WO2024254885A1

WO2024254885A1 - Smart thermal management in device

Info

Publication number: WO2024254885A1
Application number: PCT/CN2023/100858
Authority: WO
Inventors: Xin Miao LI; Xianhua HE; Qi Zhang; Degeng WEI
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Current assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Priority date: 2023-06-16
Filing date: 2023-06-16
Publication date: 2024-12-19
Anticipated expiration: 2025-12-16
Also published as: CN121400015A; EP4728794A1

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a solution for smart thermal management. For example, a device is configured to obtain a temperature associated with a radio frequency (RF) unit of the device. The device is also configured to determine, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and perform, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, or (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit. In this manner, the significant performance reduction caused by overheating can be avoided, and the complexity of the device is not required to increase.

Description

SMART THERMAL MANAGEMENT IN DEVICE

FIELD

Various example embodiments described herein generally relate to the field of telecommunication, and in particular, to a device, an apparatus, a method, and a computer readable storage medium for smart thermal management.

BACKGROUND

With the development of technology, a wireless communication device (for example, a fifth generation, 5G, base station) can have multi-carrier aggregation capability and be equipped with a larger number of massive MIMO antennas. However, such multi-carrier aggregation and larger number of massive MIMO antennas may introduce high energy consumption in the whole 5G base station, and most of the energy consumption is dissipated in the form of heat consumption.

There are varies of methods for heat consumption control, for example, improving the power amplifier efficiency, increasing the rotation speed of a fan, or reducing the transmission power size for a power amplifier (RF) . However, above solutions may increase the complexity of base station. Furthermore, in some cases, the impact of these method on the performance of the device may be fluctuated in an undesirable range, for example, significantly affecting the quality of the service provided by the device.

SUMMARY

In general, example embodiments of the subject disclosure provide a solution for smart thermal management in a device.

In a first example embodiment, there is provided a device. The device may comprise a radio frequency (RF) unit, at least one processor and at least one memory storing an instruction that, when executed by the at least one processor, causing the device at least to obtain a temperature associated with the RF unit. The device is further caused to determine, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and perform, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit.

In a second example embodiment, there is provided a method. In the method, the device obtains a temperature associated with an RF unit of the device. The device determines, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold. Then, the device performs, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit.

In a third example embodiment, there is provided an apparatus. The apparatus comprises: means for obtaining a temperature associated with a RF unit of the apparatus; means for determining, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and means for performing, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit.

In a fourth example embodiment, there is provided a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions that, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third example embodiment.

In a fifth example embodiment, there is provided a computer program comprising instructions, which, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus at least to obtain a temperature associated with a RF unit of the apparatus. The apparatus is further caused to determine, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and perform, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit.

In a sixth example embodiment, there is provided a device. The device comprises a obtaining circuitry configured to obtain a temperature associated with a RF unit of the device; a determining circuitry configured to determine, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and a performing circuitry configured to perform, based on the muting ratio, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, or (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit.

It is to be understood that the summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of the various example embodiments of the subject disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the subject disclosure. Other features of the subject disclosure will become comprehensible through the following description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1a illustrates an example device environment in which example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be implemented;

Fig. 1b illustrates an example of smart RF thermal management architecture according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 1c illustrates an example of temperature collection and fan speed control for RF unit;

Fig. 2 illustrates an example flowchart of a method implemented at a device according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 3 illustrates an temperature control strategy according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 4a illustrates an example of muting or switching off a part of transmitters of the RF unit according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 4b illustrates an example simulation result for the performance change under the smart thermal management according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 5a illustrates example operation steps according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 5b illustrates an example of energy saving simulation results of according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 6 illustrates an example of smart thermal management in combination with artificial intelligence (AI) /machine learning (ML) model according to some embodiments of the disclosure;

Fig. 7 illustrates an example simplified block diagram of an apparatus that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the subject disclosure; and

Fig. 8 illustrates an example block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the subject disclosure.

Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example embodiments of the subject disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the example embodiments of the subject disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the subject disclosure. Example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which the subject disclosure belongs.

References in the subject disclosure to “one embodiment, ” “an embodiment, ” “an example embodiment, ” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every example embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same example embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an example embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to modify any such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other example embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

It may be understood that although the terms, “first” , “second” , “third” and so forth, may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are merely used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only, and is not intended to be limiting of all example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a” , “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” , “comprising” , “has” , “having” , “includes” and/or “including” , when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof.

As used herein, “at least one of the following: <a list of two or more elements>” and “at least one of <a list of two or more elements>” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or” , mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

As used herein, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following example embodiments:

(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry) and

(b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable) :

(i) a combination of analog and/or digital hardware circuit (s) with software/firmware and

(ii) any portions of hardware processor (s) with software (including digital signal processor (s) ) , software, and memory (ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and

(c) hardware circuit (s) and or processor (s) , such as a microprocessor (s) or a portion of a microprocessor (s) that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not to be used for operation.

This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term herein, including in any claims. As a further example, as used herein, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as long-term evolution (LTE) , LTE-advanced (LTE-A) , wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) , high-speed packet access (HSPA) , narrow band Internet of things (NB-IoT) and so forth. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, 5G-A, and/or beyond. Example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future types of communication technologies and systems with which the subject disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the subject disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device is configured to access the network and receive services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP) , for example, a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , a new radio, (NR) NB (also referred to as a gNB) , a remote radio unit (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a relay, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology.

