Method and Apparatus for Multiuser MIMO Beamforming Training

• US 20170134076A1
• Filed: 11/07/2016
• Published: 05/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Maamari, Diana, Ghanbarinejad, Majid, Calcev, George
• Granted Patent: US 10,312,980 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0452 Multi-user MIMO systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0632 Channel quality parameters, e.g. channel quality indicator [CQI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0695 using beam selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/088 using beam selection

Abstract

A method for beamforming training is disclosed including SNR values with each of the SNR values associated with one of the antenna identifiers (IDs) in a first frame identifying different radio frequency (RF) chains for a process of beamforming training; receiving and transmitting the first frame bi-directionally between multiple pairs of communicating nodes, wherein each pair of the communicating nodes has at least one initiator node and one responder node; receiving feedback of the SNRs associated with the antenna IDs from two or more responder nodes of the multiple pairs of the communicating nodes to choose an RF chain as favorable transmit antenna for transmission; and determining respective one from the multiple antenna sectors of the multiple antennas for transmission for the responder nodes according to the feedback. A central network controller and a system are also disclosed herein.

Claims

1. A method for beamforming training, comprising:

signaling a plurality of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values with each of the SNR values associated with one of the antenna identifiers (IDs) in a first frame identifying different radio frequency (RF) chains for a process of beamforming training, the RF chains connecting to multiple physical antenna elements with multiple antenna sectors, wherein each of the multiple antenna sectors is identified with a sector ID;

receiving and transmitting the first frame bi-directionally between multiple pairs of communicating nodes, wherein each pair of the communicating nodes has at least one initiator node and one responder node;

receiving feedback of the SNRs associated with the antenna IDs from two or more responder nodes of the multiple pairs of the communicating nodes to choose an RF chain as favorable transmit antenna for transmission; and

determining respective one from the multiple antenna sectors of the multiple antennas for transmission for the responder nodes according to the feedback.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

keeping receive state for each responder node till all responder nodes have performed the feedback.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a number of antennas as transmit antennas for the responder nodes, signaling the first frame from the number of antennas respectively; and

transmitting the first frame a number of times equal to the maximum number of the selected transmit antennas.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the antenna ID is encoded in a field of the first frame being allocated for the antenna sector and the field is encoded as more than 2 bits.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame is a sector sweep (SSW) frame, wherein the SSW frame further comprises a plurality of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) values with each of the SINR values associated with one of the antenna IDs.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting pairing frames to assign antennas with all the feedback having been received from the two or more responders.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting a single beam refinement protocol (BRP) packet for the process of beamforming training from different antennas to all responder nodes; and

appending training fields with the BRP packet.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

when the training fields being appended with the BRP packet;

changing directions of associated antenna sequentially so that the responder node in the pair detects different beams sent from the associated antenna.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

transmitting the training fields from an antenna port while other antenna ports are silenced.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the training fields appended to the BRP frames are silenced while other training fields are transmitted.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the BRP frames from different antennas are transmitted with a delay.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

pairing a first antenna with a first responder node according to the feedback from the first responder node, information gained from the first pairing is configured to be used for a second antenna with a second responder node;

repeating the process of the first responder node and the second responder node for the next responder nodes.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning different antenna and antenna sector for each responder node with a multicast frame, wherein the multicast frame further comprises a descriptor set mapping the antenna sectors to the responder node, wherein the descriptor set maps different training fields to different antennas for different communicating node.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting a packet containing periods of no transmission from one or more antennas in a packet-based communication network.

16. The controller of claim 11, the programming including further instructions for:

keeping receive state for each responder node till all responder nodes have performed the feedback.

17. The controller of claim 11, the programming including further instructions for:

selecting a number of antennas as transmit antennas for the responder nodes, signaling the first frame from the number of antennas respectively; and

transmitting the first frame a number of times equal to the maximum number of the selected transmit antennas.

18. The controller of claim 11, further comprising:

wherein the frame is a sector sweep (SSW) frame, wherein the SSW frame further comprises a plurality of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) values with each of the SINR values associated with one of the antenna IDs.

19. The controller of claim 11, the programming including further instructions for:

transmitting a single beam refinement protocol (BRP) packet for the process of beamforming training from different antennas to all responder nodes; and

appending training fields with the BRP packet.

15. A central network controller for beamforming training, comprising:

a processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions for;

signaling a plurality of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values with each of the SNR values associated with one of the antenna identifiers (IDs) in a first frame identifying different radio frequency (RF) chains for a process of beamforming training, the RF chains connecting to multiple physical antenna elements with multiple antenna sectors, wherein each of the multiple antenna sectors is identified with a sector ID;

receiving and transmitting the first frame bi-directionally between multiple pairs of communicating nodes, wherein each pair of the communicating nodes has at least one initiator node and one responder node;

receiving feedback of the SNRs associated with the antenna IDs from two or more responder nodes of the multiple pairs of the communicating nodes to choose an RF chain as favorable transmit antenna for transmission; and

determining respective one from the multiple antenna sectors of the multiple antennas for transmission for the responder nodes according to the feedback.

20. A system for beamforming training, comprising:

a baseband (BB) process unit being configured to couple to a plurality of antenna modules,

a central network controller being configured to apply beamforming weights for assigning the plurality of antenna modules for transmissions with the BB, and the central network controller is further configured to comprise;

a processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions for;

signaling a plurality of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values with each of the SNR values associated with one of the antenna identifiers (IDs) in a first frame identifying different radio frequency (RF) chains for a process of beamforming training, the RF chains connecting to multiple physical antenna elements with multiple antenna sectors, wherein each of the multiple antenna sectors is identified with a sector ID;

receiving and transmitting the first frame bi-directionally between multiple pairs of communicating nodes, wherein each pair of the communicating nodes has at least one initiator node and one responder node;

receiving feedback of the SNRs associated with the antenna IDs from two or more responder nodes of the multiple pairs of the communicating nodes to choose an RF chain as favorable transmit antenna for transmission; and

determining respective one from the multiple antenna sectors of the multiple antennas for transmission for the responder nodes according to the feedback.