Autonomous power saving in a remote unit in a wireless communications system (wcs)

A method for supporting autonomous power saving, comprising:

• determining at least one inactivity period in a set of radio resources that is suited for a power saving mode operation;
• defining a plurality of power saving intervals based on the determined at least one inactivity period;
• and
• operating in the power saving mode operation in each of the plurality of power saving intervals.

A wireless communications system (WCS), comprising a distributed communications system (DCS), the DCS comprising:

• a routing unit (RU) coupled to a centralized services node via a baseband unit (BBU);
• and
• a plurality of remote units each coupled to the DRU via a plurality of optical fiber-based communications mediums, respectively;
• wherein the RU is configured to:
• distribute a plurality of downlink communications signals to the plurality of remote units, respectively;
• and
• receive a plurality of uplink communications signals from the plurality of remote units, respectively;
• wherein at least one of the plurality of remote units comprises:
• a radio frequency (RF) front-end circuit configured to communicate a respective one of the plurality of downlink communications signals and receive a respective one of the plurality of uplink communications signals over a set of radio resources;
• and
• a processing circuit configured to:
• determine at least one inactivity period in the set of radio resources that is suited for a power saving mode operation;
• define a plurality of power saving intervals based on the determined at least one inactivity period;
• and
• cause the at least one of the plurality of remote units to operate in the power saving mode operation in each of the plurality of power saving intervals.