The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE) , a subscriber station (SS) , a portable subscriber station, a mobile station (MS) , or an access terminal (AT) . The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE) , an Internet of things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD) , a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery) , an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and/or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chain contexts) , a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. In the following description, the terms “terminal device” , “communication device” , “terminal” , “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

As used herein, the term “mute/muting” may refer to disabling some functionalities of a corresponding module of a wireless communication device. For example, applying a muting operation to the RF unit of the device may refer to disabling a transmission on the whole RF unit in a certain period. In another example, applying another muting operation to a transmitter (TX) of the RF unit comprising a plurality of TXs may refer to switching off this TX, i.e., the transmission will be not transmitted via this TX. Without any limitation, the term “mute/muting” may be used interchangeably with the terms “blank/blanking” in this disclosure. In this disclosure, although the switching off operation is mainly discussed with respect to the TX of the RF unit, the switching off operation may be also applied to the transceiver (TRX) of the RF unit. In this disclosure, the terms “TX” and “TRX” may be interchangeably used.

As used herein, the term “muting tendency” may refer to whether the RF unit is required to be applied a cooling operation for reducing the temperature of the RF unit. Without any limitation, the determined muting tendency may cause to apply slot (or symbol) muting and/or TX switching off.

As mentioned above, the impact of conventional thermal control method on the performance of the device may be fluctuated in an undesirable range, which may significantly affect the quality of the service provided by the device.

In one solution, once the temperature of the RF unit of the device is detected as high, the device may directly reduce the power for the power amplifier (PA) of the RF unit or shut down the RF unit. However, this furtherly causes transmission problem such as interruption of transmission for other served devices. If the device is the 5G base station once the device is shut down, the service time (or life) of 5G base station is reduced, and the service quality of the network is affected accordingly. In this case, these traditional methods may increase the complexity of device, reduce the cell coverage, or even reduce the reliability of the whole communication system.

Specifically, there are kinds of methods for thermal/heat consumption control. For example, improving the power amplifier efficiency, increasing the rotation speed of a fan. Similarly, those methods may cause the problem of increasing high complexity in RF hardware, especially for fan-less radio units. For example, if reducing the transmission power from power amplifier, this may lead cell coverage loss. If shutting down 5G base station, it may reduce the reliability of the system.

In view of the above and in order to improve the performance of a wireless communication device, technique (s) and/or mechanism (s) for the smart thermal management in a device. To this end, a device obtains a temperature associated with a radio frequency (RF) unit of this device. If the temperature is above a first temperature threshold, then based on comparison between the temperature and several temperature threshold comprising the first temperature, the device determines a muting tendency for a RF unit of the device. Then, the device performs, based on the muting tendency, a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and/or a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit.

In this manner, the thermal management may be performed based on a determined muting tendency which may result in the RF unit being used discontinuously and/or partially, such that the thermal accumulation can be significantly reduced. As such, the impact on the device performance is in a smooth way and can be predicted. Furthermore, in some cases, the negative impact can be considered as “non-existent” relative to the thermal management benefits.

Example embodiments of the subject disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Fig. 1a illustrates an example device environment 100 in which example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be implemented.

The device environment 100, which may be a part of a wireless communication device or be the wireless communication device 110 itself, includes an RF unit 120 and a baseband unit (BBU) 130 configured to communicate with each other. In this case in which the device 110 is a base station or a network device, the BBU 130 may schedule and prepare a downlink data, then transform the downlink (DL) data from baseband to middle band or radio frequency band. In turn, the BBU 130 transmits the downlink data to the RF unit 120 and the device 110 performs the downlink transmission containing the downlink data using the RF unit 120. For example, the device 110 transmits the DL transmission at a certain power by means of the power amplifier (PA) , in order to achieve a desired cell coverage quality.

It is to be understood that the number of units and other objects in Fig. 1a is provided merely for the purpose of illustration without implying any limitations to the device environment 100. The device environment 100 may include any suitable number of functionality units configured to implement example embodiments of the subject disclosure. Although not shown, it would be appreciated that one or more terminal devices may be located in the device environment 100.

Communications in the network environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol (s) , comprising, but not limited to, the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , the fifth generation (5G) , 5G-Advanced or beyond (6G) , wireless local network communication protocols such as institute for electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and/or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) , orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) , time division multiplexing (TDM) , frequency division multiplexing (FDM) , code division multiplexing (CDM) , Bluetooth, ZigBee, and machine type communication (MTC) , enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) , massive machine type communication (mMTC) , ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) , carrier aggregation (CA) , dual connectivity (DC) , and new radio unlicensed (NR-U) technologies.

Fig. 1b illustrates an example of smart RF thermal management architecture according to some embodiments of the disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the smart RF thermal management architecture will be described with reference to Fig. 1a.

As shown in Fig. 1b, the BBU 130 may be the BBU 130 in Fig. 1a and the RF radio 120 may be the RF unit 120 in Fig. 1a. The RF thermal management architecture as shown contains RF radio 120 and BBU (baseband unit) 130. For each RF radio, a temperature collection module 143 of the organization management (OM) module may collect current reliable temperature measurements based on multiple sensor inputs T sensor value from each temperature sensor, the temperature sensors may be collectively referred to as sensor 150. Then, the temperature control module 145 may make decision based on current collected temperature, output three possible decisions including time unit muting (for example, slot muting or symbol muting) and/or half TX muting, PA power control 153 or RF shutdown 155 (which will be further discussed with reference to Figs. 2 to 6) . This thermal management architecture can be compatible with any current existed RF cooling methods. In some alternative examples, the RF radio 120 may report the thermal related data to the BBU 130, and DL scheduler 155 of the BBU 130 may make the decisions.

