Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communications systems, and more particularly to small cells and the like.
Wireless communications networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. In cellular networks, macro base stations (or macro cells or conventional base stations) provide connectivity and coverage to a large number of users over a certain geographical area that may typically range from a few hundred meters across (e.g. in an urban area) to a few tens of kilometers across (e.g. in a rural area). To supplement macro base stations, restricted power or restricted coverage base stations, referred to as small coverage base stations, small cell base stations, femtocells or small cells, can be deployed to provide more robust wireless coverage and capacity to mobile devices. As used herein, the term “small cell” may refer to an access point or to a corresponding coverage area of the access point, where the access point in this case has a relatively low transmit power or relatively small coverage as compared to, for example, the transmit power or coverage area of a macro network base station or macro cell. Therefore, the term “small cell,” as used herein, refers to a relatively low transmit power and/or a relatively small coverage area cell as compared to a macro cell.
The deployment of small cell base stations may provide incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, in-building or other specific geographic coverage, and so on. While small cells may most typically be deployed at fixed locations such as in outdoor dense urban environments or inside buildings, deployment of small cells at mobile locations such as inside vehicles, trains, ships or airplanes may also be considered as a means to extend network wireless coverage to a greater number of users. However, deployment of small cells at mobile locations may introduce new challenges for providing certain services such as emergency calls that are traditionally only offered to users accessing macrocells and small cells at fixed locations. For example, one challenge may be to ensure that an emergency call is routed to the correct local PSAP supporting emergency calls at the location of a mobile small cell even though the mobile small cell may have no permanent association with any one PSAP. Another challenge may be to ensure that the PSAP is able to locate the user who is accessing the mobile small cell even though the location of the mobile small cell may be frequently changing.
The following presents a simplified summary of one or more aspects in order to provide a basic understanding of such aspects. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated aspects, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all aspects not delineate the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
The present disclosure presents various examples of methods, apparatus, devices, and systems for Vehicular Small Cell (VSC) data transport and emergency calls.
In one aspect, a method at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for transporting data on behalf of a first wireless device is described in which a first device bearer corresponding to a link from the first wireless device through the small cell to a home network is identified, a first network bearer corresponding to a link from the small cell to a serving network is identified, and the first device bearer is mapped to the first network bearer to transport data between the first wireless device and the home network.
In another aspect, an apparatus at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for transporting data on behalf of a first wireless device is described that includes a first identifier component configured to identify a first device bearer corresponding to a link from the first wireless device through the small cell to a home network, a second identifier component configured to identify a first network bearer corresponding to a link from the small cell to a serving network device, and a mapping component configured to map the first device bearer to the first network bearer to transport data between the first wireless device and the home network.
In another aspect, a computer-readable medium storing computer executable code for using a small cell deployed in a vehicle for transporting data on behalf of a first wireless device is described that includes code for identifying a first device bearer corresponding to a link from the first wireless device through the small cell to a home network, code for identifying a first network bearer corresponding to a link from the small cell to a serving network, and code for mapping the first device bearer to the first network bearer to transport data between the first wireless device and the home network.
In yet another aspect, an apparatus at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for transporting data on behalf of the first wireless device is described that includes means for identifying a first device bearer corresponding to a link from the first wireless device through the small cell to a home network, means for identifying a first network bearer corresponding to a link from the small cell to a serving network, and means for mapping the first device bearer to the first network bearer to transport data between the first wireless device and the home network.
In another aspect, a method at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for identifying the location of a wireless device is described in which a communication with a positioning server (e.g., an enhanced serving mobile location center (E-SMLC)) is enabled using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is enabled using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network, a location request is received from the positioning server for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call, and the positioning server is provided through the communication with the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a wireless local area network (WLAN) (e.g., Wi-Fi) connection.
In another aspect, an apparatus at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for identifying the location of a wireless device is described that includes a communications component configured to enable communication with a positioning server (e.g., an E-SMLC) in a home network using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is enabled using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network, a receiver configured to receive a location request from the positioning server for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call. The apparatus may also include a location information component configured to determine location information for the wireless device. The communications component may be further configured to provide, to the positioning server through the communication, the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
In another aspect, a computer-readable medium storing computer executable code for using a small cell deployed in a vehicle for identifying the location of a wireless is described that includes code for enabling communication with a positioning server (e.g., an E-SMLC) in a home network using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is enabled using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network, code for receiving a location request from the positioning server for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call, code for determining location information for the wireless device, and code for providing, to the positioning server through the communication, the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
In yet another aspect, an apparatus at a small cell deployed in a vehicle for identifying the location of a wireless device is described that includes means for establishing communication with a positioning server (e.g. an E-SMLC) in a home network using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is established using a wireless backhaul connection with a serving network and is in response to a location request received by the positioning server for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call, means for determining location information for the wireless device, and means for providing, to the positioning server through the communication, the location information.
