PATENT DOCUMENT

Publication Number: US-12192011-B2
Application Number: US-202017593581-A
Country: US
Kind Code: B2

Title: Uplink control information reporting

Abstract:
A computer readable storage medium, a user equipment, a method and an integrated circuit that are used to perform operations. Operations include receiving, from a network, a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) transmissions in slots of a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) window, decoding each of the PDSCH transmissions in the slots of the HARQ window, determining a HARQ-ACK feedback for each PDSCH transmission in the HARQ-ACK window, bundling the HARQ-ACK feedback for at least two of the PDSCH transmissions and reporting the bundled HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARQ window to the network.

Claims:
What is claimed: 
     
       1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions, wherein the set of instructions when executed by a processor cause the processor of a user equipment (UE) to perform operations comprising:
 receiving, from a network, a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) transmissions in slots of a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) window, wherein at least one of the plurality of PDSCH transmissions include a PDSCH grouping index (DGI) field configured to indicate a group index of scheduled PDSCH transmission or semi-persistent scheduling (SPS); 
 decoding each of the PDSCH transmissions in the slots of the HARQ window; 
 determining a HARQ-ACK feedback for each PDSCH transmission in the HARQ-ACK window; 
 bundling the HARQ-ACK feedback for at least two of the PDSCH transmissions; and 
 reporting the bundled HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARQ window to the network. 
 
     
     
       2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots comprises a first set of PDSCH transmissions in slots received via a first component carrier (CC) and a second set of PDSCH transmissions slots received via a second CC, wherein the bundling of the HARQ feedback for the at least two PDSCH transmissions is on a per-CC basis. 
     
     
       3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots comprises a first set of PDSCH transmissions in slots received via a first component carrier (CC) and a second set of PDSCH transmissions slots received via a second CC, wherein the bundling of the HARQ feedback for the at least two PDSCH transmissions is performed across the first and second CCs. 
     
     
       4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 receiving, from the network, an identification of a number of PDSCH transmissions in slots in the HARQ window. 
 
     
     
       5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the HARQ-ACK feedback is reported as part of uplink control information (UCI) that is reported to the network. 
     
     
       6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the bundling comprises determining, starting from a first scheduled PDSCH transmission in the HARQ window, a number of continuous PDSCH transmissions within the HARQ window that were successfully decoded and the reporting the HARQ feedback includes reporting the number. 
     
     
       7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 6 , wherein reporting the number comprises reporting a HARQ-ACK state to the network, wherein a plurality of HARQ-ACK states are defined to represent the number of continuous PDSCH transmissions, starting from a first scheduled PDSCH transmission in the HARQ window, that were successfully decoded. 
     
     
       8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the bundling comprises a logical AND operation. 
     
     
       9. A user equipment (UE), comprising:
 a transceiver configured to connect to a network and receive, from the network, a plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots of a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) window, wherein at least one of the plurality of PDSCH transmissions include a PDSCH grouping index (DGI) field configured to indicate a group index of scheduled PDSCH transmission or semi-persistent scheduling (SPS); 
 a processor configured to decode each of the PDSCH transmissions in the slots of the HARQ-ACK window, determine a HARQ-ACK feedback for each PDSCH transmission in the HARQ-ACK window and bundle the HARQ-ACK feedback for at least two of the PDSCH transmissions, 
 wherein the transceiver is further configured to transmit the bundled HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARO window to the network. 
 
     
     
       10. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots comprises a first set of PDSCH transmissions in slots received via a first component carrier (CC) and a second set of PDSCH transmissions slots received via a second CC, wherein the bundling of the HARQ feedback for the at least two PDSCH transmissions is on a per-CC basis. 
     
     
       11. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots comprises a first set of PDSCH transmissions in slots received via a first component carrier (CC) and a second set of PDSCH transmissions slots received via a second CC, wherein the bundling of the HARQ feedback for the at least two PDSCH transmissions is performed across the first and second CCs. 
     
     
       12. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 receiving, from the network, an identification of a number of PDSCH transmissions in slots in the HARQ window. 
 
     
     
       13. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the HARQ-ACK feedback is reported as part of uplink control information (UCI) that is reported to the network. 
     
     
       14. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the bundling comprises determining, starting from a first scheduled PDSCH transmission in the HARQ window, a number of continuous PDSCH transmissions within the HARQ window that were successfully decoded and the reporting the HARQ feedback includes reporting the number. 
     
     
       15. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein reporting the number comprises reporting a HARQ-ACK state to the network, wherein a plurality of HARQ-ACK states are defined to represent the number of continuous PDSCH transmissions, starting from a first scheduled PDSCH transmission in the HARQ window, that were successfully decoded. 
     