Fig. 1c illustrates an example of temperature collection and fan speed control for RF unit. For the purpose of discussion, the smart RF thermal management architecture will be described with reference to Fig. 1a.

In Fig. 1c, for each hardware, the example of temperature measurement and temperature report of supported temperature sensors 150 are shown. In an example, each unit manages its own temperature, and temperature control 145 is handled in a centralized way in OM module. For example, the OM module may make fan (which may be collectively referred to as the fan 160) speed control and alarm management and reporting. For the units without fans (due to the limitation of radio size of the massive MIMO) , the temperature monitoring is still performed for alarm purposes and is used power reduction algorithms, but not used for fan control purpose.

In this disclosure, as mentioned above, a smart RF thermal management strategy, operation or architecture is provided. The smart RF thermal management has low complexity and high efficiency for RF cooling down, in which only software upgrades are required, and the hardware update is not needed, especially for fan-less radio frequency unit.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example flowchart 200 of a method implemented at a device according to some embodiments of the disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the smart RF thermal management architecture will be described with reference to Figs. 1a and 1b.

At 210, the device 110 obtains a temperature associated with an RF unit 120 of the device 110. As shown in Fig. 1b, a plurality of temperatures associated with the RF unit 120 may be obtained. The temperature obtained at 210 may be an average temperature of the plurality of temperatures. Alternatively, the temperature obtained at 210 may be also the maximum temperature of the plurality of temperatures. Without any limitation, the temperature obtained at 210 may be any one or more of the plurality of temperatures or some temperatures derived based on the plurality of temperatures.

At 220, the device 110 determines, for the RF unit 120, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold. The at least one temperature threshold may comprise a first temperature threshold and a second temperature threshold, which are further discussed in the following. As mentioned above, the term muting tendency may indicate whether the RF unit is required to be applied a cooling operation for reducing the temperature of the RF unit. In some embodiments, the muting tendency may comprise a muting ratio (which may be also referred to as a target muting ratio in this disclosure) . The muting ratio may refer to a ratio of the number of time units during which the transmission on RF unit 120 is muted and a predefined number of time units. For discussion clarity, the muting operation is discussed in the following and not discussed here. Without any limitation, the muting tendency may also comprise any other parameter that relates to operations associated with muting the RF unit in the time domain and/or muting the TX of the RF unit.

Regarding determining the muting ratio, there may be a “trigger” temperature threshold “T_blanking_on” which may be also referred to a first temperature threshold in this disclosure. Once detecting that the temperature obtained at 210 is above this first temperature threshold, the device 110 may determine the muting ratio and start a timer for periodically monitoring the temperature. With the muting ratio and the timer, a smart temperature control algorithm is activated. In this algorithm, the temperature is monitored periodically and the muting ratio can be adjusted dynamically in order to timely optimizing the thermal control. Only for discussion clarity, the smart temperature control algorithm is discussed with reference to Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 illustrates a temperature control strategy according to some embodiments of the disclosure. In Fig. 3, the x-axis is represented as the temperature and the y-axis is represented as the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of the RF unit 120. Furthermore, the time “T_blanking_on 310” may be the first temperature threshold discussed above. That is, once detecting that the temperature obtained at 210 is above this first temperature threshold, the device 110 may determine the muting ratio and start a timer. Only as example, the firstly (or initially) determined muting ratio may be “10%” . Without any limitation, the firstly determined muting ratio may be any other value, for example, determined based on historical thermal control data. In an example, this firstly determined ratio may be calculated or determined by an AI/ML model trained based on the historical thermal control data.

In turn, if the timer expires, the device 110 may further increase, maintain or reduce the muting ratio based on the temperature. In some embodiments, upon the expiry of the timer, the device 110 may determine whether the current temperature is still above the first temperature threshold. If the temperature is still above the first muting threshold, the device 110 may update the muting ratio by increasing a first step, i.e., the muting ratio is updated as the muting ratio plus the first step. In this way, the muting ratio is increased, such that the transmission duration of the RF unit 120 is reduced. As such, the thermal accumulation can be reduced.

Alternatively, in some embodiments, upon the expiry of the timer, the device 110 may determine whether the current temperature is not above the first temperature and is above the “T_blank_off 320” (which may be also referred to the second temperature threshold) . If the temperature value is not above the first muting threshold and is above the second muting threshold, the device 110 may maintain the muting ratio unchanged. Alternatively, if the temperature value is not above the second muting threshold, the device 110 may update the muting ratio by reducing a second step, i.e., the muting ratio is updated as the muting ratio minus the second step. Without any limitation, the second step may be same as or different from the first step. Only as an example, the first step and/or second step may be 5%, 10%, 15%or any other percentage value. In this way, once the temperature is reduced, the device 110 may try to increase the duration for transmission in order to improve the throughput. In addition, once the muting ratio is determined to be increased, reduced or maintained, the timer may be restarted for further monitoring the temperature.

