The present invention relates to an improved management of radio resources in a radio access network.
A radio access network is the cellular mobile radio network where user equipments get access to supplied communication services through radio links. It includes Base Transceiver Stations (BTS), which transmit and receive radio signals to and from the user equipments, and Base Station Controllers (BSC), which is in control of communication links. The Base Station Controllers are connected to a core network, which interfaces the radio access network with other public network, e.g. the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).
Cellular mobile radio networks have evolved from analogue cellular systems, which mainly focus on voice transmission services, via digital cellular systems to 3rd generation digital cellular systems, which are capable of handling multi-media transmission services such as voice, image, video, and data, using wider bandwidths than the predecessor systems.
In order to realise those flexible services, the Radio Resource Management (RRM) function, which is implemented in the radio access network, has evolved accordingly. Radio resource management in 3rd generation systems, when regarded as system building blocks, basically incorporates four sub-systems: The admission control sub-system is responsible for admitting as many user equipments as possible and promising a requested quality of service during their sessions. The congestion control sub-system is responsible for control of the user equipments in the network and providing the requested quality of service. Link adaptation provides the appropriate channel coding, multiplexing and transmission so that the required SNIR for the link is enhanced. Finally, scheduling controls that as many data as possible are transmitted for the given requirements on quality of service.
In telecommunication networks, and particularly in radio-based communication networks, it is desirable to have a good knowledge about available network resources and the user equipments using said resources. This is especially crucial with regard to a maximised usage of traffic capacity, advanced communication services requiring flexibility and a higher quality of service.
It is thus an object of the present invention to achieve an improved scheduling and thus an optimisation of the usage of radio network resources.
It is the principal idea of the present invention that the radio resource management of a communication network can be improved by means of improving the information that is provided to the responsible resource management units. Such improvement is achieved by collecting various types of information from various sources and by refining said information in order to achieve an increased predictability of parameters that determine the resource needs of the network.
This idea is realised by the method and system according to the present invention consisting of a number of functional units, which can be implemented in one or several network units. The system includes means for receiving and processing a variety of incoming information about the network and/or the user equipments, e.g., relating to network propagation conditions or service requirements, means for storing this information appropriately and achieving statistics for refining of said information. This statistics can then be used for prediction of services and channel properties, which can be provided as output information to, e.g., the Radio Resource Management of the communication network.
It is an advantage of the present invention that decisions for radio resource management and network planning can be made in a more intelligent and cognitive way.
It is another advantage of the present invention that the information for resource management is more detailed and can be updated dynamically in order to provide better resource planning.
It is still another advantage of the present invention that an adaptive inter-system service handover becomes available, thus providing an extended admission and/or congestion control incorporating other systems that are different from the system of interest into the RRM-handling range.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and claims.
For a better understanding, reference is made to the following drawings and preferred embodiments of the invention.
a and 3b illustrate a capacity estimate for an estimated movement of a user equipment in relation to quality requirements of said user equipment.
a-5f illustrate some typical power delay profiles and angular profiles for certain propagation conditions.
a shows an improvement by help of the present invention for an adaptive array antenna set of a receiver and
Principally, the received input data can be distinguished into information 111 relating to a specific geographic position within a certain area, e.g. a cell, or information 112 relating to the behavior of user equipments, or the users itself, which use communication services of the network within a given area. The provided information can relate on the one hand to radio propagation conditions, i.e. channel properties and conditions on the uplink and/or downlink, and, on the other hand, to communication services, either as requested by the user equipments or provided by the network. Input information can further be regarded as dynamic parameters that change, e.g., periodically depending on the time of day, due to certain events or in response to other outer parameters. Said information can be retrieved either by active measurements initiated by the system 10 or based on feedback information that network units or user equipments within the network return to the system. Additional information 113, which is not retrievable by the system itself, can be obtained by help of an external input, e.g. the network operator. Such additional information can be useful, e.g., when initialising or expanding a network or due to outer changes of the system preconditions, e.g. a major change within the cell terrain or new service requirements within a certain area. The present invention thus aims to make use of a variety of different parameters and processing in order to increase prediction reliability and, thus, the performance of the radio access network.
