ACK/NACK channelization for resource blocks containing both ACK/NACK and CQI

• US 20090232067A1
• Filed: 01/29/2009
• Published: 09/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks US LLC (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Pajukoski, Kari, Tiirola, Esa, Hooli, Kari, Lunttila, Timo
• Granted Patent: US 9,065,646 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0675 characterised by the signaling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1671 the supervisory signal being transmitted together with control information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/125 Arrangements for preventing errors in the return channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0016 Time-frequency-code
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0055 Physical resource allocation for ACK/NACK for physical mapping arrangements in ARQ protocols H04L1/1861
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0057 Physical resource allocation for CQI
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0092 Indication of how the channel is divided
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management

Abstract

In one exemplary embodiment, a method includes: transmitting a value from an access node towards an apparatus, where the value is indicative of a size of a first portion of an uplink resource block, where the uplink resource block is shared among a plurality of apparatus, where the first portion is specified for transmission of a first type of signaling to the access node, where a second portion of the uplink resource block is specified for transmission of a second type of signaling to the access node; and receiving at least one transmission using at least one of the first portion and the second portion.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

transmitting a value from an access node towards an apparatus, where the value is indicative of a size of a first portion of an uplink resource block, where the uplink resource block is shared among a plurality of apparatus, where the first portion is specified for transmission of a first type of signaling to the access node, where a second portion of the uplink resource block is specified for transmission of a second type of signaling to the access node; and

receiving at least one transmission using at least one of the first portion and the second portion.

2. A method as in claim 1, where the first type of signaling comprises acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signaling and the second type of signaling comprises channel quality indicator (CQI) signaling.

3. A method as in claim 1, where the uplink resource block further comprises a third portion that acts as a guard band between the first portion and the second portion.

4. A method as in claim 1, where the size of the first portion is indicative of a number of resources in the uplink resource block that are allocated for the first type of signaling.

5. A method as in claim 1, where the value is a first value, the method further comprising:

using the first value to determine a second value indicative of a size of the second portion of the uplink resource block.

6. A method as in claim 1, where the at least one transmission is received on a physical uplink control channel.

7. A method as in claim 1, where Δ

_shift^PUCCH is a cyclic shift difference between two adjacent resources using a same orthogonal cover sequence and the size of the first portion is an integer multiple of Δ

_shift^PUCCH.

8. A method as in claim 1, further comprising:

performing separate cyclic shift/orthogonal cover randomized remapping for the first portion and the second portion.

9. A method as in claim 1, further comprising:

deriving, from the received at least one transmission, the first type of signaling and the second type of signaling based on the size of the first portion and zero or more other parameters.

10. A method as in claim 1, where the access node comprises an evolved Node B and the apparatus comprises a user equipment, where the evolved Node B and the user equipment comprise entities within an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

11. A method as in claim 1, where the method is implemented as a computer program stored on a computer-readable medium.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a transmitter configured to transmit a value towards another apparatus, where the value is indicative of a size of a first portion of an uplink resource block, where the uplink resource block is shared among a plurality of other apparatus, where the first portion is specified for transmission of a first type of signaling to the apparatus, where a second portion of the uplink resource block is specified for transmission of a second type of signaling to the apparatus; and

a receiver configured to receive at least one transmission using at least one of the first portion and the second portion.

13. An apparatus as in claim 12, where the first type of signaling comprises acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signaling and the second type of signaling comprises channel quality indicator (CQI) signaling.

14. An apparatus as in claim 12, where the apparatus comprises an evolved Node B within an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

15. A method comprising:

receiving a value from an access node, where the value is indicative of a size of a first portion of an uplink resource block, where the uplink resource block is shared among a plurality of apparatus, where the first portion is specified for transmission of a first type of signaling to the access node, where a second portion of the uplink resource block is specified for transmission of a second type of signaling to the access node; and

transmitting at least one transmission using at least one of the first portion and the second portion.

16. A method as in claim 15, where the first type of signaling comprises acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signaling and the second type of signaling comprises channel quality indicator (CQI) signaling.

17. A method as in claim 15, where the method is implemented as a computer program stored on a computer-readable medium.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a value from an access node, where the value is indicative of a size of a first portion of an uplink resource block, where the uplink resource block is shared among a plurality of apparatus, where the first portion is specified for transmission of a first type of signaling to the access node, where a second portion of the uplink resource block is specified for transmission of a second type of signaling to the access node; and

a transmitter configured to transmit at least one transmission using at least one of the first portion and the second portion.

19. An apparatus as in claim 18, where the first type of signaling comprises acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) signaling and the second type of signaling comprises channel quality indicator (CQI) signaling.

20. An apparatus as in claim 18, where the apparatus comprises a user equipment within an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.