In another aspect, a method at a network device (e.g. a positioning server such as an E-SMLC) in a home network for identifying the location of a wireless device is described in which communication with a small cell deployed in a vehicle is established using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is established using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network and is in response to a location request being received at the network device for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call. The method may also include sending a location request to the small cell for location information for the wireless device, receiving location information for the wireless device from the small cell and determining the location of the wireless device using the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
In another aspect, an apparatus at a network device (e.g. a positioning server such as an E-SMLC) in a home network for identifying the location of a wireless device is described that includes a communications component configured to establish communication with a small cell deployed in a vehicle using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is established using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network and is in response to a location request being received at the network device for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call. The communications component may be further configured for sending a location request to the small cell for location information for the wireless device and receiving location information for the wireless device from the small cell. The apparatus may further include a location information component for determining the location of the wireless device using the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
In yet another aspect, a computer-readable medium storing computer executable code for using a small cell deployed in a vehicle for identifying the location of a wireless device is described that includes: code for establishing communication with a small cell deployed in a vehicle using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is established using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network and is in response to a location request being received for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call; code for sending a location request to the small cell for location information for the wireless device; code for receiving location information for the wireless device from the small cell; and code for determining the location of the wireless device using the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
In another aspect, an apparatus at a network device (e.g. a positioning server such as an E-SMLC) for identifying the location of a wireless device is described that includes: means for establishing communication with a small cell deployed in a vehicle using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is established using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network and is in response to a location request being received at the network device for the location of the wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call; means for sending a location request to the small cell for location information for the wireless device; means for receiving location information for the wireless device from the small cell; and means for determining the location of the wireless device using the location information. The wireless backhaul connection to the serving network may be based on a WLAN connection.
To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the one or more aspects comprise the features hereinafter fully described and particularly pointed out in the disclosure. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative features of the one or more aspects. These features are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various aspects may be employed, and this description is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents.
The detailed description set forth below in connection with the appended drawings is intended as a description of various configurations and is not intended to represent the only configurations in which the concepts described herein may be practiced. The detailed description includes specific details for the purpose of providing a thorough understanding of various concepts. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that these concepts may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well known structures and components are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring such concepts.
As noted above, wireless communications networks are widely deployed to provide various services. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). The UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide common protocols that enable different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example of a recent telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standards promulgated by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). LTE is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum, and better integrating with other open standards using OFDMA on the downlink (DL), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there exists a need for further improvements in LTE technology. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.
In cellular networks, where macro base stations are used for connectivity and coverage to a large number of users, a macro cell network deployment is carefully planned, designed, and implemented to offer good coverage over the geographical region served by a particular network operator. Even such careful planning, however, cannot fully accommodate channel characteristics such as fading, multipath, shadowing, etc., especially in indoor environments. Indoor users therefore often face coverage issues (e.g., call outages and quality degradation) resulting in poor user experience. Further, macro cell capacity is upper-bounded by physical and technological factors.
For instance, a macro cell may cover a relatively large geographic area, such as, but not limited to, several kilometers in radius. In contrast, a small cell may cover a relatively small geographic area, such as, but not limited to, a home, a building, or a floor of a building. A small cell may include, but is not limited to, an apparatus such as a base station (BS), an access point, a femto node, a femtocell, a pico node, a micro node, a wireless relay station, a Node B, an evolved Node B (eNodeB or eNB), a home Node B (HNB) or a home evolved Node B (HeNB).
Small cells can be deployed for incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, in-building or other specific geographic coverage, and/or the like. The small cell base stations may be connected to the Internet and/or a mobile operator's network via a digital subscriber line (DSL) or a cable modem, for example, often utilizing the existing backhaul infrastructure provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for the residential home or office building in which the small cell base station is installed.
With the introduction of smartphones and tablets in recent years, the amount of data traffic has increased significantly. More and more users consume broadband services (e.g., internet, email, music and video streaming) not only at home, but on the go. One example of such behavior is that users consume significant amounts of broadband services while commuting to work or traveling. Similarly, the demand for broadband internet access in vehicles has also increased and many customers want to enjoy entertainment services on their devices inside vehicles with the same user experience that they are used to at home.
Vehicular Small Cells (VSCs) may be used to provide cellular service to mobile users inside vehicles. Vehicles may include many types of mobile entities in which users may be transported including cars, trucks, mobile homes, trains, boats, airplanes etc. The vehicular environment may be challenging for mobile users because of issues such as shadowing, fast fading, and penetration losses associated with the vehicle body and metal coated windows. By, for example, connecting mobile users wirelessly via the VSC to the vehicle's existing external backhaul antenna, some of these challenges can be overcome, resulting in significantly improved user experience compared to the conventional scenario where users receive service directly on a user portable device (e.g. smartphone, tablet, cellphone, laptop) from the wide area macro cellular network. Mobile network operators may benefit greatly as well, as VSCs connected to antennas on the outside of the vehicle make more efficient use of network resources, resulting in improved network capacity.
