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EP-3378181-B1 - HYBRID AUTOMATIC REPEAT REQUEST (HARQ) PAYLOAD MAPPING FOR SHORT PHYSICAL UPLINK CONTROL CHANNEL (PUCCH) ON A SHARED COMMUNICATION MEDIUM

EP3378181B1EP 3378181 B1EP3378181 B1EP 3378181B1EP-3378181-B1

Inventors

  • CHENDAMARAI KANNAN, ARUMUGAM
  • LUO, TAO
  • PATEL, CHIRAG SURESHBHAI
  • KADOUS, TAMER ADEL

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20161118

Claims (13)

  1. A method for transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ, acknowledgments in a radio access technology, RAT, system on a wireless communication medium, comprising: receiving (602), at an access terminal (120; 800) from an access point (110), a plurality of downlink subframes on a downlink channel of the wireless communication medium, the plurality of downlink subframes carrying data for a plurality of HARQ processes; and transmitting (604), by the access terminal (120; 800) to the access point (110), acknowledgments for the plurality of downlink subframes on a subframe designated to carry uplink information of a short physical uplink control channel, sPUCCH, of shorter duration than other uplink control channels of the RAT system on one or more occasions, the subframe designated to carry uplink information including a plurality of bits, the plurality of bits corresponding to the plurality of downlink subframes, wherein an acknowledgment for an i th subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes is conveyed in an i th bit of the plurality of bits.
  2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the access terminal (120; 800) from the access point (110), a subsequent plurality of downlink subframes on the downlink channel of the wireless communication medium, the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes carrying data for the plurality of HARQ processes; and transmitting, by the access terminal (120; 800) to the access point (110), a subsequent set of acknowledgments for the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes on the subframe designated to carry uplink information of the short PUCCH of the wireless communication medium.
  3. The method of claim 2, wherein for a downlink subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes that was not decoded before transmission of a corresponding acknowledgment in the plurality of bits of the subframe designated to carry uplink information, the access terminal (120; 800) sets a corresponding bit of the plurality of bits to indicate that the downlink subframe was not acknowledged.
  4. The method of claim 3, wherein the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes includes a retransmission of the downlink subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes that was not decoded before transmission of the corresponding acknowledgment in the plurality of bits of the subframe designated to carry uplink information.
  5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of HARQ processes comprises a plurality of code blocks.
  6. The method of claim 5, wherein a number of the plurality of bits corresponding to the plurality of downlink subframes is a function of a number of the plurality of downlink subframes and a number of the plurality of HARQ processes and the plurality of code blocks.
  7. The method of claim 6, wherein the plurality of bits corresponding to the plurality of downlink subframes map directly to subframe indices of the plurality of downlink subframes.
  8. The method of claim 1, wherein an acknowledgment comprises a positive acknowledgment, ACK, or a negative acknowledgment, NACK.
  9. An apparatus for transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ, acknowledgments in a radio access technology, RAT, system on a wireless communication medium, comprising: a receiver (802) of an access terminal (120; 800) configured to receive (602), from an access point (110, a plurality of downlink subframes on a downlink channel of the wireless communication medium, the plurality of downlink subframes carrying data for a plurality of HARQ processes; and a transmitter of the access terminal (120; 800) configured to transmit (604), to the access point (110), acknowledgments for the plurality of downlink subframes on a subframe designated to carry uplink information of a short physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, of shorter duration than other uplink control channels of the RAT system on one or more occasions, the subframe designated to carry uplink information including a plurality of bits, the plurality of bits corresponding to the plurality of downlink subframes, wherein an acknowledgment for an i th subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes is conveyed in an i th bit of the plurality of bits.
  10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein: the receiver is further configured to receive, from an access point, a subsequent plurality of downlink subframes on the downlink channel of the wireless communication medium, the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes carrying data for the plurality of HARQ processes; and the transmitter is further configured to transmit, to an access point, a subsequent set of acknowledgments for the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes on the subframe designated to carry uplink information of the short PUCCH of the wireless communication medium.
  11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein, for a downlink subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes that was not decoded before transmission of a corresponding acknowledgment in the plurality of bits of the subframe designated to carry uplink information, the access terminal (120; 800) is configured to set a corresponding bit of the plurality of bits to indicate that the downlink subframe was not acknowledged.
  12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the subsequent plurality of downlink subframes includes a retransmission of the downlink subframe of the plurality of downlink subframes that was not decoded before transmission of the corresponding acknowledgment in the plurality of bits of the subframe designated to carry uplink information.
  13. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable code that when executed by a processor of an access terminal, causes the access terminal to perform the method of any one of claims 1-8.

Description

INTRODUCTION Aspects of this disclosure relate generally to telecommunications, and more particularly to operations on a shared communication medium and the like. Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content, such as voice, data, multimedia, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems are multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, etc.). Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems, and others. These systems are often deployed in conformity with specifications such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) provided by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UNM) and Evolution Data Optimized (EV-DO) provided by the Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), 802.11 provided by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), etc. In cellular networks, "macro cell" access points provide connectivity and coverage to a large number of users over a certain geographical area. A macro network deployment is carefully planned, designed, and implemented to offer good coverage over the geographical region. To improve indoor or other specific geographic coverage, such as for residential homes and office buildings, additional "small cell," typically low-power access points have recently begun to be deployed to supplement conventional macro networks. Small cell access points may also provide incremental capacity growth, richer user experience, and so on. Small cell LTE operations, for example, have been extended into the unlicensed frequency spectrum such as the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) band used by Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies. This extension of small cell LTE operation is designed to increase spectral efficiency and hence capacity of the LTE system. However, it may also encroach on the operations of other Radio Access Technologies (RATs) that typically utilize the same unlicensed bands, most notably IEEE 802.11x WLAN technologies generally referred to as "Wi-Fi." US 2014/036889 A1 describes a method in which a UE buffers a received physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) when the UE cannot receive a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) indicating the PDSCH. Once the PDCCH is acquired and the PDSCH is decoded, the UE transmits ACK/NACK to an eNB according to an ACK/NACK timing. EP 2538734 A1 describes a method of multi-subframe scheduling including sending a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request process number of currently-scheduling subframes and a continuous scheduling indication. US2013/195063 A1 discusses a plurality of DL subframes acknowledged by HARQ-ACK in a single subframe with a number of HARQ.ACK bits being the same as the number of subframes.3GPP drafts R1-157136 and R1-157-148 discuss short PUCCH format. SUMMARY The invention is defined in the independent claims. Preferred embodiments are set out in the dependent claims. Other objects and advantages associated with the aspects disclosed herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art based on the accompanying drawings and detailed description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings are presented to aid in the description of various aspects of the disclosure and are provided solely for illustration of the aspects and not limitation thereof. FIG. 1 is a system-level diagram illustrating an example wireless network environment.FIG. 2 illustrates an example Time Division Duplexing (TDD) frame structureFIG. 3A illustrates an exemplary transmission opportunity (TxOP) where the short Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) is utilized for acknowledgments according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 3B illustrates exemplary TxOPs where the short PUCCH is utilized for acknowledgments according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 3C illustrates an exemplary payload structure of the short PUCCH according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 4 illustrates an example operation of the subframe based short PUCCH payload mapping approach according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 5A illustrates an example operation of the dynamic Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process based short PUCCH payload mapping approach according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 5B illustrates an example operation of the fixed HARQ process based short PUCCH payload mapping approach according to at least one aspect of the disclosure.FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating an example method of communication in accordance with the techniques described herein.FIG. 7 is a device-level diagram illustrating example components of an access point and an access termi