     
       16. The UE of  claim 9 , wherein the bundling comprises a logical AND operation.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     A user equipment (UE) may establish a connection to at least one of a plurality of different networks or types of networks. For example, the UE may connect to a 5G new radio (NR) network. While connected to the network(s), the UE may utilize further network capabilities. For example, the UE may utilize a carrier aggregation (CA) functionality in which a primary component carrier (PCC) and at least one secondary component carrier (SCC) are used to communicate data over the various network bands. Because downlink (DL) CA increases the bandwidth over which a UE may receive information from the network, CA communicate with a network, CA may be one of the network functionalities that helps support ultra reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). URLLC is meant to service applications having stringent latency and reliability requirements. 
     However, in any network scheme the UE may have to feedback information to the network for various purposes. This feedback information may be Uplink Control Information (UCI). To support URLCC or any other high speed communications, new manners of effectively conveying the UCI information from the UE to the network are needed. 
     SUMMARY 
     According to some exemplary embodiments, a computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions is described. The set of instructions when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations including receiving, from a network, a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) transmissions in slots of a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) window, decoding each of the PDSCH transmissions in the slots of the HARQ window, determining a HARQ-ACK feedback for each PDSCH transmission in the HARQ-ACK window, bundling the HARQ-ACK feedback for at least two of the PDSCH transmissions and reporting the bundled HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARQ window to the network. 
     Further exemplary embodiments include a user equipment having a transceiver and a processor. The transceiver is configured to connect to a network and receive a plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots from the network. The processor is configured to decode each of the PDSCH transmissions in slots in a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) window, determine a HARQ acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback for each PDSCH transmission in the HARQ-ACK window and bundle the HARQ-ACK feedback for at least two of the PDSCH transmissions. The transceiver is further configured transmit the bundled HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARQ window to the network. 
     Still further exemplary embodiments include a computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions is described. The set of instructions when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations including receiving a plurality of Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) transmissions in slots from a network, wherein the plurality of PDSCH transmissions in slots comprises a first set of PDSCH transmissions in slots corresponding to a first service and a second set of PDSCH transmissions in slots corresponding to a second service, decoding each of the PDSCH transmissions in slots in a hybrid automatic repeating request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) window, determining a HARQ acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback for each PDSCH transmissions in the HARQ-ACK window and reporting the HARQ-ACK feedback for the HARQ window to the network. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG.  1    shows an exemplary network arrangement according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  2    shows an exemplary UE according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  3    shows an example of a first transmission schedule illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information on a per component carrier (CC) basis according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  4    shows an example of a second transmission schedule illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information across CCs according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  5    shows an exemplary table showing a HARQ-ACK feedback state based on the feedback from the UE according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  6    shows an example of a third transmission schedule illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information in the CC domain according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  7    shows an example of a fourth transmission schedule  700  illustrating the handling of HARQ-ACK feedback when there are two different types of PDSCH slots within the HARQ-ACK window according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIG.  8    shows an example of a UCI collision in an uplink (UL) slot according to various exemplary embodiments. 
         FIGS.  9 A-B  show further examples of UCI collisions in UL slots according to various exemplary embodiments. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The exemplary embodiments may be further understood with reference to the following description and the related appended drawings, wherein like elements are provided with the same reference numerals. The exemplary embodiments relate to combining hybrid automatic repeating request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) information to be included in UCI transmissions to provide for a more efficient manner of communicating the UCI information from a UE to a network. 
     The exemplary embodiments are described with regard to a UE. However, the use of a UE is merely for illustrative purposes. The exemplary embodiments may be utilized with any electronic component that may establish a connection with a network and is configured with the hardware, software, and/or firmware to exchange information and data with the network. Therefore, the UE as described herein is used to represent any electronic component. 
