Method, system, relay station and base station for transmitting data mobile communication

• US 8,805,276 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Issued: 08/12/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks GmbH & Co. KG (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Siemens Networks GmbH & Company KG (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Li, Hui, Li, Ping, Liu, Tao, Wang, Xinglin, Xue, Yi Sheng, Yu, Dan, Zirwas, Wolfgang
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Hai V
• Application Number:
  US12/449,247
• Publication Number:
  US 20100285743A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,386 Days
• Field of Search: 455/15
• US Class Current: 455/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15557 Selecting relay station operation mode, e.g. between amplify and forward mode, decode and forward mode or FDD - and TDD mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2606 Arrangements for base station coverage control, e.g. by using relays in tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/26 Cell enhancers or enhancement, e.g. for tunnels, building shadow
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/047 using dedicated repeater stations

Abstract

A mobile communication data transmission method for a cell having one base station and more than one relay station involves switching the relay stations between at least two operating modes of signaling transmission under the control of the base station. A system transmits mobile communication data in a cell having one base station and more than one relay station. When transmitting an uplink signaling or a downlink signaling, the relay stations switch between at least two operating modes under the control of the base station. By using the method, network, relay station, and base station, data transmission in multiple modes can be achieved, so as to achieve a flexible relay scheme.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting data in mobile communication and for application in a cell having a base station and more than one relay station comprising,

switching, by at least one of the relay stations, under the control of said base station, between at least two operating modes when transmitting a downlink signaling,

wherein said at least two operating modes comprise an operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling and an operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station, and

wherein when said at least one relay station is in the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station,

said at least one relay station receives a downlink signaling pre-transmitted by the base station before a transmission time;

and

at the transmission time, the at least one relay station and the base station transmit said downlink signaling to the user stations/mobile stations simultaneously.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein when the base station detects a coverage blind-spot in the cell, after having negotiated with a relay station close to the coverage blind-spot in the cell, the base station instructs the relay station to switch from the operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling into the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein it is confirmed that the base station detects the occurrence of the coverage blind-spot in the cell when the base station detects that a difference between an initial ranging parameter of more than one user station/mobile station and a measurement parameter reported by the relay stations is larger than a preset difference threshold.

4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein when the base station confirms that the coverage blind-spot in the cell has been eliminated, after having negotiated with the relay station that transmits the downlink signaling jointly with the base station in the cell, the base station instructs the relay station to switch back to the operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the steps for the base station to confirm the elimination of the coverage blind-spot in the cell comprise:

the base station reduces step by step the signaling transmitting power of the relay station that transmits the downlink signaling jointly with the base station in the cell and observes the responses from user stations/mobile stations, and if after the transmitting power has been reduced to a normal transmission power, the user stations/mobile stations are still capable of receiving normally, then the base station determines that the coverage blind-spot in the cell has been eliminated.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein when the at least one relay station detects a coverage blind-spot in the cell, after having negotiated with the base station, the at least one relay station switches from the operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling into the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein it is confirmed that said at least one relay station detects the occurrence of the coverage blind-spot in the cell when said at least one relay station detects during an idle time slot that more than one user station/mobile station is attempting to connect to a radio access point of another cell, but the signal quality from the user stations/mobile stations received by said at least one relay station is above a preset signal quality threshold.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein

when a network confirms that wireless resource of a cell is currently sufficient and that of an adjacent cell is insufficient, by instructing the base station in the cell to negotiate with a relay station in the cell close to the adjacent cell and to make the relay station switch from the operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling into the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station;

and

when the network confirms that the wireless resource of a cell is currently insufficient and that of an adjacent cell is sufficient, by instructing the base station in the cell to negotiate with the relay station in the cell close to the adjacent cell and to make the relay station switch from the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station into the operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein it also comprises:

said relay station performing an initial negotiation with said base station when it is initiated and reporting all operating modes it supports for signaling transmission; and

said base station designating an initial operating mode for said relay station, and controlling said relay station to operate in the designated initial operating mode.

10. A system for transmitting data in mobile communication, comprising:

a base station; and

a plurality of relay stations in a cell of the base station, wherein under the control of said base station, at least one of said plurality of relay stations switches between at least two operating modes when transmitting a downlink signaling,

wherein said at least two operating modes comprise an operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling and an operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station, and

wherein when said at least one relay station is in the operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station,

said at least one relay station receives a downlink signaling pre-transmitted by the base station before a transmission time; and

at the transmission time, the at least one relay station and the base station transmit said downlink signaling to the user stations/mobile stations simultaneously.

