EP-4736354-A1 - METHODS, INFRASTRUCTURE EQUIPMENT, AND COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES

EP4736354A1EP 4736354 A1EP4736354 A1EP 4736354A1EP-4736354-A1

Abstract

A method of operating an infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network configured to transmit signals to and/or to receive signals from a communications device via a wireless access interface is provided. The method comprises receiving, from each of a plurality of communications devices, an indication of at least one radio channel characteristic associated with that communications device, wherein the plurality of communications devices together with the infrastructure equipment form a subnetwork of the wireless communications network, determining, based on the received indications of the at least one radio channel characteristic, that one or more proximity groups are to be formed, wherein each of the proximity groups is to comprise at least two of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork, the at least one radio channel characteristic being similar for all of the at least two communications device in each proximity group, and maintaining, at the infrastructure equipment, the one or more proximity groups.

Inventors

WONG, SHIN HORNG
PRIYANTO, Basuki

Assignees

Sony Group Corporation
Sony Europe B.V.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260506
Application Date: 20240327

Claims (20)

1. A method of operating an infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network configured to transmit signals to and/or to receive signals from a communications device via a wireless access interface, the method comprising receiving, from each of a plurality of communications devices, an indication of at least one radio channel characteristic associated with that communications device, wherein the plurality of communications devices together with the infrastructure equipment form a subnetwork of the wireless communications network, determining, based on the received indications of the at least one radio channel characteristic, that one or more proximity groups are to be formed, wherein each of the proximity groups is to comprise at least two of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork, the at least one radio channel characteristic being similar for all of the at least two communications device in each proximity group, and maintaining, at the infrastructure equipment, the one or more proximity groups.
2. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to a first of the communications devices, a first downlink grant scheduling a first set of downlink resources of the wireless access interface within which the infrastructure equipment is to transmit first downlink data to the first communications device, receiving, from at least a second of the communications devices, a feedback signal indicating whether or not second downlink data transmitted by the infrastructure equipment to the second communications device was successfully received by the second communications device, and transmitting, to the first communications device, a second downlink grant scheduling a second set of downlink resources based on the received feedback signal, and wherein the first communications device and the second communications device both form part of a first of the proximity groups.
3. A method according to Claim 2, wherein the feedback signal indicates that the second communications device did not successfully receive the second downlink data, and the method comprises determining, on the basis of the feedback signal, that the first communications device would not successfully receive the first downlink data within the first set of downlink resources, and transmitting, to the first communications device before receiving a feedback signal from the first communications device for the first downlink data transmitted within the first set of downlink resources, the second downlink grant scheduling the second set of downlink resources of the wireless access interface within which the infrastructure equipment is to transmit a re-transmission of the first downlink data to the first communications device, wherein the feedback signal received from the first communications device indicates whether the initial transmission of the first downlink data within the first set of downlink resources was successfully received by the communications device
4. A method according to Claim 2, wherein the feedback signal indicates that the second communications device did not successfully receive the second downlink data, and the method comprises determining, on the basis of the feedback signal, that the first communications device would not successfully receive the first downlink data within the first set of downlink resources, and transmitting, to the first communications device before transmitting the first downlink data within the first set of downlink resources, the second downlink grant scheduling the second set of downlink resources of the wireless access interface within which the infrastructure equipment is to transmit the first downlink data to the first communications device instead of in the first set of downlink resources, wherein the second set of downlink resources is configured with a different value of at least one parameter to the first set of downlink resources.
5. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to the infrastructure equipment, an indication of a maximum modulation and coding scheme, MCS, that, if the first downlink data had been transmitted in accordance with the maximum MCS, the first communications device would have been able to successfully receive the first downlink data in accordance with a predefined error rate.
6. A method according to Claim 5, wherein the indication of the maximum MCS indicates that, if the first downlink data had been transmitted in accordance with an MCS higher than the maximum MCS, the first communications device would not have been able to successfully receive the first downlink data in accordance with the predefined error rate.
7. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to a first of the communications devices, a feedback signal indicating that first uplink data transmitted by the first communications device to the infrastructure equipment was not successfully received by the infrastructure equipment, and receiving, from a second of the communications devices, a re-transmission of second uplink data, the second uplink data having previously been received by the infrastructure equipment from the second communications device, wherein the re-transmission of the second uplink data is received without the infrastructure equipment having indicated that the second communications device was to transmit the retransmission of the second uplink data.
8. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to at least a first of a plurality of communications devices in a first proximity group, information to be used by the first communications device in transmitting uplink data to the infrastructure equipment.
9. A method according to Claim 8, wherein the information comprises an indication that the infrastructure equipment did not successfully receive first uplink data transmitted by at least a second of the plurality of communications devices in the first proximity group, and wherein the method comprises receiving, from the first communications device, a re-transmission of second uplink data, the second uplink data having previously been received by the infrastructure equipment from the first communications device, wherein the re-transmission of the second uplink data is received without the infrastructure equipment having indicated that the first communications device was to transmit the retransmission of the second uplink data.
10. A method according to Claim 8, wherein the information comprises an indication of a maximum modulation and coding scheme, MCS, that, if uplink data were to be transmitted to the infrastructure equipment from that communications device in accordance with the maximum MCS, the infrastructure equipment would have been able to successfully receive the uplink data in accordance with a predefined error rate.
11. A method according to Claim 10, wherein the indication of the maximum MCS indicates that, if the uplink data had been transmitted in accordance with an MCS higher than the maximum MCS, the infrastructure equipment would not have been able to successfully receive the uplink data in accordance with the predefined error rate.
12. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to a first of the communications devices, an uplink grant scheduling a set of uplink resources of the wireless access interface within which the first communications device is to transmit a retransmission of first uplink data to the infrastructure equipment, the first uplink data having previously been received by the infrastructure equipment from the first communications device, and receiving, from a second of the communications devices, a re-transmission of second uplink data, the second uplink data having previously been received by the infrastructure equipment from the second communications device, wherein the re-transmission of the second uplink data is received without the infrastructure equipment having indicated that the second communications device was to transmit the retransmission of the second uplink data.
13. A method according to Claim 1, wherein the at least one radio channel characteristic indicated by each communications device is an estimation of a channel profile performed by that communications device.
14. A method according to Claim 13, wherein the channel profile is a quantized channel profile, the quantized channel profile having been quantized by indicating a received signal strength at each of a plurality of time points relative to one or more threshold received signal strengths.
15. A method according to Claim 1, wherein the at least one radio channel characteristic indicated by each communications device is a physical position of that communications device.
16. A method according to Claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork forms part of at least two of the proximity groups.
17. A method according to Claim 16, wherein one of the at least two proximity groups of which the at least one of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork forms part is associated with the infrastructure equipment, and the others of the at least two proximity groups of which the at least one of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork forms part is associated with one or more other infrastructure equipment of the subnetwork.
18. A method according to Claim 16, wherein all of the at least two proximity groups of which the at least one of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork forms part are associated with the infrastructure equipment.
19. A method according to Claim 16, wherein only one of the at least two proximity groups of which the at least one of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork forms part is active at any given time.
20. A method according to Claim 1, comprising transmitting, to each of the plurality of communications devices of the subnetwork, a measurement command, wherein the infrastructure equipment receives the indication of the at least one radio channel characteristic associated with each communications device based on the transmitted measurement command.