     The exemplary embodiments are also described with regard to the network being a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network and various types of information and transmissions related to 5G NR networks such as a Downlink Assignment Index (DAI), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), etc. It should be understood that any reference to 5G NR or the specific information or transmissions related to 5G NR networks is merely provided for illustrative purposes. Other types of networks may refer to the same concepts in different manners and the exemplary embodiments may apply to any network having the characteristics of the exemplary networks described herein. 
     Throughout this description, it will be described that uplink control information (UCI) will be reported back to the network. This UCI information will be described as being “bundled,” “combined,” “concatenated,” “compressed,” or “multiplexed.” It should be understood that each of these terms describe one or manners of combining multiple pieces of UCI information into a format that is smaller than the sum of the individual pieces of information. Exemplary manners of combining the UCI information will be provided below. 
     In addition, a general description of carrier aggregation (CA) is described below. However, the exemplary embodiments do not require that carrier aggregation be activated. As will be described in greater detail below, the exemplary embodiments are described with reference to a UE that is receiving downlink (DL) communications on at least two component carriers (CCs). CA is one exemplary manner of a UE receiving DL communications on two or more CCs. Those skilled in the art will understand that the exemplary embodiments may be applied to any scheme where the UE is receiving DL communications on two or more CCs, e.g., any dual connectivity (DC) scheme. 
     In some exemplary embodiments, the network may support carrier aggregation (CA) with a plurality of CCs. Each CC may represent a channel that facilitates communication between the UE and the network over a particular frequency band. A plurality of CCs may correspond to the same frequency band, each CC may correspond to a different band or a combination thereof. Further, each CC has a particular bandwidth, the more CCs the UE is configured with the more bandwidth that is available for communications with the network. CA may include a primary component carrier (PCC) and at least one secondary component carrier (SCC) that correspond to the same RAT being used to facilitate communication with the network. The PCC may be used, in part, for control information such as scheduling requests, uplink grants, downlink grants, etc. CA functionality enables the PCC and at least one SCC to combine bandwidths to exchange data with the UE. Thus, with CA, the PCC may provide a first portion of a total bandwidth for data to be exchanged while the SCC may provide a second portion of the total bandwidth. The combination of a PCC and a single SCC may be characterized as a CC combination that includes two carriers. To further increase the total available bandwidth for data to be exchanged with the UE, additional SCCs may be incorporated. 
     As described above, the UE may provide feedback information to the network for various purposes. This feedback information may include Uplink Control Information (UCI). In a 5G NR network, the UCI is typically sent back via the Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH). The UCI may include hybrid automatic repeating request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) information. Those skilled in the art will understand that HARQ is a form of error correction that may include encoding the original transmission with a forward error correction (FEC) code and sending parity bits that are used for correction at a later time, e.g., the HARQ retransmissions, when a receiver detects a problem with the UL transmission. Thus, for each data transmission from the network the UE may send a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback to the network allowing the network to understand whether the UE correctly received the communication and whether the network should send HARQ retransmissions for those communications received incorrectly. 
     According to some exemplary embodiments, the HARQ-ACK communications by the UE may be spatially bundled by bundling or combining ACKs and NACKs for multiple codewords. This spatial bundling of HARQ-ACK information across codewords may reduce the amount of HARQ-ACK bits that are transmitted back to the network. This reduction in the amount of data that is sent back to the network may reduce network traffic and latency in communications. In some exemplary embodiments, formats for downlink control information (DCI) are provided to support the UE in bundling the HARQ-ACK information. In some exemplary embodiments, manners of resolving collisions between different types of UCI information are also described. 
       FIG.  1    shows an exemplary network arrangement  100  according to various exemplary embodiments. The exemplary network arrangement  100  includes a UE  110 . Those skilled in the art will understand that the UE  110  may be any type of electronic component that is configured to communicate via a network, e.g., mobile phones, tablet computers, desktop computers, smartphones, phablets, embedded devices, wearables, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. It should also be understood that an actual network arrangement may include any number of UEs being used by any number of users. Thus, the example of a single UE  110  is merely provided for illustrative purposes. 
     The UE  110  may be configured to communicate with one or more networks. In the example of the network configuration  100 , the networks with which the UE  110  may wirelessly communicate are a 5G New Radio (NR) radio access network (5G NR-RAN)  120  and an LTE radio access network (LTE-RAN)  122 . However, it should be understood that the UE  110  may also communicate with other types of networks (e.g. legacy cellular network, WLAN, etc.) and the UE  110  may also communicate with networks over a wired connection. With regard to the exemplary embodiments, the UE  110  may establish a connection with the 5G NR-RAN  120  and/or the LTE-RAN  122 . Therefore, the UE  110  may have both a 5G NR chipset to communication with the 5G NR-RAN  120  and an LTE chipset to communicate with the LTE-RAN  122 . 
