Method and apparatus for relay facilitated communications

Technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to wireless communications, and more specifically to the use of connection relays.

Background of the Invention [0002] Wireless communication systems are well known in the art. In many of these systems, remote communication units (some of which may be mobile) communicate with each other and / or with others via the system infrastructure, such as fixed position transmitters and receivers. In general, wireless communications systems have a corresponding range of communications (usually described in terms of transmission or reception range, or both) beyond which the capabilities of the wireless communications system infrastructure cannot be expanded.

[0003] Signal regenerators are known in the art. Such devices are usually used to increase the communication range of a given communication system (increasing the transmission and / or reception range). By means of this mechanism, for example, a relatively low power remote communication unit can effectively connect to a relatively remote system receiver, regardless of the fact that this remote communication unit would otherwise be out of range of the remote system receiver. Such signal regenerators often operate in an autonomous automatic mode and regenerate the signal of each transmission that they successfully receive.

[0004] Unfortunately, despite various improvements to both the remote communication systems and units, there are times and circumstances when the transmission of the communication unit within the scope of a given communication system is nevertheless not reliably received at a set desired level of service quality. This is for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to signal loss due to obstacles and other propagation problems. Performance requirements can also have an impact. For example, with the increasing demand for data transmission speed (often leading to a corresponding increase in transfer), the ability of a communications unit, although in range, to achieve the desired level of service without significantly increasing transmission power is usually limited.

Brief Description of the Drawing Figures [0005] The above needs are met, at least in part, by providing a method and device for communication using call forwarding, described in the following detailed description, especially when considered in relation to the figures in which:

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FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of a system configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2 includes a block diagram illustrating various communication connections configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 3 includes an illustrative block diagram of a base station configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 4 includes a flow diagram of a base station configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 5 includes a flow diagram of a relay resource configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 6 includes a time diagram for a first example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 7 includes a time diagram for a second example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 8 includes a time diagram for a third example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 9 includes a time diagram for a fourth example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 10 includes a time diagram for a fifth example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention; and

FIG. 11 includes a flow diagram for a sixth example configured in accordance with various embodiments of the invention.

[0006] One skilled in the art will recognize that the representation of the elements in the figures serves simplicity and clarity, and the proportions are not necessarily maintained in the drawing. For example, the dimensions of some elements in the drawing may be exaggeratedly large relative to other elements to help better understand various embodiments of the present invention. In addition, common and well-known elements useful or necessary in an embodiment for commercial use are most often omitted in the figures to provide a clearer picture of the various embodiments of the present invention.

Detailed Description [0007] Generally speaking, in accordance with these various embodiments, the base station determines the need to receive a wireless transmission from a transmitter that is currently within the communication range of the base station and automatically determines whether to allocate a wireless transfer resource to at least try to improve the quality of service to support wireless transmission from this transmitter. In this configuration, one or several connection relays can be automatically used and, for example, the relatively high data rate of the transmitter can be handled accordingly.

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[0008] Such relays can be configured in a variety of ways in accordance with this approach. For example, a given relay may only forward, automatically, any received transmissions (or at least those transmissions that are received with at least a set degree of acceptable reception), and the base station may select it, automatically determining whether to accept such automatically transmitted transmissions. In another example, a given relay can forward received transmissions only after receiving the authorization instruction from the base station. In each of the above examples, the relay can simultaneously transmit the transmission or use the save-and-forward mode, postponing the transmission of the transmission for a later (usually predefined) time and circumstances.

[0009] Such relays can also be used in conjunction with the ARQ process, such as the hybrid ARQ process, for example. For example, a relay may register transmissions received from a given remote communication device and forward a given transmission (or part thereof) only in response to an ARQ request or an error signal from a base station. In another example, the relay itself can then perform a significant portion of the ARQ process, recording multiple transmissions of a given data packet or message, and then combining these recorded results to enable the data / message packet to be decoded correctly. Then, it can be forwarded to the base station.

[0010] The present embodiments are also flexible enough to allow other useful configurations. For example, a given base station may receive forwarded transmissions from one or more relays and use these forwarded transmissions in conjunction with transmissions received by the base station from the remote communications unit to attempt to reconstruct the exact version of the original transmission.

