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EP-4736484-A1 - ENABLING COMMUNICATION FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPABILITY USER EQUIPMENT

EP4736484A1EP 4736484 A1EP4736484 A1EP 4736484A1EP-4736484-A1

Abstract

A method in a user equipment (UE) for transmitting capability information of a UE includes receiving, at the UE and from a radio access network (RAN) node, a UE capability request; generating, at the UE, a UE capability information message by: including one of (i) a first UE capability for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability or (ii) a second UE capability for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability, and refraining from including a different one of (i) the first UE capability or (ii) the second UE capability; and transmitting, from the UE to the RAN node responsive to the UE capability request, the UE capability information message.

Inventors

  • WU, CHIH-HSIANG

Assignees

  • GOOGLE LLC

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20240808

Claims (15)

  1. 1. A method implemented in a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: receiving, at the UE and from a radio access network (RAN) node, a UE capability request; generating, at the UE, a UE capability information message by: including one of (i) a first UE capability for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability or (ii) a second UE capability for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability, and refraining from including a different one of (i) the first UE capability or (ii) the second UE capability; and transmitting, from the UE to the RAN node responsive to the UE capability request, the UE capability information message.
  2. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the UE from the RAN node and in accordance with the UE capability information message, UE configuration parameters corresponding to one of the first UE type or the second UE type.
  3. 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising: determining, at the UE, whether to continue communicating with the RAN node based on whether the receiving the UE configuration parameters includes receiving a radio resource message containing the UE configuration parameters.
  4. 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: in a first instance: discarding, at the UE, the UE configuration parameters when the receiving the UE configuration parameters does not include receiving the radio resource message, and continuing, at the UE, to communicate with the RAN node; and in a second instance: PATENT APPLICATION Attorney Docket No.: 31730/306434-00 performing, at the UE, a reestablishment procedure with the RAN node when the receiving the UE configuration parameters does include receiving the radio resource message.
  5. 5. The method of any one of claims 1-4, wherein the generating is based on whether the UE has the first UE type or the second UE type.
  6. 6. The method of any one of claims 1-4, wherein the generating occurs in a first instance and the method further comprises: in a second instance, generating the UE capability information message by: including a third UE capability for a third UE type associated with a normal UE capability, and refraining from including the first UE type and the second UE type.
  7. 7. The method of any one of claims 1-6, further comprising: selecting a cell of the RAN node; in a first instance, when the UE has the first UE type and the cell allows access to the first UE type, accessing the cell and communicating with the RAN node via the cell as the first UE type; in a second instance, when the UE has the second UE type and the cell allows access to the second UE type, accessing the cell and communicating with the RAN node via the cell as the second UE type.
  8. 8. An apparatus, operating as a user equipment (UE), comprising processing hardware and configured to implement a method according to any one of the preceding claims.
  9. 9. A method implemented in a radio access network (RAN) node, the method comprising: transmitting, from the RAN node to a user equipment (UE), a UE capability enquiry; receiving, at the RAN node and responsive to the UE capability enquiry, one of (i) a first UE capability corresponding to a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability or (ii) a PATENT APPLICATION Attorney Docket No.: 31730/306434-00 second UE capability corresponding to a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability; and in a first instance, transmitting, from the RAN node to the UE and when receiving the first UE capability, first UE configuration parameters corresponding to the first UE type; in a second instance, transmitting, from the RAN node to the UE and when receiving the second UE capability, second UE configuration parameters corresponding to the second UE type.
  10. 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the receiving the first UE capability or the second UE capability includes receiving a UE capability container including the first UE capability or the second UE capability.
  11. 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the UE capability container is a UE- CapabilityRAT-ContainerList information element (IE).
  12. 12. The method of either of claim 10 or 11, further comprising: transmitting, from the RAN node to a core network (CN), the UE capability container.
  13. 13. The method of any one of claims 9-12, wherein the UE is a first UE, further comprising: receiving, at the CU, a third UE capability corresponding to a third UE type for a second UE, the third UE type associated with a normal UE capability; and transmitting, to the UE, normal UE configuration parameters corresponding to the third UE type.
  14. 14. The method of any one of claims 9-12, wherein the configuration parameters are associated with at least one of a physical layer configuration or a cell configuration.
  15. 15. An apparatus, operating as a distributed radio access network (RAN) node, comprising processing hardware and configured to implement a method according to any one of claims 9-14.

