FLEXIBLE SLOT FORMAT INDICATION (SFI) MONITORING FOR NEW RADIO UNLICENSED COMMUNICATIONS

• US 20190313383A1
• Filed: 04/02/2019
• Published: 10/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Xiong, Gang, Talarico, Salvatore, Mondal, Bishwarup, Chatterjee, Debdeep, Jeon, Jeongho
• Granted Patent: US 10,993,216 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/27 Transitions between radio resource control [RRC] states

Abstract

User equipment (UE) includes processing circuitry, where to configure the UE for New Radio (NR) communications in an unlicensed spectrum, the processing circuitry is to decode radio resource control (RRC) signaling including configuration information identifying a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) search space set. The configuration information includes a PDCCH monitoring periodicity, a PDCCH monitoring offset, and a PDCCH monitoring duration associated with the PDCCH search space set. The PDCCH search space set is monitored for downlink control information (DCI) using the PDCCH monitoring periodicity, the PDCCH monitoring offset, and the PDCCH monitoring duration. Upon detecting the DCI within the monitored PDCCH search space set, a DCI format within the DCI is decoded.

Claims

1. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising:

processing circuitry, wherein to configure the UE for New Radio (NR) communications and to determine physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) assignment, the processing circuitry is to;

decode radio resource control (RRC) signaling including configuration information identifying a PDCCH search space set, the configuration information including a PDCCH monitoring periodicity, a PDCCH monitoring offset, and a PDCCH monitoring duration associated with the identified PDCCH search space set;

monitor slots of the PDCCH search space set for PDCCH candidates using the PDCCH monitoring periodicity, the PDCCH monitoring offset, and the PDCCH monitoring duration;

upon detecting the PDCCH candidates within the PDCCH search space set, decode uplink (UL) resource information within downlink control information (DCI) of the PDCCH candidates; and

encode data for transmission on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) based on the UL resource information; and

memory coupled to the processing circuitry, the memory configured to store the configuration information.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a search space set index identifying the PDCCH search space set.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the PDCCH monitoring duration indicates a number of slots included in the PDCCH search space set.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a PDCCH monitoring pattern within the slots, the PDCCH monitoring pattern indicating a first symbol of at least one control resource set (CORESET) within the PDCCH monitoring duration.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a number of slots within the PDCCH monitoring duration includes 2 or more slots.

6. The apparatus of claim 1;

wherein the PDCCH search space set is a common search space (CSS) or a UE-specific search space (USS).

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the PDCCH monitoring duration is defined over a set of configured PDCCH monitoring occasions.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the UL resource information comprises slot format indication (SFI), the PDCCH monitoring periodicity is a short monitoring periodicity comprising one or two slots, the SFI indicates a slot format for a number of slots larger than the short monitoring periodicity, and the processing circuitry is to:

skip monitoring the PDCCH search space set until a first monitoring occasion that occurs after the number of slots indicated by the SFI.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising transceiver circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry;

and, one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry.

10. An apparatus of a base station (BS), the apparatus comprising:

processing circuitry, wherein to configure a User Equipment (UE) for New Radio (NR) communications, the processing circuitry is to;

encode radio resource control (RRC) signaling including configuration information identifying a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) search space set, the configuration information including a PDCCH monitoring periodicity, a PDCCH monitoring offset, and a PDCCH monitoring duration associated with the PDCCH search space set;

encode downlink control information (DCI) with uplink (UL) resource information, the DCI for transmission to the UE using one or more PDCCH transmission occasions within the PDCCH search space set and based on the PDCCH monitoring periodicity, the PDCCH monitoring offset, and the PDCCH monitoring duration;

decode UL data received from the UE via a resource of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) and further based on the UL resource information; and

memory coupled to the processing circuitry, the memory configured to store the configuration information.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a search space set index identifying the PDCCH search space set.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the PDCCH monitoring duration indicates a number of slots included in the PDCCH search space set, and wherein the UL resource information includes slot format indication (SFI) for the number of slots in the PDCCH monitoring duration.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a PDCCH monitoring pattern within the slots, the monitoring pattern indicating a first symbol of at least one control resource set (CORESET) within the PDCCH monitoring duration.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the number of slots within the PDCCH monitoring duration includes 2 or more slots.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) operating in a 5G network, the instructions to configure the one or more processors for New Radio (NR) communications and to cause the UE to:

decode radio resource control (RRC) signaling including configuration information identifying a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) search space set, the configuration information including a PDCCH monitoring periodicity, a PDCCH monitoring offset, and a PDCCH monitoring duration associated with the identified PDCCH search space set;

monitor slots of the PDCCH search space set for PDCCH candidates using the PDCCH monitoring periodicity, the PDCCH monitoring offset, and the PDCCH monitoring duration;

upon detecting the PDCCH candidates within the PDCCH search space set, decode uplink (UL) resource information within downlink control information (DCI) of the PDCCH candidates; and

encode data for transmission on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) based on the UL resource information.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a search space set index identifying the PDCCH search space set, and wherein the PDCCH monitoring duration indicates a number of slots included in the PDCCH search space set.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the configuration information in the RRC signaling includes a PDCCH monitoring pattern within the slots, the monitoring pattern indicating a first symbol of at least one control resource set (CORESET) within the PDCCH monitoring duration.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the number of slots within the PDCCH monitoring duration includes 2 or more slots.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the UL resource information includes slot format indication (SFI) for a resource, and the instructions further cause the UE to:

encode the data for transmission on the PUSCH using the resource, when the SFI indicates the resource as an UL slot.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the PDCCH monitoring periodicity is a short monitoring periodicity comprising one or two slots, the SFI indicates a slot format for a number of slots larger than the short monitoring periodicity, and the instructions further cause the UE to:

skip monitoring the PDCCH search space set until a first monitoring occasion that occurs after the number of slots indicated by the SFI.