Hierarchical wireless access system and access point management unit in the system

• US 8,553,729 B2
• Filed: 07/03/2008
• Issued: 10/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ZTE Corporation
• Original Assignee: ZTE Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Shizhuang
• Primary Examiner(s): Cho, Un C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lou, Peian
• Application Number:
  US13/002,047
• Publication Number:
  US 20110141895A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,923 Days
• Field of Search: 370/235, 370/328, 370/337, 370/338, 370/345, 370/347, 370/349, 370/351, 370/400, 370/401, 455/418, 455/41.2
• US Class Current: 370/503
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/10 Dynamic resource partitioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/16 WPBX [Wireless Private Branch Exchange]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/085 Access point devices with remote components
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

A hierarchical wireless access system includes terminals, access points, centralized access gateways and a plurality of master access point management units located at the access layer and adopting distributed architecture. The master access point management unit includes a communication interface interacting with the centralized access gateway and/or core networks, to which one or more access points are attached. The master access point management unit processes forwards the data and signaling among the attached access points, and provides the function of access gateway and local operation maintenance and network management. Construction of the master access point management unit and the access point in the system is also provided.

Claims

1. A hierarchical wireless access system including terminals, access points, centralized access gateways, and further including a plurality of master access point management units located at an access layer and adopting a distributed architecture, wherein the master access point management units respectively have communication interfaces interacting with the centralized access gateways or core networks, or interact with the centralized access gateways and the core networks, and one or more access points are attached to the master access point management units, and the master access point management units are for processing and forwarding data and signaling interaction among the attached access points, and providing functions of access gateway, local operation and maintenance and network management for the attached access points;

and

wherein the wireless access system further including one or more slave access point management units, which are connected with the master access point management units directly or after being cascaded, and each of the one or more slave access point management units is attached with a part of the one or more access points attached to master access point management units, so as to process and forward data and signaling interaction among the attached access points;

master access point management units and slave access point management units which are directly connected with the access points have a power-line modulation and demodulation function, and adopt the power line as a transmission medium to directly connect with the attached access points; and

a communication cable is used as a transmission medium between the master access point management unit and the slave access point management unit.

2. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the access gateway function of the master access point management unit is realized by an access gateway functional module AGW-Lite thereof, which is used for converging access information of attached access points and processing tunnel protocols, providing routing switching information to a corresponding centralized access gateway, providing communication interfaces to interact with the centralized access gateways or core networks, or interact with the centralized access gateways and the core networks, and realizing one of the following functions:

local wireless resource processing, self-routing for local flows, ending processing for tunnel processing of attached access points, flow shaping and flow control on attached access points and data stream scheduling processing based on access points.

3. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the master access point management unit is connected with its attached access points directly or via a switch;

and

a communication cable is used as a transmission medium between the master access point management unit and the access points directly connected with the master access point management unit;

or the master access point management unit has a power-line modulation and demodulation function, and the power line is used as a transmission medium between the master access point management unit and the access points that are directly connected with the master access point management unit.

4. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the master access point management units, or the master access point management units and the slave master access point management units, include timing servers for generating timing information and distributing the information to each attached access point;

and

the access point includes a timing client for receiving and restoring the timing information and taking the restored timing information as a local reference timing signal.

5. The wireless access system according to claim 4, wherein the timing server is a timing over packet server, namely, a ToP server, and the timing client is a timing over packet client, namely, a ToP client;

the ToP server is used for generating a timing information packet according to a reference timing signal output by a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiving module or an external synchronous clock source and distributing the timing information packet in the form of a ToP information packet to each ToP client via network interfaces on the access point management unit side and the access point side; and

after receiving the timing information packet, the ToP client restores the timing information and sends the restored information to a baseband and radio frequency module in the access points.

6. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless access system is applied to a scene of indoor coverage or a scene of mixed indoor coverage and outdoor coverage.

7. The wireless access system according to claim 6, wherein to the wireless access system is an access service network of a WiMAX system, the access point is a Pico base station (Pico BS);

the centralized access gateway is an access service network gateway ASN-GW; and

the master access point management unit interacts with the ASN-GW and/or network elements of a connection service network via the access gateway functional module.

8. The wireless access system according to claim 7, wherein in the wireless access system a standard R6 interface is used between the master access point management unit and the Pico BS, or between the master access point management unit or the Pico BS and the slave access point management unit;

a standard R3 interface is used between the master access point management unit and a network element of the connection service network; and

a standard R4 interface is used between master access point management units and between the master access point management unit and the centralized access gateway.

9. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless access system further including one or more couplers or power dividers taking the access points as signal sources, and a passive distributed antenna system connected with the couplers or power dividers.

10. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless access system adopts a PUSC (Partially Used Sub-channel) ALL Sub-Channel networking mode;

or

the wireless access system adopts a PUSC Segment networking mode;

or

the wireless access system adopts the PUSC Segment networking mode in a coverage-limited area and uses the PUSC ALL Sub-Channel networking mode in other areas.

11. The wireless access system according to claim 1, wherein the wireless access system combines multiple physically separated access points into a logical cell group, in which access points share different sub-channels of a channel;

different logical cell groups are distributed with different channels; and

the master access point management unit distributes sub-channels according to location relations among the access points subordinate to the logical cell groups.

12. The wireless access system according to claim 3, further including one or more couplers, which couple three-phase currents of one transformer.

13. A slave access point management unit in a hierarchical wireless access system, the hierarchical wireless access system including the slave access point management unit located at an access layer and access points attached to the slave access point management unit;

the slave access point management unit at least including;

a master control switching module, having a communication interface interacting with access points attached to the slave access point management unit, for processing and forwarding data and signaling interaction of the access points attached to the slave access point management unit; and

a timing client for regenerating and distributing clock information to timing clients of access points attached to the slave access point management unit via the master control switching module; and

wherein the master control switching module further has a communication interface connected to a master access point management unit directly, and in the case where the communication interface is not connected directly to the master access point management unit, then the communication interface is connected via another slave access point management unit, and the master access point management unit is configured to process and forward data and signaling interaction among access points attached to the master access point management unit, and provide functions of access gateway, local operation and maintenance and network management for the access points attached to the master access point management unit; and

the slave access point management unit further includes a power line modulation demodulation functional module, which is connected with the master control switching module and connected to an access point attached to the slave access point management unit via a power line to modulate and demodulate signals transmitted by the power line and to perform a link detection or adaptive processing, or to perform the link detection and the adaptive processing.

14. The slave access point management unit according to claim 13, wherein the timing client regenerates a timing, and relays the hardware timestamp to a timing over packet (ToP) client of the access point attached to the slave access point management unit via a ToP information packet.

15. The slave access point management unit according to claim 13, further including a clock source, which is for generating a hardware timestamp according to a reference timing signal output by a GPS receiving module or an external synchronous clock source.

16. A master access point management unit in a hierarchical wireless access system, the hierarchical wireless access system including the master access point management unit located at an access layer and access points attached to the master access point management unit;

the master access point management unit at least including;

a master control switching module, having a communication interface interacting with access points attached to the master access point management unit, for processing and forwarding data and signaling interaction of the access points attached to the master access point management unit; and

a timing server for distributing clock information to timing clients of access points attached to the master access point management unit via the master control switching module; and

wherein the master access point management unit is connected to a slave access point management unit, and the slave access point management unit is attached with a part of the access points attached to the master access point management units, so as to process and forward data and signaling interaction among the attached access points; and

the master access point management unit further includes a power line modulation demodulation functional module, which is connected with the master control switching module and connected to an access point attached to the master access point management unit via a power line to modulate and demodulate signals transmitted by the power line and to perform a link detection or adaptive processing, or to perform the link detection and the adaptive processing.

17. The master access point management unit according to claim 16, wherein the master access point management unit is integrated with an access gateway functional module which is for converging access information of access points attached to the master access point management unit, processing tunnel protocols, providing routing switching information to a corresponding centralized access gateway, providing communication interfaces interacting with core networks, and realizing one of the following functions:

local wireless resource processing, self-routing for local flows, ending processing for tunnel processing of attached access points, flow shaping and flow control on attached access points and data stream scheduling processing based on access points.

18. The master access point management unit according to claim 17, wherein the master access point management unit further includes a centralized network management functional module which is connected with the master control switching module to realize a centralized agent function on local network management and to process operation maintenance information, including one or more of the following:

performance statistics, alarm management, version management, configuration management and fault diagnosis.

19. The master access point management unit according to claim 16, wherein the timing server is a timing over packet server, namely, a ToP server, which is for generating a hardware timestamp according to a reference timing signal output by a GPS receiving module or an external synchronous clock source, and distributing the hardware timestamp to a ToP client of the access point attached to the master access point management unit via a ToP information packet.

20. The master access point management unit according to claim 16, further including a clock source, which is connected with the timing server to output a reference timing signal to the timing server.