A specific example of the above embodiments is presented as below. In this example, the temperature control algorithm is provided in an OM module (for example, the OM module as shown in Fig. 1b) of the device 110. In the algorithm, if the Tsensor_average > = the first temperature threshold 310 (which may be also referred to as Tsym_blanking_on 310) , then the OM module starts a timer and notify BBU 130 to activate smart temperature control algorithm for determining targetMutingRatio. In some embodiments, the above Tsensor_average may be the average value from reported value of each temperature sensor. As mentioned above, TargetMutingRatio is defined slot muting percentage in DL slots, and the initial value for TargetMutingRatio may be, for example, 10%.

If the timer expires, and Tsensor_average >= Tsym_blanking_on 310, then the OM module restarts the timer and notify the BBU 130 that targetMutingRatio = targetMutingRatio + step_up.

If the timer expires and Tsensor_average < Tsym_blanking_off 320, then the OM module restarts the timer and notify the BBU 130 that targetMutingRatio = targetMutingRatio –step_down. The Tsym_blanking_on and Tsym_blanking_off are the temperature thresholds for slot muting algorithm. The step_up and step_down may be defined as target muting ratio up step and down step, for example, 10%.

If the timer expires and Tsym_blanking_off 320 < Tsensor_average <= Tsym_blanking_on 310, then OM module restarts the timer and notify BBU 130 that the targetMutingRatio. Furthermore, there may be a maximum TargetMutingRatio (for example, 50%) , that is, the TargetMutingRatio shall not increase when it reaches at the maximum TargetMutingRatio.

Moreover, in some cases, even if the muting ratio is increased to the maximum value, the temperature associated with the RF unit 130 may still increase. In this case, if the temperature is above a power reduction threshold (i.e., the T_PA_PC 330 as shown in Fig. 3) , the device 110 may reduce a power size for a power amplifier (PF) of the device 110. In addition, if the temperature is above a shutdown threshold (i.e., T_danger 340 as shown in Fig. 3) , the device 110 may shut down the RF unit 120 of the device 110. In some embodiments, T_PA_PC and T_danger may be the legacy power reduction thresholds.

The above embodiments introduce a smart mechanism for determining and dynamically adjusting the muting ratio. With this muting ratio, the device may optimize the thermal control in advance, before the coverage performance is affected due to overheat.

Referring back to Fig. 2, at 230, based on the above muting ratio, the device 110 performs at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters of the RF unit. The first muting operation of the RF unit is based on time unit. The first muting operation may refer to, for the RF unit 120, muting transmission in the muting ratio of time units of a predefined number of time units. In this disclosure, the predefined number of time units may be the number of time units within a duration in which the above timer is running. Without any limitation, the predefined number of time units may be any other number of time units which are used for obtaining the statistics of the muting time units.

The second muting operation may refer to muting or switching off a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit 120. For discussion clarity, the second muting operation is further discussed with reference to Fig. 4a.

Fig. 4a illustrates an example of muting or switching off a part of transmitters of the RF unit according to some embodiments of the disclosure. As shown in Fig. 4a, the muted part 405 of TXs in the RF unit 120 may be half of all the TXs 400 of the RF unit 120. In the example of Fig. 4a, the RF unit 120 may have 64 TXs, and the part of TXs may be 32 TXs. Although Fig. 4a shows that the muted part of TXs are divided in horizontal manner and the top part of the horizontal cut is muted, the TXs can be divided in any other manners. For example, the part of TXs may have any shape in the whole RF unit 120. In an example, the muted part of TXs may be of the sparse array manner, such that the remaining active TXs can achieve the similar performance relative with the RF unit 120 without muted TXs. Although the part of TXs has been muted or switched off, the performance will not be degraded by the same range which will be further discussed with reference to Fig. 4b.

In a specific example, when the DL scheduler in the BBU 130 receives TX switching off indication from RF radio 120, the DL scheduler may perform half of TX switching off for corresponding TX s (or cell) . In addition, when TX off cancel indicator is received, the above TX off should be stopped immediately.

Fig. 4b illustrates an example simulation result for the performance change under the smart thermal management according to some embodiments of the disclosure. Specifically, Fig. 4b is the simulation result for the half TX s muted in the case which time division duplexing (TDD) 4 port with grid of beams (GOB) and 8 port with precoder matrix indication (PMI) .

In Fig. 4b, the bins 410, 420, 430, 440, 450 and 460 represent the performance simulations in the case that half of TXs has been muted or switched off. In turn, the other corresponding bins represent the performance simulations without muting or switching off. From the simulation result, it can be seen that the cell average throughput only degrades 8%and 12.7%for each MIMO configuration. In turn, the power reduction by half TX muting can be achieved around 29%～33%. That is, the cell average throughput loss may be much lower than the power reduction by half TX muting.

Referring back to Fig. 2, regarding muting the transmission on the RF unit 120 on the basis of the time unit, there may further operations for trading off the performance reduction.

It can be understood that the time unit (for example, a slot or a symbol) muting has no impact to channel quality such as DL signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) , modulation coding scheme (MCS) and rank. In turn, the muting in time domain may lead to the expansion of resources in frequency domain, then increase spectral efficiency in this scenario. There is no throughput loss if the resources in the frequency domain are enough for expansion. Otherwise, if the resource in the frequency domain is full used before muting, then the cell average throughput loss by slot muting is proportional with the muting ratio.

Based on above performance analysis, this invention exploits a dynamic slot muting and/or half TX muting algorithm based on average of used PRBs, in order to minimize the cell average throughput loss introduced by this invention.

