METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING A CONTROL CHANNEL AND A DATA CHANNEL IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20130230013A1
• Filed: 11/25/2011
• Published: 09/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Seo, Inkwon, Seo, Hanbyul, Kim, Byounghoon, Kim, Kijun
• Granted Patent: US 9,504,027 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0053 using co-ordinated multipoint transmission/reception co-ordinated antenna or beam-forming aspects H04B7/022
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2602 Signal structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2603 Signal structure ensuring backward compatibility with legacy system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0035 Resource allocation in a cooperative multipoint environment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference

Abstract

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting a control channel in a wireless communication system that supports multi-cell cooperative communication. According to the present invention, a scheme for protecting a control channel and a data channel of one cell from interference caused by another cell is provided.

Claims

1. A method of performing a downlink transmission by a base station, comprising the steps of:

mapping at least one of a downlink control channel and a downlink data channel to a downlink subframe including a control region, a data region and a null region; and

transmitting the at least one of the downlink control channel and the downlink data channel mapped to the downlink subframe to a user equipment,

wherein the null region corresponds to a portion or all of a control region of a downlink subframe of a neighboring base station, and

wherein information for determining a position of the null region is provided to the user equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the control region and the data region of the downlink subframe of the base station includes the null region and wherein the null region comprises at least one or more contiguous OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) symbols.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information for determining the position of the null region comprises information on an end position of the control region and a length of the null region, information on the end position of the control region and a start position of the data region, or information on the start position of the data region and the length of the null region.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one of the end position of the control region, the start position of the data region, or the length of the null region is determined from the information transmitted to the user equipment via PCFICH (physical control format indicator channel), PHICH (physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel), or higher layer signaling.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

CCE (control channel element), to which resource elements corresponding to the control region of the neighboring base station belong, among resource elements having PDDCH (physical downlink control channel) of the base station mapped thereto is nullified, or

the resource elements corresponding to the control region of the neighboring base station among the resource elements having the PDCCH of the base station mapped thereto are punctured or nullified.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the null region includes all of the control region of the downlink subframe of the base station.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein control information for a data transmission of the downlink subframe of the base station is transmitted on a control channel transmitted in the data region.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein control information for a data transmission of the downlink subframe of the base station is transmitted on a control channel transmitted in another downlink subframe of the base station.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the base station is a base station of an interfering cell and wherein the neighboring base station is a base station of an interfered cell.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the base station is a base station of an interfered cell and wherein the neighboring base station is a base station of an interfering cell.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein information on positions of the control region, the data region and the null region of the downlink subframe of each of the base station and the neighboring base station is exchanged between the base station and the neighboring base station.

12. A method of performing a downlink reception by a user equipment, comprising the steps of:

receiving information for determining a position of a null region in a downlink subframe including a control region, a data region and the null region from a base station;

receiving at least one of a downlink control channel and a downlink data channel mapped to the downlink subframe from the base station; and

decoding the at least one of the received downlink control channel and the received downlink data channel,

wherein the null region corresponds to a portion or all of a control region of a downlink subframe of a neighboring base station.

13. A base station, which performs a downlink transmission, comprising:

a receiving module configured to receive an uplink signal from a user equipment;

a transmitting module configured to transmit a downlink signal to the user equipment; and

a processor configured to control the base station including the receiving module and the transmitting module, the processor configured to map at least one of a downlink control channel and a downlink data channel to a downlink subframe including a control region, a data region and a null region, the processor configured to transmit the at least one of the downlink control channel and the downlink data channel mapped to the downlink subframe to a user equipment via the transmitting module,

wherein the null region corresponds to a portion or all of a control region of a downlink subframe of a neighboring base station and

wherein information for determining a position of the null region is provided to the user equipment.

14. A user equipment, which performs a downlink reception, comprising:

a receiving module configured to receive a downlink signal from a base station;

a transmitting module configured to transmit an uplink signal to the base station; and

a processor configured to control the user equipment including the receiving module and the transmitting module, the processor configured to receive information for determining a position of a null region in a downlink subframe including a control region, a data region and the null region from a base station via the receiving module, the processor configured to receive the at least one of a downlink control channel and a downlink data channel mapped to the downlink subframe from the base station via the receiving module, the processor configured to decode at least one of the received downlink control channel and the received downlink data channel,

wherein the null region corresponds to a portion or all of a control region of a downlink subframe of a neighboring base station.