Patent · US Expired

System and method for optimizing spectral efficiency using time-frequency-code slicing

US6018528A · kind A · utility

181Cited by
14References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 28, 1994
Grant dateJan 25, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 28, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04W72/0466
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system and method for optimizing usage of a communications transmission medium. The transmission medium may be sliced into time and frequency domains so as to create time-frequency slices for assignment to users having varying access rates and user-application requirements. Through scheduling of the various speed users within the frequency and time domains, the system and method can efficiently allocate and make use of the available spectrum, thereby accommodating higher rate users requiring greater bandwidths and time slot assignments while still preserving cost-efficient access for lower speed users. Depending on the signal modulation scheme, the time-frequency slices may be allocated on non-contiguous frequency bands. The system and method is also applicable to code-division multiple access (CDMA) techniques by slicing the available code space along time-code domains, frequency-code domains or, in three dimensions, along time-frequency-code domains. Users may be efficiently scheduled based on code space requirements so as to optimize use of the communication medium.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.