In some embodiments, with the muting ratio, the device 110 may perform a transmission using the RF unit by increasing frequency resources relative to a transmission performed without the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation. In this way, by means of using more frequency resources, the performance of the device 110 (for example, the throughput) may be not affected or reduced by a much small range. For example, the device 110 may determining a usage ratio of frequency resources between an average number of physical resource blocks (PRB) determined for a transmission and a number of PRBs available for the device. Then, by considering both the muting ratio and usage ratio, the terminal device 110 may increase the PRBs for the transmission accordingly.

Only for discussion purposes, the above usage ratio may be denoted as “R” . In addition, the power reduction ratio achieved by muting or switching off the part TXs of the RF unit 120 may be denoted as “T” . In some embodiments, if the muting ratio is smaller than or equal to 1-R (this means that the “free frequency resources” may cover the performance degradation caused by muting the transmission in the time domain) , the device 110 may mute a first number of time units, such that a ratio between the first number and a predefined number is equal to the above muting ratio. In this way, by means of reducing the radiation duration of the RF unit 120, the RF unit 120 can be cooled down. In turn, the device 110 expands the frequency resources, and as such, the throughput of the device 110 may be maintained or reduced by a quite small range.

Alternatively, if the muting ratio is greater than 1-R and is smaller than 1-R+T, the device 110 may mute the transmission on the RF unit during a third number of time units, such that a ratio between the third number and a predefined number is equal to 1-R. Furthermore, the device 110 may mute or switch off the part of transmitters of the radio frequency and perform the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device 110. In this case, the free frequency resources cannot completely meet or trade off the performance degradation caused by the muting ratio. Meanwhile, the device 110 may further switch off the part of TXs for cooling down the RF unit 120. In this way, the throughput of the device 110 may be also reduced by a quite small range (for example, caused by switching off the TXs) .

Alternatively, if the muting ratio is greater than 1-R+T, the device 110 may mute a third number of time units, such that a ratio between the third number and a predefined number is equal to the muting ratio minus T (i.e., muting ratio -T) . Furthermore, the device 110 may mute or switch off the part of transmitters of the radio frequency and perform the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device 110. In this case, even if the whole free frequency resources and the switching off for the part of TXs are utilized, the performance degradation cannot be traded off. As such, the throughput of the device 110 may be reduced while is still better than affecting the coverage quality.

A specific example of the above embodiments is presented as below. In this example, if muting ratio (which is denoted as targetMutingRatio) <= (1-usage ratio, which is denoted as the aver_PRB_used) , the device 110 performs the slot muting with targetMutingRatio. If (1-aver_PRB_used) < targetMutingRatio < = (1-aver_PRB_used) + power reduction radio (which is denoted as targetAchievedRatio_TX_muting) , then the device 110 may perform the first muting operation, i.e., slot muting, with (1-aver_PRB_used) . In parallel, the device 110 may also perform the second muting operation, i.e., muting or switching off the part of TXs. Alternatively, if targetMutingRatio > (1-aver_PRB_used) + targetAchievedRatio_TX_muting, then the device 110 may perform the second muting operation, and perform the first muting operation with (targetMutingRatio -targetAchievedRatio_TX_muting) .

Alternatively, in some embodiments, the targetMutingRatio may be the required muting ratio target from OM module; the aver_PRB_used is the average percentage of used PRBs in DL scheduler; and the targetAchievedRatio_TX_muting is the achieved power reduction by half TX muting with typical value is 30%*aver_PRB_used.

Still referring to Fig. 2, regarding the first muting operation, it may be performed per time unit. In some embodiments, the device 110 may perform the first muting operation based on the associated priority level of the traffic on a time unit. For example, if a time unit is used for traffic having a priority level lower than a priority threshold, the device 110 may perform the first muting operation by muting the transmission during this time unit. Otherwise, if the time unit is used for traffic having a priority level higher than the priority threshold, the device 110 may perform the transmission during the time unit. In addition, the actual muting ratio is calculated timely. For example, during a predefined number of units, the device 110 may calculate the actual muting ratio, i.e., the ratio of the number of actually muted time units and the predefined number. If the actual muting ratio is equal to or greater than the muting ratio, the device 110 may stop the first muting operation and perform the transmission using the RF unit during remaining time units in the predefined number of time units.

Without any limitation, the above operations may be performed at any part of the device 110. In an example, the RF unit 120 may obtain the temperature, perform the smart thermal management algorithm for determining the muting ratio, and perform the first muting operation and/or second muting operation. Alternatively, the RF unit 120 may obtain the temperature and inform the BBU 130 with the temperature. Then, the BBU 130 may perform the smart thermal management algorithm for determining the muting ratio, and perform the first muting operation and/or second muting operation. For example, the BBU 130 may perform these steps in the DL scheduler. Then, the BBU 130 may transmit the thermal control decision to the RF unit 120 for performing the corresponding operations. Without any limitation, the device 110 may also utilize an AI/ML model, which will be further discussed with reference to Fig. 6.

Only for discussion clarity, Fig. 5a illustrates example operation procedure 500 according to some embodiments of the disclosure. In the example of Fig. 5a, the BBU 130 (or DL scheduler) perform the smart thermal algorithm for determining the muting ratio and perform, based on the muting ratio, the first and/or second muting operations.

