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US 8,818,427 B1Granted
Managing allocation of subframes for relay communication
AssigneeSprint Spectrum L.P.
InventorsAnoop K. Goyal, Jasinder P. Singh, Sandeep Goyal
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and corresponding system to help manage allocation of subframes for relay communication. The allocation may alternate or rotate between which subframes per cycle are used for backhaul communication and which subframes per cycle are used for access communication. By changing the allocation of one or more subframes per cycle between backhaul and access, it becomes possible to only tentatively take away certain subframes of access communication, while reverting to use those subframes for access communication perhaps as soon as the next cycle.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- using a common air interface resource for both backhaul communication between a donor base station and a relay base station and access communication between the relay base station and one or more user equipment (UE) devices, the common air interface resource being divided over time into a sequence of subframes each being used for either the backhaul communication or the access communication, wherein the sequence of subframes is grouped into repeated cycles of a particular number of subframes each, and the Nth subframe per cycle is usable as a paging subframe for carrying page messages for the access communication;
- in a given one of the cycles, using the Nth subframe for the backhaul communication but not for the access communication;
- and
- in a next one of the cycles after the given cycle, using the Nth subframe for the access communication but not for the backhaul communication.
1 more element
A relay base station comprising:
- a wireless communication module for engaging in backhaul communication with a donor base station and access communication with one or more user equipment (UE) devices, wherein the backhaul communication and access communication occur on a shared air interface resource defining a sequence of subframes grouped over time into successive cycles, and wherein each subframe is used for either the backhaul communication or the access communication;
- a processing unit;
- data storage;
- and
- program logic stored in the data storage and executable by the processing unit to manage allocation of the subframes between the backhaul communication and the access communication, including carrying out functions comprising (i) in a given cycle of the cycles, allocating one or more particular subframes to use for the backhaul communication and not for the access communication and (ii) in a next cycle of the cycles, allocating the one or more particular subframes to use for the access communication and not for the backhaul communication.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- using a common air interface resource for both backhaul communication between a donor base station and a relay base station and access communication between the relay base station and one or more user equipment (UE) devices, the common air interface resource being divided over time into a sequence of subframes each being used to carry either the backhaul communication or the access communication, wherein the sequence of subframes is grouped into repeated cycles of subframes, and in each cycle, a particular group of subframes are usable as paging subframes for the access communication, wherein the particular group of subframes is the same subframes in each cycle;
- and
- in a given one of the cycles, using a particular subframe of the group for the backhaul communication instead of for the access communication, and using each other subframe of the group for the access communication;
- and
- in a next one of the cycles after the given cycle, using a different subframe of the group for the backhaul communication instead of for the access communication, and using each other subframe of the group for the access communication.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.