Enhanced base station and method for communicating through an enhanced distributed antenna system (eDAS)

1. A base station configured to:

communicate through an enhanced distributed antenna system (eDAS) comprising a plurality of geographically-separated antenna nodes wherein each of the antenna nodes have a plurality of antenna elements;

perform physical-layer baseband processing for each of the antenna nodes at a centralized processing location;

cause the antenna nodes to transmit reference signals in accordance with a multiplexing scheme to allow user equipment to perform channel estimation for the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes; and

cause the antenna nodes to transmit signals having synchronization codes to allow the user equipment to synchronize with the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes,

wherein the synchronization codes are at least one of:

partitioned to include information fields to uniquely identify a paging group, the base station, and the antenna node, and

configured to have a code structure having a code space that is divided into a plurality of subspaces to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify the paging group, the base station and the antenna node.

2. The base station of claim 1 wherein the base station provides communication services for user equipment within a cell and operates as a processing center for the cell

wherein the antenna nodes are provided at different geographic locations within the cell,

wherein the base station is configured to communicate with the antenna nodes over a physical-layer X3 interface, and

wherein the base station is configured to transmit the reference signals and the signals having synchronization codes over the X3 interface for subsequent transmission by the antenna nodes.

3. The base station of claim 1 wherein the information fields of the synchronization codes comprise:

a paging group ID field that identifies the paging group of two or more base stations;

an cell ID field that identifies the base station; and

an antenna-node ID field that identifies an individual one of the antenna nodes associated with the base station.

4. The base station of claim 3 wherein the plurality of subspaces include a plurality of paging-group subspaces to identify each paging group,

wherein each paging-group subspace is associated with one paging group and includes a base-station subspace for each base station, and

wherein each base-station subspace has a plurality of antenna-node subspaces, each antenna-node subspace being associated with one antenna node of the base station.

5. The base station of claim 1 wherein the multiplexing scheme for transmission of the reference signals comprises a combination of code, time and frequency division multiplexing to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify reference signals associated with individual antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes for use in channel estimation.

6. The base station of claim 5 wherein each of the antenna nodes associated with the base station are configured to transmit reference signals with a different code,

wherein the antenna elements of a same antenna node are configured to transmit their reference signals utilizing a common code, and

wherein the antenna elements of the same antenna node are further configured to transmit the reference signals at different times within an orthogonal-frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) symbol and on different subcarrier frequencies of an OFDM resource block.

7. The base station of claim 1 further configured to receive signal-quality reports from the user equipment that uniquely identify one of the antennas nodes and include signal quality information of signals received by the user equipment from the antenna node.

8. The base station of claim 7 further configured to perform an intra-cell handover between antenna nodes by redirecting physical-layer signals over a physical-layer X3 interface from an initial antenna node to a target antenna node.

9. The base station of claim 8 wherein the base station is configured to communicate multi-stream transmissions in accordance with at least one of a SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO communication technique.

10. An enhanced radio-access network (eRAN) comprising a plurality of base stations, each base station is configured to:

communicate through an enhanced distributed antenna system (eDAS) comprising a plurality of geographically-separated antenna nodes wherein each of the antenna nodes have a plurality of antenna elements;

perform physical-layer baseband processing for the antenna nodes at a centralized processing location; and

perform an intra-cell handover between antenna nodes by redirecting physical-layer signals from an initial antenna node to a target antenna node,

wherein each base station is further configured to:

transmit physical-layer signals to the antenna nodes to cause the antenna nodes to transmit reference signals in accordance with a multiplexing scheme to allow user equipment to perform channel estimation for the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes; and

transmit physical-layer signals to the antenna nodes to cause the antenna nodes to transmit signals having synchronization codes to allow the user equipment to synchronize with the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes, and

wherein the synchronization codes are at least one of:

partitioned to include information fields to uniquely identify a paging group, the base station, and the antenna node, and

configured to have a code structure having a code space that is divided into a plurality of subspaces to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify the paging group, the base station and the antenna node.

11. The eRAN of claim of claim 10 wherein the multiplexing scheme for transmission of the reference signals comprises a combination of code, time and frequency division multiplexing to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify reference signals associated with individual antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes for use in channel estimation.

12. The eRAN of claim 10 wherein the base stations are eDAS enhanced node-B (eNBs) configured to operate in accordance with one of the 3GPP LTE E-UTRAN standards.

13. A method for communicating through an enhanced distributed antenna system (eDAS) comprising a plurality of geographically-separated antenna nodes wherein each of the antenna nodes have a plurality of antenna elements, the method comprising:

performing physical-layer baseband processing for each of the antenna nodes at a centralized processing location;

transmitting physical-layer signals to each of the antenna nodes to cause the antenna nodes to transmit reference signals in accordance with a multiplexing scheme to allow user equipment to perform channel estimation for the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes;

transmitting physical-layer signals to each of the antenna nodes to cause the antenna nodes to transmit signals having synchronization codes to allow the user equipment to synchronize with the antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes; and

communicating multi-stream transmissions through the antenna nodes in accordance with at least one of a SU-MIMO and MU-MIMO communication technique,

wherein the synchronization codes are at least one of:

partitioned to include information fields to uniquely identify a paging group, the base station, and the antenna node, and

configured to have a code structure having a code space that is divided into a plurality of subspaces to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify the paging group, the base station and the antenna node.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the multiplexing scheme for transmission of the reference signals comprises a combination of code, time and frequency division multiplexing to allow the user equipment to uniquely identify reference signals associated with individual antenna elements of any one or more of the antenna nodes for use in channel estimation.