In this example, when DL scheduler receives a time muting indication and the muting ratio (for example, the TargetMutingRatio) from the RF unit 120, the DL scheduler may start slot/symbol muting for corresponding cell, slot/symbol muting flow in DL scheduler as shown in Fig. 5a.

At the operation 501: Performing slot muting based on below algorithm:

If (achievedMutingRatio< tgtMutingRatio) and the current slot does not contain a (higher) priority traffic (for example, system information block 1 SIB1, open system interconnect OSI, signaling, paging, channel state information-reference signal CSI-RS, trace reference signal, TRS, random access channel message 2/message 4, RACH MSG2/MSG4, hybrid automatic request HARQ retransmission, medium access control MAC control element CE) , lay 2L2-PS) , the current slot PDSCH traffic may be blanked or muted. Else, the slot muting due to high temperature is not applied. In this step, the high priority traffics can be scheduled as normal without any impact. In addition, in order to reduce the delay caused by continuous slot muting, if several consecutive slots are blanked, consider skipping the muting of current slot.

At the operation 503: calculating SlotbmutingOutcome based on step 1 result: SlotmutingOutcome [i] = nSym_not_used (i) /nSym_total (i) , where: i represents index of DL/special slot; nSym_not_used represents number of not scheduled DL symbols per DL/special slot; and nSym_total represents total DL symbols per DL/special slot.

At the operation 505, calculating the achievedMutingRatio (for example, the actual muting ratio as mentioned above) : achievedMutingRatio = Sum (slotmutingOutcome [i] ) /T_window, where the T_window may represent the time average window to meet slot/symbol muting target. In an example, the T_window may be the above predefined number of time units. At the operation 507, there may have two stage judgment, at the first stage judgment, if achievedMutingRatio >= tgtMutingRatio in current time window, stopping the first muting operation immediately for remaining slots within current time window. Else, this procedure 500 may return to the operation 501. In addition, at the second stage judgement, once the muting ratio is arrived at the maximum muting ratio, the procedure 500 may proceed with reducing the power size or shut down the RF unit, i.e. the operation 509.

In turn, with the smart thermal management, the power consumption may be also saved accordingly. Fig. 5b illustrates an example of energy saving simulation results of according to some embodiments of the disclosure.

As shown in Fig. 5b, each group may have three kind of metrics related to the energy saving. Taking the first group as an example, the first bin 510 may represent the AEHC metric related to the energy saving, the second bin 520 may represent the AEQE metric related to the energy saving, and the third bin 530 may represent the AQQE metric related to the energy saving. The other groups are as similar as this first group. In addition, the line 540 represents the linear change of the energy saving of the AEHC metric.

Specifically, Fig. 5b is the test result from energy saving benefits by the first and/or second muting operations for 5G radio AEHC, AEQE, AQQE. From the test result, around 30%of energy can be saved by means of the embodiments of this disclosure. In addition, most of the energy consumption is dissipated in the form of heat consumption, the energy consumption saving can help RF high temperature cooling. Furthermore, PA bias energy can be saved from RF hardware if PA are switched off when the blanked slots and or switched off TX.

As mentioned above, the device 110 may also utilize the AI/ML model. Fig. 6 illustrates an example of smart thermal management in combination with AI/ML model according to some embodiments of the disclosure.

As shown in Fig. 6, the AI/ML model 610 may collect the thermal related data from the RF unit 120 and BBU 130 by using the data collection module 613. The thermal related data may be the temperature state, antenna numbers, power consumption profile, PRB load, etc. With these parameters, the AI/ML model may determine an appropriate muting ratio and determine corresponding first muting operation and/or second muting operation by using a RF cooling policy decision module 615. Then, the AI/ML model may transmit the decision containing the first muting operation and/or second muting operation to the BBU 110 for scheduling the RF unit 120. Without any limitation, the AI/ML model may be trained based on the historical data for the thermal control, so that the AI/ML model may determine the better temperature threshold, muting ratio, the part of TXs. In an example, an AI/ML agent (a network element or a software module embedded on gNB) is introduced, which contain data collection and RF cooling policy decision making. The data collection module continuously monitors RF radio temperature, antenna numbers, radio power consumption profile etc, and RF cooling policy decision to obtain the outputs of the neural network model, the effective RF cooling action, i.e. slot blanking and the target blanking ratio, and/or half TXs off.

In view of the above, a smart thermal management method and corresponding operations have been provided. By means of this method and operations, the significant performance reduction caused by overheating can be avoided, and the complexity of the device is not required to increase.

In some example embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing any of operations of the method 200 (e.g., the device 110) may include means for performing the respective steps of the method 200. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus comprises means for obtaining a temperature associated with a radio frequency (RF) unit of the apparatus; means for determining, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and means for performing, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, or (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus further comprises: means for determining a usage ratio of frequency resources between an average number of physical resource blocks (PRB) determined for a transmission and a number of PRBs available for the device; and means for increasing PRBs for the transmission based on the muting tendency and usage ratio. In some example embodiments, the muting tendency may comprise a muting ratio.

In some example embodiments, the usage ratio is denoted by R, and the means for performing the at least one of the first muting operation and the a second muting operation comprises: means for based on determining that the muting ratio is smaller than and equal to 1-R, muting a transmission on the RF unit during a first number of time units, such that a ratio between the first number and a predefined number is equal to the muting ratio; and means for performing the transmission by at least using one or more increased PRBs that is determined based on the muting ratio.

