Use of buffer fullness as basis to control application of MU-MIMO service
AssigneeSprint Spectrum L.P.
InventorsNitesh Manchanda, Vanil Parihar, Sreekar Marupaduga
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Abstract
A method and system for controlling application of MU-MIMO. The disclosure provides for considering the quantity of data buffered for transmission over the air between the base station and each of various UEs, and selecting UEs to be subject to MU-MIMO service based on the quantity of data buffered. For example, a base station could prefer application of MU-MIMO for UEs that have more data buffered for transmission than other UEs. Or the base station could condition application of MU-MIMO to a pair of UEs on a determination that each UE of the pair has at least a threshold quantity of data buffered for transmission.
Claims20
A method for controlling transmission over an air interface in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
- serving, by a base station, a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) over the air interface, wherein each UE has a respective transmit buffer holding data to be transmitted over the air interface between the UE and the base station, wherein each UE's transmit buffer has a respective fullness level defining a non-zero quantity of data that is in the UE's transmit buffer and is waiting to be transmitted, and wherein the plurality of UEs defines at least two pairs of UEs, the two pairs being mutually exclusive;
- selecting, by the base station, one of the two pairs of UEs for the base station to serve with Multi-User Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) over the air interface, the selecting being based on the transmit buffers of the UEs of the selected pair being more full than the transmit buffers of the UEs of the other pair of the two pairs;
- and
- based on the selecting, causing by the base station air interface transmission to occur with MU-MIMO between the base station and the UEs of the selected pair while causing by the base station transmission to occur without MU-MIMO between the base station and the UEs of the other pair.
A method for controlling transmission over an air interface in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
- serving, by a base station, a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) over the air interface, wherein each UE has a respective transmit buffer holding data to be transmitted over the air interface from the UE to the base station;
- receiving by the base station, respectively from each UE of the plurality, a buffer status report (BSR) specifying a non-zero quantity of data that is currently held by the UE's respective transmit buffer awaiting transmission over the air interface from the UE to the base station;
- and
- limiting by the base station application of Multi-User Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) to UEs of the plurality whose BSRs specify greater than a predefined threshold quantity of data currently awaiting transmission to the base station.
A base station operable in a wireless communication system to control transmission over an air interface, the base station comprising:
- an antenna structure comprising a plurality of antennas for communicating over the air interface, wherein the air interface defines physical channel resources for carrying data wirelessly to the base station from a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) served by the base station;
- and
- a controller for scheduling use of the physical channel resources to carry the data wirelessly from the UEs to the base station,
- wherein the controller is configured to receive, respectively from each UE of the plurality, a buffer status report (BSR) specifying a non-zero quantity of data that is awaiting transmission over the air interface from the UE to the base station, and
- wherein the controller is configured to limit application of Multi-User Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) to UEs of the plurality whose BSRs specify greater than a predefined threshold quantity of data currently awaiting transmission to the base station.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.