US-12621813-B2 - Downlink control information to schedule downlink data on physical channel and enhance control channel decoding

US12621813B2US 12621813 B2US12621813 B2US 12621813B2US-12621813-B2

Abstract

The technology described herein is directed towards informing user equipment of which physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) locations in a slot symbol are allocated for (PDCCH) information. With the user equipment having this allocation information, a base station (e.g., gNodeB) scheduler can schedule unused PDCCH resource element group(s) to a UE for physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) decoding. Further, because the allocation pattern is known to a UE, the UE need not blindly scan and decode all potential resource element groups in a slot, instead only decoding the PDCCH data in the allocated pattern to find the UE-specific information, and thereby proceed with PDSCH decoding. A defined identifier at a predefined symbol location informs the user equipment when the PDCCH allocation information is present. If not present, the UE blindly decodes all the resource element groups to find the UE-specific information to decode PDSCH data, as is currently done.

Inventors

Ilya Portnik
Eran Goldstein
Jayaram Venguduswamy Srinivasan
Libin Jose Meledam

Assignees

DELL PRODUCTS L.P.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20231012

Claims (20)

1 . A user equipment, comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising: determining, based on a defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier obtained from a base station, whether resource element group pattern allocation information is present in a predefined downlink control information symbol location of a symbol; and in response to the determining that the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present in the predefined downlink control information symbol location, identifying, based on the information within the predefined downlink control information symbol location, a candidate resource element group pattern allocation space, and scanning the candidate resource element group pattern allocation space to obtain downlink control information that is specific to the user equipment within the candidate resource element group pattern allocation space, without scanning a full resource element group pattern allocation within an entire possible resource element group pattern allocation space.
2 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise, in response to the determining that the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present, determining whether the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, and in response to determining that the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, locating at least one resource element group on the symbol, based on a downlink control information-physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier and the downlink control information, that is not used for resource element group pattern allocation data, and that comprises a resource block specific to the user equipment that is occupied by physical downlink shared channel data.
3 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the determining of whether the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present in the predefined downlink control information symbol location comprises attempting to decode the downlink control information into information directed to the user equipment.
4 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise performing rate matching and physical downlink shared channel decoding with physical downlink shared channel resource blocks to decode downlink shared channel data.
5 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the predefined downlink control information symbol location comprises a control channel element at predefined location within the symbol.
6 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the predefined downlink control information symbol location within the symbol corresponds to a lowest location within the symbol.
7 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein a fixed aggregation level is defined for predefined downlink control information of the predefined downlink control information symbol location.
8 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the predefined downlink control information symbol location comprises a control channel element at predefined location within the symbol, and wherein a fixed aggregation level is defined for predefined downlink control information of the predefined downlink control information symbol location.
9 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise, in response to determining that the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is not present in the predefined downlink control information symbol location, performing blind decoding of an entire possible resource element group space to determine user equipment-specific physical downlink control channel information.
10 . The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the base station comprises a gNodeB.
11 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a user equipment, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising: scanning a symbol of a slot received via transmission from a base station to determine whether the symbol comprises a defined identifier at a predefined symbol location; and in response to determining that the symbol comprises the defined identifier at the predefined symbol location, determining, based on information in the predefined symbol location, a subgroup of resource element group pattern allocation space in use for downlink control information, and scanning the subgroup of the resource element group pattern allocation space to obtain the downlink control information that is specific to the user equipment within the resource element group pattern allocation space, without scanning an entire resource element group pattern allocation within possible resource element group pattern allocation space.
12 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise, in response to determining that the defined identifier is not present in the predefined symbol location, performing blind decoding of an entire possible resource element group space to determine user equipment-specific physical downlink control channel information.
13 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise, in response to the determining that the defined identifier is present in the predefined symbol location, determining whether the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, and, in response to determining that the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, locating at least one resource block specific to the user equipment within the symbol that is occupied by physical downlink shared channel data.
14 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise obtaining physical downlink shared channel data from the at least one resource block, comprising performing rate matching and physical downlink shared channel decoding.
15 . A method, comprising: determining, by a user equipment comprising at least one processor, based on a defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier obtained from a base station, whether resource element group pattern allocation information is present in a predefined downlink control information symbol location of a symbol; and in response to the determining that the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present in the predefined downlink control information symbol location, identifying, by the user equipment, based on the information within the predefined downlink control information symbol location, a candidate resource element group pattern allocation space, and scanning, by the user equipment, the candidate resource element group pattern allocation space to obtain downlink control information that is specific to the user equipment within the candidate resource element group pattern allocation space, without scanning a full resource element group pattern allocation within an entire possible resource element group pattern allocation space.
16 . The method of claim 15 , further comprising, in response to the determining that the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present, determining, by the user equipment, whether the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, and in response to determining that the symbol is used for physical downlink shared channel allocation, locating, by the user equipment, at least one resource element group on the symbol, based on a downlink control information-physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier and the downlink control information, that is not used for resource element group pattern allocation data, and that comprises a resource block specific to the user equipment that is occupied by physical downlink shared channel data.
17 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the determining of whether the defined physical downlink control channel-radio network temporary identifier is present in the predefined downlink control information symbol location comprises attempting to decode the downlink control information into information directed to the user equipment.
18 . The method of claim 15 , further comprising performing, by the user equipment, rate matching and physical downlink shared channel decoding with physical downlink shared channel resource blocks to decode downlink shared channel data.
19 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the predefined downlink control information symbol location comprises a control channel element at predefined location within the symbol.
20 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the predefined downlink control information symbol location within the symbol corresponds to a lowest location within the symbol.

