Abstract:
The invention relates to a mobile network, especially according to that of GSM- and/or UMTS-standards for the communication of mobile stations. The network consists of at least two base stations with antennas for sending and/or receiving communication signals, wherein the covered area of the base stations forms a radio cell which is divided into a close-up range and a far range, wherein different transmission sources are provided for the radio traffic.

Description:
This is a continuation of international patent application PCT/EP2007/054529, filed May 10, 2007, which claims priority of German patent application S.N. 10 2006 023 641.6 filed May 18, 2006. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention relates in general to mobile communication networks, and in particular it relates to mobile communication networks operating according to GSM- and/or UMTS-standards for the communication of mobile stations. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     A mobile network generally comprises base stations which are arranged in an approximately hexagonal pattern. The pattern results from radio cells. The special extension of each radio cell is formed by the covered range of the base stations which are in contact with a mobile station. For this purpose each base station supplies three radio cells by means of three antennas having a relative angle of 120.degree. Each of the three antennas of a base station thereby emits a “sending lobe” of about 120.degree. Such an arrangement of the radio cells of a mobile network system is called “clover model”. For the wireless data transmission various resources are available for the operator of a mobile network, such as, for example, frequency bands which are divided into several physical transmission channels. Different transmission resources, for example, frequency bands, in two adjacent radio cells of a mobile network are attributed to the mobile stations. The transmission resources are adjusted in such a way that there is no superposition at all at the borders. 
     In order to simultaneously support as many connections as possible transmission channels are divided by frequency slots within a frequency bands, time slots within the transmission frame, codes with UMTS. In a GSM-mobile network (=Global System for Mobile communication), for example, a physical channel is formed by a frequency slot and a time slot within the transmission frame of eight subsequent time slots. 
     The operator of a network must, therefore, re-use the transmission resources as often as possible within the network. Generally, this is achieved when the entire amount of transmission resources is divided into orthogonal subgroups which are then attributed to the respective radio cells. A careful planning of the resources is required for this purpose. Only resources from the subgroup attributed to one particular radio cell are used for the communication in this particular radio cell. Thereby, the distance between radio cells is increase which use the same resources and which are exposed to mobile network signals interfering with each other. A measure for the influence of a transmission by interference is the ratio of a wanted signal intensity and the interference intensity, abbreviated by SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio). Only from a certain SIR-value an acceptable communication can be achieved. This threshold depends on additional thermal noise in the components and the requirements of the individual application, i.e. of quality parameters QoS (Quality of Service). 
     A further important measure with the planning of the resources, such as, for example, the planning of the frequencies, is the reuse factor. This reuse factor of the individual resource describes, for example, the frequency reuse factor, i.e. the amount of orthogonal subgroups. A reuse factor of one corresponds to the case where each radio cell uses the same resources because there is one group only. A high reuse factor reduces the interference intensity in a mobile network considerably, but limits the spectral efficiency of the network, because in each radio cell only a small amount of the entire resources of the operator of the mobile network is used. 
     Very often reuse factors “3” and “7” are used in mobile networks. In order to achieve a SIR-value required for a certain service in the entire cell area the system is designed based on the worst case. Therefore, the edge areas of a radio cell where higher interferences occur due to users in adjacent radio cells sending nearby determine the reuse factor of the planned resource. Thereby regions are generated which have an unnecessarily high SIR-value in the central region around the base station thereby reducing the spectral efficiency of the mobile network system. 
     In order to achieve a special distribution of the SIR in a radio cell which is as homogenous as possible overlay concept systems are described in the literature which have overlapping resource planning. For example the resource can be attributed with a low reuse factor in the inner region of the radio cell and with a high reuse factor in the edge regions. It is a disadvantage of this solution that further reduction of the interfering intensity due to interference suppressing methods is not possible because there are no strong and thereby detectable interferences occur due to the resource planning. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is an object of the invention to avoid the disadvantages of the prior art and in particular to increase the efficiency of the mobile network and to increase the capacity thereof. 
     According to the invention this object is achieved in that with a mobile network, especially operating according to GSM- and/or UMTS-standards for the communication of mobile stations, wherein the transmission resources of the far range of two adjacent radio cells are coincident. The network comprises at least two base stations with antennas for sending and/or receiving communication signals, wherein the covered area of a base station forms a radio cell which is divided into a close-up range and a far range, wherein different transmission sources are provided for the radio traffic. 
