Techniques for efficient small cell discovery

• US 9,480,007 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2014
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Han, Seunghee, Chen, Xiaogang, Zhu, Yuan, Davydov, Alexei, Fwu, Jong-Kae
• Primary Examiner(s): CHO, HONG SOL
• Application Number:
  US14/318,452
• Publication Number:
  US 20150029919A1
• Time in Patent Office: 851 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0048 Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0073 Allocation arrangements that take into account other cell interferences for intercell interference mitigation or co-ordination in orthogonal multiplex systems H04J11/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0216 using a pre-established activity schedule, e.g. traffic indication frame
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Techniques for efficient small cell discovery are described. In one embodiment, for example, an evolved node B (eNB) may comprise logic, at least a portion of which is in hardware, the logic to determine a discovery signal transmission schedule for a series of radio frames based on a discovery signal muting pattern specifying at least one discovery-muted radio frame among the series of radio frames, and a transceiver to transmit at least one primary synchronization signal (PSS) and at least one secondary synchronization signal (SSS) during the series of radio frames according to the discovery signal transmission schedule. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. An evolved node B (eNB), comprising:

logic, at least a portion of which is in hardware, the logic to determine a discovery signal transmission schedule for a series of radio frames based on a discovery signal muting pattern specifying at least one discovery-muted radio frame among the series of radio frames; and

a transceiver to transmit at least one primary synchronization signal (PSS) and at least one secondary synchronization signal (SSS) during the series of radio frames according to the discovery signal transmission schedule.

2. The eNB of claim 1, the logic to determine the discovery signal muting pattern based on a received information element (IE) comprising a configuration of the discovery signal muting pattern.

3. The eNB of claim 1, the logic to determine the discovery signal muting pattern based on a physical cell identifier (PCID) of a small cell served by the eNB.

4. The eNB of claim 1, the discovery signal muting pattern comprising a multi-frame periodicity.

5. The eNB of claim 1, the transceiver to transmit at least one legacy discovery signal during at least one discovery-muted radio frame.

6. The eNB of claim 1, the transceiver to transmit at least one small cell discovery signal over a non-central carrier of a frequency band of the eNB, according to the discovery signal transmission schedule.

7. The eNB of claim 1, the discovery signal transmission schedule defining an extended time interval between small cell discovery signal transmissions or a reduced time interval between small cell discovery signal transmissions, in conjunction with a discontinuous transmission (DTX) operation mode.

8. The eNB of claim 1, the logic to determine the discovery signal transmission schedule based on the discovery signal muting pattern and on a multi-frame discovery signal transmission pattern.

9. The eNB of claim 1, comprising one or more radio frequency (RF) antennas.

10. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that, in response to being executed at an evolved node B (eNB), cause the eNB to:

select a first set of carriers and a second set of carriers from among a plurality of carriers in a frequency band of the eNB based on a discovery signal transmission pattern, the first set of carriers comprising at least one non-central carrier of the plurality of carriers;

transmit a first set of small cell discovery signals over the first set of carriers during a first frame; and

transmit a second set of small cell discovery signals over the second set of carriers during a second frame.

11. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, the second set of carriers comprising at least one carrier that is not comprised in the first set of carriers.

12. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, comprising instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to transmit a set of legacy discovery signals over one or more central carriers of the plurality of carriers in the frequency band of the eNB during the first frame.

13. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, the first set of small cell discovery signals comprising one or more dedicated small cell primary synchronization signals (PSSs) and one or more dedicated small cell secondary synchronization signals (SSSs), the set of legacy discovery signals comprising one or more legacy PSSs and one or more legacy SSSs.

14. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, comprising instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to mute one or more discovery signals during at least one of a plurality of frames comprising the first frame and the second frame, based on a discovery signal muting pattern for a cell served by the eNB.

15. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to determine the discovery signal muting pattern for the cell based on a physical cell identifier (PCID) for the cell.

16. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, the eNB configured with the discovery signal muting pattern for the cell via higher-layer signaling.

17. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, the first set of small cell discovery signals comprising at least one cell-specific reference signal (CRS).

18. User equipment (UE), comprising:

a memory; and

logic, at least a portion of which is in circuitry coupled to the memory, the logic to identify one or more discovery-muted radio frames among a series of radio frames of a small cell based on a muting pattern of the small cell, initiate a discovery signal search procedure to search for small cell discovery signals during the series of radio frames, and suspend the discovery signal search procedure during at least one of the one or more discovery-muted radio frames.

19. The UE of claim 18, the logic to determine the muting pattern based on a physical cell identifier (PCID) of the small cell.

20. The UE of claim 18, the muting pattern comprising a periodicity of more than one radio frame.

21. The UE of claim 18, the logic to initiate the discovery signal search procedure to search for small cell discovery signals according to a discovery signal transmission pattern.

22. The UE of claim 21, the discovery signal transmission pattern defining a frequency-hopping scheme for small cell discovery signals of the small cell.

23. The UE of claim 21, the discovery signal transmission pattern assigning at least one small cell discovery signal to at least one non-central carrier of the small cell.

24. The UE of claim 18, the logic to receive one or more primary synchronization signals (PSSs) and one or more secondary synchronization signals (SSSs) via the discovery signal search procedure.

25. The UE of claim 18, comprising:

a radio frequency (RF) transceiver;

one or more RF antennas; and

a display.