CLUSTERING METHOD AND COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR COORDINATED MULTIPOINT TRANSMISSION

• US 20100304682A1
• Filed: 12/15/2009
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Jang, Kyung Hun, Hwang, Hyo Sun, CHOI, Hyun Ho, Lim, Jong Bu
• Granted Patent: US 8,543,150 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/63.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/024 Co-operative use of antennas of several sites, e.g. in co-ordinated multipoint or co-operative multiple-input multiple-output [MIMO] systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality

Abstract

A communication system performing a coordinated multipoint transmission is provided. A mobile station may measure expected channel quality information when an interference of a serving base station does not exist. The serving base station may determine whether a neighbor base station and the serving base station are eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission. The serving base station may determine whether the neighbor base station and the serving base station are eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission using a criterion associated with an evaluation of an increase in a transmission rate of the mobile station.

Claims

1. A method for clustering a coordinated multipoint transmission of a serving base station, the method comprising:

receiving expected channel quality information from a neighbor base station to a mobile station; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission with the serving base station based on the expected channel quality information,

wherein the expected channel quality information is computed when it is assumed that an interference of the serving base station with respect to the neighbor base station is non-existent in substance or removed.

2. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

checking whether a criterion is satisfied, wherein the criterion being associated with an evaluation of an increase in a transmission rate of the mobile station according to the coordinated multipoint transmission based on the expected channel quality information; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission based on a result of the checking.

3. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

predicting an increase in a transmission rate of the mobile station according to the coordinated multipoint transmission based on the expected channel quality information; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission based on the predicted increase in the transmission rate.

4. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein, when the coordinated multipoint transmission is performed in a plurality of modes, the determining comprises:

checking whether a criterion is satisfied, the criterion being associated with an evaluation of an increase in a transmission rate according to a change from a current mode of the coordinated multipoint transmission to a particular mode based on the expected channel quality information; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission in the particular mode based on a result of the check.

5. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein the expected channel quality information is computed by the mobile station based on a reference signal transmitted by the neighbor base station in a radio resource region which is not used by the serving base station.

6. The clustering method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving channel quality information from the mobile station to the serving base station,

wherein, the determining decides whether the neighbor base station and the serving base station are eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission based on the expected channel quality information and the channel quality information.

7. The clustering method of claim 6, wherein the determining provides a weight to at least one of the expected channel quality information and the channel quality information to determine whether the neighbor BS is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission.

8. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises:

acquiring periodically the expected quality information, or acquiring the expected channel quality information after instructing the mobile station to report the expected channel quality information.

9. The clustering method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the mobile station with information about the neighbor base station to enable the mobile station to compute the expected channel quality information.

10. The clustering method of claim 1, further comprising:

instructing the mobile station to report the expected channel quality information based on channel quality information from the serving base station to the mobile station.

11. The clustering method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the mobile station with scheduling information to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission or cell information of the coordinated multipoint transmission when the neighbor base station is determined to be eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission with the serving base station.

12. The clustering method of claim 1, wherein the channel quality information comprises:

information about a signal to interference plus noise ratio from the serving base station to the mobile station, and the signal to interference plus noise ratio is computed when it is assumed that an interference of the serving base station with respect to the neighbor base station is non-existent in substance or removed.

13. A method for clustering a coordinated multipoint transmission of a serving base station, the method comprising:

checking whether a criterion, associated with an evaluation of an increase in a transmission rate according to the coordinated multipoint transmission of a neighbor base station and the serving base station, or a criterion, associated with an evaluation of an increase in a transmission rate according to a change of a current mode of the coordinated multipoint transmission to a particular mode, are satisfied; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission with the serving base station based on a result of the checking, or whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission in the particular mode.

14. The clustering method of claim 13, further comprising:

obtaining a channel quality information from the serving base station to a mobile station, or an expected channel quality information from the neighbor base station to the mobile station,

wherein the determining checks whether at least one of the criteria is satisfied based on the channel quality information and the expected channel quality information.

15. The clustering method of claim 14, wherein the expected channel quality information is computed by the mobile station based on a reference signal transmitted by the neighbor base station in a radio resource region which is not used by the serving base station.

16. An operation method of a mobile station for a coordinated multipoint transmission, the method comprising:

computing an expected channel quality information from a neighbor base station to the mobile station when an interference of a serving base station with respect to the neighbor base station is non-existent in substance or removed; and

reporting, to the serving base station, the expected channel quality information to enable the serving base station to determine whether the neighbor base station and the serving base station perform the coordinated multipoint transmission.

17. The operation method of claim 16, further comprising:

reporting, to the serving base station, a channel quality information from the mobile station to the serving base station.

18. The operation method of claim 17, wherein the reporting of the channel quality information or the reporting of the expected channel quality information is performed based on the channel quality information.

19. The operation method of claim 16, wherein the computing of the expected channel quality information computes the expected channel quality information based on a reference signal transmitted by the neighbor base station in a radio resource region which is not used by the serving base station.

20. The operation method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving scheduling information to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission or receiving cell information of the coordinated multipoint transmission when the neighbor base station and the serving base station are determined to be eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission.

21. The operation method of claim 16, wherein the reporting of the expected channel quality information reports the expected channel quality information using a predetermined feedback control channel.

22. The operation method of claim 21, wherein a radio resource, used when the mobile station reports the expected channel quality information using the feedback control channel, is assigned by the serving base station.

23. A computer-readable recording medium storing a program for implementing a method for clustering a coordinated multipoint transmission of a serving base station, the method comprising:

receiving, by a mobile station, expected channel quality information from a neighbor base station; and

determining whether the neighbor base station is eligible to perform the coordinated multipoint transmission with the serving base station based on the expected channel quality information,

wherein the expected channel quality information is computed when it is assumed that an interference of the serving base station with respect to the neighbor base station is non-existent in substance or removed.