Apparatus and method for transparent relaying in a multi-hop relay cellular network

• US 20070155315A1
• Filed: 01/03/2007
• Published: 07/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/03/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Park, Jeong-Ho, Cho, Jae-Weon, Lee, Mi-Hyun, Lee, Sung-Jin, Hong, Song-Nam, Kang, Hyun-Jeong, Joo, Pan-Yuh, Jung, Jun-Yeong
• Application Number:
  US11/649,172
• Publication Number:
  US 20070155315A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/11.100
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15528 Control of operation parameters of a relay station to exploit the physical medium
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2606 Arrangements for base station coverage control, e.g. by using relays in tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/26 Cell enhancers or enhancement, e.g. for tunnels, building shadow
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/047 using dedicated repeater stations

Abstract

An apparatus and method for transparently relaying a signal using a plurality of frequency bands in a multi-hop relay cellular network are provided, in which a Relay Station (RS) communicates with a Base Station (BS) via a relay link in a first frequency band and communicates with a Mobile Station (MS) within the sub-cell of the RS via a sub-cell link in a second frequency band different from the first frequency band.

Claims

1. A method of supporting a relay service in a Relay Station (RS) in a cellular network, comprising:

communicating with a higher-layer node in a first frequency band; and

communicating with a lower-layer node in a second frequency band.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the higher-layer node is one of a Base Station (BS) and a higher-layer RS.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the lower-layer node is one of a lower-layer RS and a Mobile Station (MS) within a service area of the RS.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating with a higher-layer node in a first frequency band comprises:

receiving a signal including control information from the higher-layer node;

transitioning to a transmission mode; and

sending a signal received from the lower-layer node at a previous time to the higher-layer node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the control information includes information about the second frequency band.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein sending a signal received from the lower-layer node at a previous time to the higher-layer node comprises sending the signal by a timing advance as long as a Round Trip Delay (RTD) according to a transmission timing and a transmission delay of a signal received from the higher-layer node.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating with a lower-layer node in a second frequency band comprises:

sending a signal received from the higher-layer node to the lower-layer node;

transitioning to a reception mode; and

receiving a signal from the lower-layer node in the second frequency band.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein sending a signal received from the higher-layer node to the lower-layer node comprises sending the signal by a timing advance as long as 0.5×

RTD according to the transmission timing and transmission delay of the signal received from the higher-layer node.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications are conducted in the first and second frequency bands in parallel.

10. An apparatus for supporting a relay service in a Relay Station (RS) in a cellular network, comprising:

a timing controller for providing a timing signal for transmitting and receiving signals in use frequency bands of predetermined links;

a first transceiver for communicating with a higher-layer node in a first frequency band according to the timing signal; and

a second transceiver for communicating with a lower-layer node in a second frequency band according to the timing signal.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the higher-layer node is one of a Base Station (BS) and a higher-layer RS.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the lower-layer node is one of a lower-layer RS and a Mobile Station (MS) within a service area of the RS.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the timing controller provides the timing signal so a signal can be sent to the higher-layer node by a timing advance as long as a Round Trip Delay (RTD) according to a transmission timing and a transmission delay of a signal received from the higher-layer node and a signal can be sent to the lower-layer node by a timing advance as long as 0.5×

RTD according to the transmission timing and transmission delay of the signal received from the higher-layer node.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein each of the first and second transceivers comprises:

an antenna for providing an externally received signal to a receiver and externally sending a signal generated from a transmitter;

the transmitter for sending a predetermined frequency band signal according to the timing signal; and

the receiver for receiving a predetermined frequency band signal according to the timing signal.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the transmitter comprises:

a frame configurer for configuring a transmission frame according to a frame configuration method; and

a resource mapper for mapping a subframe included in the frame to resources allocated to a burst of a link.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the receiver comprises:

a resource demapper for extracting a subframe from bursts of the received signal; and

a frame extractor for extracting a subframe of a link from the extracted subframes.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising a switch for switching an antenna to one of the transmitter and the receiver under control of the timing controller.

18. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the first and second transceivers operate in parallel under control of the timing controller.

19. A subframe configuration method for supporting a relay service using at least two frequency bands in a wireless communication system, comprising:

configuring a first frequency band-subframe and a second frequency band-subframe in a first zone of a subframe, the first frequency band-subframe being used for communicating between a Base Station (BS) and at least one of a Mobile Station (MS) and a first Relay Station (RS) that does not provide a synchronization channel and the second frequency band-subframe being used for communicating between a second RS that provides a synchronization channel and an MS; and

configuring a first frequency band-subframe for communicating between the BS and the second RS in a second zone of the subframe.

20. The subframe configuration method of claim 19, wherein the synchronization channel is positioned at a start of the first zone and at an end of the second zone.

21. The subframe configuration method of claim 19, wherein the first frequency band-subframe is spatially multiplexed with the second frequency band-subframe.

22. The subframe configuration method of claim 19, wherein the first frequency band-subframe for communicating between the BS and the MS and the second frequency band-subframe for communicating between the second RS and the MS have the same structure in the first zone.

23. A subframe configuration method for supporting a relay service using at least two frequency bands in a wireless communication system, comprising:

configuring a subframe for communicating between a Base Station (BS) and at least one of a Mobile Station (MS) and a Relay Station (RS) in a first zone of a subframe; and

configuring a first frequency band-subframe for communicating between the BS and an MS and a second frequency band-frame for communicating between the RS and an MS in a second zone of the subframe.

24. The subframe configuration method of claim 23, wherein the first frequency band-subframe is spatially multiplexed with the second frequency band-subframe.

25. The subframe configuration method of claim 23, wherein the first frequency band-subframe for communicating between the BS and the MS and the second frequency band-subframe for communicating between the RS and the MS have the same structure.