SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SHARING A CONTROL CHANNEL FOR CARRIER AGGREGATION

• US 20180027532A1
• Filed: 08/11/2017
• Published: 01/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corporation Limited
• Original Assignee: Golden Valley Holdings Limited (BBK Electronics Corp., Inc.)
• Inventors: McBeath, Sean Michael, Earnshaw, Andrew Mark, Fong, Mo-Han, Heo, Youn Hyoung, Cai, Zhijun
• Granted Patent: US 11,026,213 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/003 Arrangements for allocating sub-channels of the transmission path
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates wherein the carriers used for data transmission and reception are configured carriers, the method comprising the steps of receiving activation signals specifying active and deactivated carriers from among the configured carriers, for active carriers (i) identifying a number of CCE subset candidates to decode and (ii) decoding up to the identified number of CCE subset candidates in an attempt to identify the resource grant; and for deactivated carriers, ignoring CCE subset candidates associated with the deactivated carriers.

Claims

1-5. -5. (canceled)

6. A method for providing a control channel at a network access device in a multi-carrier communication system, comprising:

transmitting an activation signal specifying one or more carriers among a plurality of carriers, wherein the activation signal causes a user agent (UA) to activate the one or more carriers;

determining locations of one or more control channel element (CCE) subsets associated with at least one of the one or more carriers; and

transmitting downlink control information (DCI) in one of the one or more CCE subsets, wherein the DCI includes a resource grant to the UA for at least one of the one or more carriers.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the activation signal is included in a medium access control (MAC) signaling.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising transmitting data to the UA on the at least one of the one or more carriers.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the DCI is transmitted in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the one of the one or more CCE subsets is associated with an aggregation level of 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the DCI includes a carrier indicator field (CIF)

12. The method of claim 6, wherein the DCI indicates a grant of uplink resources and includes a transmit power control (TPC) field, a cyclic shift for demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and redundancy version field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a hopping flag field,

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the DC indicates a grant of downlink resources and includes a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, a New Data Indicator (IDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a redundancy version field.

14. A network access device for providing a control channel in a multi-carrier communication system, comprising:

a transmitter; and

a processor, the processor configured to perform operations comprising;

causing the transmitter to transmit an activation signal specifying one or more carriers among a plurality of carriers, wherein the activation signal causes a user agent (UA) to activate the one or more carriers;

determining locations of one or more control channel element (CCE) subsets associated with at least one of the one or more carriers; and

causing the transmitter to transmit downlink control information (DCI) in one of the one or more CCE subsets, wherein the DCI includes a resource grant to the UA for at least one of the one or more carriers.

15. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the activation signal is included in a medium access control (MAC) signaling.

16. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the transmitter to transmit data to the UA on the at least one of the one or more carriers,

17. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the DCI is transmitted in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

18. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the one of the one or more CCE subsets is associated with an aggregation level of 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs.

19. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the DCI includes a carrier indicator field (CIF).

20. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the DCI indicates a grant of uplink resources and includes a transmit power control (TPC) field, a cyclic shift for demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and redundancy version field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a hopping flag field.

21. The network access device of claim 14, wherein the DC indicates a grant of downlink resources and includes a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a redundancy version field.