Search

US-20260129510-A1 - SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BOOSTING POWER OF SYNCHRONIZATION SIGNALS FOR AERIAL CELLS

US20260129510A1US 20260129510 A1US20260129510 A1US 20260129510A1US-20260129510-A1

Abstract

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, obtaining network-related information for a terrestrial cell and for an aerial cell that has been deployed to offload traffic from the terrestrial cell, determining whether traffic has been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell based on the network-related information obtained over time, responsive to a determination that traffic has been offloaded, determining whether a current load on the terrestrial cell satisfies a threshold, responsive to a determination that the current load satisfies the threshold, instructing the aerial cell to enable boosting of synchronization signal power, obtaining additional network-related information for the terrestrial cell and the aerial cell, identifying whether additional traffic has been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell based on the additional network-related information, and performing action(s) to increase or decrease the synchronization signal power based on the identifying. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Inventors

  • Daniel Vivanco

Assignees

  • AT&T Technical Services Company, Inc.

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20260105

Claims (20)

  1. 1 . A device, comprising: a processing system including a processor; and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising: determining that a current load on a terrestrial cell exceeds a threshold, resulting in a first determination; based on the first determination, instructing an aerial cell to enable boosting of synchronization signal power; subsequent to the instructing, obtaining network-related information for the terrestrial cell and the aerial cell; determining, based on the network-related information, that traffic has not been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell subsequent to the instructing, resulting in a second determination; and based on the second determination, decreasing the synchronization signal power.
  2. 2 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the synchronization signal power comprises a power of a synchronization signal block (SSB), and wherein the SSB is broadcast by a base station corresponding to the aerial cell and is utilized by a user equipment (UE) to acquire time and frequency synchronization information needed for logical connection with the base station.
  3. 3 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the determining that the traffic has not been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell comprises determining that there is not an increase in an available network bandwidth or capacity of the terrestrial cell that corresponds to a decrease in an available network bandwidth or capacity of the aerial cell.
  4. 4 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the network-related information includes data regarding available bandwidth, available capacity, throughput, or a combination thereof.
  5. 5 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the aerial cell corresponds to an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with one or more small cells capable of providing network connectivity for user equipments (UEs).
  6. 6 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the network-related information includes network-related information for a second aerial cell that has been deployed to offload traffic from the terrestrial cell.
  7. 7 . The device of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is implemented in a multi-access edge computing (MEC) device, a self-organizing network (SON), or a radio access network (RAN) intelligent controller (RIC).
  8. 8 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising: determining that a current load on a terrestrial cell exceeds a threshold, resulting in a first determination; based on the first determination, instructing an aerial cell to enable boosting of a signal power; subsequent to the instructing, obtaining network-related information for the terrestrial cell and the aerial cell; determining, based on the network-related information, that traffic has not been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell subsequent to the instructing, resulting in a second determination; and based on the second determination, decreasing the signal power.
  9. 9 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the network-related information comprises data regarding available bandwidth, available capacity, throughput, or a combination thereof.
  10. 10 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the signal power corresponds to a plurality of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols.
  11. 11 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the terrestrial cell employs Fifth Generation (5G) wireless technology.
  12. 12 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the aerial cell employs 5G wireless technology.
  13. 13 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the signal power comprises a power of a synchronization signal block (SSB).
  14. 14 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the SSB is broadcast by a base station corresponding to the aerial cell.
  15. 15 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14 , wherein the SSB is utilized by a user equipment (UE) to acquire time and frequency synchronization information needed for logical connection with the base station.
  16. 16 . A method, comprising: determining, by a processing system including a processor, that a current load on a terrestrial cell exceeds a threshold, resulting in a first determination; based on the first determination, instructing, by the processing system, an aerial cell to enable boosting of a signal power of a signal; subsequent to the instructing, determining, by the processing system and based on network-related information, that traffic has not been offloaded from the terrestrial cell to the aerial cell subsequent to the instructing, resulting in a second determination; and based on the second determination, decreasing, by the processing system, the signal power of the signal.
