Patent ID: 8634343

Claim:
A transmission method for use in a multi-hop wireless communication system, the system comprising a base station apparatus, a user terminal and one or more intermediate apparatuses, said base station configured to transmit along a series of links forming a communication path extending from the base station to the user terminal via the intermediate apparatus, and the intermediate apparatus configured to receive from a previous apparatus along the communication path and to transmit to a subsequent apparatus along the communication path, the system transmitting using a downlink sub-frame in a time-division-duplex communication system, with a plurality of transmission windows within the downlink subframe, each window occupying a part of the downlink sub-frame, the transmission windows including a relay window for transmission by the base station to at least one of the intermediate apparatuses, the relay window being defined as the last window in the downlink sub-frame, the transmission method comprising: in at least one said downlink sub-frame assigning the relay window to the base station for data transmission to at least one of said intermediate apparatuses; so that at least one window between a control window assigned to said base station or one or more of said intermediate apparatuses for control information transmission and the relay window is assigned to the at least one of said intermediate apparatuses for data transmission; and transmitting in the downlink sub-frame.