Background
Existing research shows that a heterogeneous network is introduced into a long term evolution advanced (LTE-advanced) system. The heterogeneous network means that a micro cell is also deployed at the lower layer of the macro cell. Such as remote radio units (RRHs), Pico base stations (Pico enbs), Home base stations (Home enbs), and relay enbs. The introduction of micro cells results in more cell border areas and thus additional interference. The power imbalance between the macro cell and the micro cell causes particularly severe interference to UEs located in cell border areas. A typical deployment in a heterogeneous network is a macro cell (macro cell) + a home base station cell (femto cell) (homeeNB), that is, a macro base station coexists with a home base station. The femtocell usually adopts a CSG mode, and only users with CSG authority can access the femtocell. When the UE without CSG authority is within the coverage of the CSG, data communication can be performed only with the macro base station, and when the macro base station and the home base station use the same frequency, serious interference is caused to the macro UE, which is referred to as a victim UE.
The 3gpp forum discusses a number of solutions for mitigating interference of victim UEs, one of which is to implement interference coordination between macro eNB and home eNB based on multiple carriers. As shown in fig. 1, assuming there are two carriers f1 and f2, a macro eNB may transmit control signaling and data information on any one carrier to a macro UE far away from a home eNB; for macro UE (i.e., virtual UE) and home UE close to the home eNB, control information needs to be transmitted on different carriers, and data information can be transmitted on any carrier.
The multi-carrier mode of the home base station in the existing scheme is determined by the OAM and informs the home base station to configure, that is, the OAM rarely reconfigures the multi-carrier used by the home base station, which easily causes the following problems:
because the home base station can be started anywhere at any time, when the home eNBs are densely distributed, the interference on the same carrier wave is likely to be large; the carrier configurations between each other need to be coordinated, and the existing algorithms are not flexible enough.
For example, OAM configures a multi-carrier for a femtocell, but there is no femto UE in the coverage of the femtocell, or there are few femto UEs in the coverage of the femtocell, or there are few occupied resources, and these number of carriers are not needed, and at the same time, the access users of neighboring femtocells cannot use the resources of these carriers, thus resulting in the waste of resources.
OAM is less to some home base station carrier resources that dispose, but there are more femto UE that needs to communicate at the same time and data bulk is bigger in coverage of home base station, and the access users of the adjacent home base station are few at the same time, or the present use is few, and situation such as the resource bulk that uses is very little, at this moment, this cell femto UE can't use the resource of the adjacent home base station, therefore has caused the waste of the resource.
In summary, in the prior art, when the problem of strong interference between CSG femtocells is solved, some carriers are set for fixed reservation of the femtocells, which may result in insufficient resources or resource waste of some cells, and may not improve the utilization rate of multi-carrier resources.
In addition, in the case where a home base station is applied to a certain enterprise or the like, since the same CSG ID can be used for the home base stations, an X2 interface exists between the home base stations. An X2 interface also exists between Pico enbs.
In view of the serious interference problem in the heterogeneous network, when the interference of the micro base station to the victim UE on the macro base station side is mitigated by using the multi-carrier technology, the carrier configurations for sending the PDCCH to the victim UE by the macro base station and the home eNB should not conflict, so as to minimize the interference suffered on the control channel of the victim UE.
In addition, the 3gpp forum is also discussing the strong interference that micro base stations suffer from each other when they are densely scheduled. As shown in fig. 2, when home enbs are densely distributed, it is desirable that, in carrier allocation, not only the carrier used by the victim UE is different from that used by the home base station, but also different carriers should be used as much as possible between the home base stations to reduce mutual interference. Similarly, when pico cells are densely distributed, similar problems exist, and different carriers should be used as much as possible to reduce mutual interference.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides an interference coordination method based on multiple carriers, which can effectively relieve mutual interference among micro base stations and improve the performance of cell edge users.
In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:
a multi-carrier based interference coordination method comprises the following steps:
the micro base station receives a carrier configuration condition sent by an adjacent micro base station;
and the micro base station carries out the carrier configuration of the cell according to the received carrier configuration state and the principle that the carrier configuration of the adjacent micro base station is different.
Preferably, when the neighboring micro base station supports single carrier configuration, the transmitted carrier configuration status is: and the adjacent micro base stations adopt single carriers currently.
