Interference Management in a Wireless Network

• US 20130089040A1
• Filed: 01/27/2012
• Published: 04/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Tabet, Tarik, Bontu, Chandra Sekhar, Yu, Yi, Cai, Zhijun, Song, Yi, Ebrahimi Tazeh Mahalleh, Masoud
• Granted Patent: US 9,825,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0048 Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0073 Allocation arrangements that take into account other cell interferences for intercell interference mitigation or co-ordination in orthogonal multiplex systems H04J11/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management

Abstract

A method for interference management at a network element within a wireless telecommunications network, and the network element and user equipment, the method coordinating transmission of cell specific resource elements with at least one other network element; and transmitting the cell specific resource element to a user equipment concurrent to a resource element transmission from the at least one other network element. Also a method for interference avoidance at a network element operating within a wireless telecommunications network, and the user equipment and network element, the method receiving interference information from a user equipment; providing the interference information to at least one interfering network element; and precoding transmissions to the use equipment for interference cancellation.

Claims

1. A method for interference management at a network node within a wireless telecommunications network, the method comprising:

coordinating transmission of cell specific resource elements with at least one other network node; and

transmitting the cell specific resource element to a user equipment concurrent to a resource element transmission from the at least one other network node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cell specific resource elements have a transmit power set to zero.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising, prior to the transmitting, selecting a number of cell specific resource elements with a transmit power set to zero.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the selecting is based on user equipment feedback.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the cell specific resource elements cover a region of interference in a generally uniform manner.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein no data is scheduled during the cell specific resource elements with a transmit power set to zero.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource element transmission from the at least one other network element is a physical downlink shared channel resource element.

8. A network node operating within a wireless telecommunications network, the network node comprising:

a processor; and

a communications subsystem,

wherein the processor and communications subsystem are configured to;

coordinate transmission of cell specific resource elements with at least one other network node; and

transmit the cell specific resource element to a user equipment concurrent to a resource element transmission from the at least one other network node.

9. The network node of claim 8, wherein the cell specific resource elements have a transmit power set to zero.

10. The network node of claim 9, wherein the processor and communications subsystem are further configured to, prior to the transmitting, select a number of cell specific resource elements with a transmit power set to zero.

11. The network node of claim 10, wherein the selecting is based on user equipment feedback.

12. The network node of claim 9, wherein the cell specific resource elements cover a region of interference in a generally uniform manner.

13. The network node of claim 9, wherein no data is scheduled during the cell specific resource elements with a transmit power set to zero.

14. The network node of claim 8, wherein the resource element transmission from the at least one other network node is a physical downlink shared channel resource element.

15. A method for interference management at a user equipment operating within a wireless telecommunications network, the method comprising:

receiving a cell specific resource element from a serving network node concurrently with a resource element transmission from at least one interfering network node; and

estimating an interference covariance matrix for interference rejection combining based on the cell specific resource element from the serving network node and the resource element transmission from the at least one interfering network node.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the cell specific resource element has zero power.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the cell specific resource element is specific for the user equipment.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the estimating assigns a weight based on reliability of a noise plus interference signal and wherein the weight is higher when the cell specific resource element has zero power.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising signaling a desired number of cell specific resource elements with zero power.

20. A user equipment operating within a wireless telecommunications network, the user equipment comprising:

a processor; and

a communications subsystem,

wherein the processor and communications subsystem are configured to;

receive a cell specific resource element from a serving network node concurrently with a resource element transmission from at least one interfering network node; and

estimate an interference covariance matrix for interference rejection combining based on the cell specific resource element from the serving network node and the resource element transmission from the at least one interfering network node.

21. The user equipment of claim 20, wherein the cell specific resource element has zero power.

22. The user equipment of claim 21, wherein the cell specific resource element is specific for the user equipment.

23. The user equipment of claim 21, wherein the processor and communications subsystem are configured estimate by assigning a weight based on reliability of a noise plus interference signal and wherein the weight is higher when the cell specific resource element has zero power.

24. The user equipment of claim 20, wherein the processor and communications subsystem are configured to signal a desired number of cell specific resource elements with zero power.

25-38. -38. (canceled)