TWI583227B - Method of handling serving cell becoming barred status, base station using the same, and user equipment using the same - Google Patents

Description

Method for processing service cells in a blocked state, base station using the same, and user equipment using the same

The present invention relates to a mobile communication technology, and more particularly to a method of processing a service cell that is in a blocked state, a base station using the method, and a user equipment using the method.

With the rapid development of mobile communication technology, people can use any user equipment (UE) such as mobile phones and tablets to make calls, send text messages or access the Internet anytime, anywhere, and even access high transmissions such as listening to music or watching movies. Video streaming services for bandwidth or transmission speed requirements. One of the advantages of mobile communication technology is that it provides high mobility. For example, under Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, user equipment can still use network services at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour (km/hr). However, due to the limited coverage of services provided by a base station, user equipment requires continuous power Measurement to select a base with better received power to maintain the connection. Wherein, when the user equipment measures that the received power of the current base station is lower than that of the other base stations, the user equipment starts a cell reselection mechanism.

In addition, the base station may switch the cell state to a barred state due to factors such as the carrier's maintenance settings or base station failure, and does not allow the user device to camp on the base station. At this point, the user equipment within the base station service will perform a cell selection mechanism to access the other cell. In the TS36.304 standard of the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), it provides two cell selection procedures for user equipment. One is an initial cell selection procedure in which the user equipment re-scans all radio frequencies in the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) band according to its capability (radio frequency; RF) channels to select the appropriate cells for wiring. The second is to store the information cell selection program, which needs to select the appropriate cells to connect from the information about the cell parameters stored in the previously detected cells.

However, the aforementioned initial cell selection procedure requires scanning all RF channels supported by the user device, resulting in excessive time. In addition, in the aforementioned stored information cell selection program, if the stored information is outdated, the efficiency of cell selection is lowered. In the worst case, the user device may not be able to find the appropriate cells based on the stored information, and eventually the initial cell selection process will continue. Therefore, there is a need to provide a method for improving the problem of the conventional cell selection procedure after the base station is blocked.

The present invention provides a method of processing a service cell in a barred state, a base station using the method, and a user equipment using the method, which provide information about cell reselection when the base station switches to a blocking state, To increase the efficiency of the cell selection process by allowing the user device to update cellular information.

The present invention provides a method of processing a serving cell that is in a blocked state, suitable for use in a base station, and the method includes the following steps. Transmitting a first signaling message including a cell information indication, wherein the cell information indication in the first signaling message is used to indicate whether to transmit a second signaling message including cell reselection related information.

The invention provides a base station comprising a transceiver and a processor. The transceiver is used to transmit and receive wireless signals. The processor is coupled to the receiver and the processor is configured to perform the following steps. Decided to switch to the blocking state. Transmitting, by the transceiver, a first signaling message including a cell information indication, wherein the cell information indication in the first signaling message is used to indicate whether to transmit a second signaling message including cell reselection related information through the transceiver.

The present invention provides a method of treating a service cell that is in a blocked state, suitable for use in a user device, the method comprising the following steps. Receiving a first signaling message including a cell information indication. When it is determined that the serving cell switches to the blocking state, determining whether to receive the second signaling message including the cell reselection related information according to the cell information indication in the first signaling.

The invention provides a user equipment, including a transceiver and a processor. The transceiver is used to transmit and receive wireless signals. The processor is coupled to the receiver and the processor Configured to perform the following steps. A first signaling message including a cell information indication is received through the transceiver. When it is determined that the serving cell switches to the blocking state, determining whether to receive the second signaling message including the cell reselection related information through the receiver according to the cell information indication in the first signaling.

Based on the above, the method for processing the service cell in the blocked state according to the present invention, the base station using the method, and the user equipment using the method determine whether to transmit the information related to the cell reselection after the base station decides to switch to the blocking state. Signaling message. In this way, after the base station provides information on cell reselection, the user device can obtain updated information on cell reselection, thereby providing a more efficient cell selection process.

The above described features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description.

