Network discovery and beam acquisition in 5G rat beam cell operation

• US 10,523,304 B2
• Filed: 12/24/2015
• Issued: 12/31/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Jung, Hyejung, Balercia, Tommaso, Bautista De Lisbona, Xavier Carreno, Davydov, Alexei
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhao, Wei
• Application Number:
  US15/747,409
• Publication Number:
  US 20180241458A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,468 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/309 Measuring or estimating channel quality parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/024 Co-operative use of antennas of several sites, e.g. in co-ordinated multipoint or co-operative multiple-input multiple-output [MIMO] systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0452 Multi-user MIMO systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0695 using beam selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0697 using spatial multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0888 with selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0073 Acquisition of primary synchronisation channel, e.g. detection of cell-ID within cell-ID group
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0076 Acquisition of secondary synchronisation channel, e.g. detection of cell-ID group
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0083 Multi-mode cell search, i.e. where several modes or systems can be used, e.g. backwards compatible, dual mode or flexible systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/0204 of multiple channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/0226 sounding signals per se
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/26025 Numerology, i.e. varying one or more of symbol duration, subcarrier spacing, Fourier transform size, sampling rate or down-clocking allocating sub-channels of the transmission path H04L5/003
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/261 Details of reference signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2613 Structure of the reference signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0023 Time-frequency-space
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/005 of common pilots, i.e. pilots destined for multiple users or terminals

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) can process signals including a first synchronization signal (SS) and a second SS. The first SS and the second SS are beamformed with transmit beams and transmitted on subbands in a first set of symbols, for the first SS, and a second set of symbols, for the second SS. The UE can detect the first SS in the first set of symbols, and measure beam qualities of the transmit beams on the subbands in at least one of the first set of symbols or the second set of symbols. The UE can select one or more transmit beams and corresponding one or more subbands based on the measured beam qualities. The UE can detect the second SS on the selected subbands in the second set of symbol, and each of subbands in the first and second sets of symbols is associated with a transmit beam.

Claims

1. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), the UE configured for discovering a network, the apparatus comprising one or more processors and memory configured to:

process signals, received from a base station, including a first synchronization signal (SS) and a second SS, wherein the first SS and the second SS are beamformed with a plurality of transmit beams and transmitted on a plurality of subbands in a first set of symbols, for the first SS, and a second set of symbols, for the second SS;

detect the first SS in the first set of symbols, and measure beam qualities of the plurality of transmit beams on the plurality of subbands in at least one of the first set of symbols or the second set of symbols;

select one or more transmit beams from the plurality of transmit beams and corresponding one or more subbands from the plurality of subbands, based on the measured beam qualities; and

detect the second SS on the selected one or more subbands in the second set of symbols, wherein each of plurality of subbands in the first and second sets of symbols is associated with one of the plurality of transmit beams.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to predetermine or configure the first set of symbols and the second set of symbols.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to process the plurality of transmit beams received from one or more cooperative access points (APs).

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the one or more cooperative APs are geographically separated.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein a beam width and a total number of beams for the plurality of transmit beams are dependent on a target coverage, an operating frequency band, and transmit antenna configurations of the one or more cooperative APs.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors and memory further configured to:

coherently detect the second SS, and

obtain channel information for the selected one or more subbands in the second set of symbols from the detected first SS and the received signals on the selected one or more subbands in the first set of symbols.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the measured beam qualities comprise a signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINK), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or a received signal strength (RSS).

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to obtain timing and frequency information of the selected one or more transmit beams, based on detecting the first SS and the second SS.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to group the one or more transmit beams according to the obtained timing and frequency information.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to refine the timing and frequency information by combining measurements of the grouped one or more transmit beams.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus includes at least one of an antenna, a touch sensitive display screen, a speaker, a microphone, a graphics processor, an application processor, internal memory, a non-volatile memory port, and combinations thereof.

12. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), the UE configured for discovering a network, the apparatus comprising one or more processors and memory configured to:

process signals, received from a base station, including a first synchronization signal (SS), wherein the first SS is beamformed with a plurality of transmit beams and transmitted on a plurality of subbands in a first set of symbols;

measure beam qualities of each of the plurality of transmit beams on the plurality of subbands in the first set of symbols;

identify, by the UE, a subset of one or more transmit beams from the plurality of transmit beams and a subset of one or more subbands from the plurality of subbands; and

identify a second SS on a second set of symbols in the subset of the one or more transmit beams on the subset of the one or more subbands, wherein a subband includes a subset of subcarriers from a plurality of subcarriers.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to select one or more transmit beams from the plurality of transmit beams and corresponding one or more subbands from the plurality of subbands, based on the measured beam qualities.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to associate each subband in the plurality of subbands with a transmit beam in the plurality of transmit beams.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to process the plurality of transmit beams received from one or more cooperative access points (APs).

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the one or more cooperative APs are geographically separated.

17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to predetermine or configure the first set of symbols and the second set of symbols.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein a beam width of each beam in the plurality of transmit beams and a total number of beams in the plurality of transmit beams are dependent on a target coverage, an operating frequency band, transmit antenna configurations of the one or more cooperative APs, or a combination thereof.

19. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to coherently detect, by the UE, the second SS, wherein channel information for the subset of the one or more subbands in the second set of symbols is obtained from the first SS and the received signals on the subset of subbands in the first set of symbols.

20. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to measure a signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or a received signal strength (RSS), or a combination thereof for measuring the beam qualities of each of the plurality of transmit beams.

21. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to obtain at least one of timing or frequency information of the subset of the plurality of transmit beams based on the first SS and the second SS.

22. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to group the subset of transmit beams based on either the timing or frequency information.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the one or more processors and memory are further configured to refine at least one of the timing or frequency information by combining measurements of one or more of the grouped subset of transmit beams.

24. At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon for a user equipment (UE) discovering a network, the instructions when executed perform the following:

processing received signals including a synchronization signal (SS) beamformed with a plurality of transmit beams and transmitted on a plurality of subbands in a set of symbols;

detecting the SS and measuring beam qualities of the plurality of transmit beams on the plurality of subbands in the set of symbols;

selecting one or more transmit beams from the plurality of transmit beams and corresponding one or more subbands from the plurality of subbands;

identifying a subset of the one or more transmit beams from the plurality of transmit beams and a subset of the one or more subbands from the plurality of subbands; and

identifying a second SS on a second set of symbols in the subset of the one or more transmit beams on the subset of the one or more subbands.

25. The at least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising instructions which when executed perform the following:

predetermining or configure the set of symbols and the second set of symbols.