Methods of transmitting and signaling over a reverse link in wireless systems

• US 20040160959A1
• Filed: 02/15/2003
• Published: 08/19/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Sampath, Ashwin, Das, Arnab, Balachandran, Krishna
• Granted Patent: US 7,385,951 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/395.4
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1887 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/18 for allowing seamless reselection, e.g. soft reselection
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/1268 of uplink data flows
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/569 of the traffic information

Abstract

In a wireless communication system, there is a method of transmitting over a reverse link, where a medium access control layer multiplexes data from upper level layers onto transport channels that are used based on whether the user is in a scheduled transmission mode or an autonomous transmission mode. The transport channels may be mapped to one or more physical channels associated with a particular transport channel, based on whether the transport channel is dedicated for use in the scheduled or autonomous mode.

Claims

1. A medium access control layer (MAC) having termination points at a base station and at user, comprising:

means for scheduling tasks at the base station; and

means for multiplexing upper layer data into separate first and second channels at the user;

the first channel configured for use when the user is in a scheduled transmission mode, and

the second channel configured for use when the user is in an autonomous transmission mode.

2. The MAC layer of claim 1, wherein the means for multiplexing maps data from a common radio link control layer (RLC) buffer onto both the first and second channels.

3. The MAC layer of claim 1, wherein the means for multiplexing maps data from one radio link control layer (RLC) buffer onto the first channel and from another RLC buffer onto the second channel.

4. The MAC layer of claim 1, wherein the means for scheduling tasks performs priority scheduling, assigning higher priority data to the first channel and lower priority data to the second channel.

5. A method of mapping transport channels in a MAC layer onto physical channels of a physical layer at a user, comprising:

inputting a first transport channel dedicated for use when the user is in a scheduled transmission mode;

mapping said first transport channel to a first group of physical channels;

inputting a second transport channel dedicated for use when the user is in an autonomous transmission mode;

mapping said second transport channel to a second group of physical channels that are not associated with said first transport channel.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

mapping additional transport channels not dedicated for either scheduled or autonomous modes to said second group of physical channels.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

mapping additional transport channels not dedicated for either scheduled or autonomous modes to a third group of physical channels not associated with either of said first transport channel or said second transport channel.

8. A method of transmitting information from a user, comprising:

multiplexing upper layer data onto a first transport channel configured for use in a scheduled transmission mode and onto a second transport channel configured for use in an autonomous transmission mode;

mapping the first and second transport channels to groups of physical channels for encoding, so that a first group of physical channels is designated for carrying bits of data from said first transport channel, and a second group of physical channels is designated for carrying bits of data from said second transport channel; and

transmitting the first and second groups of physical channels.

9. A method of multiplexing data in a medium access control (MAC) layer of a user, the MAC layer mapping data from upper level layers to a first transport channel defined for a scheduled transmission mode of operation and to a second transport channel defined for an autonomous transmission mode of operation, the user'"'"'s MAC layer multiplexing upper level data into one or more of the first and second transport channels based on a trigger.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said trigger is related to one of a type of data, a soft handoff status of the user and a transmit power requirement.

11. A transport channel of a medium access control (MAC) layer, the transport channel receiving multiplexed data from the MAC layer that is substantially delay tolerant and error tolerant, the transport channel used by the MAC layer when a user has received a scheduling grant and is in a scheduled mode of operation, the transport channel characterized by a transmission time interval less than about 10 ms, and subject to one or more of fast scheduling, adaptive data rate selection and Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (H-ARQ) processes from a controlling entity.

12. The transport channel of claim 11, wherein multiplexed data from the MAC layer that is substantially delay tolerant and error tolerant is selected from at least one of web-browsing traffic, electronic mail and file transfers.

13. A transport channel of a medium access control (MAC) layer, the transport channel receiving multiplexed data from the MAC layer that is substantially delay intolerant, the transport channel used by the MAC layer when a user is operating in an autonomous transmission mode, the transport channel characterized by a transmission time interval of at least 10 ms and multiples thereof, and subject to one or more of fast scheduling, adaptive data rate selection and Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (H-ARQ) processes from a controlling entity.

14. The transport channel of claim 13, wherein multiplexed data from the MAC layer that is substantially delay intolerant is selected from at least one of TCP data, ACK data and HTTP transfer requests.

15. A method of signaling a base station from a user, comprising:

transmitting a signaling message over a physical channel to the base station.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein said signaling message includes a soft handoff status of the user.

17. A method of signaling a base station from a user, comprising:

transmitting a signaling message from the user in a medium access control (MAC) layer to a radio network controller (RNC), the RNC transmitting soft handoff status of the user to one or more base stations involved in the soft handoff.