Aperiodic Scheduling of Uplink Grants in a Wireless Communication System

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016262178-A1
Application number	US-201615015613-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 4, 2016
Priority date	Mar 2, 2015
Publication date	Sep 8, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Embodiments described herein relate to an apparatus, system, and method for providing aperiodic uplink grants to a UE for aperiodic communications from the UE to a base station. In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to communicate information to the base station, which may be useable by the base station to determine an uplink grant schedule for subsequent communications between the base station and the UE. This uplink grant schedule may be aperiodic, i.e., the uplink grants may be issued at non-uniform intervals of time. The UE may receive the uplink grants from the base station according to the uplink grant schedule. The UE may transmit uplink communications to the base station in response to the received uplink grants.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A user equipment device (UE), comprising:
at least one antenna; at least one transmitter coupled to the antenna; at least one receiver coupled to the antenna; one or more processors coupled to the at least one transmitter and the at least one receiver;
wherein the UE is configured to:
receive aperiodic uplink grants from a base station, wherein the aperiodic uplink grants are distributed across non-uniform time intervals; and
transmit uplink communications to the base station in response to the received aperiodic uplink grants, wherein the uplink communications are transmitted at the non-uniform time intervals.

2 . The UE of claim 1 ,
wherein the received aperiodic uplink grants from the base station comprise a predetermined uplink grant schedule which specifies the aperiodic uplink grants.

3 . The UE of claim 1 ,
wherein the UE is further configured to:
communicate information to the base station, wherein the information is usable by the base station to determine an uplink grant schedule, wherein one or more of the aperiodic uplink grants are received according to the uplink grant schedule.

4 . The UE of claim 3 ,
wherein the information communicated to the base station comprises one or more identifiers, wherein the identifiers correspond with one or more uplink grant schedules stored on the base station.

5 . The UE of claim 3 ,
wherein the information communicated to the base station comprises one or more of the following:
(1) numbers of bytes expected to be communicated between the UE and the base station;
(2) expectations of time periodicity of grants, e.g., as a distribution across a time window or as a single periodic value representing the frequency of grants;
(3) expected grant assignment tolerance, e.g., one or more values representing the tolerance of the UE for variations in grant scheduling; or
(4) application traffic class indications, e.g., information regarding activity of background application traffic on the UE.

6 . The UE of claim 3 ,
wherein the information communicated to the base station is communicated using a dedicated bearer establishment procedure.

7 . The UE of claim 1 ,
wherein the aperiodic uplink grants are timed according to an uplink grant schedule, wherein the uplink grant schedule is determined through a packet inspection performed by the base station.

8 . The UE of claim 7 ,
wherein the packet inspection performed by the base station comprises examining one or more of more of the port numbers, source addresses, or destination addresses included in uplink packets received from the UE.

9 . The UE of claim 1 ,
wherein the uplink communications transmitted to the base station in response to the received aperiodic uplink grants are conveyed using a special public data network, wherein the public data network is established for the purpose of conveying the uplink communications.

10 . A base station, comprising:
at least one antenna; at least one transmitter coupled to the antenna; at least one receiver coupled to the antenna; one or more processors coupled to the at least one transmitter and the at least one receiver;
wherein the base station is configured to:
receive information from a user equipment device (UE), wherein the information is usable by the base station to determine an uplink grant schedule;
determine an uplink grant schedule based on the information received from the UE, wherein the uplink grant schedule is aperiodic;
issue aperiodic uplink grants to the UE according to the uplink grant schedule; and
receive uplink communications from the UE in response to the issued uplink grants.

11 . The base station of claim 10 ,
wherein the information received from the UE comprises one or more of the following:
(1) numbers of bytes expected to be communicated between the UE and the base station;
(2) expectations of time periodicity of grants, e.g., as a distribution across a time window or as a single periodic value representing the frequency of grants;
(3) expected grant assignment tolerance, e.g., one or more values representing the tolerance of the UE for variations in grant scheduling; or
(4) application traffic class indications, e.g., information regarding activity of background application traffic on the UE.

12 . The base station of claim 10 ,
wherein the information received from the UE comprises uplink packets; and
wherein determining the uplink grant schedule is based on performing packet inspection on the uplink packets.

13 . The base station of claim 12 ,
wherein the packet inspection comprises examining one or more of more of the port numbers, source addresses, or destination addresses included in uplink packets received from the UE.

14 . The base station of claim 10 ,
wherein the information received from the UE is communicated using a dedicated bearer establishment procedure.

15 . The base station of claim 10 ,
wherein the base station is further configured to:
establish a special public data network, wherein the uplink communications received from the UE in response to the issued aperiodic uplink grants are conveyed using the special public data network; and
tear down the public data network upon cessation of the uplink communications.

16 . The base station of claim 10 ,
wherein the base station is further configured to:
modify the communication configuration of the base station for subsequent communications with the UE in response to the information received from the UE.

17 . The base station of claim 16 ,
wherein modifying the communication configuration of the base station comprises modifying one or more of the C-DRX configuration, measurement thresholds, or RRC and NAS timers of the base station.

18 . An apparatus, comprising:
at least one processing element, wherein the processing element is configured to:
communicate information to a base station, wherein the information may be usable by the base station to determine an uplink grant schedule, wherein the uplink grant schedule is aperiodic;
receive uplink grants from the base station according to the uplink grant schedule, wherein the uplink grants are received in an aperiodic fashion; and
generate uplink communications to the base station in response to the received uplink grants.

19 . The apparatus of claim 18 ,
wherein the information communicated to the base station is communicated using media access layer (MAC) signaling.

20 . The apparatus of claim 18 ,
wherein the information communicated to the base station comprises a power preference indication information element.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Vangala Sarma V
• Tabet Tarik
• Rivera-Barreto Rafael L
• Balakrishnan Swaminathan
• Khay-Ibbat Samy

Classifications

• H04W72/1268 Primary

  of uplink data flows · CPC title

• H04W72/23 Primary

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

• H04W72/52 Primary

  based on load · CPC title

• H04W72/21

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

• H04W72/14 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic