OFDMA based on cognitive radio

• US 7,933,344 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2006
• Issued: 04/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Huitema, Christian, Hassan, Amer A.
• Primary Examiner(s): PUENTE, EVA YI ZHENG
• Application Number:
  US11/410,969
• Publication Number:
  US 20070248173A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,827 Days
• Field of Search: 375/260, 375/267, 375/130, 375/222, 370/206, 370/437, 370/208, 370/311, 370/465, 455/423, 455/450, 455/453
• US Class Current: 375/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0037 Inter-user or inter-terminal allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0064 Rate requirement of the data, e.g. scalable bandwidth, data priority

Abstract

A multiuser scheme allowing for a number of users, sets of user, or carriers to share one or more channels is provided. In the invention, the available channel bandwidth is subdivided into a number of equal-bandwidth subchannels according to standard OFDM practice. The transmitter is informed by an application that it needs to transmit data a particular rate. The transmitter determines the minimum number of subchannels and maximum energy (or noise) threshold for each subchannel necessary to achieve that data rate and selects a set of subchannels matching those requirements. The subchannels need not be contiguous in the spectrum or belong to the same channel. Once the transmitter has selected the required number of subchannels, it begins transmitting simultaneously on those subchannels across the entire bandwidth used by those subchannels.

Claims

1. A method of wireless communication between two or more devices at a data rate, the method comprising:

a) receiving a request for communication at the data rate;

b) determining a minimum number of OFDM subchannels and energy threshold for each subchannel necessary to achieve the data rate; and

c) selecting a set of the OFDM subchannels;

d) tuning a transmitter to one or more of the subchannels in the set; and

e) performing energy detection on one or more subchannels from said set of OFDM subchannels; and

f) dropping any subchannels from said set of OFDM subchannels whose energy level exceeds the threshold; and

g) comparing the number of OFDM subchannels in the set after dropping in (f) to the determined minimum number of OFDM subchannels; and

h) when the comparing in (g) indicates that the set contains less than the determined minimum number of OFDM subchannels, adding one or more subchannels to said set of OFDM subchannels; and

i) repeating (f) through (h) until the comparing in (g) indicates that set contains the determined minimum number of OFDM subchannels; and

j) transmitting on a channel consisting of the set of OFDM subchannels.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of OFDM subchannels selected in (c) comprises at least the minimum number of OFDM subchannels necessary to achieve the data rate.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the energy detection in step (e) is performed on the entire set of OFDM subchannels selected in (c).

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the two or more devices comprise a transmitter and a receiver and the receiver determines the set of OFDM subchannels to be used by performing (c) through (i).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the two or more devices comprise a transmitter and a receiver and the transmitter sends a signal to the receiver indicating the set of OFDM subchannels the transmitter has selected.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of transmitting to a receiver an identity of the selected OFDM subchannels, the identity being transmitted on a predetermined frequency.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein dropping a noisy subchannel in step f) comprises establishing a randomly-selected time interval during which the noisy subchannel is marked as dropped, and

wherein selecting the set of OFDM subchannels in step c) comprises selecting subchannels in part based on whether a subchannel is marked as dropped and blocking selection of a subchannel marked as dropped until the end of the randomly-selected interval for the subchannel.

7. A wireless communication system for transmitting data, the system including a plurality of communication devices that share a plurality of OFDM subcarriers, each of the communication devices executing an application that defines a data rate for transmission, the system comprising:

in each of the plurality of communication devices;

a) a subchannel determining module to receive a request for communication at the data rate, and to determine a minimum number of OFDM subcarriers needed to achieve the data rate and an energy threshold for determining whether an OFDM subcarrier is available; and

b) a signal-to-noise level detection module to detect the signal-to-noise level on each OFDM subcarrier, to determine whether an OFDM subcarrier is available by determining whether the signal-to-noise level of the OFDM subcarrier is below the energy threshold determined by the subchannel determining module, and to select a set of available OFDM subcarriers; and

c) a transmitter that, when a number of subcarriers selected for the set by the signal-to-noise detection module meets the minimum number of OFDM subcarriers determined by the subchannel determining module, transmits data generated by the application over the set of subcarriers while a second transmitter in a second of the plurality of communication devices transmits on a second, disjoint set of subcarriers of the plurality of OFDM subcarriers,

wherein, in each of the plurality of communication devices, when the number of subcarriers selected for the set by the signal-to-noise detection module does not meet the minimum number of OFDM subcarriers determined by the subchannel determining module, provides an indication is provided to the application that the data rate is not achievable.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the signal-to-noise level detection module tests each OFDM subcarrier sequentially.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the signal-to-noise level detection module tests all OFDM subcarriers simultaneously.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the signal-to-noise level detection module in a first of the communication devices relies on feedback from a second of the communication devices.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein a first of the communication devices sends a signal to a second of the communication devices indicating a list of subcarriers to be used for communication between the first communication device and the second communication device.

19. The system of claim 7, wherein when the signal-to-noise level detection module determines that a signal-to-noise level of a noisy OFDM subcarrier is above the energy threshold determined by the subchannel determining module, the signal-to-noise level detection module establishes a randomly-selected time interval during which the noisy OFDM subcarrier is marked as dropped, and

wherein the signal-to-noise level detection module refrains from detecting the signal-to-noise level on an OFDM subcarrier marked as dropped until the end of the randomly-selected interval for the OFDM subcarrier.

12. A computer-readable storage medium, the computer readable storage medium not being a signal per se, having computer-readable signals stored thereon that define instructions that, as a result of being executed by a computer, instruct the computer to perform a method of wireless communication, the method comprising:

a) receiving a request from an application for transmission according to a requested data rate;

b) calculating a number of OFDM subchannels and noise threshold for each subchannel that provides the requested data rate; and

c) when the number of subchannels with a noise level less than the threshold is greater than the number of subchannels, selecting a set of OFDM subchannels for which the noise level is less than said noise threshold; and

d) when the number of subchannels with a noise level less than the threshold is less than the number of subchannels, providing an indication to an application that the requested data rate is not achievable.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises transmitting data over the entire bandwidth used by the selected OFDM subchannels using an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform algorithm.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises receiving data over the entire bandwidth used by the selected OFDM subchannels using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises transmitting from the computer to a second computer acting as a receiver of data from the application an identity of the selected OFDM subchannels.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the transmission of the identity of the selected OFDM subchannels occurs at a different frequency than that used for transmission of data.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the wireless communication transmits data modulated by quadrature amplitude modulation.