US-12621774-B2 - Managing energy usage of a user equipment device for wireless communications

US12621774B2US 12621774 B2US12621774 B2US 12621774B2US-12621774-B2

Abstract

Techniques for improving, for a set of conditions at a UE, the usage of energy stored at a UE include determining a preferred or requested partitioning of the UE's stored energy usage during wireless data transfer between the UE and the base station (e.g., an amount or percentage of stored energy utilized by the UE for baseband signal processing with respect to the amount or percentage of energy utilized by the UE for radio interface signal processing tasks), and indicating the preferred partitioning to the base station or network. Based on the indication, the base station/network may modify the baseband communication scheme, parameters, and/or values, and/or the radio interface communication scheme, parameters, and/or values utilized for the wireless transfers of data between the base station and the UE, thereby better managing (and in some cases, optimizing) the UE's stored energy usage and increasing battery life at the UE.

Inventors

Jibing Wang
Erik Stauffer

Assignees

GOOGLE LLC

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20220323

Claims (20)

1 . A method in a user equipment device (UE) for managing energy usage of the UE for wireless communications, the method comprising: calculating, by the UE, a preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE between baseband signal processing performed by the UE and radio interface signal processing performed by the UE during wireless transfer of data between the UE and a base station; and transmitting, by the processing hardware UE to the base station, an indication of the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE includes determining a magnitude of energy usage efficiency of the UE for at least one of: source coding, source decoding, data compression, data decompression, or another technique utilized by the UE during the baseband signal processing.
3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein determining the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE includes determining a magnitude of energy usage efficiency of the UE for at least one of: channel coding, channel decoding, modulating, demodulating, or another technique utilized by the UE during radio interface signal processing.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein determining the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE includes: determining an amount of power needed by the UE for the baseband signal processing during a transfer of a byte of data between the UE and the base station; and determining an amount of power needed by the UE for the radio interface signal processing during the wireless transfer of the byte of data between the UE and the base station.
5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising: detecting, by the UE, at least one of: a change to a wireless connection between the UE and the base station or a change to a remaining amount of energy stored in a battery or energy storage device of the UE; based on the detected at least one change, determining an updated preferred partitioning of energy consumption between the baseband signal processing and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE; and transmitting, by the UE to the base station, an indication of the updated preferred partitioning of energy consumption.
6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein detecting the change to the wireless connection between the UE and the base station includes detecting a change to at least one of: a modulation coding scheme, a channel condition, a frequency band, or a radio access technology, or another radio interface characteristic.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein detecting the change to the wireless connection between the UE and the base station includes detecting a change to one or more of: a frequency band, a bandwidth, a presence of beamforming, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), an uplink throughput, a characteristic of a reference signal, a characteristic of a channel of a radio interface, an amount of interference, or a radio access technology (RAT) corresponding to the wireless connection.
8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising determining, by the UE, a present usage of computational resources at the UE, including at least one of: determining a present usage of a central processing unit (CPU) of the UE, determining a present usage of a digital signal processor (DSP) of the UE, determining a present usage of a guardian service processor (GSP), determining a present usage of one or more memories of the UE shared by one or more tasks, monitoring a power rail of the UE, monitoring a power consumption of a modem of the UE, or accessing an energy usage profile stored in the one or more memories of the UE, the energy usage profile indicating a respective usage level of one or more of the computational resources at the UE for each different set of one or more tasks; and wherein determining the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE is based on the present usage of the computational resources at the UE.
9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising: detecting, by the UE, that a remaining amount of energy stored in a battery or an energy storage device of the UE is below a threshold level; and based on the detected remaining amount of energy stored in the battery or the energy storage device, initiating the determining of the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE.
10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein determining the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption includes: determining the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption based on a connection of the UE to mains power.
11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein determining the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE comprises one or more of: determining a respective preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE corresponding to a wireless transfer of data from the UE to the base station; determining a respective preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE corresponding to a wireless transfer of data from the base station to the UE; determining a respective preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE corresponding to a downlink wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station; or determining a respective preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE corresponding to an uplink wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station.
12 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising at least one of: sending, by the UE, first transmissions to the base station based on the transmitted indication; or receiving, by the UE, second transmissions from the base station based on the transmitted indication.
13 . A method in a network entity for managing energy consumption at a user equipment device (UE) for wireless communications, the method comprising: receiving, by a base station from the UE, an indication of a preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE between baseband signal processing performed by the UE and radio interface signal processing performed by the UE during wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station; controlling, by the base station based on the indication of the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption, and a communication scheme utilized by the UE and the base station, one or more communication parameters to utilize during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station; and at least one of: sending, by the base station, first transmissions to the UE by utilizing the communication scheme and the one or more communication parameters; or receiving, by the base station, second transmissions from the UE by utilizing the communication scheme and the one or more communication parameters.
