Patent Description:
Wireless communication technologies are moving the world toward an increasingly connected and networked society. The rapid growth of wireless communications and advances in technology has led to greater demand for capacity and connectivity. Other aspects, such as energy consumption, device cost, spectral efficiency, and latency are also important to meeting the needs of various communication scenarios. In comparison with the existing wireless networks, next generation systems and wireless communication techniques will provide support for an increased number of users and devices, as well as support for higher data rates. <CIT> relates to user equipment assisted configuration of timing advance groups. 3GPP R2-<NUM> relates to TA group management. 3GPP R2-<NUM> relates to TA group change for SCell. <CIT> relates to an apparatus and method of transmitting/receiving signals in mobile communication system supporting carries. <CIT> relates to a reference timing delivery to user equipment with propagation delay compensation. <CIT> relates to systems and methods for cell range extension. <CIT> relates to a method of switching uplink and downlink subframes and apparatus thereof.

This document relates to methods, systems, and devices for resource configuration using the burst spread parameter in mobile communication technology, including 5th Generation (<NUM>) and New Radio (NR) communication systems. In an example, the burst spread parameter is introduced into the radio access network (RAN) specification, which advantageously mitigates the data transmission delay problem caused by jitter.

In the New Radio (NR) access standard, a burst spread parameter is introduced in the application layer to avoid data transmission delays caused by jitter during Time-Sensitive Network (TSN) quality of service (QoS) transmissions. In some implementations, the burst spread is sent by the Policy Control Function (PCF) to the Session Management Function (SMF), which uses it to determine a burst spread Time Sensitive Communications (TSC) Assistance Information (TSCAI) parameter. When scheduling packets on different bridges, a particular packet is scheduled after other higher priority packets that are received, e.g. from other ports, at each bridge. This behavior creates a jitter on the (periodic) packet arrival time of a TSN flow, in the cycle time, and configured for this TSN flow. Alternatively, this jitter is generated when downlink data is sent on the N6 (interface between the Data Network (DN) and the User Plane Function (UPF)), which affects the data arrival time. Embodiments of the disclosed technology overcome the aforementioned TSN QoS transmission jitter and other potential jitter sources by configuring SPS resources based on the burst spread parameter.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication system (e.g., an LTE, <NUM> or New Radio (NR) cellular network) that includes a BS <NUM> and one or more user equipment (UE) <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM>. In some embodiments, the downlink transmissions (<NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM>) include a configurations of pre-configured SPS resources. The UE may be, for example, a smartphone, a tablet, a mobile computer, a machine to machine (M2M) device, a terminal, a mobile device, an Internet of Things (IoT) device, and so on.

The present document uses section headings for ease of understanding and do not limit the embodiments and techniques to the corresponding sections. As such, embodiments from one section can be combined with embodiments from other sections. Furthermore, the present document uses examples from the 3GPP New Radio (NR) network architecture and <NUM> protocol only to facilitate understanding and the disclosed techniques and embodiments may be practiced in other wireless systems that use different communication protocols than the 3GPP protocols.

In some embodiments, the gNB needs to pre-configure multiple continuous semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources for the UE. However, not all resources need to be utilized. These embodiments optimize the pre-configuration of multiple continuous SPS resources based on the principle of resource saving.

In an example, the multiple consecutive SPS resources can be configured based on the transmission period and burst spread in the same QoS flow. Thus, multiple SPS groups can be pre-configured through BWP-DownlinkDedicated, wherein the UE receives a configuration from the gNB for a preconfigured set of semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources with a bundling relationship. The bundling relationship comprises a subset of the pre-configured group of SPS resources for a same service within a time window in a transmission cycle, a subset of the pre-configured group of SPS resources for a same logical channel, or a subset of the pre-configured group of SPS resources for the same service. Each SPS group is pre-configured on the corresponding physical channel and has the same priority during data transmission. As shown in the example in <FIG>, when both the service data transmission period and SPS scheduling period are <NUM> and the value of burst spread is <NUM>, four consecutive SPS resources are pre-configured in the SPS group.

