Non-PDCCH signaling of SIB resource assignment

• US 10,091,775 B2
• Filed: 06/07/2016
• Issued: 10/02/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Tabet, Tarik, Hussain, Awais M., Mujtaba, Syed Aon, Elsayed, Moustafa M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Renner, Brandon M
• Application Number:
  US15/175,102
• Publication Number:
  US 20170055246A1
• Time in Patent Office: 847 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/12 using downlink control channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

This disclosure relates to providing system information for cell access to link budget limited devices. According to some embodiments, a base station may transmit an announcement information block (AIB) in a downlink shared data channel (e.g., PDSCH), wherein the AIB contains information useable by a UE in determining the location of system information in the downlink shared data channel. The UE can thus determine the location of and decode system information without having to decode a downlink control channel (e.g., PDCCH). This may be important for certain classes of devices, such as link budget limited devices, which have issues in decoding the downlink control channel. Improved paging scheduling techniques are also disclosed which more efficiently use PDCCH paging resources.

Claims

1. An integrated circuit for use in a base station configured to serve a cell in a cellular network, wherein the integrated circuit comprises:

one or more processing elements, wherein the one or more processing elements are configured to;

transmit an information block (TB) comprising first information for accessing the cell, wherein the first information comprises resource assignments for at least two system information blocks (SIBs), wherein the IB is transmitted in a downlink shared data channel; and

transmit the at least two SIBs in the downlink shared data channel,

wherein the information block is useable by a user equipment (UE) device to determine the resource assignments of the at least two SIBs, and hence locations of the at least two SIBs in the downlink shared data channel, without decoding, by the UE, a downlink control channel.

2. The integrated circuit of claim 1,

wherein said transmitting the IB in the shared data channel is performed for a specific class of link budget limited UE devices.

3. The integrated circuit of claim 1,

wherein the first information comprises resource assignments for all SIBs for the cell.

4. The integrated circuit of claim 1,

wherein the first information comprises resource assignments only for a SIB-1 and a SIB scheduled to be transmitted in a next SIB-window.

5. The integrated circuit of claim 1, wherein the at least two SIBs comprise at least a SIB-1, wherein the integrated circuit is further configured to cause the base station to:

transmit a resource assignment for the SIB-1 in a downlink control channel;

wherein the resource assignment for the SIB-1 transmitted in the downlink control channel is useable by a UE device to determine the resource assignment of the SIB-1, and hence a location of the SIB-1 in the downlink shared data channel;

wherein the resource assignment for the SIB-1 transmitted in the downlink control channel is useable by UE devices that are not link budget limited.

6. The integrated circuit of claim 1, wherein the integrated circuit is further configured to cause the base station to:

modify a resource assignment of one or more SIBs;

modify the content of the IB based on the modified SIB resource assignment;

transmit an updated IB comprising the modified content; and

transmit the one or more SIBs having modified resource assignments.

7. The integrated circuit of claim 1, wherein the integrated circuit is further configured to cause the base station to:

power boost transmission of the IB in the downlink shared data channel.

8. The integrated circuit of claim 1, wherein the integrated circuit is further configured to cause the base station to:

transmit one or more repetitions of the IB.

9. The integrated circuit of claim 1,

wherein the downlink shared data channel is a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) of a telecommunications network;

wherein the IB is an announcement information block (AIB).

10. A base station configured to serve a cell in a cellular network, comprising:

an antenna;

a radio coupled to the antenna; and

a processing element operably coupled to the radio;

wherein the base station is configured to perform cellular communications to user equipment (UE) devices in the cellular network;

wherein the base station is configured to;

transmit information indicating that the cell provides system information for accessing the cell in a manner supporting link budget limited UE devices in a downlink shared data channel; and

transmit the system information in the downlink shared data channel, wherein the information indicating that the cell provides system information for accessing the cell in a manner supporting link budget limited UE devices is useable by a UE device to determine resource assignments of the system information without decoding, by the UE, a downlink control channel.

11. The base station of claim 10,

wherein the system information is transmitted using predetermined resource assignments in time and frequency domains.

12. The base station of claim 10, wherein the base station is further configured to:

transmit information indicating resource assignments for system information for accessing the cell in a downlink shared data channel according to a predetermined schedule comprising frame, subframe, and resource assignments,

wherein the predetermined schedule is determined according to a function of a physical cell-ID of the cell.

13. The base station of claim 10,

wherein the system information for accessing the cell is transmitted in a plurality of system information blocks (SIBs), wherein each SIB of the plurality of SIBs is transmitted in a respective SIB-window comprising a plurality of subframes,

wherein the base station is further configured to:

transmit information indicating a resource assignment for a SIB scheduled to be transmitted in an immediately subsequent SIB-window in the downlink shared data channel during each SIB-window.

14. The base station of claim 13,

wherein the base station is further configured to transmit information indicating a resource assignment for a SIB-1 in the downlink shared data channel during each SIB-window.

15. The base station of claim 10,

wherein the system information for accessing the cell is transmitted in a plurality of system information blocks (SIBs),

wherein the base station is configured to:

periodically transmit an information block comprising information indicating resource assignments for all of the plurality of SIBs in the downlink shared data channel.

16. The base station of claim 10, wherein the base station is further configured to:

modify one or more resource assignments for the system information to increase frequency diversity, to increase time diversity, and/or to counter inter-cell interference;

transmit updated information indicating the modified resource assignments for the system information based on modifying the one or more resource assignments for the system information,

wherein modifying the one or more resource assignments for the system information and transmitting updated information indicating the modified resource assignments for the system information are performed periodically on predetermined occasions as a function of a predetermined periodicity and offset of a system frame number of the cell.

17. The base station of claim 10, wherein the base station is further configured to perform one or more of:

power boosting of one or more resource elements used to transmit the information indicating that the cell provides system information for accessing the cell in a manner supporting link budget limited UE devices;

or

transmitting one or more repetitions of the information indicating that the cell provides system information for accessing the cell in a manner supporting link budget limited UE devices.

18. A user equipment (UE) device, comprising:

an antenna;

a radio coupled to the antenna; and

a processing element operably coupled to the radio,

wherein the UE device is configured to;

perform a cell search;

acquire a cell associated with a base station based on the cell search;

receive, from the base station, an information block (IB) comprising first information for accessing the cell, wherein the first information comprises a resource assignment for system information block 1 (SIB-1), wherein the IB is received in a downlink shared data channel;

determine the resource assignment of the SIB-1 in the downlink shared data channel based on the IB received in the downlink shared channel and without decoding a downlink control channel; and

receive, from the base station, the SIB-1 in the downlink shared data channel in accordance with the determined resource assignment of the SIB-1.

19. The UE device of claim 18, wherein the first information comprises one or more resource assignments for one or more other system information blocks in addition to SIB-1, wherein the UE device is further configured to:

determine the one or more resource assignments of the one or more other system information blocks in the downlink shared data channel based on the IB received in the downlink shared channel; and

receive, from the base station, the one or more other system information blocks in the downlink shared data channel in accordance with the determined one or more resource assignments of the one or more other system information blocks.

20. The UE device of claim 18,

wherein the IB further comprises information indicating one or more of:

a pattern of assigned resources variation for one or more system information block repetitions;

or

a redundancy version (RV) pattern for one or more system information block repetitions.