RAN APPLICATIONS FOR INTER-CELL INTERFERENCE MITIGATION FOR MASSIVE MIMO IN A RAN
Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for operating a first base station of a radio access network (RAN). At the first base station, the method receives a set of allow and block policies for allocating carrier resources to carrier beams utilized by the first base station for mobile devices within a first region serviced by the first base station, said first region located near a second region serviced by a second base station. At the first base station, the method identifies a first mobile device operating in the first region. At the first base station, the method uses the set of allow and block policies to allocate carrier resources to a carrier beam used to communicate with the first mobile device in the first region.
1 . A method of simulating feasibility of carrier resource allocation policies for allocating carrier resources of a RAN base station to beams transmitted by the RAN base station, the method comprising:
identifying a distribution of user equipments (UEs) in a region serviced by the RAN base station;
identifying one or more carrier beams for the RAN base station based on the UE distribution;
generating, for each identified carrier beam, a predicted amount of carrier resources that are needed to be assigned by the RAN base station to the carrier beam in order to service the UEs in a beam zone traversed by the carrier beam;
based on the predicted amounts, defining policies for allocating carrier resources to identified carrier beams during a simulation that is performed to determine whether the service provided to the UEs based on the defined policies would sufficiently satisfy communication needs of the UEs.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying one or more carrier beams for the RAN base station based on the UE distribution comprises identifying one or more carrier beam identifiers associated with each UE in the UE distribution.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the distribution of UEs comprises identifying, for each of a plurality of UEs, a set of location data associated with the UE.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the set of location data associated with each of the plurality of UEs comprises a set of estimated location data.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein each set of estimated location data is estimated based on CQI (channel quality indicator) associated with the UE, wherein a higher CQI is associated with a location closer to the RAN base station and a lower CQI is associated with a location farther from the RAN base station.
6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein identifying the distribution of UEs further comprises using the CQIs associated with the plurality of UEs to assign each UE in the plurality of UEs to one of a first group of UEs and a second group of UEs, wherein the first group of UEs comprises UEs having a CQI higher than a particular CQI threshold and the second group of UEs comprises UEs having a CQI lower than the particular threshold.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the second group of UEs are categorized as edge user UEs, wherein defining policies for allocating carrier resources to identified carrier beams further comprises identifying potential resource interferences experienced by the edge user UEs from other carrier beams associated with other RAN base stations.
8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein defining policies further comprises defining policy pairs, each policy pair comprising (i) an allow policy that identifies an allowed first set of carrier resources of the RAN base station that are to be allocated to at least a subset of the edge user UEs in a particular sub-region serviced by the RAN base station, and (ii) a block policy that identifies a blocked second set of carrier resources of another RAN base station that correspond to the first set of resources and that cannot be allocated to UEs in the particular sub-region.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the carrier resources are segmented carrier resources.
10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the segmented carrier resources are physical resource blocks (PRBs) and each PRB is a frequency-time block.
11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the RAN base station comprises one of a plurality of RAN base stations, wherein said identifying, generating, and defining are performed for each RAN base station in the plurality of RAN base stations.
12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising distributing, to each RAN base station in the plurality of RAN base stations, a set of policies defined for the RAN base station for allocating carrier resources to identified carrier beams associated with the RAN base station to enable the RAN base station to enforce the defined set of policies.
13 . A method of operating a first base station of a radio access network (RAN), the method comprising:
at the first base station:
receiving a set of allow and block policies for allocating carrier resources to carrier beams utilized by the first base station for mobile devices within a first region serviced by the first base station, said first region located near a second region serviced by a second base station;
identifying a first mobile device operating in the first region;
using the set of allow and block policies to allocate carrier resources to a carrier beam used to communicate with the first mobile device in the first region.
14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein each allow policy identifies a particular allowed set of carrier resources of the base station to be allocated to one or more carrier beams by the first base station and each block policy identifies a particular blocked set of carrier resources that cannot be allocated to one or more carrier beams by the first base station.
15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the set of allow and block policies comprises a first set of allow and block policies, wherein a second set of allow and block policies are provided to the second base station to allocate carrier resources to one or more carrier beams used to communicate with mobile devices in the second region.
16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein each allow policy provided to the first base station for mobile devices within the first region is associated with a corresponding block policy provided to the second base station for mobile devices within the second region.
17 . The method of claim 15 , wherein each block policy provided to the first base station for mobile devices within the first region is associated with a corresponding allow policy provided to the second base station for mobile devices within the second region.
18 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the first set of allow and block policies comprises a first allow policy defined for a particular group of mobile devices operating in the first region and the second set of allow and block policies comprises a second block policy defined for any mobile devices operating in the second region that are serviced by a particular beam of the second base station that is determined to be causing interference for the particular group of mobile devices operating in the first region.
19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the particular group of mobile devices comprises edge user mobile devices located at an edge of the first region.
20 . The method of claim 19 , wherein each mobile device is associated with a CQI (channel quality indicator), wherein mobile devices that have a CQI that is less than a specified CQI threshold are considered edge user mobile devices and mobile devices that have a CQI that is greater than the specified CQI threshold are not considered edge user mobile devices.
21 . The method of claim 20 , wherein using the set of allow and block policies to allocate carrier resources to one or more carrier beams used to communicate with the first mobile device in the first region comprises determining whether the first mobile device comprises a first edge user mobile device.
22 . The method of claim 21 , wherein when the first mobile device is a first edge user mobile device, the method comprises using one or more allow policies in the first set of allow and block policies to allocate carrier resources to the first edge user mobile device.
23 . The method of claim 21 , wherein when the first mobile device is not a first edge user mobile device, the method comprises using one or more block policies in the first set of allow and block policies to allocate carrier resources to the first mobile device.
24 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the carrier resources comprise segmented carrier resources.
25 . The method of claim 24 , wherein the segmented carrier resources comprise physical resource blocks (PRBs) and each PRB comprises a frequency-time block.