The VSC concept may allow for customer devices (mobile phones, tablets, etc.) to be coupled wirelessly and automatically to the external (e.g., roof-top) vehicle antenna (see, e.g., vehicle 218 in
Each user device 106 may communicate with one or more of the base stations 104 on a downlink (DL) and/or an uplink (UL). In general, a DL is a communication link from a base station to a user device, while an UL is a communication link from a user device to a base station. The base stations 104 may be interconnected by appropriate wired or wireless interfaces allowing them to communicate with each other and/or other network equipment. Accordingly, each user device 106 may also communicate with another user device 106 through one or more of the base stations 104. For example, the user device 106J may communicate with the user device 106H in the following manner: the user device 106J may communicate with the base station 104D, the base station 104D may then communicate with the base station 104B (e.g. via a common core network, not shown in
The wireless communications network 100 may provide service over a large geographic region. For example, the cells 102A-102G may cover a few blocks within an urban neighborhood or tens or even hundreds of square miles in a rural environment. In some systems, each cell 102 may be further divided into two or more sectors (not shown). In addition, the base stations 104 may provide the user devices 106 access within their respective coverage areas to other communications networks, such as the Internet or another cellular network, and to users accessible from these other networks. Each user device 106 may be a wireless communication device (e.g., a mobile phone, router, personal computer, server, tablet, smartphone etc.) used by a user to send and/or receive voice and/or data over a communications network, and may be alternatively referred to as an Access Terminal (AT), a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (MT), a Mobile Device (MD), a Wireless Device, a User Equipment (UE), etc. In the example shown in
For their wireless air interfaces, each base station 104 may operate according to one of several Radio Access Technologies (RATs) depending on the network in which it is deployed, and may be alternatively referred to as a Node B, evolved NodeB (eNB), etc. These networks may include, for example, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks, and so on. The terms “network” and “system” are often used interchangeably. A CDMA network may implement a RAT such as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), cdma2000, etc. UTRA includes Wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) and Low Chip Rate (LCR). cdma2000 covers IS-2000, IS-95 and IS-856 standards. A TDMA network may implement a RAT such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). An OFDMA network may implement a RAT such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) (which may be referred to as Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA)), IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, IEEE 802.20, Flash-OFDM®, etc. E-UTRA. UTRA, E-UTRA, GSM, UMTS, and LTE are described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP). cdma2000 is described in documents from an organization named “3rd Generation Partnership Project 2” (3GPP2).
The wireless communications network 100, or similar networks, may be used to support aspects of vehicular small cell data transport and emergency services described herein. Moreover, similar networks may generally refer to wireless wide area networks (WWANs) as well as WLANs, including networks that support Wi-Fi communications.
In
Turning to the illustrated connections in more detail, user equipment or UE 220 may generate and transmit a message via a wireless link to the macro cell base station 205, the message including information related to various types of communication (e.g., voice, data, multimedia services, etc.) and/or information (referred to as control signaling here) to control and support communication. User equipment 222 may similarly communicate with small cell base station 210 via a wireless link, and user equipment 221 may similarly communicate with small cell base station 212 via a wireless link. The macro cell base station 205 may also communicate with a corresponding Evolved Packet Core (EPC) 240 via a wired backhaul link or via a wireless backhaul link (also referred to herein as a wireless backhaul connection). The EPC 240 may function as a serving network for LTE. The small cell base stations 210 and/or 212 may also similarly communicate with the EPC 240, via their own wired or wireless backhaul links or through wired or wireless links to a macro cell base station, such as macro BS 205, and then via the backhaul link of this macro BS. The EPC 240 may include a Packet Data Network (PDN) gateway (PDG) 242 and a Serving Gateway (SGW) 244. The EPC 240 may enable data, voice and/or control signaling transport between the user equipments 220, 221, and 222, and a home network 250 for the UEs 220-222 in the event that EPC 240 is a serving network but not a home network for UEs 220-222. While the EPC 240 is shown as an example of a serving LTE network for UEs 220-222, the disclosure is not so limited and other types of serving networks may be used based on the types of communications technologies supported by the mixed communications network environment 200 which may include UMTS, W-CDMA, cdma2000, IEEE 802.11 as well as other technologies. The home network 250 may include a small cell gateway 252, an HeNB management system (HeMS) 254, a mobility management entity (MME) 256, and two PDN gateways (PDGs) 257 and 259 (which in some cases may be the same PDG).
As described above, macro cell base station 205 and/or either or both of small cell base stations 210 and 212 may be connected to the EPC 240 using any of a multitude of devices or methods. These connections may be referred to as the “backbone” or the “backhaul” of the network, and may in some implementations be used to manage and coordinate communications between macro cell base station 205, small cell base station 210, and/or small cell base station 212. In this way, depending on the current location of user equipment 222, for example, user equipment 222 may access the EPC 240 via macro cell base station 205 or via small cell base station 210. In some aspects, the “backbone” or “backhaul” connections may be based on WLAN communications and/or on satellite communications.
