System and method for sharing a control channel for carrier aggregation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11089580-B2
Application number	US-201715675205-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 11, 2017
Priority date	Apr 30, 2010
Publication date	Aug 10, 2021
Grant date	Aug 10, 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

What is claimed is:

1. A method for processing a control channel at user equipment (UE) in a multi-carrier communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, on a first carrier, an activation signal specifying a second carrier among a plurality of carriers;
activating the second carrier based on the activation signal;
determining a plurality of control channel element (CCE) subset candidates corresponding to the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein:
the plurality of CCE subset candidates are on the first carrier, and
locations of CCEs in the plurality of CCE subset candidates corresponding to the first and second carriers at a plurality of aggregation levels are each determined by a pseudorandom number;

determining whether one of the CCE subset candidates at one of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers; and
responsive to a determination that the one of the CCE subset candidates does not correspond to only one of the first and second carriers:
identifying a carrier indicator field (CIF) in downlink control information (DCI) in the one of the CCE subset candidates, wherein the CIF identifies the second carrier as associated with the one of the CCE subset candidates, and
decoding the DCI for a resource grant on the second carrier based on the CIF.

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

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising decoding the activation signal.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the DCI is received in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the CCE subset candidates is associated with an aggregation level of 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the DCI includes a carrier indicator field (CIF).

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the 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.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the 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.

9. A user equipment (UE) for a wireless telecommunications system, the UE comprising:
a receiver configured to:
receive, on a first carrier, an activation signal specifying a second carrier among a plurality of carriers;

a memory storing instructions; and
a processor configured to execute the instructions to cause the UE to:
activate the second carrier based on the activation signal;
determine a plurality of control channel element (CCE) subset candidates corresponding to the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein:
the plurality of CCE subset candidates are on the first carrier, and
locations of CCEs in the plurality of CCE subset candidates corresponding to the first and second carriers at a plurality of aggregation levels are each determined by a pseudorandom number;

determine whether one of the CCE subset candidates at one of the aggregation levels corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers; and
responsive to a determination that the one of the CCE subset candidates does not correspond to only one of the first and second carriers:
identify a carrier indicator field (CIF) in downlink control information (DCI) in the one of the CCE subset candidates, wherein the CIF identifies the second carrier as associated with the one of the CCE subset candidates, and
decode the DCI for a resource grant on the second carrier based on the CIF.

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

11. The UE of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to execute the instructions to cause the UE to decode the activation signal.

12. The UE of claim 9 , wherein the DCI is received in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

13. The UE of claim 9 , wherein each of the CCE subset candidates is associated with an aggregation level of 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs.

14. The UE of claim 9 , wherein the DCI includes a carrier indicator field (CIF).

15. The UE of claim 9 , wherein the 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.

16. The UE of claim 9 , wherein the 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.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
responsive to a determination that the one of the CCE subset candidates corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers, decoding the DCI for a resource grant on the first carrier.

18. The UE of claim 9 , wherein the processor is further configured to execute the instructions to cause the UE to:
responsive to a determination that the one of the CCE subset candidates corresponds to only one of the first and second carriers, decode the DCI for a resource grant on the first carrier.

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