Patent Application
20230422237
The term “wireless” normally refers to an electrical or electronic operation, which is accomplished without the use of a “hard wired” connection. “Wireless communications” is the transfer of information over a distance without the use of electrical conductors or wires. The distances involved may be short (a few meters for television remote controls) or very long (thousands or even millions of kilometers for radio communications). The best-known example of wireless communications is the cellular telephone. Cellular telephones use radio waves to enable an operator to make phone calls to another party, from many locations worldwide. They can be used anywhere, as long as there is a cellular telephone site to house equipment that can transmit and receive signals, which are processed to transfer both voice and data to and from the cellular telephones.
Power saving is always an important issue in developing a wireless communication device. As the function of the cellular telephone (or named mobile station) or any wireless communication device becomes more powerful nowadays, the power consumption speed of the wireless communication device is getting faster. Various techniques can be leveraged within wireless communication systems to enhance power savings for wireless communication devices. For instance, discontinuous reception (DRX) can be employed, such that a wireless communication device can be permitted to forgo monitoring a control channel for a period of time. Thus, the wireless communication device can be in DRX mode (e.g., sleep) for a period of time and active mode (e.g., awake, monitoring the control channel, etc.) for a disparate period of time, and the power consumption for monitoring the control channel can be reduced.
However, the communication quality may degrade due to the forgoing of monitoring the control channel for the period of time. Therefore, an intelligent method for scheduling reception activity of a communication apparatus with reduced power consumption while maintaining the communication quality is highly required.
According to an embodiment of the invention, a communication apparatus comprises a radio transceiver and a processor. The radio transceiver transmits or receives wireless signals to or from a network device in a wireless network. The processor is coupled to the radio transceiver and the application processor and configured to perform operations comprising: collecting information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus; determining a scenario of the communication apparatus according to the information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus; determining one or more reception related parameters according to the scenario of the communication apparatus; and scheduling one or more reception activities in at least one Discontinuous Reception (DRX) off duration according to the one or more reception related parameters.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a method for scheduling reception activity of a communication apparatus to receive wireless signals from a network device in a wireless network, comprising: collecting information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus; determining a scenario of the communication apparatus according to the information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus; determining one or more reception related parameters according to the scenario of the communication apparatus; and scheduling one or more reception activities in at least one Discontinuous Reception (DRX) off duration according to the one or more reception related parameters.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
The transmitter 111 and the receiver 112 of the radio transceiver 110 may comprise a plurality of hardware devices to perform radio frequency (RF) conversion and RF signal processing. For example, the transmitter 111 and/or the receiver 112 may comprise a power amplifier for amplifying the RF signals, a filter for filtering unwanted portions of the RF signals and/or a mixer for performing radio frequency conversion. According to an embodiment of the invention, the radio frequency may be, for example, the frequency of any specific frequency band for a LTE system, the frequency of any specific frequency band for a 5G NR system, or the frequency of any specific frequency band for a WiFi system, etc.
The modem 120 may be configured to handle corresponding communications protocol operations and processing the IF or baseband signals received from or to be transmitted to the radio transceiver 110. The application processor 130 is configured to run the operating system of the communication apparatus 100 and run application programs installed in the communication apparatus 100. In the embodiments of the invention, the modem 120 and the application processor 130 may be designed as discrete chips with some buses or hardware interfaces coupled therebetween, or they may be integrated into a combo chip (i.e., a system on chip (SoC)), and the invention should not be limited thereto.
The subscriber identity module 140 may be configured for a SIM, USIM, R-UIM or CSIM card, or the like. The memory device 150 may be coupled to the modem 120 and application processor 130 and may store system data or user data.
It should be noted that, in order to clarify the concept of the invention,
In some embodiments of the invention, the communication apparatus is capable of supporting multiple radio access technologies (RATs) communications. In addition, those who are skilled in this technology can still make various alterations and modifications based on the descriptions given above to derive the communication apparatuses comprising multiple radio transceivers and/or multiple antenna modules for supporting multi-RAT wireless communications without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention. Therefore, in some embodiments of the invention, the communication apparatus may be designed to support a multi-card application, in either a single-standby or a multiple-standby manner, by making some alterations and modifications.
It should be further noted that the subscriber identity module 140 may be connected with hardware cards, or in some embodiments of the invention, there may be virtual cards, such as individual identifiers, numbers, addresses, or the like which are burned in the internal memory device of the corresponding modem and are capable of identifying the communication apparatus. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to what is shown in the figures.
It should be further noted that in some embodiments of the invention, the communication apparatus may further support multiple
According to an embodiment of the invention, the baseband processing device 221 may be designed to have the capability of handling the baseband signal processing operations for different RATs and processing the corresponding IF or baseband signals in compliance with the corresponding communications protocols, so as to support the multi-RAT wireless communications. According to another embodiment of the invention, the baseband processing device 221 may comprise a plurality of sub-units, each being designed to have the capability of handling the baseband signal processing operations of one or more specific RATs and processing the corresponding IF or baseband signals in compliance with the corresponding communications protocols, so as to support the multi-RAT wireless communications. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to any specific way of implementation.
The modem processor 222 may control the operations of the modem 220. According to an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 may be arranged to execute the program codes of the corresponding software module of the modem 220. The modem processor 222 may maintain and execute the individual tasks, threads, and/or protocol stacks for different software modules. In an embodiment, a protocol stack may be implemented so as to respectively handle the radio activities of one RAT. However, it is also possible to implement more than one protocol stack to handle the radio activities of one RAT at the same time, or implement only one protocol stack to handle the radio activities of more than one RAT at the same time, and the invention should not be limited thereto.
The modem processor 222 may also read data from the subscriber identity card coupled to the modem, and write data to the subscriber identity card. The internal memory device 223 may store system data and user data for the modem 220. The modem processor 222 may also access the internal memory device 223.
The network module 224 provides Internet access services for the communication apparatus. It should be noted that, although the network module 224 shown in
It should be noted that, in order to clarify the concept of the invention,
It should be further noted that in some embodiments of the invention, the modem may also comprise more than one processor and/or more than one baseband processing device. For example, the modem may comprise multiple processors and/or multiple baseband processing devices for supporting multi-RAT operations. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to what is shown in
It should be further noted that in some embodiments of the invention, the baseband processing device 221 and the modem processor 222 may be integrated into one processing unit, and the modem may comprise one or multiple such processing units, for supporting multi-RAT operations. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to what is shown in
According to an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 and the application processor 130 may comprise a plurality of logics, each, designed for handling one or more functionalities. The logics may be configured to execute the program codes of one or more software and/or firmware modules, thereby performing the corresponding operations. When performing the corresponding operations by executing the corresponding programs, the logics may be regarded as dedicated hardware devices or circuits, such as dedicated processor sub-units. Generally, the modem processor 222 may be configured to perform operations of relative lower protocol layers while the application processor 130 may be configured to perform operations of relative higher protocol layers.
However, due to various measurement requirements, a conventional UE still needs to wake up during the “Sleep Mode” to perform some measurements, such as measurements of one or more reference signals, and these measurements indeed cause extra power consumption for the UE. To solve this problem, an intelligent method for scheduling reception activity of a communication apparatus with reduced power consumption while maintaining the communication quality is proposed.
According to an embodiment of the invention, when the modem processor 222 schedules one or more reception activities in at least one DRX off duration for receiving the reference signal (RS) according to the one or more reception related parameters determined in step S406, a final RS Scheduling Pattern may be generated and provided for the radio transceiver 110 to perform the one or more scheduled reception activities, so as to receive the corresponding RS at the corresponding time based on the final RS scheduling pattern. The modem processor 222 may then perform the corresponding measurements on the received RS.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 may repeatedly perform the operations or steps illustrated in
According to an embodiment of the invention, the information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus may be collected based on at least one parameter of the communication apparatus 100, and the at least one parameter may be at least one of: a throughput (e.g. the uplink and/or downlink traffic loading), a gesture, an accelerator output, a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS), a Block Error Rate (BLER), a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and mutual information.