As illustrated in
The VSC 212 as shown in
The home network (e.g., home network 250) in
The usage of, for example, an LTE/UMTS wireless backhaul can pose challenges for the data, voice and signaling transport associated with a VSC. There are generally two kinds of bearers supported by a VSC for the type of wireless backhaul connection exemplified in
An example 270 of the mapping of UE bearers to VSC bearers is illustrated in
In the one-to-one mapping, each UE bearer is mapped into a distinct VSC bearer (different to the VSC bearer used by any other UE bearer) and any time a UE bearer is set up or removed a corresponding VSC bearer is set up or removed. This mapping may be performed by the VSC 212 in the case of a UE initiated UE bearer establishment procedure or possibly by the gateway in the serving network 240 (e.g. PDG 242) or in the home network (e.g. PDG 257) in case of a network-initiated UE bearer establishment procedure. As noted above,
A protocol layering that may be used to support any of the UE bearers 274, 275 and 279 in
The three mapping alternatives referred to above each map UE bearers 274 to VSC bearers 272 in different ways. For example,
For the one-to-many mapping, all UE bearers for the same UE or for all UEs served by VSC 212 may be mapped into the same VSC bearer. The VSC may set up a PDN connection when it is switched on (or upon first UE attach to the VSC) and all the UE bearers are mapped into the default bearer of the set up PDN connection.
For the hybrid mapping, the VSC 212 and/or the PDG 242 or PDG 257 attempt to use a one-to-many mapping but may set up new VSC bearers if needed for Quality-of-Service (QoS). For example, a large file transfer may probably not share a VSC bearer with voice or video.
A further extension of the backhaul QoS associated with the VSC could consist in performing the mapping of the required QoS at the access link (e.g. to/from the UE 221 inside the vehicle 218, served by the VSC 212) into a corresponding QoS bearer on the wireless backhaul link. To be able to provide such mechanisms, an exchange of information between the VSC 212 and NAD 255 needs to be in place. This way, upon request of a UE 221 served by the VSC 212 to setup a dedicated radio bearer with certain QoS, the information may be propagated via an appropriate application programming interface (API) over the VSC 212 interface to the NAD 255 that can trigger the same action over the backhaul link. These enhancements may require the deployment of UE initiated QoS functionality and may require a more sophisticated VSC interface which could possibly work better in case of an integrated VSC/NAD solution.
At block 320, methodology 300 may include identifying a first network bearer corresponding to a link from the small cell to a serving network. For example, the data transport component 440 and/or a network bearer identifier component 444 (
At block 330, methodology 300 may include mapping the first device bearer to the first network bearer to transport data between the first wireless device and the home network. For example, the data transport component 440 and/or a mapping component 446 (
In one aspect of the methodology 300, the serving network may be the same as the home network. In another aspect of the methodology 300, the EPC 240 in
Another aspect of the methodology 300 may include setting up the first network bearer when the first device bearer is set up. The first device bearer may be set up in response to an indication from the home network. The first device bearer may be set up in response to an indication from the first wireless device.
Another aspect of the methodology 300 may include identifying a second device bearer corresponding to a link from one of the first wireless device and a second wireless device through the small cell to the home network, and mapping the second device bearer to the first network bearer to transport data between the one of the first wireless device and the second wireless device and the home network.
Another aspect of the methodology 300 may include identifying a second device bearer corresponding to a link from one of the first wireless device and a second wireless device through the small cell to the home network, identifying a second network bearer corresponding to the link from the small cell to the serving network, and mapping the second device bearer to the second network bearer to transport data between the one of the first wireless device and the second wireless device and the home network. The second network bearer may be set up when the second device bearer is set up.
Another aspect of the methodology 300 may include establishing a connection between the small cell and a packet data network gateway associated with the serving network, wherein the connection is established when the small cell is powered on or when an initial wireless device attaches to the small cell, and wherein the first network bearer is a default bearer of the connection.
Another aspect of the methodology 300 may include identifying a third device bearer corresponding to a link from one of the first wireless device, the second wireless device, and a third wireless device through the small cell to the home network, identifying a second network bearer corresponding to the link from the small cell to the serving network, and mapping the third device bearer to the second network bearer to establish communications between the one of the first wireless device, second wireless device, and third wireless device and the home network.
In yet another aspect of the methodology 300, a QoS of the first device bearer may correspond to the QoS of the first network bearer. Also, the link from the small cell to the serving network may include a wireless backhaul link provided by a network access device in the serving network communicatively coupled to the small cell. In addition, the first wireless device may be operated within the vehicle.
In addition to the data transport aspects of VSCs described above, the enabling of emergency services in a VSC involves other issues such as having UE location provisioning for public safety answering point (PSAP) routing and UE location after call set up. In macro networks, UE location provisioning may be based upon UE initiated procedures providing the network with latitude/longitude coordinates (if available) or UE assisted location procedure (either control or user plane) in which a UE provides a network (e.g. a location server or positioning server in the network) with measurement information allowing determination of a location for the UE by the network (e.g. by a location or positioning server in the network). In a VSC, however, the above procedures may not always apply because a UE served by a VSC may be unable to determine its location or provide measurement information to a network due to attenuation and reflection of RF signals from nearby base stations and from satellites caused by the vehicle within which the UE is located. In addition, any cell ID and tracking area code (TAC) assigned by the home network to the VSC and provided to a location server in the home network to help determine the location of the UE may not have any geographical significance (in contrast to a cell ID and TAC for a normal fixed cell) due to the mobility of the VSC.
