Mobile assisted handoff in radiocommunication systems
AssigneeEricsson Inc.
InventorGregory E. Bottomley
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Abstract
Methods and apparatuses for radiocommunication systems including energy (e.g., signal strength) measurements are described. To enable measurements to be performed in parallel with information signal decoding and demodulation, a duplicate of a received signal can be made. The duplicate can be processed to enable measurement on any desired channel. Various access methodologies including FDMA, TDMA and CDMA are contemplated. The measurement information can then be reported to the system for usage in handoff determination. The inventive techniques allow for MAHO measurements to be performed without idle time being available for a receiver and without a dedicated scanning receiver being provided solely for measurement purposes.
Claims23
A communications terminal comprising:
- means for receiving and processing a radio signal to produce a multichannel signal including a plurality of channels and to produce a demodulated signal corresponding to a single channel;
- means for producing digital samples of said multichannel signal;
- means for removing at least one channel from said digital samples of said multichannel signal, wherein processing means make energy measurements on said at least one channel, wherein said single channel and said at least one channel are associated with different frequencies.
A method for making signal strength measurements on at least one channel comprising the steps of:
- generating a first and a second copy of a received signal;
- processing said first copy to obtain an information signal on a first channel;
- and
- processing said second copy to obtain signal strength measurements on said at least one channel, wherein said first channel and said at least one channel are associated with different frequencies.
A communication terminal comprising:
- a receiver for receiving a transmitted signal, processing said transmitted signal into a filtered signal and generating an information signal therefrom;
- a splitter for generating a copy of said filtered signal;
- and
- a processor for generating energy measurements on at least two channels associated with different frequencies using said copy of said filtered signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.