APPARATUS AND METHOD IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20170202001A1
• Filed: 06/16/2015
• Published: 07/13/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: GUO, Xin
• Granted Patent: US 10,555,320 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/10 Small scale networks; Flat hierarchical networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/20 Master-slave selection or change arrangements

Abstract

An apparatus and method in a wireless communication system. The apparatus includes a dynamic network planning trigger unit and a master user equipment selecting unit. The dynamic network planning trigger unit triggers, based on a predetermined trigger event, a dynamic network planning in an area managed by the apparatus. The dynamic network planning includes selection of a master user equipment used for device-to-device communication, and the master user equipment receives signals from a base station during the device-to-device communication process and relays signals between the base station and a slave user equipment. The master user equipment selecting unit selects, from user equipment in the area according to quality of channels between the user equipment and the base station, one or more user equipment as master user equipment, distances between the master user equipment being greater than the intervals.

Claims

1. An apparatus in a wireless communication system, comprising:

a dynamic network planning triggering unit configured to trigger a dynamic network planning in a region managed by the apparatus based on a predetermined trigger event, wherein the dynamic network planning comprises selecting a master user equipment for a device to device communication, the master user equipment receives a signal from a base station and relays a signal between the base station and a slave user equipment during the device to device communication; and

a master user equipment selecting unit configured to select one or more user equipment from user equipment in the region as master user equipment based on a channel quality between the base station and the user equipment, wherein if a plurality of master user equipment are selected and the plurality of master user equipment use the same communication resource, a distance between the master user equipment is larger than an interval distance.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an interval distance calculating unit configured to acquire performance parameter information, including a transmission power and a Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio requirement, of each of the user equipment in the region, and calculate the interval distance between the master user equipment based on the acquired information.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein slave user equipment associated with the one or more master user equipment distributed based on the interval distance have a higher signal reception quality than a predetermined threshold for signals relayed by the respective master user equipment.

4. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the master user equipment reuse communication resources to provide services to associated slave user equipment, and a service collectively provided by the base station and the one or more master user equipment distributed based on the interval distance is able to realize an optimized network capacity.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a reconfiguration instructing unit configured to send a reconfiguration instruction to network nodes involved in the dynamic network planning, including the master user equipment and the base station, to instruct the network nodes to change current network connections.

6. The apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

a distribution status estimating unit configured to estimate a distribution status of the user equipment in the region based on position information of the user equipment in the region,

wherein the interval distance calculating unit is further configured to calculate the interval distance according to the distribution status, and

the master user equipment selecting unit is further configured to select the master user equipment according to the distribution status.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein, for a circular region having a predetermined radius within an entirety of the region, if a node distribution density in the circular region is higher than a node distribution density in the entirety of the region, the distribution status estimating unit estimates that the distribution status of the user equipment is Cluster with respect to the predetermined radius, otherwise, the distribution status estimating unit estimates that the distribution status of the user equipment is Regular.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the predetermined radius is smaller than or equal to an effective transmission distance between the user equipment.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a slave user equipment selecting unit configured to determine, for each of the master user equipment, a slave user equipment to be served by the master user equipment, based on positions of user equipment other than the master user equipment in the region and a data relaying capability of the master user equipment; and

a direct user equipment determining unit configured to determine a user equipment other than the selected master user equipment and the selected slave user equipment in the region as a direct user equipment, which directly obtains service from the base station.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a judging unit configured to judge, in response to an occurrence of the predetermined trigger event in the region, whether to activate the dynamic network planning by comparing an expected maximum network capacity achieved by the dynamic network planning based on the interval distance with a current network capacity.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined trigger event comprises at least one of:

a predetermined timer for triggering the dynamic network planning having expired, network performance degrading and thus failing to meet requirements of the user equipment, network performance parameters reported by the user equipment indicating a poor channel quality, and a change of a network structure.

12. A method in a wireless communication system, comprising:

a dynamic network planning triggering step of triggering a dynamic network planning in a region in which the method is performed, based on a predetermined trigger event, wherein the dynamic network planning comprises selecting a master user equipment for a device to device communication, the master user equipment receives a signal from a base station and relays a signal between the base station and a slave user equipment during the device to device communication; and

a master user equipment selecting step of selecting one or more user equipment from user equipment in the region as master user equipment based on a channel quality between the base station and the user equipment.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising an interval distance calculating step of acquiring performance parameter information, including a transmission power and a Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio requirement, of each of the user equipment in the region and calculating an interval distance between the master user equipment based on the acquired information, wherein if common communication resource is used between the master user equipment, a distance between the master user equipment is larger than the interval distance.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein one or more slave user equipment associated with the one or more master user equipment which are distributed based on the interval distance have a higher signal reception quality than a predetermined threshold for signals relayed by the respective master user equipment.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the master user equipment reuse communication resources to provide services to associated slave user equipment, and a service collectively provided by the base station and the one or more master user equipment distributed based on the interval distance is able to realize an optimized network capacity.

16. The method according to claim 13, further comprising:

a distribution status estimating step of estimating a distribution status of the user equipment in the region based on position information of the user equipment in the region,

wherein in the interval distance calculating step, the interval distance is further calculated according to the distribution status, and

in the master user equipment selecting step, the master user equipment is further selected according to the distribution status.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein in the distribution status estimating step, for a circular region having a predetermined radius within an entirety of the region, if a node distribution density in the circular region is higher than a node distribution density in the entirety of the region, it is estimated that the distribution status of the user equipment is Cluster with respect to the predetermined radius, otherwise, it is estimated that the distribution status of the user equipment is Regular.

18. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

a slave user equipment selecting step of determining, for each of the master user equipment, a slave user equipment to be served by the master user equipment, based on positions of user equipment other than the master user equipment in the region and a data relaying capability of the master user equipment; and

a direct user equipment determining step of determining a user equipment other than the selected master user equipment and the selected slave user equipment in the region as a direct user equipment, which directly obtains service from the base station.

19. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

a judging step of judging, in response to an occurrence of the predetermined trigger event in the region, whether to activate the dynamic network planning by comparing an expected maximum network capacity achieved by the dynamic network planning based on the interval distance with a current network capacity.

20. The method according to claim 12, wherein the predetermined trigger event comprises at least one of:

a predetermined timer for triggering the dynamic network planning having expired, network performance degrading and thus failing to meet requirements of the user equipment, network performance parameters reported by the user equipment indicating a poor channel quality, and a change of a network structure.