POWER-EFFICIENT CHANNEL QUALITY MEASURING METHOD IN A MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IN WHICH CARRIER AGGREGATION IS EMPLOYED, AND A DEVICE FOR THE SAME

• US 20130128754A1
• Filed: 01/06/2011
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Jung, Sung Hoon, Chun, Sung Duck, Yi, Seung June, Lee, Young Dae, Park, Sung Jun
• Granted Patent: US 9,462,483 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/02 Power saving arrangements in wired systems H04L12/12; signaling of mobile application services, e.g. low battery notifications H04W4/20
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method in which a terminal carries out channel quality measurement in a power-efficient fashion in a mobile communication system in which carrier aggregation is employed. If the terminal supports measurement based on serving cell quality, then an additional judgment is made as to whether the terminal is configured for simultaneous communication with a plurality of serving cells and, if the terminal does support measurement based on serving cell quality and is configured for simultaneous communication with a plurality of serving cells, then a decision is made as to whether the quality-representing value for the plurality of serving cells is at or above a threshold value and, if the quality-representing value for the plurality of serving cells is at or above the threshold value, then a quality measurement is carried out within a limited range taking into account the plurality of serving cells.

Claims

1. A method of performing power-efficiently a channel quality measurement operation at a user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication system using carrier aggregation, the method comprising:

receiving a measurement configuration information from a network;

determining whether the user equipment supports a serving cell quality criterion measurement scheme through the received measurement configuration information;

determining whether the user equipment is configured to communicate with a plurality of serving cells simultaneously if the user equipment supports the serving cell quality criterion measurement scheme;

determining whether a quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is equal to or greater than a threshold if the user equipment supports the serving cell quality criterion measurement scheme and is configured to communicate with the plurality of the serving cells simultaneously; and

performing a quality measurement within a restricted range in consideration of a plurality of the serving cells if the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is equal to or greater than the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the used equipment includes a measurement object list information, a measurement reporting configuration list information and a measurement identity information for connecting a measurement object in the measurement object list and a reporting configuration in the measurement reporting configuration list,

wherein if the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is smaller than the threshold, the method further comprises performing the quality measurement of all measurement objects in the measurement object list.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells comprises a quality value of a cell used by the user equipment for system information acquisition among the plurality of the serving cells.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is a quality value of a cell providing an input parameter related to a security configuration among the plurality of the serving cells.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is a quality value of a cell becoming a criterion of determining a presence or non-presence of discontinuous reception (DRX) operation among the plurality of the serving cells.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is a quality value of a cell having a poorest channel quality among the plurality of the serving cells.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality representative value of a plurality of the serving cells is a quality value of a cell having a best channel quality among the plurality of the serving cells.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein assuming that quality values of the plurality of the serving cells are set to Q₁ to Q_N, respectively, the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is determined as ‘

W₁*Q₁+W₂*Q₂+ . . . +W_N*Q_N’

, where ‘

W₁+W₂+ . . . +W_N=1’ and

‘

W₁, W₂, . . . W_N≧

0’

.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality measurement within the restricted range in consideration of the plurality of the serving cells is performed by at least one of a first combination including the plurality of the serving cells and a second combination including neighbor cells within a frequency that the plurality of the serving cells exist thereon.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality measurement within the restricted range in consideration of the plurality of the serving cells is performed by at least one of a first combination including at least one specific cell among the plurality of the serving cells and a second combination including neighbor cells within a frequency that the specific cell exist thereon, and

wherein the specific cell is a cell used by the user equipment for system information acquisition, a cell providing an input parameter related to a security configuration of the user equipment, or a cell becoming a criterion of a determination of a presence or non-presence of discontinuous reception (DRX) operation of the user equipment.

11. A user equipment for performing power-efficiently a channel quality measurement operation in a mobile communication system using carrier aggregation, the user equipment comprising:

a receiving module configured to receive a measurement configuration information from a network; and

a processor configured to control a channel quality measurement operation using the measurement configuration information received via the receiving module, the processor, if the user equipment supports a serving cell quality criterion measurement scheme and is configured to communicate with a plurality of the serving cells simultaneously, is configured to determine whether a quality representative value of a plurality of the serving cells is equal to or greater than a threshold, the processor, if the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is equal to or greater than the threshold, is configured to perform a quality measurement within a restricted range in consideration of the plurality of the serving cells.

12. The user equipment of claim 11, further comprising:

a memory configured to store a measurement object list information, a measurement reporting configuration list information and a measurement identity information for connecting a measurement object in the measurement object list and a reporting configuration in the measurement reporting configuration list,

wherein if the quality representative value of a plurality of the serving cells is smaller than the threshold, the processor is configured to control performing quality measurement of all measurement objects in the measurement object list.

13. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the quality representative value of the plurality of the serving cells is a quality value of a specific cell and wherein the specific cell is cell used by the user equipment for system information acquisition among a plurality of the serving cells, a cell providing an input parameter related to a security configuration among a plurality of the serving cells, a cell becoming a criterion of determining a presence or non-presence of discontinuous reception (DRX) operation among the plurality of the serving cells, a cell having a poorest channel quality among the plurality of the serving cells, or a cell having a best channel quality among the plurality of the serving cells.

14. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein assuming that quality values of a plurality of the serving cells are set to Q₁ to Q_N, respectively, the quality representative value of a plurality of the serving cells is determined as ‘

W₁*Q₁+W₂*Q₂+ . . . +W_N*Q_N’

, where ‘

W₁+W₂+ . . . +W_N=1’ and

‘

W₁, W₂, . . . W_N≧

0’

.

15. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the quality measurement within the restricted range in consideration of a plurality of the serving cells is performed by at least one of a first combination including the plurality of the serving cells and a second combination including neighbor cells within a frequency that a plurality of the serving cells exist thereon.

16. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the quality measurement within the restricted range in consideration of the plurality of the serving cells is performed by at least one of a first combination including at least one specific cell among the plurality of the serving cells and a second combination including neighbor cells within a frequency that the specific cell exist thereon, and

wherein the specific cell is a cell used by the user equipment for system information acquisition, a cell providing an input parameter related to a security configuration of the user equipment, or a cell becoming a criterion of a determination of a presence or non-presence of discontinuous reception (DRX) operation of the user equipment.