     The 5G NR-RAN  120  and the LTE-RAN  122  may be portions of cellular networks that may be deployed by cellular providers (e.g., Verizon, AT&amp;T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc.). These networks  120  and  122  may include, for example, cells or base stations (Node Bs, eNodeBs, HeNBs, eNBS, gNBs, gNodeBs, macrocells, microcells, small cells, femtocells, etc.) that are configured to send and receive traffic from UEs that are equipped with the appropriate cellular chip set. 
     The use of a separate 5G NR-RAN  120  and an LTE-RAN  122  is merely provided for illustrative purposes. An actual network arrangement may include a radio access network that includes architecture that is capable of providing both 5G NR RAT and LTE RAT services. For example, a next-generations radio access network (NG-RAN) may include a next generation Node B (gNB) that provides 5G NR services and a next generation evolved Node B (ng-eNB) that provides LTE services. The NG-RAN may be connected to at least one of the evolved packet core (EPC) or the 5G core (5GC). 
     The UE  110  may connect to the 5G NR-RAN  120  via at least one of the next generation Node B (gNB)  120 A or the gNB  120 B. The UE  110  may connect to the LTE-RAN  122  via at least one of the evolved Node B (eNB)  122 A or eNB  122 B. Those skilled in the art will understand that any association procedure may be performed for the UE  110  to connect to the 5G NR-RAN  120  or the LTE-RAN  122 . For example, as discussed above, the 5G NR-RAN  120  may be associated with a particular cellular provider where the UE  110  and/or the user thereof has a contract and credential information (e.g., stored on a SIM card). Upon detecting the presence of the 5G NR-RAN  120 , the UE  110  may transmit the corresponding credential information to associate with the 5G NR-RAN  120 . More specifically, the UE  110  may associate with a specific cell (e.g., the gNB  120 A of the 5G NR-RAN  120 ). Similarly, for access to LTE services, the UE  110  may associate with eNB  122 A. However, as mentioned above, the use of the 5G NR-RAN  120  and the LTE-RAN  122  is for illustrative purposes and any appropriate type of RAN may be used. 
     In addition to the RANs  120  and  122 , the network arrangement  100  also includes a cellular core network  130 , the Internet  140 , an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)  150 , and a network services backbone  160 . The cellular core network  130  may be considered to be the interconnected set of components that manages the operation and traffic of the cellular network. It may include the EPC and/or the 5GC. The cellular core network  130  also manages the traffic that flows between the cellular network and the Internet  140 . The IMS  150  may be generally described as an architecture for delivering multimedia services to the UE  110  using the IP protocol. The IMS  150  may communicate with the cellular core network  130  and the Internet  140  to provide the multimedia services to the UE  110 . The network services backbone  160  is in communication either directly or indirectly with the Internet  140  and the cellular core network  130 . The network services backbone  160  may be generally described as a set of components (e.g., servers, network storage arrangements, etc.) that implement a suite of services that may be used to extend the functionalities of the UE  110  in communication with the various networks. 
       FIG.  2    shows an exemplary UE  110  according to various exemplary embodiments. The UE  110  will be described with regard to the network arrangement  100  of  FIG.  1   . The UE  110  may represent any electronic device and may include a processor  205 , a memory arrangement  210 , a display device  215 , an input/output (I/O) device  220 , a transceiver  225 , and other components  230 . The other components  230  may include, for example, an audio input device, an audio output device, a battery that provides a limited power supply, a data acquisition device, ports to electrically connect the UE  110  to other electronic devices, sensors to detect conditions of the UE  110 , etc. 
     The processor  205  may be configured to execute a plurality of engines for the UE  110 . For example, the engines may include a UCI feedback engine  235 . The UCI feedback engine  235  may perform the bundling of the HARQ-ACK information within the UCI and resolve the UCI collisions as will be described in greater detail below. 
     The above referenced engines each being an application (e.g., a program) executed by the processor  205  is only exemplary. The functionality associated with the engines may also be represented as a separate incorporated component of the UE  110  or may be a modular component coupled to the UE  110 , e.g., an integrated circuit with or without firmware. For example, the integrated circuit may include input circuitry to receive signals and processing circuitry to process the signals and other information. The engines may also be embodied as one application or separate applications. In addition, in some UEs, the functionality described for the processor  205  is split among two or more processors such as a baseband processor and an applications processor. The exemplary embodiments may be implemented in any of these or other configurations of a UE. 
     The memory  210  may be a hardware component configured to store data related to operations performed by the UE  110 . The display device  215  may be a hardware component configured to show data to a user while the I/O device  220  may be a hardware component that enables the user to enter inputs. The display device  215  and the I/O device  220  may be separate components or integrated together such as a touchscreen. The transceiver  225  may be a hardware component configured to establish a connection with the 5G NR-RAN  120 , the LTE-RAN  122  etc. Accordingly, the transceiver  225  may operate on a variety of different frequencies or channels (e.g., set of consecutive frequencies). 
     In the following examples, it may be considered that the UE  110  is connected to the 5G NR-RAN  120  with CA active. The gNB  120 A may be considered to be serving the PCC (also referred to as CC0 hereinafter) and the gNB  120 B may be considered to be serving the SCC (also referred to as CC1 hereinafter). Thus, the control information being communicated to the UE  110  will be from the gNB  120 A via the PCC. Similarly, the UCI information sent from the UE  110  to the network will be to the gNB  120 A. Those skilled in the art will understand that this is only one possible arrangement of many arrangements and is merely being provided to provide context for the description of the exemplary embodiments. 