11. A relay station positioned in a cell of a wireless cellular network for transmitting data in mobile communication, comprising:

an RF transceiving and processing unit;

a negotiating unit; and

a control unit, wherein

said negotiating unit sends an operating mode switching instruction to the control unit after having negotiated with a base station in said cell; and

said control unit controls the RF transceiving and processing unit so as to switch between at least two operating modes for transmitting a downlink signaling according to the mode switching instruction sent from the negotiating unit,

wherein said at least two operating modes comprise a downlink operating mode I of not participating in the transmission of a downlink signaling and a downlink operating mode II of transmitting jointly the downlink signaling with the base station, wherein

said control unit comprises;

a downlink mode controller instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to stop transmitting the downlink signaling, after the negotiating unit has sent the RF transceiving and processing unit an instruction to switch the operating mode into the downlink operating mode I, and instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to receive a downlink signaling pre-transmitted from the base station before a transmission time and to transmit said downlink signaling to a user station/mobile station jointly with the base station at the transmission time after the negotiating unit has sent the RF transceiving and processing unit an instruction to switch the operating mode into the downlink operating mode II.

12. The relay station as claimed in claim 11, wherein said RF transceiving and processing unit comprises an RF receiver, an RF transmitter, and a baseband processing module;

and

in the operating mode II for transmitting the downlink signaling, said RF receiver receives a pre-transmission of the downlink signaling transmitted from the base station before the transmission time, said baseband processing module performs digital baseband processing on said downlink signaling, and said RF transmitter transmits the downlink signaling jointly with the base station at the transmission time.

13. The relay station as claimed in claim 11, wherein the operating modes of said signaling transmission further comprise a downlink operating mode Ill of transmitting a preamble code jointly with the base station;

and

said control unit comprises;

a downlink mode controller instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to stop transmitting the downlink signaling after the negotiating unit has sent the RF transceiving and processing unit an instruction to switch the operating mode into the downlink operating mode I, instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to receive a downlink signaling pre-transmitted from the base station before a transmission time and to transmit the downlink signaling to a user station/mobile station jointly with the base station at the transmission time after the negotiating unit has sent the RF transceiving and processing unit an instruction to switch the operating mode into the downlink operating mode II, and instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to transmit the preamble code to the user station/mobile station jointly with the base station at the transmission time after the negotiating unit has sent the RF transceiving and processing unit an instruction to switch the operating mode into the downlink operating mode III.

14. The relay station as claimed in claim 11, further comprising:

a monitoring unit reporting to the base station and instructing the negotiating unit to negotiate with the base station when the monitoring unit detects a coverage blind-spot in the cell.

15. A base station for transmitting data in mobile communication, positioned in a cell of a multi-hop wireless cellular network, comprising:

an RF transceiving and processing unit;

a negotiating unit; and

a control unit, wherein

said negotiating unit sends an instruction to switch an operating mode to a relay station and the control unit after having negotiated with the relay station in the cell; and

said control unit controls said relay station to switch between at least two operating modes of a downlink signaling transmission via the RF transceiving and processing unit according to the instruction to switch operating mode sent from the negotiating unit,

wherein said at least two operating modes comprise an operating mode of not participating in the transmission of the downlink signaling and an operating mode of jointly transmitting the downlink signaling with the base station, wherein said control unit comprises;

a pre-transferring module instructing the RF transceiving and processing unit to send a downlink signaling to be transmitted to the relay station in the operating mode of jointly transmitting downlink signaling with the base station before a transmission time.

16. The base station as claimed in claim 15, further comprising:

a monitoring unit reporting to a network when the monitoring unit detects a coverage blind-spot in the cell and when the monitoring receives a report from the relay station that a coverage blind-spot appears in the cell, and at the same time instructing the negotiating unit to negotiate with the relay station.

17. The base station as claimed in claim 15, wherein said control unit comprises:

an uplink allocation module determining an uplink signaling gap in which the delay-sensitive uplink signaling is located in an uplink subframe for reserving an amplified gap for transmitting the delay-sensitive uplink signaling for the relay station in the operating mode of transmitting delay-sensitive uplink signaling after having stored the uplink signaling and transmitting delay-insensitive uplink signaling after having performed digital baseband processing on uplink signaling, and then informing said relay station of the determined uplink signaling gap and the amplified gap via the RF transceiving and processing unit.

18. The base station as claimed in claim 15, wherein said negotiating unit is also used to select an operating mode and then inform the relay station of the operating mode after having received a report about the operating modes the negotiating unit supports sent from the relay station when it is initiated.

19. The base station as claimed in claim 15, wherein said negotiating unit is also used to decide, after having received a report from the relay station when it is initiated that a wired connection exists between the relay station and a backbone network, whether or not to use the wired connection and then inform the relay station.