Regarding the first group of input data relating to the geographic position, a cell can be considered to consist of areas with different prerequisites with regard to radio propagation conditions, e.g. due to the given terrain, buildings or other obstacles which have an influence on the radio propagation. These conditions can be reflected by channel estimates of the uplink or downlink, which can be parameterised, e.g., by help of the complex channel impulse response. From this function it is possible to derive further parameters describing the radio conditions, e.g. in form of a power delay profile, average propagation delay times, or the path loss. Further, the cell can also be sub-divided according to prerequisites related to the behavior of the user equipment, e.g. regarding the expected demands on channel capacity caused by the type of service requirements and the amount and distribution of such requirements that can be regarded to be typical within a certain area. Such a service requirement distribution depends of course also on the influence of infrastructure and terrain prerequisites and the distribution of user equipments within said areas. In general, all kinds of parameters that might be interesting for cell planning can also be regarded to be relevant as input information for the system prediction database according to the present invention.
The other group of input parameters relates to the user equipments and, if possible, to the users itself. Any radio resource management cannot be efficiently optimised by only relying on the given prerequisites of the radio access network. In addition, such management must also include the behavior and requirements of the user equipments within the environment that is served by said network. As distinguished above, such information relates, e.g., to geographic prerequisites resulting in information about position and movement, i.e. velocity and other appropriate derivates of higher order. It is a basic insight of the present invention that an increased knowledge of said movement of user equipments within an area also increases the predictability of the channel capacity of said user equipments and, by that means, the overall network performance and satisfaction of the individual user equipment. The user equipment can also be characterised by means of its typical behavior with respect to applied services, i.e. which kinds of services the user equipment requires, the duration of service sessions, and at which times. This information can be combined, e.g., with the user identity or the subscription type of the user equipment. Parameters related to user equipments can be used to achieve a more generalised model of user equipments, e.g. a typical user equipment within a certain cell area and/or related to the time of day, or, if possible, to achieve a generalised model of the behavior of the individual user equipment.
The specific advantage of an increased predictability of the needed network resources, their distribution with regard to time and location, and the performance requirements is achieved by combining the different types of received input parameters. The system according to the present invention is capable to combine and use the variety of different types of input parameters for a further processing that allows an optimisation of the resource management of the network, and thus the network system capacity, with regard to radio access conditions and service requirements seen as function over time for a certain coverage area of the radio access network serving user equipments with specific behaviours within said coverage area.
Received input data is first handled by a pre-processing unit 12, which has the task to sort and filter the incoming information that is supplied by the various inputs 111,112,113. A sorting of said data provides then the corresponding input data to the functional units of the inventive system. For an example embodiment of the present invention as described below, the input data can be sorted, e.g., into data relating to radio requirements or relating to service requirements either with regard to the user equipment or the network, respectively. Another task of the pre-processing unit 12 is to convert the received information in a way that simplifies further processing, e.g. by help of quantising and/or normalising received data, and to compress said data in order to efficiently use the storing facilities that are necessary to perform the following statistical evaluation of the provided input data. Compressing of information may include, inter alia, a categorisation of data into clusters of information that represents, e.g., a certain geographical area or a restriction of the processed data on a selection of relevant information data that is forwarded to the system. Optionally, the data can be stored in a quantised form covering a finite number of levels in order to make storing more feasible.