     Furthermore this object is achieved with a method for attributing transmission sources in a mobile network, especially according to GSM- and/or UMTS-standard, for mobile stations for communication, comprising the steps of:
     a) forming of at least two radio cells, each resulting from the covered area of a base station with antennas for sending and/or receiving,   b) dividing the radio cells into a close-up range and a far range, and   c) attributing different transmission sources to the close-up range and the far range of the radio cells, so that coincident transmission sources can be attributed to the mobile stations for the communication in the far range of two adjacent radio cells.   

     Contrary to the prior art the mobile network and method of the invention do not principally try to minimize the interfering intensity caused by interference from adjacent radio cells. Strong interferences are intentionally admitted. The mobile station of a user must adapt to such known interferences and eliminate if necessary. In such a way users of adjacent radio cells can use the same transmission resource, such as a frequency slot, a time slot or a multi user code. 
     This can be achieved by using a low resource reuse factor at the edge of the cell, i.e. at the border between adjacent radio cells, because then the probability of a user with the same transmission resource in an adjacent radio cell, i.e. in the immediate proximity of the considered user is increased. Such few interferences with high intensity can be removed from the signal of the user using signal processing methods which suppress interferences and thereby a transmission is enabled. By using a low reuse factor the spectral efficiency of the mobile network is increased. 
     In cell regions where the occurrence of strong and significant interferences is less likely, as it is the case in the center of a radio cell where there is no immediate border of an adjacent radio cell the use of interference suppressing methods makes little sense due to the bad detectability of the weak interferences. In the present invention the interference is reduced by using a high reuse factor. 
     Thereby, an inverse superposition is achieved. In the prior art a coincident attribution of transmission resources is effected only in the close-up range but not along the cell edges, the far range. Contrary to the above inverse attribution is used with the present invention. Coincident transmission resources are used in the far range and different transmission resources in the close-up range, i.e. just the other way round compared to the prior art. 
     As to another aspect of the invention, the mobile stations of the mobile network are provided with filter means for removing interfering signals having a higher, the same or slightly smaller intensity than the wanted signal. A slightly smaller intensity corresponds in a preferred embodiment of the invention to a distance of 10 dB between the interference signal and the wanted signal. In an alternative embodiment the distance can be 3 dB or 6 dB. By this measure it is achieved that the interfering signals which are caused in particular by the interference from adjacent radio cells are directly filtered from the wanted signal in the mobile end station of the user and taken off after its detection. It is, therefore, also subject matter of the present invention a mobile station with filter means which are provided for the removing of interfering signals in such a mobile network. 
     Further advantages result from the subject matter of other claims and the drawings with the accompanying description. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  schematically shows an embodiment of a mobile network with a reuse factor “3” where the use of a certain frequency range is effected in all three radio cells; 
         FIG. 2  schematically shows an embodiment of a mobile network with a reuse factor “7” where the use of a certain frequency range is effected in all three radio cells; 
         FIG. 3  shows an embodiment of a mobile network with sending lobes with the reuse factor “1” in the center of the cell and the reuse factor “3” at the edge of the cell; 
         FIG. 4  shows an embodiment of a mobile network as sending lobes with the reuse factor “3” in the center of the cell and the reuse factor “1” at the edge of the cell; and 
         FIG. 5  shows an embodiment of a mobile network with mobile stations for the suppression of interfering signals. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     In  FIG. 1  a schematic drawing of a mobile network  10  is shown. The mobile network  10  generally comprises base stations  12  which are arranged in an approximately hexagonal structure  14 . The hexagonal structure  14  results from radio cells  16 . The base stations  12  are represented by black dots. Each base station  12  supplies three of the radio cells  16  with three antennas which have a horizontal angle of 120 degree with respect to each other. Each of the three antennas of a base station  12 , therefore, emits a sending lobe  18 ,  20 ,  22  having about 120.degree. an example of which is shown at the base station  12  a. Such an arrangement of radio cells  16  of a mobile network  10  is called “clover model” and serves in this description for illustration purposes only. The described method may also be used for any other cellular mobile network  10 . Frequency bands are used as an example for transmission resource which must be divided between the cells. 
     Each of the sending lobes  18 ,  20 ,  22  of each base station  12  emits in a different frequency band. The different frequency bands are denoted by A, B, C. An important measure for the planning of frequencies is the reuse factor of the respective resource describing the amount of orthogonal subgroups. A reuse factor of “1” corresponds to the case where each radio cell  16  uses the same frequency band A as there is only one group. A high reuse factor reduces the interference intensity in the mobile network  10  but limits the spectral efficiency of the mobile network  10  as only a small portion of the entire resources is used in each radio cell  16 .  FIG. 1  shows a mobile network  10  with the reuse factor 3. 
       FIG. 2  shows a corresponding mobile network  10  with the reuse factor “7”. The frequency bands are denoted A, B, C, D, E, F and G. 