Preferably, the method for sending the carrier configuration status by the neighboring micro base station is as follows:
carrying the currently adopted single carrier by adopting a multi-carrier bitmap mode; each bit of the multi-carrier bitmap represents a carrier, and the set bit represents that the corresponding carrier is the currently adopted single carrier;
or,
and sending the cell identification number of the currently adopted single carrier to the micro base station.
Preferably, when the neighboring micro base station supports multi-carrier configuration, the transmitted carrier configuration status is: the current basic coverage carrier and auxiliary capacity carrier configuration status adopted by the adjacent micro base station; wherein the secondary capacity carrier is a carrier that does not transmit control information or transmits control information at a reduced power.
Preferably, the method for sending the carrier configuration status by the neighboring micro base station is as follows:
carrying the carrier configuration status in a multi-carrier bitmap mode; wherein each bit of the multi-carrier bitmap represents a carrier, a bit being set indicates that the corresponding carrier is the basic coverage carrier, and a bit not being set indicates that the corresponding carrier is the auxiliary capacity carrier;
or,
and sending the cell identification number of the currently adopted basic coverage carrier to the micro base station.
Preferably, the carrier configuration status of the sending is: and carrier resource information available to the neighbor base station of the neighbor micro base station.
Preferably, the method for sending the carrier configuration status by the neighboring micro base station is as follows:
carrying carrier resource information available for the adjacent base station of the adjacent micro base station in a multi-carrier bitmap mode; wherein each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, and the set bit indicates that the corresponding carrier is a carrier available for the neighbor base station of the neighbor micro base station;
or sending the identification number of the carrier available to the adjacent micro base station in the cell to the micro base station.
Preferably, when the micro base station receives the carrier configuration status sent by the adjacent micro base station, the micro base station further receives information that the multi-carrier interference coordination function sent by the adjacent micro base station is activated.
Preferably, the information that the carrier configuration status and the multi-carrier interference coordination function are activated is received through an X2 interface between micro base stations.
Preferably, after the micro base station performs carrier configuration of the cell, the method further includes:
when the micro base station supports single carrier configuration, the micro base station sends the PRB proportion occupied by the UE performing inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the micro base station to the adjacent micro base station, and the PRB proportion is used as a carrier adjustment basis of the adjacent micro base station under the condition that the number of carrier resources is limited; the PRB proportion is that the number of PRBs used by the UE for inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the UE is divided by the maximum available number of PRBs on the carrier;
when the micro base station supports multi-carrier configuration, the micro base station sends the proportion of CCE occupied by UE performing inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the micro base station to the adjacent micro base station, and the CCE is used as a carrier adjustment basis of the adjacent micro base station under the condition that the number of carrier resources is limited; the CCE ratio is obtained by dividing the number of CCEs used by the UE performing inter-cell interference coordination on all current basic coverage carriers by the maximum number of CCEs available on all current basic coverage carriers.
Preferably, the UE performing inter-cell interference coordination is a UE whose cell edge is subject to strong interference.
Preferably, after the micro base station performs carrier configuration of the cell, the method further includes: and the micro base station feeds back the carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station.
Preferably, when the micro base station supports single carrier configuration, the feeding back, by the micro base station, carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station is as follows:
carrying the carrier information configured in the cell by adopting a multi-carrier bitmap mode; each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, and the set bit represents that the corresponding carrier is a single carrier configured in the cell;
or, the cell identification number of the single carrier configured in the cell is sent to the adjacent micro base station.
Preferably, when the micro base station supports single carrier configuration, the micro base station feeds back carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station through a carrier information cell.
Preferably, when the micro base station supports multi-carrier configuration, the feeding back, by the micro base station, carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station is as follows:
carrying the carrier information configured in the cell by adopting a multi-carrier bitmap mode; each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, the set bit represents that the corresponding carrier is a basic coverage carrier configured for the cell, and the unset bit represents that the corresponding carrier is an auxiliary capacity carrier configured for the cell; wherein the secondary capacity carrier is a carrier that does not transmit control information or transmits control information at a reduced power;
or, the cell identification number of the basic coverage carrier configured in the cell is sent to the adjacent micro base station.
Preferably, when the micro base station supports multi-carrier configuration, the micro base station feeds back carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station through a basic coverage carrier information cell.
