PHYSICAL DOWNLINK CONTROL CHANNEL RESOURCE-BASED SCHEDULING METHOD AND APPARATUS USED BY BASE STATION

• US 20100157922A1
• Filed: 10/28/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KIM, Kyung-sook, BAHG, Young-jick, PARK, Hyun-seo, SHIN, Yeon-seung, SHIN, Jae-sheung
• Granted Patent: US 8,223,712 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0094 Indication of how sub-channels of the path are allocated
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/1263 Mapping of traffic onto schedule, e.g. scheduled allocation or multiplexing of flows

Abstract

Provided are a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)-based scheduling method and apparatus suitable for use by a base station in a long-term evolution (LTE) system. The scheduling method includes: determining an aggregation level of a common search space of a PDCCH by considering channel quality of a plurality of user equipments (UEs); identifying the number of PDCCH candidates and the number of messages, which require allocation of the common search space, based on the determined aggregation level and selecting messages by a smaller number of the number of messages and the number of PDCCH candidates; and allocating PDCCH resources and physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) resources for the selected messages. In a situation where the PDCCH resources are shared by downlink scheduling information and uplink scheduling information of different UEs, the PDCCH resource-based scheduling method can be used by the base station to efficiently utilize the PDCCH resources.

Claims

1. A physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) resource-based scheduling method suitable for use by a base station which schedules downlink physical resources or uplink physical resources in response to a plurality of downlink scheduling requests or a plurality of uplink scheduling requests, the scheduling method comprising:

determining an aggregation level of a common search space of a PDCCH by considering channel quality of a plurality of user equipments (UEs);

identifying the number of PDCCH candidates and the number of messages, which require allocation of the common search space, based on the determined aggregation level and selecting messages by a smaller number of the number of messages and the number of PDCCH candidates; and

allocating PDCCH resources and physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) resources for the selected messages.

2. The scheduling method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the number of PDCCH candidates and the number of messages and the selecting of the messages comprises:

identifying the number of PDCCH candidates based on the determined aggregation level;

identifying the number of messages which require allocation of the common search space; and

comparing the number of PDCCH candidates with the number of messages and selecting, in order of priority, messages by a smaller number of the number of messages and the number of PDCCH candidates when the number of messages is greater than the number of PDCCH candidates.

3. The scheduling method of claim 2, wherein the messages which require allocation of the common search space comprise at least one of a radio resource control (RRC) system information message, a paging message, and a random access response message.

4. The scheduling method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting downlink or uplink scheduling requests from the UEs;

calculating a scheduling metric of each of the UEs in response to the collected downlink or uplink scheduling requests;

selecting the UEs, which have made the downlink or uplink scheduling requests, in order of highest to lowest scheduling metric and determining whether the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for scheduling execution information of each of the selected UEs; and

allocating the PDCCH resources for a UE-specific search space based on the determination result.

5. The scheduling method of claim 4, wherein the allocating of the PDCCH resources comprises:

determining whether the PDCCH resources can be allocated for the UE-specific search space when it is determined that the PDCCH resources need to be allocated; and

allocating the PDCCH resources for the UE-specific search space when it is determined that the PDCCH resources can be allocated for the UE-specific search space and allocating the PDSCH or PUSCH resources.

6. The scheduling method of claim 5, wherein the allocating of the PDCCH resources and the allocating of the PDSCH or PUSCH resources further comprises:

determining whether the PDSCH or PUSCH resources can be allocated based on whether the PDCCH resources can be allocated; and

allocating the PDSCH or PUSCH resources when it is determined that the PDCCH or PUSCH resources and the PDSCH resources can be allocated.

7. The scheduling method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining whether a scheduling operation can be performed based on the number of UEs, which have made the downlink or uplink scheduling requests, after the collecting of the downlink or uplink scheduling requests; and

performing the scheduling operation when it is determined that the scheduling operation can be performed.

8. The scheduling method of claim 7, wherein whether the scheduling operation can be performed is determined based on whether there are remaining physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) or PDSCH resources.