     As described above, in some exemplary embodiments, the UE  110  may spatially bundle ACKs and NACKs for multiple codewords in the HARQ-ACK feedback that is reported to the gNB  120 A. To accomplish this bundling, the UE  110  may receive information from the gNB  120 A as to the number of transmissions that the UE  110  will be receiving and are associated with a single PUCCH for HARQ-ACK feedback. 
     In some exemplary embodiments, this information may be provided to the UE  110  via a Downlink Assignment Index (DAI) and more specifically a counter DAI (C-DAI). The DAI provides the UE  110  with an indication of each of the scheduled downlink data transmissions on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH). The C-DAI provides the number of scheduled PDSCH transmissions. 
       FIG.  3    shows an example of a first transmission schedule  300  illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information on a per component carrier (CC) basis according to various exemplary embodiments. Throughout this description multiple transmission schedules are described. It should be understood that each of these transmission schedules are provided to illustrate the description of the exemplary embodiments. The exemplary embodiments are not limited to the exemplary transmission schedules as one of ordinary skill in the art will understand how to apply the principles described herein to many differing transmission scenarios. 
     The transmission schedule  300  shows PDSCH slots  311 - 314  for CC0  310  and PDSCH slots  321 - 324  for CC1  320 . The shaded slots  311 ,  312 ,  314 ,  321  and  323  are slots that have scheduled PDSCH transmissions, while the remaining slots  313 ,  322  and  324  are not scheduled. As described the DAI that is transmitted in a DCI by the gNB  120 A on the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) will indicate the scheduled slots to the UE  110 . Similarly, the C-DAI provides the UE with the number of scheduled slots. Thus, it should be understood that scheduled slots will have PDSCH transmissions scheduled therein and throughout this description, the term slot may also be used to refer to the PDSCH transmissions that are scheduled for the slot. 
     In this example, the count provided in the C-DAI is on a CC basis, e.g., the C-DAI for CC0  310  is updated from one to three (3) as shown by the numbers in the scheduled slots  311 ,  312  and  314  and the C-DAI for CC0  320  is updated from one to two (2) as shown by the numbers in the scheduled slots  321  and  323 . C-DAI denotes the accumulative number of PDCCH(s) with assigned PDSCH transmission(s) and PDCCH indicating downlink SPS release up to the present slot within a HARQ-ACK window. It should be understood that in this example, the HARQ-ACK window is four (4) slots. The size of the HARQ-ACK window may be configured for the UE  110  via radio resource control (RRC) signaling with the 5G NR-RAN  120  for this and the other examples described herein. In addition, the C-DAI may be updated from monitoring occasion to monitoring occasion. 
     The transmission schedule  300  also shows the PUCCH slot  330  transmitted by the UE  110  to the gNB  120 A that provides the HARQ-ACK feedback. As described above, the HARQ-ACK feedback in the PUCCH slot  330  comprises spatially bundled ACKs and NACKs for multiple codewords. In some exemplary embodiments, the ACKs and NACKs may be bundled using a logical AND operation. However, those skilled in the art will understand that there may be other operations used to bundle the ACKs and NACKs. 
     In the example of  FIG.  3   , the HARQ-ACK feedback for the slots  311  and  312  will be bundled and reported in the PUCCH slot  330 . In this exemplary embodiment, because the HARQ-ACK feedback is reported on a per CC basis, there is only one remaining scheduled slot  314  left for the CC0  310 . Thus, the HARQ-ACK feedback for slot  314  does not have a corresponding slot to be bundled with, and thus the HARQ-ACK feedback for slot  314  in PUCCH slot  330  will be only the ACK or NACK for this slot  314 . The HARQ-ACK feedback for the CC1  320  will be the bundled HARQ-ACK for the slots  321  and  323 . Thus, as can be seen from this example, if there is an even number of scheduled slots, the HARQ-ACK feedback information may be reduced by a factor of 2 based on the bundling performed by the UE  110 . Alternatively, the HARQ-ACK bits that are associated with all PDSCHs on a single CC e.g. PDSCH in the slot  311 / 312  as well as  314  are bundled together to generate a single bit for CC 1  320 . 
       FIG.  4    shows an example of a second transmission schedule  400  illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information across CCs according to various exemplary embodiments. The transmission schedule  400  is substantially similar to the transmission schedule  300 , except the C-DAI is accumulated across CCs rather than being limited to a per-CC basis as in  FIG.  3   . This accumulation across CCs will be described in greater detail below. The transmission schedule  400  shows PDSCH slots  411 - 414  for CC0  410  and PDSCH slots  421 - 424  for CC1  420 . The shaded slots  411 ,  412 ,  414 ,  421  and  423  are scheduled PDSCH slots, while the remaining slots  413 ,  422  and  424  are not scheduled. 
     In this example, the count provided in the C-DAI is accumulated across CCs. In this example, the HARQ-ACK window may also be considered to be 4 slots. However, as described above, the gNB  120 A may signal the UE  110  to use any size HARQ-ACK window. Thus, in this example, the scheduled slots are accumulated and numbered from 1-4 corresponding to the window size and then the next window is started at 1 again. As can be seen the accumulation is performed in slot order with the CC having a smaller index (e.g., CC0  410 ) having priority over any CCs having a larger index (e.g., CC1  420 ). Thus, in the example, the C-DAI indicates there are five (5) scheduled slots numbered 1-4 and 1. 
     The transmission schedule  400  also shows the PUCCH slot  430  transmitted by the UE  110  to the gNB  120 A that provides the HARQ-ACK feedback. Similar to the example described above with respect to  FIG.  3   , the HARQ-ACK feedback in the PUCCH slot  430  comprises spatially bundled ACKs and NACKs for multiple codewords based on the C-DAI. For example, the HARQ-ACK information for PDSCH slot  411  of CC0  410  may be bundled with the HARQ-ACK information for PDSCH slot  421  of CC1  420  using, for example, the logical AND operation (or any other data combination operation). 
