Facilitating incremental downlink control information design to support downlink control information scheduling

• US 10,554,363 B2
• Filed: 05/04/2017
• Issued: 02/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wang, Xiaoyi, Ghosh, Arunabha, Akoum, Salam, Bendlin, Ralf, Nammi, SaiRamesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Lai, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kim, Harry H
• Application Number:
  US15/587,344
• Publication Number:
  US 20180324845A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,006 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0051 of dedicated pilots, i.e. pilots destined for a single user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0092 Indication of how the channel is divided
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A system facilitating incremental downlink control information (DCI) design to support DCI scheduling in a wireless communication system is provided. In one embodiment, the an apparatus comprises: a processor; and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations. The operations comprise: receiving first downlink control information associated with a first search space of a downlink control channel, wherein the first search space is of a first size; and receiving second downlink control information associated with a second search space of the downlink control channel, wherein the second search space is of a second size that is less than the first size, and wherein the second downlink control information comprises incremental downlink control information that is distinct from the first downlink control information.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

receiving first downlink control information associated with a first search space of a downlink control channel, wherein the first search space is of a first size; and

receiving second downlink control information associated with a second search space of the downlink control channel, wherein the second search space is of a second size that is less than the first size, wherein the second downlink control information comprises incremental downlink control information that is distinct from the first downlink control information and specifies user data information, wherein the incremental downlink control information comprises a first scheduling grant for a first user data packet to be transmitted from a wireless device to the apparatus, wherein the incremental downlink control information specifies the first user data packet on a first downlink traffic channel, and wherein a baseline downlink control information schedules a rank 1 physical downlink shared channel while the incremental downlink control information schedules a subband high rank physical downlink shared channel with a second rank higher than rank 1 and configured to overwrite scheduling based on the baseline downlink control information.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first downlink control information is associated with the baseline downlink control information that comprises a second scheduling grant for a second user data packet to be transmitted from the wireless device to the apparatus, and wherein the baseline downlink control information specifies the second user data packet on a first downlink traffic channel.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the operations further comprise:

transmitting the second user data packet on an uplink channel at a first time specified by the second scheduling grant; and

transmitting the first user data packet on the uplink channel a second time specified by the first scheduling grant.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise, after the receiving the first downlink control information, blind decoding the first search space to determine a location within the second search space at which to decode the second downlink control information, and wherein the location within the second search space at which to decode the second downlink control information is specified by bits within the first search space.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the baseline downlink control information schedules the rank 1 physical downlink shared channel to use frequency resources while the incremental downlink control channel information schedules the subband high rank physical downlink shared channel to use same resources as the frequency resources.

6. A method, comprising:

determining, by a base station device comprising a processor, a first number of scheduling grants for uplink data transmission by a mobile device to the base station device;

facilitating transmitting, by the base station device, first downlink control information associated with a first search space and comprising a first size, of a downlink control channel; and

facilitating transmitting, by the base station device, second downlink control information associated with a second search space, comprising a second size, of the downlink control channel, wherein the second size is less than the first size, and wherein the second downlink control information comprises incremental downlink control information the size of which is dictated by the first downlink control information, wherein the incremental downlink control information comprises a first scheduling grant for a first user data packet to be transmitted, wherein the incremental downlink control information specifies the first user data packet on a first downlink traffic channel, and wherein a baseline downlink control information schedules a rank 1 physical downlink shared channel and the incremental downlink control information schedules a subband high rank physical downlink shared channel with a second rank higher than rank 1 and configured to overwrite scheduling based on the baseline downlink control information.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first downlink control information comprises a second scheduling grant for a second user data packet to be transmitted from the mobile device to the base station device.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second downlink control information is the incremental downlink control information that comprises the first scheduling grant for the first user data packet to be transmitted from the mobile device to the base station device.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving, by the base station device, the second user data packet via an uplink channel at a first time specified by the second scheduling grant; and

receiving, by the base station device, the first user data packet via the uplink channel a second time specified by the first scheduling grant.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein, prior to the facilitating the transmitting the first downlink control information, embedding, in the first downlink control information, bits indicative of a location within the second search space at which the incremental downlink control information is positioned.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the location within the second search space at which the second downlink control information is positioned is specified by two bits within the first search space.

12. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

determining a first number of scheduling grants for uplink data transmission by a mobile device to a base station device;

transmitting first downlink control information associated with a first search space of a downlink control channel, the first search space comprising a first size; and

transmitting second downlink control information associated with a second search space of the downlink control channel, the second search space comprising a second size, wherein the second size is less than the first size, wherein the second downlink control information comprises incremental downlink control information that specifies user data information, and wherein the incremental downlink control information comprises a first scheduling grant for a first user data packet to be transmitted, wherein the incremental downlink control information specifies the first user data packet on a first downlink traffic channel, and wherein a baseline downlink control information schedules a rank 1 physical downlink shared channel while the incremental downlink control information schedules a subband high rank physical downlink shared channel with a second rank higher than rank 1 to dictate scheduling based on the baseline downlink control information.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the first downlink control information is non-incremental downlink control information comprising a second scheduling grant for a second user data packet to be transmitted from a mobile device to the base station device, and wherein the non-incremental downlink control information specifies the second user data packet on a first downlink traffic channel.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the second downlink control information is the incremental downlink control information that comprises the first scheduling grant for the first user data packet to be transmitted from the mobile device to the base station device.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving the second user data packet on an uplink channel at a first time specified by the second scheduling grant.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving the first user data packet on the uplink channel at a second time specified by the first scheduling grant.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the incremental downlink control information specifies the first user data packet on a second downlink traffic channel.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise, prior to the transmitting the first downlink control information, embedding, in the first downlink control information, bits indicative of a location within the second search space at which the incremental downlink control information is to be accessed.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the location within the second search space at which the second downlink control information is to be accessed is specified by two bits within the first search space.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the incremental downlink control information is distinct from the information in the first downlink control information.