Method and apparatus for mitigating interference

• US 10,425,903 B2
• Filed: 03/26/2018
• Issued: 09/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ISCO International Inc.
• Original Assignee: ISCO International LLC
• Inventors: Abdelmonem, Amr, Seoane, Jorge, Galeev, Mikhail, Komoravolu, Krishna, Reichard, Jr., Gordon, Myers, William
• Primary Examiner(s): Manoharan, Muthuswamy G
• Application Number:
  US15/935,515
• Publication Number:
  US 20180220377A1
• Time in Patent Office: 547 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/005 of intercell interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0066 of narrowband interference narrowband interference reduction H04B1/1036
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0021 in which codes are applied as a frequency-domain sequences, e.g. MC-CDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0023 Time-frequency-space
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0073 Allocation arrangements that take into account other cell interferences for intercell interference mitigation or co-ordination in orthogonal multiplex systems H04J11/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/241 taking into account channel quality metrics, e.g. SIR, SNR, CIR, Eb/lo
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/243 taking into account interferences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices

Abstract

A system that incorporates aspects of the subject disclosure may perform operations including, for example, receiving a first signal operating at a first carrier frequency, receiving a second signal operating at a second carrier frequency, the first carrier frequency differing from the second carrier frequency, generating a combined signal based on the first signal and the second signal, measuring power levels in the combined signal, averaging at least a portion of the power levels to generate an average power level, determining a threshold according to the average power level, and monitoring interference in the combined signal according to the threshold. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

combining, by a system including a processor, a first signal in a first frequency band and a second signal in a second frequency band to generate a combined signal;

mitigating, by the system, interference associated with the combined signal, wherein the mitigating the interference comprises;

time averaging, by the system, at least a portion of power levels in the combined signal to generate an average power level, wherein the first signal, the second signal, or both have associated therewith one or more control channels that are excluded from the time averaging, and wherein the time averaging comprises a rolling average;

determining, by the system, a threshold according to the average power level;

detecting, by the system, an interference signal in the combined signal according to the threshold; and

generating, by the system, an updated combined signal to reduce the interference signal;

up-converting, by the system, a first portion of the updated combined signal associated with the first signal to generate a first restored signal; and

up-converting, by the system, a second portion of the updated combined signal associated with the second signal to generate a second restored signal,

wherein the first signal is a first down-converted signal,

wherein the second signal is a second down-converted signal,

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are separated from one another by a spectral gap, and

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are associated with a same carrier frequency.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the mitigating the interference further comprises measuring, by the system, the power levels in the combined signal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the rolling average is obtained as a linear average.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating the updated combined signal comprises suppressing at least a portion of the interference signal with a filter.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating the updated combined signal comprises suppressing at least a portion of the interference signal according to a beamforming adjustment of the first signal, the second signal, the combined signal, or any combination thereof.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

tracking, by the system, the first frequency band associated with the first signal to facilitate up-converting the first signal to the same carrier frequency; and

tracking, by the system, the second frequency band associated with the second signal to facilitate up-converting the second signal to the same carrier frequency.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the threshold is specified for each resource block of a plurality of resource blocks.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing, by the system, measurements on the first restored signal and the second restored signal to generate spectral information.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

providing, by the system, the spectral information to a base station.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the providing of the spectral information to the base station causes the base station to assess a performance of the base station and identify a source of the interference.

11. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising;

generating a combined signal by combination of a first signal and a second signal, wherein the first signal is in a first frequency band and the second signal is in a second frequency band;

mitigating interference, wherein the interference is associated with the combined signal, and wherein the mitigating the interference comprises;

generating an average power level by time averaging at least a portion of power levels in the combined signal, wherein the first signal, the second signal, or both have associated therewith one or more control channels that are excluded from the time averaging, and wherein the time averaging comprises a rolling average;

determining, according to the average power level, a threshold;

detecting, in the combined signal, an interference signal, wherein the interference signal is detected according to the threshold; and

generating an updated combined signal to reduce the interference signal;

up-converting a first portion of the updated combined signal associated with the first signal to generate a first restored signal; and

up-converting a second portion of the updated combined signal associated with the second signal to generate a second restored signal,

wherein the first signal is a first down-converted signal,

wherein the second signal is a second down-converted signal,

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are separated from one another by a spectral gap, and

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are associated with a same carrier frequency.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise determining a Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurement for the first frequency band and initiating a corrective action responsive to the SINR measurement falling below a SINR threshold.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the corrective action comprises performing a beamforming adjustment of at least one signal in the first frequency band.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the mitigating the interference further comprises measuring the power levels in the combined signal.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the rolling average is obtained as a linear average.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:

generating a combined signal based on a first signal and a second signal, wherein the first signal is in a first frequency band and the second signal is in a second frequency band;

mitigating interference associated with the combined signal, wherein the mitigating the interference comprises;

time averaging at least a portion of power levels in the combined signal to generate an average power level, wherein the first signal, the second signal, or both have associated therewith one or more control channels that are excluded from the time averaging, and wherein the time averaging comprises a rolling average;

determining a threshold according to the average power level;

detecting, according to the threshold, an interference signal in the combined signal; and

updating the combined signal to generate an updated combined signal that reduces the interference signal;

up-converting a first portion of the updated combined signal associated with the first signal to generate a first restored signal; and

up-converting a second portion of the updated combined signal associated with the second signal to generate a second restored signal,

wherein the first signal is a first down-converted signal,

wherein the second signal is a second down-converted signal,

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are separated from one another by a spectral gap, and

wherein the first frequency band and the second frequency band are associated with a same carrier frequency.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the updating the combined signal to generate the updated combined signal comprises:

generating a first intermediate signal from the first signal, the first intermediate signal operating at a first intermediate frequency, and the first intermediate frequency being lower than the same carrier frequency;

generating a second intermediate signal from the second signal, the second intermediate signal operating at a second intermediate frequency, the second intermediate frequency being lower than the same carrier frequency; and

combining the first intermediate signal and the second intermediate signal resulting in the combined signal.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise determining a performance measurement for the first frequency band of the first signal.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise initiating a corrective action responsive to the performance measurement falling below a performance threshold.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the performance measurement comprises a key performance indicator (KPI) or a Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurement.