System and method for sharing a control channel for carrier aggregation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11026213-B2
Application number	US-201715675275-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 11, 2017
Priority date	Apr 30, 2010
Publication date	Jun 1, 2021
Grant date	Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

A method for processing a control channel at a user agent (UA) to identify at least one of an uplink and a downlink resource allocated by a resource grant within a multi-carrier communication system wherein resource grants are specified by control channel element (CCE) subset candidates wherein the carriers used for data transmission and reception are configured carriers, the method comprising the steps of receiving activation signals specifying active and deactivated carriers from among the configured carriers, for active carriers (i) identifying a number of CCE subset candidates to decode and (ii) decoding up to the identified number of CCE subset candidates in an attempt to identify the resource grant; and for deactivated carriers, ignoring CCE subset candidates associated with the deactivated carriers.

First claim

To apprise the public of the scope of this disclosure, the following claims are made:

1. A method for providing a control channel at a network access device in a multi-carrier communication system, the method comprising:
transmitting, on a first carrier, an activation signal specifying a second carrier among a plurality of carriers,
wherein the activation signal is for user equipment (UE) to activate the second carrier;

determining locations of a plurality of control channel element (CCE) subset candidates corresponding to the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein:
the first carrier includes the plurality of CCE subset candidates, and
each of the plurality of CCE subset candidates is associated with one of aggregation levels of 1, 2, 4, and 8 CCEs;

determining whether at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers; and
responsive to a determination that at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers:
transmitting downlink control information (DCI) in one of the at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels, the DCI including information about a resource grant for the first carrier.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the activation signal is included in a medium access control (MAC) signaling.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising transmitting data to the UE on the first or second carrier.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the DCI is a first DCI, the method further comprising:
responsive to a determination that none of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers:
transmitting a second DCI in one of the CCE subset candidates, the second DCI including a carrier indicator field (CIF) indicating the first or second carrier.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second DCI is transmitted in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second DCI indicates a grant of uplink resources and includes a transmit power control (TPC) field, a cyclic shift for demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and redundancy version field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a hopping flag field.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second DCI indicates a grant of downlink resources and includes a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a redundancy version field.

8. A network access device for providing a control channel in a multi-carrier communication system, the network access device comprising:
a memory storing instructions; and
a processor configured to execute the instructions to cause the network access device to:
transmit, on a first carrier, an activation signal specifying a second carrier among a plurality of carriers,
wherein the activation signal is for user equipment (UE) to activate the second carrier;

determine locations of a plurality of control channel element (CCE) subset candidates corresponding to the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein:
the first carrier includes the plurality of CCE subset candidates, and
each of the plurality of CCE subset candidates is associated with one of aggregation levels of 1, 2, 4, and 8 CCEs;

determine whether at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers; and
responsive to a determination that at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers:
transmit downlink control information (DCI) in one of the at least one of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels, the DCI including information about a resource grant for the first carrier.

9. The network access device of claim 8 , wherein the activation signal is included in a medium access control (MAC) signaling.

10. The network access device of claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to execute the instructions to cause the network access device to transmit data to the UE on the first or second carrier.

11. The network access device of claim 8 , wherein the DCI is a first DCI, and the processor is further configured to execute the instructions to cause the network access device to:
responsive to a determination that none of the CCE subset candidates at any of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers:
transmit a second DCI in one of the CCE subset candidates, the second DCI including a carrier indicator field (CIF) indicating the first or second carrier.

12. The network access device of claim 11 , wherein the second DCI is transmitted in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

13. The network access device of claim 11 , wherein the second DCI indicates a grant of uplink resources and includes a transmit power control (TPC) field, a cyclic shift for demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and redundancy version field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a hopping flag field.

14. The network access device of claim 11 , wherein the second DCI indicates a grant of downlink resources and includes a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process number field, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field, a New Data Indicator (NDI) field, a resource block assignment field, and a redundancy version field.

Assignees

• Golden Valley Holdings Ltd
• Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp Ltd

Inventors

• Mcbeath Sean Michael
• Earnshaw Andrew Mark
• Fong Mo-Han
• Heo Youn Hyoung
• Cai Zhijun

Classifications

• H04W72/23 Primary

  in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal · CPC title

• H04W72/232

  the control data signalling from the physical layer, e.g. DCI signalling · CPC title

• H04W72/231

  the control data signalling from the layers above the physical layer, e.g. RRC or MAC-CE signalling · CPC title

• H04L5/0053

  Allocation of signalling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals · CPC title

• H04W72/21

  in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network · CPC title