| 摘要 |
<p>The invention concerns transmitting signals from multiple remote and separate transmission points to a relay node 7, which combines the transmissions and relays them to a communications device such as a user equipment (UE) 3. The transmission points may, for example, from multiple eNBs (base stations) 5, or an eNB and a remote radio head (RRH) (6, Fig. 1a). The relay node may be configured in a first state, in which it receives data to be relayed from a single donor base station only, or in second state in which it receive transmissions to be relayed from multiple transmission points. These latter transmissions may use a coordinated multipoint (CoMP) protocol. The configuration information may be transmitted from a donor eNB. In one embodiment a network node, such as a mobility management entity (MME) 12, transmits a signal to be relayed to multiple donor eNBs which then act as transmission points in a CoMP system. In this arrangement the network node may maintain a multi-point transmission context module which identifies which donor base stations are to participate in a CoMP transmission. In yet another embodiment only a master donor base station provides proxy functionality to the relay node.</p> |