       FIG. 3  shows a mobile network  10  according to the current prior art. Instead of the hexagonal structure  14  shown above only sending lobes  18 ,  20 ,  22 ,  24  are shown. A close-up range  26  and a far range  28  are attributed to each base station  12 . The close-up range  26  is in the immediate neighborhood of each base station  12 . The far range  28  extends to the edge of the radio cell  16 . Reuse factor “1” is provided for the close-up range  26 . All sending lobes  24  in the close-up range  26  are provided with the same frequency band A. In the far range  28  of each base station  12  the reuse factor “3” is provided. All sending lobes  18 ,  20 ,  22  are provided with different frequency bands B, C, D. 
       FIG. 4  shows a mobile network  10  according to the present invention with inverse frequency superposition. A close-up range  26  and a far range  28  are attributed to each base station  12  corresponding to  FIG. 3 . The close-up range  26  is in the immediate neighborhood of each base station  12 . The far range  28  extends from there to the edge of the radio cells  16 . The close-up range  26  is supplied by sending lobes  30 ,  32 ,  34 . The far range  28  is covered by sending lobes  36 . The sending lobes  30 ,  32 ,  34  have different frequency bands B, C, D. The sending lobes  36  of the far range use a coincident frequency band A. The present mobile network  10 , therefore, is provided with a reuse factor “3” in the close-up range  26  and with a reuse factor “1” in the far range with respect to the frequency bands A, B, C, D. Thereby the same coincident frequency bands A are always used in the far range  28  of two adjacent radio cells. 
     An embodiment for interference suppressing methods is described in greater detail below. In  FIG. 5  four mobile stations  38  are shown which communicate from the edge of a cell  40  with the base station  12  of the respective radio cell  16 . Such connections are represented by arrows  42 . The mobile stations  38  in the mobile network  10  with inverse frequency band superposition use a small frequency band reuse factor. With the reuse factor of 1 used in the present embodiment all mobile stations  38  use the same frequency band A in the far range  28  of the radio cells  16  and, therefore, generate an interfering intensity by interference with each other. 
     In the uplink from the mobile stations  38  to the base stations  12  each base station  12 , therefore, receives a superposition of signals of a user attributed thereto having signals of users from adjacent radio cells  16 . Adjacent base stations  12  can now connect to an active group  44  in such a way that they transmit their signals received from, for example, landlines or radio relay systems, to a central knot which, for example, can be formed from one of the base stations  46  of the active group  44 , and thereby form a virtual multiple point to point MIMO system. The term MIMO (=Multiple Input Multiple Output) generally denotes systems with several sender—and receiver antennas for the increase of the data rate and the improvement of the transmission quality. 
     In multiple point to point MIMO systems a common signal processing can be achieved only at the receiver as the transmitters do not cooperate as it is the case in the uplink of a mobile network system. In such a central knot known MIMO detection methods, such as, for example, VBLAST-receivers, decision feedback demodulator, successive or parallel interference suppression or linear demodulation can be used to separate the individual uplink data flows of the active group  44  and to forward them to the mobile network  10  for further transmission or processing. Such a common processing of the received signal is summarized in the literature with the term “joint detection”. The strong interference which would exclude the successful detection at individual base stations  12  is inherently removed by the MIMO detection. 
     The formation of the active group  44  and the attribution of a central knot can be dynamically effected in the running network operation by measuring the interference situation. For this purpose the measurement of the strength of the transmission channel between a mobile station  38  and adjacent base stations  12  can be used by means of pilot sequences which are present in the handover procedures. 
     Furthermore the knowledge of the transmission channels with a significant intensity portion between the mobile station  38  and the base station  12  of the active group  44  is necessary for a successful MIMO detection. For this purpose a possibility for the undisturbed channel measurement must be provided which can be carried out by orthogonal pilot sequences or the sending of pilot sequences in time multiplex methods. 
     In the downlink from the base stations  12  to the mobile stations  38  a point to multiple point MIMO system can be formed by the described cooperation between the base stations  12  where in one central knot a pre-processing of the sending signals of each base station  12  is effected in such a way that the signal received and superimposed by the mobile stations  12  has a high SIR-value. Linear pre-modulation or “Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP) can be used as pre-modulate methods. The knowledge of the transmission channel on the sender side necessary for this method can be obtained in TDD (=Tine Division Duplex) Systems by measuring the transmission channel in the uplink because the transmission channel is reciprocal regarding the uplink and downlink. If this reciprocal channel is not present, such as, for example, in FDD (=frequency division duplex) systems the channel estimates determined in the uplink can be transmitted through a return channel to the sender.