ARCHITECTURE AND METHODS FOR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT BY TUNNELING IN HIERARCHICAL CELLULAR NETWORKS

• US 20140036722A1
• Filed: 11/23/2011
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ELTA Systems Limited (Government of Israel)
• Original Assignee: ELTA Systems Limited (Government of Israel)
• Inventors: Giloh, Benjamin, Shoshan, Yaakov, Schwartz, Adi
• Granted Patent: US 9,351,173 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2592 using tunnelling or encapsulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/26 Cell enhancers or enhancement, e.g. for tunnels, building shadow
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/32 Hierarchical cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/065 using assembly or disassembly of packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/14 using intermediate storage
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/0833 Random access procedures, e.g. with 4-step access
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/18 Management of setup rejection or failure
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/045 between access point and backbone network device

Abstract

A hierarchical cellular network system having a core and comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein at least one node comprises a relay; and wherein at least one relay includes: a tunneling sub-system; a backhauling link subsystem interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a node which is closer to the core than the relay; and a base station subsystem, interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a mobile station or a node which is further from the core than the relay, wherein the tunneling subsystem is operative to perform the following, on data arriving from a base station subsystem belonging to another node from among the plurality of nodes: collecting the data; and encapsulating the results to be sent in an individual session into packets and sending the packets to the Backhauling Link Subsystem.

Claims

1. A hierarchical cellular network system having a core and comprising:

a plurality of nodes, wherein at least one node comprises a mobile relay having both base station and mobile communicator functionalities and operative to serve mobile communicators, including other relays, and to be served inter alia by other relays;

and wherein at least one relay includes;

a tunneling sub-system; and

a backhauling link subsystem interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a node which is closer to the core than said relay;

said base station functionality interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a mobile station or a node which is further from the core than said relay,

wherein the tunneling subsystem is operative to perform the following, on data arriving from a base station functionality;

collecting said data; and

encapsulating the results to be sent in an individual session into packets and sending said packets to said Backhauling Link Subsystem.

2. A system according to claim 1 wherein said backhauling link subsystem comprises a radio link that connects a mobile to another base station.

4. A system according to claim 1 wherein a source Identity of at least one of said packets is sent by the Backhauling Link Subsystem to an upper layer of the network topology, so as to identify at least one source relay in the network from which at least one of said packets originated.

6. A system according to claim 1 wherein the tunneling subsystem is operative to perform the following, on incoming data arriving via said Backhauling Link Subsystem from another node:

collection of the incoming data;

de-capsulation of the incoming data as collected, thereby to yield decapsulated packets;

analysis of the de-capsulated packets, including assigning a priority to each, thereby to yield analyzed results;

sorting and queuing of the analyzed results, thereby to yield individual packets;

conversion of the individual packets to a protocol specific to the network, thereby to yield network-compatible packets; and

sending said network-compatible packets to another node via the relay apparatus.

7. A system according to claim 2 wherein said data is formatted as per an S1 protocol including S1 protocol framing in LTE.

8. A system according to claim 2 wherein said radio link connects a mobile relay to another mobile relay.

9. A system according to claim 2 wherein said radio link connects a mobile relay to a stationary base station.

11. A system according to claim 1 wherein said encapsulating includes incorporating said results into said packets as a Payload.

12. A system according to claim 7 and wherein said tunneling subsystem is also operative for de-framing the S1 protocol yielding a plurality of results.

33. A system according to claim 1 wherein the core comprises a tunneling application server.

36. A method according to claim 12 wherein S1 protocol is deframed into S1-U, S1-MME and X2, thereby to generate deframing results.

43. A system according to claim 1 wherein the core comprises a tunneling server and wherein the destination of all mobile base station (MBS) traffic is typically the Tunneling Server and vice-versa.

45. A system according to claim 33 wherein a first block at which these packets arrive is an Encapsulation Engine operative to decapsulate packets which arrive Inbound and to encapsulate traffic sent Outbound.

46. A system according to claim 45 wherein the engine is operative for adding information to the data payload, by adding a header to a data payload packet in order to send the data payload over a different delivery-network.

