METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DYNAMIC ACK/NACK REPETITION FOR ROBUST DOWNLINK MAC PDU TRANSMISSION IN LTE

• US 20120224532A1
• Filed: 05/21/2012
• Published: 09/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Suzuki, Takashi, Cai, Zhijun, Womack, James Earl
• Granted Patent: US 8,665,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1858 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of acknowledgement message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/125 Arrangements for preventing errors in the return channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0005 Time-frequency
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0055 Physical resource allocation for ACK/NACK for physical mapping arrangements in ARQ protocols H04L1/1861
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0064 Rate requirement of the data, e.g. scalable bandwidth, data priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0092 Indication of how the channel is divided
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/04 Error control

Abstract

A method and apparatus for dynamic acknowledgement repetition for a downlink medium access control packet data unit transmission ‘MAC PDU’ requiring multiple acknowledgements, the method having the steps of: receiving the downlink MAC PDU requiring multiple acknowledgements; and utilizing a differentiating factor and acknowledgement scheme, sending the multiple acknowledgements.

Claims

1-26. -26. (canceled)

27. A method performed by a user equipment to provide acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback regarding a downlink transmission, the method comprising:

upon receipt of a downlink transmission;

transmitting a first ACK/NACK feedback response in a first subframe using a first uplink transmission resource, and

transmitting a plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses being transmitted in a respective subframe using a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the first uplink transmission resource and the second uplink transmission resource utilize different cyclic shifts.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein the first uplink transmission resource and the second uplink transmission resource utilize different resource blocks.

30. The method of claim 27, wherein each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses is a repetition of the first ACK/NACK feedback response.

31. The method of claim 27, wherein each of the respective subframes is a subframe following the first subframe.

32. The method of claim 27, wherein the first uplink transmission resource is determined based on a location of a physical downlink control channel.

33. The method of claim 27, wherein the first uplink transmission resource is determined based on an index associated with a physical downlink control channel.

34. The method of claim 27, wherein the downlink transmission is a single transmission of a Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU).

35. A user equipment comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a downlink transmission; and

a transmitter configured to provide acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback upon receipt of the downlink transmission by

transmitting a first ACK/NACK feedback response in a first subframe of a first uplink transmission resource, and

transmitting a plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses, each of the plurality of additional ACK responses being transmitted in respective subframes of a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

36. The user equipment of claim 35, wherein the first uplink transmission resource and the second uplink transmission resource utilize different cyclic shift.

37. The user equipment of claim 35, wherein each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses is a repetition of the first ACK/NACK feedback response.

38. The user equipment of claim 35, wherein the first uplink transmission resource is determined based on a location of a physical downlink control channel.

39. The user equipment of claim 35, wherein the first uplink transmission resource is determined based on an index associated with a physical downlink control channel.

40. A method performed by a network apparatus, the method comprising:

obtaining acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback regarding a downlink transmission to a user equipment, said obtaining including

receiving a first ACK/NACK feedback response from the user equipment via a first uplink transmission resource, and

receiving a plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses from the user equipment, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedbacks received in respective subframes of a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

41. The method of claim 40 further comprising combining the first ACK/NACK feedback response with the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses is a repetition of the first ACK/NACK feedback response.

43. The method of claim 40, further comprising transmitting a dedicated message to the user equipment configuring ACK/NACK feedback repetition.

44. The method of claim 40, wherein the first uplink transmission resource and the second uplink transmission resource utilize a different cyclic shift.

45. The method of claim 40, wherein each of the respective subframes of the second uplink transmission resource are different transmission subframes from the first subframe of the first transmission resource.

46. A network element comprising:

a communications system;

a memory; and

a processor, the processor adapted to

obtain acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback regarding a downlink transmission to a user equipment by

receiving a first ACK/NACK feedback response from the user equipment via a first uplink transmission resource, and

receiving a plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses from the user equipment, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedbacks received in respective subframes of a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

47. The network element of claim 46, wherein the processor is further adapted to combine the first ACK/NACK feedback response with the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses.

48. The network element of claim 46, wherein each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK feedback responses is a repetition of the first ACK/NACK feedback response.

49. The network element of claim 46, wherein the processor is further adapted to transmit a dedicated message to the user equipment configuring ACK/NACK feedback repetition.

50. The network element of claim 46, wherein the first uplink transmission resource and the second uplink transmission resource utilize a different cyclic shift.

51. The network element of claim 46, wherein each of the respective subframes of the second uplink transmission resource are different transmission subframes from the first subframe of the first transmission resource.

52. A method performed by a user equipment for providing acknowledgement (ACK) or a negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback, the method comprising:

transmitting a first ACK/NACK response corresponding to a downlink transmission, the first ACK/NACK response transmitted in a first subframe using a first uplink transmission resource; and

repeating transmission of additional ACK/NACK responses corresponding to the downlink transmission, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses being transmitted in a respective subframe using a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

53. A user equipment capable of providing acknowledgement (ACK) or a negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback, the user equipment comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a downlink transmission; and

a transmitter configured to transmit a first ACK/NACK response corresponding to a downlink transmission, the first ACK/NACK response transmitted in a first subframe using a first uplink transmission resource, and repeat transmission of additional ACK/NACK responses corresponding to the downlink transmission, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses being transmitted in a respective subframe using a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

54. A method performed by a network apparatus for receiving an acknowledgement (ACK) response or a negative acknowledgement (NACK) response, the method comprising:

receiving a first ACK/NACK response corresponding to a downlink transmission to a user equipment, the first ACK/NACK response received via a first uplink transmission resource, and

receiving a plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses corresponding to the downlink transmission to the user equipment, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses received in a respective subframe of a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.

55. A network element capable of receiving acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback, the network element comprising:

a communications system;

a memory; and

a processor, the processor adapted to

receive a first ACK/NACK response corresponding to a downlink transmission to a user equipment, the first ACK/NACK response received via a first uplink transmission resource, and

receive a plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses corresponding to the downlink transmission to the user equipment, each of the plurality of additional ACK/NACK responses received in a respective subframe of a second uplink transmission resource that is different from the first uplink transmission resource.