100‧‧‧Communication system

110‧‧‧Base station

111‧‧‧Service coverage

112, 132‧‧‧Antenna unit

113, 133‧‧‧ transceiver

115, 135‧‧‧ storage unit

114, 134‧‧‧ analog to digital/digital to analog converter

116, 136‧‧‧ processor

130‧‧‧User equipment

S410~S470, S510~S590, S610~S690‧‧‧ steps

1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

2 is a block diagram showing a base station in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a block diagram showing a user equipment in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of processing a serving cell in a blocked state, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing an execution method for a base station according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for executing a user equipment according to an embodiment of the invention.

In order to improve the efficiency of the cell selection procedure, in the embodiment of the present invention, after the base station decides to switch to the blocking state, a system information block (SIB) including carrier frequency or neighboring cell related information is provided (for example, SIB4, SIB5). And/or SIB6) message to the user device, so that the user device can update the neighboring cell related information after parsing the system information blocks. Thereby, the user device can perform the cell selection process according to the updated neighboring cell related information, thereby improving the performance of the conventional cell selection process. A plurality of embodiments in accordance with the spirit of the present invention are set forth below, and those applying the present embodiment can be appropriately adjusted according to their needs, and are not limited to the contents described in the following description.

1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 1, the communication system 100 includes a base station 110 and a user equipment 130. In this embodiment, the base station 110 serves as a serving cell to provide the user equipment 130 in the service coverage area 111 (the two user equipments 130 in FIG. 1 are taken as an example, but not limited thereto) ) Communication and network services.

The base station 110 can be represented in various embodiments, which can include, for example, but not limited to, a Home Evolved Node B (HeNB), an eNB, an advanced base station (ABS), a base transceiver. System (base transceiver system; BTS), access point, home base station, relay, A scatterer, repeater, intermediate node, intermediate, and/or satellite-based communication base station.

2 is a block diagram showing a base station 110, which may be represented at least by the functional elements illustrated in FIG. 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The base station 110 can include, but is not limited to, a transceiver 113, an analog to digital (A/D)/digital to analog (D/A) converter 114, a processor 116, optionally a storage unit 115, and/or A plurality of antenna units 112. The transceiver 113 wirelessly transmits a downlink signal and receives an uplink signal. Transceiver 113 can also perform operations such as low noise amplification, impedance matching, mixing, upconversion or down conversion, filtering, amplification, and the like. Analog to digital (A/D)/digital to analog (D/A) converter 114 is configured to convert from analog signal format to digital signal format during uplink signal processing, and during downlink signal processing The digital signal format is converted to an analog signal format.

Processor 116 is configured to process digital signals and to execute a program in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention. In addition, the processor 116 can be coupled to the storage unit 115 to store code, device configuration, codebook, buffered or permanent data, and can also record multiple modules executable by the processor 116. The function of the processor 116 can be achieved by using a programmable unit such as a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a digital signal processing (DSP) chip, or a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). To implement. The function of the processor 116 can also be implemented by a separate electronic device or an integrated circuit (IC), and the processor 116 can also be implemented by hardware or software.

User device 130 may represent various embodiments, which may include, but are not limited to, a mobile station, an advanced mobile station (AMS), a server, a client, a desktop computer, a notebook computer, a network Computer, workstation, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), scanner, telephone device, pager, camera, television, handheld video game device, music device, wireless Sensors, etc.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a user device 130, which may be represented by at least the functional elements illustrated in FIG. 3, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The user equipment 130 can include, but is not limited to, a transceiver 133, an analog to digital (A/D)/digital to analog (D/A) converter 134, a processor 136, optionally a storage unit 135, and a Or a plurality of antenna units 132. Processor 136 can be implemented in hardware or software. The functions of the various elements of user device 130 will be similar to those described for base station 110, and thus a detailed description of each element will not be repeated.

4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of processing a serving cell in a blocked state, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 4, the method of this embodiment is applicable to the communication system 100 of FIG. 1, the base station 110 of FIG. 2, and the user equipment 130 of FIG. Hereinafter, the methods described in the embodiments of the present invention will be described in conjunction with the components in the detection system 100, the base station 110, and the user equipment 130. The various processes of the method can be adjusted accordingly according to the implementation situation, and are not limited thereto.

