SLICING ARCHITECTURE FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

• US 20170339567A1
• Filed: 08/07/2017
• Published: 11/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Li, Qian, Niu, Huaning, Wu, Geng, Fong, Mo-Han, Papathanassiou, Apostolos
• Granted Patent: US 10,057,777 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/02 Resource partitioning among network components, e.g. reuse partitioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/085 Access point devices with remote components

Abstract

Embodiments provide a system, apparatus, or non-transitory computer readable medium to provide a slicing architecture for wireless communications systems.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums that store instructions for execution by one or more processors to perform wireless communications operations for a wireless communications system, the operations, when executed by the one or more processors, to:

identify, by a radio access network (RAN) control entity, one or more vertical slices of a RAN, the vertical slices related to vertical market segments of the RAN;

identify, by the RAN control entity, one or more horizontal slices of the RAN, the horizontal slices related to network layers of the RAN or a system definable network hierarchy portion capable of function offloading between entities forming the horizontal slice; and

slice, by the RAN control entity, the RAN into the one or more vertical and/or horizontal slices.

22. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the operations further comprise operations to manage, by the RAN control entity, an m-plane functionality of the RAN.

23. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the operations further comprise operations to manage, by the RAN control entity, c-plane and u-plane components of one or more vertical and/or horizontal slices, or portions thereof.

24. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the RAN control entity is collocated with a macro base station (BS), and the RAN control entity only manages vertical and/or horizontal slices, or portions thereof, that are under coverage of the macro BS.

25. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the RAN control entity manages vertical and/or horizontal slices that are under coverage of a plurality of base stations (BSs).

26. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the RAN control entity includes an L1 and/or L2 control function.

27. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the L1 and L2 control functions are to manage vertical and/or horizontal slices.

28. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the L1 and/or L2 control function are to manage one type of the vertical or horizontal slices, which in turn manages the other type of the vertical or horizontal slices.

29. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the one or more vertical slices are related to a mobile broadband (MBB) slice, a machine type communication (MTC) slice, a vehicle to anywhere (V2X) communication slice, an industrial control slice.

30. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 21, wherein the one or more horizontal slices are related to a macro network slice, a micro network slice, a device to device (D2D) slice, a Personal Area Network, a non-standalone mode, an anchor-booster architecture.

31. One or more apparatuses for a wireless communications system, comprising:

baseband circuitry to identify one or more vertical slices of a RAN, the vertical slices relating to use-case of communications of the RAN;

baseband circuitry to identify one or more horizontal slices of the RAN, wherein a horizontal slice comprises definable network hierarchy portion capable of function offloading between entities forming the horizontal slice;

baseband circuitry to slice the RAN into the one or more vertical and/or horizontal slices; and

circuitry to send and/or receive one or more signals in accordance with the vertical and/or horizontal slices using radio frequency (RF) circuitry coupled with the baseband circuitry.

32. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, further comprising baseband circuitry to manage, by the radio access network (RAN) control entity, an m-plane functionality of the RAN.

33. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, further comprising baseband circuitry to manage, by the RAN control entity, c-plane and u-plane components of one or more vertical and/or horizontal slices, or portions thereof.

34. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the RAN control entity is collocated with a macro base station (BS), and the RAN control entity only manages vertical and/or horizontal slices, or portions thereof, that are under coverage of the macro BS.

35. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the RAN control entity manages vertical and/or horizontal slices that are under coverage of a plurality of base stations (BSs).

36. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the RAN control entity includes an L1 and/or L2 control function.

37. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the L1 and L2 control functions are to manage vertical and/or horizontal slices.

38. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the L1 and/or L2 control functions are to manage one type of the vertical or horizontal slices, which in turn manages the other type of the vertical or horizontal slices.

39. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the one or more vertical slices are related to a mobile broadband (MBB) slice, a machine type communication (MTC) slice, a vehicle to anywhere (V2X) communication slice, an industrial control slice.

40. The one or more apparatuses of claim 31, wherein the one or more horizontal slices are related to a macro network slice, a micro network slice, a device to device (D2D) slice, a Personal Area Network, a non-standalone mode, an anchor-booster architecture.