54. A system according to claim 1 wherein the core comprises an S1 tunneling server and wherein the S1 Tunneling Server is located between a base station and a Core Segment defined by the core and interfaces the base station using a standard S1 interface and wherein the interface of an individual Tunneling Server to the Core Segment is effected by multi-S1 interfaces, one for each mobile base station whose packets arrive at said individual Tunneling Server.

56. A system according to claim 1 wherein the core comprises an S1 tunneling server and wherein a first block in an Inbound flow comprises a mobile base station filter operative to sort incoming user-plane packets of an S1-U interface and wherein the filter, by using a known list of mobile base stations, is operative to detect the mobile base stations'"'"' packets, to filter said packets from the S1-U stream and to send the stream without the mobile base stations'"'"' packets directly to a Core segment defined by the core.

58. A system according to claim 1 wherein the Tunneling Subsystem is operative to process incoming mobile base station only packets stream for every sole mobile base station detected, in a recursive manner in order to decapsulate tunnel-inside-tunnel cases.

59. A system according to claim 58 wherein, after unfolding all the mobile base stations'"'"' packets, thereby to generate unfolded data the Tunneling Subsystem is operative to transfer said unfolded data to a Virtual Radio Access Network Manager that reflects each of the mobile base stations to a Core segment defined by the core as a “

virtual”

base station.

68. A system according to claim 1 wherein the base station functionality from which said data arrives comprises at least one of:

a base station functionality belonging to another node from among said plurality of nodes; and

said base station functionality belonging to said at least one relay.

3. (canceled)

5. (canceled)

10. (canceled)

13-18. -18. (canceled)

19. A method for operating in a hierarchical cellular network system having a core and a plurality of nodes, wherein at least one node comprises a relay, the method comprising:

providing, in at least one node which comprises a mobile relay having both base station and mobile communicator functionalities and operative to serve mobile communicators, including other relays, and to be served inter alia by other relays;

a tunneling sub-system; and

a backhauling link subsystem interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a node which is closer to the core than said relay;

said base station functionality, interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a mobile station or a node which is further from the core than said relay,

using the tunneling subsystem to perform the following, on data arriving from a base station functionality;

collecting said data; and

encapsulating the results to be sent in an individual session into packets and sending said packets to said Backhauling Link Subsystem.

29. A method according to claim 19 wherein multi-hop communication is used by providing a chain of n>

=2 communication relaying mobile stations, the first of which, 1, is within the range of a base station, the last of which, n, has a mobile communicator within its own range, and each adjacent pair I, i+1 of which, for I=1, . . . n−

1, is characterized in that the (1+1)'"'"'th communication relaying mobile station is within the range of the I'"'"'th communication relaying base station.

30. A method according to claim 19 wherein Multi-layered cellular topology creates tunnel-within-tunnel encapsulation that is resolved and unfolded at a Tunneling Server in the core.

32. A method according to claim 19 wherein the tunneling subsystem is operative only for removing an encapsulation header or for adding all the headers, in case of a multi-hop, according to the route to the designated address.

42. A method according to claim 19 wherein a tunnel incorporates several cellular entities together.

20-28. -28. (canceled)

31. (canceled)

34-35. -35. (canceled)

37-41. -41. (canceled)

44. (canceled)

47-53. -53. (canceled)

55. (canceled)

57. (canceled)

60-62. -62. (canceled)

63. For use with a hierarchical cellular network system having a core and comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein at least one node comprises a mobile relay having both base station and mobile communicator functionalities and operative to serve mobile communicators, including other relays, and to be served inter alia by other relays:

a Virtual Radio Access Network Manager

which resides in a tunneling application server residing in the core,

and which is operative to reflect each mobile base station back to a Core Segment defined by the core as a “

real”

base station using a standard RAN-to-Core interface.

64. A system according to claim 63 wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is operative, using data arriving thereat from all mobile base stations, to build a topology of all mobile base station sub-networks including a list of all users attached thereto.

66. A system according to claim 63 wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is operative to function as a proxy of MeNBs interfacing the core by reflecting each of the mobile base stations using a standard S1 interface such that a multi-S1 interface is created.

67. A system according to claim 63 wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is also operative to store the mobile base stations'"'"' topology tree, and to pass packets and attached instructions, resulting from analysis of the topology tree, via a dedicated interface to the Tunneling Subsystem.

65. (canceled)