Systems and methods for handovers between base radios
AssigneeNextel Communications Inc.
InventorLakhbir Singh
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for reducing power consumption and interference in a communications system that has multiple base radios. A base radio controller assigns priorities to the base radios in the system. When higher priority base radios have excess capacity, intracell handovers are used to consolidate communications from lower priority base radios to higher priority base radios. After transferring communications to higher priority base radios, the lower priority base radios can attenuate or shut off their transmitted signal in order to reduce or eliminate all the interference they cause other base stations in the system, and reduce transmission power requirements.
Claims16
A method for controlling base radios, comprising the acts of:
- assigning priority values to a plurality of base radios;
- selecting a first base radio with a first priority value;
- determining whether a base radio with a priority value which is higher than the first priority value has excess capacity;
- handing over communications from the first base radio to the base radio with a higher priority when it is determined that the base radio with the higher priority has excess capacity, wherein the handover is an intracell handover;
- and
- periodically modifying the priority values to equalize usage of the base radios.
A base radio controller, comprising:
- a base radio interface that communicates with a plurality of base radios;
- a processor, coupled to the base radio interface, which comprises
- base radio selection logic for selecting a first base radio with a first priority value;
- priority identification logic for identifying a base radio with a priority value which is higher than the first priority value that has excess capacity;
- handover logic for handing over communications from the lower priority base radio to a higher priority base radio when it is determined that the higher priority base radio has excess capacity, wherein the handover is an intracell handover;
- and
- priority assignment logic for assigning priority values to a plurality of base radios, wherein the priority assignment logic periodically changes the priority values to equalize usage of each of the plurality of base radios.
A method for controlling base radios, comprising the acts of:
- assigning priority values to a plurality of base radios based on interference caused by each base radio to other base radios of the plurality of base radios;
- selecting a first base radio with a first priority value;
- determining whether a base radio with a priority value which is higher than the first priority value has excess capacity;
- handing over communications from the first base radio to the base radio with a higher priority when it is determined that the base radio with the higher priority has excess capacity, wherein the handover is an intracell handover,
- wherein the first base radio causes more interference to other base radios in the network than the base radio with the higher priority value, and wherein the interference caused by the first base radio is determined using propagation modeling techniques.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.