Radio protocol for mobile communication system and method

• US 6,788,652 B1
• Filed: 11/12/1999
• Issued: 09/07/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Information & Communications Ltd. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Hwang, In Tae
• Primary Examiner(s): LEVITAN, DMITRY
• Application Number:
  US09/439,612
• Time in Patent Office: 1,761 Days
• Field of Search: 370/282, 370/329, 370/437, 370/466, 370/524
• US Class Current: 370/282
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/16 in which the return channel carries supervisory signals, e.g. repetition request signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/32 Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/324 in the data link layer [OSI layer 2], e.g. HDLC
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/00 Communication routing or communication path finding
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/04 Large scale networks; Deep hierarchical networks

Abstract

Radio protocol for a next generation mobile communication system is disclosed including a radio link control layer for connecting to an upper layer through a service access point provided in advance and for connecting to a lower layer through a plurality of logic channels provided in advance. The radio link control layer includes at least one radio link control entity for transmission/reception of data to/from up-link or down-link according to a form of a data transmission mode.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

providing a message using an upper layer;

processing said message differently according to a characteristic of said message and determining a transfer mode of said processed message in a radio resource control layer (RRC), said RRC including a plurality of first entities for processing said message differently according to said characteristic, and each first entity having its own path with said upper layer wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode or an unacknowledged mode;

processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC), said RLC including a plurality of second entities for processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode, and each second entity having its own path with said RRC; and

forwarding said processed message submitted by the RLC layer towards a reception side using a lower layer.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said radio resource control layer (RRC) includes a plurality of service access point groups as said paths connecting said radio resource control layer to said upper layer, and a plurality of service point groups as said paths connecting said radio resource control layer to said lower layer, a Broadcast Control Entity (BCE) for controlling broadcast information provided from said upper layer, a Paging and Notification Control Entity (PNCE) for providing paging and notification information from said upper layer, a Dedicated Control Entity (DCE) for providing services on setting/canceling connection and transmission of a message from said upper layer, and a Transfer Mode Entity (TME) for mapping said BCE, said PNCE and said DCE to an access point of said RLC.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein said at least one service access point groups are notification service access points group corresponding to said BCE, dedicated control access points group corresponding to said DCE, and general control access points group corresponding to said BCE.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said radio link control layer (RLC) includes:

a RLC-transparent (RLC-T) entity either for receiving a Service Data Unit (SDU) from said upper layer, dividing said SDU into a plurality of Protocol Data Units (PDU) and providing said PDU to said lower layer, or for receiving said plurality of PDU from said lower layer, reassembling said PDU into an SDU and providing the SDU to said upper layer;

a RLC-unacknowledged (RLC-UNACK) entity either for receiving said SDU from said upper layer, conducting framing in which said SDU is divided into a plurality of PDU with a header and providing said PDU to said lower layer, or for receiving a plurality of PDU from said lower layer, separating a header from each of said PDU, reassembling said PDU into said SDU depending on a presence of error and providing said SDU to said upper layer; and

a RLC-acknowledge (RLC-ACK) entity for correcting an error in said PDU or retransmitting said PDU depending on a presence of error and providing said SDU to said upper layer; and

said RLC-acknowledged entity for correcting an error in said PDU or retransmitting said PDU depending on presence of the error in the plurality of PDU received from said lower layer.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising:

demultiplexing output signals of said RLC-T entity, RLC-UNACK entity, and RLC-ACK entity on one of down link and up link; and

multiplexing input signals of said RLC-T entity, RLC-UNACK entity, and RLC-ACK entity on the other of up link and down link.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said radio link control layer (RLC) includes transparent service access point (T-SAP) corresponding to said RLC-T entity, an unacknowledged service access point (UNACK-SAP) corresponding to said RLC-UNACK entity and an acknowledge service access point (ACK-SAP) corresponding to said RLC-ACK entity.

32. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 31, wherein said lower layer includes at least one of a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and a physical layer and said upper layer comprises at least on of a call control (CC) entity, a mobility management (MM) entity, a radio resource management entity and a package management entity.

53. The method of claim 1, 7, 17, 24, 31, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, or 52 wherein the RLC provides at least one of the following functions:

segmentation and reassembly;

concatenation;

padding;

error correction;

duplicate detection;

flow control;

or

at least one of error detection or recovery.

