Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission using channel information feedback and higher rank dedicated beam-forming

• US 8,442,566 B2
• Filed: 12/04/2009
• Issued: 05/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Liu, Lingjia, Zhang, Jianzhong, Clerckx, Bruno, Han, Jin-Kyu
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, John J
• Application Number:
  US12/631,565
• Publication Number:
  US 20100173660A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,257 Days
• Field of Search: 455/446, 455/447, 455/448, 455/449, 455/452.1, 455/452.2, 455/464, 455/515, 455/524, 455/525, 455/67.11, 455/69, 455/68, 455/509, 455/517, 455/550.1, 370/312, 370/336, 370/328, 370/282, 370/329, 370/252
• US Class Current: 455/509
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/022 Site diversity; Macro-diversity using two or more spaced independent antennas H04B7/04
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0619 using feedback from receiving side feedback signaling for adaptive modulation/coding H04L1/0001
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A subscriber station is provided. The subscriber station comprises a receiver configured to listen for downlink control information for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission only from an anchor cell, and to receive the downlink control information for CoMP joint transmission from the anchor cell.

Claims

1. A subscriber station comprising:

a receiver configured to;

listen for downlink control information for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission only from a base station in an anchor cell that is a current serving base station of the subscriber station,

receive the downlink control information for CoMP joint transmission from the base station in the anchor cell, and

receive data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the data is transmitted in one or more resource blocks using dedicated antenna ports, and wherein a dedicated reference signal pattern of the one or more resource blocks is based at least partly upon a cell_ID of the anchor cell.

2. A subscriber station in accordance with claim 1, wherein the anchor cell participates in the CoMP joint transmission by default, and wherein the downlink control information comprises information related to cell_IDs of an active set of cells for the CoMP joint transmission.

3. For use in a wireless communications network, a subscriber station comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a first indication of an active set of cells from an anchor cell; and

a transmitter configured to transmit information related to the active set of cells to the anchor cell,

wherein the receiver is further configured to receive a second indication of a subset of the active set from the anchor cell through a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the subset of the active cells being determined by the anchor cell,

wherein the transmitter is further configured to transmit channel related information for the subset of the active cells to the anchor cell, and

wherein the receiver is further configured to receive data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the data is transmitted in one or more resource blocks using dedicated antenna ports, and wherein a dedicated reference signal pattern of the one or more resource blocks is based at least partly upon a cell_ID of the anchor cell.

4. A subscriber station in accordance with claim 3, wherein the information related to the active set of cells comprises signal strength information related to the active set of cells.

5. A subscriber station in accordance with claim 3, wherein the information related to the active set of cells comprises an indication of at least one cell from the active set of cells preferred by the subscriber station for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission.

6. A subscriber station in accordance with claim 3, wherein the channel related information for the subset of the active cells comprises inter-channel information between the subset of the active cells.

7. A subscriber station in accordance with claim 6, wherein the inter-channel information comprises phase-shift information.

8. A transmitting base station comprising:

a transmitter configured to;

transmit downlink control information for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission to a subscriber station, and

transmit data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH),

wherein the transmitting base station is a current serving base station of the subscriber station and the only base station transmitting downlink control information for CoMP joint transmission to the subscriber station, wherein the data is transmitted in one or more resource blocks using dedicated antenna ports, and wherein a dedicated reference signal pattern of the one or more resource blocks is based at least partly upon a cell_ID of the anchor cell.

9. A transmitting base station in accordance with claim 8, and wherein the downlink control information comprises information related to cell_IDs of an active set of cells for the CoMP joint transmission.

10. For use in a wireless communications network, a base station comprising:

a transmitter configured to transmit a first indication of an active set of cells to a subscriber station; and

a receiver configured to receive information related to the active set of cells from the subscriber station,

wherein the transmitter is further configured to transmit a second indication of a subset of the active set to the subscriber station through a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the subset of the active cells being determined by the anchor cell,

wherein the receiver is further configured to receive information channel related information for the subset of the active cells from the subscriber station, and

wherein the transmitter is further configured to transmit data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the data is transmitted in one or more resource blocks using dedicated antenna ports, and wherein a dedicated reference signal pattern of the one or more resource blocks is based at least partly upon a cell_ID of the anchor cell.

11. A base station in accordance with claim 10, wherein the first indication of the active set of cells comprises one or more bit fields.

12. A base station in accordance with claim 11, wherein the one or more bit fields contain the information related to the cell_IDs of the active set of cells.

13. A base station in accordance with claim 10, wherein the second indication of the subset of the active set comprises a bitmap.

14. A base station in accordance with claim 13, wherein the bitmap comprises a plurality of bit fields with each bit field corresponding a cell in the active set of cells,

wherein a first value in a particular bit field indicates that the cell corresponding to that particular bit field is in the subset of the active set, and

wherein a second value in a particular bit field indicates that the cell corresponding to that particular bit field is not in the subset of the active set.

15. A base station in accordance with claim 10, wherein the second indication of the subset of the active set comprises a flag field.

16. A base station in accordance with claim 15, wherein a first value in the flag field indicates that the subset of the active set comprises all of the cells in the active set of cells, and

wherein a second value in the flag field indicates that the subset of the active set comprises less than all of the cells in the active set of cells.

17. A method of operating a network, the method comprising:

selecting, by an anchor cell, a subset of cells from an active set of cells;

transmitting, by the anchor cell, an indication of the subset of cells to a subscriber station;

transmitting, by the subscriber station, channel-related information for the subset of cells to the anchor cell;

selecting, by the anchor cell, one or more cells from the subset of cells to participate in a coordinated multipoint (CoMP) joint transmission based at least partly upon the channel-related information;

communicating, by the anchor cell, a cell_ID of the anchor cell to the one or more cells that have been selected to participate in the CoMP joint transmission; and

determining, by each of the one or more selected cells, a cell-specific frequency shift based on the anchor cell cell_ID, the cell-specific frequency shift for one or more dedicated antenna ports.

18. A method in accordance with claim 17, wherein the indication of the subset of cells is transmitted through a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

19. A method in accordance with claim 17 further comprising:

receiving, by the subscriber station, data on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH),

wherein the data is transmitted in one or more resource blocks using dedicated antenna ports, and

wherein the dedicated reference signal pattern of the one or more resource blocks is based at least partly upon the cell_ID of the anchor cell.

20. A method in accordance with claim 17, wherein the channel-related information comprises inter-channel information between the subset of the active cells.

21. A method in accordance with claim 20, wherein the inter-channel information comprises phase-shift information.

22. A method in accordance with claim 17, wherein the subset of cells is selected based at least partly upon feedback from the subscriber station in a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).