Method for Operating a Transceiver Circuit and Transceiver Circuit

• US 20140064067A1
• Filed: 08/29/2012
• Published: 03/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Mobile Communications GmbH (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Drewes, Christian, Gunzelmann, Bertram, Kreuchauf, Juergen, Wagner, Elmar, Choi, Hyung-Nam, Breining, Birgit
• Granted Patent: US 9,071,399 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0044 allocation of payload

Abstract

A method for operating a transceiver circuit includes receiving an information indicating at least one of a transmission and a reception in a guard band region of a frequency band supported by a communications network and allocating at least a part of the guard band region of the supported frequency band of the communications network for at least one of a transmission and a reception of at least one physical channel.

Claims

1. A method for operating a transceiver circuit, comprising:

receiving an information indicating at least one of a transmission and a reception in a guard band region of a frequency band supported by a communications network; and

allocating at least a part of the guard band region of the supported frequency band of the communications network for at least one of a transmission and a reception of at least one physical channel.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information indicating the at least one of a transmission and a reception in the guard band region corresponds to a system information block.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the part of the guard band region corresponds to at least one physical resource block.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the guard band region is symmetrically arranged around a DC sub-carrier of the supported frequency band.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the guard band region is located at the edges of the supported frequency band.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a bandwidth of the guard band region is smaller than a bandwidth of the supported frequency band.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

performing at least one of a transmission and a reception of the at least one physical channel in the guard band region by using the allocated at least one physical resource block.

8. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

applying frequency-hopping over the at least one allocated physical resource blocks in the guard band region.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the system information block is received on sub-carriers of the supported frequency band outside the guard band region.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein the system information block is received on sub-carriers centered around a DC sub-carrier of the supported frequency band.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the system information block carries at least one of the following information:

a location of available physical resource blocks in the guard band region, a number of available physical resource blocks in the guard band region, a size of a control channel region, a size of a data channel region, a supported sub-frame pattern, and a maximum allowed transmission power in the guard band region.

12. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

restricting a transmission power for the transmission of the at least one physical channel according to a maximum allowed transmission power provided by the system information block.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

switching at least one of a transmission and a reception to exclusively the allocated guard band region.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of switching to the guard band region is performed upon receiving an overload indicator indicating an overload of the communications network.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

switching the at least one of a transmission and a reception back to sub-carriers carrying the system information block when at least one of the transmission and the reception in the guard band region is interrupted.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing at least one of a transmission and a reception on the supported frequency band and the guard band region.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications network is at least one of a radio communications network, an OFDM-based communications network and an LTE communications network.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the transceiver circuit is comprised in a User Equipment, in particular in a Machine-Type Communications device.

19. A method for operating a transceiver circuit, comprising:

receiving a system information block indicating at least one of a transmission and a reception in a guard band region of a frequency band supported by a radio communications network;

allocating a plurality of physical resource blocks from the guard band region of the supported frequency band of the radio communications network for at least one of a transmission and a reception of at least one physical channel; and

performing at least one of a transmission and a reception of the at least one physical channel in the guard band region by using the allocated physical resource blocks.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one physical channel comprises one of the following:

a Physical Uplink Shared Channel, a Physical Uplink Control Channel, a Physical Random Access Channel, a Physical Downlink Shared Channel, a Physical Downlink Control Channel, a Physical Control Format Indicator Channel, and a Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the transceiver circuit supports at least one of the frequency bandwidths 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, and 5 MHz, wherein the radio communications network supports at least one of the frequency bandwidths 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz, and wherein each of the physical resource blocks has a size of 180 kHz and is partitioned as a matrix of 12 sub-carriers and 6 or 7 data symbols.

22. A method for overload protection in a radio communications network, comprising:

dynamically switching at least one of a data transmission and a data reception of a transceiver circuit from a supported frequency band of the radio communications network to a guard band region of the supported frequency band depending on an overload indicator.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the switching to the guard band region is configurable depending on a type of User Equipment supported by the transceiver circuit.

24. A transceiver circuit configured to receive an information indicating at least one of a transmission and a reception in a guard band region of a frequency band supported by a communications network, the transceiver circuit comprising a unit configured to allocate at least a part of the guard band region of the supported frequency band of the communications network for at least one of a transmission and a reception of at least one physical channel.

25. A transceiver circuit configured to transmit a system information block indicating at least one of a transmission and a reception in a guard band region of a frequency band supported by a communications network.