Method and apparatus for inter-system handover

US8208925B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• QUALCOMM Incorporated · US

Inventors

• Rashid Ahmed Akbar Attar · San Diego, US
• Durga Prasad Malladi · San Diego, US
• Francesco Grilli · San Diego, US
• Kirti Gupta · San Diego, US
• Lorenzo Casaccia · Roma, IT
• Nathan Edward Tenny · Poway, US
• Oronzo Flore · Ostuni, IT

Key dates

• Filing date: May 4, 2011
• Grant date: Jun 26, 2012
• Expiry date: May 4, 2031

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04W36/38
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

An inter-system handover system for a wireless communication system supports hand-down and hand-up of user equipment (UE) to different radio access technologies, including synchronous and asynchronous systems. Latency and handover connection failures are reduced by an access node (nodeB) broadcasting information about neighboring systems (targets) when the UE reception (RX) capability is both inside or outside the reception range of the target. A single RX chain is sufficient, although transitioning between a wireless wide area network (WWAN) to a wireless local area network may (WLAN) may advantageously benefit from simultaneous operation on two Rx chains. Optimized list of neighboring RAT systems (targets) are broadcast from the network, including measurement parameters and reporting instructions. Thereby, UE-driven reporting minimizes latencies. UE reports other-system searches to network only if needed for a handover. In addition, handover requests can be bundled with other-system measurement information, if necessary, for additional efficiencies.