Estimation and Prediction of the Local Mean Signal Power in Mobile Systems

Various control algorithms in wireless cellular system rely for their proper operation on signal strength measurements doen by the mobiles. In particular, a mobile is required to perform periodic power measurement of the signal it receives from the base station currently supporting it and the signals received from a group of surrounding base stations, as identified by the suypporting base station. The measurement results are then transmitted to the supporting base to serve, following additional processing, as inputs to the power control algorithm and the intracell and intercell handoff algorithms. The same or additional measurements are being widely discussed as inputs to adaptive modulation/coding algorithms, dynamic channel allocation schemes, scheduling algorithms and various "smart antennas" ideas for future, more advanced, cellular systems. The actual implementation of the measurement-taking procedure differs significantly for different wireless standards. In this paper we do not address any particular standard, but our general approach is similar to the GSM standard. The methods presented could be put to use to augment current standards or future ones.