocation.
Data Source
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AI summary
An apparatus and method are provided for controlling a wireless feeder network which connects access base stations to a communications network. The wireless feeder network comprises a plurality of feeder base stations connected to the communications network and a plurality of feeder terminals connected to the plurality of access base stations. A sounding schedule is determined for the wireless feeder network in dependence on a visibility matrix,the visibility matrix indicative of visibility via the wireless feeder network between each of the plurality of feeder base stations and each of the plurality of feeder terminals. Then a sounding procedure within the wireless feeder network is controlled in accordance with the sounding schedule. The visibility matrix enables a coordinated sounding procedure to be carried out, allowing more accurate channel metrics for the wireless channels of the network to be determined which are not adversely affected by interference between elements of the network.