System and Method for Interference Coordination

• US 20130286954A1
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Published: 10/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Ma, Jianglei, Baligh, Mohammadhadi, Hawryluck, Mark Andrew, Zarifi, Keyvan, Salem, Mohamed Adel
• Granted Patent: US 9,294,161 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• 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 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/566 of the information or information source or recipient

Abstract

A method for operating an interference coordinating entity (ICE) includes partitioning, by the ICE, a cloud radio access network (CRAN) cluster by grouping transmission points (TPs) serving user equipments (UEs) in accordance with a partitioning criterion into at least one virtual transmission point (V-TP) to produce a V-TP set. The UEs to be served are preferably offset from a V-TP boundary. The method also includes saving, by the ICE, V-TP information to a memory.

Claims

1. A method for operating an interference coordinating entity (ICE), the method comprising:

partitioning, by the ICE, a cloud radio access network (CRAN) cluster by grouping transmission points (TPs) serving user equipments (UEs) in accordance with a partitioning criterion into at least one virtual transmission point (V-TP) to produce a V-TP set, wherein the UEs to be served are preferably offset from a V-TP boundary; and

saving, by the ICE, V-TP information to a memory.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one V-TP comprises at least one TP.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a V-TP is a basic unit for interference coordination.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein partitioning the CRAN cluster comprises:

adjusting the partitioning criterion; and

repeating the partitioning to produce a plurality of V-TP sets.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

for each V-TP set,

scheduling the UEs that can be served by the TPs for the V-TP set, and

determining a merit measurement for the UEs that have been scheduled for the V-TP set; and

selecting one of the merit measurements to determine a V-TP configuration for the CRAN cluster.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein there are a plurality of transmission resources, and wherein partitioning the CRAN cluster, scheduling the UEs, determining the merit measurement, and selecting one of the merit measurements is repeated for each transmission resource.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein each V-TP set comprises a plurality of V-TPs, wherein joint processing occurs within a V-TP with more than one TP.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the selected merit measurement is a largest merit measurement.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

partitioning a communications network into at least two CRAN clusters; and

performing partitioning the CRAN cluster, scheduling the UEs, determining the merit measurement, and selecting one of the merit measurements for each CRAN cluster.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising

partitioning network resources of the communications network into a plurality of disjoint network resource units;

and

allocating one or more network resource units to each CRAN cluster so that adjacent CRAN clusters are only allocated the same network resource unit if different priority levels are also assigned to the adjacent CRAN clusters.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein partitioning the network resources comprises partitioning frequency network resources into a plurality of disjoint frequency network resource units.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein partitioning the network resources comprises partitioning time network resources into a plurality of disjoint time network resource units.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein partitioning the network resources comprises:

partitioning frequency network resources into a plurality of disjoint frequency network resource units; and

partitioning time network resources into a plurality of disjoint time network resource units.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the ICE is an interference controller.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising specifying a first utilization for boundary UEs operating near a boundary of the CRAN cluster.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising specifying a second utilization for other UEs operating in the CRAN cluster.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the ICE is an interference controller.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the ICE is a super node.

19. An interference coordinating entity (ICE) comprising:

a processor configured to partition a cloud radio access network (CRAN) cluster by grouping transmission points (TPs) serving user equipments (UEs) in accordance with a partitioning criterion into at least one virtual transmission point (V-TP) to produce a V-TP set, wherein the UEs are preferably offset from a V-TP boundary; and

a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory configured to store V-TP information.

20. The ICE of claim 19, wherein the processor is configured to partition the CRAN cluster into a plurality of V-TP sets, to, for each V-TP set, schedule the UEs that can be served by the TPs for the V-TP set, to, for each V-TP set, determine a merit measurement for the UEs that have been scheduled for the V-TP set, and to select one of the merit measurements to determine a V-TP configuration for the CRAN cluster.

21. The ICE of claim 20, wherein the processor is configured to select a largest one of the merit measurements.

22. The ICE of claim 20, wherein the processor is to partition a communications network into at least two CRAN clusters, and wherein the processor is configured to, for each CRAN cluster, partition the CRAN cluster, schedule the UEs, determine the merit measurement, and to select the V-TP configuration for each CRAN cluster.

23. The ICE of claim 22, wherein the processor is configured to partition network resources of the communications network into a plurality of disjoint network resource units, and to allocate one or more network resource units to each CRAN cluster so that adjacent CRAN clusters are only allocated the same network resource unit if different priority levels are also assigned to the adjacent CRAN clusters.

24. The ICE of claim 23, wherein the ICE is an interference controller.

25. The ICE of claim 22, further comprising a transmit power setting unit configured to specify a first transmit power level for boundary UEs operating near a boundary of the CRAN cluster, and to specify a second transmit power level for other UEs operating in the CRAN cluster.

26. The ICE of claim 19, wherein the ICE is a super node.

27. A communications network comprising:

a plurality of cloud radio access network (CRAN) clusters, each CRAN cluster including a plurality of transmission points (TPs) configured to serve user equipments (UEs), the plurality of TPs partitioned into a virtual transmission point (V-TP) set of at least one V-TP, wherein the UEs are preferably offset from a V-TP boundary, and wherein each V-TP is a joint processing unit; and

a first interference coordinating entity (ICE) operatively coupled to a first one of the CRAN clusters, the first ICE configured to partition the first one of the CRAN clusters according to a corresponding V-TP set.

28. The communications network of claim 27, wherein the first ICE is a super node.

29. The communications network of claim 27, further comprising a second ICE operatively coupled to a second one of the CRAN clusters, the second ICE configured to partition network resources of the communications network into a plurality of disjoint transmission resource units, and to allocate one or more transmission resource units to each CRAN cluster so that adjacent CRAN clusters are only allocated the same network resource unit if different priority levels are also assigned to the adjacent CRAN clusters.

30. The communications network of claim 29, wherein the first ICE and the second ICE is a single entity.

31. The communications network of claim 29, wherein the second ICE is coupled to each CRAN cluster.

32. The communications network of claim 29, wherein the second ICE is an interference controller.