[0011] These and other embodiments as described herein are easy to implement, economical, economical in system resources, architecturally flexible, reliable and well affect the possibility, for example, of using significantly increased data rates by remote communication units, without the associated increase in power consumption of these units.

[0012] Referring to FIG. 1, the wireless communication system will typically include at least one transceiver base station 10 (in this embodiment, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, it is assumed that the base station 10 performs essentially all of the relevant infrastructure functions described herein; those skilled in the art will understand, of course, that such functionality may be dispersed or otherwise distributed between one or more other elements of the architecture of a given communication system, and the expression "base station" as used herein should be understood as generally referring to each of the currently known or future developed relevant elements and components of the communication system infrastructure). This base station 10 is used in part to send transmissions to remote devices and to receive transmissions from such devices.

[0013] As mentioned earlier, wireless systems are most often limited by the range of communication. In one example, the communication range is considered to be a set of all locations where the remote device and base station can establish a connection at a data transfer rate greater than the minimum predefined data transfer rate. On

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For example, the minimum predefined data rate may be the speed necessary for voice communication, and in another example, the minimum predefined data rate may be the speed necessary for basic control signaling (e.g., requests and granting access). Since such base station 10 can usually transmit with more power (and often also via one or several high and well placed antenna platforms) than a typical remote device, the transmission range of such base station will usually be greater than the effective reception range 11 of this base station. For illustration, the given base station 10 may not have any problems transmitting information to remote devices located nearby (like transmitter A 12) and to more remote remote devices (like transmitter B 13). The same base station 10, however, may not be able to reliably receive transmissions sent by the more distant transmitter B 13 because this transmitter is outside the effective reception range of base station 10. Signal regenerators can be used to increase this effective reception range, as is well understood by those skilled in the art. Such an increase in scope, however, is not an essential element of these embodiments. Instead, the present implementations are more oriented towards servicing the desired level of service quality for the remote device transmitter which is already within the reception range of transmission 11 of base station 10.

[0014] In the present embodiments, the use of one or more wireless transmitters is assumed. In FIG. 1 shows three such relays: 15, 16 and 17, although more or less of them can be used as required. Although the present embodiments preferably relate to stationary relays, it should be understood that these relays can also be mobile. These relays will most often have at least wireless reception capability to receive transmissions compatible from a remote device or control signals from a base station 10 compatible. The relay may also be equipped with a wired reception capability to receive commands from a base station by a wired connection rather than a wireless connection. Depending on the needs of the application, these relays can be equipped with wireless or wired transmission capability to facilitate delivery of transmitted transmissions to base station 10 and / or exchange signals with one or more remote devices. This wireless transmission capability may be in the band or out of band, in relation to the communication resources used by remote devices to facilitate their own transmission (if out of band, it may refer to both the physical medium as such and the time differential point / subchannel / code).

[0015] As will be described in more detail below, in accordance with these embodiments, a transmitter (such as transmitter C 14) that, in any case, is within the reception range 11 of a given base station 10 can use one or more handover resources, which can contribute to a significant improvement in the signal reception from this transmitter, thanks to better propagation conditions or transmission power, and thus enable higher quality of service (such as faster data transfer speed and more).

[0016] Before these embodiments are discussed in more detail, it may be helpful to first provide different types of approaches to facilitating communication by resources

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And between them. With reference to FIG. 2, as proposed above, base station 10 will often be able to transmit directly to a given remote device 14. These transmissions 21 may include both control information (such as resource allocation messages, etc.) and transferred data (such as voice or other user data) transferred to the remote device 14). In a similar way, in many cases, the remote device 14 may itself perform direct transmissions 22 to base station 10 (to provide, for example, access requests and / or data being transferred) As already mentioned, in some cases such an incoming transmission link may be of insufficient quality, to enable you to achieve the desired level of service quality.

