Radio Download Control Channel

• US 20170332359A1
• Filed: 05/11/2017
• Published: 11/16/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Inventors: Tsai, Allan Y., Iyer, Lakshmi R., Zhang, Guodong, Zhang, Qian, Adjakple, Pascal M., Li, Qing, Murray, Joseph M., Xu, Tianyi, Chen, Wei, ElSamadouny, Ahmed, Khan, Salman, Li, Yifan
• Granted Patent: US 10,524,244 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0617 for beam forming
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0639 Using selective indices, e.g. of a codebook, e.g. pre-distortion matrix index [PMI] or for beam selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0689 using different transmission schemes, at least one of them being a diversity transmission scheme
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0048 Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/02 Arrangements for increasing efficiency of notification or paging channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/046 the resource being in the space domain, e.g. beams
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

New radio download numerology allocation information may be obtained through master information block data, system information block data, radio resource control signals, or signals or a physical downlink numerology indication channel, and used along with a reference signal detected in a search space to obtain resource element positions in an antenna port reference signal in a resource block that belongs to a particular band slice according to a reference signal allocation scheme for a band slice numerology. A physical download control may then be decoded based upon one or more resource elements of the reference signal, allowing the connection of, e.g., an enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communication, or ultra-reliable/low-latency application to a communications network thereby. Alternatively, multiple physical downlink control channels may be blindly demodulated at each of a number calculated reference signal locations, and one channel selected based on passing a cyclic redundancy check.

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:

a. decoding a physical slot format indicator channel and a physical control format indicator channel to obtain a slot structure and a size of a downlink control region;

b. determining, according to the slot structure and the size of the downlink control region, a first tier search space;

c. blindly decoding multiple physical downlink control channel candidates within the first tier search space;

d. checking each of the physical downlink control channel candidates within the first tier search space for a first match with an identifier associated with the apparatus; and

e. determining, from a matching physical downlink control channel candidate of the first tier search space, a second tier search space.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

a. blindly decoding multiple physical downlink control channel candidates within the second tier search space;

b. checking each of the physical downlink control channel candidates within the second tier search space for a second match with the identifier associated with the apparatus; and

c. determining, from a matching physical downlink control channel candidate of the second tier search space, a set of physical downlink control information.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the matching physical downlink control channel candidate of the first tier search comprises an indicator of an open-loop transmission mode, and the set of physical downlink control information comprises pre-coding matrix information.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the matching physical downlink control channel candidate of the first tier search comprises an indicator of a spatial multiplexing transmission mode, and the set of physical downlink control information comprises a number of layers and antenna port indexes.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the matching physical downlink control channel candidate of the first tier search comprises an indicator of a beamforming transmission mode, and the set of physical downlink control information comprises an antenna port index.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the physical downlink control channel candidates of the second tier search comprise information including one or more of a carrier indicator, a resource allocation, a scheme for modulation and coding, a new data indicator, a redundancy indicator, a hybrid automatic repeat request process number, a downlink assignment index, and a transmission power control parameter.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the physical downlink control channel candidates of the first tier search space comprise an indicator of a transmission mode.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the transmission mode is selected from the list consisting of transmit diversity, open-loop transmission, spatial multiplexing, and beamforming.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first tier search space is common to a group of apparatuses and the identifier associated with the apparatus is a group identifier.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is a user equipment and the identifier of the apparatus is a user equipment ID.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein checking each of the physical downlink control channel candidates within the first and second tier search spaces comprises computing a cyclic redundancy code.

12. 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:

a. defining a Physical Slot Format Indicator Channel (PSFICH), the PSFICH providing information associated with a current slot;

b. encoding the PSFICH at a low coding rate; and

c. transmitting the PSFICH in transmit diversity mode,

d. wherein the information comprises at least one of length of the slot, symbols for a downlink transmission region, and symbols for an uplink transmission region.

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:

a. defining a downlink initial access signal; and

b. carrying the downlink initial access channel in a downlink beam sweeping block, wherein the downlink initial access signal comprises a downlink synchronization channel and a beam reference signal.

14. 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:

a. obtaining transmission mode information via a media access control (MAC) control element; and

b. transmitting according to the transmission mode information.

15. An apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, and communication circuitry, the apparatus being connected to a communications 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:

a. obtain potential position or search space of a reference signal;

b. obtain download numerology allocation information through master information block data, system information block data, radio resource control signals, or a physical downlink numerology indication channel;

c. obtain a resource element positions in an antenna port reference signal in a resource block that belongs to a particular band slice according to a reference signal allocation scheme for a band slice numerology;

d. detect a specific reference signal; and

e. decode a physical download control based upon one or more resource elements of the reference signal; and

f. connect an enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communication, or ultra-reliable/low-latency application to a communications network thereby,

g. wherein the physical download control channel and the reference signal use the same precoding or beamforming.

16. An apparatus comprising a processor and a memory, 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:

a. transmit, in a beam-sweeping manner in a number of beams, a physical downlink control channel in adjacent symbols;

b. transmit, for each beam, a physical downlink shared data channel, where the physical downlink shared data channel occurs after the physical downlink control channel is swept.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the instructions further cause the apparatus to:

a. transmit, before sweeping a second physical downlink control channel, a first physical downlink control channel and a first physical downlink shared data channel,

b. where the first physical downlink control channel and the first physical downlink shared data channel are transmitted in one beam.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the instructions further cause the apparatus to:

a. transmit, in each beam of a set of beams, a set of downlink control information.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the set of downlink control information comprises paging information.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the number of symbols in the set of downlink control information is fixed.