Description

BACKGROUND In New Radio (e.g., fifth generation (5G) systems and beyond), there are two main channels used in the downlink to send data to a user equipment (UE), namely the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and the physical data shared channel (PDSCH). PDCCH is used for sending location data in time and frequency, and also for conveying other parameters related to decoding the PDSCH. In general, the PDSCH contains the actual data for the UE. More particularly, a UE decodes the PDCCH data to get the allocation pattern and the configuration data, and, with this information, the UE decodes the PDSCH channel to obtain the payload. PDCCH is blind decoding, e.g., as per standard, the resource blocks are combined into a resource element group (resource block group). Based on the aggregation level, a number of resource element groups are used to transmit PDCCH data. More particularly, a UE scans all the resource element groups and all aggregation levels to decode the UE-specific data using the radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) allocated to the UE. The UE also decodes data for a common RNTI, that is, to decode data that is in common for the UE and other UEs, e.g., system information block 1 (SIB), paging, broadcast messages, and the like. It is time and resource consuming for a UE to scan and decode all the resource element groups and with all aggregation levels inside the PDCCH symbol to find any matching data for the UE's specific RNTI and the common RNTI. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The technology described herein is illustrated by way of example and not limited in the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals indicate similar elements and in which: FIG. 1 is an example block diagram representation of an example system/architecture in which radio equipment sends downlink control information (DCI) in a slot that includes a predefined DCI within a slot symbol that contains resource group occupancy data for specific user equipment, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 2 is a representation of an example data structure in which physical downlink control information can be sent, including a radio network temporary identifier indicating the presence of the predefined DCI within a slot symbol, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 3 is a representation of an example pattern of resource allocation with the predefined DCI present within a slot symbol, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 4 is a representation of another example pattern of resource allocation based on the presence of the predefined DCI within a slot symbol, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIGS. 5 and 6 comprise flow diagram showing example operations related to user equipment operations related to DCI decoding, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 7 is a flow diagram showing example operations related to scanning candidate resource element group pattern allocation space to obtain downlink control information specific to a user equipment based on the presence of defined identifier in a predefined downlink control information symbol location, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 8 is a flow diagram showing example operations related to radio equipment inserting a defined identifier into a symbol at a physical downlink control channel symbol location and transmitting the symbol as part of a physical downlink control channel communication, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 9 is a flow diagram showing example operations related to determining a subgroup of resource element group pattern allocation space in use for downlink control information based on information in a predefined symbol location, and scanning the subgroup of the resource element group pattern allocation space to obtain downlink control information that is specific to the user equipment, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. FIG. 10 is a block diagram representing an example computing environment into which aspects of the subject matter described herein may be incorporated. FIG. 11 depicts an example schematic block diagram of a computing environment with which the disclosed subject matter can interact/be implemented at least in part, in accordance with various aspects and implementations of the subject disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION Various aspects of the technology described herein are generally directed towards informing user equipment (one or more UEs) of physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) information (DCI) on the fixed control channel element (CCE), containing resource element group (REG) allocation (e.g., a bitmap of REG-allocated or unused REG locations with