Preferably, an operation and maintenance system (OAM) configures a consistent carrier mapping at the micro base station, where the mapped carriers are all carriers in the system or carriers in a predefined carrier subset; the number of carriers in the carrier subsets is set according to actual needs.
Preferably, the cell identification number of the carrier is a carrier frequency identification of the carrier.
According to the technical scheme, the micro base station receives the carrier configuration condition sent by the adjacent micro base station; and the micro base station performs the carrier configuration of the cell according to the received carrier configuration state and the principle that the carrier configuration of the micro base station is different from that of the adjacent micro base station. Through the carrier configuration of the micro base stations, the carrier configuration difference between the adjacent micro base stations is ensured, so that the mutual interference between the micro base stations is reduced, and the performance of cell edge users is improved.
Detailed Description
For the purpose of making the objects, technical means and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The basic idea of the invention is: when the interference coordination mechanism is started, the micro base station is required to transmit the configuration conditions of a plurality of carriers on a control interface between the micro base station and the adjacent micro base station, so that the adjacent micro base station is assisted to avoid mutual collision when determining the carrier configuration of the micro base station, the interference is reduced, and the interference coordination among the micro base stations based on the multi-carrier is realized.
Fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an interference coordination method based on multiple carriers according to the present invention. The method shown in fig. 3 is described by taking interference coordination for the micro base station a as an example, and as shown in fig. 3, the method includes:
step 301, the micro base station a receives a carrier configuration status sent by an adjacent micro base station.
In this step, the carrier configuration status received by the micro base station a is sent by the adjacent micro base station through the X2 interface.
The carrier configuration status sent by the neighboring micro base station B may be defined in different forms as needed, and the specific manner of sending the carrier configuration status may also be in multiple forms, which are described below.
The carrier configuration status can be defined as follows:
when the micro base station B supports single carrier configuration, the configuration status of the carrier is defined as: a single carrier currently adopted by the micro base station B; when the micro base station B supports multi-carrier configuration, the configuration status of the carrier is defined as: the micro base station B currently employs a primary coverage carrier and a secondary capacity carrier. Among them, the basic coverage carrier is a carrier in a general sense, and the auxiliary capacity carrier is a carrier that does not transmit control information such as a PDCCH or transmits control information such as a PDCCH with reduced power. Under the definition of the carrier configuration status, after the micro base station a receives the carrier configuration status sent by the adjacent micro base station B, the carrier situation occupied by the micro base station B itself can be directly determined.
Whether the micro base station B supports single carrier configuration or multi-carrier configuration (i.e. supports carrier aggregation), the configuration status of the carriers is defined as: carrier resource information available to the neighbor base stations of the micro base station B. Under the definition of the carrier configuration state, after the micro base station a receives the carrier configuration state sent by the adjacent micro base station B, the available carrier resources of the micro base station a can be directly determined.
For both of the carrier configuration statuses, when the carrier configuration status is sent, the carrier configuration status can be sent through an existing message (e.g., a load information message, an eNB configuration update message, an X2 Setup Request/X2 Setup Response message, etc.) or a custom message of the X2 interface. Specifically, when carrying the carrier configuration status, the cell identifier of the carrier may be carried directly or in a multi-carrier bitmap manner. In particular, the amount of the solvent to be used,
for the first carrier configuration status definition, the specific way of carrying the carrier configuration status in the multi-carrier bitmap mode may be:
when the micro base station B supports single carrier configuration, each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents one carrier, a bit being set (for example, the bit is set to 1) indicates that the corresponding carrier is a single carrier currently used by the micro base station B, and a bit being not set (for example, the bit is set to 0) indicates that the corresponding carrier is a carrier not currently used by the micro base station;
when the micro base station B supports the multi-carrier configuration, each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, a bit being set (for example, the bit is set to 1) indicates that the corresponding carrier is a basic coverage carrier adopted by the micro base station B, and a bit not being set (for example, the bit is set to 0) indicates that the PDCCH transmission power of the corresponding carrier is reduced or is 0, that is, the corresponding carrier is an auxiliary capacity carrier adopted by the micro base station B.
For the first carrier configuration condition definition, the specific manner of directly carrying the cell identification number of the carrier may be:
when the micro base station B supports single carrier configuration, the cell identification number (specifically, a carrier frequency identification, that is, EARFCN in the LTE system) of a single carrier currently used by the micro base station B is directly sent to the micro base station a.
