US 11,956,766 B2
Hybrid beamforming
Muhammad Ayyaz Qureshi, Neu-Ulm (DE); Martin Steiert, Blaustein (DE); Tilman Felgentreff, Holzkirchen (DE); Suresh Kalyanasundaram, Bangalore (IN); Jinesh P. Nair, Bangalore (IN); and Shalini Gulati, Bangalore (IN)
Assigned to NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS OY, Espoo (FI)
Filed by NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS OY, Espoo (FI)
Filed on Mar. 7, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/118,373.
Claims priority of application No. 20225200 (FI), filed on Mar. 7, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0284199 A1, Sep. 7, 2023
Int. Cl. H04W 72/044 (2023.01); H04W 16/28 (2009.01); H04W 72/52 (2023.01)
CPC H04W 72/046 (2013.01) [H04W 72/52 (2023.01); H04W 16/28 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory including a computer program code, wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to:
select, based on beam metric, a beam to be scheduled for a slot that is upcoming, wherein the beam metric is defined as a weighted sum of scheduler metrics, associated with terminal devices and wherein weights reflect a required number of physical resource blocks for the terminal devices;
select a terminal device to be scheduled in the selected beam, wherein the selection of the terminal device is based on the terminal device having considered the selected beam as a best beam, and allocate physical resource blocks to the terminal device;
choose a beam configuration to be used for the selected beam based, at least partly, on user traffic and load distribution; and
trigger a switching event, prior to or during, the slot, wherein the switching event comprises producing the chosen beam configuration by providing a beamforming command and using a control line controlling a switch network comprised in phase shifters to steer the beam, and wherein the phase shifters are comprised in a radio frequency front-end unit that comprises a plurality of antenna columns, and the phase shifters are placed in front of selected antenna sub-arrays comprised in the plurality of antenna columns.