RAN paging mechanism to enable enhanced coverage mode

• US 9,648,582 B2
• Filed: 06/29/2015
• Issued: 05/09/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: Burbidge, Richard C., Martinez Tarradell, Marta, Choi, Hyung-Nam, Heo, Youn Hyoung, Xiong, Gang, Chatterjee, Debdeep, Han, Seunghee
• Primary Examiner(s): Rampuria, Sharad
• Application Number:
  US14/753,158
• Publication Number:
  US 20160135141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 680 Days
• Field of Search: 455458
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/02 Arrangements for increasing efficiency of notification or paging channel

Abstract

Devices and methods of enhanced coverage (EC) paging are generally described. An evolved Node-B (eNB) may transmit multiple EC paging messages to user equipment (UE) over at least one paging cycle. Each EC paging message may contain the same paging information. The UE may combine the individual EC paging messages to achieve a predetermined link budget and subsequently may decode the EC combined paging message to determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE. The EC paging messages may contain information for more than one UE and a legacy P-RNTI or a specific P-RNTI for EC mode UEs. The EC paging messages may be transmitted in legacy occasions over several paging cycles or non-legacy paging occasions over one or more paging cycles. The EC paging messages may be transmitted in continuous or non-continuous subframes in a particular paging cycle.

Claims

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

a memory; and

processing circuitry in communication with the memory and configured to;

determine whether a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), received from an evolved Node-B (eNB) when the UE is in an enhanced coverage (EC) mode, is encoded with an EC Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (EC-P-RNTI) the EC-P-RNTI different from a P-RNTI and to differentiate between transmission of an EC paging message and a legacy paging message;

in response to a determination that the PDCCH is encoded with the EC-P-RNTI, combine an enhanced coverage (EC) paging message with at least one other EC paging message to form a combined EC paging message;

decode the combined EC paging message; and

determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine that a predetermined number of EC paging messages have been received within a single paging cycle prior to the combined EC paging message being decoded, wherein the EC paging messages within the paging cycle are received in a number of subframes, the number of subframes being specified for EC mode and predetermined in the UE or configured by higher layer signaling.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine whether the UE is in the EC mode, and

configure use of frequency hopping in reception of the EC paging messages from the eNB in response to a determination that the UE is in the EC mode,

wherein parameters of frequency hopping of the transceiver are predefined in the UE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

a paging cycle of the EC paging messages is over multiple subframes, the EC paging messages within the paging cycle are received in a number of subframes predetermined or configured by higher layer signaling, and at least some of the subframes are non-adjacent.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the EC paging messages are received at legacy paging occasions of consecutive paging cycles.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

at least one of the EC paging messages is received within each paging cycle of consecutive paging cycles.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

use at least one of chase combining (CC) and incremental redundancy (IR) to combine the EC paging messages, use of the at least one of CC and IR is predefined in the TIE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling, and when IR is used by the processing circuitry to combine the EC paging messages, a redundancy version (RV) pattern of the IR is predefined in the UE or configured in the UE via higher layer signaling, and the use of CC or IR is determined based on the RV pattern.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the EC paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message, and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine retransmission spacing of the EC paging messages; and

determine whether to maintain a buffer during idle sleep periods of the UE dependent on the retransmission spacing.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the EC paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message,

and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on which RNTI is used to encode an PDCCH associated with the particular paging message.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein:

a PDCCH associated with the initial paging message is encoded with a first EC-P-RNTI and a PDCCH associated with the at least one retransmission is encoded with a second EC-P-RNTI different from the first EC-P-RNTI and from the P-RNTI.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein:

a PDCCH associated with the initial paging message is encoded with the EC-P-RNTI and a PDCCH associated with the at least one retransmission is encoded with the P-RNTI.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine, based on a position of a particular paging message in a paging cycle, which of an EC mode paging message or a legacy paging message the particular paging message is.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

receive the EC paging messages from the eNB on legacy paging occasions rather than non-legacy paging occasions.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine that the UE is in an EC mode in response to a determination that a link budget between the eNB and the UE is worse than a predetermined link budget.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

determine a predetermined number of EC paging messages to meet the link budget between the eNB and the UE, and

decode the combined EC paging message in response to combining the predetermined number of EC paging messages.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

an antenna configured to provide communications between the transceiver and the eNB.

18. An apparatus of an evolved Node-B (eNB) comprising:

a memory; and

processing circuitry in communication with the memo and configured to;

determine whether a user equipment (UE) attached to the eNB is in enhanced coverage (EC) mode;

encode a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with an EC Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (EC-P-RNTI), the EC-P-RNTI different from a P-RNTI and to differentiate between transmission of an EC paging message and a legacy paging message; and

encode multiple paging messages to the UE over at least one paging cycle in response to determining that the UE is in EC mode,

wherein successive ones of the paging messages are either the same or incrementally different.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the paging messages are transmitted on legacy paging occasions of multiple paging cycles, or

the paging messages are transmitted on non-legacy paging occasions within at least one paging cycle.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

UE paging messages are transmitted to a plurality of different UEs in at least one occasion of the paging messages.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

determine a coverage extension level, from a plurality of coverage extension levels, of the UE, a number of paging messages transmitted dependent on the coverage extension level of the UE.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the paging messages are transmitted within a single paging cycle using frequency hopping, or configure the transceiver to transmit at least one of the paging messages within each paging cycle of consecutive paging cycles.

23. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the paging messages comprise an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message, and

the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether a particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on which RNTI is used to encode an PDCCH associated with the particular paging message.

24. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

a position of a particular paging message in the at least one paging cycle is dependent on which of an EC mode paging message or a legacy paging message the particular paging message is.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein:

a PDCCH associated with the initial paging message is encoded with a first EC-P-RNTI and a PDCCH associated with the at least one retransmission is encoded with a second EC-P-RNTI different from the first EC-P-RNTI and from the P-RNTI.

26. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein:

a PDCCH associated with the initial paging message is encoded with the EC-P-RNTI and a PDCCH associated with the at least one retransmission is encoded with the P-RNTI.

27. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of user equipment (UE) to communicate with an evolved Node-B (eNB), the one or more processors to configure the UE to:

enter an enhanced coverage (EC) mode;

determine whether a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), received from the eNB is encoded with an EC Paging Radio Network Temporary Identifier (EC-P-RNTI) the EC-P-RNTI different from a P-RNTI and to differentiate between transmission of an EC paging message and a legacy paging message;

receive paging messages from the eNB, the paging messages including an initial paging message and at least one retransmission of the initial paging message;

combine the paging messages to form a combined paging message;

determine a link budget of the combined paging message;

compare the link budget of the combined paging message to a predetermined link budget associated with coverage in a cell dependent on the EC mode; and

decode the combined paging message, in response to determining that the link budget of the combined paging message has met the predetermined link budget, to determine whether the combined paging message is directed to the UE.

28. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the processor further configured to at least one of:

determine whether a particular paging message is an EC mode paging message or a legacy paging message based on which RNTI is used to encode an PDCCH associated with the particular paging message, or

determine whether the particular paging message is the initial paging message or the at least one retransmission of the initial paging message based on which RNTI is used to encode the PDCCH associated with the particular paging message.

29. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein:

a PDCCH associated with the initial paging message is encoded with a first EC-P-RNTI and a PDCCH associated with the at least one retransmission is encoded with a second EC-P-RNTI different from the first EC-P-RNTI and from the P-RNTI.