Communication methods and apparatus employing rateless codes

• US 10,455,607 B2
• Filed: 05/10/2017
• Issued: 10/22/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America Incorporated (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kowalski, John Michael, Nogami, Toshizo, Sheng, Jia, Yin, Zhanping
• Primary Examiner(s): Nowlin, Eric
• Application Number:
  US15/591,719
• Publication Number:
  US 20170332400A1
• Time in Patent Office: 895 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0003 by switching between different modulation schemes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0057 Block codes H04L1/0061, H04L1/0064 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0065 Serial concatenated codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1816 with retransmission of the same, encoded, message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1819 with retransmission of additional or different redundancy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1887 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1896 ARQ related signaling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0048 Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A wireless terminal and a node employed in a wireless communications system comprise an outer coding unit configured to use a code with properties akin to Raptor codes as outer erasure codes; and an inner coding unit configured to use an LDPC code as pre-code. The wireless terminal and the node use a code with properties akin to Raptor codes as outer erasure codes, and use the LDPC code as a pre-code.

Claims

1. A node of a radio access network comprising:

processor circuitry configured to generate a N_T persistent grant message which permits the wireless terminal to transmit N_T number of rateless codeword segments representing redundancy versions of a transmission of a wireless terminal;

a transmitter configured to transmit the N_T persistent grant to the wireless terminal;

wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to generate a new data indicator which indicates that the wireless terminal transmits a new sequence of N_T rateless codeword segments corresponding to new message/source bits; and

wherein the processor circuitry is configured to generate the new data indicator before a K number of resources of a previous grant have been completely used.

2. The node of claim 1, further comprising a receiver configured to receive a schedule request from a wireless terminal, and wherein the N_T persistent grant is generated in response to the schedule request.

3. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to autonomously generate the N_T persistent grant.

4. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to include the new data indicator in a new N_T persistent grant.

5. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to generate the N_T persistent grant message to indicate that K number of resources are used for transmission of the N_T number of rateless codeword segments.

6. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to determine the N_T number in the N_T persistent grant based on a pattern of transmissions from the wireless terminal.

7. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to determine the number N_T in the persistent grant based on transmit power of the wireless terminal.

8. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to determine the number N_T in the persistent grant based on a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) transmission.

9. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to determine the number N_T in the persistent grant based on historical transmission success of the wireless terminal.

10. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to dynamically determine the number N_T in the persistent grant.

11. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry comprises a decoder which is configured to decode codewords as having been coded using a code with properties of Raptor codes as outer erasure codes and using an LDPC code as pre-code.

12. The node of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured, in lieu of transmitting a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table comprising both modulation type and coding scheme, to transit to the wireless terminal a modulation type.

13. A wireless terminal comprising:

transmitter circuitry configured to transmit a schedule request to a node of a radio access network;

a receiver configured to receive from the node a N_T persistent grant message which permits the wireless terminal to transmit N_T number of rateless codeword segments representing redundancy versions of a transmission of the wireless terminal;

a processor configured to generate the N_T number of rateless codeword segments;

a transmitter configured to transmit the N_T number of rateless codeword segments to the node,

wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to receive from the node a new data indicator which indicates that the wireless terminal may transmit a new sequence of NT rateless codeword segments corresponding to new message/source bits; and

wherein the N_T persistent grant message indicates to the wireless terminal that K number of resources are used for transmission of the N_T number of rateless codeword segments.

14. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein when the new data indicator is received before the K number of resources of a previous grant have been completely used, the wireless terminal begins transmission of the new sequence of N_T rateless codewords corresponding to the new message/source bits, thereby obviating need of a physical HARQ indicator channel.

15. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the processor circuitry comprises an encoder which is configured use a code with properties of Raptor codes as an outer erasure code and to use an inner coding unit configured to use an LDPC code as pre-code.

16. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the receiver circuitry is further configured, in lieu of receiving a MCS table comprising both modulation type and coding scheme, to receive from the node modulation type.