In step S410, the base station 110 decides to switch to the blocking state. In response to the carrier's operational maintenance requirements or other network issues, the telecommunications provider may set the cellular state of the base station 110 to a blocked state without allowing the user device 130 to access (camp). On) is a base station 110 that serves as a serving cell of the user device 130.

Next, in step S430, the base station 110 transmits a first signaling message including a cell information indication, wherein the cell information indication in the first signaling message is used to indicate whether to transmit a second signaling message including cell reselection related information. .

Specifically, in the general case, when the base station 110 decides to switch to the blocking state, the base station 110 transmits a paging message containing the system information modification set to "true" to inform the use. The device information of the device 130 has changed. Also, base station 110 will broadcast a System Information Block Type One (SIB1) message to user device 130 within its service coverage 111. The "cell barred" field in this SIB1 will be modified to "barred". The user device 130 will receive the SIB1 message indicated by the "cell blocking" field as "blocked" within, for example, 80 milliseconds (ms), and then begin the cell selection procedure without continuing to listen from the base station 110. The message sent. However, since the cell reselection related information possessed by the user device 130 may be out of date, such conditions may cause the efficiency of the cell selection procedure to decrease.

Accordingly, the base station 110 of the embodiment of the present invention provides the cell reselection related information to the user equipment 130 to update the obsolete information possessed by the user equipment 130. In this embodiment, the base station 110 first determines whether to provide cell reselection related information to the user equipment 130, and provides a cellular information indication in the first signaling message (eg, paging message, SIB1 message, etc.) (eg, , cell_barred_help_indicator). The cell information indication may be a one-bit indication indicating whether the base station 110 will provide a message containing information related to cell reselection. For example, if base station 110 decides Providing cell reselection related information to the user device 130, the base station 110 will set the cell information indication in the first signaling message to "true" (eg, the one-bit indication is set to "1"). Next, the base station 110 provides cell reselection related information in the second signaling message, and the related description will be described later. On the other hand, if the base station 110 decides not to provide the cell reselection related information to the user equipment 130, the base station 110 sets the cell information indication in the first signaling message to "false" (for example, a bit element). The indication is set to "0", and the base station 110 will not provide information about cell reselection.

Next, in step S450, the user equipment 130 receives the first signaling message including the cell information indication. In an embodiment, the first signaling message is a paging message, and the user equipment 130 first stores the cellular information indication in the storage unit 135. In another embodiment, the first signaling message is an SIB1 message.

Then, in step S470, when the user equipment 130 determines that the base station 110 is switched to the blocking state, the user equipment 130 determines whether to receive the second signaling including the cell reselection related information according to the cell information indication in the first signaling. message. In an embodiment, if the first signaling message is a paging message, the user equipment 130 determines the stored cell after the user equipment 130 receives the third signaling message indicating that the current serving cell switches to the blocked state. Information instructions. The third signaling message is, for example, an SIB1 message, and the user equipment 130 can learn that the base station 110 switches to the blocking state in the "cell blocking" field indicated as "blocking" in the third signaling message. The user device 130 reads the cell information indication stored in the storage unit 135 to determine whether the cell information indication is "true" or "false." That is to say, in this embodiment, after the user equipment 130 receives the paging message including the cell information indication, The user device 130 will wait until receiving the third signaling message transmitted by the base station 110 containing the "cell blocking" field indicated as "blocking" to confirm whether the cell state of the base station 110 is in a blocked state.

In another embodiment, if the first signaling message is an SIB1 message, since the first signaling message includes both a "cell blocking" field indicated as "blocking" and a cell information indication, the user equipment 130 can According to the first signaling message, the current serving cell is directly switched to the blocking state, and then the cell information indication in the SIB1 message is determined to be "true" or "false".

For example, if the cell information indication is "true", the user equipment 130 will continue to monitor the second signaling message transmitted by the base station 110. Conversely, if the cell information indication is "false", the user device 130 will immediately perform a cell selection procedure.

