IP Library Granted Patent US 10,225,880
Granted Patent B2
US 10,225,880 · App. 15/396,477 · Granted Mar 5, 2019

Discontinuous reception (DRX) alignment techniques for dual-connectivity architectures

Inventors: Ali T. Koc (Portland, OR); Satish C. Jha (Portland, OR); Kathiravetpillai Sivanesan (Portland, OR); Rath Vannithamby (Portland, OR); Yujian Zhang (Beijing, CN)
Assignee: INTEL IP CORPORATION
H04W76/28H04W76/15H04W88/06H04W16/32H04W84/045Y02D70/00Y02D70/1224Y02D70/1242Y02D70/1244Y02D70/1246Y02D70/1262Y02D70/1264Y02D70/142Y02D70/146Y02D70/166Y02D70/168Y02D70/21Y02D70/23Y02D70/24
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 10,225,880
App. No.
15/396,477
Granted
Mar 5, 2019
Kind
B2
Abstract

Discontinuous reception (DRX) alignment techniques for dual-connectivity architectures are described. In one embodiment, for example, user equipment (UE) may comprise one or more radio frequency (RF) transceivers, one or more RF antennas, and logic, at least a portion of which is in hardware, the logic to receive a radio resource control (RRC) configuration information message containing a small cell RRC configuration information element (IE), the small cell RRC configuration IE to contain a small cell discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration IE comprising one or more inter-cell-coordinated small cell DRX parameters, the logic to determine a start time for a small cell DRX cycle based on at least one of the one or more inter-cell-coordinated small cell DRX parameters and initiate the small cell DRX cycle at the determined start time. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims (45)

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory; and

logic, at least a portion of which is implemented in circuitry coupled to the memory, the logic to:

determine, based on a message received at a master evolved node B (MeNB) of a master cell group (MCG) for dually-connected user equipment (UE), a system frame number (SFN) and a subframe number, the SFN and the subframe number associated with a system timing of a secondary evolved node B (SeNB) of a secondary cell group (SCG) for the dually-connected user equipment UE, wherein the system timing of the SeNB is not synchronized with a system timing of the MeNB;

based on the SFN and the subframe number, select one or more MCG discontinuous reception (DRX) parameters to at least partially align MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE with SCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to comprise parameters controlling MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE;

generate a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising information identifying the one or more MCG DRX parameters; and

send the RRC message to a radio frequency (RF) interface for transmission to the dually-connected UE.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , the RRC message to comprise an RRCConnectionSetup message.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to be identified in a MAC-MainConfig information element (IE) contained in the RRCConnectionSetup message.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include an onDurationTimer parameter.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a longDRX-Cycle parameter.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a shortDRX-Cycle parameter.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , the logic to:

identify one or more SCG DRX parameters based on a message received from the SeNB via an X2 interface; and

select the one or more MCG DRX parameters based on the SFN, the subframe number, and the one or more SCG DRX parameters.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , the logic to generate a message for transmission to the SeNB via an X2 interface, the message to identify the one or more MCG DRX parameters.

9. A system, comprising:

the apparatus of claim 1 ;

a radio frequency (RF) transceiver coupled to the circuitry; and

an RF antenna coupled to the RF transceiver.

10. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, comprising a set of instructions that, in response to being executed at an evolved node B (eNB), cause the eNB to:

select, while operating as a master evolved node B (MeNB) of a master cell group (MCG) for dually-connected user equipment (UE), one or more MCG discontinuous reception (DRX) parameters for the dually-connected UE based on received timing information, the timing information to indicate a system frame number (SFN) and a subframe number, the SFN and the subframe number associated with a system timing of a secondary evolved node B (SeNB) of a secondary cell group (SCG) for the UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to be selected to at least partially align MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE with SCG DRX operations of the dually connected UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to comprise parameters controlling MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE, wherein the system timing of the SeNB is not synchronized with a system timing of the MeNB; and

transmit an RRCConnectionSetup message to the dually-connected UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to be identified in an information element (IE) comprised in the RRCConnectionSetup message.

11. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the logic to generate a message for transmission to the SeNB via an X2 interface, the message to identify the one or more MCG DRX parameters.

12. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , comprising instructions that, in response to being executed at the eNB, cause the eNB to:

identify one or more SCG DRX parameters based on a message received from the SeNB via an X2 interface; and

select the one or more MCG DRX parameters based on the timing information and the one or more SCG DRX parameters.

13. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include an onDurationTimer parameter.

14. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a longDRX-Cycle parameter.

15. The at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a shortDRX-Cycle parameter.

16. An evolved node B (eNB), comprising:

a radio interface;

baseband circuitry coupled to the radio interface; and

logic, at least a portion of which is implemented in the baseband circuitry, the logic to:

determine, based on received timing information, during operation of the eNB as a master evolved node B (MeNB) of a master cell group (MCG) for dually-connected user equipment (UE), a timing offset between a system timing of the eNB and a system timing of a secondary evolved node B (SeNB) of a secondary cell group (SCG) for the dually-connected UE, the received timing information to indicate a system frame number (SFN) associated with the system timing of the SeNB and a subframe number associated with the system timing of the SeNB, wherein the system timing of the SeNB is not synchronized with the system timing of the eNB;

based on the timing offset, select one or more MCG discontinuous reception (DRX) parameters to at least partially align MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE with SCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to comprise parameters controlling MCG DRX operations of the dually-connected UE, the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a longDRX-Cycle parameter;

generate a radio resource control (RRC) message containing an information element (IE) identifying the one or more MCG DRX parameters; and

send the RRC message to the RF interface for transmission to the dually-connected UE.

17. The eNB of claim 16 , the logic to generate a message for transmission to the SeNB via an X2 interface, the message to identify the one or more MCG DRX parameters.

18. The eNB of claim 16 , the logic to:

identify one or more SCG DRX parameters based on a message received from the SeNB via an X2 interface; and

select the one or more MCG DRX parameters based on the timing offset and the one or more SCG DRX parameters.

19. The eNB of claim 16 , the IE to comprise a MAC-MainConfig IE.

20. The eNB of claim 16 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include an onDurationTimer parameter.

21. The eNB of claim 16 , the one or more MCG DRX parameters to include a shortDRX-Cycle parameter.

Assignments (2)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Jun 26, 2020
From: INTEL CORPORATION
To: APPLE INC.
Reel/Frame 053063/0205 →
CONFIRMATORY ASSIGNMENT Recorded Jun 25, 2020
From: INTEL IP CORPORATION
To: INTEL CORPORATION
Reel/Frame 053051/0016 →
Continuity (3)
Continuation 14583653 · Dec 27, 2014
Provisional Application 61924194 · Jan 6, 2014
Related Publication 20170111956A1 · Apr 20, 2017