Patent ID: 8792472

Claim:
A method for indicating when a UE should use standard or robust HARQ Medium Access Control (MAC) signaling on a MAC layer at a network wherein the MAC layer is associated with a radio resource control (RRC) layer, comprising the steps of: checking, at an eNB, whether or not a MAC protocol data unit (MAC-PDU) will contain control information, wherein said control information is signaled by the RRC layer at the network and placed in the MAC-PDU; when control information will be placed in the MAC-PDU, forming at the eNB an indication for the UE to use a robust configuration for a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback transmission; sending the indication to the UE in the MAC-PDU; when control information will not be placed in the MAC-PDU, suppressing the indication at the eNB; wherein using robust HARQ at the UE comprises one of enhancing physical channel properties during HARQ feedback; sending redundant HARQ feedback; and adding preamble or post-amble HARQ message feedback, to reduce detection error over a standard configuration for HARQ feedback transmission.