54. The method of claim 53, wherein the RLC also provides framing function.

7. A method for providing services in a mobile communication system having a base station and a mobile station, comprising:

connecting to an upper layer through a service access point and connecting to a lower layer through at least one of a plurality of logical channels using a radio link control sublayer (RLC), wherein the RLC includes at least one radio link control entity for transmission/reception of data to/from an up-link/down-link according to a mode, and wherein the form of mode is at least one of transparent mode, unacknowledged mode, or acknowledged mode.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein if the mode is the transparent mode, a transmitting RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU from the at least one SDU without adding header information, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein if the data transmission mode is the transparent mode, a receiving RLC receives at least one PDU without header information from the lower layer, assembles the at least one PDU into a SDU, and provides the SDU to the upper layer.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein if the mode is the unacknowledged mode, a transmitting RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU from the at least one SDU, adds header information to the at least one PDU, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the transmitting RLC concatenates the at least one SDU with other SDUs to form the at least one PDU.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein if the mode is the unacknowledged mode, a receiving RLC receives at least one PDU from the lower layer, removes header information, and assembles the at least one PDU into at least one SDU, and provides the SDU to the upper layer.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein if the mode is the acknowledged mode, a transmitting RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU of a fixed length from the at least one SDU, adds header information to the at least one PDU, stores the at least one PDU and header information in a retransmission buffer, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one PDU is formed by one of dividing and concatenating the received SDU.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein if the mode is the acknowledged mode, a receiving RLC receives at least one PDU from the lower layer, determines if an error is detected, removes header information if no error is detected, assembles the at least one PDU into at least one SDU, and provides the at least one SDU to the upper layer.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein if the error is detected, the receiving RLC requests and receives again the at least one PDU from a transmitting RLC.

17. A method for delivering information data, comprising:

providing the information data using an upper layer;

processing the information data from the upper layer in accordance with a transfer mode in a radio link control sublayer (RLC), wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode or an unacknowledged mode;

receiving the information data from the RLC by a lower layer; and

transmitting the information data to a receiving side.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising a radio resource control layer (RRC) between the upper layer and the RLC, configured to process the information data when the information data comprises control data from a control plane, wherein the RRC includes a plurality of first entities to process the information data, and wherein each entity has its own path to the upper layer.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the lower layer transmits the information data over at least one of a logical channel, a physical channel, and a transport channel.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein if the transfer mode is the transparent mode, the RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU from the at least one SDU without adding header information, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein if the transfer mode is the unacknowledged mode, the RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU from the at least one SDU, adds header information to the at least one PDU, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the RLC concatenates the at least one SDU with at least one second SDU to form the at least one PDU.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein if the transfer mode is the acknowledged mode, the RLC receives at least one SDU from the upper layer, forms at least one PDU of a fixed length from the at least one SDU, adds header information to the at least one PDU, stores the at least one PDU and header information to retransmit the at least one PDU and header information if an error is detected at the receiving side, and provides the at least one PDU to the lower layer.

25. The method of claim 7, 17 or 24, wherein communication is established between at least one of a user equipment (UE) to a Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) and a UTRAN to a UE, and further comprising a radio resource control layer (RRC) located between the upper layer and a lower layer for providing services to the upper layer, and wherein said lower includes at least one of a medium access control (MAC) layer and a physical layer, and said upper layer includes a call control (CC) entity, a mobility management (MM) entity, a radio resource management entity and a packet management entity.

24. A method for receiving information data, comprising:

receiving the information data from a transmitting side using a lower layer;

processing the information data from the lower layer in accordance with a transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC), wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode; and

sending the information data from the RLC to an upper layer.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising a radio resource control layer (RRC) between the upper layer and the RLC, configured to process the information data when the information data comprises control data from a control plane, wherein the RRC includes a plurality of first entities to process the information data, and wherein each entity has its own path to the upper layer.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the lower layer receives the information data over at least one of a logical channel, a physical channel, and a transport channel.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein if the transfer mode is the transparent mode, the RLC receives at least one PDU without header information from the lower layer, forms the at least one PDU into at least one SDU, and provides the at least one SDU to the upper layer.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein if the transfer mode is the unacknowledged mode, the RLC receives at least one PDU from the lower layer, removes header information, and forms the at least one PDU into at least one SDU, and provides the at least one SDU to the upper layer.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein if the transfer mode is the acknowledged mode, the RLC receives at least one PDU from the lower layer, determines if an error is detected, removes header information if no error is detected, assembles the at least one PDU into at least one SDU, and provides the at least one SDU to the upper layer.

31. A method, comprising:

receiving a message using a lower layer;

processing said message from said lower layer differently according to a transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC), said RLC including a plurality of first entities for processing said message from said lower layer differently according to said transfer mode, wherein said transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode or an unacknowledged mode; and

processing said message differently according to a characteristic of said message in a radio resource control layer (RRC), said RRC including a plurality of second entities for processing said message differently according to said characteristic, each second entity having its own path with an upper layer.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the plurality of first entities is a transparent mode RLC entity, said transparent mode RLC entity receives Protocol Data Units (PDUs) through configured logical channels from the lower layer, and providing Service Data Units (SDUs) based on the received PDUs.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the received PDUs are reassembled to form the SDUs.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the plurality of first entities comprises an Unacknowledged mode RLC entity, said Unacknowledged mode RLC entity receives Protocol Data Units (PDUs) through configured logical channels from the lower layer.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the Unacknowledged mode RLC entity removes headers from the received PDUs to form Service Data Units (SDUs).

