Enhanced base station user scheduling
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
InventorsAditya Chopra, Andrew Thornburg, Saeed Ghassemzadeh
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Abstract
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a base station that includes a phased array antenna system and a MIMO antenna system. The MIMO antenna system may receive sounding signals sent by user equipment (UE) and determine angular location information for each UE. The angular location information may be used by the phased array antenna system to create antenna beams. The angular location information may also be used to schedule communications with multiple UEs in common beams. Other embodiments are disclosed.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- forming, by a processing system including a processor, a first beam using an analog beamformer coupled to a first antenna array;
- transmitting, by the processing system, a request signal in the first beam requesting a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) to transmit sounding signals;
- receiving, by the processing system, the sounding signals at a second antenna array;
- processing, by the processing system, the sounding signals using a digital beamformer coupled to the second antenna array to determine angular direction information for at least a portion of the plurality of UEs;
- identifying, by the processing system, a group of the plurality of UEs that are within a particular angular distance of each other;
- and
- responsive to the identifying, scheduling, by the processing system, downlink communications with the group of the plurality of UEs in a downlink beam to be generated by the analog beamformer.
A device comprising:
- a processing system including a processor;
- and
- a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
- forming a first beam using an analog beamformer coupled to a first antenna array;
- transmitting a request signal in the first beam requesting a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) to transmit sounding signals;
- receiving the sounding signals at a second antenna array;
- processing the sounding signals using a digital beamformer coupled to the second antenna array to determine angular direction information for at least a portion of the plurality of UEs;
- identifying a group of the plurality of UEs that are within a particular angular distance of each other;
- and
- responsive to the identifying, scheduling downlink communications with the group of the plurality of UEs in a downlink beam to be generated by the analog beamformer.
A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
- forming a first beam using an analog beamformer coupled to a first antenna array;
- transmitting a request signal in the first beam requesting a plurality of user equipment devices (UEs) to transmit sounding signals;
- receiving the sounding signals at a second antenna array;
- processing the sounding signals using a digital beamformer coupled to the second antenna array to determine angular direction information for at least a portion of the plurality of UEs;
- identifying a group of the plurality of UEs that are within a particular angular distance of each other;
- and
- responsive to the identifying, scheduling downlink communications with the group of the plurality of UEs in a downlink beam to be generated by the analog beamformer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.