Enhanced Control Signaling For Backhaul Link

• US 20110075684A1
• Filed: 09/30/2009
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Han, Jing, Zeng, Erlin, Wang, Haiming
• Granted Patent: US 8,724,648 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/475
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2606 Arrangements for base station coverage control, e.g. by using relays in tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0073 Special arrangements for feedback channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1861 Physical mapping arrangements for ACK signaling see also H04L5/0053
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0097 Relays
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/047 using dedicated repeater stations

Abstract

A method includes composing downlink control information having a format configured to support a presence of a plurality of transport blocks in a single subframe, where the downlink control information comprises, for the plurality of transport blocks, a common resource allocation and modulation/coding scheme field and a single cyclic redundancy check field. The method further includes transmitting the composed downlink control information to a relay node over a wireless link that comprises a backhaul link from the relay node.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

composing downlink control information having a format configured to support a presence of a plurality of transport blocks in a single subframe, where the downlink control information comprises, for the plurality of transport blocks, a common resource allocation and modulation/coding scheme field and a single cyclic redundancy check field; and

transmitting the composed downlink control information to a relay node over a wireless link that comprises a backhaul link from the relay node.

2. The method as in claim 1, where the downlink control information further comprises a flag bits field to indicate the number of transport blocks included in a grant.

3. The method as in claim 1, where the resource allocation of the downlink control information comprises a common resource grants field comprising a bitmap to indicate physical resource blocks allocated to the relay node.

4. The method as in claim 1, where the modulation/coding scheme field comprises a baseline modulation/coding scheme field to indicate a modulation level and a coding scheme selected for the relay node in the subframe.

5. The method as in claim 1, where the downlink control information further comprises transport block specific fields comprising hybrid automatic repeat request information for each transport block.

6. The method of claim 5, where the transport block specific fields further comprise a resource/modulation coding scheme offset value for each transport block for enabling the relay node to determine those resources among the total granted resources that are allocated to each transport block.

7. The method of claim 1, where a number of transport blocks supported by the downlink control information is set by higher layer signaling to the relay node to one of a maximum number during a period of time or a specific, exact number per period of time.

8. The method of claim 7, and further comprising, for a case where one relay physical downlink control channel per each transport block is transmitted to the relay node, receiving in uplink signaling from the relay node an indication of whether the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node or was not received by the relay node.

9. The method of claim 8, where the indication that the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node is sent in conjunction with a relay node physical uplink shared channel acknowledge or not acknowledge indication.

10. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory including computer program code, where the memory and computer program code are configured to, with the processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform,

composing downlink control information having a format configured to support a presence of a plurality of transport blocks in a single subframe, where the downlink control information comprises, for the plurality of transport blocks, a common resource allocation and modulation/coding scheme field and a single cyclic redundancy check field; and

transmitting the composed downlink control information to a relay node over a wireless link that comprises a backhaul link from the relay node.

11. The apparatus as in claim 10, where the downlink control information further comprises a flag bits field to indicate the number of transport blocks included in a grant.

12. The apparatus as in claim 10, where the resource allocation of the downlink control information comprises a common resource grants field comprising a bitmap to indicate physical resource blocks allocated to the relay node.

13. The apparatus as in claim 10, where the modulation/coding scheme field comprises a baseline modulation/coding scheme field to indicate a modulation level and a coding scheme selected for the relay node in the subframe.

14. The apparatus as in claim 10, where the downlink control information further comprises transport block specific fields comprising hybrid automatic repeat request information for each transport block.

15. The apparatus as in claim 14, where the transport block specific fields further comprise a resource/modulation coding scheme offset value for each transport block for enabling the relay node to determine those resources among the total granted resources that are allocated to each transport block.

16. The apparatus of claim 10, where a number of transport blocks supported by the downlink control information is set by higher layer signaling to the relay node to one of a maximum number during a period of time or a specific, exact number per period of time.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, and further comprising, for a case where one relay physical downlink control channel per each transport block is transmitted to the relay node, receiving in uplink signaling from the relay node an indication of whether the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node or was not received by the relay node.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, where the indication that the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node is sent in conjunction with a relay node physical uplink shared channel acknowledge or not acknowledge indication.

19. A method, comprising:

receiving at a relay node downlink control information having a format configured to support a presence of a plurality of transport blocks in a single subframe, where the downlink control information comprises, for the plurality of transport blocks, a common resource allocation and modulation/coding scheme field and a single cyclic redundancy check field; and

interpreting at the relay node the received downlink control information for use in transmitting at least user equipment data to a network access node over a backhaul wireless link.

20. The method as in claim 19, where the downlink control information further comprises a flag bits field to indicate the number of transport blocks included in a grant, where the resource allocation of the downlink control information comprises a common resource grants field to indicate physical resource blocks allocated to the relay node, where the modulation/coding scheme field comprises a baseline modulation/coding scheme field to indicate a modulation level and a coding scheme selected for the relay node in the subframe, transport block specific fields comprising hybrid automatic repeat request information for each transport block, where the transport block specific fields further comprise a resource/modulation coding scheme offset value for each transport block for enabling the relay node to determine those resources among the total granted resources that are allocated to each transport block, where a number of transport blocks supported by the downlink control information is set by higher layer signaling to the relay node to one of a maximum number during a period of time or a specific, exact number per period of time and, for a case where one relay physical downlink control channel per each transport block is received by the relay node, transmitting in uplink signaling to the network access node an indication of whether the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node or was not received by the relay node, where the indication that the relay physical downlink control channel was received by the relay node is sent in conjunction with a relay node physical uplink shared channel acknowledge or not acknowledge indication.