INFRASTRUCTURE EQUIPMENT, COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE AND METHODS

• US 20190058544A1
• Filed: 03/10/2016
• Published: 02/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: BEALE, Martin Warwick
• Granted Patent: US 10,547,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0013 Rate matching, e.g. puncturing or repetition of code symbols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0067 Rate matching H04L1/0013 and H04L1/08 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0453 Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

An infrastructure equipment for a mobile communications network includes a transmitter and a receiver for transmitting and receiving signals via a wireless access interface to one or more communications devices. The infrastructure equipment is configured to identify, for each of plural time units, communications resource elements of a down-link communications channel which cannot be allocated to transmit messages to one of the communications devices, to determine, with respect to one of the plural time units as a reference time unit, a number of communications resource elements of the communications channel for repeatedly transmitting one or more message units to the communications device plural times in the reference time unit, to identify, for each of the plural time units, a pattern of the communications resource elements for the repeated transmission of the one or more message units, within each time unit, determined with respect to the reference time unit.

Claims

1. An infrastructure equipment for a mobile communications network, the infrastructure equipment comprising,

a transmitter configured to transmit signals to one or more communications devices via a wireless access interface comprising a plurality of communications resource elements, and

a receiver configured to receive signals from the one or more communications devices via the wireless access interface, and

a controller configured to control the transmitter and the receiver to transmit the signals to the one or more communications devices and to receive the signals from the one or more communications devices, wherein the wireless access interface comprises a down-link communications channel in which each of a plurality of time divided units comprises communications resource elements in time and frequency for allocation to transmit messages to the communications devices, and the controller is configured

to identify, for each of a plurality of time units, communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated to transmit messages to one of the communications devices,

to determine, with respect to one of the plurality of time units as a reference time unit, a number of the communications resource elements of the communications channel for repeatedly transmitting one or more message units to the communications device a plurality of times in the reference time unit, to identify, for each of the plurality of time units, a pattern of the communications resource elements for the repeated transmission of the one or more message units, within each time unit, determined with respect to the reference time unit, the pattern of the communications resource elements for each of the plurality of time units excluding the communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated to the communications devices, and

to control the transmitter to transmit the one or more message units to the communications device via the identified pattern of the communications resource elements in the plurality of time units of the wireless access interface.

2. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to identify that the communications resource elements which cannot be allocated to transmit the one or more message units in each of the plurality of time units change from one time unit to another, and to identify a reference pattern of communications resource elements within the reference time unit for repeatedly transmitting the one or more message units in the reference time unit, which can be applied to transmit the one or more message units in each of the plurality of time units,

to schedule the pattern of communications resource elements for transmitting the one or more messages units to the communications device, based upon the reference pattern of communications resource elements.

3. An infrastructure unit as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to allocate the communications resource elements for transmitting the one or more message units to the communications device based upon the reference pattern of communications resource elements by

allocating the communications resource elements in each time frame according to the reference pattern of communications resource elements, and

if for any one of the plurality of time frames one or more of the communications resource elements of the reference pattern cannot be allocated to the communications device in the time unit, then puncturing the transmission by not allocating the communications resource elements in that time unit for transmitting the one or more message units to the communications device.

4. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine the number of the communications resource elements in the reference time unit for transmitting the one or more message units repeatedly in accordance with a rate matching process, and to apply the determined number of the communications resource elements to identify the pattern of communications resource elements.

5. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller is configured with the transmitter

to transmit an indication of the reference pattern to the one or more communications devices.

6. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 5, wherein the controller and the transmitter are configured to transmit the indication of the reference pattern as a system information block message.

7. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern from one or more of the plurality time units in which there are most communications resource elements available for transmitting the one or more messages units to the communications device.

8. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern as a first of the plurality time units in a sequence of a plurality of time units of a time frame.

9. An infrastructure equipment as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern as being one or more of the plurality time units in a sequence of a plurality of time units of a time frame of a predetermined type.