In an embodiment of the invention, the throughput or the uplink and/or downlink traffic loading may be monitored or counted (or calculated) by either the modem processor 222 or the application processor 130, or both. When both the modem processor 222 and the application processor 130 have monitored, counted and/or calculated the throughput or the traffic loading, the statistic results may be averaged or weighted and then combined to obtain a final statistic result.
In an embodiment of the invention, the gesture of the communication apparatus 100 and the accelerator output may be obtained from the application processor 130. As an example, the communication apparatus 100 may be equipped with a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a pose sensor, a location sensor and/or an activity sensor, and those devices may be controlled by the application processor 130.
In an embodiment of the invention, the MCS may be configured by the network device in the downlink control information (DCI), and the modem processor 222 may count or calculate the BLER based on the error occurred in receiving signals from the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).
In an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 may calculate the SNR for the measurement of the reference signal. As an example, the modem processor 222 may calculate the SNR for the Tracking Reference Signal (TRS), the Synchronization Signal/ Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) Block (SSB), Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS), PDCCH deModulation Reference Signal (dmrs), PDSCH dmrs, or the likes.
In an embodiment of the invention, the mutual information may be an indicator indicating the signal quality and may be obtained during the process when the modem processor 222 is performing channel estimation and PDSCH decoding.
In an embodiment of the invention, the collected information regarding network and operation of the communication apparatus may also comprise the RRC configuration information. As an example, the modem processor 222 may obtain the periodicity of the DRX cycle, a length of the ON/OFF duration of the DRX cycle, the position of the ON/OFF duration of the DRX cycle, the settings of the DRX related timers and the positions and configurations of the reference signals from the RRC configuration information.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the one or more reception related parameters may comprise a cycle muting indicator Cycle_Muting_Ind indicating a ratio of a number of unmuting DRX cycles to a number of configured DRX cycles. In the embodiments of the invention, when scheduling the one or more reception activities in step S408, the modem processor 222 may schedule one or more reception activities in a DRX off duration of an unmuting DRX cycle and not schedule any reception activity in a DRX off duration of a muting DRX cycle. As an example, when the cycle muting indicator Cycle_Muting_Ind is set to 1:4, it means that there is 1 unmuting DRX cycle among 4 configured DRX cycles. In other words, among 4 successive DRX cycles, there are 3 muting DRX cycles and 1 unmuting DRX cycle.
Note that in some embodiments of the invention, the cycle muting indicator Cycle_Muting_Ind may also be regarded as or may be converted to a down-sampling rate. As an example, when the cycle muting indicator Cycle_Muting_Ind is set to 1:4, the down-sampling rate is 4. That is, among 4 configured DRX cycles, only 1 DRX cycle will be unmuted in its DRX off duration and the rest 3 DRX cycles will be muted (i.e. no reception activities will be scheduled in their DRX off duration). Therefore, as compared to the conventional art in which the DRX off duration of all DRX cycles are practically unmuted and are scheduled with reception activities (for example, reception activities for neighbor cell measurement or channel estimation), based on the proposed method, the down-sampling rate for down-sampling the unmuting DRX cycles (i.e. the DRX cycles having the DRX off durations that cannot sleep and still have to wake up and perform reception activities for RS measurement) is increased from 1 (that is, no down-sampling) to 4.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the one or more reception related parameters may further comprise a reference signal muting indicator RS_Muting_Ind indicating a reception activity of which reference signal is to be scheduled in the DRX off duration of the unmuting DRX cycle. Note that the reference signal muting indicator RS_Muting_Ind also indicates the reception activity of which reference signal is not to be scheduled (that is, muted) in the DRX off duration of the unmuting DRX cycle.