In this embodiment, the second signaling message includes a system information block (for example, SIB4, SIB5, and/or SIB6), and the information about the cell reselection of the system information block includes at least a carrier frequency or neighboring cell related information. . For example, the SIB4 message includes neighboring cell related information for intra-frequency (eg, intraFreqBlackCellList or intraFreqNeighbCellList, etc.), and the SIB5 message includes neighboring cell related information for inter-frequency (eg, interFreqBlackCellList or interFreqCarrierFreqList, etc.), and SIB6 messages include neighboring cell related information for inter-radio access technology (inter-RAT) (eg, carrierFreqListUTRA-FDD or carrierFreqListUTRA-TDD, etc.).

If the cell information indicates that the base station 110 transmits or the user equipment 130 is connected Receiving a second signaling message including cell reselection related information (for example, the cell information indication is "true"), the base station 110 will be in a next modification period (for example, a broadcast control channel (BCC) The second signaling message containing the system information block is transmitted in the modification period, and the user equipment 130 receives the second signaling message in the next modification period.

In some embodiments, base station 110 can further increase the repetition frequency of the transmission system information block. For example, the base station 110 may reduce the value of the periodic (eg, Periodicity) field of the system information in the SIB1 message as the first signaling message or the third signaling message (eg, will represent 16 radio frames (radio) The "rf16" of frame) is modified to represent "rf8" of 8 radio blocks to increase the repetition frequency of the transmission system information block. Accordingly, the user device 130 can obtain the second signaling message including the information related to the cell reselection more quickly.

It should be noted that before the base station 110 transmits the second signaling message including the information related to the neighboring cell, the base station 110 can receive or receive the core network through, for example, a transmission interface (for example, an X2 interface) connected to the neighboring base station. (core network) (for example, through the S1 interface) of neighboring cell related information.

In order to make the embodiments of the present invention easy to understand, examples of operating procedures of the base station 110 end and the user equipment 130 end according to the embodiment of the present invention will be respectively exemplified below.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating an execution method for base station 110 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 5, the base station 110 determines to switch the cell state to the blocked state (step S510), and determines whether to provide the SIB4, SIB5, and/or SIB6 messages (steps). Step S530). If not, the base station 110 sets the paging message or the cell information indication (e.g., cell_barred_help_indicator) in the SIB1 to "false" (step S550), and the message is transmitted to the user equipment 130. Otherwise, the base station 110 sets the cell_barred_help_indicator in the paging message or SIB1 to "true" (step S570), and the message is transmitted to the user equipment 130, and then provides SIB4, SIB5 and/or in the next BCCH modification period. The SIB6 message is sent to the user device 130 (step S590).

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for performing user device 130 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Referring to FIG. 6, the user equipment 130 receives the paging message and learns that the system information is changed (step S610). If the cell information indication (eg, cell_barred_help_indicator) is placed in the paging message, the user device 130 stores the value of cell_barred_help_indicator (step S620). In step S630, the user equipment 130 receives the new SIB1 message within 80 ms, and finds that the serving cell will switch to blocking (step S630). If the cell_barred_help_indicator is placed in the SIB1 message, the user equipment 130 reads the value of the cell_barred_help_indicator (step S640). Next, the user device 130 checks the value of cell_barred_help_indicator (step S650). If cell_barred_help_indicator is "true", the user equipment 130 may receive a new SIB4, SIB5, and/or SIB6 message in the next BCCH modification period (step S690). If cell_barred_help_indicator is "false", the user device 130 immediately performs a cell selection procedure (step S670).

In the present invention, keywords or terms of the 3GPP class are only used as examples for presentation. In accordance with the inventive concepts of the present invention; however, the same concepts presented in the present invention can be applied to any other system, such as IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, WiMAX, and the like, as generally known to those skilled in the art.

In summary, the base station in the embodiment of the present invention can notify the user equipment whether to provide cell reselection related information by adding a cell information indication to the paging message or the SIB1 message. Moreover, the base station can provide, for example, SIB4, SIB5, and/or SIB6 messages containing neighboring cell related information or carrier frequencies to be updated via the user equipment to update outdated information. Thereby, the user equipment can perform a cell selection process according to the updated information, thereby improving the efficiency of the cell selection process.

