OUTER CODING METHODS FOR BROADCAST/MULTICAST CONTENT AND RELATED APPARATUS

• US 20080098283A1
• Filed: 11/29/2007
• Published: 04/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Inventors: Grilli, Francesco, Vayanos, Alkinoos
• Granted Patent: US 8,171,381 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/774
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/15 Cyclic codes, i.e. cyclic shifts of codewords produce other codewords, e.g. codes defined by a generator polynomial, Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem [BCH] codes H03M13/17 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/1515 Reed-Solomon codes
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/2707 Simple row-column interleaver, i.e. pure block interleaving
• 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 1/0061 Error detection codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0083 Formatting with frames or packets; Protocol or part of protocol for error control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/08 by repeating transmission, e.g. Verdan system H04L1/1858 and H04L1/189 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/18 Automatic repetition systems, e.g. Van Duuren systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0093 Point-to-multipoint
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services

Abstract

Transmission techniques are provided that improve service continuity and reduce interruptions in delivery of content that can be caused by techniques that occur when the User Equipment (UE) moves from one cell to the other, or when the delivery of content changes from Point-to-Point (PTP) connection to a Point-to-Multipoint (PTM) connection in the same serving cell, and vice-versa. Such transmission techniques enable seamless delivery of content across cell borders and/or between different transmission schemes such as Point-to-Multipoint (PTM) and Point-to-Point (PTP). Mechanisms for adjusting different streams and for recovering content from each data block during such transitions are also provided so that data is not lost during a transition. In addition, mechanisms for realigning data during decoding at a receiving terminal are also provided.

Claims

1. A destination station, comprising:

a receiver buffer that accumulates information blocks until a condition is satisfied,

wherein a sequence number identifies an outer code block to which each information block belongs, and a position of each information block within that outer code block;

a reordering unit that utilizes the sequence number in each information block to reorder any information blocks that are received out of order; and

a duplicate detection unit that utilizes the sequence number in each information block to detect duplicate information blocks, once the information blocks have been reordered, and eliminates any duplicate information blocks, and

when the condition is satisfied for a given outer code block, the duplicate detection unit replaces any information blocks that do not pass a cyclic redundancy test by ensures, and generates a request to begin outer decoding.

2. The destination station of claim 1, wherein the condition is that the entire outer code block is received.

3. The destination station of claim 1, wherein the condition is that there are no more retransmissions for the outer code block.

4. The destination station of claim 1, further comprising:

a sequence number removal unit that removes the sequence number from each information block of the outer code block; and

an outer decoder that receives the outer code block before it reaches the radio link control layer, and, if necessary, decodes any erasures in the outer code block by using the redundancy blocks to regenerate missing information blocks.

5. The destination station of claim 4, further comprising:

a reassembly unit that uses the information blocks and the length indicators to reconstruct rows of user information; and

a transmit buffer transmits the rows of user information over the radio bearer to deliver the rows of user information to higher layers.

6. The destination station of claim 4, wherein the received buffer stores other incoming information blocks being received while the information blocks that were previously received are being decoded to allow for continuous reception of information blocks during decoding.

7. The destination station of claim 1, wherein the reordering unit delays the decoding by the time-offset between first and second logical streams, and waits for two outer code blocks to be received before decoding is initiated.

8. The outercoding entity of claim 1, wherein the receive buffer receives an outer code block comprising a plurality of rows of information blocks, wherein the rows information blocks each include at least a portion of a row of user information, wherein the size of each row of information block is fixed and occupies one Transmission Timing Interval (TTI).

9. The outercoding entity of claim 4, wherein the outer decoder decodes the outer code block using rows of redundancy information to generate a complete encoder packet that comprises information blocks and length indicators, wherein the information blocks free from errors.

11. The outercoding entity of claim 1, wherein the receive buffer receives an outer code block comprising a plurality of rows of information blocks, wherein the rows information blocks each include at least a portion of a row of user information, wherein the size of each row of information block is variable and the rows of user information fully occupy the plurality of rows of information blocks.

10. The outercoding entity of claim , wherein the reassembly unit uses at least one length indicator in each information block to determine where a row of user information ends within the outer code block row occupied by that information block, and splits the information blocks into rows of user information.