Aspects of addressing the UE position for emergency services (e.g., an emergency call) may involve the use of a global positioning system (GPS) or other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver (e.g., SND 251 in
The location of the vehicle that is provided by the VSC to the positioning server may be treated by the positioning server as a good approximation for the location of the wireless device. This may be valid when the vehicle is small (e.g. a car or truck). For a large or long vehicle (e.g. a train or boat) where the location obtained by the VSC is that of the VSC, the VSC may make measurements of signals received from the wireless device and determine a distance to the wireless device and/or a direction. The VSC may then determine a location of the wireless device relative to the VSC and combine this relative location with the location of the VSC to yield a more accurate location for the wireless device. This more accurate location may then be provided to a positioning server—e.g. when the positioning server requests location information for the wireless device using LPPa. Alternatively, the VSC may provide (e.g. using LPPa) any measurements of signals received from the wireless device to the positioning server along with the location of the VSC (e.g. determined by the VSC using GPS or GNSS). The positioning server may then determine the location of the wireless device relative to the VSC using the measurements provided by the VSC and may combine this with the location of the VSC and thereby obtain a more accurate location of the wireless device.
At block 365, methodology 350 may include the VSC determining location information for the wireless device. The location information may comprise the location coordinates of the VSC, location coordinates of the vehicle and/or location measurements for the wireless device (e.g. a round trip signal propagation time, signal strength, signal angle of arrival). For example, the emergency services component 450 and/or the location information component 454 (
At block 370, methodology 350 may include providing, to the positioning server, the location information determined at block 365 which may be used by the positioning server to determine the location of the wireless device. For example, the emergency services component 450 and/or the location information component 454 (
In an aspect of the methodology 350, the VSC may correspond to VSC 212, the wireless device may correspond to UE 221, the home network may correspond to home network 250 and the serving network may correspond to serving EPC 240 in
Another aspect of the methodology 350 may include having the positioning server selected by a mobility management entity (MME) (see, e.g., MME 725 in
Another aspect of the methodology 350 may include having the location request include information indicating that the location request refers to the VSC. In this aspect, the positioning server may determine that the wireless device is being served by a VSC (i.e. by a small cell deployed in a vehicle) and not by a fixed cell due to receiving (e.g. from an MME or from the VSC) a tracking area code (TAC) and/or a cell identity (CI) assigned to the VSC when the VSC is initially registered in the home network. The TAC and/or CI may indicate a VSC. For example, the TAC and/or CI may contain a reserved value or values (e.g. reserved digits) assigned by the home network operator and/or may belong to a reserved range assigned by the home network operator that indicate a VSC as opposed to a fixed cell which may trigger the positioning server to send a request (e.g. an LPPa request) to the VSC for the location of the VSC.
Another aspect of the methodology 350 may include receiving satellite positioning coordinates for the VSC from a satellite navigation device communicatively coupled to the VSC, wherein the location of the VSC (or of the associated vehicle) comprises the satellite positioning coordinates. The VSC may provide, to the positioning server through the communication and using the positioning protocol, the satellite positioning coordinates as at least part of the location information for the wireless device. Note that the terms “positioning server” and “location server” are interchangeable and are used synonymously herein.
Another aspect of the methodology 350 may include the VSC requesting assistance data from a Secure User Plane Location (SUPL) Location Platform (SLP) in the home network or some other network, receiving the assistance data, and using the assistance data to help determine the location of the VSC (e.g., using measurements of GPS satellites or measurements of nearby base stations).
At block 392, methodology 380 may include sending a location request to the small cell for location information for the wireless device. The location request may be sent using the communication established at block 390 and according to the positioning protocol. In an aspect, the location request may request a location and/or location measurements for the wireless device. In another aspect, the location request may request the location of the small cell, based on receiving an indication that the small cell is deployed in a vehicle (e.g. is a VSC). The indication that the small cell is deployed in a vehicle may be based on receiving a tracking area code (TAC) and/or a cell ID (CI) for the small cell, in either the location request received at block 390 or from the small cell, that indicate a VSC. For example, the TAC and/or CI may contain a reserved value or values (e.g. reserved digits) assigned by the home network operator and/or may belong to a reserved range assigned by the home network operator that indicate a VSC as opposed to a fixed cell. For example, the VSC component 484, the VSC emergency services component 482, and/or a communications component 486 (
At block 395, the location server may receive location information for the wireless device from the small cell. In an aspect, if the location server requested the location of the small cell at block 392, the location information may comprise the location (e.g. location coordinates) of the small cell or of the vehicle in which the small cell is deployed. In another aspect, if the location server requested location information for the wireless device, the location information may comprise the location of the wireless device, location measurements for the wireless device obtained by the small cell and/or the location of the small cell or of the vehicle. For example, the VSC component 484, the VSC emergency services component 482, and/or a communications component 486 (
At block 398, the location server may determine the location of the wireless device using the location information received at block 395. For example, the VSC component 484, the VSC emergency services component 482, and/or a location information component 488 (
In an aspect of the methodology 380, the small cell may correspond to VSC 212, the wireless device may correspond to UE 221, the home network may correspond to home network 250 and the serving network may correspond to serving EPC 240 in
In general, the VSC 400, small cell base station 410 and/or VSC component 424 includes various components for providing and processing data transport and emergency services. For example, the small cell base station 410 and/or VSC component 424 may include a transceiver 412 for wireless communications and a backhaul controller 414 for backhaul communications. The transceiver 412 and backhaul controller 414 may support a UE function to enable VSC component 424 or small cell base station 410 to attach to a serving wireless network and establish a wireless backhaul connection to a home network as described in relation to
In an aspect, the small cell base station 410 and/or VSC component 424 may further include a data transport and emergency services component 422 that may be configured to enable the small cell base station 410 and/or VSC component 424 to perform the various VSC operations described herein. The functions and/or operations of the data transport and emergency services component 422 may be performed, at least in part, by or in connection with the processor 416 and/or the memory 418.