As shown in <FIG>, the range of each SPS group is larger than or equal to the range of burst spread. In an example, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number value in the downlink control information (DCI) format indicates the start position of the SPS in the SPS group to be activated, and a <NUM>-bit field can be used to indicate the number of SPS activated continuously in the SPS group.

In this example, the UE receives a packet in a pre-configured SPS resource group, but does not receive other packets in the SPS resource group. Herein, the gNB provides an indication to the UE that the SPS resource group is only for packets of the same QOS flow. A shown in <FIG>, this indication contains at least one of the following:.

In some embodiments, when the UE has received packets of the same QOS flow on the activated SPS resource group or the gNB has no packet to be sent in the current time window, the UE needs to know that no packets of the same type need to be received in the current period before releasing the SPS resources in this time window. In this case, the gNB provides an indication to the UE to deactivate the activated SPS resource in the current time window through the deactivated DCI. The value of HARQ process number or index in the DCI indicates the start position of the SPS in the SPS group to be deactivated, and the DCI contains an indication for deactivation within the group. This explicit indication is only applicable to the release of SPS resources in an SPS resource group. In this case, when UE receives the gNB in one or more resources of the configured group of SPS resources in the time window, the UE releases the some or all other SPS resources in the current time window. This implicit indication is only applicable to the release of SPS resources in an SPS resource group, and an example of the predefined DCI is shown in <FIG>.

In some embodiments, if the burst spread in the same service of the TSN is changed, the pre-configured SPS resources are updated to meet the downlink scheduling requirement. The value of the burst spread (or alternatively, the range of the burst spread value) may increase or decrease, as shown in <FIG>.

In the case when the range of the burst spread value becomes smaller, the HARQ process number value or index value in the deactivated DCI format indicates the starting position of the remaining activated SPS resources after some SPS resources in the SPS group are deactivated. In an example, a <NUM>-bit field is used to indicate the number of remaining continuously activated SPS resources in the SPS group.

In the case when the range becomes larger, the operations performed depend on whether the SPS resources have been pre-configured or not. If the larger burst spread value can be handled in the pre-configured SPS resource group (i.e., the SPS resources have been pre-configured), the HARQ process number value or index value in the activated DCI format indicates the starting position of the SPS in the activated SPS group, and a <NUM>-bit field is used to indicate the number of continuously activated SPSs in the SPS group. However, if the larger value of the burst spread parameter is not included in the pre-configured SPS resource group (e.g., the SPS resources have not been pre-configured), the SPS resource group is reconfigured through gNB (e.g., Radio Resource Control (RRC) Reconfiguration information), and DCI is used to indicate the UE to activate the SPS resource.

In some embodiments, the propagation delay between the network node and the wireless device can be measured by using the round-trip time (RTT) method or by using a large subcarrier spacing (SCS). A large subcarrier spacing corresponds to the UE using a small subcarrier spacing (<NUM>, <NUM> or <NUM>) to transmit service information, and the gNB measuring the uplink signals of the UE using a large subcarrier spacing (<NUM> or <NUM>) to obtain the propagation delay value.

When the propagation delay is measured by using the RTT method or the large subcarrier spacing, at least one of the following conditions should be satisfied:.

As shown in <FIG>, when the gNB calculates the propagation delay and UE performs propagation delay compensation (PDC), the gNB sends the measurement value of the propagation delay to the UE. In an example, the granularity of the measurement value can be fixed or variable.

In this embodiments, a fixed granularity is characterized by at least one of the following:.

In this embodiments, a variable granularity is characterized by at least one of the following:.

If the granularity of the measured value is variable, an indication indicating the granularity of the current measurement value should be included when sending the measurement value of the propagation delay.

In some embodiments, at least one of the following conditions are included to trigger the gNB to send the measured value:.

In some embodiments, at least one of the following are used by gNB to transmit the measured value:.

In this case, the real value or relative value is transmitted through the predefined MAC CE, and the Logical Channel ID (LCID) reserved value in the DL-SCH that indicates the predefined MAC CE format. In an example, for the fixed granularity case, the MAC CE formats of the real value and relative value (in 10ns units) are shown in <FIG>, respectively. In another example, for the variable granularity case, the MAC CE formats of the real value and relative value (in 10ns units) are shown in <FIG>, respectively. In <FIG>, "<NUM>" means the current granularity is 10ns.

