Synchronization for Low Coverage Machine Type Communication Devices
AssigneeMediaTek Singapore Pte. Ltd.
InventorsGilles Charbit, Feifei Sun
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Abstract
A method of fast synchronization for low coverage machine type communication (MTC) devices is proposed. A machine-specific synchronization signal “mSYNC” with higher density in time and frequency is transmitted from each base station for fast timing and frequency acquisition and tracking. The mSYNC has a relatively longer periodicity (i.e., >>5 ms) to reduce overhead and inter-cell interference. The higher time-frequency density of mSYNC is designed to improve latency and power consumption by allowing the machine to wake up just before the scheduled mSYNC transmission time and to re-synchronize or track synchronization with the network without the need for long averaging time.
Claims24
A method comprising:
- obtaining a cell ID and a system frame number (SFN) of a cell by a user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication network;
- remembering the cell ID and keeps counting the SFN based on UE clock timing;
- determining a machine-specific synchronization signal (mSYNC) timing of the cell based on the SFN;
- and
- performing synchronization with the cell by detecting the mSYNC.
A user equipment (UE) comprising:
- a synchronization module that synchronizes with a cell and obtains a cell ID and a system frame number (SFN) of the cell in a mobile communication network, wherein the UE remembers the cell ID and keeps counting the SFN based on UE clock timing;
- and
- a configuration module that determines a machine-specific synchronization signal (mSYNC) timing of the cell based on the SFN, wherein the UE performs synchronization with the cell by detecting the mSYNC.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.