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the Unacknowledged mode RLC entity reassembles SDUs.

38. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the first plurality of entities comprises Acknowledged mode RLC entity, said Acknowledged mode RLC entity receives Protocol Data Units (PDUs) through configured logical channels.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein said Acknowledged mode RLC entity stores the received PDUs, and indicates which PDUs need to be retransmitted.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein stored PDUs are reassembled to form Service Data Units (SDUs).

41. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the plurality of second entities comprises a broadcast control entity which functions to handle broadcast functions.

42. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the plurality of second entities comprises a paging and notification control entity which functions to control paging of user equipments (UEs).

43. The method of claim 31, wherein one of the plurality of second entities comprises a dedicated control entity which functions to handle important messages.

44. The method of claim 31 further comprising a Transfer Mode Entity (TME) that handles a mapping between the plurality of second entities inside the RRC and Service Access Points (SAPs) provided by the RLC.

45. A method for providing service in a mobile communication system, comprising:

providing an upper layer for providing a message;

providing a radio resource control layer (RRC) for processing said message differently according to a characteristic of said message and determining a transfer mode of said processed message, said RRC including a plurality of first entities for processing said message differently according to said characteristic, and each entity having its own path with said upper layer, wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode;

providing a radio link control layer (RLC) for processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode, said RLC including a plurality of second entities for processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode, and each second entity having its own path with said RRC; and

providing a lower layer for forwarding said processed message submitted by the RLC layer towards a reception side.

46. A method for performing services in an apparatus using a radio access standard protocol architecture, comprising:

providing a message by an upper layer;

processing said message differently according to a characteristic of said message and determining a transfer mode of said processed message by a radio resource control layer (RRC) including a plurality of first entities that processes said message differently according to said characteristic, and each entity having its own path with said upper layer, wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode;

processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode within a radio link control layer (RLC) including a plurality of second entities for processing said message from said RRC differently according to said transfer mode, and each second entity having its own path with said RRC; and

sending said processed message submitted by the RLC layer towards a reception side using a lower layer.

47. A method for delivering data in a communication device, comprising:

providing an upper layer to provide information data;

providing a radio link control (RLC) layer to process the information data from the upper layer in accordance with a transfer mode, wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode; and

providing a lower layer to receive the information data from the RLC and transmit the information data to a receiving side.

48. A method for performing services in an apparatus using a radio access standard protocol architecture, comprising:

providing information data by an upper layer;

processing the information data from the upper layer in accordance with a transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC), wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode; and

receiving the information data from the RLC and transmits the information data to a receiving side using a lower layer.

49. A method of receiving data by a communication device, comprising:

providing a lower layer to receive information data from a transmitting side;

providing a radio link control (RLC) layer coupled to process the information data from the lower layer in accordance with a transfer mode, wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode; and

providing an upper layer to receive the information data from the RLC layer.

50. A method for performing services in an apparatus using a radio access standard protocol architecture, comprising:

receiving information data from a transmitting side by a lower layer;

processing the information data from the lower layer in accordance with a transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC), wherein the transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode, or an unacknowledged mode; and

receiving the information data from the RLC by an upper layer.

51. A method of receiving data by a communication device, comprising:

providing a lower layer for receiving a message;

providing a radio link control layer (RLC) for processing said message from said lower layer differently according to a transfer mode, said RLC including a plurality of first entities for processing said message from said lower layer differently according to said transfer mode, wherein said transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode or an unacknowledged mode; and

providing a radio resource control layer (RRC) for processing said message differently according to a characteristic of said message, said RRC including a plurality of second entities for processing said message differently according to said characteristic, each second entity having its own path with an upper layer.

52. A method for performing services in an apparatus using a radio access standard protocol architecture, comprising:

receiving a message by a lower layer;

processing said message from said lower layer differently according to a transfer mode in a radio link control layer (RLC) including a plurality of first entities for processing said message from said lower layer differently according to said transfer mode, wherein said transfer mode is at least one of a transparent mode, an acknowledged mode or an unacknowledged mode; and

processing said message by a radio resource control layer (RRC) differently according to a characteristic of said message, said RRC including a plurality of second entities for processing said message differently according to said characteristic, each second entity having its own path with an upper layer.