Although the present invention has been disclosed in the above embodiments, it is not intended to limit the present invention, and any one of ordinary skill in the art can make some changes and refinements without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The scope of the invention is defined by the scope of the appended claims.

S410~S470‧‧‧Steps

Claims (14)

A method for processing a serving cell that becomes a barred state is applicable to a base station, the method comprising: determining whether to provide a cell reselection related information when determining to switch to a blocked state; and transmitting The cell information indicates a first signaling message, wherein the cell information indication is used to indicate whether to transmit a second signaling message including the cell reselection related information. The method of claim 1, wherein the second signaling message includes at least one system information block (SIB), and the cell reselection information of the at least one system information block is at least Included in the carrier frequency or a neighboring cell related information, the step of transmitting the signaling message including the cell information indication further includes: if the cell information indicates to transmit the second signaling including the cell reselection related information The message transmits the at least one system information block in a next modification period. The method of claim 2, wherein before the step of transmitting the at least one system information block in the next modification period, the method further comprises: increasing a repetition frequency of transmitting the at least one system information block. A base station that is processed into a blocking state, comprising: a transceiver for transmitting and receiving wireless signals; a processor coupled to the transceiver, and the processor is configured to: determine to switch to a blocking state, and provide a cell reselection related information; and transmit a first message including a cell information indication through the transceiver And a signaling message, wherein the cell information indication in the first signaling message is used to indicate whether a second signaling message including the cell reselection related information is transmitted through the transceiver. The base station of claim 4, wherein the second signaling message includes at least one system information block, and the cell reselection related information of the at least one system information block includes at least one carrier frequency or one Adjacent to cell related information, and the processor is further configured to: if the cell information indicates to transmit the second signaling message including the cell reselection related information, transmit the through the transceiver in a next modification period At least one system information block. The base station of claim 5, wherein the processor is further configured to perform: increasing a repetition frequency of transmitting the at least one system information block. A method for processing a serving cell that is in a blocking state is applicable to a user equipment, the method comprising: receiving a first signaling message including a cell information indication; and when determining that the serving cell switches to a blocking state, The cell information indicates whether to receive a message from the serving cell containing information related to cell reselection Two signaling messages. The method of claim 7, wherein the second signaling message includes at least one system information block, and the cell reselection related information of the at least one system information block includes at least one carrier frequency or a neighbor. The cell-related information, and the step of deciding whether to receive the second signaling message including the cell reselection related information according to the cell information indication in the first signaling further includes: if the cell information indicates that the receiving includes the The second signaling message of the cell reselection related information receives the at least one system information block in the next modification period. The method of claim 7, wherein the first signaling message comprises a paging message, and after the step of receiving the first signaling message including the cell information indication, the method further comprises: storing The cell information indication; and after receiving a third signaling message indicating that the current serving cell switches to the blocked state, determining the stored cellular information indication. The method of claim 7, wherein the first signaling message comprises a system information block type 1 (SIB type 1; SIB1) message, and the first signaling message including the cell information indication is received. After the step, the method further comprises: determining that the serving cell switches to the blocking state, and determining the cell information indication in the system information block type message. A user equipment that is configured to be in a blocked state, comprising: a transceiver for transmitting and receiving wireless signals; a processor coupled to the transceiver, the processor configured to perform: Receiving, by the transceiver, a first signaling message including a cell information indication; and when determining that a serving cell switches to a blocking state, determining, according to the cell information indication, whether to receive a cell from the serving cell through the transceiver A second signaling message for reselecting related information. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the second signaling message includes at least one system information block, and the cell reselection related information of the at least one system information block includes at least one carrier frequency or a neighboring cell related information, wherein the processor is further configured to: if the cell information indicates to receive the second signaling message including the cell reselection related information, receive the transceiver through the transceiver in a next modification period The at least one system information block. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the first signaling message comprises a paging message, and the processor is further configured to: store the cellular information indication; and receive the indication After the current serving cell switches to a third signaling message of the blocked state, the stored cell information indication is determined. The user equipment of claim 11, wherein the first signaling message comprises a system information block type-message, and the processor is further configured to perform: determining that the serving cell switches to the blocking Status, and determine the cell information indication in the system information block type message.