In some example embodiments, the usage ratio is denoted by R, a power reduction ratio is determined by muting or switching off the part of transmitters of the RF unit and the power reduction ratio is denoted as T, and the means for performing the at least one of the first muting operation and the a second muting operation comprises: means for based on determining that the muting ratio is greater than 1-R and is smaller than 1-R+T, muting a transmission on the RF unit during a second number of time units, such that a ratio between the second number and a predefined number is equal to 1-R; means for muting or switching off the part of transmitters of the RF unit; and means for performing the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device.

In some example embodiments, the usage ratio is denoted by R, a power reduction ratio is determined by muting or switching off the part of transmitters of the RF unit and the power reduction ratio is denoted as T, and the means for performing the at least one of the first muting operation and the a second muting operation comprises: means for based on determining that the muting ratio is greater than 1-R+T, muting the transmission on the RF unit during a third number of time units, such that a ratio between the third number and a predefined number is equal to the muting ratio minus T; means for muting or switching off the part of transmitters of the radio frequency; and means for performing the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device.

In some example embodiments, the means for determining the muting ratio comprises: means for determining, based on determining that the temperature is above a first temperature threshold, the muting ratio and starting a timer; and means for determining, upon expiry of the timer, to increase, maintain or reduce the muting ratio based on the temperature.

In some example embodiments, the means for determining the muting ratio comprises: means for determining, upon expiry of the timer, whether the temperature is above a first temperature threshold; and means for updating, based on determining that the temperature is above the first muting threshold, the muting ratio by increasing a first step.

In some example embodiments, the means for determining the muting ratio comprises: determining, upon expiry of the timer, whether the temperature is not above the first temperature threshold and is above a second temperature threshold, the second muting threshold being smaller than the first muting threshold; and means for maintaining the muting ratio based on determining that the temperature is not above the first muting threshold and is above the second muting threshold.

In some example embodiments, the means for determining the muting ratio comprises: means for determining, upon expiry of the timer, whether the temperature is not above a second temperature threshold that is smaller than the first temperature threshold; and means for updating, based on determining that the temperature is not above the second muting threshold, the muting ratio by reducing a second step.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus further comprises means for based on determining that the temperature is above a power reduction threshold, reduce a power size for a power amplifier (PF) of the device, the power reduction threshold being greater than the first muting threshold or a second muting threshold; and means for shut down the RF unit of the device based on determining that the temperature is above a shutting down threshold, the shutdown threshold being greater than the power reduction threshold.

In some example embodiments, the temperature is at least one of the following: an average temperature of a plurality of temperatures associated with the radio frequency unit; or the maximum temperature of the plurality of temperatures.

In some example embodiments, the means for performing the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation comprises: means for based on determining that a time unit is used for traffic having a priority level lower than a priority threshold, performing the first muting operation by muting the transmission during the time unit; and means for based on determining that a time unit is used for traffic having a priority level higher than the priority threshold, performing the transmission during the time unit.

In some example embodiments, the means for performing the at least one of the first muting operation and the a second muting operation comprises: means for calculating an actual muting ratio in a predefined number of time units; and means for performing, based on determining that the actual muting ratio is equal to or greater than the muting ratio, the transmission using the RF unit during remaining time units in the predefined number of time units.

In some example embodiments, the muting tendency is determined at the RF unit or at a baseband unit (BBU) of the device; and/or the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation on the RF unit is determined at the RF unit or at the BBU.

In some example embodiments, the muting tendency is calculated by an artificial intelligence (AI) /machining learning (ML) model for the device; and/or the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation is determined by the AI/ML model.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further comprises means for performing other steps in some embodiments of the method 200. In some embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code. The at least one memory and computer program code are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the performance of the apparatus.

Fig. 7 is a simplified block diagram of a device 700 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the subject disclosure. The device 700 may be provided to implement the communication device, for example the first device 110 or the second device 120 as shown in Fig. 1a. As shown, the device 700 includes one or more processors 710, one or more memories 720 coupled to the processor 710, and one or more communication modules 740 coupled to the processor 710.

The communication module 740 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 740 has at least one antenna to facilitate communication. The communication interface may represent any interface that is to be utilized for communication with other network elements. The communication interface may be hardware or software based interface. For example, the communication interface may be one or more transmitters. The one or more transmitters may be coupled to one or more antennas or antenna ports to wirelessly transmit and/or receive communication signals. The antennas or antenna ports may be the same or different types. The antennas or antenna ports may be located at different positions of an apparatus. The one or more transmitters allow the apparatus to communicate with other devices that may be wired and/or wireless. The transceiver may support one or more radio technologies. For example, the one or more transmitters may include a cellular subsystem, a WLAN subsystem, and/or a Bluetooth^TM subsystem. The one or more transmitters may include processors, controllers, radios, sockets, plugs, buffers, or the like circuits to form one or more communication channels to one or more radio frequency units.

The processor 710 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 700 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

The memory 720 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a read only memory (ROM) 724, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM) , a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD) , a digital video disk (DVD) , and other magnetic storage and/or optical storage. Examples of volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random-access memory (RAM) 722 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

Program 730 includes executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 710. The program 530 may be stored in ROM 724. The processor 710 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 730 into the RAM 722.