In some embodiments, when the UE uses a small subcarrier spacing (<NUM>, <NUM> or <NUM>) to transmit service information, the gNB measures the uplink signals of the UE through this subcarrier spacing. The gNB calculates a TA value with a smaller granularity or a propagation delay compensation value based on the measurement.

In these embodiments, the granularity of the measurement value can be fixed (e.g., as shown <FIG>) or variable (e.g., as shown in <FIG>).

In some embodiments, as shown in <FIG>, at least one of the following conditions are included to trigger the gNB to send the measured value:.

In some embodiments, after the gNB obtains the TA value with a smaller granularity or a PDC value, the gNB sends measurement values using one of the following methods:.

In some embodiments, when the UE has PDC capability, the gNB determines whether the reference time information that needs to be sent to the UE needs to be PDC. Furthermore, based on the result of the determination, the gNB transmits an indication to the UE that signals whether to perform the PDC.

As shown in <FIG>, when the UE sends the UE Assistance Information (UEAI) containing a request for time information to the gNB, the gNB sends the reference time information to the UE through unicast or broadcast, and indicates whether the UE should perform the PDC operation.

In the case of unicast transmitting time information, the gNB sends to the UE a message indicating whether to perform the PDC. If the message indicates that the UE should perform the PDC operation, the UE uses the actual measurement value to compensate for the time information. Herein, gNB should further provide the PDC information, which at least includes one of the following: updated TA value, TA with a smaller granularity, PDC value, and a valid TA value with a large subcarrier spacing.

In this example, the above information requires the UE to receive the PDC indication information and/or PDC information, and they can be received using either the DLInformationTransfer message or the ReferenceTimeInfo field.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication method <NUM>. The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, receiving, by a wireless device from a network node, a configuration for a pre-configured group of semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources with a bundling relationship.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication method <NUM>. The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, transmitting, by a network node to a wireless device, a configuration of a pre-configured group of semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources with a bundling relationship.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication method <NUM>. The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, determining, by a network node, a propagation delay of a wireless channel between the network node and a wireless device.

The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, transmitting, to the wireless device, a value based on the propagation delay.

<FIG> shows an example of a wireless communication method <NUM>. The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, receiving, by a wireless device from a network node, a value based on a propagation delay of a wireless channel between the network node and a wireless device.

The method <NUM> includes, at operation <NUM>, performing, based on the value of the propagation delay, a propagation delay compensation operation.

Embodiments of the disclosed technology provide the following technical solutions for resource configuration using the burst spread parameter, which mitigate the data transmission delay problems caused by jitter.

<FIG> is a block diagram representation of a portion of an apparatus, in accordance with some embodiments of the presently disclosed technology. An apparatus <NUM>, such as a base station or a wireless device (or UE), can include processor electronics <NUM> such as a microprocessor that implements one or more of the techniques presented in this document. The apparatus <NUM> can include transceiver electronics <NUM> to send and/or receive wireless signals over one or more communication interfaces such as antenna(s) <NUM>. The apparatus <NUM> can include other communication interfaces for transmitting and receiving data. Apparatus <NUM> can include one or more memories (not explicitly shown) configured to store information such as data and/or instructions. In some implementations, the processor electronics <NUM> can include at least a portion of the transceiver electronics <NUM>. In some embodiments, at least some of the disclosed techniques, modules or functions are implemented using the apparatus <NUM>.

Claim 1:
A method of wireless communication, comprising:
determining, by a network node, a propagation delay of a wireless channel between the network node and a wireless device,
wherein a measurement of the propagation delay is of a variable granularity, wherein the variable granularity is selected from a granularity group whose elements are determined by multiplying timing advance, TA, values corresponding to a predefined subcarrier spacing, SCS, by respective factors;
receiving, by the network node from the wireless device, a request for reference time information, wherein the request is included in a UE Assistance Information, UEAI, message; and
in response to receiving the request, transmitting, by the network node, to the wireless device, a value based on the propagation delay, an indication of the variable granularity, and an indication whether to perform a propagation delay compensation operation.