Motorola Corporation

Stephen Aftelak

Luis Lopes

Eric Villier

Maya Benson

Rorie O'Neill

Ray Owen

A method of allocating timeslots between uplink and downlink communication in a cellular communication system () is described. The method comprises: for consecutive time division multiplex access, TDMA, frames comprising the timeslots, allocating a first selection of the timeslots to uplink communication in each of a plurality of cells () and allocating a second selection of the timeslots to downlink communiction in each of the plurality of cells (); and, when the number of timeslots of each frame to be allocated to uplink communication rather than downlink is different for different cells (), varying the allocation of at least some of the uplink and downlink timeslots in a random or pseudo-random sequence in each cell ().

Allocation of timeslots in a cellular communication system

This invention relates to an antenna array system. A problem with antenna array systems is that they provide rather inefficient use of hardware and have inflexible resource allocation. The invention provides a flexible antenna array system architecture, which has very flexible allocation of transceiver elements to beams. The invention comprise switching means ( ) which associate transceiver elements ( ) to beam ports of a beam former ( ) connected to a antenna array ( ). The association of transceiver elements ( ) to beam ports are rearranged regularly, typically for each time slot, and the association is optimized for overall performance for all subscriber units. The invention is applicable for example to cellular communication systems such as GSM.

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Swindon, United Kingdom

Stephen Aftelak