The data transport and emergency services component 422 may also include an emergency services component 450 having the communications component 452 and the location coordinates component 454 described above with respect to the methodology 350 in
In some implementations, the data transport component 440 may be implemented in the data transport and emergency services component 422 without the emergency services component 450 or with the emergency services component 450 being disabled. In other implementations, the emergency services component 450 may be implemented in the data transport and emergency services component 422 without the data transport component 440 or with the data transport component 440 being disabled.
In general, the positioning server 460 and/or VSC component 484 includes various components for providing and processing signaling and information for requesting and handling location information associated with emergency services. For example, the positioning server 460 or VSC component 484 may include a transceiver 472, a processor 476, and a memory 478 that communicate over at least one bus 480 to identify the location of a wireless device for different emergency situations.
In an aspect, the positioning server 460 and/or VSC component 484 may further include a VSC emergency services component 482 having the communications component 486 and the location information component 488. The functions and/or operations of the VSC emergency services component 482 may be performed, at least in part, by or in connection with the processor 476 and/or the memory 478.
At the device 510, traffic data for a number of data streams is provided from a data source 512 to a transmit (TX) data processor 514. Each data stream may then be transmitted over a respective transmit antenna.
The TX data processor 514 formats, codes, and interleaves the traffic data for each data stream based on a particular coding scheme selected for that data stream to provide coded data. The coded data for each data stream may be multiplexed with pilot data using OFDM techniques. The pilot data is typically a known data pattern that is processed in a known manner and may be used at the receiver system to estimate the channel response. The multiplexed pilot and coded data for each data stream is then modulated (i.e., symbol mapped) based on a particular modulation scheme (e.g., BPSK, QSPK, M-PSK, or M-QAM) selected for that data stream to provide modulation symbols. The data rate, coding, and modulation for each data stream may be determined by instructions performed by a processor 530. A data memory 532 may store program code, data, and other information used by the processor 530 or other components of the device 510.
The modulation symbols for all data streams are then provided to a TX MIMO processor 520, which may further process the modulation symbols (e.g., for OFDM). The TX MIMO processor 520 then provides NT modulation symbol streams to NT transceivers (XCVR) 522A through 522T. In some aspects, the TX MIMO processor 520 applies beam-forming weights to the symbols of the data streams and to the antenna from which the symbol is being transmitted.
Each transceiver 522 receives and processes a respective symbol stream to provide one or more analog signals, and further conditions (e.g., amplifies, filters, and upconverts) the analog signals to provide a modulated signal suitable for transmission over the MIMO channel. NT modulated signals from transceivers 522A through 522T are then transmitted from NT antennas 524A through 524T, respectively.
At the device 550, the transmitted modulated signals are received by NR antennas 552A through 552R and the received signal from each antenna 552 is provided to a respective transceiver (XCVR) 554A through 554R. Each transceiver 554 conditions (e.g., filters, amplifies, and down converts) a respective received signal, digitizes the conditioned signal to provide samples, and further processes the samples to provide a corresponding “received” symbol stream.
A receive (RX) data processor 560 then receives and processes the NR received symbol streams from NR transceivers 554 based on a particular receiver processing technique to provide NT “detected” symbol streams. The RX data processor 560 then demodulates, deinterleaves, and decodes each detected symbol stream to recover the traffic data for the data stream. The processing by the RX data processor 560 is complementary to that performed by the TX MIMO processor 920 and the TX data processor 514 at the device 510.
A processor 570 periodically determines which pre-coding matrix to use (discussed below). The processor 570 formulates a reverse link message comprising a matrix index portion and a rank value portion. A data memory 572 may store program code, data, and other information used by the processor 570 or other components of the device 550.
The reverse link message may comprise various types of information regarding the communication link and/or the received data stream. The reverse link message is then processed by a TX data processor 538, which also receives traffic data for a number of data streams from a data source 536, modulated by a modulator 580, conditioned by the transceivers 554A through 554R, and transmitted back to the device 510.
At the device 510, the modulated signals from the device 550 are received by the antennas 524, conditioned by the transceivers 522, demodulated by a demodulator (DEMOD) 540, and processed by a RX data processor 542 to extract the reverse link message transmitted by the device 550. The processor 530 then determines which pre-coding matrix to use for determining the beam-forming weights then processes the extracted message.
