Patent Description:
A long-term evolution (LTE) system supporting the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Rel-<NUM> standard and/or the 3GPP Rel-<NUM> standard are developed by the 3GPP as a successor of the universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) for further enhancing performance of the UMTS to satisfy increasing needs of users. The LTE system includes a new radio interface and a new radio network architecture that provides high data rate, low latency, packet optimization, and improved system capacity and coverage. In the LTE system, a radio access network known as an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes at least one evolved Node-B (eNB) for communicating with at least one user equipment (UE), and for communicating with a core network including a mobility management entity (MME), a serving gateway, etc., for Non-Access Stratum (NAS) control.

A LTE-advanced (LTE-A) system, as its name implies, is an evolution of the LTE system. The LTE-A system targets faster switching between power states, improves performance at the coverage edge of an eNB, increases peak data rate and throughput, and includes advanced techniques, such as carrier aggregation (CA), coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmissions/reception, uplink (UL) multiple-input multiple-output (UL-MIMO), licensed-assisted access (LAA) (e.g., using LTE), etc. For a UE and an eNB to communicate with each other in the LTE-A system, the UE and the eNB must support standards developed for the LTE-A system, such as the 3GPP Rel-1X standard or later versions.

3GPP draft R1-<NUM> discloses a scheduling scheme for slot aggregation.

The present invention therefore provides a device and method for handling a data scheduling to solve the abovementioned problem.

This is achieved by a communication device for handling the data scheduling according to the independent claim here below. The dependent claims pertain to corresponding further developments and improvements.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system <NUM> according to an example of the present invention. The wireless communication system <NUM> is briefly composed of cells CL1-CL2 and communication devices CD1-CD2. The wireless communication system <NUM> supports a time-division duplexing (TDD) mode. That is, the cell CL1 (or the cell CL2) and the communication device CD1 (or the communication device CD2) may communicate with each other via FDD carrier(s), TDD carrier(s), licensed carrier(s) (licensed serving cell(s)) and/or unlicensed carrier(s) (unlicensed serving cell(s)). In addition, the wireless communication system <NUM> may support a carrier aggregation (CA). That is, the cell CL1 (or the cell CL2) may be a primary cell (e.g., primary component carrier) or a secondary cell (e.g., secondary component carrier).

In <FIG>, the cells CL1-CL2 and the communication devices CD1-CD2 are simply utilized for illustrating the structure of the wireless communication system <NUM>. Practically, the cells CL1-CL2 may belong to a universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) including at least one Node-B (NB) in a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS). In one example, the cells CL1-CL2 may belong to an evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) including at least one evolved NB (eNB) and/or at least one relay node in a long term evolution (LTE) system, a LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) system, an evolution of the LTE-A system, etc. In one example, the cells CL1-CL2 may belong to a next generation radio access network (NG-RAN) including at least one next generation Node-B (gNB) and/or at least one fifth generation (<NUM>) base station (BS). That is, a cell may be controlled/established by a BS which may be a NB, an eNB, a gNB or a <NUM> BS.

A new radio (NR) is a standard defined for a <NUM> system (or <NUM> network) to provide a unified air interface with better performance. gNBs are deployed to realize the <NUM> system, which supports advanced features such as enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), etc. The eMBB provides broadband services with a greater bandwidth and a low/moderate latency. The URLLC provides applications (e.g., end-to-end communication) with properties of a higher security and a low latency. The examples of the applications include an industrial internet, smart grids, infrastructure protection, remote surgery and an intelligent transportation system (ITS). The mMTC is able to support internet-of-things (IoT) of the <NUM> system which mat billions of connected devices and/or sensors.

Furthermore, the cells CL1-CL2 belong to a network include at least one of the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN and a core network, wherein the core network may include network entities such as Mobility Management Entity (MME), Serving Gateway (S-GW), Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW), Self-Organizing Networks (SON) server and/or Radio Network Controller (RNC), etc. In one example, after the network receives information transmitted by a communication device, the information may be processed only by the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN and decisions corresponding to the information are made at the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN. In one example, the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN may forward the information to the core network, and the decisions corresponding to the information are made at the core network after the core network processes the information. In one example, the information may be processed by both the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN and the core network, and the decisions are made after coordination and/or cooperation are performed by the UTRAN/E-UTRAN/NG-RAN and the core network.