[0017] In accordance with these embodiments, base station 10 may also advantageously transmit control information 23 to one or more relay resources (two of such relay resources, 15 and 16 are shown in the figure). Although not necessary, this possibility will increase dynamic flexibility with respect to the specific way the base station 10 determines which transfer resources to use to provide the desired level of service quality for a given remote device 14.

[0018] Relay resources 15 and 16 are preferably configured to receive compatible transmissions, such as data transferred 24, transmitted by a remote device 14. Such relay resources can be configured, if desired, to always receive such transmissions or to only receive specific transmissions. assigned, for example, by the base station 10 with the appropriate control signals. In turn, forwarding resources 15 and 16 are preferably configured to forward at least transmission fragments received from the remote device 14. As will be developed below, a given forwarding resource can be configured in this way in any way to suit the specific needs and requirements of a given usage. For example, a given transmission range may automatically forward (either immediately or at a later time) all received transmissions, or it may automatically forward only those of received transmissions that meet at least pre-established (or dynamically determined) reception criteria (such as received signal strength or bit error rate), or it can only forward all or part of the received transmissions upon a specific request, e.g., base station 10. There are other options as will be described in more detail below.

[0019] In this configuration, the base station 10 may use, in many different ways, at least one forwarding resource to facilitate providing the desired level of service quality to support connectivity of an external device that is already within the effective reception range of the base station.

[0020] As illustrated in FIG. 3, the base station 10 will preferably include, in addition to the wireless transceiver 31 and other such communication and control platforms that may be suitable for the application (not shown, because such functions and platforms supporting them are well known in the art), resource allocation arrangement 32 to determine when the relay resource will be activated to handle, for example, a resource allocation request, to facilitate the transmission of information to the base station. According to one approach, this resource allocation system 32 forwards these findings to the optional transfer resource activator

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33, which assists controlling the way base station 10 will treat forwarded transmissions received by base station 10 and / or will facilitate the forwarding of commands to a given forwarding resource. In a favorable approach, these commands are designed to help maintain the desired quality of service level for a remote device. As a few illustrative examples, such commands may include, without limitation, any of the following:

- a command for a specific data rate to be used when forwarding the transmission to the base station;

- a command for a specific data rate, how to use it when receiving a transmission from a given remote device;

- a command that specifies information about a specific channel that should be monitored to receive transmissions from a given remote device (including information about the frequency of the transfer channel, time frame (or frames), spreading code and the like); and

- command identifying information on the specific channel to be used when transmitting the transmission to the base station.

[0021] In a desired embodiment, such a transfer resource activator 33 can be used to substantially activate a number of transfer resources simultaneously to help maintain a given level of desired service quality as well as only a single transfer resource.

[0022] In this configuration, in addition to any other functionality that may be required and appropriate for the application, the base station will include a wireless transmitter and receiver together with a resource allocation system that is operably connected to the wireless transmitter and receiver, and which reacts to the wirelessly transmitted signal from a remote device within the base station's receiving range and requesting the allocation of a communication resource, to facilitate the transmission of information to the base station. In addition, the base station preferably includes a relay resource activator that is operably connected to the resource allocation system, in such a way that the relay resource can be activated by the communication controller to improve the quality of service for wireless transmission from a remote device when it transmits within reception range base station.

[0023] Referring to FIG. 4, the base station will most often determine the need to receive wireless transmission from the transmitter that is currently within the reception range of the base station. For example, the base station may receive from the transmitter a wireless message containing an indication of the need for transmission (such a request may be sent, for example, via a control channel).

[0024] Process 40 will then automatically decide 42 whether to allocate one or more relay resources to improve the quality of service that would still be provided to handle the requested transmission from the transmitter. This provision may include determining whether it exists

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The likelihood that the current wireless communication path between the requesting transmitter and the base station may not support the given desired effective data rate. In the desired embodiment, such a provision may include the use of link channel quality information for at least one transmission from the base station to the transmitter (as one example, the base station could consider the visible link channel quality as regarding the receipt by the base station of a message from the requesting receiver, such as proposed above).

