Method and apparatus for increasing performance of communication paths for communication nodes

• US 10,687,284 B2
• Filed: 11/13/2018
• Issued: 06/16/2020
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Ly, Anh Vu H
• Assistant Examiner(s): Reyes, Hector
• Application Number:
  US16/189,031
• Publication Number:
  US 20190082394A1
• Time in Patent Office: 581 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/336 Signal-to-interference ratio [SIR] or carrier-to-interference ratio [CIR]
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/345 Interference values signal-to-interference ratio [SIR] or carrier-to-interference ratio [CIR] H04B17/336
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/354 Adjacent channel leakage power
• 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, obtaining performance measurements, identifying a performance measurement from the performance measurements that is below performance threshold and, in turn, initiating corrective action to improve the performance measurement of an affected network element falling below the performance threshold. The performance measurements can be determined from measurements associated with signals generated by communication devices, noise levels in a spectral portion used by communication devices to transmit the signals, and interference signals exceeding an adaptive inter-cell interference threshold. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A cell site, comprising:

a memory that stores instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein responsive to executing the instructions the processor performs operations comprising;

measuring noise levels for a plurality of paths;

determining an adaptive inter-cell interference threshold, wherein the adaptive inter-cell interference threshold comprises determining an average thermal noise level from the noise levels measured for unused paths in the plurality of paths;

determining Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements for each of the plurality of paths according to signals, noise levels and interference signals for each of the plurality of paths;

identifying a SINR measurement from the SINR measurements that is below a SINR threshold; and

initiating a corrective action to improve the SINR measurement of an affected path of the plurality of paths falling below the SINR threshold.

2. The cell site of claim 1, wherein the determining the adaptive inter-cell interference threshold comprises determining an average of the noise levels measured of the unused paths in the plurality of paths and summing the average with a threshold value.

3. The cell site of claim 2, wherein the determining the average comprises:

measuring a thermal noise level of each of a plurality of unused channels; and

averaging the thermal noise level of the plurality of unused channels to generate the average.

4. The cell site of claim 3, wherein the plurality of unused channels comprise a plurality of unused spectral segments.

5. The cell site of claim 4, wherein the plurality of unused spectral segments comprise a plurality of unused resource blocks.

6. The cell site of claim 2, wherein the determining the average comprises obtaining a schedule for receiving the signals in spectral segments from communication devices.

7. The cell site of claim 6, wherein the determining the average further comprises identifying unused spectral segments from the schedule and measuring a thermal noise level of each of the unused spectral segments to determine the average.

8. The cell site of claim 2, wherein the average is determined for each of a plurality of timeslots associated with spectral segments used by communication devices to transmit the signals to the cell site.

9. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising instructions, which when executed by a processor of a cell site, the processor performs operations comprising:

determining for each of a plurality of paths an adaptive inter-cell interference threshold, wherein the adaptive inter-cell interference threshold comprises determining an average thermal noise level from noise levels measured for each of the plurality of paths when each path is unused;

measuring signals and noise levels for each of the plurality of paths;

determining Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements for the plurality of paths according to the signals, the noise levels and interference signals for the plurality of paths; and

identifying a SINR measurement that is below a SINR threshold; and

initiating a corrective action to improve the SINR measurement of an affected path of the plurality of paths falling below the SINR threshold.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

obtaining a resource block schedule for each of the plurality of paths;

identifying resource blocks in the plurality of paths that are not in use; and

measuring for each of the plurality of paths an energy of the resource blocks not in use to determine an average thermal noise level for each path, wherein the adaptive inter-cell interference threshold is determined from the average thermal noise level.

11. A method comprising:

determining, by a system comprising a processor, an adaptive inter-cell interference threshold, wherein the adaptive inter-cell interference threshold comprises determining an average thermal noise level from noise levels for unused paths in a plurality of paths;

determining, by the system, Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements for each of the plurality of paths according to signals, noise levels and interference signals for each of the plurality of paths;

identifying, by the system, a SINR measurement from the SINR measurements that is below a SINR threshold; and

initiating, by the system, a corrective action to improve the SINR measurement of an affected path of the plurality of paths falling below the SINR threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

measuring a thermal noise level of each of the unused paths in the plurality of paths; and

averaging the measured thermal noise levels of each of the unused paths to generate the average thermal noise level.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising obtaining information identifying the unused paths in the plurality of paths.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the initiating of the corrective action comprises improving the SINR measurement for an affected network element that is below the SINR threshold.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the affected network element comprises an affected cell site, and wherein the SINR measurements are obtained from a plurality of cell sites including the affected cell site.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising obtaining an updated SINR measurement from a neighboring network element in proximity to the affected network element.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the SINR measurement is obtained for an uplink communication path.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the SINR measurement is obtained for a downlink communication path.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the initiating of the corrective action comprises improving the SINR measurement for an affected network element that is below the SINR threshold, and wherein the system comprises a base station, a wireless access point, or a wireless mobile communication device.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

obtaining an updated SINR measurement from a neighboring network element in proximity to the affected network element; and

reversing the corrective action at least in part responsive to a comparison of the updated SINR measurement and the SINR measurement prior to the corrective action.