METHOD, SIGNAL AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING THE TRANSMISSION AND RECEIPT OF BROADCAST CHANNEL INFORMATION

• US 20080320527A1
• Filed: 06/20/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: STEWART, KENNETH A., BUCKLEY, MICHAEL E., BACHU, RAJA S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,189,581 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0072 Error control for data other than payload data, e.g. control data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/08 by repeating transmission, e.g. Verdan system H04L1/1858 and H04L1/189 take precedence

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for transmitting broadcast channel information as part of a broadcast channel signal having one or more transmission intervals, where each transmission interval includes a plurality of transmissions, and one or more of the transmissions are active frames in which broadcast channel information is transmitted. Invariant portions that are present in the broadcast channel information are identified separate from any variant portions and are encoded for transmission, and the variant portions are used to select transmission specific configurations, which can be detected during the decoding by the receiver. Upon detection of the transmission specific configuration used to encode the invariant portions, the value of the variant portion can be identified and reintroduced as part of the received broadcast channel information.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting broadcast channel information as part of a broadcast channel signal in a wireless communication system, the broadcast channel signal having one or more transmission intervals, each transmission interval including a plurality of transmissions, where one or more of the transmissions are active frames in which the broadcast channel information to be transmitted as part of each broadcast channel signal includes an invariant portion that remains static for each of the active frames within a particular transmission interval, and a variant portion that predictably changes with each successive active frame, the method comprising:

subdividing the variant portion into an invariant subportion and a variant subportion, where the variant subportion includes at least one bit which changes value within the particular transmission interval;

identifying the invariant portion and invariant subportion from the broadcast channel information for each active frame, thereby forming invariant broadcast channel information for each active frame within a transmission interval that does not vary;

encoding the invariant broadcast channel information for each active frame within a transmission interval with a transmission specific configuration, wherein each active frame is encoded with a distinct transmission specific configuration based upon the position of the active frame relative to the beginning boundary of the transmission interval; and

transmitting the encoded invariant broadcast channel information for each active frame of each transmission interval in sequence thereby forming the broadcast channel signal.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the transmission specific configuration provides a transmission specific channel interleaving.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the transmission specific configuration provides a transmission specific channel scrambling.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the broadcast channel signal is broadcast from one of one or more cellular base transceiver stations, and wherein the invariant broadcast channel information from which the broadcast channel signal is formed, in addition to having active frames with a transmission specific configuration, is also encoded with a cell specific configuration, based upon the particular cellular base transceiver station that is transmitting the signal.

5. A method in accordance with claim 4, wherein the cell specific configuration provides a cell specific channel interleaving.

6. A method in accordance with claim 4, wherein the cell specific configuration provides a cell specific channel scrambling.

7. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein upon receipt of the broadcast channel signal, the variant subportion is determined, based upon the transmission specific configuration that was identified as having been used to encode the particular active frame, when the broadcast channel signal is successfully decoded.

8. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein upon receipt of the broadcast channel signal associated with a particular frame, the broadcast channel information is attempted to be decoded assuming at least one of the transmission specific configurations.

9. A method in accordance with claim 8, wherein if the broadcast channel signal associated with a particular active frame can not be decoded, then receiving one or more further successively transmitted active frames, and attempting to decode and combine multiple active frames including the particular active frame and the one or more further successively transmitted active frames assuming a transmission specific configuration for each of the active frames, which is consistent with the relative transmission sequence of each of the active frames.

10. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein a beginning boundary of the transmission interval is aligned to coincide with a first transmission in the transmission interval having a mod n value of the variant portion that is equal to zero, where n is the number of transmissions in the transmission interval, and where the number of transmissions in the transmission interval has a value of 2 raised to an integer power,

11. A method in accordance with claim 10, wherein the number of bits forming the variant subportion is equal to the integer power that the value of 2 was raised to for identifying the number of transmissions in the transmission interval.

12. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein after identifying the invariant subportion from the broadcast channel information and prior to encoding the invariant broadcast channel information for each active within a transmission interval with a transmission specific configuration, the invariant broadcast channel information can be further encoded using one or more encoding techniques.

13. A broadcast channel signal comprising:

one or more transmission intervals, each transmission interval including multiple transmissions where one or more of the transmissions are active frames in which broadcast channel information to be transmitted as part of each broadcast channel signal includes an invariant portion that remains static for each of the active frames within a particular transmission interval, and a variant portion that predictably changes with each successive active frame;

wherein the variant portion includes an invariant subportion and a variant subportion, where the variant subportion includes at least one bit which changes value within the particular transmission interval, said invariant subportion being identified with the invariant portion for thereby forming invariant broadcast channel information for each active frame within a transmission interval that does not vary, where the variant subportion is used to determine a transmission specific configuration to be respectively applied to the invariant broadcast channel information of a particular active frame, based upon the value of the variant subportion, which coincides with the position of the active frame relative the beginning boundary of the transmission interval.

14. A broadcast channel signal in accordance with claim 13, wherein a beginning boundary of the transmission interval is aligned to coincide with a first transmission in the transmission interval having a mod n value of the variant portion that is equal to zero, where n is the number of transmissions in the transmission interval, and where the number of transmissions in the transmission interval has a value of 2 raised to an integer power,

15. A broadcast channel signal in accordance with claim 13, wherein the transmission specific configuration provides a transmission specific channel interleaving.

16. A broadcast channel signal in accordance with claim 13, wherein the transmission specific configuration provides a transmission specific channel scrambling.

17. A wireless communication device comprising:

a receiver for receiving a wireless communication signal in the form of one or more transmission intervals, where each transmission interval includes a plurality of transmissions, where one or more of the transmissions are active frames; and

a decoder for converting the received signal into an invariant portion of data intended to be transmitted prior to an encoding for transmission, said decoder including a controller, wherein the controller is adapted to attempt to decode each active frame as it is received, using one of a plurality of decoding sequences, respectively corresponding to a transmission specific configuration associated with the transmission position relative to a beginning boundary of the transmission interval; and

wherein a determined one of the plurality of decoding sequences, which allows for the successful decoding of the received wireless signal associated with a particular active frame is used to reintroduce a variant portion to the invariant portion of the data intended to be transmitted.

18. A wireless communication device in accordance with claim 17, wherein the controller is further adapted to combine multiple active frames, when one or more of the received active frames can not be separately decoded, where prior to combining the multiple active frames, an assumed decoding sequence is applied to the received frames prior to combining, where the assumed decoding sequence applied to each of the active frames is consistent with the relative received relationship of the plurality of active frames within an assumed transmission interval.

19. A wireless communication device in accordance with claim 17, wherein the wireless communication signal is a broadcast channel, where broadcast channel information to be transmitted as part of each wireless communication signal includes a variant portion, which changes between multiple active frame transmissions within a particular transmission interval, and an invariant portion, which does not change between multiple active frame transmissions within the particular transmission interval.

20. A wireless communication device in accordance with claim 17, wherein the decoder includes a timer for detecting the time interval between receipt of each active frame.