Control channel design for many-antenna MU-MIMO systems

An apparatus for wireless communications capable of operating in no-CSI and CSI modes, comprising:

• a base station (BS) containing a plurality of antenna for transmission and reception of control channel functions;
• an encoder configured to encode a beacon into a synchronization sequence, the beacon comprising a geographically locally unique identifier (ID) of the apparatus;
• a circuit configured to generate a plurality of synchronization and a set of beamforming weights allowing for spatial directional transmission of single beam directions or beam patterns;
• a BS transmitter configured to transmit, using a plurality of antennas, said plurality of synchronization sequences, including paging sequences and beacons, in a plurality of beam directions associated with said set of beamforming weights wherein a single synchronization sequence is sent on a single beam direction, or beam pattern, intermittently at the beginning of each transmission frame and/or may be transmitted simultaneously with a paging sequence to different users;
• a user equipment (UE) for reception of a beacon encoded into a synchronization sequence, decoding of said beacon and transmission of an uplink pilot to a BS;
• said BS antennas utilized for no-CSI, open-loop beamforming time-frequency synchronization, association, paging, random access, CSI collection, and CSI MIMO mode uplink and downlink data transfer.

A method for wireless communications, comprising:

• sending in no-CSI mode, from a base station (BS) to a user equipment (UE), an encoded beacon comprising a geographically unique identifier (ID);
• generating a plurality of synchronization sequences and a set of beamforming weights, altering amplitude and signal phase, allowing for spatial directional transmission of beam patterns;
• beamsweeping, via open-loop beamforming and in said no-CSI mode, synchronization sequences in a plurality of beam directions associated with said set of beamforming weights wherein a single synchronization sequence is sent on a single beam direction, or beam pattern, intermittently, at the beginning of each transmission frame in a different beam direction of the plurality of beam direction across a coverage area;
• receiving, by a UE, a plurality of synchronization sequences having different signal strengths;
• correlating samples of a synchronization sequence from the plurality of synchronization sequences with a set of identification sequences to detect timing and frequency offset of the synchronization sequence;
• and
• decoding, from the synchronization sequence, a beacon having a geographically locally unique identifier (ID) of a base station (BS) encoded in the synchronization sequence;
• decoding, from the synchronization sequence, a paging request uniquely identifying the user;
• and
• soft-associating to multiple base stations (BS) to determine the most compatible base station (BS) channel quality.

A many antenna MU-MIMO system for wireless communications capable of operating in no-CSI and CSI modes, comprising:

• a base station (BS) containing a plurality of antenna for transmission and reception of control channel functions;
• an encoder configured to encode a beacon into a synchronization sequence, the beacon comprising a geographically locally unique identifier (ID) of the apparatus;
• a UE receiver configured to receive a plurality of synchronization sequences having different signal strengths;
• a BS transmitter configured to transmit, in no-CSI mode via open-loop beamsweeping, using a plurality of antennas, said plurality of synchronization sequences or paging sequences in a plurality of beam directions associated with said set of beamforming weights wherein a single beacon is sent on a single beam direction, or beam pattern, intermittently at the beginning of each transmission frame and/or may be transmitted simultaneously with a paging sequence to different users;
• a first circuit configured to correlate samples of a received synchronization sequence from the plurality of synchronization sequences with a set of identification sequences to detect timing and frequency offset of the synchronization sequence;
• and
• a second circuit configured to decode, from the synchronization sequence, a beacon having a geographically locally unique identifier (ID) encoded in the synchronization sequence, or a paging request encoded in the synchronization sequence;
• said UE receiver capable of soft-associating with a single or plurality of BSs to determine the most compatible base station (BS) channel quality;
• said UE receiver capable of fulling associating with one of a plurality of base stations based on said determination;
• said UE capable of transmitting location information associated with the UE, the location information comprises at least one of a physical location of the UE, channel state information (CSI) associated with the UE, information about strengths of one or more of the synchronization sequences received at the UE, or an angle of arrival of at least one of the synchronization sequences received at the UE;
• said BS capable of transmitting the paging sequence in the set of beam directions based on said location information;
• and
• said BS and UE, after soft-association, are capable of communicating via MIMO uplink and downlink in CSI (MIMO) mode.