[0025] Depending on the needs in a given application, provision 42 can be limited to whether to use a single transfer resource (whether it is a single available transfer resource or one of the pools of usable resources that may or may not be available in system). Or, if desired, provision 42 may include a provision on whether to allocate two or more handover resources to support the enhanced quality of service for communications provided by the base station. In this case, but again depending on the needs of the application, the base station may allocate some, but not all, of the available forwarding resources. In the desired embodiment, by allocating some but not all of the currently available forwarding resources, the base station will indicate the specific forwarding resources to be allocated in this way. In simpler embodiments, all relays can be activated simultaneously.

[0026] Of course, the base station will be able to be configured to reallocate an already allocated forwarding resource to handle ongoing communication that will be better than prior allocation. Such reallocation could be based on any of a variety of decision-making criteria, including, but not limited to, relative priority levels of remote devices relative to each other, relative priorities of supported communication services, change in traffic demand, or other appropriate and appropriate standard.

[0027] In many cases, this provision may include a decision to allocate a forwarding resource that itself uses at least one of the forwarding resources (such as a specific wireless link), which otherwise is also provided by a communications system that includes a base station for establishing direct communications between the base station and participating communication devices (for example: the forwarding resource may use such forwarded forwarding resources to facilitate its own forwarded broadcasts). In this case, controlling such allocation to avoid communication conflicts or collisions with respect to such a transfer resource may often be appropriate. In other cases, such a provision may include a decision to allocate a transfer resource that uses at least one of the transfer resources (such as a wired connection to the base station, but not limited to it), which otherwise is also not made available by a communication system that includes base station for establishing direct communication between the base station and participating communication devices. In this case, less attention is required to ensure that conflicts in resource use are avoided.

[0028] The nature of such provision 42 to allocate a transfer resource may be different, at least in part, with respect to the same type of transfer resource available.

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For example, in some embodiments, the forwarding resource may be configured to automatically forward all transmissions received from remote devices (or at least those received transmissions that have at least a predetermined level of signal quality). In such cases, provision 42 of the allocation of the forwarding resource may be implemented by the base station deciding to accept the forwarded transmissions, which are otherwise automatically sent by such forwarding resources.

[0029] It is also possible that the nature of the forwarding resource will change in other ways that better suit the needs of the application. For example, a base station forwarding resource may include a forwarding resource processing a relatively simple waveform. As another illustrative example, a base station allocation resource may include demodulated forwarding resource or demodulated and decoded forwarding resource. In the first of these cases, the relay transmits the received transmission without first decoding the transmission, operating in both the digital and analog domain, while in the second case the relay decodes the transmission and essentially transmits the received transmission in a more specific way, operating in the digital domain. Both approaches have their strengths, which potentially correspond better to the specific needs of a given system or communication requirements. The demodulation process may include a correction process and, if necessary, the generation of informal information, such as log likelihood.

[0030] When the forwarding resource has the ability to decode information received from the transmitter, another potential alternative implementation method includes providing the forwarding resource with the ability to assess the accuracy and completeness of the received information and make the resulting decisions or actions. For example, this forwarding resource can be configured to:

- demodulation and decoding of transmissions from the transmitter to provide decoded information;

- determine if the transmission has probably been received correctly;

- re-encoding the decoded information to send the re-encoded information;

- transmitting the re-encoded information to the base station when the transmission appears to have been received correctly; and

- not transmitting to the base station any forwarded transmissions that rely on transmissions that are unlikely to be received correctly. Additional perspectives related to these possibilities are described below.

[0031] When determining provision 42 for granting a forwarding resource to better handle a given quality of service for a given transmitter, another possible embodiment includes taking

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EP 1 665 585 B1 of the base station decides whether to allocate a forwarding resource to support wireless transmission from the base station to the transmitter that is currently within the communication range of the base station. This provision may be made on the basis or as a result of, for example, determining that the channel conditions for wireless transmissions from the base station to the transmitter are unacceptable due, at least in part, to channel characteristics (including, without limitation, channel characteristics such as characteristics dispersion delays). [0032] In some embodiments, the process 40 may generally end with provision 42. For example, when the forwarding resource or resources in the system are configured to automatically forward all (or at least some) of the transmissions, this set of decisions may end with the act of allowing the receipt and processing of such automatically forwarded transmissions. For other embodiments, however, the process 40 will preferably take additional action to facilitate the implementation of the provision or provisions described above.

