EP-4740581-A1 - USER EQUIPMENT IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET CELL FOR CELL HANDOVER

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) employs a historical profile of previous handovers to respond to a measurement report associated with a cell handover. The historical profile indicates a preferred cell, among a plurality of available cells, wherein the preferred cell is associated with a threshold number of previously successful handovers. Accordingly, by employing the historical profile to respond to the measurement report request, the UE is able to influence the network to select the preferred cell.

Inventors

• CHEN, Edison
• SHABA, Aamir

Assignees

• Google LLC

Dates

Publication Date

20260513

Application Date

20240202

Claims (17)

1. 1. A method comprising: receiving, at a user equipment (UE), a request from a network for a measurement report; and responding, at the UE, to the measurement report based on a historical profile of handovers of the UE to a first cell of the network.
2. 2. The method of claim 1 , wherein responding based on the historical profile comprises: responding based on the historical profile responsive to the request for the measurement report identifying the first cell.
3. 3. The method of claim 2, wherein responding based on the historical profile comprises: responding based on the historical profile responsive to the historical profile indicating the first cell has a higher handover success rate than a plurality of other cells available for handover.
4. 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: responsive to the measurement report omitting identification of the first cell, generating a measurement report at the UE.
5. 5. The method of claim 1 , wherein responding comprises providing a first measurement report stored at the UE, the first measurement report generated based on a previous measurement report request from the network.
6. 6. The method of claim 1 , wherein responding comprises generating a measurement report at the UE and adjusting a signal value of the generated measurement report based on the historical profile indicating the first cell has a higher handover success rate than a plurality of other cells available for handover.
7. 7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: sending a measurement report based on the historical profile to the network; responsive to the measurement report, receiving at the UE a request to handover the UE to a second cell; and in response to a handover failure to the second cell, prioritizing the first cell for scanning at the UE.
8. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein prioritizing comprises: prioritizing the first cell for scanning based on the historical profile responsive to the historical profile indicating the first cell has a higher handover success rate than a plurality of other cells available for handover.
9. 9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the historical profile indicates a rate of success of handovers from a source cell to the first cell.
10. 10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the historical profile indicates a rate of success of handovers when the UE moves from a first location to a second location associated with the first cell.
11. 11 . A method, comprising: storing, at a user equipment, a historical handover profile for a plurality of cells of a network; and responding to a request from the network for a measurement report based on the historical handover profile at the UE.
12. 12. The method of claim 11 , wherein responding to the request comprises: identifying a preferred cell based on the historical handover profile; and responding to the request based on the preferred cell.
13. 13. The method of claim 12, wherein responding to the request comprises: responding to the request with a stored measurement report responsive to the request identifying the preferred cell.
14. 14. The method of claim 13, wherein responding to the request comprises: responsive to the request omitting the preferred cell, generating a measurement report for a set of cells indicated by the request.
15. 15. The method of claim 13, further comprising: receiving a request from the network to handover the UE to a first cell different from the preferred cell; and in response to a handover failure to the first cell, prioritizing the preferred cell for scanning at the UE.
16. 16. A user equipment device, comprising: one or more modems configured to wirelessly communicate with at least one network; one or more processors coupled to the one or more modems; and at least one memory storing executable instructions, the executable instructions configured to manipulate at least one of the one or more processors or the one or more RF modems to perform the method of any of the preceding claims.
17. 17. A computer-readable storage medium embodying a set of executable instructions, the set of executable instructions to manipulate a user equipment device to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 15.

Description

USER EQUIPMENT IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET CELL FOR CELL HANDOVER BACKGROUND [0001] A user equipment (UE) is configured to attach to a cellular network within range. To establish a data connection between the UE and an attached cellular network, the UE includes a modem to transmit data to and receive data from the cellular network and a subscriber identity module (SIM) device that stores identification and subscriber information associated with the user equipment. The UE connects to a designated cell of the cellular network via a base station assigned to the cell. [0002] Each cell provides network connectivity for a corresponding location (geographic area). To provide robust communication as the UE moves between locations, a cellular network typically provides a protocol, referred to as cell handover, wherein the UE is disconnected from one cell (associated with the previous location) and connected to a different cell. However, existing cell handover processes can have an undesirable rate of handover failure, wherein the UE fails to connect to the new cell, thus resulting in a poor user experience. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0003] The present disclosure may be better understood, and its numerous features and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items. [0004] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a cellular communications system in which a UE responds to a cell handover measurement report request based on a stored historical profile of previous handovers in accordance with some embodiments. [0005] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of aspects of the UE of FIG. 1 that support responding to a request for measurement report based on the historical profile in accordance with some embodiments. [0006] FIG. 3 is a diagram of the historical profile of FIGs 1 and 2 in accordance with some embodiments. [0007] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a method of employing a historical profile of previous handovers to respond to a measurement report request for cell handover in accordance with some embodiments. DETAILED DESCRIPTION [0008] FIGs. 1-4 illustrate example techniques for employing, at a UE, a historical profile of previous handovers to respond to a measurement report associated with a cell handover. In at least some cases, the historical profile indicates a preferred cell, among a plurality of available cells, wherein the preferred cell is associated with a threshold number of previously successful handovers. Accordingly, by employing the historical profile to respond to the measurement report request, the UE is able to influence the network to select the preferred cell, thus increasing the likelihood of a successful cell handover and improving the user experience. [0009] To illustrate, at least some cellular networks, including the 5th generation (5G) mobile network, perform a cell handover via a measurement report (MR). In particular, when the network determines that a UE is nearing the border of the location associated with the UE’s currently connected cell, the network can send an MR request to the UE. The MR request instructs the UE to provide a MR for a plurality of cells that are available for handover. Conventionally, in response to the MR request, the UE performs signal measurements for each cell, such as Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) measurements, Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) measurements, Signal to Interference & Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements, and the like, or any combination thereof, for each cell. The UE generates the MR, including the measurements for each of the plurality of cells, and communicates the MR to the network. Based on the MR, the network selects one of the plurality of cells and commands the UE to connect to the selected cell, thus completing the handover. However, in at least some cases the network may select a cell with a historically high handover failure rate, at least relative to the other cells. The network thus increases the likelihood of a handover failure, thereby causing the UE to perform a relatively lengthy cell rescan process. [0010] Using the techniques disclosed herein, the UE records, for each cell handover, the success rate of handover from a source cell to a target cell. The UE thus generates a historical profile of cell handovers, indicating the success rate for a plurality of source cell-target cell pairs. In some embodiments, in response to receiving an MR request indicating a plurality of target cells for measurement, the UE employs the historical profile to identify the source-target cell pair with the highest handover success rate and designated the identified target cell as the preferred target cell. The UE then generates an MR that increases the likelihood that the network will select the preferred target cell for handover. For example, in some embodiments the UE stores a previous MR that triggered a successfu