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US-12621688-B2 - Network node, user equipment and methods for handling signal quality variations

US12621688B2US 12621688 B2US12621688 B2US 12621688B2US-12621688-B2

Abstract

Embodiments herein relate to a method performed by a network node ( 110 ) for handling signal quality variations for a UE ( 120 ). The network node ( 110 ) predicts a future signal quality variation indicative of a path of movement for a second UE ( 120 b ) being served by the network node ( 110 ). The predicting is based on historical data of previous signal quality variations for one or more first UEs ( 120 a ) having been served by the network node ( 110 ). The historical data of previous signal quality variations is indicative of a path of movement of the one or more first UEs ( 120 a ). The network node ( 110 ) determines to change a network configuration for the second UE ( 120 b ) based on the predicted signal quality variation. The network node ( 110 ) initiates the change of the network configuration for the second UE ( 120 b ). Embodiments herein further relate to a method performed by a UE ( 120 a, 120 b ) for handling signal quality variations for the UE ( 120 a, 120 b ).

Inventors

  • Henrik Rydén
  • Wei Shen
  • Ali Parichehrehteroujeni
  • Pradeepa Ramachandra

Assignees

  • TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)

Dates

Publication Date
20260505
Application Date
20190509

Claims (20)

  1. 1 . A method performed by a network node for handling signal quality variations for a User Equipment, UE, the method comprising: predicting, a future signal quality variation indicative of a path of movement for a second UE being served by the network node, wherein the predicting is based on historical data of previous signal quality variations for one or more first UEs having been served by the network node, wherein the historical data of previous signal quality variations is indicative of a path of movement of the one or more first UEs, determining to change a network configuration for the second UE based on the predicted signal quality variation, wherein the change comprises initiating an inter-frequency handover, changing a scheduling priority for the second UE by scheduling the second UE for when an expected signal quality is more than a threshold, and configuring the second UE with a plurality of threshold values to be used to scale one or more handover or reselection parameters, the plurality of threshold values comprising: a first counter indicating a number of successive dropped signal quantity measurements variables, and a second counter indicating an accumulated number of dropped signal quantity measurements during a certain period between resetting the second counter, initiating the change of the network configuration for the second UE.
  2. 2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the predicting of the signal quality variation for the second UE comprises: obtaining information regarding signal quality measurements for a plurality of time instances for the second UE, determining, based on the obtained information regarding signal quality measurements from the second UE, a signal quality of the second UE at a future time instance using a predictive model generated based on obtained signal quality measurements indicative of a path of movement for the one or more first UEs.
  3. 3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the signal quality is obtained by receiving, from the one or more first UEs and/or the second UE, downlink, DL, measurements of the signal quality for each of the one or more first UEs and/or the second UE.
  4. 4 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the signal quality is obtained by performing uplink, UL, measurements of the signal quality for each of the one or more first UEs and/or the second UE.
  5. 5 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the information regarding signal quality measurements for the one or more first UEs and the second UE are obtained as a plurality of measurements.
  6. 6 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the information regarding signal quality measurements for the one or more first UEs and the second UE are obtained as a polynomial representing the plurality of measurements.
  7. 7 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the information regarding signal quality measurements for the one or more first UEs and the second UE are obtained as a number of subsequent measurement occasions in which the measured signal quality has consecutively increased above a predetermined threshold or decreased below a predetermined threshold.
  8. 8 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the predictive model is a machine learning based model which is trained based on historical data of previous signal quality variations.
  9. 9 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein the machine learning based model is one or a combination of a: decision tree model, random forest of decision trees model, neural network, nearest neighbor model, and/or logistic regression model.
  10. 10 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: obtaining information regarding signal quality measurements for a plurality of time instances for the one or more first UEs, generating a predictive model for an obtained signal quality measurement for each of the one or more first UEs at a time instance, based on the obtained signal quality measurements for each of the one or more first UEs at one or more previous time instances, wherein the signal quality measurements are indicative of a path of movement of the one or more first UEs.
  11. 11 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein initiating the change of the network configuration comprises sending, to the second UE, an indication to change the network configuration.