When the micro base station B supports multi-carrier configuration, the cell identification number (specifically, a carrier frequency identification, that is, EARFCN in the LTE system) of the basic coverage carrier currently used by the micro base station B is directly sent to the micro base station a.
For the second carrier configuration status definition, the specific way of carrying the carrier configuration status in the multi-carrier bitmap mode may be: each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, and setting a bit (for example, setting the bit to 1) indicates that the transmission power of the PDCCH of the corresponding carrier is not reduced, that is, the corresponding carrier is a carrier resource available for the neighbor base station of the micro base station B; a bit not set (e.g. the bit is 0) indicates that the PDCCH transmission power of the corresponding carrier is reduced or 0, i.e. the corresponding carrier is a carrier resource that is not available to the neighbor base station of the micro base station B.
For the second carrier configuration condition definition, the specific manner of directly carrying the cell identification number of the carrier may be: sending an identification number (specifically, a carrier frequency identification, namely EARFCN in LTE system) of a carrier wave available for a neighbor base station of the micro base station B in a cell to the micro base station a
In the above method, the carrier resource information available and the carrier resource information unavailable to the neighboring micro base station are carried in a multi-carrier bitmap manner, where the carriers referred to may be all carriers in the system, or may be a certain subset of carriers specifically defined for a certain purpose, such as a set of carriers used in a small range of some micro cells (e.g., home eNB in an enterprise network). It should be noted that, in the specific implementation, an operation and maintenance system (OAM) needs to configure consistent carrier mapping at the macro eNB and the Home eNB, so that both sides can know the carrier corresponding to each bit in the PCC/SCC configuration pattern information. The carrier mapping is specifically bits in PCC/SCC configuration pattern information corresponding to cell identifiers of different carriers. When OAM is configured, the bit string from bit 1 to bit N of PCC/SCC configuration mapping may be configured according to an ascending or descending order of carrier frequency points in the existing bandwidth.
Meanwhile, when the micro base station B sends the carrier configuration status, the information indicating that the multi-carrier interference coordination function is activated may be further carried in the same message.
An example of sending the corresponding information specifically is as follows: two IEs, namely, two IEs of primary overlay carrier/secondary capacity carrier configuration mode information (PCC/SCC configuration pattern info) and primary overlay carrier/secondary capacity carrier configuration information Inactive (PCC/SCC configuration information Inactive, may be added to an interface message (e.g., a loadlnformation message). The basic covering carrier/auxiliary capacity carrier configuration mode information cell carries configuration information of the basic covering carrier and the auxiliary capacity carrier; the basic coverage carrier/supplemental capacity carrier configuration information inactivity information element carries information indicating that the multi-carrier interference coordination function is active.
Step 302, the micro base station a performs carrier configuration of the cell according to the carrier configuration status received in step 301 and according to a principle different from that of the adjacent micro base station.
In this step, the carrier configuration of the cell is performed according to the carrier configuration status sent by the adjacent micro base station, and the carrier configuration is guaranteed to be different from that of the adjacent micro base station when the carrier configuration is performed, so that the mutual interference between the micro base stations is reduced, and the performance of the cell edge user is improved.
The above is the basic flow of the interference coordination method in the present invention. Further, on the basis of the above procedure, preferably, information may be further fed back to the neighboring micro base station through the following step 303 and/or step 304, so as to be used as a basis for further carrier configuration and adjustment of the neighboring micro base station, thereby further reducing interference between the micro base stations. The specific operation can be carried out as follows:
step 303, the micro base station a sends the physical resource proportion occupied by the UE requiring inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by itself to the neighboring micro base station B.
In this step, the micro base station notifies the adjacent micro base station B of the resource occupation status of the UE requiring inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the micro base station itself, thereby providing a basis for further carrier adjustment of the adjacent micro base station B.
Specifically, when the micro base station a supports single carrier configuration, the micro base station a sends the PRB ratio occupied by the UE performing inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the micro base station a to the adjacent micro base station B;
when the micro base station A supports multi-carrier configuration, the micro base station A sends the proportion of CCE occupied by the UE which carries out inter-cell interference coordination on the carrier configured by the micro base station A to the adjacent micro base station B.
Through the sent UE resource occupation status, the neighboring micro base station B can determine whether the carrier configured by the micro base station a can be used under the condition of limited number of carrier resources, so as to implement adaptive adjustment of the neighboring micro base station B and the micro base station a on the bearer.
