Signaling and control mechanisms in MIMO harq schemes for wireless communication systems

• US 7,391,755 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2002
• Issued: 06/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Sharma, Naresh, Rudrapatna, Ashok N., Kogiantis, Achilles George, Liu, Jung-Tao, Gopalakrishnan, Nandu
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham; Chi
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hyun; Soon D.
• Application Number:
  US10/261,283
• Publication Number:
  US 20040062221A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,094 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/334
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/061 using feedback from receiving side
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1816 with retransmission of the same, encoded, message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1867 Arrangements specially adapted for the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0092 Error control systems characterised by the topology of the transmission link
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0096 Channel splitting in point-to-point links

Abstract

A method for conveying signaling information of a communication system that uses MIMO antenna systems. To enable a relatively larger amount of information to be conveyed over the communication system and thus exploit the use of the MIMO antenna system, forward link signaling channels are provided where such channels contain swapping information that allow the communication system to retransmit traffic information using any one of the antenna elements of a MIMO system. The forward link signaling channels also contain channel assignment information that indicate which particular groups of channels are available for use by particular users of the communication system. To further accommodate for the relatively larger amount of information being conveyed over the communication system, the format of the reverse link signaling information is modified using any one or any combination of the following three mechanisms: (1) reverse signaling link information is time division multiplexed; (2) the reverse link information is modulated at relatively higher order modulation; (3) additional channels are provided for the reverse link information.

Claims

1. A method of communication comprising:

communicating information over a forward link signaling channel comprising a forward link signaling channel format having antenna select information for retransmitting traffic information using at least one of a plurality of antenna elements, wherein the antenna select information indicates retransmitting at least a portion of the traffic information using one of the antenna elements different from another one of the antenna elements used for a previous transmission of the portion of the traffic information.

2. The method of claim 1 comprising providing additional communication channels that are assigned to particular users of a communication system using channel assignment information in the antenna select information.

3. The method of claim 1 comprising providing additional communication channels assigned to particular users of a Code Division Multiple Access communication system by using additional Walsh codes.

4. The method of claim 1 where different portions of the traffic information is transmitted by different antenna elements of a Multiple Input Multiple Output antenna system based on the antenna select information.

5. The method of claim 1 where a Code Division Multiple Access communication system is used for communication and the forward link signaling channel is a secondary packet data control channel that includes swapping bits for indicating which antenna is to transmit or retransmit the traffic information and boundary information for assigning particular channels to particular users.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising:

transmitting a first portion of the traffic information using a first one of the antenna elements;

transmitting a second portion of the traffic information using a second one of the antenna elements; and

retransmitting the second portion of the traffic information using the first one of the antenna elements if the second portion of the traffic information was received in error responsive to the antenna select information.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising:

retransmitting the first portion of the traffic information from the first one of the antenna elements with the retransmitted second portion of the traffic information responsive to the antenna select information.

8. The method of claim 6, comprising:

retransmitting the first portion of the traffic information from the second one of the antenna elements responsive to the antenna select information.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising transmitting over the forward link signaling channel.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising receiving over the forward link signaling channel.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the antenna select information indicates retransmitting at least one other portion of the traffic information using one of the antenna elements that was also used for a previous transmission of the at least one other portion of the traffic information.