Method and apparatus for reducing co-channel interference in a communcation system

• US 20040190482A1
• Filed: 03/24/2003
• Published: 09/30/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Baum, Kevin L., Nangia, Vijay, Classon, Brian K., Cudak, Mark C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,016,319 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/347
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0037 Inter-user or inter-terminal allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0044 allocation of payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/005 of common pilots, i.e. pilots destined for multiple users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/023 Multiplexing of multicarrier modulation signals multicarrier modulation H04L27/2601
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/535 based on resource usage policies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference

Abstract

A downlink frame (401) is divided in to similar sized resource blocks (403, 405, 407) with each co-channel sector scheduled to transmit from the beginning of its respective assigned resource block. Transmissions to remote units within the particular sector will occur only within the particular resource block, up to a point where all N resource units have been utilized. Beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted at the end of the resource blocks assigned to the other sectors.

Claims

1. A method of interference avoidance, the method comprising the steps of:

dividing at least a portion of a frame into a plurality of resource blocks, each resource block capable of supporting transmission to a plurality of remote units; and

for a particular sector, scheduling transmissions to remote units to begin near a beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block up to a point where the resource block cannot support any more transmissions, beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted within resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of scheduling transmissions comprises the step of scheduling transmissions from the group consisting of any combination of control channel, broadcast channel, and data channel transmissions.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks comprises the step of dividing at least the portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks taken from the group consisting of any combination of logical channels, IFDMA chanelization codes, time slots, frequency sub-channels, orthogonal codes, and spreading codes.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into the plurality of resource blocks comprises the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks and selecting a resource block size based on an expected volume of traffic.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of scheduling transmissions comprises the step of scheduling transmissions to remote units to begin near a beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block up to a point where the resource block cannot support any further transmissions, beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted near an end of resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of scheduling transmissions comprises the step of scheduling transmissions to remote units to begin near a beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block up to a point where the resource block cannot support any further transmissions, beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted pseudo-randomly throughout resource blocks assigned to other sectors distributing the transmission evenly among the other sectors.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of scheduling transmissions comprises the step scheduling transmissions for which a higher communication reliability is advantageous near the beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block.

8. A method of interference avoidance within a communication system, the method comprising the steps of:

dividing at least a portion of a frame into a plurality of resource blocks;

assigning each sector within the communication system to a particular resource block;

for a particular sector, assigning N transmissions to the sector'"'"'s resource block; and

for the particular sector, assigning an N+1 transmission to occur within another sector'"'"'s resource block.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of assigning the N+1 transmission comprises the step of assigning the N+1 transmission to occur at an end of another sector'"'"'s resource block.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of assigning the N+1 transmission comprises the step of assigning the N+1 transmission to occur pseudo-randomly throughout resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks comprises the step of dividing at least the portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks taken from the group consisting of any combination of logical channels, IFDMA chanelization codes, time slots, frequency sub-channels, orthogonal codes, and spreading codes.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into the plurality of resource blocks comprises dividing at least a portion of the frame into a plurality of resource blocks and selecting a resource block size based on an expected volume of traffic.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into the plurality of resource blocks comprises the step of dividing at least a portion of the frame into a plurality of similar-sized resource blocks.

14. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of sectors; and

a base station controller dividing at least a portion of a frame into a plurality of resource blocks and assigning each sector within the communication system to a particular resource block, wherein for a particular sector, the base station controller schedules transmissions to remote units to begin near a beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block up to a point where the resource block cannot support any further transmissions, beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled by the controller to be transmitted within resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted near the end of resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted pseudo-randomly throughout resource blocks assigned to other sectors.

17. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the resource blocks are taken from the group consisting of any combination of logical channels, IFDMA chanelization codes, time slots, frequency sub-channels, orthogonal codes, and spreading codes.

18. A method of interference avoidance, the method comprising the steps of:

dividing at least a portion of a frame into a plurality of resource blocks, each resource block capable of supporting transmission from a plurality of remote units; and

for a particular sector, scheduling transmissions from remote units to begin near a beginning of the sector'"'"'s resource block up to a point where the resource block cannot support any more transmissions, beyond that point, additional transmissions are scheduled to be transmitted within resource blocks assigned to other sectors.