[0033] For example, in many embodiments, the base station may advantageously forward one or more associated commands to an identified resource or relay resources. Such commands can be transmitted in various ways well known in the art. In the desired embodiment, such commands are transmitted as control signals through the appropriate control signal channel. Such a command may, for example, cause the receiving destination transfer resource to forward at least some of the wireless transmissions in the form received from the given receiver. In addition, or alternatively, such commands may provide the forwarding resource:

- identification information regarding the transmitter, in order to thus, for example, facilitate recognition of the transmission relay resource from the given transmitter;

- a specific transmission parameter to be expected when receiving a transmission from a given transmitter (to either facilitate the identification of a transmission from a specific transmitter or facilitate proper reception, demodulation, decoding or other processing by a transmission resource);

- a specific transmission parameter to be used when transmitting the transmission to, for example, the base station;

- identification information regarding a specific channel that must be monitored to receive transmissions from the transmitter;

- identification information about a specific channel to be used when transmitting to the base station; or

- a temporary directive that applies to subsequent forwarded transmissions (for example, the base station may instruct the forwarding resource to use the communication time window

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Of a given carrier during transmission of the transmission, which time window follows the time window that was allocated to the transmitter for the purpose of the original transmission);

with only a few of them listed.

[0034] In some embodiments, it may be desirable to support bidirectional dialogue by means of control signals between a base station and a transfer resource. For example, instead of merely passing on the forwarding resource specific commands from the base station regarding the specific data rate at which to forward the transmission, it may be appropriate or desirable for the forwarding resource to negotiate the specific data rate to be used when forwarding the transmission to the base station . Such negotiated data transfer rate may, of course, be higher or lower than the data transfer rate that could be unilaterally determined by the base station without negotiation, and hence, it may, at least in some arrangements, provide a more satisfactory level of service.

[0035] In the desired embodiment, the base station will then use the forwarded transmission or transmissions forwarded by one or more allocated forwarding resources. The type of use can be different depending on the needs of the application. For example, according to one approach, the base station may use forwarded transmissions from a single transfer resource in place of any other resource. According to a different approach, the base station can receive the original transmission from the remote device and the transmitted transmission from the relay resource, compare both received signals and use only the one that seems to be the better signal. Or, the base station may receive the original transmission from the remote device and the transmitted transmission from the relay resource and combine both of these signals using any algorithm known in the art (e.g. the "maximal ratio combining" algorithm). In another variation of such an embodiment, the base station may receive the original transmission from the remote device simultaneously with multiple transmissions transmitted, generated by the appropriate number of relay resources, and then again select the signal that seems to best present the content of information and only use it or combine several received signals.

[0036] In some of the embodiments mentioned above, the base station essentially identifies the best transmission and then uses that transmission, bypassing any other transmissions that also represent the same substantive content. As an optional addition to each of these processes, the base station may request that parts of the transmission be repeated to complete (or replace) an incorrectly received transmission. For example, an automatic repeat request (ARQ) can be used to implement this approach. (As is well known to those skilled in the art, ARQ typically includes an error checking protocol for data transmissions. Generally, when a receiver detects an error in a packet (using any of many well-known error detection techniques), the receiver automatically requests that the transmitter re-send this package. This process can be repeated until the package

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EP 1 665 585 B1 will be free of errors or the number of errors will exceed the predetermined number of transmissions).

[0037] According to one approach, the base station may send the corresponding ARQ message or error signal to the transmitting remote device and then receive the resulting transmission or transmissions again as already described above. According to a different approach, and which may be particularly appropriate when the base station relies on transmissions from the forwarding resource, the base station may send an ARQ message or error signal to the appropriate forwarding resource to thereby force the forwarding resource to repeat the corresponding transmission without an additional requirement from the remote device to repeat its previous transmission.

