System and Method for Sharing a Control Channel For Carrier Aggregation

• US 20140376490A1
• Filed: 08/19/2014
• Published: 12/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corporation Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: McBeath, Sean Michael, Earnshaw, Andrew Mark, Fong, Mo-Han, Heo, Youn Hyoung, Cai, Zhijun
• Granted Patent: US 9,642,129 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/003 Arrangements for allocating sub-channels of the transmission path
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates wherein the carriers used for data transmission and reception are configured carriers, the method comprising the steps of receiving activation signals specifying active and deactivated carriers from among the configured carriers, for active carriers (i) identifying a number of CCE subset candidates to decode and (ii) decoding up to the identified number of CCE subset candidates in an attempt to identify the resource grant; and for deactivated carriers, ignoring CCE subset candidates associated with the deactivated carriers.

Claims

1-2. -2. (canceled)

3. A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the method comprising the steps of:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decoding the DCI message by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within the DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIF to identify a carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate; and

when the CCE subset candidate only corresponds to one carrier, using the location of the CCE subset candidate within a search space to identify the carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the CIF is three bits where each value of the CIF corresponds to a particular carrier.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the CCE subset candidates are included in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the CCE subset candidates are identified based on an index the corresponding carrier.

4. A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the method comprising the steps of:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at a specific aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decoding all DCI messages corresponding to the specific aggregation level for a subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidates at the specific aggregation level only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify the carrier associated with each CCE subset candidate at the specific aggregation level for a subframe.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the CIF is three bits where each value of the CIF corresponds to a particular carrier.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the CCE subset candidates are included in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

11. The method of claim 4, wherein the CCE subset candidates are identified based on an index the corresponding carrier.

5. A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the method comprising the steps of:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at any aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier for a subframe;

(i) decoding all DCI messages at all aggregation levels for the subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidate at all aggregation levels for the subframe only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify carriers associated with each CCE subset candidate at all the aggregation levels for the subframe.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the CIF is three bits where each value of the CIF corresponds to a particular carrier.

13. The method of claim 5, wherein the CCE subset candidates are included in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

14. The method of claim 5, wherein the CCE subset candidates are identified based on an index the corresponding carrier.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions to cause a processor to perform operations comprising:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decoding the DCI message by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within the DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIF to identify a carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate; and

when the CCE subset candidate only corresponds to one carrier, using the location of the CCE subset candidate within a search space to identify the carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate.

16. A user equipment (UE) for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the UE comprising:

one or more processors configured to;

determine locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receive a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decode the DCI message by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within the DCI message; and

(ii) use the CIF to identify a carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate; and

when the CCE subset candidate only corresponds to one carrier, using the location of the CCE subset candidate within a search space to identify the carrier associated with the CCE subset candidate.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions to cause a processor to perform operations comprising:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at a specific aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decoding all DCI messages corresponding to the specific aggregation level for a subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidates at the specific aggregation level only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify the carrier associated with each CCE subset candidate at the specific aggregation level for a subframe.

18. A user equipment (UE) for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the UE comprising:

one or more processors configured to;

determine locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receive a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at a specific aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier;

(i) decode all DCI messages corresponding to the specific aggregation level for a subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) use the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidates at the specific aggregation level only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify the carrier associated with each CCE subset candidate at the specific aggregation level for a subframe.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions to cause a processor to perform operations comprising:

determining locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receiving a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at any aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier for a subframe;

(i) decoding all DCI messages at all aggregation levels for the subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) using the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidate at all aggregation levels for the subframe only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify carriers associated with each CCE subset candidate at all the aggregation levels for the subframe.

20. A user equipment (UE) for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates, the UE comprising:

one or more processors configured to;

determine locations of CCE subset candidates for each carrier;

receive a data control information (DCI) message;

when a CCE subset candidate at any aggregation level corresponds to more than one carrier for a subframe;

(i) decode all DCI messages at all aggregation levels for the subframe by identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) within each DCI message; and

(ii) use the CIFs to identify carriers associated with the CCE subset candidates; and

when each CCE subset candidate at all aggregation levels for the subframe only corresponds to one carrier, using the locations of the CCE subset candidates within a search space to identify carriers associated with each CCE subset candidate at all the aggregation levels for the subframe.