The system according to the present invention can provide improved information and parameter prediction by help of a statistic processing of received input data. Information that has been identified to be radio related parameters can be forwarded to a channel statistics sub-function 142, which evaluates and predicts the radio propagation characteristics for selected areas of a cell. The channel statistics sub-function processes said data by help of a channel statistics database 132 but also by using other kinds of available input information. By help of said database 132 the radio access network can achieve a proactive low-layer resource allocation and catch-up control to improve link quality. The information of the channel statistics database 132 can advantageously be used for a short-term optimisation of the system capacity, i.e. optimised link adaptation and resource scheduling of each user equipment depending on its location, while maintaining the required quality of service. In analogy to this, the system 10 also provides a service requirement sub-function 141 for evaluating received information and delivering prediction values regarding the availability and requirements of certain services. The service requirement sub-function 141 processes said data by help of a service statistics database 131 and other appropriate information delivered by the system input 111,112,113. The output of the channel statistics sub-function 142 and the service requirement sub-function 141 can be forwarded to other units of the radio network, e.g. the radio resource management 161 or lower layer functions 162 as illustrated in
There are several parameters that can be taken into account for representation of a channel profile. The following indicates by means of example some of these parameters. The power delay profile, as illustrated in
where hn (τ) is the nth measured sample of the complex channel impulse response, N the number of impulse response measurements, and Pn denotes the received power of the nth measured sample of the complex channel impulse response, i.e. Pn=∫|hn, (τ)|2dτ. In a real system, hn (τ) is handled as a function in the discrete time-domain formed by path positions τ0,τ1, . . .,τL−1, which are detected by a path searcher. When L denotes the number of detected paths, the channel impulse response, and accordingly the power delay profile, is represented by an L-dimensional vector.
In analogy to this, an angular profile Ω(θ), which is a normalised average received power angular profile, can be defined as
where gn (θ) is the nth measured sample of the complex angular profile of received signals arriving at the antenna, N the number of angular profile measurements, and PAn denotes the received power of the nth measured sample of the complex angular profile, i.e. PAn=∫|gn (θ)|2dθ. In a real antenna system, gn (τ) is handled as a function on a discrete angle domain formed by the angles of arrival θ0, θ1, . . . ,θL−1, which are detected by an adaptive antenna system. When L denotes the number of detected paths, the power angular profile is represented by an L-dimensional vector.
Another channel profile parameter is the average received power for a desired user equipment Pav=<Pn>, whereby Pn is the received power of the nth measured sample of the complex channel impulse response, as described above, and the function <·> denotes the ensemble average over n samples. This parameter can be used, e.g., for an estimation of the average channel quality in service operation.
When using the power delay profile p(τ), as defined above, as a probability density function of a delay time τit is possible to define an RMS delay spread
whereby
denotes the average delay time. These parameters can be used for an estimation of a high speed data link capability to link adaptation.
A further channel profile parameter for estimation of the required transmission power but also for an estimate of the service coverage and hand-over requirements is the path loss, which can be defined as PL=10·log|PT/Pav|where PT represents the TX-power of the user equipment of interest and Pav represents the average received power for such a user equipment as defined above.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the system also receives and processes information relating to services that are provided by the network. In the same way as it is important to have a knowledge about the radio propagation conditions at the various locations within a cell of a network, it is also beneficial to have a good knowledge about the type of services that are requested within said areas. Such information can be applied, inter alia, to achieve a statistical measurement, e.g. regarding the need for resource allocation or quality of service, or at which time which types of services are requested. When combined with the channel prediction information the service requirement statistics can be applied, e.g., for decisions that have an influence on the network resource allocation during a longer time such as admission control or congestion control. Examples of service parameters that can be stored in a service requirement statistics database are the average traffic congestion level, the average interference level along with certain requirements on quality of service that must be fulfilled in a cell. Another aspect for a service requirement statistics is the service availability of other communication systems, e.g. various types of local area networks. Service parameters, e.g. the congestion or interference level, should preferably be accompanied by a time information of an appropriate resolution, e.g. in terms of hours, day, or month, so that the radio access network can identify or anticipate the average traffic status for a specific location where a user equipment of interest stays or intends to move to.
