Patent ID: 11956846
Assignee: APPLE INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A method, comprising:
at a user equipment (UE) configured with a sidelink:
transmitting a signal over the sidelink;
receiving an indication of a type of hybrid automatic repeating request (HARQ) feedback in response to the signal;
generating a radio link metric associated with the sidelink based on the type of HARQ feedback;
determining that the radio link metric satisfies a predetermined threshold;
initiating a keep alive procedure for the sidelink based on the radio link metric satisfying the predetermined threshold;
receiving a plurality of instances of HARQ feedback, wherein generating the radio link metric associated with the sidelink is based on a type of HARQ feedback for each of the plurality of instances of HARQ feedback;
identifying an instance of HARQ feedback from the plurality of instances of HARQ feedback, as nothing received (DTX) feedback;
determining whether the DTX feedback was received adjacent to further DTX feedback or negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback; and
when the DTX feedback was received adjacent to the further DTX feedback or the negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback, omitting the DTX feedback from being a factor that provides a basis for generating the radio link metric.