       FIG.  5    shows an exemplary table  500  showing a HARQ-ACK feedback state based on the feedback from the UE  110  according to various exemplary embodiments. From the above description, it should be understood that the HARQ-ACK feedback state indicates a number of continuous PDSCH slots that have been successfully decoded by the UE  110  starting from the first scheduled PDSCH subframe with C-DAI=1. For example, referring to table  500 , State 1 indicates that one (1) PDSCH slot (e.g., the first PDSCH slot in the HARQ-ACK window) has been decoded successfully. In a further example as shown in table  500 , State 4 indicates that four (4) continuous PDSCH slots (starting from the first slot of the HARQ-ACK window) have been decoded successfully. 
     Thus, after receiving the HARQ-ACK feedback, the gNB  120 A may determine how many PDSCH slots starting from the first scheduled PDSCH slot with C-DAI=1 have been successfully decoded by UE. The gNB  120 A may then only retransmit the PDSCH slots having a higher C-DAI than the last successfully decoded slot. 
     In other exemplary embodiments, the UE  110 , instead of reporting the individual ACKs and NACKs to the gNB  120 A may report the states as shown in the table  500  of  FIG.  5   . For example, referring to the example of  FIG.  4   , it may be considered that the HARQ-ACK window is 4 slots and the UE  110  successfully decodes the first three (3) slots of the window (e.g., C-DAI=1-3). In this example, the UE  110  may report State 3 as shown in table  500  to the gNB  120 A in the PUCCH. This will indicate to the gNB  120 A that the first three (3) scheduled PDSCH slots starting with C-DAI=1 have been decoded successfully. The gNB  120 A may then retransmit the scheduled PDSCH slots having a C-DAI&gt;3 (e.g., the slot having C-DAI=4 for this example). 
     In other exemplary embodiments, a time-domain HARQ-ACK bundling may be provided. For example, HARQ-ACK bits may be bundled across slots within a HARQ-ACK bundling window. The bundling may be performed by a logical AND operation of all the corresponding individual HARQ-ACK bits on a per codeword basis. This time-domain HARQ-ACK bundling may be performed on a per CC basis. For example, if a CC includes a single codeword, the HARQ-ACK feedback for each scheduled slot in the HARQ-ACK window of the CC may be combined, e.g., using the logical AND operation. Thus, this bundling will result in one HARQ-ACK bit being generated per CC. This single HARQ-ACK bit for the CC may then be reported by the UE  110  to the gNB  120 A. In another example, if a CC includes two codewords, the HARQ-ACK feedback for each codeword for each scheduled slot in the HARQ-ACK window of the CC may be combined, e.g., using the logical AND operation. Thus, this bundling will result in two HARQ-ACK bits being generated per CC. 
       FIG.  6    shows an example of a third transmission schedule  600  illustrating the bundling of HARQ-ACK information in the CC domain according to various exemplary embodiments. The transmission schedule  600  will be used to describe exemplary embodiments related to CC-domain HARQ-ACK bundling. The transmission schedule  600  shows PDSCH slots  611 - 614  for CC0  610  and PDSCH slots  621 - 624  for CC1  620 . The shaded slots  611 ,  612 ,  614 ,  621  and  623  are scheduled PDSCH slots, while the remaining slots  613 ,  622  and  624  are not scheduled. 
     The CC-domain HARQ-ACK bundling may include two separate bundling operations. In a first operation, the spatial HARQ-ACK bundling may be performed across multiple codewords within each PDSCH transmission. For example, referring to  FIG.  6   , the HARQ-ACK feedback for each codeword for each individual PDSCH slot (e.g., slot  611 ) may be bundled. Thus, in the example of  FIG.  6   , after the first operation there may be five (5) bundled HARQ-ACKs corresponding to the five (5) scheduled PDSCH slots  611 ,  612 ,  614 ,  621  and  623 . As described above, the bundling is based on bundling for two or more codewords within each PDSCH slot. 
     In a second operation, a bundled HARQ-ACK generated in the first operation is further bundled across CCs within each slot. For example, the bundled HARQ-ACK for slot  611  in the CC0  610  may be bundled with the corresponding slot  621  in the CC1  620 . In some exemplary embodiments, the C-DAI may be accumulated across CCs on a per monitoring occasion basis in the CA scenario. 
       FIG.  7    shows an example of a fourth transmission schedule  700  illustrating the handling of HARQ-ACK feedback when there are two different types of PDSCH slots within the HARQ-ACK window according to various exemplary embodiments. The transmission schedule  700  will be used to describe exemplary embodiments related to concatenating HARQ-ACKS for PDSCH slots having two different PDSCH groups. For example, each PDSCH group maybe associated with one service type. In one exemplary embodiment, a first PDSCH group is associated with a URLCC service and a second PDSCH group is associated with an enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) service. A group index of a PDSCH may be explicitly signaled as part of the DCI format, e.g., a bit of the DCI may be set to 0 to indicate the PDSCH slot is a member of the first group while the bit may be set to 1 to indicate the PDSCH slot is a member of the second group. 
     Referring to  FIG.  7   , the transmission schedule  700  shows the slots  711 - 713  for CC0  710  and the slots  721 - 723  for CC1  720  are used for the first group PDSCH transmissions. Again, the shaded slots  711 ,  712 ,  721  and  723  are scheduled for first group PDSCH transmissions, while the remaining slots  713  and  722  are not scheduled. In addition, the transmission schedule  700  shows the slot  719  for CC0  710  and the slot  729  for CC1  720  are used for the second group PDSCH. 
     In some exemplary embodiments, the HARQ-ACK feedback may be bundled in the same manner as was described above for other exemplary embodiments and the UE  110  may then report the HARQ-ACK feedback to the gNB  120 A via the PUCCH slot  730 . 