From the information that the system has collected and appropriately stored in the system database the channel prediction sub-function can now calculate prediction values for the channel profile parameters by using the a-priori refined information of the channel statistics database. Correspondingly, a service requirement prediction sub-function can predict the necessary amount of resources with regard to offered and required services in the cell and the momentary cell load. From said received and/or refined information it is now possible to achieve various kinds of prediction values that can be used for further management purposes as will be explained below. Such prediction values rely on the fact that the stored information has an increased degree of reliability and remains predictable for a certain time period, which can be retrieved, e.g., by help of analysing the received feedback information or by external adjustments. The reliability of the prediction values can be evaluated from previously stored information, statistical measures, e.g. mean value and variance, or other kind of information. The predictable time period will, on the other hand, also be an input parameter for the system how often the channel measurement values must be updated.
a and 3b illustrate a capacity estimate for an estimated movement of a user equipment 31 in relation to quality requirements of said user equipment. The movement of the user equipment 31 through a cell area is described by help of a function s(r,t) depicting the location r of a user equipment together with a time reference value t. As illustrated in
The following illustrates an example of a support for a radio resource management function. The system according to the present invention provides the advantage that it is possible to achieve a resource management planning based on previously stored and refined information that relates on the one hand to demands on the communication network due to service requirements and on the other hand information that relates to the actual radio conditions of said network. The system according to the present invention can now extract a prediction information report for other network units that can be used, e.g., for purposes of a more efficient radio resource management in order to achieve or maintain a certain quality of service. When assuming a limited amount of resources in the radio access network, the radio resource management function must distribute these resources according to a certain strategy, e.g. in order to achieve a high total throughput given a certain level for the quality of service.
Key parameters for defining the quality of service are, e.g., the user bit rate and time delay. The system generates for a specific user equipment prediction values for the assumed movement of the user equipment and the present situation of the user equipment with regard to radio propagation conditions, e.g. described by the power delay profile, and/or service requirements of this specific user equipment and offered services in the area where said user equipment is located for the moment. From this information it is possible to predict the user channel and, thus, estimate the channel capacity for a given fixed transmission power with regard to various link adaptation and transmission schemes. Similarly, the system can predict a measure of the bit rate, e.g. as a maximum possible bit rate or a mean value thereof, that can be provided to the user equipment together with a measure of the time delay between the arrival of a data packet and the correct reception of said packet.
The estimated information, which is build on prediction values derived by the system according to the present invention can now be used as a possible contribution to a radio resource management strategy. The present invention allows the implementation of an intelligent scheduling mechanism: It uses predicted information about the movements of a user equipment and the radio conditions that are perceived by said user equipment. It applies said predicted information to schedule data of services with certain requirements on quality of service depending on the momentary and predicted channel capacity of said user equipment. One conceivable strategy can be to minimise the resource usage of each user equipment, e.g. the average transmission power, by help of the knowledge about the achievable channel capacity per user equipment and acceptable time delays for data packets in the system. According to another approach this knowledge could also be used to support a distribution of resources according to a certain scheme that is suggested by the radio resource management.
The following describes a further example of the usage of the status prediction database according to the present invention. The database content, in particular the prediction of movements of the user equipments, provides information for an improved prediction of channel and service requirements for each user equipment. This information is then used as a support for, e.g., admission and congestion control, scheduling, modulation, and link adaptation. This support is in particular beneficial for non-real time data.
The present invention thus categorises cell profile information of a cell area in such a way that it can be used for radio resource and service predictions of user equipments moving around in such an area. For instance, the cell area, which is shown in
This is a part of the information, which is stored in the status prediction database and can be retrieved and applied for various purposes.
In case of an angular profile application, the status prediction database 761, 762 can provide angular profile information to an adaptive array antenna, sometimes also referred to as “beam former”, which is introduced in cellular systems in order to increase the system capacity space-wise.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/SE04/01382 | 9/28/2004 | WO | 3/22/2007 |