Apparatus and method for handling control channel reception/decoding failure in a wireless VoIP communication system

• US 8,923,321 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Issued: 12/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Smith, Jack A., Bi, Hao, McBeath, Sean M., O'Connor, James M., Pinckley, Danny T., Reed, John D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Eng, George
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gao, Jing
• Application Number:
  US11/460,908
• Publication Number:
  US 20080025337A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,077 Days
• Field of Search: 370/328, 370227-228
• US Class Current: 370/439
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/04 Error control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/30 Resource management for broadcast services

Abstract

A base station (103) assigns a set of mobile stations (101) to a group wherein the group will share a set of radio resources (710). A shared control channel information element (501) is sent to the group of mobile stations (101) and provides a bitmap having fields for group ordering (511), resource allocations (530), failure handling resources (540), and an ordering pattern (513). If a mobile station fails to decode the shared control channel information element (501) it will access the failure handling resources in order to receive data. The failure handling channel may be persistent in some embodiments, or may be released after the mobile station is once again able to decode the shared control channel information element (501) and thereby share in the shared resource pool allocated to its mobile station group.

Claims

1. A method of operating a communication network comprising:

defining a set of mobile stations as a group;

defining a set of radio channel resources for allocation to said group;

reserving at least one radio channel resource of said set of resources as a failure handling resource;

sending control information to said group including indication of said set of radio channel resources and said failure handling resource;

sending common control information to the group indicating resource assignments;

determining that a specific mobile station of said group cannot reliably decode said common control information indicating resource assignment, based on receiving a notification message from the specific mobile station that the common control information could not be reliably decoded, wherein the notification message is a common control channel negative acknowledgement;

in response to the notification message, assigning said failure handling resource to said specific mobile station;

sending a bitmap having a bit position corresponding to said failure handling resource wherein said bit position provides an indication that said failure handling resource is allocated; and

sending data that is not retransmitted common control information, to said specific mobile station using said failure handling resource that was allocated based on determining that common control information could not be reliably decoded by the specific mobile station.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that a specific mobile station of said group cannot reliably decode said common control information, further comprises:

receiving a message from said specific mobile station comprising channel quality condition information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein assigning said failure handling resource to said specific mobile station, further comprises:

including identification information of said specific mobile station and said failure handling resource in a message sent via a control channel.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining an ordering pattern for said failure handling resource; and

including an indication of said ordering pattern in said common control information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein sending data to said specific mobile station using said failure handling resource, further comprises:

scrambling or encoding said data in a manner unique to said specific mobile station.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the bitmap comprises sending a bitmap comprising at least one of a mobile station resource allocation field, a failure handling resource allocation field, a mobile station group order field, or an ordering pattern field.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said mobile station group order indicates an order of mobile station resource assignments.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein at least two mobile stations are assigned an identical group position via said group order field.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said group position indicates a presence of one of a broadcast/multicast message and a group call.

10. A method of operating a mobile station comprising:

storing a set of failure handling channel identifiers received from a communication network;

communicating in a Voice-over-Internet-Protocol session using a common control channel received from a base station;

determining that said common control channel cannot be reliably decoded and sending a common control channel negative acknowledging message (NAK) in response thereto that the common control information could not be reliably decoded;

receiving, after sending the NAK that the common control information could not be reliably decoded, a bitmap having a bit position corresponding to a failure handling channel wherein said bit position provides an indication that said failure handling channel is allocated; and

receiving data that is not retransmitted common control information, on the failure handling channel after sending the common control channel negative acknowledging message (NAK) that the common control information could not be reliably decoded.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining that said common control channel has not been received, further comprises:

sending the negative acknowledging message after a predetermined time period; and

determining that an internal timer has timed out prior to performing a blind detection.

12. A method of operating a mobile station comprising:

storing a set of failure handling channel identifiers;

communicating in a Voice-over-Internet-Protocol session using a shared control channel received from a base station;

determining that a common control channel cannot be reliably decoded and sending a negative acknowledge message in response thereto;

receiving, in a message sent via a control channel, a bitmap having a bit position corresponding to a failure handling resource wherein said bit position provides an indication that said failure handling resource is allocated; and

receiving data that is not retransmitted common control channel, on said assigned failure handling resource after sending the negative acknowledge message in response to determining that the common control channel cannot be reliably decoded.

13. A base station comprising:

a transceiver;

a processor coupled to said transceiver, said processor configured to;

define a set of mobile stations as a group;

define a set of radio channel resources for allocation to said group;

reserve a subset of said radio channel resources as a failure handling set;

send control information to said group including indication of said failure handling set;

send a common control information to the group indicating resource assignments;

determine that a specific mobile station of said group cannot reliably decode said common control information indicating resource assignment, based on receiving a notification message from the specific mobile station that the common control information could not be reliably decoded, wherein the notification message is a common control channel negative acknowledgement;

in response to the notification message, assign one radio channel resource of said failure handling set to said specific mobile station; and

send data that is not retransmitted common control information, to said specific mobile station using said radio resource that was allocated based on determining that the common control information could not be reliably decoded by the specific mobile station;

wherein said processor is further configured to send a bitmap having a bit position corresponding to said radio channel resource of said failure handling set wherein said bit position provides an indication that the radio channel resource of said failure handling set is allocated.

14. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to determine that a specific mobile station of said group cannot reliably decode said common control information by receiving a notification message from said specific mobile station.

15. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to:

determine that a specific mobile station of said group cannot reliably decode said common control information by receiving a message from said specific mobile station comprising channel quality condition information.

16. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to assign said radio channel resource of said failure handling set to said specific mobile station by including identification information of said specific mobile station in a message sent via a control channel.

17. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to determine an ordering pattern for said failure handling set and include an indication of said ordering pattern in said control information.

18. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to scramble or encode said data prior to sending said data to said specific mobile station using said radio channel resource of said failure handling set.

19. The base station of claim 13, wherein said processor is further configured to send a bitmap comprising at least one of a mobile station resource allocation field, a failure handling resource allocation field, a mobile station group order field, or an ordering pattern field.

20. A communication system comprising:

a base station operative to assign a set of mobile stations to a group wherein the group shares a set of radio resources and operative to send a shared control channel information element to the group of mobile stations and providing a bitmap having fields for group ordering, resource allocations, failure handling resources and an ordering pattern;

a mobile station, in operative communication with the base station, operative to;

determine if the mobile station cannot reliably decode common control information sent by the base station wherein the common control information indicates resource assignment;

send a common control channel acknowledgement message indicating that the common control information could not be reliably decoded;

access failure handling resources using the bitmap failure handling resource information and ordering pattern information in response to determining that the common control channel could not be reliably decoded; and

receive data from the base station, that is not retransmitted common control information, on a detected failure handling resource channel.