     However, there may be some special cases with respect to the multiple groups of PDSCHs. For example, there may be situations where the corresponding PUCCH resources carrying HARQ-ACK bits for the two groups are overlapped. In this situation, the DCI that provided the scheduling information for the second group of PDSCH slots to the UE  110  may be modified. In the example of  FIG.  7   , the DCIs providing this scheduling information are shown in the transmission schedule  700  as DCI  740  for CC0  710  and DCI  750  for CC1  720 . 
     An example of the DCIs  740  and  750  are shown above the transmission schedule  700 . As shown in  FIG.  7   , the DCI format for DCIs  740  and  750  comprises a first portion  760  and a second portion  770 . The second portion  770  includes the information for the second group of PDSCH slots, e.g., the C-DAI and the total-DAI (T-DAI). However, the DCI format also includes first portion  760  that includes the T-DAI for the first group of PDSCH slots that are scheduled by other DCI formats transmitted in other slots  711 / 712 / 713 / 721 / 723 . This provides the UE  110  with PDSCH scheduling information of the first group that includes the DL SPS release up to the slot i (e.g., in this example up to the location including slots  719  and  729 ). As shown in the transmission schedule  700 , this information may be explicitly signaled in slot i using, for example, a 2-bit T-DAI  760 . 
     In some exemplary embodiments, the value of T-DAI  760  may be equal or larger than the total number of scheduled group  1  PDSCH slots in the HARQ-ACK bundling window. This may provide the gNB  120 A with an opportunity to schedule additional first group PDSCH transmissions after the second group PDSCH slots that are scheduled via DCIs  740 / 750 . For example, the T-DAI in the example of  FIG.  7    may be set to six (6) allowing two additional first group PDSCH transmissions to be scheduled later but still to feedback HARQ-ACK on PUCCH  730 . 
     In the above examples, it was described that the UCI feedback (e.g., including the bundled HARQ-ACK operation) will be performed and reported back to the gNB  120 A if it is transmitted over the PUCCH. However, in some exemplary embodiments, the gNB  120 A may configure the UE  110  to perform the UCI multiplexing, including both HARQ-ACK bundling operation in  FIG.  3   / 4 / 5 / 6  as well as the HARQ-ACK concatenation operation described in  FIG.  7   , in the PUCCH and/or the PUSCH. This configuration may be signaled to the UE  110  through higher layers (e.g., RRC signaling or a MAC CE) or through PDCCH signaling. In some embodiments, a common signaling may be specified to indicate enabling of UCI on both PUCCH and PUSCH. While, in other embodiments, separate signaling may be used to control UCI multiplexing operations independently for PUCCH and PUSCH transmission. 
     In some exemplary embodiments, the UE  110  may drop UCI information associated with lower priority services (e.g., eMBB traffic), if the UCI multiplexing for different service types is not enabled. 
     According to other aspects of the exemplary embodiments, additional fields may be specified. A first new field may be a PDSCH grouping index (DGI). The DGI field may be used to indicate the group index of a scheduled PDSCH transmission or SPS release. A second field may be a HARQ-ACK Request (AR). The AR field transmitted in slot i may trigger the UE to retransmit the HARQ-ACK bits corresponding to detection of DCI formats each providing a same value of indicated DGI field in the earlier slot. The UE  110  may append the HARQ-ACK information associated with the PDSCH group indicated by the DGI field to the newly generated HARQ-ACK information for the multiplexing UCI transmission occasion. 
       FIG.  8    shows an example of a UCI collision in an uplink (UL) slot  805  according to various exemplary embodiments. In the example of  FIG.  8   , it may be considered that there are two PUCCH transmissions scheduled for the slot  805 . The first PUCCH transmission may be, for example, a PUCCH transmission  810  that includes the HARQ-ACK feedback for a URLLC service being used by the UE  110 . The second PUCCH transmission may be, for example, a PUCCH transmission  820  that includes the HARQ-ACK feedback for an eMBB service being used by the UE  110 . In this example, the URLLC PUCCH transmission  810  is shown as being two (2) symbols and may be considered to be “puncturing” the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820 . 
     The exemplary embodiments may provide multiple manners of handling such a UCI collision. In general, the manners of handling the UCI collision may be based on the priority of the service for the PUCCH transmission. In the example of  FIG.  8   , it may be considered that the URLLC service has a higher priority than the eMBB service. However, it should be noted that the use of these two services are only exemplary and the UE  110  may be accessing other types of services that have various priorities. To resolve the UCI collision, the UE  110  may understand the relative priority between the PUCCH transmissions for the two services that are colliding. 
     In some exemplary embodiments, to resolve the collision, the UE  110  may skip the PUCCH transmission associated with the lower prioritized service, e.g., the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820 . 
     In some exemplary embodiments, to resolve the collision, the UE  110  may partially transmit the PUCCH transmission associated with the lower prioritized service. For example, as shown in  FIG.  8   , the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820  may begin after completion of the URLLC PUCCH transmission  810 , e.g., during the time  830 . This partial transmission example may depend on the predefine processing time (e.g., N2 value). For example, if the processing time exceeds the amount of time left in the slot  805  after completion of the URLCC PUCCH transmission  810 , the UE  110  may completely skip the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820 . 
     In some exemplary embodiments, the UE  110  may decide to skip or partially transmit a lower priority PUCCH transmission (e.g., eMBB transmission  820 ) based on various conditions. The conditions may include, for example, a ratio of resources punctured by the URLCC PUCCH transmission  810  over the total number of resource elements of the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820 . If the ratio is above a predefined threshold, the UE  110  may completely skip the eMBB PUCCH transmission  820 . 