[0038] According to the relatively simplified ARQ scheme, the erroneous transmissions may be rejected in their entirety in favor of transmissions received later. However, in others, at least one image of a given transmission may be frozen and then combined with the next transmission. The image of a given transmission can be a digitally sampled waveform, informal samples or log likelihood coefficients. This process of combining the transmission image with the subsequent retransmissions is known to the person skilled in the art as hybrid ARQs. In one optional embodiment, the base station may store transmission images from, for example, many sources. For example, the base station may receive the original transmission from the remote device transmitter and its forwarded version from two forwarding resources. Although each of these transmissions may contain errors, the base station may still be able to combine two or more of these received transmissions to thus receive a correctly reconstructed transmission without referring to a specific ARQ message requesting full or partial retransmission. In a similar manner, the base station reconstructs as much of the given transmission as possible, using such transmissions and forwarded transmissions, and then uses the ARQ process as proposed above to cause the transmission of the remote device transmitter to repeat and / or one or more forwarding resources to then attempt to correctly decode this transmission.

[0039] In the embodiments already described, the base station combines multiple transmissions to reconstruct all correctly received message. According to another embodiment, such reconstruction can also be performed on the transfer resource (to either supplement the base station operations or in their place). In this configuration, originally received and then repeated transmissions can be combined as needed to reconstruct the correctly received transmission. According to one embodiment, the forwarding resource may forward an image of the received transmission if it is unable to decode the transmission correctly. According to another embodiment, the forwarding resource may refrain from forwarding any information until full correctly decoded transmission is available for forwarding. According to another embodiment, the relay may send a message to the base station indicating that the information has probably not been successfully decoded, e.g. a negative acknowledgment message.

[0040] As noted previously, a wide range of relay resource platforms can be used to meet the needs and requirements of these various embodiments. In some

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EP 1 665 585 B1 to embodiments and referring to FIG. 5, the forwarding resource may optionally process 51 base station commands (including the base station commands referred to above and in this document). This capability is particularly useful when the forwarding resource is not automatically and relatively constant for simplified repetition of any received transmissions or in arrangements where specific details about how and when specific transmissions are to be received, demodulated, decoded, combined or forwarded , are preferably forwarded by the base station to the forwarding resource. As also noted above, in some optional embodiments, it may be desirable for the forwarding resource to reconstruct the transmission from images of many previously received transmissions. In any case, the respective forwarding resource process 50 will ultimately involve forwarding 53 parts of all or one or more received transmissions.

[0041] In general, the base station apparatus and transfer resources are sufficiently programmable and / or otherwise flexibly configurable with respect to their purpose and operation that operations such as those described herein for these various embodiments may be easily implemented by a specialist in the field. [0042] To more clearly illustrate the flexibility and application of some of these embodiments, several examples will now be given. It should be understood that these examples are not exhaustive, but rather merely point to various ways of useful implementation of these various implementations.

EXAMPLE 1 [0043] Referring to FIG. 6, the remote device within the receiving range of the given base station sends an access request 61. The base station specifies that a forwarding resource should be allocated to properly service the quality of service requirements for the requested communication and sends the appropriate commands 62 to the selected forwarding resource. Then, the base station transfers the allocation 63 to the remote device, including, for example, information identifying the transfer channel and the like. Then, the remote device wirelessly transmits its carried data 64. The transfer resource receives this transmitted data transmission 64 and in turn forwards this transmission to the base station (using, for example, a cable path to the base station).

EXAMPLE 2 [0044] Referring to FIG. 7, the same as that described in Example 1, the sequence of events may be repeated until the transmission of the transferred data 64 is received by the forwarding resource. In this example, however, that the forwarding resource does not perform simultaneous forwarding of the received transmission. Instead, the forwarding resource performs a keep-and-forward action, stopping the received information and forwarding this information at a later time (using, for example, the same or different wireless transfer channel that used the external device to transmit the original transmission).

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EXAMPLE 3 [0045] Referring to FIG. 8, the remote device may resend the access request 61, in response to which the base station may instruct 62 the relay resource accordingly and send the appropriate assignment 63 to the remote device. In this example, the transmission of the transferred data 81 from the remote device proceeds to and is received by the base station. In addition, the transmission of the transferred data is also received by the forwarding resource, which then performs the forwarding and forwarding 82 of that transmission to the base station. In this configuration, the base station can use both transmissions in the different ways described above.

