Relay station, base station, and band frequency allocation method

• US 9,370,005 B2
• Filed: 03/16/2012
• Issued: 06/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Horiuchi, Ayako, Nishio, Akihiko, Yamamoto, Koji, Mimura, Tomohiko
• Primary Examiner(s): Rinehart, Mark
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dewan, Sanjay K
• Application Number:
  US14/355,747
• Publication Number:
  US 20140293867A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,551 Days
• Field of Search: 370/315
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/15528 Control of operation parameters of a relay station to exploit the physical medium
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/06 Hybrid resource partitioning, e.g. channel borrowing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/26 Cell enhancers or enhancement, e.g. for tunnels, building shadow
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0453 Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/047 using dedicated repeater stations

Abstract

A relay station to which network sharing is applied, wherein it is possible to appropriately allocate between multiple operators a shared band frequency shared by the multiple operators, and to improve the frequency use efficiency. In a relay station (100), a band frequency allocation determination unit (107) determines the bandwidth for each operator within a shared band frequency, which is shared by multiple operators and used between the relay station (100) and a mobile station, on the basis of the quality of a first line between the relay station (100) and the base stations of the operators and on the basis of the status of a second line between the relay station (100) and the mobile stations of the operators. A signal generation unit (108) allocates the signal of the operators to a resource on the basis of the bandwidth for each operator in the shared band frequency.

Claims

1. A relay station that is shared among a plurality of operators and that relays signals communicated between base stations and mobile stations of the plurality of operators, the relay station comprising:

a band allocation determining section that calculates a difference between a first throughput and a second throughput for each of the plurality of operators, the first throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station via at least the relay station, and the second throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station without using the relay station, and determines a bandwidth for each of the operators in a shared band so as to maximize a product of the respective differences for the respective operators, the shared band being a band used between the relay station and the mobile stations and being shared among the plurality of operators; and

a signal generation section that generates signals of the plurality of operators based on the bandwidths for the respective operators in the shared band.

2. The relay station according to claim 1, wherein:

the band allocation determining section determines the bandwidth e_i for operator i (where i=1, . . . ,I, and I is the number of the operators) according to

3. The relay station according to claim 1, further comprising:

a calculation section that calculates a first ratio among the plurality of operators relating to quality of a first channel between the base station and the relay station and calculates a second ratio among the plurality of operators relating to a traffic amount in a second channel between the relay station and the mobile station; and

a transmitting section that transmits the first ratio and the second ratio corresponding to each of the plurality of operators to the base station of a corresponding one of the plurality of operators.

4. The relay station according to claim 3, wherein the bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band is calculated using the first ratio and the second ratio.

5. The relay station according to claim 3, wherein the amount of traffic in the second channel is estimated from a number of active mobile stations served by the relay station.

6. The relay station according to claim 3, wherein:

the calculation section further calculates a third ratio among the plurality of operators relating to a system bandwidth between the base stations and the relay station; and

the transmitting section transmits the first ratio, the second ratio and the third ratio corresponding to each of the plurality of operators to the base station of a corresponding one of the plurality of operators.

7. The relay station according to claim 3, wherein:

the shared band is a band obtained by removing a band preferentially allocated to at least one specific operator among the plurality of operators from a specific band used for the plurality of operators between the relay station and the mobile stations;

the calculation section further calculates a bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band in accordance with a ratio of a system bandwidth among the plurality of operators, and calculates a fourth ratio among the plurality of operators relating to a bandwidth of the specific band using the calculated bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band and a bandwidth of the band preferentially allocated to the specific operator; and

the transmitting section transmits the first ratio, the second ratio and the fourth ratio corresponding to each of the plurality of operators to the base station of a corresponding one of the plurality of operators.

8. The relay station according to claim 1, further comprising a channel quality measuring section that measures quality of a first channel between the base station and the relay station using a signal from the base station and measures quality of a second channel between the relay station and the mobile station using a signal from the mobile station.

9. The relay station according to claim 1, further comprising an extraction section that extracts quality of a first channel between the base station and the relay station from a signal from the base station and extracts quality of a second channel between the relay station and the mobile station from a signal from the mobile station.

10. A base station that communicates with a relay station configured to relay signals communicated between base stations and mobile stations of a plurality of operators and to be shared among the plurality of operators, the base station comprising:

a band allocation determining section that calculates a difference between a first throughput and a second throughput for each of the plurality of operators, the first throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station via at least the relay station, and the second throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station without using the relay station, and determines a bandwidth for each of the operators in a shared band so as to maximize a product of the respective differences for the respective operators, the shared band being a band used between the relay station and the mobile stations and being shared among the plurality of operators; and

a signal generation section that generates signals based on the bandwidths for the respective operators in the shared band.

11. The base station according to claim 10, wherein the bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band is calculated using a first ratio among the plurality of operators relating to quality of a first channel between the base station and the relay station and a second ratio among the plurality of operators relating to an amount of traffic in a second channel between the relay station and the mobile station.

12. The base station according to claim 11, wherein the amount of traffic in the second channel is estimated from a number of active mobile stations served by the relay station.

13. The base station according to claim 10, wherein the bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band is calculated using a first ratio among the plurality of operators relating to quality of a first channel between the base station and the relay station, a second ratio among the plurality of operators relating to an amount of traffic in a second channel between the relay station and the mobile station, and a third ratio among the plurality of operators relating to a system bandwidth between the base stations and the relay station.

14. The base station according to claim 10, wherein:

the shared band is a band obtained by removing a band preferentially allocated to at least one specific operator among the plurality of operators from a specific band used for the plurality of operators between the relay station and the mobile stations; and

the bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band is calculated using a first ratio among the plurality of operators relating to the quality of the first channel, a second ratio among the plurality of operators relating to an amount of traffic in the second channel, and a fourth ratio among the plurality of operators relating to a bandwidth of the specific band calculated using the bandwidth for each of the operators in the shared band and a bandwidth of the band preferentially allocated to the specific operator, in accordance with the ratio of the system bandwidth among the plurality of operators.

15. A method for allocating a band used to relay signals communicated between base stations and mobile stations of a plurality of operators, the method comprising:

calculating a difference between a first throughput and a second throughput for each of the plurality of operators, the first throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station via at least the relay station, and the second throughput being a throughput for communication between the base station and the mobile station without using the relay station;

determining a bandwidth for each of the operators in a shared band so as to maximize a product of the respective differences for the respective operators the shared band being a band used between the relay station and the mobile stations and being shared among the plurality of operators; and

generating signals of the plurality of operators based on the bandwidths for the respective operators in the shared band.