Description

METHODS, INFRASTRUCTURE EQUIPMENT, AND COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES BACKGROUND Field of Disclosure The present disclosure relates to communications devices, infrastructure equipment and methods for the transmission and/or reception of data by a communications device in a wireless communications network. The present application claims the Paris Convention priority from European patent application number EP23181917.8, filed on 27 June 2023, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. Description of Related Art The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention. Previous generation mobile telecommunication systems, such as those based on the 3GPP defined UMTS and Long Term Evolution (LTE) architecture, are able to support a wider range of services than simple voice and messaging services offered by previous generations of mobile telecommunication systems. For example, with the improved radio interface and enhanced data rates provided by LTE systems, a user is able to enjoy high data rate applications such as mobile video streaming and mobile video conferencing that would previously only have been available via a fixed line data connection. The demand to deploy such networks is therefore strong and the coverage area of these networks, i.e. geographic locations where access to the networks is possible, is expected to continue to increase rapidly. Current and future wireless communications networks are expected to routinely and efficiently support communications with an ever-increasing range of devices associated with a wider range of data traffic profiles and types than existing systems are optimised to support. For example, it is expected future wireless communications networks will be expected to efficiently support communications with devices including reduced complexity devices, machine type communication (MTC) devices, high resolution video displays, virtual reality headsets, extended Reality (XR) and so on. Some of these different types of devices may be deployed in very large numbers, for example low complexity devices for supporting the “The Internet of Things”, and may typically be associated with the transmissions of relatively small amounts of data with relatively high latency tolerance. Other types of device, for example supporting high-definition video streaming, may be associated with transmissions of relatively large amounts of data with relatively low latency tolerance. Other types of device, for example used for autonomous vehicle communications and for other critical applications, may be characterised by data that should be transmitted through the network with low latency and high reliability. A single device type might also be associated with different traffic profiles / characteristics depending on the application(s) it is running. For example, different considerations may apply for efficiently supporting data exchange with a smartphone when it is running a video streaming application (high downlink data) as compared to when it is running an Internet browsing application (sporadic uplink and downlink data) or being used for voice communications by an emergency responder in an emergency scenario (data subject to stringent reliability and latency requirements). In view of this there is expected to be a desire for current wireless communications networks, for example those which may be referred to as 5G or new radio (NR) systems / new radio access technology (RAT) systems, or indeed future 6G wireless communications, as well as future iterations / releases of existing systems, to efficiently support connectivity for a wide range of devices associated with different applications and different characteristic data traffic profiles and requirements. SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE The present disclosure can help address or mitigate at least some of the issues discussed above. Some embodiments of the present technique can provide a method of operating an infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network configured to transmit signals to and/or to receive signals from a communications device via a wireless access interface. The method comprises receiving, from each of a plurality of communications devices, an indication of at least one radio channel characteristic associated with that communications device, wherein the plurality of communications devices together with the infrastructure equipment form a subnetwork of the wireless communications network, determining, based on the received indications of the at least one radio channel characteristic, that one or more proximity groups are to be formed, wherein each of the