EXAMPLE 4 [0046] Referring to FIG. 9, the same sequence of events may occur as described above with respect to Example 3, except that the forwarding resource does not forward the received transferred data 81 automatically. Instead, the forwarding resource transfers the transferred data 92 in response to a specific repetition request 91, which may be sent by the base station as a function, for example, of the given ARQ process.

EXAMPLE 5 [0047] Referring to FIG. 10, after obtaining assignment 63, the remote device transmits the transferred data 101. The forwarding resource receives the transferred data 101 with evident errors. The forwarding resource transmits 102 to the base station to indicate that the received transmission is incomplete (such indication may take various forms; for example, such indication may contain the incomplete transmission itself or a signal that indicates the incompleteness of the received transmission). The base station responds by sending a "repeat" 103 command to the remote device (using, for example, the appropriate ARQ protocol). The remote device responds by repeating all or part of its previous transmission of transfer data 104. In this example, the second transmission is either correctly received in full by the transfer resource or a portion of the second transmission is sufficiently received to accurately reconstruct the entire transmission. The forwarding resource then forwards the reconstructed (or fully correctly received) transferred data to the base station. As mentioned earlier, using the ARQ hybrid protocol, the reconstructed transferred data may consist of both the originally received and then repeated transmission, which were appropriately combined to reconstruct the correctly received transmission.

EXAMPLE 6

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EP 1 665 585 B1 [0048] Referring to FIG. 11 and in accordance with this embodiment, the relay can perform a HARQ based process after it has been properly started by the respective base station. This can occur at the same time as the base station plans to transmit from the transmitter. According to this process, the relay, after receiving the transmission, demodulates 112 received data. The demodulation process may include the process of correcting or generating informal data, such as the likelihood logarithms, which are used in HARQ linking and decoding processes. In this particular embodiment, the relay determines whether the transmission includes the first transmission (i.e., the transmission does not include retransmission of previously sent information). This term can be handled in various ways. According to one embodiment, the base station may inform the relay by scheduling a transmission that the transmission actually contains retransmission.

[0049] When the received transmission is indeed the first transmission, the relay decodes 115 this transmission and determines 116 whether the information has been successfully decoded and, if true, transmits 117 this information to the base station. When the received transmission is not the first transmission, which means that the received retransmission instead contains the retransmission of previously transmitted information, the relay combines the last received transmission with the previously received transmission that was previously stored in the buffer. Then, as with the first transmission, the relay decodes 115 the combined transmission and determines 116 whether the information has now been successfully decoded.

[0050] If false is noted, which means that either the original transmission or retransmission combined with any previously stored in the buffer has not been successfully decoded, the relay stores 118 the received transmission in the buffer so that this information is available for use as described above , if later retransmission is received. According to one embodiment, the base station may not receive any data from the relay, concluding that the relay probably did not decode this information successfully. The base station then sends a message to the remote device to request the remote device to send the next retransmission. Then, the relay prepares 119 to receive such retransmission and, after receiving such retransmission, repeats the process described above. The HARQ process is therefore distributed between the relay and the base station, the relay combines retransmissions and the base station controls the retransmissions from the remote device. It should also be noted that more than one transmitter may be involved in the HARQ process. The retransmission process ends when at least one relay successfully decodes the information sent by the remote device and sends this information back to the base station.

[0051] In this configuration, it can be seen that a wide range of different embodiments and configurations are possible, all of which serve to facilitate the provision of a given level of increased quality of service to a transmitter that is already within the receiving range of the receiving station. These embodiments range from relatively simplified configurations and actions to much more complex scenarios; in this form, it will be accepted that these basic considerations can be immediately scaled to meet the needs and requirements of a wide range of system challenges.

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[0052] One skilled in the art will recognize that with respect to the embodiments described above, a wide range of various modifications, changes, and combinations can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. For example, the quality of the relay services described above can be used in conjunction with increasing the range of signal regenerators, which may be desirable or appropriate for the application.

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