Example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be implemented by means of the program so that device 700 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to Figs. 2 to 6. Example embodiments of the subject disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

Fig. 8 illustrates an example block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the subject disclosure

In some example embodiments, the program 730 may be tangibly contained in a readable storage medium which may be included in the device 800 (such as in the memory 720) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 700. Device 700 may load the program 730 from the storage medium to the RAM 722 for execution. The storage medium may include any types of tangible non-volatile storage, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. Fig. 8 shows an example of the storage medium 800 in the form of CD or DVD. The storage medium has the processor instructions 730 stored therein.

Generally, various example embodiments of the subject disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic, or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor, or other computing device. While various aspects of example embodiments of the subject disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

The subject disclosure also provides at least one program product tangibly stored on a non-transitory readable storage medium. The program product includes executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target real or virtual processor, to carry out process 200 as described above with reference to Fig. 2 to Fig. 6. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as configured in various example embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

Program code for carrying out methods of the subject disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. This program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general-purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program codes, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions/operations specified in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams of the various example embodiments described herein to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

In the context of the subject disclosure, the program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus, or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, readable storage medium, and so forth.

The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. A readable storage medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific example embodiments of the readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random-access memory (RAM) , a read-only memory (ROM) , an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory) , an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) , an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. The term “non-transitory, ” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (e.g., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM) .

Further, while operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the subject disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Certain features that are described in the context of separate example embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single example embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single example embodiment may also be implemented in multiple example embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

Although the subject disclosure has been described in terms specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject disclosure defined in the claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described in the example embodiments above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

A device comprising:

a radio frequency (RF) unit;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing an instruction that, when executed by the at least one processor, causing the device at least to:

obtain a temperature associated with the RF unit;

determine, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and

perform, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit.
The device of claim 1, wherein the device is further caused to:

determine a usage ratio of frequency resources between an average number of physical resource blocks (PRB) determined for a transmission and a number of PRBs available for the device; and

increase PRBs for a transmission based on the muting tendency and usage ratio.
The device of claim 2, wherein the muting tendency comprises a muting ratio.
The device of claim 3, wherein the usage ratio is denoted by R, and the device is caused to perform the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation by:

based on determining that the muting ratio is smaller than or equal to 1-R, muting a transmission on the RF unit during a first number of time units, such that a ratio between the first number and a predefined number is equal to the muting ratio; and

performing the transmission by at least using one or more increased PRBs that is determined based on the muting ratio.
The device of claim 3, wherein the usage ratio is denoted by R, a power reduction ratio is determined by muting or switching off the part of TXs of the RF unit and the power reduction ratio is denoted as T, and the device is caused to perform the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation by:

based on determining that the muting ratio is greater than 1-R and is smaller than 1-R+T, muting a transmission on the RF unit during a second number of time units, such that a ratio between the second number and a predefined number is equal to 1-R;

muting or switching off the part of TXs of the RF unit; and

perform the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device.
The device of claim 3, wherein the usage ratio is denoted by R, a power reduction ratio is determined by muting or switching off the part of TXs of the RF unit and the power reduction ratio is denoted as T, and the device is caused to perform the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation by:

based on determining that the muting ratio is greater than 1-R+T, muting a transmission on the RF unit during a third number of time units, such that a ratio between the third number and a predefined number is equal to the muting ratio minus T;

muting or switching off the part of TXs of the radio frequency; and

performing the transmission by using the PRBs available to the device.
The device of claim 3, wherein the device is further caused to determine the muting ratio by:

determining, based on determining that the temperature is above a first temperature threshold, the muting ratio and starting a timer; and

determining, upon expiry of the timer, to increase, maintain or reduce the muting ratio based on the temperature.
The device of any of claim 1 to 6, wherein the temperature is at least one of the following:

an average temperature of a plurality of temperatures associated with the radio frequency unit; or

the maximum temperature of the plurality of temperatures.
The device of any of claim 1 to 7, wherein the device is caused to perform the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation by:

based on determining that a time unit is used for traffic having a priority level lower than a priority threshold, performing the first muting operation by muting the transmission during the time unit; and

based on determining that a time unit is used for traffic having a priority level higher than the priority threshold, performing a transmission for the traffic during the time unit.
The device of any of claims 3 to 9, wherein the device is caused to perform the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation by:

calculating an actual muting ratio in a predefined number of time units; and

performing, based on determining that the actual muting ratio is equal to or greater than the muting ratio, the transmission using the RF unit during remaining time units in the predefined number of time units.
The device of any of claims 1 to 9, wherein at least one of the following:

the muting tendency is determined at the RF unit or at a baseband unit (BBU) of the device; or

the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation on the RF unit is determined at the RF unit or at the BBU.
The device of any of claims 1 to 10, wherein at least one of the following:

the muting tendency is determined by an artificial intelligence (AI) /machining learning (ML) model for the device; or

the at least one of the first muting operation and the second muting operation is determined by the AI/ML model.
A method comprising:

obtaining, at a device, a temperature associated with a radio frequency (RF) unit of the device;

determining, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and

performing, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit.
An apparatus comprising:

means for obtaining a temperature associated with a radio frequency (RF) unit of the apparatus;

means for determining, for the RF unit, a muting tendency based on comparison between the temperature and at least one temperature threshold; and

means for performing, based on the muting tendency, at least one of (i) a first muting operation of the RF unit based on a time unit, and (ii) a second muting operation to mute a part of transmitters (TX) of the RF unit.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions stored thereon for performing at least the method of claim 13.