As an example, the reference signal muting indicator RS_Muting_Ind may indicate the reception activities of both the SSB and TRS are to be scheduled in the DRX off duration of one or more subsequent unmuting DRX cycles for SSB measurements and TRS measurements, or only the reception activities of the SSB are to be scheduled in the DRX off duration of one or more subsequent unmuting DRX cycles for SSB measurements (thus, the reception activities of the TRS are muted in the one or more subsequent unmuting DRX cycles), or only the reception activities of the TRS are to be scheduled in the DRX off duration of one or more subsequent unmuting DRX cycles for TRS measurements (thus, the reception activities of the SSB are muted in the one or more subsequent unmuting DRX cycles), or the likes.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the one or more reception related parameters further comprise a reference signal window indicator RS_Win_Ind indicating which reception window of the reference signal to be scheduled is selected for scheduling the reception activity of the reference signal. Generally, the network device may transmit the reference signals for more than one time, thus creating a plurality of reception windows for each reference signal. When there are more than one reception window for receiving a predetermined reference signal in the subsequent unmuting DRX cycle, the modem processor 222 may select the one having a location that is closest to the DRX ON duration or select the one that is fully or partially overlapping the DRX ON duration, so as to further reduce the power consumption.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 may be configured to determine the scenario of the communication apparatus 100 in two stages, for considering the status of the communication apparatus 100 from different aspects. In a first stage of scenario determination, the modem processor 222 may determine a motion status of the communication apparatus 100, and in a second stage of scenario determination, the modem processor 222 may determine a traffic loading of the communication apparatus 100.
In addition, in response to the scenarios individually determined in two stages, the modem processor 222 may determine a first cycle muting indicator based on the motion status of the communication apparatus 100 determined in the first stage of scenario determination, determine a second cycle muting indicator based on the traffic loading of the communication apparatus 100 determined in the second stage of scenario determination, and determine a final cycle muting indicator according to the first cycle muting indicator and the second cycle muting indicator.
In an embodiment of the invention, the modem processor 222 may directly take the strict one as the final cycle muting indicator. As an example, if the first cycle muting indicator is determined as 1:4 and the second cycle muting indicator is determined as 1:8, the modem processor 222 may directly take the strict one (e.g. the first cycle muting indicator having smaller down-sampling rate) as the final cycle muting indicator.
Note that in the embodiments of the invention, a maximum down-sampling rate (or a cycle muting indicator threshold) may be pre-determined for each motion status as well as each traffic loading scenario, and the modem processor 222 may determine a corresponding cycle muting indicator that is not greater than the corresponding maximum down-sampling in steps S502 and 5504.
As previously described, the reception related parameters and the scheduling of one or more reception activities may be dynamically or adaptively adjusted in real-time based on the latest collected information. For example, when the latest collected information, such as a decreased SNR or an increased BLER, shows degradation in communication quality or performance, the modem processor 222 may decrease the down-sampling rate and/or determine not to perform RS muting, so as to perform measurement more frequently. On the contrary, when the latest collected information, such as an increased SNR or a decreased BLER, shows improvement in communication quality or performance, the modem processor 222 may increase the down-sampling rate and/or perform more RS muting, so as to perform measurement less frequently for reducing extra power consumption in the DRX off durations.
In addition, in an embodiment of the invention, during the DRX on duration, the modem processor 222 may determine whether the communication apparatus 100 still has to wake up and perform reception activities for RS measurement in the following DRX off duration, and determine the RS Scheduling Pattern as discussed above when it is determined that the communication apparatus 100 has to wake up and perform reception activities for RS measurement in the following DRX off duration.
By applying the proposed method for smart scheduling reception activity of a communication apparatus in the DRX off duration, a result of low power consumption can be achieved while maintain good communication quality.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202210745855.1 | Jun 2022 | CN | national |
