Full duplexing downlink and uplink directions

Abstract

Examples refer to communication networks between user equipment, UEs, and a base station BS. Examples refer to communication devices, such as UE(s) and/or BS(s). Full duplexing communications, FDC, may be used to reduce interferences between different UEs.

1 . A method comprising the following full duplex communication, FDC, procedure:
 pairing a first user equipment, UE, or a first group of UEs, with a second UE or a second group of UEs; and   defining dedicated resources, for a communication between a base station, BS, and the first and second UEs or the first and second groups,   so as to full-duplex the uplink, UL, direction, from the first UE or group to the BS, and the downlink, DL, direction, from the BS to the second UE or group, or vice versa,   the method comprising:   deciding whether to perform the FDC procedure on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; and/or 
 quality-of-service, QoS; and/or 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; and/or 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one parameter comprises at least one component based on at least one of:
 measurements relating to power consumption;   relative locations of BS and all the UEs;   used signal to interference plus noise ratio, SINR, or interference to noise ratio, INR at each UE;   application/service/traffic/traffic prediction-priority type;   traffic prediction;   degree of traffic asymmetry;   cyclic redundancy code, CRC, calculations.   
     
     
         3 . A method comprising:
 pairing a first user equipment, UE, or a first group of UEs, with a second UE or a second group of UEs; and   defining dedicated resources, for a communication between a base station, BS, and the first and second UEs or the first and second groups,   so as to full-duplex the uplink, UL, direction, from the first UE or group to the BS, and the downlink, DL, direction, from the BS to the second UE or group, or vice versa,   the method comprising:   identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs or groups on the basis of assigned priority values, so as to selectively increase the uplink and/or downlink dedicated resources for higher priority communications.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising transmitting from the UE at least one of the following data:
 data regarding the resources requested;   data regarding the priority of the communication;   zonal data;   data regarding traffic.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising transmitting from the BS a switching signalling to all the UEs which are to change the operation to FDC. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising sending a signalling to the UEs informing them about an FDC switching control information, wherein the UE signals the following information:
 UE Priority type; and/or   UE Traffic priority, predicted traffic priority; and/or   UE zonal and positioning information.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising, based on the user priority type, traffic priority, and UE zonal and/or positioning information, to switch some/all users to FDC communication based on at least one of the following conditions:
 if there is a UE pair separated enough to reduce the mutual UE-UE interference;   if the system throughput will increase compared to legacy TDD/FDD and/or spatial multiplexing in TDD/FDD.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising saving throughput switching points and storing them in a lookup table. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 coupling the first and the second UEs or groups of UEs in real time at least on the basis of the urgency of the communication.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 coupling the first and the second UEs or groups of UEs in real time at least on the basis of the quality of experience.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 coupling the first and the second UEs or groups of UEs in real time at least on the basis of the reciprocal distance between the UEs or clusters.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 coupling the first and the second UEs or groups of UEs in real time at least on the basis of the quality-of-service.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 coupling the first and the second UEs or groups of UEs in real time at least on the basis of a parameter bounded to the expected, estimated and/or calculated interference between the UEs or clusters.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising a self-interference mitigation mechanism at the BS. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the dedicated resources comprise at least one or more spatial channels. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the dedicated resources comprise at least one or more power intensity levels. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the dedicated resources comprise at least one or more code dimensions. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the dedicated resources comprise a combination of one or more time slots, one or more frequency bands, one or more spatial channels, one or more power intensity levels, and one or more code dimensions. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources on the basis of a parameter comprising a component associated to the measured and/or estimated and/or predicted interference between the UEs or groups and/or the quality-of-service, QoS, and/or the quality-of-experience, QoE, so as to pair the UEs or groups to reduce interferences and/or increase the QoS.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of a parameter comprising a component associated to the measured and/or estimated and/or predicted interference between the UEs or groups and/or the quality-of-service, QoS, and/or the quality-of-experience, QoE, so as to pair the UEs or groups to reduce interferences and/or increase the QoS.   
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of a parameter comprising a component associated to the quality-of-experience, QoE, so as to pair the UEs or groups to reduce interferences and/or increase the QoS.   
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of a parameter comprising a component associated to the measured and/or estimated and/or predicted interference between the UEs or groups, so as to pair the UEs or groups to reduce interferences and/or increase the QoS.   
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of the quality-of-service, QoS, so as to pair the UEs or groups to reduce interferences and/or increase the QoS.   
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of a count of the quantity of received/transmitted good frames.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs by measuring the signal to interference plus noise ratio, SINR.   
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs by measuring the interference to noise ratio, INR.   
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs by measuring the background noise.   
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs by measuring the background interference.   
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs or groups on the basis of a parameter comprising a component associated to a reciprocal distance between the UEs or groups, so as to pair the first and the second UEs if the distance between the first and the second UEs or groups is greater than a threshold.   
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 generating the first and second groups from a plurality of UEs on the basis of at least one of reciprocal distance between UEs, UL/DL resource assignment, and traffic requirements.   
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 in case of a UE requesting an urgent communication, retrieving a UE or a group of UEs to be paired to the requesting UE.   
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 detecting the position of a UE using a time of arrival, TOA, technique.   
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 detecting the position of a UE using an angle of arrival, AOA, technique.   
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 detecting the position of a UE using an phase difference of arrival, PDOA, technique.   
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 detecting the position of a UE using a time difference of arrival, TDOA, technique.   
     
