Secondary station and method of operating the station
First Claim
1. A secondary station for use in a radio communication system comprising a plurality of primary stations, the secondary station having means for engaging in a soft handover process, in which the secondary station communicates simultaneously with at least two primary stations, receiver means for receiving transmitted downlink signals from the at least two primary stations as a plurality of signals, timing measurement means for determining a downlink timing reference, and timing adjustment means for determining an offset between the downlink timing reference and an uplink timing reference for use in the transmission of uplink signals, wherein means are provided for varying the size of the offset.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A secondary station has a receiver capable of resolving signals received as a plurality of multipath signals from a plurality of primary stations during a soft handover process. In order to decode and act upon the received signals in a very short period of time, the duration of an offset (T0+τ) between a downlink timing reference and an uplink timing reference may be varied by the secondary station. By choosing a suitable value for the offset, the secondary station can reduce the changes to the uplink timing reference. The downlink timing reference and/or the offset may be determined from the timings of received downlink signals.
The secondary station may request a primary station to adjust the timing of its downlink transmissions to increase the amount of time available for processing the signals. This may, for example, be done by arranging for downlink signals from the primary station supplying the strongest signal to be received first.
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Citations
10 Claims
- 1. A secondary station for use in a radio communication system comprising a plurality of primary stations, the secondary station having means for engaging in a soft handover process, in which the secondary station communicates simultaneously with at least two primary stations, receiver means for receiving transmitted downlink signals from the at least two primary stations as a plurality of signals, timing measurement means for determining a downlink timing reference, and timing adjustment means for determining an offset between the downlink timing reference and an uplink timing reference for use in the transmission of uplink signals, wherein means are provided for varying the size of the offset.
- 7. A method of operating a secondary station comprising engaging in a soft handover process, in which the secondary station communicates simultaneously with at least two primary stations, receiving transmitted downlink signals from the at least two primary stations as a plurality of signals, determining a downlink timing reference, and determining an offset between the downlink timing reference and an uplink timing reference for use in the transmission of uplink signals, wherein the size of the offset is variable.
Specification