METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR UPLINK CONTROL SIGNALING WITH MASSIVE CARRIER AGGREGATION

• US 20160192388A1
• Filed: 05/21/2015
• Published: 06/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Ekpenyong, Anthony Edet, Bendlin, Ralf Matthias, Bertrand, Pierre
• Granted Patent: US 11,818,717 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1812 Hybrid protocols; Hybrid automatic repeat request [HARQ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1829 Arrangements specially adapted for the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0092 Error control systems characterised by the topology of the transmission link
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0092 Indication of how the channel is divided
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0098 Signalling of the activation or deactivation of component carriers, subcarriers or frequency bands
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/21 in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network

Abstract

A method of operating a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method includes configuring a user equipment (UE) for carrier aggregation with N serving cells, where N is a positive integer. The UE is scheduled to receive downlink data from M of the N serving cells at a first time, where M is a positive integer less than or equal to N. The UE provides uplink control information (UCI) for only the M serving cells.

Claims

1. A method of operating a wireless communication system, comprising the steps of:

configuring a user equipment (UE) for carrier aggregation with N serving cells, where N is a positive integer;

scheduling the UE to communicate with M of the N serving cells at a first time, where M is a positive integer less than N; and

providing uplink control information (UCI) from the UE for only the M serving cells.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising providing Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request Acknowledgement from the UE for only the M serving cells.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising providing Channel State Information (CSI) from the UE for only the M serving cells.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising indicating by downlink control information on a downlink control channel which of the N serving cells generate Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request Acknowledgement for an uplink subframe.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising signaling the UE by a Medium Access Control (MAC) element which of the N serving cells are active.

6. A method of operating a wireless communication system, comprising the steps of:

configuring a user equipment (UE) for carrier aggregation with N serving cells, where N is a positive integer;

partitioning the N serving cells into at least two groups; and

generating Uplink Control Information (UCI) independently for each of the at least two groups.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising transmitting the UCI for a first group of the at least two groups on a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) of only a primary serving cell (PCell).

8. The method of claim 6, comprising configuring a Secondary cell (SCell) of a second group of the at least two groups as a Physical Uplink Control Channel cell (PUCCH-cell) by Radio Resource Control (RRC), wherein transmission on a Physical Uplink Control Channel of UCI for a serving cell in the second group is only transmitted in the PUCCH-cell.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the UE is configured by RRC with a set of Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resources for each of the at least two groups.

10. The method of claim 9, comprising:

generating Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback for one of the at least two groups;

selecting a PUCCH resource from the PUCCH resources; and

transmitting the HARQ-ACK feedback on the selected PUCCH resource on a PUCCH of the PCell.

11. A method of formatting uplink control information, comprising the steps of:

receiving a plurality of control bits;

encoding the control bits with a convolutional encoder to produce encoded control bits;

modulating the encoded control bits to produce Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) symbols;

spreading the QAM symbols with a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) to produce DFT-spread symbols; and

performing an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform on the DFT-spread symbols to produce Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) control information symbols in an uplink subframe.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of encoding comprises tail-biting convolutional encoding.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the encoded control bits are rate matched according to a number of frequency tones available for transmission.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of modulating comprises Quadrature Phase Shift Keying.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of spreading comprises:

spreading by length-24 DFT;

performing a modulo 24 shuffling on the spread symbols;

mapping the spread symbols into two contiguous Resource Blocks (RBs); and

spreading with an orthogonal code across a plurality of SC-FDMA symbols in a slot of a subframe.

16. The method of claim 11, comprising mapping the DFT-spread symbols across the SC-FDMA symbols of a Physical Resource Block (PRB) pair in a subframe.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource index n is dynamically signaled from 0 to number of uplink RBs minus 1.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource index n is dynamically signaled from 0 to two times a number of uplink RBs minus 1.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the control bits comprise Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) bits and Channel State Information (CSI) bits, and wherein a first encoding and rate matching is applied to the HARQ-ACK bits, and a second encoding and rate matching is applied to the CSI bits.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the HARQ-ACK bits are mapped to the SC-FDMA symbols adjacent a Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS)SC-FDMA symbol in each slot of a subframe.