Method, Apparatus and Computer Program Product for Allocating Resources in Wireless Communication Network

• US 20120243431A1
• Filed: 12/11/2009
• Published: 09/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Tao, Wang, Haiming, Peng, Tao
• Granted Patent: US 8,885,507 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/383 power control in peer-to-peer links
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/12 Wireless traffic scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/002 Transmission of channel access control information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/085 collision avoidance
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/18 between terminal devices

Abstract

The present application discloses a method, an apparatus and a computer program product for allocating resources for a Device-to-Device (D2D) direct communication user equipment in a wireless communication network, wherein the method comprise: transmitting a communication channel status report regarding Device-to-Device direct communication to a base station; receiving resource allocation instructions generated by the base station based on the communication channel status report; and performing Device-to-Device direct communication between user equipments on the allocated resources; the disclosed apparatus comprises transmitting means for transmitting a communication channel status report regarding Device-to-Device direct communication to a base station; receiving means for receiving resource allocation instructions generated by the base station based on the communication channel status report; and performing means for performing Device-to-Device direct communication between user equipments on the allocated resources. By using the method, apparatus and computer program product disclosed in the present application, resource sharing/allocation collision between the D2D user equipment and cellular user equipment can be effectively reduced and use rate of resources can be improved.

Claims

1-36. -36. (canceled)

37. A method, comprising:

transmitting a communication channel status report regarding Device-to-Device direct communication to a base station;

receiving resource allocation instructions generated by the base station based on the communication channel status report; and

performing Device-to-Device direct communication between user equipments on the allocated resources.

38. The method according to claim 37, wherein the communication channel status report is a status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or a status report of data transmission quality of the user equipment in the Device-to-Device direct communication.

39. The method according to claim 38, wherein the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or the status report of the data transmission quality further comprises any combination of collision channel index, time stamp, location information, cell-edge/center indicator, and a neighbor cell list.

40. The method according to claim 38, wherein the cell-edge/center indicator is determined based on a weighting of any one of pathloss, user equipment power headroom, interference level, Geometry factor and data packet size.

41. A method, comprising:

receiving a communication channel status report from a user equipment in Device-to-Device direct communication;

generating resource allocation instructions based on the communication channel status report; and

transmitting the resource allocation instructions to the user equipment so that the user equipment performs Device-to-Device direct communication on the allocated resources.

42. The method according to claim 41, wherein the communication channel status report comprises a status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or a status report of data transmission quality of the user equipment in the Device-to-Device direct communication, wherein the data transmission quality comprises at least one of block error rate, interference level on data channel, and quality indicator.

43. The method according to claim 42, wherein the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or the status report of data transmission quality further comprises any combination of collision channel index, time stamp, location information, cell-edge/center indicator and a neighbor cell list.

44. The method according to any of claim 42, wherein when a collision with a neighbor cell is determined based on the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision, the resource allocation instructions after coordination with a base station in at least one neighbor cell are transmitted to the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication and resource scheduling is adjusted accordingly for cellular user equipments.

45. The method according to any of claim 42, wherein when it is determined based on the status report of the data transmission quality that there is interference between the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication and cellular user equipments in the at least one neighbor cell, and coordination with the base station in a neighbor cell is thus performed so that the base station in the neighbor cell adjusts resource scheduling for cellular user equipments thereof accordingly, the resource allocation instructions after the coordination are transmitted to the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication.

46. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor and at least one memory including compute program code,

the memory and the computer program code configured to, with the processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform at least the following;

transmit a communication channel status report regarding Device-to-Device direct communication to a base station;

receive resource allocation instructions generated by the base station based on the communication channel status report; and

perform Device-to-Device direct communication between user equipments on the allocated resources.

47. The apparatus according to claim 46, wherein the communication channel status report comprises a status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or a status report of data transmission quality of the user equipment in the Device-to-Device direct communication.

48. The apparatus according to claim 47, wherein the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or the status report of the data transmission quality further comprises any combination of collision channel index, time stamp, location information, cell-edge/center indicator, and a neighbor cell list.

49. The apparatus according to claim 47, wherein the apparatus is further configured to determine the cell-edge/center indicator based on a weighting of any one of pathloss, user equipment power headroom, interference level, Geometry factor and data packet size.

50. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor and at least one memory including compute program code,

the memory and the computer program code configured to, with the processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform at least the following;

receive a communication channel status report from a user equipment in Device-to-Device direct communication;

generate resource allocation instructions based on the communication channel status report; and

transmit the resource allocation instructions to the user equipment so that the user equipment performs Device-to-Device direct communication on the allocated resources.

51. The apparatus according to claim 50, wherein the communication channel status report comprises a status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or a status report of data transmission quality of the user equipment in the Device-to-Device direct communication.

52. The apparatus according to claim 51, wherein the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision or the status report of data transmission quality further comprises any combination of collision channel index, time stamp, location information, cell-edge/center indicator and a neighbor cell list.

53. The apparatus according to any of claim 51, wherein the apparatus is further configured to, determine a collision in a cell based on the status report of Request To Send/Clear To Send collision, transmit the resource allocation instructions to the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication via a dedicated signaling or broadcast, and adjust resource scheduling for cellular user equipments accordingly.

54. The apparatus according to any of claim 51, wherein the apparatus is further configured to, determine based on the status report of the data transmission quality that there is interference between the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication and cellular user equipments in at least one neighbor cell, coordinate with a base station in the at least one neighbor cell so that the base station in the at least one neighbor cell adjusts resource scheduling for cellular user equipments thereof accordingly, transmit the resource allocation instructions to the user equipments in Device-to-Device direct communication.

55. A computer program product, comprising at least one computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program code portion stored thereon, the computer readable program code portion comprising:

program code instructions for transmitting a communication channel status report regarding Device-to-Device direct communication to a base station;

program code instructions for receiving resource allocation instructions generated by the base station based on the communication channel status report; and

program code instructions for performing Device-to-Device direct communication between user equipments on the allocated resources.

56. A computer program product, comprising at least one computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program code portion stored thereon, the computer readable program code portion comprising:

program code instructions for receiving a communication channel status report from a user equipment in Device-to-Device direct communication;

program code instructions for generating resource allocation instructions based on the communication channel status report; and

program code instructions for transmitting the resource allocation instructions to the user equipment so that the user equipment performs Device-to-Device direct communication on the allocated resources.