Common Control Deactivation in Carrier Aggregation

• US 20130258995A1
• Filed: 12/16/2010
• Published: 10/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks US LLC (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Skov, Peter, Lin, Jie Zhen, Yao, Chun Hai
• Granted Patent: US 9,603,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0037 Inter-user or inter-terminal allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/00 Local resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/02 Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management

Abstract

There are provided measures for common control deactivation in carrier aggregation, said measures exemplarily including a configuration of a secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with a primary carrier of a terminal, including a deactivation of a common control for the secondary carrier, an indication of the deactivation of the common control for the secondary carrier via the primary carrier, and a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier from a base station to the terminal. Said measures may exemplarily be applied for common control deactivation in carrier aggregation in heterogeneous network environments based on LTE, LTE-Advanced, HSPA and/or UMTS radio access systems.

Claims

1. A method comprising

configuring a secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with a primary carrier of a terminal, including deactivating a common control for the secondary carrier,

transmitting an indication of the deactivation of the common control for the secondary carrier via the primary carrier to the terminal, and

transmitting a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier to the terminal.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises information for accessing and/or monitoring a common reference signal of the secondary carrier.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the control information comprises information for synchronization with the secondary carrier, radio resource management related measurements on the secondary carrier, demodulation of a shared data channel of the secondary carrier, and/or radio link failure recovery of the secondary carrier.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the deactivation of the common control comprises

deactivating at least one of a physical broadcast channel, a primary signaling signal and a secondary signaling signal, wherein

the deactivated physical broadcast channel, primary signaling signal and/or secondary signaling signal is continued to be transmitted or disabled to be transmitted.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the indication of the deactivation comprises

an indication on secondary carrier selection and/or re-selection procedure when a secondary carrier is already selected, and/or

an indication on secondary carrier measurement configuration when a secondary carrier is not selected, and/or

an indication on secondary carrier configuration and/or re-configuration when after measurement the secondary carrier is selected with determination of common control un-usability.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the indication of the deactivation comprises

a terminal-specific deactivation being applicable for the said terminal, the indication of which is transmitted by an implicit coding or by an explicit indicator, or

a cell-specific deactivation being applicable for some or all terminals using the primary carrier, the indication of which is transmitted on a broadcast channel of the primary carrier.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of

receiving a report on loss/unability of synchronization with the secondary carrier and/or a radio link failure on the secondary carrier from the terminal, and effecting the configuration and/or the signaling for the secondary carrier based thereon, and

receiving a report on measurements regarding the selection of or the operation on the secondary carrier from the terminal, and activating the secondary carrier based thereon.

8. (canceled)

9. A method comprising

receiving an indication of a deactivation of a common control for a secondary carrier via a primary carrier from a base station being in charge of configuring the secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with the primary carrier,

receiving a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier from the base station, and

selecting or operating on the secondary carrier based on the received control information.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein

the control information comprises information for accessing and/or monitoring a common reference signal of the secondary carrier, and

the selecting or operating on comprises accessing and/or monitoring the common reference signal of the secondary carrier.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein the control information comprises information for synchronization with the secondary carrier, radio resource management related measurements on the secondary carrier, demodulation of a shared data channel of the secondary carrier, and/or radio link failure recovery of the secondary carrier,

the selecting or operating on comprises synchronizing with the secondary carrier by aligning with the primary carrier synchronization and/or performing measurements relating to radio resource management of the secondary carrier, demodulating the shared data channel of the secondary carrier and/or performing radio link failure recovery of the secondary carrier.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the deactivation of the common control comprises

a deactivation of at least one of a physical broadcast channel, a primary signaling signal and a secondary signaling signal, wherein

the deactivated physical broadcast channel, primary signaling signal and/or secondary signaling signal is received and ignored or not received.

13. The method according to claim 9, wherein the indication of the deactivation comprises

an indication on secondary carrier selection and/or re-selection procedure when a secondary carrier is already selected, and/or

an indication on secondary carrier measurement configuration when a secondary carrier is not selected, and/or

an indication on secondary carrier configuration and/or re-configuration when after measurement the secondary carrier is selected with determination of common control unusability.

14. The method according to claim 9, wherein the indication of the deactivation comprises

a terminal-specific deactivation, the indication of which is received by an implicit coding or by an explicit indicator, or

a cell-specific deactivation, the indication of which is received on a broadcast channel of the primary carrier.

15. The method according to claim 9, further comprising at least one of

transmitting a report on loss/unability of synchronization with the secondary carrier and/or a radio link failure on the secondary carrier to the base station, and

transmitting a report on measurements regarding the selection of or operation on the secondary carrier to the base station.

16. (canceled)

17. An apparatus comprising

a processor configured to configure a secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with a primary carrier of a terminal, including deactivating a common control for the secondary carrier, and

a transmitter configured to

transmit an indication of the deactivation of the common control for the secondary carrier via the primary carrier to the terminal, and

transmit a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier to the terminal.

18. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

20. (canceled)

21. (canceled)

22. (canceled)

23. (canceled)

24. (canceled)

25. An apparatus comprising

a receiver configured to

receive an indication of a deactivation of a common control for a secondary carrier via a primary carrier from a base station being in charge of configuring the secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with the primary carrier, and

receive a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier from the base station, and

a processor configured to select or operate on the secondary carrier based on the received control information.

26. (canceled)

27. (canceled)

28. (canceled)

29. (canceled)

30. (canceled)

31. (canceled)

32. (canceled)

33. A computer program or computer program product including a program comprising software code portions being arranged, when run on a processor of an apparatus, to perform a method comprising

configuring a secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with a primary carrier of a terminal, including deactivating a common control for the secondary carrier,

transmitting an indication of the deactivation of the common control for the secondary carrier via the primary carrier to the terminal, and

transmitting a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier to the terminal.

34. The computer program or computer program product according to claim 33, wherein the software code portions are arranged, when run on a processor of an apparatus, to perform the method comprising

configuring a secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with a primary carrier of a terminal, including deactivating a common control for the secondary carrier,

transmitting an indication of the deactivation of the common control for the secondary carrier via the primary carrier to the terminal, and

transmitting a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier to the terminal;

and

wherein the control information comprises information for accessing and/or monitoring a common reference signal of the secondary carrier.

35. A computer program or computer program product including a program comprising software code portions being arranged, when run on a processor of an apparatus, to perform a method comprising

receiving an indication of a deactivation of a common control for a secondary carrier via a primary carrier from a base station being in charge of configuring the secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with the primary carrier,

receiving a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier from the base station, and

selecting or operating on the secondary carrier based on the received control information.

36. The computer program or computer program product according to claim 35, wherein the software code portions are arranged, when run on a processor of an apparatus, to perform the method comprising

receiving an indication of a deactivation of a common control for a secondary carrier via a primary carrier from a base station being in charge of configuring the secondary carrier for carrier aggregation with the primary carrier,

receiving a signaling of control information, substituting control information of the deactivated common control, for facilitating selection of or operation on the secondary carrier without the deactivated common control via the primary carrier from the base station, and

selecting or operating on the secondary carrier based on the received control information;

and

wherein the control information comprises information for accessing and/or monitoring a common reference signal of the secondary carrier, and

the selecting or operating on comprises accessing and/or monitoring the common reference signal of the secondary carrier.