In an aspect, small cell base station apparatus 600, data transport and emergency services component 422, and/or emergency services component 450 may include a module 608 for enabling communication with a positioning server (e.g., E-SMLC) in a home network using a positioning protocol, wherein the communication is enabled using a wireless backhaul connection to a serving network, a module 609 for receiving a location request from the positioning server for the location of a wireless device connected to the small cell and associated with an emergency call, a module 610 for determining location information for the wireless device, and a module 612 for providing, to the positioning server through the communication, location information for the wireless device. Modules 608, 609, 610, and 612 may support the functionality provided by the communications component 452 and the location information component 454 in
The functionality of the module(s) of
In addition, the components and functions represented by
As described above, there is a benefit for a VSC solution in which small cells are used in cars and other vehicles. In order to comply with the same regulatory requirements satisfied by 3G/4G networks currently deployed, a VSC solution may support emergency services, e.g. support E911 calls for a UE served by a VSC and fulfill different regulatory requirements set in different countries for emergency services. These requirements may include PSAP routing: the emergency call initiated by the UE is routed to the correct PSAP. Typically, the correct PSAP is the PSAP closest to the UE placing the emergency call or a PSAP that may be more distant but serves an area that includes the location of the UE. Regulatory requirements may also include UE location provisioning: some countries require that the UE location is provided to the emergency center (e.g., PSAP).
Solutions deployed in 3G/4G macro networks solving the above requirements rely on Radio Access Network (RAN) or UE provisioned information (e.g., Cell-Id for LTE) to support PSAP routing and location of a UE by an E-SMLC or SUPL SLP on behalf of a PSAP. An illustration of the major entities involved in supporting PSAP routing and location of a UE in the case of a VSC that supports LTE access from UEs on behalf of an LTE home network is shown in system 700 of
The system 700 may include a UE 705 in communication with a VSC 710 that includes a UE function 712. UE 705 may correspond to UE 221 and VSC 710 may correspond to VSC 212 in
In another aspect of system 700,
The role of entities involved in UE location architecture in system 700 are generally as follows:
Solutions previously used in 3G/4G macro networks for supporting VoIP emergency calls from a UE 705 may not be directly applied to VSC 710, as the cell-ID assigned to VSC 710 by the home network 250 and conveyed to the UE 705 may not be mapped against any fixed location information. Normally, the cell ID assigned to an eNB serving a UE will be conveyed in a SIP INVITE message sent by the UE 705 to P-CSCF 750 and E-CSCF 755 in
The UE based location solution relies on the UE being able to obtain measurements of signals from radio sources at known or predictable locations such as GPS or GNSS satellites or fixed base stations but not VSC 710 whose location may be unknown. Such measurements may not always be possible or accurate due to signal attenuation caused by UE 705 being inside a vehicle. The VSC based location solution relies on VSC 710 for providing information required for PSAP routing and UE location by adding VSC location interfaces and protocols. The protocol implementing this solution may be LPPa, or LTE Positioning Protocol A, which then needs to be supported by VSC 710 and positioning server 720.
In
Positioning server 720 detects that the location request message received from MME 725 is for a UE served by a VSC due to determining that the CI and/or TAC for the UE are part of a reserved range assigned to VSCs or contain a reserved value assigned to VSCs. Positioning server 720 then sends a message to VSC 710 at step 925 using the LPPa protocol to request location information for the UE 705. The request may include a request for the location of VSC 710 and possibly a request for information on signal measurements for UE 705 performed by VSC 710. VSC 710 may obtain its location using a GPS or GNSS receiver that is internal or external to VSC 710 and that may have access to GPS or GNSS signals from an antenna external to the vehicle in which VSC 710 is located. VSC 710, functioning as a UE, may also request and receive assistance data (e.g. assistance data for GNSS) from a location server that may differ from positioning server 720 and, which may be either a SUPL SLP in the home network or another positioning server in the home network when VSC 710 is not roaming, to help VSC 710 obtain its current location (not shown in
The MME 725 is now able to provide the LRF/GMLC 740/735 function at step 940 with the UE location and performs such task through a Subscriber Location Report message exchange that includes steps 940 and 945. After this sequence of operations, the LRF/GMLC 740/735 has the UE location and is able (e.g. following step 955 described later) to use the UE location in the LRF to determine the correct PSAP destination or an intermediate destination on the PSAP side to which the emergency call should be routed and can also provide the UE location to the PSAP when later requested by the PSAP.
Once the UE 705 obtains the emergency PDN connection at step 915, the UE 705 performs an emergency registration in the home network (not shown in
During the emergency session the destination PSAP may require an update of the UE location (e.g., to indicate to public safety responders the location of the user). This is exemplified in message flow 1000 in
The UE based location solution referred to previously for providing a location of the UE 705 to the positioning server 720 relies on UE extensions for providing information required for PSAP routing and UE location. Several protocols (e.g., control plane based) are candidate solutions for this approach. A control plane solution (LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP)) is used as reference without losing generality with respect to other protocols.
