Physical Channels In New Radio

• US 20170310431A1
• Filed: 04/20/2017
• Published: 10/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Inventors: Iyer, Lakshmi R., Tsai, Allan Y., Xu, Tianyi, Zhang, Guodong, Adjakple, Pascal M., Li, Qing, Chen, Wei, Zhang, Qian, Murray, Joseph M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,432,362 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1614 using bitmaps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1816 with retransmission of the same, encoded, message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1819 with retransmission of additional or different redundancy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1861 Physical mapping arrangements for ACK signaling see also H04L5/0053
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1864 ARQ related signaling H04L1/1607 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes, indicators, and similar methods may be used improve new radio performance in a number of ways. For example HARQ processes may be retransmitted, even before a response is expected, a number of times. Separate acknowledgement may be provided for various code blocks within a single transport block. Multi-bit ACK/NACK signaling may be used to efficiently express the status of individual code blocks or groups of code blocks within a transmission block. Grantless transmissions may be acknowledged implicitly, e.g., via responses comprising downlink control information or sent via a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, and communication circuitry, the apparatus being connected to a network via its communication circuitry, the apparatus further comprising computer-executable instructions stored in the memory of the apparatus which, when executed by the processor of the apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:

transmitting a first transport block comprising a first set of groups of code blocks;

receiving a multibit ACK-NACK response for the first transport block, the multibit ACK-NACK response for the first transport block comprising an ACK-NACK response for each group of code blocks in the first transport block; and

transmitting a second transport block comprising a second set of groups of code blocks, the second set of groups of code blocks comprising only those groups of code blocks of the first set of code blocks for which no ACK response was received in the multibit ACK-NACK response.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the number of bits in the multibit ACK-NACK response is equal to the number of groups of code blocks in the first set of groups of code blocks.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the number of bits in the multibit ACK-NACK response is equal to the number of code blocks in the first transport block.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second transport block further comprises link control information comprising information about the groups of code blocks that are included in the second transport block.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the link control information is downlink control information.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first set of groups of code blocks comprises a first group and a second group comprising a different numbers of code blocks.

7. An apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, and communication circuitry, the apparatus being connected to a network via its communication circuitry, the apparatus further comprising computer-executable instructions stored in the memory of the apparatus which, when executed by the processor of the apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:

transmitting a hybrid automatic repeat request process;

retransmitting the hybrid automatic repeat request process until a positive acknowledgment is received.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the apparatus is configured to retransmit the hybrid automatic repeat request process at a specific periodicity.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the apparatus is configured to retransmit the hybrid automatic repeat request process until a pre-determined limit for the number of retransmissions is met.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the pre-determined limit for the number of retransmissions is two or more.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a negative acknowledgement; and

retransmitting the hybrid automatic repeat request process a number of times after receiving the negative acknowledgement up to the pre-determined limit for the number of retransmissions.

12. The apparatus as recited in claim 7, wherein retransmission commences prior to expected reception of an acknowledge response.

13. An apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, and communication circuitry, the apparatus being connected to a network via its communication circuitry, the apparatus further comprising computer-executable instructions stored in the memory of the apparatus which, when executed by the processor of the apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving a grantless transmission; and

acknowledging the grantless transmission implicitly via a response comprising downlink control information or sent via a physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein acknowledging the grantless transmission comprises responding to the grantless transmission with downlink control information comprising a grant-less radio network temporary identifier.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the grant-less radio network temporary identifier comprises a medium access control protocol data unit.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the medium access control protocol data unit comprises multiple grantless access responses.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein acknowledging the grantless transmission comprises responding to the grantless transmission with downlink control information comprising acknowledgement information that is specific to a user equipment.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein acknowledging the grantless transmission comprises transmitting the response via the physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel within a tolerance window after receipt of the grantless transmission.

19. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein acknowledging the grantless transmission comprises transmitting the response via the physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel, where the physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel is piggy-backed on the physical downlink shared data channel.

20. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein acknowledging the grantless transmission comprises transmitting the response via the physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel, where the response comprises an allocation of physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel resources for grantless transmissions and acknowledgement signaling.