9. The scheduling method of claim 4, wherein in the allocating of the PDCCH resources, the UEs selected based on the calculated scheduling metrics are prioritized based on at least one of downlink channel quality and data amount of the selected UEs and uplink channel quality and data amount of the selected UEs.

10. The scheduling method of claim 9, further comprising:

generating a list of UEs which have made the downlink or uplink scheduling requests; and

deleting a high-priority UE, which is selected from the selected UEs, from the generated list.

11. The scheduling method of claim 4, wherein in the allocating of the PDCCH resources, if any one of UEs, which have made the uplink scheduling requests, from among the UEs selected based on the scheduling metrics is a UE for uplink adaptive retransmission, the UE is preferentially selected and scheduled accordingly.

12. The scheduling method of claim 4, wherein in the allocating of the PDCCH to resources if any one of the UEs selected based on the scheduling metrics is a UE for IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) signaling or conversational voice data scheduling, which is ranked high in a bearer priority, the UE is preferentially selected and scheduled accordingly.

13. The scheduling method of claim 4, wherein the selecting of the UEs and the determining of whether the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for the scheduling execution information of each of the selected UEs comprises:

selecting the UEs, which have made downlink or uplink scheduling requests, in order of highest to lowest scheduling metric;

determining whether the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for the scheduling execution information of each of the selected UEs;

determining an aggregation level of the selected UEs search space of a corresponding one of the selected UEs when it is determined that the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for the scheduling execution information of the corresponding one of the selected UEs; and

determining the UE-specific search space based on the determined aggregation level.

14. The scheduling method of claim 13, wherein in the determining of the aggregation level, the aggregation level is determined by considering channel quality of the corresponding one of the selected UEs.

15. A PDCCH resource-based scheduling apparatus used by a base station which schedules downlink physical resources or uplink physical resources in response to a plurality of downlink scheduling requests or a plurality of uplink scheduling requests, the scheduling apparatus comprising:

an aggregation level determination unit determining an aggregation level of a common search space of a PDCCH by considering channel quality of a plurality of UEs;

a message selection unit identifying the number of PDCCH candidates and the number of messages, which require allocation of the common search space, based on the determined aggregation level and selecting messages by a smaller number of the number of messages and the number of PDCCH candidates; and

a common scheduling execution unit allocating PDCCH resources for the selected messages.

16. The scheduling apparatus of claim 15, further comprising:

a request collection unit collecting scheduling requests from the UEs;

a metric calculation unit calculating a scheduling metric of each of the UEs in response to the collected scheduling requests;

a UE selection and control channel allocation determination unit selecting the UEs, which have made the scheduling requests, in order of highest to lowest scheduling metric and determining whether the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for scheduling execution information of each of the selected UEs; and

a UE scheduling execution unit performing a UE scheduling operation by allocating the PDCCH resources for a UE-specific search space based on the determination result.

17. The scheduling apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a scheduling determination unit determining whether the UE-scheduling operation can be performed based on the number of UEs, which made the scheduling requests, and based on whether there are remaining PUSCH or PDSCH resources.

18. The scheduling apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a scheduling determination unit determining whether the UE-scheduling operation can be performed based on whether the PDCCH resources need to be allocated for the scheduling execution information of each of the selected UEs.

19. The scheduling apparatus of claim 16, wherein the UE selection and control channel allocation determination unit prioritizes the UEs, which were selected based on the calculated scheduling metrics, based on at least one of downlink channel quality and data amount and uplink channel quality and data amount of the selected UEs.

20. The scheduling apparatus of claim 16, wherein if any one of UEs, which have made uplink scheduling requests, from among the UEs selected based on the scheduling metrics is a UE for uplink adaptive retransmission, the UE selection and control channel allocation determination unit preferentially selects the UE and performs the UE scheduling operation, and if any one of the UEs selected based on the scheduling metrics is a UE for IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) signaling or conversational voice data scheduling, which is ranked high in a bearer priority, the UE selection and control channel allocation determination unit preferentially selects the UE.