A communication device may be a user equipment (UE), a low cost device (e.g., machine type communication (MTC) device), a device-to-device (D2D) communication device, a narrow-band internet of things (IoT) (NB-IoT) device, a mobile phone, a laptop, a tablet computer, an electronic book, a portable computer system, or combination thereof. In addition, a cell (or a BS controlling it) and a communication device can be seen as a transmitter or a receiver according to direction (i.e., transmission direction), e.g., for an uplink (UL), the communication device is the transmitter and the cell is the receiver, and for a downlink (DL), the cell is the transmitter and the communication device is the receiver.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of a communication device <NUM> according to an example of the present invention. The communication device <NUM> may be used for realizing a communication device or a cell shown in <FIG>, but is not limited herein. The communication device <NUM> may include at least one processing circuit <NUM> such as a microprocessor or Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), at least one storage device <NUM> and at least one communication interfacing device <NUM>. The at least one storage device <NUM> may be any data storage device that may store program codes <NUM>, accessed and executed by the at least one processing circuit <NUM>. Examples of the at least one storage device <NUM> include but are not limited to a subscriber identity module (SIM), read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, random-access memory (RAM), Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), digital versatile disc-ROM (DVD-ROM), Blu-ray Disc-ROM (BD-ROM), magnetic tape, hard disk, optical data storage device, non-volatile storage device, non-transitory computer-readable medium (e.g., tangible media), etc. The at least one communication interfacing device <NUM> is preferably at least one transceiver and is used to transmit and receive signals (e.g., data, messages and/or packets) according to processing results of the at least one processing circuit <NUM>.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of a UL/DL configuration <NUM> according to an example of the present invention. The UL/DL configuration <NUM> includes <NUM> slots ST1-ST10, wherein each of the slots ST1-ST10 may be a DL slot (denoted as D), a UL slot (denoted as U) or a flexible slot (denoted as F). A flexible slot may be a DL slot, a UL slot or a self-contained slot (e.g., including DL resource, UL resource and/or flexible resource). A slot may include K symbols, e.g., <NUM> orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols.

A flexible slot of a cell is defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to improve scheduling flexibility. However, a flexible slot structure of the flexible slot may not be known by neighboring cell(s) of the cell. Cross-link interference (CLI) is generated between the cells, and performance of the communication device degrades. In addition, reserving resource in the flexible slot for transmitting control information is not known by the neighboring cell(s). The communication device cannot operate properly, if the control information is not received correctly. Thus, processing (e.g., receiving, identifying and/or protecting) of the flexible slot is an important problem to be solved.

In one example, the determination of the flexible slot structure (e.g., DL slot, UL slot, or self-contained slot) is dynamically decided according to information of a cell, such as a traffic load, a buffer status, etc. In addition, the flexible slot structure may be determined before a start of a period of a UL/DL configuration. The flexible slot structure may not be timely exchanged among cells (e.g., the cells CL1 and CL2).

<FIG> is a flowchart of a process <NUM> according to an example of the present invention. The process <NUM> may be utilized in the communication device CD1, to handle a data scheduling. The process <NUM> may be compiled into the program codes <NUM> and includes the following steps:.

According to the process <NUM>, the communication device CD1 receives at least one first DCI for a plurality of DL receptions in a plurality of slots of a first UL/DL configuration of a first cell from the first cell. Then, the communication device CD1 performs the plurality of receptions in the plurality of slots according to the at least one first DCI. In one example, the first UL/DL configuration is configured by a higher layer signalling (e.g., RRC signalling).

Realization of the process <NUM> is not limited to the above description. The following examples may be applied for realizing the process <NUM>.

In one embodiment, the at least one first DCI includes a position information of each of the plurality of DL receptions. Further, the position information includes a starting position and an ending position of the each of the plurality of DL receptions. In one example, a physical resource block (PRB) allocation of each of the plurality of DL receptions is the same. In one example, a same transport block (TB) is repeated in each of the plurality of DL receptions. In one example, the plurality of slots include at least one flexible resource. In one example, the plurality of DL receptions are in the plurality of slots of one of at least one bandwidth part, respectively. In one example, the plurality of DL receptions form a contiguous DL reception. That is, the contiguous DL reception is performed across the plurality of slots.

