Commscope Technologies LLC

Nokia Corporation

Interdigital Patent Holdings, Inc.

Airvana, Inc.

Nokia Mobile Phones Limited

Amosmet Investments LLC

Balaji B Raghothaman

Ravikumar V Pragada

Gregory S Sternberg

Zhuorong Deng

Kiran K Vanganuru

Stuart D Sandberg

Irfaan Ahamed Salahuddeen

Alexander Reznik

Pierre A Humblet

Vedat Eyuboglu

Arthur J Barabell

Pascal M Adjakple

Saad Ahmad

Guanzhou Wang

Eldad M Zeira

Samian Kaur

Nagi Jayaraman Mahalingam

Calogero Armao

Michael F Starsinic

Ulises Olvera-Hernandez

Tao Deng

Juan Carlos Zuniga

Sassan Ahmadi

Woojune Kim

Jianzhong Zhang

Deepak Das

Anand Srinivas

Adrian Boariu

Dumitru Mihai Ionescu

R Thomas Derryberry

Anil Bapat

Hoang Nguyen

Purnima Venkata Kompella

Diana Pani

Ghyslain Pelletier

Philip J Pietraski

Yogendra C Shah

Giridhar Dhati Mandyam

Vinod Kumar Choyi

Luigi Tarlazzi

Xavier De Foy

Gwenael Poitau

Shu-Shaw Wang

Steven Ferrante

Shanthakumar Ramakrishnan

Sana Sfar

Hongsan Sheng

Gopikrishna Charipadi

Ehsan Daeipour

Rayadurgam Ravikanth

Naveen Shanmugaraju

Fatemeh Fazel Sarjoui

Michael McFarland

Matthew G Puzio

Steve Kohalmi

Yan Wang

Pablo Caballero Garces

Sohil Thakkar

Amit Jain

Sundaram M Rajagopalan

A method and apparatus are described for supporting a two-stage device-to-device (D2D) discovery using a D2D interworking function (IWF). A D2D IWF component may be configured to perform mapping between an application running on an application server and a third generation partnership project (3GPP) network, and provide a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow discovery to be provided as a service to D2D applications. An application identifier may be mapped to a 3GPP identifier. Further, a method and apparatus are described for performing client-server discovery. A first wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) may be configured for a listen-only operation, and a second WTRU may be configured to transmit beacons. The first and second WTRUs may perform a radio access network (RAN) discovery procedure at an access stratum (AS) layer. A method and apparatus for performing charging for D2D service using a D2D IWF are also described.

Method and apparatus for supporting proximity discovery procedures

In one embodiment, a distributed unit (DU) is configured to do the following in connection with wirelessly transmitting user data to a UE using less than all of a plurality of radio units (RUs): include, in one or more user-plane messages for that UE that are communicated to the RUs, common header fields that contain a RU mask field for storing a bit mask comprising a plurality of bit positions. Each bit position is associated with a respective one of the RUs. Each RU is configured to: use the respective RU mask field included in any user-plane messages received by that RU in order to determine if the received user-plane message is intended for that RU and use the received message if the received message is intended for that RU and discard the received message if the received message is not intended for that RU.

Fronthaul interface for advanced split-radio access network (RAN) systems

A system includes a plurality of remote units; a centralized unit communicatively coupled to the plurality of remote units via a fronthaul network; and an entity that performs deep packet inspection. The centralized unit transmits sets of data to the plurality of remote units across the fronthaul network in packets, each of the sets of data mapped to at least one of the plurality of remote units and each of the packets including a respective indicator indicating each remote unit the associated packet is intended for, wherein each indicator comprises a plurality of bit positions where each bit position is mapped to a different one of the plurality of remote units. The entity performs the deep packet inspection on the packets to determine each remote unit the packets are intended for and communicate each packet to each remote unit the packet is intended for over the fronthaul network.

Fronthaul interface for use with a cloud radio access network

One embodiment is directed to a system comprising a distributed unit (DU) and a plurality of remote units (RUs) to wirelessly transmit and receive radio frequency signals to and from the user equipment using a wireless interface. The DU and RUs are communicatively coupled to each other over a fronthaul and are configured to communicate over the fronthaul using an O-RAN fronthaul interface. Management-plane functionality in the system is configured to define a respective transport flow for one or more processing elements using an RU interface that specifies one or more multicast addresses in order to support multicast transmission from the DU to multiple RUs. In another embodiment, each RU is configured to advertise, during a capability discovery process, capabilities related to implementing a switched network shared cell configuration.

Management plane functionality for switched network shared cell configuration of open radio access network (O-RAN) system

An example communication system includes remote units to exchange radio frequency (RF) signals with mobile devices, RF signals comprising information destined for, or originating from, a mobile device, the remote units performing at least some physical layer processing for an air interface used by the remote units to communicate with the mobile device. The communication system also includes two or more controllers comprising real-time schedulers for assigning airlink resources to the mobile device for the information. The communication system also includes a coordination function coupled to the two or more controllers to coordinate assignments made by the real-time schedulers in the two or more controllers.