10-11. -11. (canceled)

12. A method of communicating messages from an infrastructure equipment for a mobile communications network, the method comprising,

transmitting signals to one or more communications devices via a wireless access interface comprising a plurality of communications resource elements, the wireless access interface comprising a down-link communications channel in which each of a plurality of time divided units comprises communications resource elements in time and frequency for allocation to transmit messages to the communications devices,

identifying, for each of a plurality of time units, communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated to transmit messages to one of the communications devices,

determining, with respect to one of the plurality of time units as a reference time unit, a number of the communications resource elements of the communications channel for repeatedly transmitting one or more message units to the communications device a plurality of times in the reference time unit, identifying, for each of the plurality of time units, a pattern of the communications resource elements for the repeated transmission of the one or more message units, within each time unit, determined with respect to the reference time unit, the pattern of the communications resource elements for each of the plurality of time units excluding the communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated to the communications devices, and

transmitting the one or more message units to the communications device via the identified pattern of the communications resource elements in the plurality of time units of the wireless access interface.

13. A communications device for communicating via a mobile communications network, the communications device comprising,

a transmitter configured to transmit signals to an infrastructure equipment of the mobile communications network via a wireless access interface comprising a plurality of communications resource elements, and

a receiver configured to receive signals from the infrastructure equipment via the wireless access interface, and

a controller configured to control the transmitter and the receiver to transmit the signals to the infrastructure equipment and to receive the signals from infrastructure equipment, wherein the wireless access interface comprises a down-link communications channel in which each of a plurality of time divided units comprises communications resource elements in time and frequency for allocation to receive messages from the infrastructure equipment, and the controller is configured

to identify, for each of a plurality of time units, a pattern of the communications resource elements for repeated reception of one or more message units, the pattern of the communications resource elements excluding communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated for receiving the one or more message units, and

to control the receiver to receive the one or more message units from the infrastructure equipment via the identified pattern of the communications resource elements in the plurality of time units of the wireless access interface.

14. A communications device as claimed in claim 13, wherein the controller is configured to identify a reference pattern of communications resource elements for repeatedly receiving the one or more message units, and

to identify the pattern of communications resource elements for receiving the one or more messages units from the infrastructure equipment based upon the reference pattern of communications resource elements.

15. A communications device as claimed in claim 14, wherein the controller is configured to determine the communications resource elements in each time frame for receiving the one or more message units according to the reference pattern of communications resource elements, and

if, for any one of the plurality of time frames, one or more of the communications resource elements of the reference pattern cannot be allocated to the communications device in the time unit, then puncturing the reception by not combining the signals received from the communications resource elements in that time unit for receiving the one or more message units.

16. A communications device as claimed in claim 15, wherein the controller is configured in combination with the receiver

to combine the signals received from one or more communications resource elements in each of the plurality of time units which are allocated for the reception of the one or message units according to the identified pattern of communications resource elements, and

to puncture the combining of the signals for one or more of the time units in which one or more of the communications resource elements cannot be allocated for receiving the one or more message units.

17. A communications device as claimed in claim 13, wherein the controller is configured to identify the pattern of the communications resource elements for repeated reception of one or more message units, by receiving an indication of the pattern of communications resource elements for the plurality of time units from the infrastructure unit.

18. A communications device as claimed in claim 14, wherein the controller is configured to identify the pattern of the communications resource elements for repeated reception of one or more message units, by

identifying, for each of a plurality of time units, communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated to transmit messages to one of the communications devices,

determining a number of the communications resource elements of the communications channel in each of the plurality of time divided unit for repeatedly transmitting one or more message units to the communications device a plurality of times, and

identifying the reference pattern from the communications resource elements available for repeated reception of the one or more message units, the reference pattern of the communications resource elements excluding communications resource elements of the communications channel which cannot be allocated for receiving the one or more message units.

19. A communications device as claimed in claim 18, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern from one or more of the plurality time units in which there are most communications resource elements available for transmitting the one or more messages units to the communications device.

20. A communications device as claimed in claim 18, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern as a first of the plurality time units in a sequence of a plurality of time units of a time frame.

21. A communications device as claimed in claim 18, wherein the controller is configured to identify the reference pattern as being one or more of the plurality time units in a sequence of a plurality of time units of a time frame of a predetermined type.

22. A communications device as claimed in claim 13, wherein the communications channel is a control channel, the message transmitted on the communications channels being a control channel message.