In one example, the number of the at least one bandwidth part is determined according to a system bandwidth, a higher layer signalling and/or a fixed value. In one example, the number of PRBs in a bandwidth part is determined according to a system bandwidth, a higher layer signalling and/or a fixed value.

In one example, the communication device CD1 receiving a second DCI indicating at least one resource type of at least one flexible resource in the plurality of slots. Then, the communication device CD1 performs the plurality of DL receptions in the at least one flexible resource in the plurality of slots according to the at least one first DCI and the second DCI. Further, the at least one resource type includes at least one direction (e.g., UL, DL and/or flexible) of the at least one flexible resource. In one example, the at least one first DCI is received in a DL slot of the first UL/DL configuration. Further, a direction of the DL slot is DL for a second UL/DL configuration of a second cell. In one example, the first cell and the second cell belong to (e.g., be controlled by) a same BS or different BSs.

It should be noted that the second DCI may specify the resource type(s) of the flexible resource(s) and cannot specify (or change) resource type(s) of UL slot(s) (UL resource(s)) and DL slot(s) (DL resource(s)) specified by the first UL/DL configuration.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of a UL/DL configuration <NUM> with corresponding operations according to an example of the present invention. The UL/DL configuration <NUM> includes <NUM> slots ST1-ST10, wherein each of the slots ST1-ST10 is a DL slot (denoted as D), a UL slot (denoted as U) or a flexible slot (denoted as F). A flexible slot may be (e.g., configured by the second DCI as) a DL slot, a UL slot or a self-contained slot (e.g., including DL resource, UL resource and/or flexible resource). In the present example, the slots ST4-ST7 are the flexible slots. Three cases (a)-(c) of utilizations of a bandwidth part are discussed as follows.

In the case (a), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive DCIs DCI1-DCI3 in the slot ST3. The DCIs DCI1-DCI3 indicate receptions of physical DL shared channels (PDSCHs) PDSCH1-PDSCH3 in the slots ST4-ST6, respectively. The PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH3 are transmitted in PRBs of a bandwidth part, and the PRBs are partly different or completely different. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH3 in the slots ST4-ST6 according to the DCIs DCI1-DCI3.

In the case (b), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive a DCI DCI1 in the slot ST3. The DCI DCI1 indicates receptions of PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH3 in the slots ST4-ST6, respectively. The PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH3 are transmitted in the same PRBs of a bandwidth part. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH3 in the slots ST4-ST6 according to the DCI DCI1.

In the case (c), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive a DCI DCI1 in the slot ST3. The DCI DCI1 indicates a contiguous reception of a PDSCH PDSCH1 in the slots ST4-ST6. That is, the PDSCH PDSCH1 is received in the same PRBs of a bandwidth part across the slots ST4-ST6. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCH PDSCH1 in the slots ST4-ST6 according to the DCI DCI1.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of UL/DL configurations <NUM> and <NUM> with corresponding operations according to an example of the present invention. Each of the UL/DL configurations <NUM> and <NUM> includes <NUM> slots ST1-ST10, wherein each of the slots ST1-ST10 is a DL slot (denoted as D), a UL slot (denoted as U) or a flexible slot (denoted as F). A flexible slot may be a DL slot, a UL slot or a self-contained slot (e.g., including DL resource, UL resource and/or flexible resource). The UL/DL configurations <NUM> and <NUM> are operated by the cells CL2 and CL1, respectively. In the present example, the slots ST4-ST7 of the UL/DL configurations <NUM> and <NUM> are the flexible slots. Three cases (a)-(c) of utilizations of a bandwidth part are discussed as follows.

In the case (a), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive DCIs DCI1-DCI4 in the slot ST2. The DCIs DCI1-DCI4 indicate receptions of PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 in the slots ST3-ST6, respectively. The PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 are transmitted in PRBs of a bandwidth part, and the PRBs are partly different or completely different. Note that the PDSCH PDSCH1 locates in the DL slot while the PDSCHs PDSCH2-PDSCH4 locate in the flexible slots. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 in the slots ST3-ST6 according to the DCIs DCI1-DCI4.

