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EP-4736534-A1 - REPEATER HANDOVER DECISION BASED ON END-TO-END LINK QUALITY

EP4736534A1EP 4736534 A1EP4736534 A1EP 4736534A1EP-4736534-A1

Abstract

Various aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication. In some aspects, a network-controlled repeater (NCR) node may obtain measurements related to backhaul links between the NCR node and network nodes that forward radio frequency (RF) signals through the NCR node and to an access link between the NCR node and a user equipment (UE). The end-to-end link quality between the UE and each network node may be estimated (for example, by the NCR node or a current serving cell) in accordance with the measurements and a gain and/or transmit power used to forward RF signals, and the current serving cell may use the estimated end-to-end link quality to arrive at handover decisions for the UE.

Inventors

  • HASANZADEZONUZY, Aria
  • AKL, Naeem
  • ABEDINI, NAVID
  • LUO, TAO

Assignees

  • QUALCOMM INCORPORATED

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20240529

Claims (20)

  1. 1. A network node, comprising: a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry coupled with the processor circuitry, the processing system configured to cause the network node to: receive, from a network-controlled repeater (NCR) node, information that indicates an end-to-end link quality between a neighbor cell in communication with the NCR node and a user equipment (UE) in communication with the NCR node; and transmit, to the NCR node, control information to trigger a handover of the UE to the neighbor cell responsive to the information that indicates the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE.
  2. 2. The network node of claim 1, wherein the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE is associated with one or more measurements related to a backhaul link between the neighbor cell and the NCR node.
  3. 3. The network node of claim 1, wherein the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE is associated with one or more measurements related to an access link between the NCR node and the UE.
  4. 4. The network node of claim 1, wherein the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE is associated with one or more of a gain that the NCR node applies to forwarded radio frequency (RF) signals or a transmit power that the NCR node applies to forwarded RF signals.
  5. 5. The network node of claim 1, wherein the end-to-end link quality is associated with an access beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the UE.
  6. 6. The network node of claim 1, wherein the end-to-end link quality is associated with a backhaul beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the neighbor cell.
  7. 7. The network node of claim 1, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the network node to: send, to the neighbor cell, a handover request message to request the handover of the UE to the neighbor cell.
  8. 8. The network node of claim 1, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the network node to: send, to the neighbor cell, one or more parameters related to the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE.
  9. 9. A network node, comprising: a processing system that includes processor circuitry and memory circuitry coupled with the processor circuitry, the processing system configured to cause the network node to: receive, from a network-controlled repeater (NCR) node, one or more parameters related to an end-to-end link quality between a neighbor cell in communication with the NCR node and a user equipment (UE) in communication with the NCR node; estimate the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE in accordance with the one or more parameters; and transmit, to the NCR node, control information to trigger a handover of the UE to the neighbor cell responsive to the estimated end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE.
  10. 10. The network node of claim 9, wherein the one or more parameters related to the end-to- end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE include one or more measurements related to a backhaul link between the neighbor cell and the NCR node.
  11. 11. The network node of claim 9, wherein the one or more parameters related to the end-to- end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE include one or more measurements related to an access link between the NCR node and the UE.
  12. 12. The network node of claim 9, wherein the one or more parameters related to the end-to- end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE include one or more of a gain that the NCR node applies to forwarded radio frequency (RF) signals or a transmit power that the NCR node applies to forwarded RF signals.
  13. 13. The network node of claim 9, wherein the end-to-end link quality is estimated for an access beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the UE.
  14. 14. The network node of claim 9, wherein the end-to-end link quality is estimated for a backhaul beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the neighbor cell.
  15. 15. The network node of claim 9, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the network node to: send, to the neighbor cell, a handover request message to request the handover of the UE to the neighbor cell.
  16. 16. The network node of claim 9, wherein the processing system is further configured to cause the network node to: send, to the neighbor cell, information indicating the one or more parameters related to the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE.
  17. 17. A method for wireless communication by a network node, comprising: receiving, from a network-controlled repeater (NCR) node, information that indicates an end-to-end link quality between a neighbor cell in communication with the NCR node and a user equipment (UE) in communication with the NCR node; and transmitting, to the NCR node, control information to trigger a handover of the UE to the neighbor cell responsive to the information that indicates the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE.
  18. 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the end-to-end link quality between the neighbor cell and the UE is associated with one or more measurements related to a backhaul link between the neighbor cell and the NCR node, one or more measurements related to an access link between the NCR node and the UE, a gain that the NCR node applies to forwarded radio frequency (RF) signals, or a transmit power that the NCR node applies to forwarded RF signals.
  19. 19. The method of claim 17, wherein the end-to-end link quality is associated with one or more of an access beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the UE or a backhaul beam that the NCR node uses to communicate with the neighbor cell.
  20. 20. The method of claim 17, further comprising: sending, to the neighbor cell, a handover request message to request the handover of the UE to the neighbor cell.

