Patent · US Active

Method, apparatus and computer program for uplink scheduling in a network that employs relay nodes

US8248941B2 · kind B2 · utility

9Cited by
16References
28Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 1, 2008
Grant dateAug 21, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 23, 2029

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04W88/04
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

User equipments UEs send their buffer status reports and data to a relay node RN. The RN stores the data in actual buffers per radio bearer group RBG, and stores the UEs buffer occupancies in virtual buffers per RBG. The RN then sends its own status report to the controlling eNBr with the actual buffer occupancy and information about the virtual buffer occupancy. This enables the eNBr to know in advance the volume of data incoming to the RN's actual buffers, as well as the current occupancy of those buffers, so as to better allocate radio resources. Further, the RN can take soundings of the uplink channels between UEs and the RN, which are then aggregated across the RBRs and sent to the eNBr as a special UL CQI report. The eNBr is thereby enabled to anticipate how soon the data in the UE buffers will appear in the RN's actual buffers (from the additional information of average UL CQI info and virtual buffer status), and thus better allocate the RBRs to be used for the different RBGs in the RN-eNB link as well as the optimal set of RBRs to the UE-RN link, which the RN can redistribute among the UEs that it is serving.

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