14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein receiving the indication of the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station includes receiving an indication of one or more present physical conditions of one or more components of the UE.
15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the one or more present physical conditions of the one or more components of the UE include at least one of: an amount of remaining energy stored in a battery or in an energy storage device of the UE, or an amount of heat presently generated by the one or more components of the UE.
16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein: the indication of the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station includes a requested level of complexity of at least one of the baseband signal processing or the radio interface signal processing; and determining the one or more communication parameters based on the indication of the preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE and the communication scheme includes determining the one or more communication parameters in accordance with the requested level of complexity.
17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising: obtaining an updated communication scheme for the UE and the base station to utilize during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station; determining, by base station based on the updated communication scheme and the preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption, an updated one or more communication parameters to utilize during the wireless transfer of data; and at least one of: sending, by the base station, first additional transmissions to the UE by utilizing the updated communication scheme and the updated one or more communication parameters; or receiving, by the base station, second additional transmissions from the UE by utilizing the updated communication scheme and the updated one or more communication parameters.
18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising: receiving, by the base station from the UE, an indication of an updated preferred partitioning of UE energy consumption between the baseband signal processing performed by the UE and the radio interface signal processing performed by the UE during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station; determining, by the base station based on the updated preferred partitioning of energy consumption of the UE, an updated one or more communication parameters to utilize during the transfer of data; and at least one of: sending, by the base station, first additional transmissions to the UE by utilizing the updated one or more communication parameters; or receiving, by the base station, second additional transmissions from the UE by utilizing the updated one or more communication parameters.
19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein determining the one or more communication parameters to utilize during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station comprises determining one or more parameters corresponding to at least one of source coding, source decoding, data compression, data decompression, or another type of baseband signal processing.
20 . The method of claim 19 , wherein determining the one or more communication parameters to utilize during the wireless transfer of data between the UE and the base station comprises determining one or more parameters corresponding to at least one of channel coding, channel decoding, modulation, demodulation, or another type of radio interface signal processing.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application is a 371 U.S. national stage application of International Application No. PCT/US2022/021550 filed on Mar. 23, 2022, which claims priority to and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/181,464 filed on Apr. 29, 2021 and entitled “MANAGING ENERGY USAGE OF A USER EQUIPMENT DEVICE FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS,” all of which is incorporated herein by reference in the entirety. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE This disclosure relates to wireless communications and, more particularly, to managing the energy usage of a user equipment (UE). BACKGROUND The background description provided within this document is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. User device or equipment units (UEs) have limited battery power, unlike base stations and other infrastructure components coupled to permanent power sources in a wired manner. A UE can use battery power for both baseband signal processing and supporting communications over radio interfaces, e.g., radio interface signal processing. For example, when the UE receives a video stream from a base station via a radio interface, the UE consumes energy to perform radio interface signal processing (such as demodulation and channel decoding) in accordance with a radio interface communication scheme, and subsequently consumes energy to perform baseband signal processing (such as source decoding and optionally data decompression) in accordance with a baseband communication scheme to obtain the video stream content at the UE. Generally speaking, the amount of energy consumed by the UE for supporting radio interface signal processing corresponds to an energy consumption of a radio and modem of the UE, and the amount of energy consumed by the UE for baseband signal processing corresponds to an energy consumption of one or more processors of the UE, e.g., central processing units (CPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), guardian service processors (GSPs), etc. The efficiency of stored energy consumption or usage for these types of wireless communications tasks may be measured in units of bytes of data transferred per energy unit, such as bytes transferred per picojoule (pJ). For example, the energy usage efficiency of baseband signal processing may correspond to the number of bytes the UE is able to source-code and compress per picojoule of battery energy consumed, while the energy usage efficiency of the usage of radio interface signal processing by the UE for wireless communications may correspond to the number of bytes the UE is able to channel-code and modulate per pJ of battery energy consumed by the UE. Because various components of a communications system select and/or negotiate different communication schemes and/or communication parameters based on current (e.g., ongoing, present, presently-occurring, or immediate) conditions (such as conditions at the UE, characteristics of the radio interface, network performance, etc.), the energy usage efficiencies of the UE for supporting baseband signal processing and for supporting radio interface signal processing may vary as conditions vary. For example, upon detecting certain radio interface characteristics or conditions, the base station may change or adjust the radio interface signal processing parameters utilized between the base station and UE to achieve greater spectral efficiency, and consequently may send a corresponding set of updated communication parameters to the UE. The UE's use of the updated parameters may cause the UE's energy usage efficiency corresponding to radio interface signal processing and/or the UE's energy usage efficiency corresponding to baseband signal processing to change. Today, typically the base station makes these types of changes and/or adjustments without consideration to the effect on the energy usage efficiency of the UE. As such, the changes/adjustments may have an adverse effect on the battery life of the UE, such as when the changed/adjusted communication scheme requires the UE to inefficiently (and, in some cases, unnecessarily) consume energy. SUMMARY The techniques described in this document improve, for a set of conditions at a UE, the energy usage or consumption of the UE by determining a preferred partitioning of stored energy consumption at the UE during wireless data transfer between the UE and the base station (e.g., a preferred partitioning of the amount or percentage of stored energy utilized by the UE for baseband signal processing with respect to the amount or percentage of energy utilized by the UE for radio interface signal processing), and indicating the preferred partitioning to the base station