  17. 17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the instructing of the aerial cell to enable boosting of the signal power enables one or more user equipments (UEs) to discover the aerial cell even at a greater distance from the processing system, thereby facilitating UE participation in handovers to the aerial cell.
  18. 18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the processing system is included as part of a drone that is equipped with one or more small cells capable of providing network connectivity for the one or more UEs.
  19. 19 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the determining that the current load on the terrestrial cell exceeds the threshold is responsive to a determination by a core network system that a load at a terrestrial base station is greater than or equal to a second threshold.
  20. 20 . The method of claim 19 , further comprising: receiving, by the processing system, a command from the core network system to further boost the signal power of the signal; and responsive to the receiving of the command, further boosting, by the processing system, the signal power of the signal.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/963,234 filed on Oct. 11, 2022. All sections of the aforementioned application(s) are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE The subject disclosure relates to boosting power of synchronization signals for aerial cells. BACKGROUND Mobile networks (e.g., long term evolution (LTE), 5G, etc.) offer wide area, high speed, and secure wireless connectivity, which can be leveraged to enhance the control and safety of uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone operations and enable beyond visual line-of-sight (LOS) use cases, such as deliveries, communications and media, inspection of critical infrastructure, surveillance, search-and-rescue operations, agriculture, and so on. As technology continues to advance, mobile networks will provide more efficient, tether-less broadband connectivity for wide-scale drone deployments. There are ongoing studies on the use of small cell-equipped UAVs in LTE and 5G network deployments to provide network coverage to terrestrial devices. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein: FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary, non-limiting embodiment of a communications network in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating an example, non-limiting embodiment of a system functioning within, or operatively overlaid upon, the communications network of FIG. 1 in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 2B illustrates the probability of handover failure when the synchronization signal power is boosted and when the synchronization signal power is not boosted, in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 2C depicts an illustrative embodiment of a method in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example, non-limiting embodiment of a virtualized communications network in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting embodiment of a computing environment in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting embodiment of a mobile network platform in accordance with various aspects described herein. FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting embodiment of a communication device in accordance with various aspects described herein. DETAILED DESCRIPTION In a typical cellular network, a user equipment (UE) may conduct cell searching by decoding a cell identifier (cell ID) of a cell and acquiring time and frequency synchronization with the cell. 5G new radio (NR) cell searching is similar to that in LTE systems. In 5G NR, a Primary Sync Signal (PSS) and a Secondary Sync Signal (SSS) are decoded to a Physical Cell ID (PCI). A synchronization signal block (SSB) consists of one orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol for the PSS, one OFDM symbol for the SSS, and two OFDM symbols for a Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH). The SSB spans four OFDM symbols in the time domain and also 240 subcarriers in the frequency domain. A UE may generally assume that the reception of a PBCH, PSS, and SSS in consecutive symbols constitutes reception of an SSB. When a UE is powered on or enters the coverage range of a new cell, it must be able to “find”the cell and synchronize to it in both frequency and time. To help UEs (particularly those located at or near a cell edge) receive downlink signals and synchronize to the cell (e.g., channel analyzer performance), the power of the synchronization signal, such as the SSB or the like, can be increased or boosted while maintaining the total transmit power under a maximum transmission power level. For instance, NR-SSB boosting allows a UE located at or near a cell edge to “see” the reference synchronization signal (since the UE would be able to more quickly and reliably detect and read the SSB), which improves UE detection and synchronization with a target NR cell and thus improved overall coverage at the cell boundary. In 5G NR, the SSB power can generally be boosted by up to 5 dB (at 100 MHz) and 2 dB (at 50 MHz) by using power from other unused physical resource blocks (PRBs) in the SSB subframes. A gNodeB (gNB) can set the SSB transmit power to a UE in an NR-SIB1 message—i.e., via an ss-PBCH-BlockPower parameter in a ServingCellConfigCommonSIB object of an NR-SIB1 message. An example ServingCellConfigCommonSIB object is as follows: ServingCellConfigCommonSIBdownlinkConfigCommonDownlinkConfigCommonSIBuplinkConfigCommonUplinkConfigCommonSIBsupplementaryUplinkUplinkConfigCommonSIBn-TimingAdvanceOffsetENUMERATED {n0, n25600, n39936}| inOneGroup BIT STRING (SIZE (8))ssb-PositionsInBurst|| groupPresence BIT STRING (SIZE (8))ssb-PeriodicityServingCellENUMERATED {ms5, ms