Method, base station, and user equipment for feeding back ACK/NACK information for carrier aggregation

• US 9,992,005 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2016
• Issued: 06/05/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Chen, Xiaobo, Li, Chaojun
• Primary Examiner(s): Morlan, Robert M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kaur, Pamit
• Application Number:
  US14/996,646
• Publication Number:
  US 20160134407A1
• Time in Patent Office: 872 Days
• Field of Search: 370329, 370339
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1685 the supervisory signal being transmitted in response to a specific request, e.g. to a polling signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1812 Hybrid protocols; Hybrid automatic repeat request [HARQ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1896 ARQ related signaling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• 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 5/0094 Indication of how sub-channels of the path are allocated
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/54 Signalisation aspects of the TPC commands, e.g. frame structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, a base station, and a user equipment for feeding back ACK/NACK information for carrier aggregation. The method includes: configuring a common field preset in DCI as at least one type of command field related to ACK/NACK feedback of at least two types of command fields related to ACK/NACK feedback, where the common field can be configured as the command fields related to ACK/NACK feedback; and sending the DCI to a user equipment, so that the user equipment feeds back ACK/NACK information according to the DCI. The present invention may realize backward compatibility of the ACK/NACK information feedback with an LTE system in carrier aggregation.

Claims

1. A method for feeding back Acknowledgement/Negative-acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) information for carrier aggregation through an uplink component carrier X, comprising:

receiving, by a user equipment (UE), device, one or more pieces of downlink control information (DCI) carried by one or more physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) transmitted on a downlink component carrier Y from a base station, wherein each of the one or more pieces of DCI includes a transmission power control (TPC) command field, scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), and is transmitted through a PDCCH corresponding to the PDSCH;

determining, by the UE device, that a first command indicated by a fist TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is an ACK resource indication (ARI) command if the downlink component carrier Y is a non-system-linked downlink component carrier of the uplink component carrier X, wherein the ARI command indicates which resource of a group of uplink ACK channel resources assigned through a higher-layer signaling are to be used to feed back ACK/NACK information, and determining that a second command indicated by a second TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is a TPC command if the downlink component carrier Y is a system-linked downlink component carrier of the uplink component carrier X; and

feeding back, by the UE, ACK/NACK information through the uplink component carrier X according to the determined command.

2. The method according to claim 1, before feeding back ACK/NACK information, the method further comprising:

obtaining, by the UE through the higher-layer signaling, the group of uplink ACK channel resources for first PDSCH transmission corresponding to a first PDCCH, the first PDCCH being transmitted over the non-system-linked downlink component carrier; and

wherein the feeding back ACK/NACK information comprises;

determining, by the UE in the group of uplink ACK channel resources, an uplink ACK channel resource for the first PDSCH transmission according to the ARI command; and

feeding back, by the UE, according to the TPC command and the determined uplink ACK channel resource, ACK/NACK information through the uplink component carrier X.

3. The method according to claim 1, before feeding back ACK/NACK information, the method further comprising:

obtaining, by the UE in the uplink component carrier X, an uplink ACK channel resource for second PDSCH transmission through implicit mapping from a second PDCCH corresponding to the second PDSCH transmission, the second PDCCH being transmitted over the system-linked downlink component carrier; and

wherein the feeding back ACK/NACK information comprises;

feeding back, by the UE, according to the TPC command and the obtained uplink ACK channel resource, ACK/NACK information through the uplink component carrier X.

4. The method according to claim 1, the determining the first command indicated by the first TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is the ARI command comprising:

determining, by the UE, that the first command indicated by the first TPC command field in each of the one or more piece of DCI transmitted on the non-system-linked downlink component carrier is the ARI command.

5. The method according to claim 1, the determining the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is the TPC command comprising:

determining, by the UE, that the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in at least one piece of DCI corresponding to a second PDSCH transmission of the system-linked downlink component carrier is the TPC command.

6. The method according to claim 1, the determining the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is the TPC command comprising:

determining, by the UE, the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in each of the one or more pieces of DCI transmitted on the system-linked downlink component carrier is the TPC command.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the uplink component carrier X is one of M uplink component carriers for the UE to transmit ACK/NACK information, the downlink component carrier Y is one of N downlink component carriers for the UE to receive PDCCH carrying DCI, N is an integer and larger than 1, and M is a positive integer and smaller than N;

wherein the N downlink component carriers are divided into M groups, and ACK/NACK information corresponding to each of the M downlink component carrier groups is transmitted by the UE through each of the M uplink component carriers respectively.

8. A User equipment (UE), that feedbacks Acknowledgement/Negative-acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) information for carrier aggregation through an uplink component carrier X, the UE comprising:

a receiver, configured to receive one or more pieces of downlink control information (DCI) carried by one or more physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) transmitted on a downlink component carrier Y from a base station, wherein each of the one or more pieces of DCI includes a transmission power control (TPC) command field, carries scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) respectively, and is transmitted through a PDCCH corresponding to the PDSCH respectively;

a processor, configured to determine that a first command indicated by a first TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is an ACK resource indication (ARI) command if the downlink component carrier Y is a non-system-linked downlink component carrier of the uplink component carrier X, wherein the ARI command indicates which resource of a group of uplink ACK channel resources assigned through a higher-layer signaling are to be used to feed back ACK/NACK information, and determining that a second command indicated by a second TPC command field in at least one piece of the one or more pieces of DCI is a TPC command if the downlink component carrier Y is a system-linked downlink component carrier of the uplink component carrier X; and

a transmitter, configured to feed back Acknowledgement/Negative-acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) information through an uplink component carrier X according to the determined command.

9. The UE of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to obtain through the higher-layer signaling, the group of uplink ACK channel resources for first PDSCH transmission corresponding to a first PDCCH, the first PDCCH being transmitted over the non-system-linked downlink component carrier;

and determine in the group of uplink ACK channel resources, an uplink ACK channel resource for the first PDSCH transmission according to the ARI command and the transmitter is configured to, according to the TPC command and the determined uplink ACK channel resource, feedback ACK/NACK information through the uplink component carrier X.

10. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to obtain in the uplink component carrier X, an uplink ACK channel resource for second PDSCH transmission through implicit mapping from a second PDCCH corresponding to the second PDSCH transmission, the second PDCCH being transmitted over the system-linked downlink component carrier and the transmitter is configured to, according to the TPC command and the obtained uplink ACK channel resource, ACK/NACK information through the uplink component carrier X.

11. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to determine that the first command indicated by the first TPC command field in each of the one or more piece of DCI transmitted on the non-system-linked downlink component carrier is the ARI command.

12. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to determine that the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in at least one piece of DCI corresponding to a second PDSCH transmission of the system-linked downlink component carrier is the TPC command.

13. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to determine that the second command indicated by the second TPC command field in each of the one or more pieces of DCI transmitted on the system-linked downlink component carrier is the TPC command.

14. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the uplink component carrier X is one of M uplink component carriers for the UE to transmit ACK/NACK information, the downlink component carrier Y is one of N downlink component carriers for the UE to receive PDCCH carrying DCI, N is an integer and larger than 1, and M is a positive integer and smaller than N;

wherein the N downlink component carriers are divided into M groups, and ACK/NACK information corresponding to each of the M downlink component carrier groups is transmitted by the transmitter through each of the M uplink component carriers respectively.