Radio access networks

One embodiment is directed to determining a composite precoder for transmitting to a UE using a group of one or more of the radio units by doing the following: for each of a plurality of subsets of the radio units, transmitting separate reference signals from the different antennas of only the radio units included in that subset; receiving subset-specific preferred precoder index reports from the UE for at least each individual radio unit included in the group of one or more of the radio units; determining the composite precoder for the UE using the subset-specific preferred precoder index reports from the UE for at least the one or more radio units included in the group; and using the composite precoder for transmitting to the UE using the one or more radio units included in the group. In some embodiments, each of the subsets includes less than all of the radio units.

Precoder feedback information scheme for downlink colocated multiple input multiple output (MIMO) or distributed MIMO

A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) may receive from a network resource allocation information for device to device (D2D) communication. The WTRU may select, from the received resource allocation information for a transmission time interval (TTI), resources for a D2D channel. The WTRU may transmit, with use of the selected resources, data directly to another WTRU.

Resource allocation for device-to-device (D2D) communications

A C-RAN includes a plurality of remote units; and a central unit communicatively coupled to the remote units via a fronthaul network. The central unit is configured to determine sets of data to be sent to respective subsets of remote units across the fronthaul network. The central unit is also configured to determine a mapping of each of the sets of data to a respective one of the subsets of remote units. The central unit is also configured to, for each of the sets of data, if at least one of the multicast groups wholly contains the respective subset of remote units mapped to that set of data, transmit that set of data to the respective subset of remote units over the fronthaul network by multicasting that set of data to the multicast group that best matches the respective subset of remote units mapped to that set of data.

In one embodiment, a system comprises a distributed unit (DU) and a plurality of remote units (RUs). All of the RUs are used to serve the same cell. The system can be configured to wirelessly transmit at least some user data to a first user device using a first subset of the RUs and a first beam, where the first subset of the RUs includes less than all of the RUs otherwise used to serve the same cell. In such an embodiment, the system can be configured to determine which RUs are included in the first subset of RUs used to transmit said at least some user data to the first user device based on measurement reports made by the first user device of reference signal transmissions transmitted using multiple beams, where at least some of the reference signal transmissions are transmitted from less than all of the RUs.

Selective transmission and reception in centralized radio access network (C-RAN) employing beamforming

A system includes remote unit(s) (RU(s)). The RU(s) is/are configured to transmit at least one signal on a plurality of different beam patterns, each beam pattern comprising an active subset an inactive subset of a plurality of fine beams covering an area of a cell. The RU(s) is/are also configured to receive, from each of a plurality of user equipment (UEs) in the area, a respective signal strength measurement for each of the plurality of different beam patterns. The system also includes a centralized unit communicatively coupled to the plurality of RUs via a fronthaul interface. The centralized unit is configured to determine a bit vector for each UE based on a combination of the signal strength measurements from the respective UE. The centralized unit is configured also to select a respective fine beam for each UE based on the respective bit vector for the UE.

Beam tracking in a base station

Techniques for determining a change of a given remote unit of a centralized radio access network (C-RAN) are disclosed. This can be done, for example, by determining signal reception metrics for other remote units in the C-RAN based on at least one transmission associated with the given remote unit and determining if a radio frequency (RF) environment associated with the given remote unit has changed as a function of the signal reception metrics for the other remote units.

Detection of a change of a remote unit of a centralized radio access network (C-RAN)

This disclosure is directed to various ways to dynamically manage the subset of radio points that are used to transmit to user equipment in a C-RAN.

Dynamic downlink reuse in a C-RAN

One embodiment is directed to a system comprising a distributed unit (DU) and a plurality of remote units (RUs) to wirelessly transmit and receive radio frequency signals to and from the user equipment using a wireless interface. The DU and RUs are communicatively coupled to each other over a fronthaul and are configured to communicate over the fronthaul using an O-RAN fronthaul interface. The DU and RUs are configured to communicate O-RAN control-plane and user-plane messages that include a new O-RAN section extension for use in communicating different section data to different RUs. Other embodiments are disclosed.

A C-RAN includes a plurality of remote units; a central unit communicatively coupled to the remote units via a fronthaul network; and an entity coupled to the fronthaul network configured to perform deep packet inspection. The central unit is configured to determine sets of data to be sent to respective subsets of remote units across the fronthaul network and determine a mapping of each of the sets of data to a respective one of the subsets of remote units. The central unit is also configured to add a respective indicator, based on the mapping, to packets for each set of data, wherein each respective indicator indicates each remote unit that the respective packet and set of data is intended for. The central unit is also configured to transmit the packets for the sets of data, each with the respective indicator, to the entity over the fronthaul network.

Growing community of inventors

Chester Springs, PA, United States of America

Balaji B Raghothaman