Allocation of radio resources to packets in accordance with service qualities under radio communication environment

• US 20030169746A1
• Filed: 03/05/2003
• Published: 09/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Kayama, Hidetoshi, Kitazawa, Daisuke, Chen, Lan, Umeda, Narumi
• Granted Patent: US 7,710,977 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/395.42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/30 in combination with information about buffer occupancy at either end or at transit nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0236 radio quality, e.g. interference, losses or delay
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/14 using intermediate storage
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/286 during data packet transmission, e.g. high speed packet access [HSPA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/30 using constraints in the total amount of available transmission power
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/04 Wireless resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/1221 based on age of data to be sent
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/569 of the traffic information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices

Abstract

A mobile communications base station has a service quality detection unit that monitors and measures communication qualities of wireless terminals currently located in the service area, and a packet classification unit that classifies packets addressed to the wireless terminals into two or more groups based on the measured communication qualities. The base station also has a buffering delay measuring unit that measures buffering delay of the packets for each of the groups. A transmission priority detection unit of the base station determines the order of priority for transmitting the packets based on the measured buffering delay in comparison with a prescribed threshold value. A resource allocation unit of the base station allocates the radio resources to the packets based on the order of priority to transmit the packets to the associated wireless terminals.

Claims

1. A method for allocating radio resources to a plurality of packets addressed to a plurality of wireless terminals located in an area covered by a base station, comprising the steps of:

setting a threshold of buffering delay of the packets at the base station;

monitoring communication qualities of the wireless terminals;

classifying the packets addressed to the wireless terminals into two or more groups based on the monitored communication qualities of the wireless terminals;

measuring buffering delay of the packets for each of the groups; and

if there is a group that includes a packet having the buffering delay at or above the threshold, giving priority for allocating the radio resources to the packets belonging to said group that includes the packet having the buffering delay at or above the threshold.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

if there is not said group that includes the packet having the buffering delay at or above the threshold, giving the priority for allocating the radio resources to the packets addressed to the wireless terminals having lower communication qualities.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

if there is not said group that includes the packet having the buffering delay at or above the threshold, giving the priority for allocating the radio resources to the packets addressed to the wireless terminals having higher communication qualities.

4. The method according to any one of claim 1 through 3, further comprising the steps of:

when allocating the radio resources, determining whether there is a sufficient quantity of radio resources left for a current packet; and

if the radio resources are insufficient for the current packet, allocating the radio resources to another packet belonging to the same group.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

after allocating the radio resources to the packets belonging to said group that includes the packet having the buffering delay at or above the threshold, determining whether any of the radio resources are still left at the base station; and

if any of the radio resources are left, allocating the remaining radio resources to the packet belonging to another group.

6. A base station that allocates radio resources to a plurality of packets addressed to a plurality of wireless terminals in a radio communications system, comprising:

a buffering delay threshold setting unit that sets a threshold value of buffering delay at the base station;

a service quality detection unit that monitors and measures communication qualities of the wireless terminals;

a packet classification unit that classifies the packets into two or more groups based on the measured communication qualities of the wireless terminals;

a buffering delay measuring unit that measures buffering delay of the packets for each of the groups;

a transmission priority determination unit that determines an order of priority for transmitting the packets based on buffering delay measuring result of the buffering delay measuring unit, in comparison with the threshold value; and

a resource allocation unit that allocates the radio resources to the packets in accordance with the order of priority.

7. The base station according to claim 6, wherein if one of said groups has the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value, the transmission priority determination unit gives transmission priority to the packets included in the group with the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value, and the resource allocation unit first allocates the radio resources to the packets included in the group with the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value.

8. The base station according to claim 7, wherein, after the allocation of the radio resources to the packets included in the group with the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value, the resource allocation unit determines whether there are radio resources left at the base station, and if there are remaining radio resources, the resource allocation unit allocates the remaining radio resources to the packets belonging to another of said groups.

9. The base station according to claim 6, wherein if there is not one of said groups with the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value, then the transmission priority determination unit gives transmission priority to the packets included in one of said groups corresponding to a lower communication quality, and the resource allocation unit first allocates the radio resources to the packets included in the group corresponding to the lower communication quality.

10. The base station according to claim 6, wherein if there is not one of said group with the buffering delay measuring result at or above the threshold value, then the transmission priority determination unit gives transmission priority to the packets included in one of said groups corresponding to a higher communication quality, and the resource allocation unit first allocates the radio resources to the packets included in the group corresponding to the higher communication quality.

11. The base station according to claim 6, wherein the resource allocation unit determines whether there is a sufficient quantity of radio resources available for a current packet, and if the available radio resources are insufficient for the current packet, the resource allocation unit allocates the available radio resources to another packet belonging to the same group.

12. The base station according to claim 6, further comprising a quality range setting unit that determines a range of communication quality for each of said groups based on an average of the measured communication qualities, wherein the packet classification unit classifies the packets based on the range of communication quality determined by the quality range setting unit.