Digital mobile communication system

• US 5,748,621 A
• Filed: 03/08/1996
• Issued: 05/05/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Masuda, Atsushi, Endo, Takahiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Safourek, Benedict V.
• Application Number:
  US08/613,264
• Time in Patent Office: 788 Days
• Field of Search: 455/34.1, 455/51.1, 455/54.1, 455/54.2, 455/450, 455/452, 455/502, 455/517, 379/61, 379/63, 370/328, 370/329, 370/336, 370/337, 370/350, 370/509, 340/825.47
• US Class Current: 370/337
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2643 using time-division multiple access [TDMA] H04B7/2615, H04B7/2618 take precedence

Abstract

In a digital mobile communication system comprising a cell station and a plurality of personal stations and employing a TDMS-TDD method, a personal station which is going to originate a call in a transceiver mode detects a unique word contained in a signal being transmitted from a control slot or communication slot by a busy personal station or cell station, recognizes the timing of the receiving slot and the receiving frame in view of the position of the unique word and controls to synchronize the timing of its own slot and frame with the aforementioned timing. A personal station which is to start a personal station-to-personal station direct communication can determine a communication slot after establishing complete synchronization with the busy personal station or cell station, and can improve the efficiency of using a frequency by eliminating time when a communication cannot be made.

Claims

1. A mobile station in a digital mobile communication system having a master-slave mode to communicate with a cell station through a radio link and a mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode to directly communicate with another mobile station through a radio link, the mobile station comprising:

judging means for determining whether the another mobile station is busy and in communication with another device based on whether there is a reception of either one of a plurality of time division multiplex access (TDMA) frame signals being transmitted from the cell station for communication in the master-slave mode, and one of a plurality of TDMA frame signals being transmitted from the another mobile station for communication in the mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode; and

communication slot determination means for determining, when the judging means judges that the another mobile station is busy, a communication slot to be used for a called mobile station by detecting an idle communication slot on a TDMA signal frame of the busy station after establishing frame-synchronization between a timing of a TDMA signal frame of the mobile station and the TDMA signal frame of the busy station that is being received in the judging means and, when the judging means judges that the busy station does not exist, generates a timing of the TDMA signal frame at the mobile station and determines the communication slot on the TDMA signal frame of the mobile station, that is to be used for the called mobile station.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the communication slot determination means comprises:

signal extraction means for extracting a specific signal from among the signals transmitted from the busy station;

synchronization establishment means for recognizing the timing of the TDMA signal frame of the busy station in view of a position of the specific signal extracted by the signal extraction means; and

communication slot selection means for selecting an unused communication slot in the mobile station'"'"'s TDMA signal frame after the above synchronization establishment.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the signal extraction means includes unique word detection means for detecting a unique word in a signal being transmitted from a communication slot by the busy station.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the synchronization establishment means includes:

receiving frame recognition means for determining a timing of a receiving slot including the unique word from a position of the unique word detected by the unique word detection means and recognizes a header portion of the receiving frame based on the determined timing; and

timing adjustment means for adjusting a timing of the frame so that a slot and a timing of the mobile station'"'"'s TDMA signal frame agree with a slot and a frame of the receiving frame.

5. In a digital mobile communication system employing a time division multiple access (TDMA) method, which comprises a plurality of cell stations and a plurality of mobile stations communicating with the cell stations and which has a master-slave communication mode to communicate between the cell stations and the mobile stations by making the respective mobile stations subordinately synchronized with TDMA frames that the respective cell stations generate and by using an arbitrary communication slot in the frame, and a mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode to directly communicate between a calling side mobile station and a called side mobile station with the use of a communication slot determined at the calling side mobile station, after making the called side mobile station subordinately synchronized with the TDMA frame of the calling side mobile station by generating the TDMA frame by the calling side mobile station, determining an arbitrary communication slot from the generated frame and directly issuing a call to the called side mobile station, an extension transferring method comprising the steps of:

notifying, at a first mobile station, one of the cell stations of a hold request added with a hold call number in response to an operation for holding a call being in communication through the one cell station and an input of the hold call number for identifying the call to be held;

holding, at the cell station, the call being in communication with the first mobile station and disconnecting a radio link with the first mobile station, in response to notification of a hold request message from the first mobile station;

notifying, at the first mobile station, the hold call number by originating a call in the mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode to a second mobile station to which the call is to be transferred, after the radio link with the one cell station is disconnected;

hold call number step of originating, at the second mobile station, a call to the one cell station with the hold call number added after receiving the notification of the hold call number from the first mobile station in the mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode; and

collating, at the cell station, the hold call number and the hold call number notified from the first mobile station by accepting an incoming call added with the hold call number from the second mobile station, and connecting the held call to the second mobile station when both of the hold call numbers agree with each other.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the notifying step includes the step of transmitting the hold call number entered through an input operation section of the first mobile station to the second mobile station, and the hold call number step includes the steps of:

storing the hold call number transmitted from the first mobile station; and

reading and automatically transmitting the stored hold call number when calling the one cell station.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising the step of displaying the stored hold call number in the second mobile station.

8. The method according to claim 5, wherein the notifying step comprises the substep of notifying the hold call number from the first mobile station to the second mobile station, and the hold call number step comprises the substep of calling by manually entering the notified hold call number.

9. In a digital mobile communication system employing a time division multiple access (TDMA) method, which comprises a plurality of cell stations and a plurality of mobile stations communicating with the cell stations and which has a master-slave communication mode to communicate between the cell stations and the mobile stations by making the respective mobile stations subordinately synchronized with TDMA frames that the respective cell stations generate and by using an arbitrary communication slot in the frame, and a mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode to directly communicate between a calling side mobile station and a called side mobile station with the use of a communication slot determined at the calling side mobile station, after making the called side mobile station subordinately synchronized with the TDMA frame of the calling side mobile station by generating the TDMA frame by the calling side mobile station, determining the arbitrary communication slot from the generated frame and directly calling the called side mobile station,

a broadcast address paging method comprising the steps of:

originating, at a first mobile station, a call in the mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode based on a predetermined simultaneous paging originating operation and sending a simultaneous paging message to all other mobile stations that are to be simultaneously paged;

sending, at the first mobile station, a broadcast message after sending the simultaneous paging message;

waiting, at the other mobile stations, in a state capable of communicating with the first mobile station for reception of the simultaneous paging message; and

receiving, at the other mobile stations, the broadcast message sent from the first mobile station waiting for reception and reproducing the received message, wherein the broadcast address paging is carried out from the first mobile station to the other mobile stations by using the mobile station-to-mobile station direct communication mode.