Methods and apparatus enabling increased throughput on the reverse link

• US 8,514,832 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2009
• Issued: 08/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Attar, Rashid Ahmed Akbar, Bhushan, Naga
• Primary Examiner(s): Edouard, Patrick
• Assistant Examiner(s): PEREZ, JULIO R
• Application Number:
  US12/540,236
• Publication Number:
  US 20100014487A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,469 Days
• Field of Search: 370318-321, 370/337, 370/347, 370/345, 370/336, 370/330, 370/326, 370/310
• US Class Current: 370/345
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 9/00 Multiplex systems in which each channel is represented by a different type of modulation of the carrier
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/16 Deriving transmission power values from another channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/26 using transmission rate or quality of service QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/36 with a discrete range or set of values, e.g. step size, ramping or offsets
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/48 during retransmission after error or non-acknowledgment

Abstract

A method for transmitting user data from access terminals, including receiving at each of a first subset of the access terminals a scheduling decision for an interval; selecting at each access terminal of the first subset a mode for data multiplexing, wherein at least three modes are available; and transmitting the user data using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting user data from a set of access terminals, the method comprising:

receiving at each of a first subset of the set of access terminals a scheduling decision for an interval, wherein at least one time slot of the interval is divided into a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising overhead channels;

selecting at each of the first subset of access terminals a mode for data multiplexing, wherein

a first mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot using a multiplexing format;

a second mode comprises building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot, wherein each of the at least one sub-division is associated with the multiplexing format; and

a third mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot; and

transmitting from at least one of the first subset of access terminals the user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving at each of a first subset of the set of access terminals a scheduling decision for an interval includes:

receiving at each of the first subset of the set of access terminals at least a primary first channel; and

extracting information from the received primary first channel.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising extracting information from the received at least one supplemental first channel.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said building user data into the first portion of the time slot using multiplexing format includes building user data using code division multiplex (CDM).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot is determined in accordance with the scheduling decision.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot includes building user data into the entire second portion of the time slot.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein said building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot includes:

extracting information from a received at least one supplemental first channel; and

determining the at least one sub-division in accordance with the extracted information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the least one sub-division is associated with at least one of code-division multiplex (CDM), time division multiplex (TDM), and orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM).

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said building user data into the at least one sub-division using TDM includes building the user data when a rate of the user data is below a threshold.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said building user data into the at least one sub-division using OFDM includes building the user data when a rate of the user data is not below a threshold.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot includes building user data originated from a data source into the first portion of the time slot and into the at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot includes:

building user data originated from a first data source into the first portion of the time slot; and

building user data originated from a second data source into at least one of the at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said transmitting from at least one of the first subset of access terminals user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision includes:

extracting information from the received primary first channel; and

transmitting the user data from access terminals in accordance with the extracted information.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said transmitting from at least one of the first subset of access terminals user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision includes transmitting the user data from access terminals that received a permission to transmit.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said transmitting from at least one of the first subset of access terminals user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision comprises includes transmitting the user data from access terminals that selected the first mode of data multiplexing and received a denial to transmit.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting from a second subset of access terminals user data in the interval using the first mode of data multiplexing, wherein the second subset is mutually exclusive from the first subset.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the user data from a third subset of the set of access terminals, the third subset mutually exclusive from the first subset and the second subset.

18. An apparatus for transmitting user data from a set of access terminals, the apparatus comprising:

a first set of access terminal, each of the first set of access terminals comprising;

a receiver;

a transmitter;

a storage media configured to store instructions; and

at least one processor coupled to the receiver and the storage media, capable of processing a set of the instructions to;

obtain from a signal provided by the receiver a scheduling decision for an interval, wherein at least one time slot of the interval is divided into a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising overhead channels;

select a mode for data multiplexing, wherein

a first mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot using a multiplexing format;

a second mode comprises building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot, wherein each of the at least one sub-division is associated with the multiplexing format; and

a third mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot and

cause the transmitter to transmit user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein said receiver is configured to:

receive at least a primary first channel;

extract information from the received primary first channel; and

provide the extracted information to the at least one processor.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein said receiver is configured to extract information from the received at least one supplemental first channel.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the building user data into the first portion of the time slot includes the use of code division multiplex (CDM).

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the interval time slot includes:

determining the at least one sub-division in accordance with the scheduling decision; and

building the user data into the determined at least one sub-division.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein the building user data into the determined at least one sub-division includes processing a set of instructions for building the user data into the entire second portion of the time slot.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the at least one processor determines the at least one sub-division in accordance with the scheduling decision by processing instructions to:

process the extracted information from the at least one supplemental first channel; and

determine the at least one sub-division in accordance with the extracted information.

25. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor causes building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot by processing a set of instructions to:

associate each of the at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot with one of code-division multiplex (CDM), time division multiplex (TDM), and orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM); and

build data into each of the at least one sub-division using the associated multiplex format.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the at least one processor causes building user data into the at least one sub-division using TDM by processing a set of instructions to build user data when a rate of user data is below a threshold.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the at least one processor causes building user data into the at least one sub-division using OFDM by processing a set of instructions to build user data when a rate of user data is not below a threshold.

28. The apparatus of claim 25 wherein the at least one processor causes the transmitter to transmit user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision by processing a set of instructions to transmit the user data when the first mode of data multiplexing was selected and the scheduling decision is a denial to transmit.

29. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor causes building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot by processing a set of instructions to build user data originated from a data source into the first portion of the interval and into the at least one sub-division of the second portion of the interval.

30. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor causes building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot by processing a set of instructions to:

cause building user data originated from a first data source into the first portion of the interval; and

cause building user data originated from a second data source into at least one of the at least one sub-division of the second portion of the interval.

31. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor causes the transmitter to transmit user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision by processing a set of instructions to:

process the extracted information from the received primary first channel; and

cause the transmitter to transmit the user data in accordance with the extracted information.

32. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one processor causes the transmitter to transmit user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision by processing a set of instructions to transmit the user data when the scheduling decision is a permission to transmit.

33. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the at least one processor is further configured to process a set of instructions to:

ignore processing of the signal provided by the receiver to obtain a scheduling decision for an interval; and

cause the transmitter to transmit user data in the interval using the first mode of data multiplexing.

34. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising:

a second set of access terminals, each of the second set of access terminals comprising;

a receiver;

a transmitter;

a storage media configured to store instructions; and

at least one processor coupled to the receiver and the storage media, for processing a set of the instructions to transmit the user data.

35. The apparatus of claim 34 wherein the user data are transmitted using code-division multiple access.

36. The apparatus of claim 35 wherein the user data are transmitted using a code-division multiple-access in accordance with IS-856 standard.

37. An apparatus for transmitting user data, the apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a scheduling decision for an interval, wherein at least one time slot of the interval is divided into a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising overhead channels;

means for selecting a mode for data multiplexing, wherein

a first mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot using a multiplexing format;

a second mode comprises building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot, wherein each of the at least one sub-division is associated with the multiplexing format; and

a third mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot; and

means for transmitting the user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision.

38. A computer-program product for transmitting user data, the computer-program product comprising a computer-readable medium having instructions thereon, the instructions comprising:

code for receiving a scheduling decision for an interval, wherein at least one time slot of the interval is divided into a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising overhead channels;

code for selecting a mode for data multiplexing, wherein

a first mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot using a multiplexing format;

a second mode comprises building user data into at least one sub-division of the second portion of the time slot, wherein each of the at least one sub-division is associated with the multiplexing format; and

a third mode comprises building user data into the first portion of the time slot and the second portion of the time slot; and

code for transmitting the user data in the interval using the selected mode of data multiplexing in accordance with the scheduling decision.