System and method for spatial multiplexing for coordinated multi-point transmission

• US 8,681,644 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2010
• Issued: 03/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Sanayei, Shahab, Al-Shalash, Mazin
• Primary Examiner(s): Mesfin, Yemane
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rose, Derrick V
• Application Number:
  US12/784,092
• Publication Number:
  US 20110286341A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,405 Days
• Field of Search: 375/347, 375/267, 375/211, 455/562.1, 455/422, 455/67.1, 370/203, 370/342, 370/302, 370/208, 342/354
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/024 Co-operative use of antennas of several sites, e.g. in co-ordinated multipoint or co-operative multiple-input multiple-output [MIMO] systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0634 Antenna weights or vector/matrix coefficients
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0697 using spatial multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

A system and method for spatial multiplexing for coordinated multi-point transmission are provided. A method for communications device operations includes receiving transmissions from at least two access points, measuring channels between the communications device and each of the at least two access points based on the received transmissions, computing beamforming weights based on the measured channels, and transmitting the beamforming weights to the at least two access points. The computing is based on attempting to maximize a capacity of a communications system containing the communications device and the at least two access points with the beamforming weights, and the beamforming weights are used at the at least two access points to beamform transmissions to the communications device using coordinated multi-point transmission.

Claims

1. A method for communications device operations, the method comprising:

receiving transmissions from at least two access points;

measuring channels between the communications device and each of the at least two access points in accordance with the received transmissions;

computing beamforming weights in accordance with the measured channels, wherein the computing is in accordance with attempting to maximize a capacity of a communications system containing the communications device and the at least two access points with the beamforming weights, and wherein the attempting to maximize the capacity comprises computing a value of a cost function in accordance with the measured channels and the beamforming weights, and determining a convergence of the value of the cost function;

transmitting the beamforming weights to the at least two access points; and

receiving coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmissions from the at least two access points, wherein each of the (CoMP) transmissions is beamformed using one of the beamforming weights, and wherein the at least two access points comprises first and second access points, each having two transmit antennas, wherein the communications device includes two antennas, and wherein computing beamforming weights comprises determining w₁ and w₂ such that a capacity function expressible as

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmissions comprise pilot signals, or reference sequences.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmissions comprise information transmissions, and wherein measuring the channels comprises measuring the information transmissions for an extended amount of time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein computing beamforming weights comprises maximizing a cost function J in terms of w₁^H and w₂^H, the cost function J is expressible as

5. The method of claim 4, wherein maximizing the cost function J comprises utilizing a numeric method to calculate the beamforming weights.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein utilizing the numeric method comprises calculating

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the numeric method comprises a gradient method.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein utilizing the numeric method comprises:

selecting initial values for computed beamforming weights, w₁(n) and w₂(n), where n=0;

calculating an initial value for the cost function J, J(n);

calculating updated values for the computed beamforming weights, w₁(n+1) and w₂(n+1);

calculating an updated value for the cost function J, J(n+1);

repeating the calculating the updated values, the calculating the updated value, and incrementing n until the updated value of the cost function, J(n+1), converges; and

selecting the computed beamforming weights, w₁(n) and w₂(n), as the beamforming weights.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the initial values of the computed beamforming weights are non-zero vectors.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the updated value of the cost function converges when an absolute value of J(n)−

J(n+1) is less than a threshold.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising quantizing the beamforming weights prior to the transmitting the beamforming weights.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein quantizing the beamforming weights comprises quantizing each of the beamforming weights using codebook quantization.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the beamforming weights are individually quantized.

14. A method for operations at a first access point, the method comprising:

transmitting a pilot signal;

receiving beamforming weights from a communications device served by the first access point, wherein the first access point and at least one additional access point is transmitting to the communications device using coordinated multi-point transmission over channels measured by the communications device, wherein the beamforming weights are used to beamform transmissions to the communications device, the beamforming weights having been computed at the communications device in accordance with the measured channels and in accordance with an attempt to maximize a capacity of a communications system containing the communications device, the first access point, and the at least one additional access point, wherein the attempt to maximize the capacity includes computing a value of a cost function in accordance with the measured channels and the beamforming weights, and determining a convergence of the value of the cost function;

beamforming a transmission with the beamforming weights; and

transmitting the beamformed transmission to the communications device, wherein the at least one additional access point comprises a second access point, wherein the first and second access points each has two transmit antennas, wherein the communications device includes two antennas, and wherein the beamforming weights comprise w₁ and w₂ such that a capacity function expressible as

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the receiving beamforming weights comprises receiving a quantized version of the beamforming weights.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the quantized version of the beamforming weights comprises indices to codewords in a codebook used to quantize the beamforming weights.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the receiving beamforming weights comprises:

receiving the beamforming weights; and

selecting a beamforming weight from the beamforming weights.

18. A communications device comprising:

a receiver to be coupled to a receive antenna in order to receive signals detected by the receive antenna;

a transmitter to be coupled to a transmit antenna in order to transmit signals with the transmit antenna; and

a controller coupled to the receiver and to the transmitter, the controller configured to measure a channel between the communications device and an access point of a plurality of access points transmitting to the communications device, and to compute beamforming weights for use by the plurality of access points transmitting to the communications device in coordinated multi-point transmissions, wherein the controller computes the beamforming weights in accordance with attempting to maximize a capacity of a communications system containing the communications device and the access points, wherein the controller comprises

a measure channel unit configured to measure channels between the communications device and each access point in the plurality of access points in accordance with transmissions made by each access point; and

a beamforming weights compute unit coupled to the measure channel unit and configured to iteratively compute values of the beamforming weights in accordance with the channel measurements, to compute a value of a cost function in accordance with the channel measurements and the beamforming weights, and to determine a convergence of the value of the cost function, and wherein the plurality of access points comprises first and second access points, each having two transmit antennas, wherein the communications device includes two antennas, and wherein the beamforming weights compute unit configured to compute the values of the beamforming weights comprises the beamforming weights compute unit configured to determine w₁ and w₂ such that a capacity function expressible as

19. The communications device of claim 18, wherein the controller further comprises a quantization unit coupled to the beamforming weights compute unit, the quantization unit configured to quantize the beamforming weights.

20. The communications device of claim 19, wherein the quantization unit is further configured to individually quantize each of the beamforming weights using codebook quantization.