Acknowledgement method for ACK/NACK signaling to facilitate UE uplink data transfer

• US 20050250497A1
• Filed: 03/15/2005
• Published: 11/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Xiao, Weimin, Love, Robert T., Brown, Tyler A., Ghosh, Amitava, Ratasuk, Rapeepat
• Application Number:
  US11/080,789
• Publication Number:
  US 20050250497A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/436
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/08 by repeating transmission, e.g. Verdan system H04L1/1858 and H04L1/189 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/16 in which the return channel carries supervisory signals, e.g. repetition request signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1607 Details of the supervisory signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/18 for allowing seamless reselection, e.g. soft reselection
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/12 Wireless traffic scheduling

Abstract

To address the need to convey ACK/NACK information in a manner that conserves system and signaling resources, embodiments of the present invention employ a Node-B transmitting on two types of ACK/NACK broadcast channels (501, 502), one type for received uplink data that was scheduled by the Node B and the other type of broadcast channel for received uplink data that was not scheduled by the Node B. Other embodiments of the invention employ a Node-B transmitting on two types of broadcast channels, one type of broadcast channel for received uplink data that comes from non-SHO users and another type of broadcast channel for received uplink data that comes from non-scheduled users or comes from scheduled SHO users. In addition, ACK/NACK information is scheduled (800) into the available broadcast channel time slots in accordance with a transmission priority that is determined by a scheduler.

Claims

1. A method for ACK/NACK signaling to facilitate uplink data transfer by user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

transmitting, by a Node-B, code channel indicators for a first ACK/NACK broadcast channel and for a second ACK/NACK broadcast channel;

determining a transmission priority for ACK/NACK information to be conveyed to individual UE in response to uplink data received from the UE;

scheduling the ACK/NACK information onto ACK/NACK broadcast channel time slots according to the transmission priority determined;

transmitting, by the Node-B, ACK/NACK signaling to convey the scheduled ACK/NACK information via either the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel or the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the received uplink data was scheduled by the Node-B.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the UE is not in soft-handoff.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the received uplink data was scheduled by the Node-B and when the UE is not in soft-handoff.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the received uplink data was not scheduled by the Node-B.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the UE is in soft-handoff.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via either broadcast channel comprises transmitting the ACK/NACK signaling via the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel when the received uplink data was not scheduled by the Node-B and when the UE is in soft-handoff.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the ACK/NACK signaling comprises H-ARQ acknowledgement signaling.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the code channel indicators comprises transmitting the code channel indicators to uplink UE via a notification message transmitted during UE call setup.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a transmission priority for ACK/NACK information to be conveyed to individual UE comprises determining a higher priority for ACK/NACK information that corresponds to earlier received uplink data.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a transmission priority for ACK/NACK information to be conveyed to individual UE comprises determining a higher priority for ACK/NACK information that corresponds to UE with a higher scheduler metric.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein scheduling the ACK/NACK information onto ACK/NACK broadcast channel time slots according to the transmission priority determined comprises, when the time slots are full, selecting ACK/NACK information having lower transmission priority than the ACK/NACK information already scheduled in the time slots to not be transmitted.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling comprises color coding the ACK/NACK information for each individual UE targeted.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein color coding the ACK/NACK information comprises color coding the ACK/NACK information for each individual UE such that UE other than targeted UE decode the ACK/NACK signaling as a NACK.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein color coding the ACK/NACK information for each individual UE comprises determining a color code for each individual UE using a hashing function.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the hashing function has at least one input from the group consisting of a UE identifier, a frame sequence number corresponding to received UE uplink data, a cell identifier, and a transmission time interval (TTI) length.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling via the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel comprises concurrently transmitting DTX (discontinuous transmission) signaling via the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel and wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling via the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel comprises concurrently transmitting DTX signaling via the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling comprises determining a transmit power for the ACK/NACK signaling for each individual UE targeted.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein determining a transmit power for the ACK/NACK signaling for each individual UE comprises determining a transmit power based on power control signaling, from the individual UE targeted, for a Dedicated Physical Control Channel (DPCCH) of the UE targeted.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein determining a transmit power for the ACK/NACK signaling for each individual UE comprises determining a transmit power based on recent soft handover measurement reports from the individual UE targeted.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling comprises repeating each acknowledgement bit to N bits transmitted over M PCG slots, wherein N is 1, 2 or 3 and M is 0.5, 1, 2, 3, or . . . .

22. The method of claim 21, wherein transmitting ACK/NACK signaling comprises determining, using a hashing function, M and a transmission start time for ACK/NACK signaling of an individual UE.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the hashing function has at least one input from the group consisting of a UE identifier, a frame sequence number corresponding to received UE uplink data, a cell identifier, a power margin, and a transmission time interval (TTI) length.

24. A method for ACK/NACK signaling to facilitate uplink data transfer by user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

receiving, by UE, code channel indicators for a first ACK/NACK broadcast channel and for a second ACK/NACK broadcast channel;

transmitting, by UE, uplink data;

monitoring, by UE, ACK/NACK signaling for a color code of the UE, wherein the first ACK/NACK broadcast channel is monitored for ACK/NACK signaling in response to the uplink data transmission from a scheduling Node-B and the second ACK/NACK broadcast channel is monitored for ACK/NACK signaling in response to the uplink data transmission from a non-scheduling Node-B.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprises determining, by the UE, the color code of the UE using a hashing function, wherein the hashing function has at least one input from the group consisting of a UE identifier, a frame sequence number corresponding to the uplink data, a cell identifier, and a transmission time interval (TTI) length.