The flow charts 1200 and 1300 in
The UE based location solution for UE location retrieval differs from the VSC based location solution only in the procedures performed by positioning server 720 for UE location retrieval. In the VSC based location solution, the positioning server 720, upon establishing that the UE 705 is connected to a VSC, starts an LPPa protocol session to obtain UE location information from the VSC 710, as illustrated by steps 925 and 930 in
During the emergency session the destination PSAP may require an update of the UE location (e.g., to indicate to public safety responders the location of the user). UE location retrieval is performed through a Location retrieve/response message exchange at steps 1020 and 1055 with the LRF/GMLC 740/735 (see
As the VSC based location solution using LPPa (e.g. as exemplified in
It should be noted that while many of the examples of the method described herein have assumed that a VSC (e.g. VSC 212 in
In some aspects, an apparatus or any component of an apparatus may be configured to (or operable to or adapted to) provide functionality as taught herein. This may be achieved, for example: by manufacturing (e.g., fabricating) the apparatus or component so that it will provide the functionality; by programming the apparatus or component so that it will provide the functionality; or through the use of some other suitable implementation technique. As one example, an integrated circuit may be fabricated to provide the requisite functionality. As another example, an integrated circuit may be fabricated to support the requisite functionality and then configured (e.g., via programming) to provide the requisite functionality. As yet another example, a processor circuit may execute code to provide the requisite functionality.
Those of skill in the art will appreciate that information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the above description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof.
Further, those of skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithm steps described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have been described above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present invention.
The methods, sequences and/or algorithms described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. A software module may reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integral to the processor.
Accordingly, an aspect disclosed can include a computer readable media embodying a method for calibrating a small cell base station for management of a backhaul link to an ISP. Accordingly, the invention is not limited to illustrated examples and any means for performing the functionality described herein are included in aspects disclosed.
While the foregoing disclosure shows illustrative aspects disclosed, it should be noted that various changes and modifications could be made herein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. The functions, steps and/or actions of the method claims in accordance with the aspects described herein need not be performed in any particular order. Furthermore, although elements disclosed may be described or claimed in the singular, the plural is contemplated unless limitation to the singular is explicitly stated.
In accordance with various aspects of the disclosure, an element, or any portion of an element, or any combination of elements may be implemented with a “processing system” that includes one or more processors. Examples of processors include microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), state machines, gated logic, discrete hardware circuits, and other suitable hardware configured to perform the various functionality described throughout this disclosure. One or more processors in the processing system may execute software. Software shall be construed broadly to mean instructions, instruction sets, code, code segments, program code, programs, subprograms, software modules, applications, software applications, software packages, routines, subroutines, objects, executables, threads of execution, procedures, functions, etc., whether referred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or otherwise. The software may reside on a computer-readable medium. The computer-readable medium may be a non-transitory computer-readable medium. A non-transitory computer-readable medium includes, by way of example, a magnetic storage device (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strip), an optical disk (e.g., compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD)), a smart card, a flash memory device (e.g., card, stick, key drive), random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable PROM (EPROM), electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), a register, a removable disk, and any other suitable medium for storing software and/or instructions that may be accessed and read by a computer.
The computer-readable medium may also include, by way of example, a carrier wave, a transmission line, and any other suitable medium for transmitting software and/or instructions that may be accessed and read by a computer. The computer-readable medium may be resident in the processing system, external to the processing system, or distributed across multiple entities including the processing system. The computer-readable medium may be embodied in a computer-program product. By way of example, a computer-program product may include a computer-readable medium in packaging materials. Those skilled in the art will recognize how best to implement the described functionality presented throughout this disclosure depending on the particular application and the overall design constraints imposed on the overall system.
It is to be understood that the specific order or hierarchy of blocks or steps in the methods disclosed is an illustration of exemplary processes. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of blocks or steps in the methods may be rearranged. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various blocks or steps in a sample order, and are not meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented unless specifically recited therein.
The previous description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but is to be accorded the full scope consistent with the language of the claims, wherein reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless specifically so stated, but rather “one or more.” Unless specifically stated otherwise, the term “some” refers to one or more. A phrase referring to “at least one of” a list of items refers to any combination of those items, including single members. As an example, “at least one of: a, b, or c” is intended to cover: a; b; c; a and b; a and c; b and c; and a, b and c. All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the various aspects described throughout this disclosure that are known or later come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims. Moreover, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether such disclosure is explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element is to be construed under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. §112, sixth paragraph, or 35 U.S.C. §112(f), unless the element is expressly recited using the phrase “means for” or, in the case of a method claim, the element is recited using the phrase “step for.”
The present application for Patent claims priority to Provisional Application No. 62/023,612 entitled “Vehicular Small Cell Data Transport and Emergency Call” filed Jul. 11, 2014, and to Provisional Application No. 62/035,974 entitled “Vehicular Small Cell Data Transport and Emergency Call” filed Aug. 11, 2014, which are assigned to the assignee hereof and hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62023612 | Jul 2014 | US | |
62035974 | Aug 2014 | US |