Wireless Radio Access Network Control Channel Capacity Management

Abstract

Transmission capacity for a control channel sent to multiple mobile wireless devices in a wireless network is increased by transmitting the control channel using multi user multiple input multiple output transmissions (MU MIMO). Received signal quality measured at mobile wireless devices in a radio sector are communicated to a radio node and used to determine one or more sets of mobile wireless devices to share transmission of control channel elements on the same time and frequency resource element. The radio node indicates the use of MU MIMO and the selection of precoding matrices to each of the mobile wireless devices in the each set of mobile wireless devices.

1 - 23 . (canceled) 
     
     
         24 . A method, comprising:
 at a base station:
 estimating a received downlink signal quality for each mobile wireless device of a plurality of mobile wireless devices connected to the base station; 
 determining a number of control channel elements to be transmitted to each mobile wireless device based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device; 
 grouping a portion of the plurality of mobile wireless devices into a first group based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device and a number of receive antennas for each mobile wireless device; and 
 transmitting control channel information comprising the number of control channel elements to each of the first group of mobile wireless devices, wherein the control channel information is simultaneously transmitted to each of the first group of mobile wireless devices using the same frequency and time resource elements based on multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) transmissions. 
   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the base station is an LTE or LTE-Advanced compliant base station. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24 , further comprising:
 grouping a portion of the plurality of mobile wireless devices into a second group based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device and the number of receive antennas for each mobile wireless device; and   transmitting control channel information comprising the number of control channel elements to each of the second group of mobile wireless devices, wherein the control channel information is simultaneously transmitted to each of the second group of mobile wireless devices using the same frequency and time resource elements based on multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) transmissions.   
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the base station transmits one of a same number of control channel elements to the first group and second group of mobile wireless devices or a different number of control channel elements to the first group and second group of mobile wireless devices. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the first group of mobile wireless devices has one of a same number of receive antennas as the second group of wireless devices or a different number of receive antennas as the second group of wireless devices. 
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 26 , wherein the received downlink signal quality of the first group of mobile wireless devices exceeds a first predetermined threshold and the received downlink signal quality of the second group of mobile wireless devices exceeds a second predetermined threshold, wherein the first and second predetermined thresholds are one of a same value and a different value. 
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the number of control channel elements is one of 1, 2, 4 or 8. 
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the number of receive antennas is one of 2, 4, 6 or 8. 
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the number of receive antennas for each of the first group of mobile wireless devices is the same. 
     
     
         33 . A base station, comprising:
 a processor;   a transceiver;   a plurality of antennas; and   a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that are executable by the processor, wherein the instructions causes the processor to:
 estimate a received downlink signal quality for each mobile wireless device of a plurality of mobile wireless devices connected to the base station; 
 determine a number of control channel elements to be transmitted to each mobile wireless device based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device; 
 group a portion of the plurality of mobile wireless devices into a first group based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device and a number of receive antennas for each mobile wireless device; and 
 transmit, via the transceiver and one or more of the plurality of antennas, control channel information comprising the number of control channel elements to each of the first group of mobile wireless devices, wherein the control channel information is simultaneously transmitted to each of the first group of mobile wireless devices using the same frequency and time resource elements based on multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) transmissions. 
   
     
     
         34 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the base station is an LTE or LTE-Advanced compliant base station. 
     
     
         35 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
 group a portion of the plurality of mobile wireless devices into a second group based on the received downlink signal quality of each mobile wireless device and the number of receive antennas for each mobile wireless device; and   transmit, via the transceiver and one or more of the plurality of antennas, control channel information comprising the number of control channel elements to each of the second group of mobile wireless devices, wherein the control channel information is simultaneously transmitted to each of the second group of mobile wireless devices using the same frequency and time resource elements based on multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) transmissions.   
     
     
         36 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the number of receive antennas is one of 2, 4, 6 or 8. 
     
     
         37 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the base station transmits the control channel information on a number of the plurality of antennas that corresponds to the number of receive antennas of the first group of mobile wireless devices. 
     
     
         38 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the transceiver comprises a plurality of transceivers, wherein a first of the plurality of transceivers has one corresponding antenna and a second of the plurality of transceivers has more than one corresponding antenna. 
     
     
         39 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the control channel information is transmitted via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). 
     
     
         40 . The base station of  claim 33 , wherein the base station estimates the received downlink signal quality for each mobile wireless device based on a channel quality indicator (CQI) received from each mobile wireless device. 
     
     
         41 . A mobile wireless device, comprising:
 a processor;   a transceiver;   a plurality of antennas; and   a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that are executable by the processor, wherein the instructions causes the processor to:
 receive an indicator that indicates transmissions on a control channel are encoded using MU MIMO transmission; 
 receive and decode signals transmitted on a the control channel, wherein the signals on the control channel comprise a number of control channel elements corresponding to a received downlink signal quality for the mobile wireless device and wherein the number of control channel elements are simultaneously transmitted to at least one other mobile wireless device using the same frequency and time resource elements. 
   
     
     
         42 . The mobile wireless device of  claim 41 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
 receive a further indicator that indicates transmissions on the control channel are encoded using a transmission scheme that is different from MU MIMO transmission; and   switch decoding of signals received on the control channel to the transmission scheme.   
     
     
         43 . The mobile wireless device of  claim 41 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
 calculate a downlink signal quality for transmissions received from a base station of a wireless network; and   transmit, via the transceiver and one or more of the plurality of antennas, the downlink signal quality using channel quality indicators to the base station of the wireless network.