Patent ID: 8031652

Claim:
A method for dynamic traffic load balancing with a plurality of heterogeneous physical layer modes of an air interface protocol architecture, the architecture supports a plurality of physical layer mode multiplexing scenarios for scheduling communication data over a plurality of time slots for use in a multi-carrier wireless communications network having a plurality of carriers, the method comprises: for each time slot of the plurality of time slots: assigning priorities to each of a plurality of mobile terminals based upon a scheduling priority criteria, wherein each of the plurality of mobile terminals include at least one physical layer mode; sorting the plurality of mobile terminals in order of the assigned priority for data communication; when the physical layer mode multiplexing scenario is a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) scenario, selecting the physical layer mode based upon the mobile terminal of the plurality of mobile terminals having the highest assigned priority for data communication and the physical layer mode that the highest assigned priority mobile terminal supports; and when the time slot can accommodate an additional mobile terminal of the plurality of mobile terminals, selecting a next highest assigned priority mobile terminal for data communication that supports the selected physical layer mode until the time slot cannot accommodate further additional mobile terminals or no further additional mobile terminals remain that support the selected physical layer mode; and when the physical layer mode multiplexing scenario is a Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) scenario, selecting the physical layer mode based upon the highest assigned priority mobile terminal for data communication and whether the highest assigned priority mobile terminal is a single physical-layer mode mobile terminal or a multi physical-layer mode mobile terminal; and when the physical layer resources can accommodate an additional mobile terminal of the plurality of mobile terminals, selecting a next highest assigned priority terminal for data communication until the physical layer resources cannot accommodate a further additional mobile terminal of the plurality of mobile terminals or none of the mobile terminals of the plurality of mobile terminals remain.