The specific PRB proportion can utilize IE in the existing protocol, and can also be redefined as the number of PRBs occupied by the high-interference UE/the total number of PRBs;
the following explains the application scenario:
case 1: home eNB1 supports single carrier, home eNB2 supports carrier aggregation:
in view of the fact that the home eNB1 supports single carrier, the present invention feeds back the load status of the current carrier according to the PRB;
the specific treatment is as follows: if home eNB1 is highly loaded, home eNB2 may not consider doing any processing; if the home eNB1 load is low, home eNB2 may borrow the entire single carrier usage of home eNB 1; of course, even if PRB is low, the control channel load is not low, and in any case, as long as the load control of the home eNB2 on the control channel is within the appropriate range, the interference on the home eNB1 is acceptable, because the reduction of the control channel load is equivalent to the reduction of PDCCH power, or it can be understood that the reception of the control channel of the home eNB1 is guaranteed with diversity (diversity) in order to guarantee that a certain number of CCE powers are 0; in another scheme, the home eNB2 borrows only the single carrier data channel of the home eNB1, and thus has no influence on the control channel.
Case 2: when home eNB1 supports carrier aggregation, home eNB2 also supports carrier aggregation:
in this case, the CCE occupancy ratio is required to be fed back and defined as the number of CCEs occupied by the high-interference UE/the number of all available CCEs; here, the control channel usually occupies 3 OFDM symbols, so the number of CCEs available in 3 OFDM symbols is used as a reference for all CCE numbers. Thus, when a certain home eNB is overloaded, a certain carrier of an adjacent home eNB can be borrowed for use; see the algorithm patents mentioned before for details;
for case1, if CCE is fed back, there is no way to know PRB status, and if CCE occupancy is low, it is not clear that the data channel is idle, so that it still does not play a role in alleviating overload for home eNB 2. Therefore, the situation that the single carrier is different from the multi-carrier is suggested, and different PRB or CCE occupation proportions are fed back.
And step 304, the micro base station A feeds back the carrier information configured in the cell to the adjacent micro base station B.
Specifically, when the micro base station a feeds back the carrier information configured in the cell, a multi-carrier bitmap mode may be adopted, or the cell identifier of the carrier may be directly carried. The specific implementation can be as follows:
when the carrier information configured in the cell is carried in a multi-carrier bitmap manner, when the micro base station a supports single carrier configuration, each bit of the multi-carrier bitmap represents one carrier, a bit is set (for example, the bit is set to 1) to indicate that the corresponding carrier is the single carrier configured in the cell, and a bit is not set (for example, the bit is set to 0) to indicate that the corresponding carrier is a carrier not adopted in the cell; when the micro base station a supports the multi-carrier configuration, each bit of the multi-carrier bit bitmap represents a carrier, a bit being set (for example, the bit is set to 1) indicates that the corresponding carrier is the basic coverage carrier configured in the cell, and a bit being not set (for example, the bit is set to 0) indicates that the corresponding carrier is the auxiliary capacity carrier configured in the cell.
When a mode of directly carrying a cell identification number of a carrier is adopted and when the micro base station A supports single carrier configuration, the cell identification number (specifically, a carrier frequency identification, namely EARFCN in an LTE system) of the single carrier configured in the cell is sent to an adjacent micro base station B, and specifically, the cell can be fed back through a carrier information cell in a resource state response message; when the micro base station a supports multi-carrier configuration, the cell identification number (specifically, a carrier frequency identification, that is, EARFCN in the LTE system) of the basic coverage carrier configured in the cell is sent to the neighboring micro base station B, and specifically, feedback can be performed through the basic coverage carrier information cell in the resource status response message.
The carrier information feedback configured in the local cell can be used for adjusting the carrier configuration of the adjacent micro base station B according to the channel condition and the load condition of the adjacent micro base station B.
The complete process flow of the present invention is now complete. Wherein steps 303 and 304 may be performed in any order. By the method, the carrier configuration condition can be transmitted among the micro base stations, and the micro base stations carry out self carrier configuration or load adjustment according to the received carrier configuration condition, so that the mutual interference among the micro base stations can be reduced, and the performance of cell edge users can be improved.
The above description is only for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiments of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting the invention, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.