Description

PATENT APPLICATION Attorney Docket No.: 31730/306434-00 ENABLING COMMUNICATION FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPABILITY USER EQUIPMENT CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 63/532,002 entitled “ENABLING COMMUNICATION FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPABILITY USER EQUIPMENT,” filed on August 10, 2023. The entire contents of the provisional applications are hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE [0002] This disclosure relates to wireless communications and, more particularly, to enabling communication for UEs with further reduced capability (IRedCap). BACKGROUND [0003] 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 that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. [0004] In telecommunication systems, the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sublayer of the radio protocol stack provides services such as transfer of user-plane data, ciphering, integrity protection, etc. For example, the PDCP layer defined for the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (EUTRA) radio interface and New Radio (NR) provides sequencing of protocol data units (PDUs) in the uplink direction (from a user device, also known as a user equipment (UE), to a base station) as well as in the downlink direction (from the base station to the UE). Further, the PDCP sublayer provides services for signaling radio bearers (SRBs) to the Radio Resource Control (RRC) sublayer. The PDCP sublayer also provides services for data radio bearers (DRBs) to a Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) sublayer or a protocol layer such as an Internet Protocol (IP) layer, an Ethernet protocol layer, and an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) layer. Generally speaking, the UE and a base station PATENT APPLICATION Attorney Docket No.: 31730/306434-00 use SRBs to exchange RRC messages as well as non-access stratum (NAS) messages, and use DRBs to transport data on a user plane. [0005] Base stations that operate according to modem requirements support significantly larger bandwidth than base stations that operate according to older requirements. Accordingly, user equipment units (UEs) can support a 100 MHz bandwidth in frequency range 1 (FR1) and a 400 MHz bandwidth in a frequency range 2 (FR2). [0006] However, normal-capability UEs (i.e., UEs conforming to older requirements) may coexist with reduced-capability UEs. Compared to normal-capability UEs, reduced-capability UEs (also referred to as RedCap UEs) tend to have a lower bandwidth capability, a reduced processing capability, and/or fewer antennas. RedCap UEs also, depending on the device, lack support for dual connectivity and/or carrier aggregation. RedCap UEs have been established with a framework for enabling reduced capability NR devices suitable for a range of use cases, including industrial sensors, video surveillance, and wearables use cases, with requirements on low UE complexity and sometimes also on low UE power consumption. However, techniques for determining whether a UE is a normal-capability UE, a RedCap UE configured according to older protocols, or a RedCap UE configured according to modem protocols is desired. SUMMARY [0007] To further expand the market for RedCap use cases with relatively low cost, low energy consumption, and low data rate requirements, techniques to support UEs with further complexity reduction are desired. In particular, RedCap should provide NR support for low-tier devices between existing low power, wide area (LPWA) UEs and the capabilities of RedCap UEs. The supported peak data rate for RedCap UEs targets to 10Mbps lower than the peak data rate supported by older RedCap UEs. [0008] If a base station is unaware of whether a UE is a normal-capability UE, an older RedCap UE or a more modern RedCap UE, the base station can attempt to communicate with a modem RedCap UE in a manner that the UE does not support. Alternatively, the base station that incorrectly assumes a particular UE is a modem RedCap UE can unnecessarily refrain from using NR techniques and features when communicating with a UE, resulting in inefficiencies. PATENT APPLICATION Attorney Docket No.: 31730/306434-00 [0009] In some aspects, the techniques described herein relate to a method implemented in a user equipment (UE), the method including: receiving, at the UE and from a radio access network (RAN) node, a UE capability request; generating, at the UE, a UE capability information message by: including one of (i) a first UE capability for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability or (ii) a second UE capability for a second UE type asso