Method and related mobile device for determining a reference signal received power

1. A method for a mobile device configured to determine a reference signal received power, the method comprising:

estimating a plurality of channel coefficients of a channel at time-frequency resources of the reference signal;

choosing a subset of correlated channel coefficients from the plurality of channel coefficients; and

estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients based on a cross-correlation between channel coefficients of the subset of correlated channel coefficients,

wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises defining a coherence plane based on a coherence time of the channel and a coherence bandwidth of the channel and choosing channel coefficients falling into the coherence plane, and

wherein the reference signal received power is reportable to a mobile network to facilitate mobility management of the mobile device within the mobile network.

2. The method according to claim 1 , the method further comprising:

estimating an absolute mean reference signal received power by averaging over all subsets of correlated channel coefficients to obtain a mean reference signal received power and

computing the absolute value of the mean reference signal received power.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises:

choosing channel coefficients along time falling into a coherence time of the channel or

choosing channel coefficients along frequency falling into a coherence bandwidth of the channel.

4. A method for a mobile device configured to determine a reference signal received power, the method comprising:

estimating a plurality of channel coefficients of a channel at time-frequency resources of the reference signal;

choosing a subset of correlated channel coefficients from the plurality of channel coefficients; and

estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients based on a cross-correlation between channel coefficients of the subset of correlated channel coefficients,

wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises choosing two adjacent channel coefficients along frequency or time and estimating the reference signal received power of the subset comprises multiplying a Hermitian of a first channel coefficient of the two channel coefficients by a second channel coefficient of the two adjacent channel coefficients, and

wherein the reference signal received power is reportable to a mobile network to facilitate mobility management of the mobile device within the mobile network.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises dividing the plurality of channel coefficients into a plurality of non-overlapped coherence planes.

6. The method according to claim 4 , wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises defining a coherence plane for each of the plurality channel coefficients.

7. The method according to claim 3 , the method comprising:

estimating the coherence time from Doppler spread.

8. The method according to claim 3 , the method comprising:

estimating the coherence bandwidth from delay spread.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises:

computing a correlation matrix of the subset of correlated channel coefficients; and

averaging over non-diagonal elements of the correlation matrix.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises:

computing a correlation matrix of the subset of correlated channel coefficients by computing a correlation value for every n-th channel coefficient along time and frequency, wherein n is a positive integer; and

averaging over non-diagonal elements of the correlation matrix.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises:

computing a correlation matrix of the subset of correlated channel coefficients by computing a correlation value for all channel coefficients within the subset of correlated channel coefficients; and

averaging over non-diagonal elements of the correlation matrix.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises:

computing a correlation matrix of the subset of correlated channel coefficients by computing a correlation for the center channel coefficient of the subset of correlated channel coefficients; and

averaging over non-diagonal elements of the correlation matrix.

13. A method for a mobile device configured to determine a reference signal received power, the method comprising:

estimating a plurality of channel coefficients of a channel at time-frequency resources of the reference signal;

choosing a subset of correlated channel coefficients from the plurality of channel coefficients; and

estimating the reference signal received power of the subset of correlated channel coefficients based on a cross-correlation between channel coefficients of the subset of correlated channel coefficients,

wherein choosing the subset of correlated channel coefficients comprises any of:

defining a coherence plane such that a complement of an average coherence factor of the coherence plane ρ mean does not exceed a pre-defined reference signal received power error estimation error tolerance x as given by 1−ρ mean ≦x; and choosing channel coefficients falling into the coherence plane,

defining a coherence plane such that a complement of an average coherence factor of the coherence plane ρ mean does not exceed a pre-defined reference signal received power error estimation error tolerance x in dB as given by 10*log(1−ρ mean )≦x; and choosing channel coefficients falling into the coherence plane,

defining a coherence plane such that a complement of a minimum coherence factor of the coherence plane ρ min does not exceed a pre-defined reference signal received power error estimation error tolerance x as given by 1−ρ min ≦x; and choosing channel coefficients falling into the coherence plane, and

defining a coherence plane such that a complement of a minimum coherence factor of the coherence plane ρ min does not exceed a pre-defined reference signal received power error estimation error tolerance x in dB as given by 10*log(1−ρ min )≦x; and choosing channel coefficients falling into the coherence plane, and

wherein the reference signal received power is reportable to a mobile network to facilitate mobility management of the mobile device within the mobile network.

14. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method according to claim 1 .