METHOD OF REFERENCE SIGNALING RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR CONTROL CHANNEL TRANSMISSION IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20130121273A1
• Filed: 11/14/2012
• Published: 05/16/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: KIM, Younsun, SHAN, Cheng, KIM, Kiil, LEE, Hyojin
• Granted Patent: US 9,167,572 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0023 Time-frequency-space
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0048 Allocation of pilot signals, i.e. of signals known to the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0051 of dedicated pilots, i.e. pilots destined for a single user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0091 Signaling for the administration of the divided path
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

In legacy systems such as 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) releases 8 to 10, the control channel is transmitted using the first few Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols in a subframe. The limited control channel capacity will impact the system performance in future releases as more and more User Equipments (UEs) will be scheduled in a subframe with technologies such as MulitUser-Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) and Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) transmission being enhanced or introduced. A new Enhanced Control CHannel (E-CCH) is necessary to be designed, which will use the resource in the Physical Downlink Shared CHannel (PDSCH) in the legacy systems. The E-CCH will support UE-specific DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) based transmission and receiving. However, the configuration of DMRS for E-CCH is necessary to be known to UE in prior. This invention discloses multiple methods in which DMRS is configured for E-CCHs and respective eNB and UE behaviors.

Claims

1. A method for receiving a control channel by user equipment in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

receiving configuration information of the control channel from a base station;

identifying an aggregation level of the control channel transmitted from the base station;

determining a size of a resource allocated to the control channel depending on the identified aggregation level; and

decoding subframes received from the base station depending on results of the determination.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the size of the resource allocated to the control channel includes, if the aggregation level is at least one of 1 and 2, determining that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) related to all user equipment capable of being scheduled among any resource block.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the size of the resource allocated to the control channel includes, if the aggregation level is either 4 or 8, determining that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) related to the user equipment among any resource block.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the control channel is an Enhanced—

Physical Downlink Control CHannel (E-PDCCH).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information about the control channel includes information about a control channel region and about the number of DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) ports.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information of the control channel includes information about a control channel region and about the number of DMRS ports.

6. A user equipment for receiving a control channel from a base station in a wireless communication system, the user equipment comprising:

a communication unit configured to transmit or receive a signal to or from the base station; and

a control unit configured to receive configuration information about the control channel from the base station, to identify an aggregation level of the control channel, to determine a size of a resource allocated to the control channel depending on the identified aggregation level, and to decode subframes received from the base station depending on results of the determination.

7. The user equipment of claim 6, wherein the control unit is further configured to, if the aggregation level is at least one of 1 and 2, determine that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) related to all user equipment capable of being scheduled among any resource block.

8. The user equipment of claim 6, wherein the control unit is further configured to, if the aggregation level is either 4 or 8, determine that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) related to the user equipment among any resource block.

9. The user equipment of claim 6, wherein the control channel is an Enhanced—

Physical Downlink Control CHannel (E-PDCCH).

10. The user equipment of claim 6, wherein the configuration information about the control channel includes information about a control channel region and about the number of DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) ports.

11. A method for transmitting a control channel by a base station in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

transmitting configuration information of the control channel for the user equipment to the user equipment;

generating a control channel that includes control information related to the user equipment scheduled in any subframe;

identifying an aggregation level of the generated control channel and determining resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) depending on the identified aggregation level; and

transmitting the control channel through the determined resources to the user equipment.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining of the resources for the DMRS includes, if the aggregation level is at least one of 1 and 2, determining that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DMRS related to all user equipment capable of being scheduled among any resource block.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining of the resources for the DMRS includes, if the aggregation level is either 4 or 8, determining that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DMRS related to the user equipment among any resource block.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the control channel is an Enhanced—

Physical Downlink Control CHannel (E-PDCCH).

16. A base station for transmitting a control channel in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising:

a communication unit configured to transmit or receive a signal to or from user equipment; and

a control unit configured to transmit configuration information of the control channel for the user equipment to the user equipment, to generate the control channel that includes control information related to the user equipment scheduled in any subframe, to identify an aggregation level of the generated control channel, to determine resources for DeModulation Reference Signal (DMRS) depending on the identified aggregation level, and to transmit the control channel through the determined resources to the user equipment.

17. The base station of claim 16, wherein the control unit is further configured to, if the aggregation level is at least one of 1 and 2, determine that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DMRS related to all user equipment capable of being scheduled among any resource block.

18. The base station of claim 16, wherein the control unit is further configured to, if the aggregation level is either 4 or 8, determine that resources of the control channel are the rest of resources except resources for DMRS related to the user equipment among any resource block.

19. The base station of claim 16, wherein the control channel is an Enhanced—

Physical Downlink Control CHannel (E-PDCCH).

20. The base station of claim 16, wherein the configuration information of the control channel includes information about a control channel region and about the number of DMRS ports.