Electronic apparatus and method used in wireless communications, and computer readable storage medium

Abstract

An electronic apparatus and method used in wireless communications, and a computer readable storage medium, the electronic apparatus comprising: a processing circuit configured to determine by dynamic means a partitioning solution for a virtual cell in a predetermined region, determination of the partitioning solution for the virtual cell comprising partitioning of a plurality of access points in the predetermined region to be one or more virtual cells, and designating each of the virtual cells to serve as master access points; and generating a message indicating the virtual cell partitioning solution so as to notify all of the designated master access points.

1 . An electronic apparatus for wireless communications, comprising:
 processing circuitry, configured to:   determine a dividing scheme of virtual cells in a predetermined region in a dynamical manner, determining the dividing scheme of the virtual cells comprising dividing multiple access points (APs) in the predetermined region into one or more virtual cells and specifying an AP in each virtual cell as a master AP; and   generate a message to inform the specified master APs, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to acquire one or more of the following from current master APs: a location of each AP, backhaul capacity of each AP, a backhaul requirement, location and movement information of user equipment within a coverage range of a corresponding virtual cell.   
     
     
         2 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:
 acquire a first number of APs as candidate APs for the master AP of each virtual cell; and   specify, for each virtual cell, the master AP from the first number of APs.   
     
     
         3 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the dividing scheme of the virtual cells, such that a network utility value is the highest in the case of adopting the dividing scheme, wherein the network utility value is related to packet loss ratios of respective virtual cells and the handover overhead in the predetermined region,
 wherein the packet loss ratio is obtained based on the backhaul capacity of the master AP of the corresponding virtual cell and a total backhaul requirement of the virtual cell.   
     
     
         4 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 3 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:
 take the number of the divided virtual cells as a searching location, and perform, with respect to different searching locations, iterating operations for virtual cell dividing;   calculate, based on a virtual cell division obtained when the iteration operations complete, a network utility value corresponding to the searching location;   optimize the searching location at which to perform the iteration operations based on the network utility value, to determine an optimum searching location; and   determine the dividing scheme of the virtual cells corresponding to the optimum searching location as the dividing scheme of the virtual cells to be adopted.   
     
     
         5 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 4 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to perform the iteration operations for the virtual cell dividing as follows:
 select, according to the location and backhaul capacity of each AP, a first number of APs with the first number corresponding to the searching location as candidate APs for the master AP of each virtual cell;   cluster the APs based on weighted distances between each AP and the candidate APs, wherein the weighted distance is related to an actual distance between the AP and the candidate AP, and a weighting factor based on the backhaul capacity of the candidate AP; and   with respect to each cluster, update the candidate AP for the cluster, and re-perform the clustering based on the weighted distances using the updated candidate AP until a predetermined condition is satisfied, taking the candidate APs for the clusters finally obtained as the master APs of virtual cells.   
     
     
         6 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 5 , wherein the predetermined condition comprises one or more of the following: variation of the location of the candidate AP between two clustering operations is below a predetermined degree; the number of times of performing clustering operations achieves a predetermined value. 
     
     
         7 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 5 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to set the weighting factor, so that a probability for an AP being allocated to a cluster whose candidate AP has stronger backhaul capacity is larger than a probability for the AP being allocated to a cluster whose candidate AP has weaker backhaul capacity; and a probability for an AP being allocated to a cluster whose candidate AP has user equipment with a larger backhaul requirement around it is smaller than a probability for the AP being allocated to a cluster whose candidate AP has user equipment with a smaller backhaul requirement around it. 
     
     
         8 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 5 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to allocate an AP to a cluster whose candidate AP is corresponding to a smallest weighted distance. 
     
     
         9 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 3 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:
 select, according to a current load of each master AP, a predetermined number of master APs as searching nodes;   instruct the searching nodes to perform the iteration operations for the virtual cell dividing with respect to different searching locations respectively, wherein the searching location is the number of divided virtual cells;   perform following second iteration operations, until a predetermined condition is met:   acquire, from each of the searching nodes, a network utility value of the dividing scheme of the virtual cells for a corresponding searching location; and determine a global optimum searching location based on the network utility values; and   provide the global optimum searching location and its corresponding network utility value to the searching nodes, so that each searching node update the searching location for next iteration operations, based on the global optimum searching location and its corresponding network utility value as well as a previous searching location and the corresponding network utility value for the searching node.   
     
     
         10 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 9 , wherein the predetermined condition comprises one or more of the following: the global optimum searching location is no longer changed; variation of the network utility value corresponding to the global optimum searching location between two second iteration operations is below a predetermined degree; the number of times of performing the second iteration operations achieves a predetermined value. 
     
     
         11 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 9 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to acquire, from a searching node providing the final global optimum searching location, the dividing scheme of the virtual cells corresponding to the final global optimum searching location as the dividing scheme of the virtual cells to be adopted, wherein the dividing scheme of the virtual cells further comprises information of boundaries of the virtual cells. 
     
     
         12 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine, based on the determined backhaul requirement and communication quality requirement of each virtual cell, spectrum requirement of the virtual cell, and determine a spectrum allocation scheme according to the spectrum requirements. 
     
     
         13 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 12 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to generate a message containing the spectrum allocation scheme to inform the master APs. 
     
     
         14 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 12 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to request available spectrum resources to the spectrum management apparatus. 
     
     
         15 . The electronic apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to request the available spectrum resources to the spectrum management apparatus via a domain proxy.