     Other exemplary conditions may include, the PUCCH format type, a difference in transmission power between non-overlapped symbols of the PUCCH transmissions and whether the reference symbols of the lower prioritized PUCCH transmission are punctured or not. It should be understood that these conditions may be used singularly or in any combination with other conditions for the UE to make the transmission decision with respect to the lower prioritized PUCCH transmission. 
       FIGS.  9 A-B  show further examples of UCI collisions in UL slots  905  and  955  according to various exemplary embodiments. In the example of  FIG.  9 A , it may be considered that there are two PUCCH transmissions scheduled for the slot  905 . The PUCCH transmissions may be, for example, a higher priority PUCCH transmission  910  (e.g., for a URLLC service) and a lower PUCCH transmission  920  (e.g., for an eMBB service) being used by the UE  110 . In this example, the URLLC PUCCH transmission  910  is shown puncturing the eMBB PUCCH transmission  920 . 
     In the example of  FIG.  9 A , the lower priority PUCCH transmission (e.g., eMBB PUCCH transmission  920 ) may be deferred from the slot  905  to the next UL slot  908 . This deferring of the lower priority PUCCH transmission may be autonomous, e.g., when there is such a UCI collision, the lower priority transmission is autonomously deferred to the next UL slot. 
     In the example of  FIG.  9 B , it may be considered that there are two PUCCH transmissions scheduled for the slot  955 . The PUCCH transmissions may be, for example, a higher priority PUCCH transmission  960  (e.g., for a URLLC service) and a lower PUCCH transmission  970  (e.g., for an eMBB service) being used by the UE  110 . In this example, the URLLC PUCCH transmission  960  is shown puncturing the eMBB PUCCH transmission  970 . 
     In the example of  FIG.  9 B , the lower priority PUCCH transmission (e.g., eMBB PUCCH transmission  970 ) may be deferred until the completion of the higher priority PUCCH transmission ((e.g., URLLC PUCCH transmission  960 ). Thus, in this example, the eMBB PUCCH transmission  970  is still started in the originally scheduled slot  955  but it is deferred until the completion of the higher priority transmission. If the eMBB PUCCH transmission  970  is not completed within the slot  955 , the remainder of the transmission may be completed in the next UL slot  958 . 
     According to certain aspects of this disclosure, a set of beta-offset values may be pre-configured for a UE by RRC signaling and one or more of the beta-offset values may be dynamically selected using a beta-offset indicator field in the DCI format at least based on the PUSCH transmission. To provide an example, two beta-offset values may be configured by RRC signaling on a per UE basis. One of two configured values may be dynamically signaled by a beta-offset indicator field in the DCI format depending on the scheduled PUSCH type, e.g. eMBB Service type or URLLC service type. As one example, a smaller beta-offset value may be configured for UCI piggyback on PUSCH if PUSCH is used for URLLC to avoid performance degradation of PUSCH due to the UCI transmission. 
     Those skilled in the art will understand that the above-described exemplary embodiments may be implemented in any suitable software or hardware configuration or combination thereof. An exemplary hardware platform for implementing the exemplary embodiments may include, for example, an Intel x86 based platform with compatible operating system, a Windows OS, a Mac platform and MAC OS, a mobile device having an operating system such as iOS, Android, etc. In a further example, the exemplary embodiments of the above described method may be embodied as a program containing lines of code stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium that, when compiled, may be executed on a processor or microprocessor. 
     Although this application described various embodiments each having different features in various combinations, those skilled in the art will understand that any of the features of one embodiment may be combined with the features of the other embodiments in any manner not specifically disclaimed or which is not functionally or logically inconsistent with the operation of the device or the stated functions of the disclosed embodiments. 
     It is well understood that the use of personally identifiable information should follow privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmental requirements for maintaining the privacy of users. In particular, personally identifiable information data should be managed and handled so as to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of authorized use should be clearly indicated to users. 
     It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made in the present disclosure, without departing from the spirit or the scope of the disclosure. Thus, it is intended that the present disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalent.

Metadata:
Filing Date: 20200408
Publication Date: 20250107
Grant Date: 20250107
Priority Date: 20200408
Inventors: HE, HONG
ZHANG, DAWEI
XU, FANGLI
CUI, JIE
OTERI, OGHENEKOME
ZENG, WEI
YANG, WEIDONG
TANG, YANG
WU, ZHIBIN
Assignee: APPLE INC
CPC Classifications: [{"code": "H04L5/001", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1812", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1671", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L5/001", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1861", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1812", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1671", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1858", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1896", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1854", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1854", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1854", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1861", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L5/001", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1812", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1671", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1854", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}]
Family ID: 78023765