  12. 12 . A method performed by a User Equipment, UE, for handling signal quality variations for the UE, the method comprising: measuring the signal quality at a plurality of time instances, transmitting, to a network node, information related to the plurality of signal quality measurements at different time instances, wherein the information related to the plurality of signal quality measurements is indicative of a path of movement of the UE, performing an action related to a change of a network configuration for a future time instance based on an indication received from the network node, wherein the action is dependent on a future signal quality of the UE predicted by the network node, wherein the change comprises initiating an inter-frequency handover, changing a scheduling priority for the second UE by scheduling the second UE for when an expected signal quality is more than a threshold, and configuring the second UE with a plurality of threshold values to be used to scale one or more handover or reselection parameters, the plurality of threshold values comprising: a first counter indicating a number of successive dropped signal quantity measurements variables, and a second counter indicating an accumulated number of dropped signal quantity measurements during a certain period between resetting the second counter.
  13. 13 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises: determining, based on the measured signal quality, a polynomial representing the measured signal qualities over the plurality of time instances, and wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting the signal quality measurements as the determined polynomial.
  14. 14 . The method according to claim 13 , further comprising: receiving, from the network node, one or more predefined polynomials associated with the predicted signal quality variations; comparing the determined polynomial to the one or more predefined polynomials; and transmitting a report to the network node when the determined polynomial corresponds to any of the predefined polynomials.
  15. 15 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises: determining, based on the measured signal quality, the number of subsequent measuring occasions in which the measured signal quality has consecutively increased or decreased, and performing the action related to the change of the network configuration when the number of subsequent measuring occasions in which the measured signal quality has consecutively increased or decreased is above a predetermined threshold.
  16. 16 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the action performed in initiating an intra-frequency handover.
  17. 17 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the action performed in step is changing reselection parameters comprising a time parameter associated with cell reselection, wherein the time parameter is adjusted based on a speed dependent scaling factor, and wherein the speed dependent scaling factor comprises at least one of a first scaling factor applied to a medium-mobility state of the second UE, or a second scaling factor applied to a high-mobility state of the second UE.
  18. 18 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the action performed is adjusting beam failure detection parameters, wherein the beam failure detection parameters comprise a beam FailureInstanceMaxCount and a beamFailureDetectionTimer, wherein the values of the beam failure detection parameters are adjusted according to changes in a radio environment, and wherein a number of allocated resources to the beam failure detection parameters is adjusted according to the changes in the radio environment.
  19. 19 . A network node for handling signal quality variations for a User Equipment, UE, the network node being configured to: predict, based on historical data of previous signal quality variations for one or more first UEs having been served by the network node, a future signal quality variation for a second UE being served by the network node, wherein the historical data of previous signal quality variations is indicative of a path of movement of the one or more first UEs, determine to change a network configuration for the second UE based on the predicted signal quality variation, wherein the change comprises initiating an inter-frequency handover, changing a scheduling priority for the second UE by scheduling the second UE for when an expected signal quality is more than a threshold, and configuring the second UE with a plurality of threshold values to be used to scale one or more handover or reselection parameters, the plurality of threshold values comprising: a first counter indicating a number of successive dropped signal quantity measurements variables, and a second counter indicating an accumulated number of dropped signal quantity measurements during a certain period between resetting the second counter, initiate the change of the network configuration for the second UE.
  20. 20 . A User Equipment, UE, for handling signal quality variations for the UE, the UE being configured to: measure the signal quality at a plurality of time instances, transmit, to a network node, information related to the plurality of signal quality measurements at different time instances, wherein the information related to the plurality of signal quality measurements is indicative of a path of movement of the UE, perform an action related to a change of the network configuration for a future time instance based on an indication received from the network node, wherein the action is dependent on a future signal quality of the UE predicted by the network node, wherein the change comprises initiating an inter-frequency handover, changing a scheduling priority for the second UE by scheduling the second UE for when an expected signal quality is more than a threshold; and configuring the second UE with a plurality of threshold values to be used to scale one or more handover or reselection parameters, the plurality of threshold values comprising: a first counter indicating a number of successive dropped signal quantity measurements variables, and a second counter indicating an accumulated number of dropped signal quantity measurements during a certain period between resetting the second counter.

