Time monitoring of packet retransmissions during soft handover
First Claim
1. A method for avoiding soft buffer corruption in a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol in a mobile communication system comprising a communication terminal and a plurality of base stations, wherein said communication terminal is in communication with said plurality of base stations during a soft handover, the method comprising:
- receiving data from the communication terminal in a soft handover by at least one of the base stations employing one of plural HARQ processes of the HARQ protocol, wherein said communication terminal is in communication with said plurality of base stations during the soft handover,storing said received data in a soft buffer region of a HARQ soft buffer of said at least one of the base stations, wherein the soft buffer region is associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data,decoding by said at least one of the base stations the data stored in said soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, andemploying an elapsed time since storing said data in the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data to flush by said at least one base station the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, whereby soft buffer corruption is avoided.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to a method for scheduling data retransmissions, a method for use in a data retransmission scheme and a method for updating a soft buffer of a base station in a mobile communication system during a soft-handover. The present invention relates to a base station executing the controlling and updating method, a communication terminal for executing the scheduling method and to a mobile communication system comprising at least one the base station and communication terminal. To prevent erroneous combining of data packets in a packet retransmission scheme at the receiver, the present invention provides a method that may flush the soft buffer region associated to a received data packet upon its correct reception. Further, a method is provided that monitors the time elapsed since the last storing of a data packet in a buffer region of a base station to be able to trigger the flush of the buffer region upon expiry of a threshold time period.
66 Citations
40 Claims
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1. A method for avoiding soft buffer corruption in a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol in a mobile communication system comprising a communication terminal and a plurality of base stations, wherein said communication terminal is in communication with said plurality of base stations during a soft handover, the method comprising:
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receiving data from the communication terminal in a soft handover by at least one of the base stations employing one of plural HARQ processes of the HARQ protocol, wherein said communication terminal is in communication with said plurality of base stations during the soft handover, storing said received data in a soft buffer region of a HARQ soft buffer of said at least one of the base stations, wherein the soft buffer region is associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, decoding by said at least one of the base stations the data stored in said soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, and employing an elapsed time since storing said data in the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data to flush by said at least one base station the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, whereby soft buffer corruption is avoided. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
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32. A base station for avoiding soft buffer corruption in a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol, wherein the base station is part of a mobile communication system that comprises a communication terminal and a plurality of base stations including said base station, wherein said communication terminal is in communication with said plurality of base stations during a soft handover, the base station comprising:
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a receiving section that receives data from the communication terminal employing one of plural HARQ processes of the HARQ protocol, a soft buffer that stores data received employing one of the plural HARQ processes in a soft buffer region associated to the respective HARQ process, and a decoding section that decodes said data received employing one of the plural HARQ processes and being stored in the associated soft buffer region, wherein the base station employs an elapsed time since storing said received data in the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data to flush the soft buffer region associated to the HARQ process employed to receive the data, whereby soft buffer corruption is avoided. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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Specification