Gogo LLC

Motorola Corporation

Gogo Business Aviation LLC

Motorola Solutions, Inc.

James P Michels

Michael H Baker

Yong Liu

Heinz A Miranda

George Calcev

Jeffrey D Bonta

Nitin R Mangalvedhe

Nathan J Smith

Steven C Jasper

Sean Scott Cordone

Benedito J Fonseca, Jr

Jaime Andres Borras

Mark A Birchler

Ye Chen

Nicholas C Oros

Francis Forest

Matthew J Dufner

Troy J Beukema

Joseph Thomas

Systems and methods may facilitate initial establishment and/or handover of an air-to-ground (ATG) communication link between an aircraft and a ground-based cellular communication network (e.g., a 5G network). The systems and methods may be particularly applicable for an aircraft having a user equipment (UE) antenna that uses narrow beamforming to connect to a cell of a base station (gNB). The UE identifies candidate cells based upon the location of the UE and locations and orientations of cells in the network, identifies a cell having a higher likelihood of connection success compare to other cells, and directs a beam to the chosen cell. The systems and methods may enable the UE to create neighbor lists in real time based upon the UE location, and may prevent blind searching normally associated with narrow beamforming methods.

Neighbor list and beam management for ATG systems

Techniques for controlling or managing uplink access of a UE to a base station using unlicensed spectrum includes signaling an indication of different uplink access constraints so the UE connects to the base station when the UE and/or the uplink direction between the UE and the base station meet the uplink access constraints. The indication may be broadcast in a reference or synchronization signal, e.g., by utilizing unused or undesignated bits. Uplink access constraints may include a threshold distance of UEs from the base station, interference in the uplink direction (which may differ from interference in the downlink direction), etc. Based on the indicated constraints, the UE may determine whether or not to consider the base station as a candidate serving cell for wireless network access. The UE may be an in-flight aircraft and the base station may be a logical cell of a network that provides in-flight connectivity services.

Systems and methods to control access in air-to-ground networks operating in unlicensed spectrum

Systems and methods are described for connecting with LEO satellites while reducing emissions toward GEO satellite communications. A system to implement the instant techniques may include a system comprised of a user communications equipment and a LEO constellation. The user equipment ('UE') may comprise a communications modem and an active antenna unit with a transmit and receive beamformer. In further implementations, the UE may include additional receive only beamformers. The LEO constellation can have a regenerative payload or bent pipe, and can include orbits at different altitudes. Methods as described herein may include a procedure by which the user equipment and LEO satellite work together to identify candidate serving satellites, and select the one that allows to meet the power density requirements to avoid interfering with the GEO satellites.

Systems and methods for satellite selection using beamscanning techniques

A first beam is implemented, from a set of vehicle-based antennas, for current or future communication with a ground-based or satellite-based network via an external antenna (e.g., of a base station or satellite). A second beam may be implemented to detect or determine a better pointing angle for the first beam, thereby 'fine tuning' the pointing angle for the first beam. Specifically, the second beam may be 'swept' through a range of pointing angles while a signal parameter representing signal quality or strength is measured, detected, or calculated at each pointing angle. The values for the signal parameter may be evaluated to identify a desired value and the pointing angle at which the desired value was obtained. The first beam may be reoriented or repointed at the desired pointing angle, and one or more nodes of vehicle-based communication system may communicate with an external network via the first beam.

Beam pointing fine tuning for vehicle-based antennas

Novel techniques for pooling the available transmit power of a beam across the subcarriers that are or that are scheduled to be in use (and not across all available subcarriers) are disclosed. The scheduled subcarriers may be located in the same or different carriers of a modulation transmitter modulation system, and the pooled transmit power may be allocated or distributed across the scheduled subcarriers of the beam. Modulation symbols or resource elements may be transmitted in accordance with allocated, per-subcarrier power budgets, thereby maximizing the SNIR of signals that are transmitted in the beam via the scheduled subcarriers. Additionally, the allocation of the pooled transmit power to various subcarriers may continuously and/or dynamically vary over time, e.g., based on traffic demands, interference characteristics, etc., as well as based on subsequent scheduling of subcarriers to transmit subsequent modulation symbols or resource elements.

Multi-carrier power pooling

Systems and method for establishing a connection between a vehicle and a base station are provided. The base station sectors are divided into subsector respectively associated with a narrowbeam antenna. To determine the vehicle location without the use of a complementary network, the base station and the vehicle may associate each subsector with a respective set of radio access preamble sequences. Accordingly, the location of the vehicle can be determined based on the particular radio access preamble sequence included in the synchronization messaging. Additionally or alternatively, the base station may be configured to sequentially activate the narrowbeam antennas to detect a which narrowbeam is active when the vehicle responds to a message communicated over the narrowbeams.

Systems and methods for accessing an air-to-ground network

Systems and method are provided to facilitate predictive mitigation of noise. A vehicle may measure noise floor levels and transmit a noise floor signal to a noise signal aggregator. Based on the noise signal, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor map database. The noise floor map database may associate a plurality of geographic locations with a plurality of noise floor levels. Accordingly, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor level in the noise floor map database that corresponds to the location associated with the transmitted noise signal. The noise floor map database may then be queried to retrieve noise floor levels for locations further along a route traversed by a vehicle such that the vehicle may predictively tune one or more antennas to mitigate interference associated with the noise floor.

Systems and methods for facilitating predictive noise mitigation

Selecting serving cells in air to ground communication systems efficiently and with maximum knowledge of forward and return link channel conditions allows maximum throughput available to a user at any point in time, particularly in the presence of high interference. Airborne based and ground based systems may collect forward and return link channel conditions and develop user capacity estimates to be used by aircraft and ground based transceivers. Such user capacity estimates may be shared among distributed air-to-ground networks to ensure the latest channel conditions are available for serving cell selection decisions.

Servicing cell selection in air to ground communication systems

Systems and method are provided to facilitate predictive mitigation of noise. A vehicle may measure noise floor levels and transmit a noise floor signal to a noise signal aggregator. Based on the noise signal, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor map database. The noise floor map database may associate a plurality of geographic locations with noise floor levels for a plurality of cycle segments. Accordingly, the noise signal aggregator may update a noise floor level in the noise floor map database that corresponds to the location and time associated with the transmitted noise signal. The noise floor map database may then be queried to retrieve noise floor levels for locations further along a route traversed by a vehicle such that the vehicle may predictively tune one or more antennas to mitigate interference associated with the noise floor.

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Lake Zurich, IL, United States of America

James P Michels