Description

PRIORITY This nonprovisional application is a U.S. National Stage Filing under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Patent Application Serial No. PCT/SE2019/050411 filed May 9, 2019 and entitled “Network Node, User Equipment and Methods for Handling Signal Quality Variations”, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD Embodiments herein relate to a network node, a User Equipment (UE) and methods performed therein. In particular, they relate to predicting signal quality variations for a UE in a wireless communication network. BACKGROUND In a typical wireless communication network, wireless devices, also known as wireless communication devices, mobile stations, stations (STA) and/or User Equipments (UE), communicate via a Local Area Network such as a WiFi network or a Radio Access Network (RAN) to one or more core networks (CN). The RAN covers a geographical area which is divided into service areas or cell areas, which may also be referred to as a beam or a beam group, with each service area or cell area being served by a radio network node such as a radio access node e.g., a Wi-Fi access point or a radio base station (RBS), which in some networks may also be denoted, for example, a NodeB, eNodeB (eNB), or gNB as denoted in 5th Generation (5G). A service area or cell area is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the radio network node. The radio network node communicates over an air interface operating on radio frequencies with the wireless device within range of the radio network node. The radio network node communicates to the wireless device in DownLink (DL) and from the wireless device in UpLink (UL). Specifications for the Evolved Packet System (EPS), also called a Fourth Generation (4G) network, have been completed within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and this work continues in the coming 3GPP releases, for example to specify a Fifth Generation (5G) network also referred to as 5G New Radio (NR). The EPS comprises the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), also known as the Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio access network, and the Evolved Packet Core (EPC), also known as System Architecture Evolution (SAE) core network. E-UTRAN/LTE is a variant of a 3GPP radio access network wherein the radio network nodes are directly connected to the EPC core network rather than to RNCs used in 3rd Generation (3G) networks. In general, in E-UTRAN/LTE the functions of a 3G RNC are distributed between the radio network nodes, e.g. eNodeBs in LTE, and the core network. As such, the RAN of an EPS has an essentially “flat” architecture comprising radio network nodes connected directly to one or more core networks, i.e. they are not connected to RNCs. To compensate for that, the E-UTRAN specification defines a direct interface between the radio network nodes, this interface being denoted the X2 interface. In addition to faster peak Internet connection speeds, 5G planning aims at higher capacity than current 4G, allowing higher number of mobile broadband users per area unit, and allowing consumption of higher or unlimited data quantities in gigabyte per month and user. This would make it feasible for a large portion of the population to stream high-definition media many hours per day with their mobile devices, when out of reach of Wi-Fi hotspots. 5G research and development also aims at improved support of machine to machine communication, also known as the Internet of things, aiming at lower cost, lower battery consumption and lower latency than 4G equipment. In order to increase the capacity support for higher frequency bands have been provided in 5G. While previous generations of 3GPP communication networks operated on frequencies below 6 GHz, 5G NR may operate on frequency bands up to 300 GHz. By using higher frequencies, the ability to support high data transfer speeds without interfering with other wireless signals or becoming overly cluttered increases. However, when operating at the higher frequencies in NR, such as e.g. at frequencies above 28 GHz, shadowing and penetration loss will increase, since the higher frequencies. This may lead to very quick signal drops, for example when a UE operates in urban environments such as e.g. in a city and loses line of sight to a base station, e.g. when the UE turns around a corner and a building or an obstacle blocks the direct radio path from the UE to a serving base station. SUMMARY An object of embodiments herein is thus to improve the performance of UEs operating in a wireless communications network and to avoid dropped service due to quick signal drops. According to a first aspect of embodiments herein, the object is achieved by a method performed by a network node for handling signal quality variations for a UE. The network node predicts a future signal quality variation indicative of a path of movement for a second UE being served by the network node, wherein the predicting is based on his