US-12621773-B2 - Power management for power-constrained devices

US12621773B2US 12621773 B2US12621773 B2US 12621773B2US-12621773-B2

Abstract

A method for power management of a first communication device, which has first power resources, comprises detecting a second communication device operating in a same area as the first communication device and having second power resources being less constrained than the first power resources. The method also comprises connecting to the second communication device over a non-cellular connection and delegating to the second communication device to perform cellular connection management measurements for the first communication device through cellular communication with a network node.

Inventors

Mohammed Zourob
Andreas KRISTENSSON
Gang Zou
Andres Reial

Assignees

TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20200214

Claims (17)

1 . A method for power management of a first communication device, wherein the communication device has first power resources, the method comprising: detecting a second communication device operating in a same area as the first communication device and having second power resources being less constrained than the first power resources; connecting to the second communication device over a non-cellular connection; delegating to the second communication device to perform cellular connection management measurements for the first communication device through cellular communication with a network node; and receiving information associated with the connection management measurements from the second communication device through the non-cellular connection.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: comparing information associated with connection management measurements previously gathered by the first communication device and the received information associated with the connection management measurements; determining whether the received information is applicable for the first communication device.
3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein when it is determined that the received information is not applicable for the first communication device, the method comprises: disconnecting from the second communication device; performing connection management measurements over the cellular connection to the network node; and searching for a third communication device with less constrained power resources than the power resources of the first communication device for connecting to.
4 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein when it is determined that the received information is applicable for the first communication device, the method comprises staying connected to the second communication device and receiving further information associated with connection management measurements from the second communication device over the non-cellular connection.
5 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the connection management measurements comprise one or more of Radio Resource Management (RRM) measurements; paging reception; cell search; network system information reception; cell measurement and selection; Random Access Channel (RACH) processes; and control signaling.
6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first communication device is an Internet of Things (IoT), Reduced Capability (RedCap), or massive machine type communication (mMTC) device.
7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first power resources are limited based on one or more of a size of a battery powering the first communication device, limited connectivity, available radio resources and physical location of the first communication device.
8 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising: refraining from performing a subset of connection management measurements while connected to the second communication device.
9 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the cellular control data is broad casted system information.
10 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the non-cellular connection is one of a Bluetooth connection, a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), connection, a NFC connection, a Wi-Fi connection, a D2D-connection, a M2M-connection and a cable connection.
11 . The method according to claim 10 , further comprising: performing mobility management measurements while connected to the first communication device.
12 . A method of a second communication device for power management of a first communication device, wherein the first communication device has first power resources and the second communication device has second power resources being less constrained than the first power resources, the method comprising: connecting to the first communication device over a non-cellular connection; performing cellular connection management measurements for the first communication device through cellular communication with a network node; and transmitting information associated with the performed connection management measurements to the first communication device through the non-cellular connection.
13 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the connection management measurements comprise one or more of Radio Resource Management (RRM) measurements; paging reception; cell search; network system information; measurement and selection; Random Access Channel (RACH) processes; and control signaling.
14 . The method according to claim 12 , wherein the second power resources receives power from a power grid.
15 . The method according to claim 12 , further comprising: performing Radio Resource Management (RRM) measurements and determining based on the RRM measurements neighbour-cell quality metrics and a need for a camping cell change or change of a tracking area; and transmitting the neighbour-cell quality metrics to the first communication device.
16 . A first communication device for power management, wherein the first communication device has first power resources, the first communication device comprising controlling circuitry configured to cause: detection of a second communication device operating in a same area as the first communication device and having second power resources being less constrained than the first power resources; connection to the second communication device over a non-cellular connection; delegation of the second communication device to perform cellular connection management measurements associated with the first communication device through cellular communication with a network node; and reception of information associated with the cellular connection management measurements from the second communication device through the non-cellular connection.
17 . A second communication device for power management of a first communication device, wherein the first communication device has first power resources and the second communication device has second power resources being less constrained than the first power resources, the second communications device comprising controlling circuitry configured to cause: connection to the first communication device over a non-cellular connection; performance of cellular connection management measurements associated with the first communication device through cellular communication with a network node; and transmission of information associated with the performed connection management measurements to the first communication device through the non-cellular connection.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S) This application is a 35 U.S.C. § 371 National Phase Entry Application from PCT/EP2020/053970, filed Feb. 14, 2020, designating the United States, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless communication. More particularly, it relates to power management for devices with limited power resources operating in wireless communication networks. BACKGROUND In typical wireless communication networks of today each cellular connected User Equipment (UE) or wireless communication device, which may be either power-constrained (e.g. a UE powered by a battery and with an expected lifetime of 1 day (smartphones) to 10 years (Internet of Things, IoT) or less power-constrained (e.g. a UE powered using a power cable), typically has to carry out connection management activities besides the common data reception and transmission. For example, the connection management dictated by the 3GPP (third generation partnership project) includes: cell search, measurement and selection; network system information (MIB(management information block)/SIB(system information block)) reception and decoding; paging reception; RACH (Random Access Channel) process . . . etc. Those activities are typically performed with different periodicity based on the different devices' tasks and duties and they are typically performed regardless of the energy capacity of the communication device. A large fraction of UEs, broadly belonging to the class of massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC) and Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) devices, typically has a limited amount of data to send/receive and data transmission occurs infrequently. Some examples of such devices are stationary or mobile sensors, tracking devices, etc. Such UEs spend limited time in connected mode but remain mostly in idle or inactive modes where they should perform idle mode RRC (Radio resource control) measurements for camping and tracking area updates, as well as for paging monitoring. Even if configured with long DRX (discontinuous reception) cycles (e.g. 2.56 s), the total energy consumption is typically dominated by idle/inactive mode periodic activities that do not lead to further actions—the camping cell remains unchanged and there is no paging information to the UE. Today, solutions exist to offload data traffic from the cellular connection of a UE and focus on freeing up bandwidth for other users or provide better reception in cases of poor cellular coverage of a given UE. Such solutions generally do not address power or energy consumption reduction and do not take into consideration the fact that there are use cases where a lot of the 3GPP-mandated operations mentioned above at the device side would still result in a relatively unchanged amount of information transmitted/received by the UE, at least in certain conditions. In addition, data offloading solutions typically come with privacy and security concerns. Such solutions are beneficial in cases of high data rate traffic between the device and the network, but it is not very beneficial in the case of IoT devices that will be transmitting once a day, a week or a month (based on how it is configured). In the IoT case, the relative power consumption associated with the device's control channel is comparable to the data channel, since measurements are required all the time while data is transmitted occasionally. Hence, data offloading solutions will not benefit the IoT case. Therefore, there is a need for methods and arrangements for power management of power constrained devices in wireless communication networks. SUMMARY It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising” (replaceable by “includes/including”) when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, or components, but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components, or groups thereof. 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. Generally, when an arrangement is referred to herein, it is to be understood as a physical product; e.g., an apparatus. The physical product may comprise one or more parts, such as controlling circuitry in the form of one or more controllers, one or more processors, or the like. It is an object of some embodiments to solve or mitigate, alleviate, or eliminate at least some of the above disadvantages and to provide methods and arrangements (i.e. apparatuses) for power management of a power constrained device. According to a first aspect this is achieved by a method for power management of a first communication device. The communication device has first power resources and the method comprises detecting a second communication device operating in a same area as the fi