RAN PAGING MECHANISM TO ENABLE ENHANCED COVERAGE MODE

• US 20160135141A1
• Filed: 06/29/2015
• Published: 05/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Debdeep Chatterjee, Gang Xiong
• Inventors: Burbidge, Richard C., Martinez Tarradell, Marta, Choi, Hyung-Nam, Heo, Youn Hyoung, Xiong, Gang, Chatterjee, Debdeep, Han, Seunghee
• Granted Patent: US 9,648,582 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/02 Arrangements for increasing efficiency of notification or paging channel

Abstract

Devices and methods of enhanced coverage (EC) paging are generally described. An evolved Node-B (eNB) may transmit multiple EC paging messages to user equipment (UE) over at least one paging cycle. Each EC paging message may contain the same paging information. The UE may combine the individual EC paging messages to achieve a predetermined link budget and subsequently may decode the EC combined paging message to determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE. The EC paging messages may contain information for more than one UE and a legacy P-RNTI or a specific P-RNTI for EC mode UEs. The EC paging messages may be transmitted in legacy occasions over several paging cycles or non-legacy paging occasions over one or more paging cycles. The EC paging messages may be transmitted in continuous or non-continuous subframes in a particular paging cycle.

Claims

1. User equipment (UE) comprising:

processing circuitry configured to;

configure a transceiver to receive multiple enhanced coverage (EC) paging messages from an evolved Node-B (eNB) when the UE is in an EC mode;

combine the EC paging messages to form a combined EC paging message; and

decode the combined EC paging message to determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE.

2. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to receive a particular paging message from the eNB,

determine whether the particular paging message is related to the EC paging messages, and

in response to determining that the particular paging message is related to the EC paging messages, form the combined EC paging message using the particular paging message.

3. The UE of claim 2, wherein:

the particular paging message comprises a Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (P-RNTI) on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether the particular paging message is an enhanced coverage (EC) mode paging message or a legacy paging message based on the P-RNTI.

4. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine that the combined EC paging message has reached a predetermined number of EC paging messages received within a single paging cycle,

wherein the EC paging messages within the paging cycle are received in a number of subframes, the number of subframes being specified for EC mode and predetermined in the UE or configured by higher layer signaling.

5. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine whether the UE is in the EC mode, and

configure the transceiver to receive the EC paging messages from the eNB using frequency hopping in response to determining that the UE is in the EC mode,

wherein parameters of frequency hopping of the transceiver are predefined in the UE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling.

6. The UE of claim 1, wherein:

a paging cycle of the EC paging messages is over multiple subframes,

the EC paging messages within the paging cycle are received in a number of subframes predetermined or configured by higher layer signaling, and

at least some of the subframes are non-adjacent.

7. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to receive the EC paging messages at legacy paging occasions of consecutive paging cycles.

8. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to receive at least one of the EC paging messages within each paging cycle of consecutive paging cycles.

9. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

use at least one of chase combining (CC) and incremental redundancy (IR) to combine the EC paging messages,

use of the at least one of CC and IR is predefined in the UE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling, and

when IR is used by the processing circuitry to combine the EC paging messages, a redundancy version (RV) pattern of the IR is predefined in the UE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling, and the use of CC or IR is determined based on the RV pattern.

10. The UE of claim 1, wherein:

the EC paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message, and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message.

11. The UE of claim 10, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine retransmission spacing of the EC paging messages; and

determine whether to maintain a buffer during idle sleep periods of the UE dependent on the retransmission spacing.

12. The UE of claim 1, wherein:

the EC paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message,

each of the EC paging messages comprises a Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (P-RNTI) on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on the P-RNTI.

13. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine whether each paging message is an enhanced coverage (EC) mode paging message or a legacy paging message based on a position of the paging message in a paging cycle.

14. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

receive the EC paging messages from the eNB on legacy paging occasions rather than non-legacy paging occasions.

15. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine that the UE is in an EC mode in response to determining that a link budget between the eNB and the UE is worse than a predetermined link budget.

16. The UE of claim 15, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

determine a predetermined number of EC paging messages to meet the link budget between the eNB and the UE, and

decode the combined EC paging message in response to combining the predetermined number of EC paging messages.

17. The UE of claim 1, further comprising:

an antenna configured to provide communications between the transceiver and the eNB.

18. An apparatus of an evolved Node-B (eNB) comprising:

processing circuitry configured to;

determine whether user equipment (UE) attached to the eNB is in enhanced coverage (EC) mode; and

configure a transceiver to transmit multiple paging messages to the UE over at least one paging cycle in response to determining that the UE is in EC mode,

wherein successive ones of the paging messages are either the same or incrementally different.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to transmit the paging messages on legacy paging occasions of multiple paging cycles, or

configure the transceiver to transmit the paging messages on non-legacy paging occasions within at least one paging cycle.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to transmit UE paging messages to a plurality of different UEs in at least one occasion of the paging messages.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine a coverage extension level, from a plurality of coverage extension levels, of the UE, and

configure the transceiver to transmit a number of paging messages dependent on the coverage extension level of the UE.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to at least one of:

configure the transceiver to transmit the paging messages within a single paging cycle using frequency hopping, or

configure the transceiver to transmit at least one of the paging messages within each paging cycle of consecutive paging cycles.

23. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to transmit paging messages with Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifiers (P-RNTIs) on physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs), the P-RNTI of a particular paging message dependent on whether the particular paging message is an enhanced coverage (EC) mode paging message or a legacy paging message.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein:

the paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message,

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on the P-RNTI.

25. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

configure the transceiver to transmit paging messages using a Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (P-RNTI) on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), a position of a particular paging message in the at least one paging cycle dependent on whether the particular paging message is an enhanced coverage (EC) mode paging message or a legacy paging message.

26. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of user equipment (UE) to communicate with an evolved Node-B (eNB), the one or more processors to configure the UE to:

enter an enhanced coverage (EC) mode;

receive paging messages from the eNB, the paging messages including an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message;

determine whether the paging message are EC mode paging messages;

combine the paging messages, in response to determining that the paging messages are EC mode paging messages, to form a combined paging message;

determine a link budget of the combined paging message;

compare the link budget of the combined paging message to a predetermined link budget associated with coverage in a cell dependent on the EC mode; and

decode the combined paging message, in response to determining that the link budget of the combined paging message has met the predetermined link budget, to determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, the processor further configured to at least one of:

a) detect each of the paging messages using a Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (P-RNTI) on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and

i) determine whether each paging message is an EC mode paging message or a legacy paging message based on the P-RNTI, or

ii) determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on the P-RNTI, and

b) determine whether each paging message is an EC mode paging message or a legacy paging message based on a position of the paging message in a paging cycle.