Description

REPEATER HANDOVER DECISION BASED ON END-TO-END LINK QUALITY CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This Patent Application claims priority to U.S. Patent Application No. 18/343,895, filed on June 29, 2023, entitled “REPEATER HANDOVER DECISION BASED ON END-TO-END LINK QUALITY,” and assigned to the assignee hereof. The disclosure of the prior Application is considered part of and is incorporated by reference into this Patent Application. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE [0002] Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication and specifically relate to techniques, apparatuses, and methods associated with a repeater handover decision based on end-to-end link quality. BACKGROUND [0003] Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various services that may include carrying voice, text, messaging, video, data, and/or other traffic. The services may include unicast, multicast, and/or broadcast services, among other examples. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access radio access technologies (RATs) capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (for example, time domain resources, frequency domain resources, spatial domain resources, and/or device transmit power, among other examples). Examples of such multiple-access RATs include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems. [0004] The above multiple-access RATs have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide common protocols that enable different wireless communication devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, or global level. An example telecommunication standard is New Radio (NR). NR, which may also be referred to as 5G, is part of a continuous mobile broadband evolution promulgated by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP). NR (and other mobile broadband evolutions beyond NR) may be designed to better support Internet of things (loT) and reduced capability device deployments, industrial connectivity, millimeter wave (mmWave) expansion, licensed and unlicensed spectrum access, non-terrestrial network (NTN) deployment, sidelink and other device-to-device direct communication technologies (for example, cellular vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication), massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), disaggregated network architectures and network topology expansions, multiple-subscriber implementations, high-precision positioning, and/or radio frequency (RF) sensing, among other examples. As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, further improvements in NR may be implemented, and other radio access technologies such as 6G may be introduced, to further advance mobile broadband evolution. [0005] In some cases, a wireless network may include one or more repeaters (for example, one or more network-controlled repeater (NCR) nodes) that may receive a radio frequency (RF) signal (for example, an analog RF signal) from a network node, amplify the RF signal, and transmit or forward the amplified RF signal to one or more UEs. For example, the one or more repeaters may include one or more analog repeaters, sometimes referred to as Layer 1 (LI) repeaters. Additionally or alternatively, the one or more repeaters may include one or more wireless transmission reception points (TRPs) acting as a distributed unit (DU) or a radio unit (RU) that communicates wirelessly with a network node acting as a central unit (CU) or an access node controller. The one or more repeaters may receive, amplify, and transmit the analog RF signals without performing analog-to-digital conversion of the analog RF signals and/or without performing any digital signal processing on the RF signals. Alternatively, the one or more repeaters may transmit the received RF signals after decoding the received RF signals and/or modifying information carried in the received RF signals. In this way, the one or more repeaters may improve network performance and/or may increase reliability by providing link diversity and by extending a communication coverage area of the network node. [0006] In some cases, however, the use of an NCR node to relay or repeat RF signals may result in suboptimal handover decisions. For example, an NCR node may have a capability to forward RF signals to or from a first set of one or more network nodes that provide respective cells, and may be unable to forward RF signals to or from a second set of network nodes (for example, due to one or more obstructions blocking links between the NCR node and the network nodes in the second set). In such cases, a UE may connect to a cell in the first set of network no