Ranging regions for wireless communication relay stations
AssigneeResearch In Motion Limited
InventorsHang Zhang, Jianglei Ma, Peiying Zhu, Wen Tong
Life of this patent
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Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention provides a unique ranging technique in wireless communication environments that employ relay stations associated with a base station. Each relay station, and optionally the base station itself, can be allocated a unique ranging region having unique ranging resources that may be used by a mobile station to initiate a ranging function with the corresponding relay station or base station.
Claims30
A relay station to be associated with a base station and a member relay station comprising:
- transmit and receive circuitry configured to facilitate wireless communications with the base station and a mobile station;
- and
- a control system associated with the transmit and receive circuitry and configured to:
- identify a first ranging region within an overall ranging region to use for a first ranging function, wherein the member relay station uses a second ranging region within the overall ranging region for the ranging function;
- and
- detect a first ranging code transmitted by the mobile station via first ranging resources within the first ranging region;
- process the first ranging code to facilitate the first ranging function, wherein different ranging codes are provided for each of the first and second ranging regions;
- and
- ignore ranging codes transmitted by the mobile station via ranging resources outside of the first ranging region for the first ranging function.
A base station to be associated with a plurality of relay stations for facilitating wireless communications with a mobile station, the base station comprising:
- transmit and receive circuitry configured to facilitate wireless communications with the plurality of relay stations and the mobile station;
- and
- a control system associated with the transmit and receive circuitry and configured to:
- for each relay station of the plurality of relay stations, identify a unique ranging region within an overall ranging region to use for a first ranging function;
- receive a code grab message from a first relay station of the plurality of relay stations, the code grab message comprising transmission adjustment recommendations and a first ranging code or an identifier of the first ranging code that was received by the first relay station and transmitted by the mobile station via first ranging resources within a first ranging region of a plurality of ranging regions;
- process the first ranging code to facilitate the first ranging function, wherein different ranging codes are provided for each of the first and second ranging regions;
- identify for the base station a unique base station ranging region within an overall ranging region to use for the first ranging function, such that each of the plurality of relay stations and the base station are allocated different ranging regions for the ranging function;
- and
- ignore ranging codes transmitted by the mobile station via ranging resources outside of the unique base station ranging region allocated for the base station.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.