Method and apparatus for managing coexistence interference

• US 9,107,172 B1
• Filed: 09/22/2008
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Marvell International Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Epstein, Bracha
• Primary Examiner(s): Liao, Hsin-Chun
• Application Number:
  US12/235,169
• Time in Patent Office: 2,514 Days
• Field of Search: 455/69, 455/67.13, 455/522
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/1027 assessing signal quality or detecting noise/interference for the received signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/406 with more than one transmission mode, e.g. analog and digital modes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/04 TPC
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/243 taking into account interferences

Abstract

The present disclosure allows for a wireless device that can include a transceiver that transmits a radio frequency (RF) signal at an RF power level. The RF signal can propagate through an RF environment that is shared by multiple interference-susceptible wireless devices. The wireless device can also include an interference-identifier module that determines if the RF signal decreases a measure of the integrity of another RF signal that is transmitted between two or more interference-susceptible wireless devices. The wireless device can also include a transmit power adjuster that adjusts the transmit power to increase the signal integrity metric when the interference-identifier module has determined that the RF signal has decreased the signal integrity metric. Alternatively, the wireless device may transmit a control message that is indicative of the identified coexistence interference to a remote transmitter. The control message may result in a transmit power adjustment of the remote transmitter.

Claims

1. A mobile telecommunications platform, comprising:

a transceiver configured to transmit a first radio frequency (RF) signal at a transmit power, the first RF signal propagating through an RF environment shared by a plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices, the transceiver being a WiFi device, at least one of the interference-susceptible wireless devices being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

an interference-identifier module configured to measure RF signals transmitted from the interference-susceptible wireless devices to detect an interference and to provide a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster; and

the transmit power adjuster configured to adjust the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.

2. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the transceiver operates according to WiFi protocol.

3. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the interference-identifier module is further configured to determine that the first RF signal affects a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal associated with an interference-susceptible wireless device, the signal integrity metric being at least one of a data retransmission probability, a signal-to-noise ratio, and a signal-to-interference ratio.

4. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the interference-identifier module is further configured to determine that the first RF signal affects a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal associated with an interference-susceptible wireless device, and the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power when the signal integrity metric is less than a minimum signal quality.

5. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 4, wherein the minimum signal quality is at least one of a packet retransmission probability, a bit error ratio, a parity bit, a checksum, a signal-to-noise ratio, and a signal-to-interference ratio.

6. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the interference-susceptible wireless device comprises a cell phone including at least one of a GSM device, a UMTS device, a PCS device, a long term evolution (LTE) device, a global packet radio system (GPRS) device, an EDGE device, a 1xRTT device, an evolution data only (EV-DO) device, and a code-division multiple access (CDMA) device.

7. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the first RF signal includes a data packet.

8. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 7, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power before the transceiver transmits the data packet.

9. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 7, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power while the transceiver transmits a plurality of data packets.

10. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the second RF signal includes an inbound data packet to the interference susceptible wireless device.

11. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power based on a user experience metric for a combined experience of concurrently using multiple mutually interfere-able wireless devices.

12. A platform that includes the mobile telecommunications platform of claim 1.

13. A method of adjusting a transmit power of a mobile telecommunications platform, comprising:

transmitting a first radio frequency (RF) signal at the transmit power by a transceiver, the first RF signal propagating through an RF environment shared by a plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices, the transceiver being a WiFi device, at least one of the interference-susceptible wireless devices being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

calculating a signal integrity metric of a second RF signal transmitted between the wireless device and at least one of the plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices;

measuring RF signals transmitted from the interference-susceptible wireless devices by an interference-identifier module of the mobile telecommunications platform;

providing by the interference-identifier module of the wireless device a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster of the mobile telecommunications platform; and

adjusting by the transmit power adjuster the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

calculating a signal integrity metric of a second RF signal transmitted between the mobile telecommunications platform and at least one of the plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices, wherein the signal integrity metric is at least one of a data retransmission probability, a signal-to-noise ratio, a channel quality indication (CQI), a bit error ratio (BER), a block error ratio (BLER), and a signal-to-interference ratio.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

calculating a signal integrity metric of a second RF signal transmitted between the mobile telecommunications platform and at least one of the plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices; and

adjusting the transmit power when the signal integrity metric is less than a minimum acceptable signal quality.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the minimum signal quality is at least one of a packet retransmission probability, a BER, a BLER, a parity bit, a checksum, a signal-to-noise ratio, and a signal-to-interference ratio.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the first RF signal includes a data packet.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the transmit power is adjusted before transmitting the data packet.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the transmit power is adjusted while transmitting the data packet.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein adjusting the transmit power further comprises:

adjusting the transmit power based on a user experience metric for a combined experience of concurrently using multiple mutually interfere-able wireless devices.

21. A mobile telecommunications platform, comprising:

a wireless transceiver that transmits a first RF signal at a transmit power, the first RF signal propagating through an RF environment shared by a plurality of interference-susceptible wireless devices, the wireless transceiver being a WiFi device, at least one of the interference-susceptible wireless devices being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCcan device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS); and

a coexistence interference manager (CIM) that includes;

an interference-identifier module configured to measure RF signals transmitted from the interference-susceptible wireless devices and to provide a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster; and

the transmit power adjuster configured to adjust the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.

22. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 21, wherein the interference-identifier module is further configured to determine if the first RF signal affects a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal transmitted between a first and a second interference-susceptible wireless device, the signal integrity metric being at least one of a data retransmission probability, a signal-to-noise ratio, and a signal-to-interference ratio.

23. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 21, wherein wireless transceiver and the CIM are co-located on a platform.

24. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 21, wherein the wireless transceiver and the CIM are located on a first platform and a second platform, respectively.

25. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 21, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power based on a user experience metric for a combined experience of concurrently using multiple mutually interfere-able wireless devices.

26. A method for reducing bit errors in an interference-susceptible wireless device that shares a radio frequency (RF) environment with a mobile telecommunications platform, the method comprising:

transmitting an RF signal by a transceiver of the mobile telecommunications platform, the RF signal propagating through the RF environment shared by the interference-susceptible wireless device, the transceiver being a WiFi device;

detecting an activity status of the interference-susceptible wireless device by monitoring an RF transmission from the interference-susceptible wireless device, the interference-susceptible wireless device being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

sensing a received signal quality metric of an inbound RF signal to the interference-susceptible wireless device;

measuring an RF signal transmitted from the interference-susceptible wireless device by an interference-identifier module of the mobile telecommunications platform;

providing by the interference-identifier module a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster of the mobile telecommunications platform; and

adjusting by the transmit power adjuster a transmit power from the wireless device based on the recommended transmit power.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the mobile telecommunications platform is a WiFi device.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the activity status is at least one of a wireless device power-on status, a wireless device active mode, a wireless device idle mode, a wireless device transition-to-active status, and a wireless device services in use status.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the activity status changes from a wireless device transition-to-active status to the wireless device active mode after a predetermined time interval.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein sensing the received signal quality metric is at least one of detecting a signal quality uplink from the interference-susceptible wireless device, estimating a present received signal quality from the inbound RF signal and the transmit power, and estimating a future received signal quality from the RF signal and a prospective transmit power.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the mobile telecommunications platform sets the prospective transmit power based on a signal quality metric.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the signal quality metric is at least one of a packet retransmission probability, a BER, a BLER, a parity bit, a checksum, and a signal-to-noise ratio.

33. The method of claim 26, wherein the transmit power is at least one of an average RF power and a peak RF power.

34. The method of claim 26, wherein the transmit power is adjusted based on a user experience metric for a combined experience of concurrently using multiple mutually interfere-able wireless devices.

35. A mobile telecommunications platform, comprising:

a WiFi transceiver configured to transmit a first radio frequency (RF) signal at a transmit power to a WiFi enabled device through an RF environment shared by an interference-susceptible wireless device, the interference-susceptible wireless device being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

an interference identifier module configured to measure an RF signal transmitted from the interference-susceptible wireless device and to provide a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster; and

the transmit power adjuster configured to adjust the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.

36. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the interference identifier module is further configured to determine whether the transmit power is likely to affect a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal received by the interference-susceptible wireless device, and the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power to increase the signal integrity metric.

37. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the interference identifier module is further configured to determine whether the transmit power is likely to affect a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal received by the interference-susceptible wireless device, and the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power to increase a user experience metric that factors in the signal integrity metric and a reception quality of RF signals transmitted by the WiFi transceiver.

38. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the WiFi enabled device is configured as an access point (AP), and the WiFi transceiver is configured as a remote device.

39. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the WiFi enable device is configured as a remote device, and the WiFi transceiver is configured as an AP.

40. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the interference-susceptible wireless device includes at least one of a cell phone, a BT device, a WiMax device, and a global positioning system (GPS).

41. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the interference identifier module is further configured to determine whether the transmit power is likely to affect a signal integrity metric for a second RF signal received by the interference-susceptible wireless device, the signal integrity metric being at least one of a data retransmission probability, a signal-to-noise ratio, and a signal-to-interference ratio.

42. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power so an AP signal quality exceeds a minimum AP signal quality.

43. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 42, wherein the AP signal quality is at least one of a packet retransmission probability, a bit error ratio, a block error ratio, a parity bit, a checksum, a signal-to-noise ratio, a signal-to-interference ratio, and a channel quality indicator.

44. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 35, wherein the first RF signal includes a data packet.

45. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 44, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power before the WiFi transceiver transmits the data packet.

46. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 45, wherein the transmit power adjuster is further configured to adjust the transmit power while the WiFi transceiver transmits the data packet.

47. A mobile telecommunications platform for use in a shared radio frequency (RF) environment, comprising:

an RF interface that receives and transmits radio signals at a transmit power according to a first wireless service within the shared RF environment, wherein the shared RF environment includes interference susceptive devices that operate according to at least a second wireless service that is different from the first wireless service, the RF interface being a WiFi device, at least one of the interference susceptive devices being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

an interference identifying module associated with the RF interface to measure RF signals transmitted from the interference susceptive devices and to provide a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster; and

the transmit power adjuster configured to adjust the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.

48. The mobile telecommunications platform of claim 47, wherein the mobile telecommunications platform is configured as a cell phone that operates according to a cellular network service.

49. A cellular network providing a cellular service in a shared radio frequency (RF) environment, comprising:

a mobile telecommunications platform, the mobile telecommunications platform including;

an RF interface that receives and transmits radio signals according to the cellular service within the shared RF environment, wherein the shared RF environment includes interference susceptive devices that operate according to at least a wireless service that is different from the cellular services, the RF interface being a WiFi device, at least one of the interference susceptive devices being one of a cellular network compliant mobile transceiver, a WiFi device, a WiMax device, a Bluetooth (BT) device, a Wibree device, a ZigBee device, a wireless USB device, an ultra-wideband (UWB) device, an EnOCean device, a 6loWPAN device, an iBurst device, and a global positioning system (GPS);

an interference identifying module associated with the RF interface to measure RF signals transmitted from the interference susceptive devices and to provide a recommended transmit power to a transmit power adjuster; and

the transmit power adjuster configured to adjust the transmit power based on the recommended transmit power.