In the case (b), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive a DCI DCI1 in the slot ST2. The DCI DCI1 indicates receptions of PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 in the slots ST3-ST6, respectively. The PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 are transmitted in the same PRBs of a bandwidth part. Note that the PDSCH PDSCH1 locates in the DL slot while the PDSCHs PDSCH2-PDSCH4 locate in the flexible slots. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCHs PDSCH1-PDSCH4 in the slots ST3-ST6 according to the DCI DCI1.

In the case (c), the communication device CD2 performs a DCI detection to receive a DCI DCI1 in the slot ST2. The DCI DCI1 indicates a contiguous reception of a PDSCH PDSCH1 in the slots ST3-ST6. That is, the PDSCH PDSCH1 is received in the same PRBs of a bandwidth part across the slots ST3-ST6. Note that part of the PDSCH PDSCH1 locates in the DL slot while the rest of the PDSCH PDSCH1 locates in the flexible slots. Thus, the communication device CD2 can receive the PDSCH PDSCH1 in the slots ST3-ST6 according to the DCI DCI1.

The operation of "determine" described above may be replaced by the operation of "compute", "calculate", "obtain", "generate", "output, "select", "use", "choose/select" or "decide". The term of "according to" described above may be replaced by "in response to". The phrase of "associated with" described above may be replaced by "of" or "corresponding to". The term of "via" described above may be replaced by "on", "in" or "at". In one example, a resource (e.g., DL resource, UL resource or flexible resource) mentioned above is an OFDM symbol, or is a slot. In one example, a resource (e.g., DL resource, UL resource or flexible resource) mentioned above includes a group of OFDM symbols, or includes a group of slots.

The abovementioned description, steps and/or processes including suggested steps can be realized by means that could be hardware, software, firmware (known as a combination of a hardware device and computer instructions and data that reside as read-only software on the hardware device), an electronic system, or combination thereof. An example of the means may be the communication device <NUM>.

Examples of the hardware may include analog circuit(s), digital circuit(s) and/or mixed circuit(s). For example, the hardware may include ASIC(s), field programmable gate array(s) (FPGA(s)), programmable logic device(s), coupled hardware components or combination thereof. In another example, the hardware may include general-purpose processor(s), microprocessor(s), controller(s), digital signal processor(s) (DSP(s)) or combination thereof.

Examples of the software may include set(s) of codes, set(s) of instructions and/or set(s) of functions retained (e.g., stored) in a storage unit, e.g., a computer-readable medium. The computer-readable medium may include SIM, ROM, flash memory, RAM, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/BD-ROM, magnetic tape, hard disk, optical data storage device, non-volatile storage unit, or combination thereof. The computer-readable medium (e.g., storage unit) may be coupled to at least one processor internally (e.g., integrated) or externally (e.g., separated). The at least one processor which may include one or more modules may (e.g., be configured to) execute the software in the computer-readable medium. The set(s) of codes, the set(s) of instructions and/or the set(s) of functions may cause the at least one processor, the module(s), the hardware and/or the electronic system to perform the related steps.

Examples of the electronic system may include a system on chip (SoC), system in package (SiP), a computer on module (CoM), a computer program product, an apparatus, a mobile phone, a laptop, a tablet computer, an electronic book or a portable computer system, and the communication device <NUM>.

Claim 1:
A communication device (<NUM>) for handling a data scheduling in a time-division duplexing, TDD, mode, the communication device comprising:
at least one storage device (<NUM>); and
at least one processing circuit (<NUM>), coupled to the at least one storage device, wherein the at least one storage device stores, and the at least one processing circuit is configured to execute instructions of:
receiving at least one first downlink, DL, control information, DCI, wherein the at least one first DCI indicates a plurality of DL receptions in a plurality of slots of a first uplink/DL, UL/DL, configuration of a first cell in a next generation radio access network, NG-RAN, from the first cell (<NUM>); and
performing the plurality of DL receptions in the plurality of slots according to the at least one first DCI (<NUM>)
wherein the at least one first DCI comprises a position information of each of the plurality of DL receptions.