     
         36 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising operating in multi-connectivity. 
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 36 , further comprising deciding to operate in multi-connectivity as a fall-back in case of decision of non-operating in FDC. 
     
     
         38 . A base station, BS, configured to:
 operate in a full duplex communication, FDC, by using dedicated resources to perform communications, simultaneously, in uplink, UL, with a first user equipment, UE, or cluster of UEs, and in downlink, DL, with a second user equipment, UEs, or second cluster of UEs; and   decide whether to perform the FDC communication on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; 
 quality-of-service, QoS; 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users. 
   
     
     
         39 . A base station, BS, configured to:
 use dedicated resources to perform communications, simultaneously, in uplink, UL, with a first user equipment, UE, or cluster of UEs, and in downlink, DL, with a second user equipment, UEs, or second cluster of UEs; and   identify the dedicated resources and/or select the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs or groups on the basis of assigned priority values, so as to selectively increase the uplink and/or downlink dedicated resources for higher priority communications.   
     
     
         40 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 couple the first and the second UEs or clusters of UEs in real time on the basis of the reciprocal distance between the UEs or clusters, the urgency of the communication, the quality-of-service, the quality of experience, and/or a parameter bounded to the expected, estimated and/or calculated interference between the UEs or clusters.   
     
     
         41 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 schedule the communications with the first and second UEs or clusters so as to identify dedicated resources for a simultaneous communication, on the basis of a parameter associated to the interference between the transmissions, the positions of the UEs or clusters, and/or a priority value associated to the transmission.   
     
     
         42 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 generate the first cluster and/or the second cluster, each cluster comprising UEs within a distance threshold or UEs selected on the basis of UL/DL resource assignment or traffic requirements, and   communicate with UEs of the first and/or second cluster simultaneously.   
     
     
         43 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 select and/or deselect a multi-connectivity mode on the basis of a parameter associated to the interference, the positions of the UEs or clusters, the quality-of-service, the quality-of-experience, and/or a priority value associated to the transmissions.   
     
     
         44 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 perform interference measurements and/or positional measurements and/or calculations of the distances between the first and the second UEs or clusters.   
     
     
         45 . The BS of  claim 38 , configured to:
 coordinate the UEs according to a method comprising the following full duplex communication, FDC, procedure:
 pairing a first user equipment, UE, or a first group of UEs, with a second UE or a second group of UEs; and 
 defining dedicated resources, for a communication between a base station, BS, and the first and second UEs or the first and second groups, 
 so as to full-duplex the uplink, UL, direction, from the first UE or group to the BS, and the downlink, DL, direction, from the BS to the second UE or group, or vice versa, 
 the method comprising: 
 deciding whether to perform the FDC procedure on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; and/or 
 quality-of-service, QoS; and/or 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; and/or 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users. 
 
   
     
     
         46 . A user equipment, UE, for performing uplink and downlink operations, the UE being configured for:
 coupling with a counterpart UE, or a group of counterpart UEs for a full duplex communication, FDC, with a base station, BS; and   performing uplink operations while the counterpart UE or group is performing downlink operations in correspondence of dedicated resources,   wherein the UE is configured to receive from the BS a signalling regarding whether to operate in FDC on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; 
 quality-of-service, QoS; 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users. 
   
     
     
         47 . A user equipment, UE, for performing uplink and downlink operations, the UE being configured for:
 coupling with a counterpart UE, or a group of counterpart UEs for a full duplex communication, FDC, with a base station, BS; and   performing uplink operations while the counterpart UE or group is performing downlink operations in correspondence of dedicated resources,   wherein the UE is configured to receive from the BS a signalling identifying the dedicated resources and/or selecting the first and second UEs or groups from a plurality of UEs or groups on the basis of assigned priority values, so as to selectively increase the uplink and/or downlink dedicated resources for higher priority communications.   
     
     
         48 . The UE of  claim 46 , configured to:
 operate according to a method comprising the following full duplex communication, FDC, procedure:
 pairing a first user equipment, UE, or a first group of UEs, with a second UE or a second group of UEs; and 
 defining dedicated resources, for a communication between a base station, BS, and the first and second UEs or the first and second groups, 
 so as to full-duplex the uplink, UL, direction, from the first UE or group to the BS, and the downlink, DL, direction, from the BS to the second UE or group, or vice versa, 
 the method comprising: 
 deciding whether to perform the FDC procedure on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; and/or 
 quality-of-service, QoS; and/or 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; and/or 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users. 
 
   
     
     
         49 . A non-transitory digital storage medium having stored thereon a computer program for performing a method comprising the following full duplex communication, FDC, procedure:
 pairing a first user equipment, UE, or a first group of UEs, with a second UE or a second group of UEs; and   defining dedicated resources, for a communication between a base station, BS, and the first and second UEs or the first and second groups,   so as to full-duplex the uplink, UL, direction, from the first UE or group to the BS, and the downlink, DL, direction, from the BS to the second UE or group, or vice versa,   the method comprising:   deciding whether to perform the FDC procedure on the basis of at least one parameter comprising at least one component based on at least one of:
 expected services; and/or 
 quality-of-service, QoS; and/or 
 quality-of-experience, QoE; and/or 
 switching points based on system throughput, outage probability, and/or geographic positions of the users, 
   when said computer program is run by a computer.