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

• US 20170272978A1
• Filed: 03/31/2017
• Published: 09/21/2017
• 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 10,091,690 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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

1-28. -28. (canceled)

29. An apparatus for use in conjunction with a hierarchical cellular network system having a core and a plurality of nodes, the apparatus comprising:

a mobile relay having functionalities including both base station functionality and mobile communicator functionality and operative to serve mobile communicators, including at least one relay other than said mobile relay, and

to be served by the at least one relay other than said mobile relay; and

wherein the at least one relay other than said mobile relay includes;

a tunneling subsystem; and

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

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

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

collecting said data including analyzing to identify, within said data, results to be sent; and

encapsulating the results to be sent into packets and sending said packets to said Backhauling Link Subsystem.

30. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein said tunneling subsystem is also operative for:

sorting the results, at least by user ID; and

queuing the results as sorted by said sorting.

31. The apparatus according to claim 30, wherein said tunneling subsystem is also operative for:

sorting the results, at least by data type (control/user); and

queuing the results as thus sorted.

32. The apparatus according to claim 31, wherein said queuing employs rules based on user priority.

33. The apparatus according to claim 32, wherein said queuing employs rules based on service type.

34. The apparatus according to claim 31, wherein said tunneling subsystem is also operative for:

partitioning the results as queued by said queuing including deciding which of the results are to be transmitted in each of a sequence of upcoming communication sessions.

35. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein the core comprises an S1 tunneling server.

36. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein a Tunneling Application Server is provided for integrating Tunneling management at the Core Segment.

37. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein both a Tunneling Application Server, for integrating Tunneling management at the Core Segment, and an S1 Tunneling Server are provided, and wherein each encapsulated transmission is sent, depending on at least one of:

user priority, required latency, user type, service type, to the Tunneling Application Server, to the S1 Tunneling Server, or to both.

38. The apparatus according to claim 35, 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.

39. The apparatus according to claim 35, wherein a first block in an Inbound flow may be a mobile base station filter which sorts incoming user-plane packets of an S1-U interface.

40. The apparatus according to claim 29, 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, wherein the filter is operative to send the stream without the mobile base stations'"'"' packets directly to a Core segment defined by the core using a standard Inbound S1-U interface and to send the stream of only mobile base stations packets to the Tunneling Subsystem using an S1-U protocol interface.

41. An apparatus for use with a hierarchical cellular network system having a core and comprising a plurality of nodes, the apparatus comprising:

at least one node which comprises a mobile relay having both base station and mobile communicator functionalities and operative to serve mobile communicators, including at least one relay other than said mobile relay, and to be served by at least one relay other than said mobile relay; and

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,

wherein at least said mobile relay includes;

a tunneling subsystem; and

a backhauling link subsystem interfacing between the tunneling subsystem and a closer node from among said plurality of nodes which is closer to the core than said mobile relay,

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

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

collecting said data including analyzing to identify, within said data, results to be sent; and

encapsulating the results to be sent into packets and sending said packets to said backhauling link subsystem,

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, and

after mobile base stations'"'"' packets have been unfolded, to generate unfolded data, the tunneling subsystem is operative to transfer said unfolded data to the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager that reflects each of the mobile base stations to a core segment.

42. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is operative to reflect each mobile base station back to the Core Segment defined by the core as a real base station using a standard RAN-to-Core interface.

43. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager reflects each of the mobile base stations to a Core segment which is defined by the core as a virtual base station.

44. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is operative, using data arriving at the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager from all mobile base stations, to build a topology of all mobile base station sub-networks including a list of all users attached to the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager.

45. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is also operative to function as a proxy of the MeNBs interfacing the core by “

reflecting”

each of the mobile base stations to a Core segment defined by the core as a “

virtual”

base station using a standard S1 interface such that a multi-S1 interface is created.

46. The apparatus according to claim 41, 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 thereby to create a multi-S1 interface.

47. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the Virtual Radio Access Network Manager is also operative to pass packets and attached instructions, at least said attached instructions resulting from analysis of a mobile base stations'"'"' topology tree, via a dedicated interface to a Tunneling Subsystem, and to store the mobile base stations'"'"' topology tree.