Enabling technologies for LTE on unlicensed spectrum

• US 10,292,054 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2017
• Issued: 05/14/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Khojastepour, Mohammad, Chai, Eugene, Sundaresan, Karthikeyan, Rangarajan, Sampath
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thai
• Application Number:
  US15/422,085
• Publication Number:
  US 20170265083A1
• Time in Patent Office: 832 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2601 Multicarrier modulation systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/26 Resource reservation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0453 Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/006 in the downlink, i.e. towards the terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/0816 with collision avoidance
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/10 adapted for operation in multiple networks, e.g. multi-mode access points

Abstract

Methods and a system are provided for enabling coexistence of WIFI and Long Term Evolution (LTE) in a wireless communication system. A method includes embedding in a data sequence, by a base station capable of transmitting and receiving LTE frames, a channel reservation packet that (i) is detectable by a WIFI receiver and (ii) reserves a particular one of a plurality of available unlicensed communication channels for a transmission duration of the data sequence. The method further includes transmitting, by the base station, the data sequence including the embedded channel reservation packet.

Claims

1. A method for enabling coexistence of WIFI and Long Term Evolution (LTE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

embedding in a data sequence, by a base station capable of transmitting and receiving LTE frames, a channel reservation packet that (i) is detectable by a WIFI receiver and (ii) reserves a particular one of a plurality of available unlicensed communication channels for a transmission duration of the data sequence; and

transmitting, by the base station, the data sequence including the embedded channel reservation packet;

wherein the data sequence is transmitted as a single Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) tone capable of regenerating a WIFI signal detectableby the WIFI receiver, and

wherein the single OFDMA tone consists of only systematic bits of a coded sequence.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the WIFI CTS signal is embedded into the channel reservation packet by determining a frequency domain equivalent of the WIFI CTS signal and embedding the frequency domain equivalent as data in the channel reservation packet.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a frequency domain equivalent is embedded as data in an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access frame of the channel reservation packet.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data sequence is transmitted by the base station using a Physical Downlink Shared Channel.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a highest available modulation rate is used to transmit the data sequence including the embedded channel reservation packet.

6. A method for enabling coexistence of WIFI and Long Term Evolution (LTE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

embedding in a data sequence, by a base station capable of transmitting and receiving LTE frames, a channel reservation packet that (i) is detectable by a WIFI receiver and (ii) reserves a particular one of a plurality of available unlicensed communication channels for a transmission duration of the data sequence; and

transmitting, by the base station, the data sequence including the embedded channel reservation packet;

wherein the data sequence is transmitted as a single Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) tone capable of regenerating a WIFI signal detectable by the WIFI receiver, and

wherein the single OFDMA tone is partitioned into different partitions, and wherein different ones of the different partitions are assigned to different virtual LTE users.