Segmentation and Concatenation for New Radio Systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018097918-A1
Application number	US-201715719551-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 29, 2017
Priority date	Sep 30, 2016
Publication date	Apr 5, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Methods of segmentation and concatenation for new radio user plane are proposed. For high speed data traffic, all PDCP PDUs are segmented into fixed-length segments at RLC layer. The MAC layer can then concatenate these segments based on real time uplink grants. Under this mechanism, segmentation related header fields can be pre-computed since they are not dependent on the uplink grant process. For low data rate with small packet size traffic, a solution of PDCP layer concatenation is proposed to reduce protocol overhead. Multiple PDCP SDUs are concatenated into a single PDCP PDU. The level of PDCP concatenation is configured by the base station or implemented by the UE.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
establishing a connection by a user equipment (UE) with a base station in a wireless network; pre-concatenating a plurality of packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer protocol data units (PDUs) into a plurality of radio link control (RLC) layer PDUs, wherein each RLC layer PDU having a fixed-length configured via a higher layer signaling; receiving an uplink grant over a physical layer signaling from the base station, wherein the uplink grant allocates a size for uplink radio resource; and concatenating the RLC layer PDUs into media access control (MAC) layer PDUs based on the size of the uplink grant.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the higher layer signaling configures the UE for pre-concatenation for high data rate application traffic.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the UE performs the pre-concatenation independent from the uplink grant.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each RLC layer PDU comprises a number of length fields, each length field indicates a length of a corresponding concatenated PDCP layer PDU.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each MAC layer PDU comprises a field indicating a number of concatenated RLC layer PDUs.

6 . A user equipment (UE), comprising:
a configuration circuit that establishes a connection with a base station in a wireless network; a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer protocol stack that pre-concatenates a plurality of PDCP layer protocol data units (PDUs) into a plurality of radio link control (RLC) layer PDUs, wherein each RLC layer PDU having a fixed-length configured via a higher layer signaling; a radio frequency (RF) receiver that receives an uplink grant over a physical layer signaling from the base station, wherein the uplink grant allocates a size for uplink radio resource; and media access control (MAC) layer protocol stack that concatenates the RLC layer PDUs into MAC layer PDUs based on the size of the uplink grant.

7 . The UE of claim 6 , wherein the higher layer signaling configures the UE for pre-concatenation for high data rate application traffic.

8 . The UE of claim 6 , wherein the UE performs the pre-concatenation independent from the uplink grant.

9 . The UE of claim 6 , wherein each RLC layer PDU comprises a number of length fields, each length field indicates a length of a corresponding concatenated PDCP layer PDU.

10 . The UE of claim 6 , wherein each MAC layer PDU comprises a field indicating a number of concatenated RLC layer PDUs.

11 . A method comprising:
establishing a connection by a user equipment (UE) with a base station in a wireless network, wherein the UE and the base stations exchange data traffic with a low data rate and/or a small packet size; concatenating a plurality of IP packets into a single packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer protocol data unit (PDU), wherein a level of PDCP concatenation indicates a number of IP packets to be concatenated in the single PDCP PDU, and wherein the level of PDCP concatenation is configured by the base station or implemented by the UE; and performing downlink reception or uplink transmission based on a downlink/uplink scheduling over a physical layer signaling from the base station.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the PDCP concatenation is activated, deactivated, or modified via one of a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, a media access control (MAC) control element (CE), and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) order.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the level of PDCP concatenation is configured per data radio bearer (DRB) and separately for uplink and downlink.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the UE sends a request to the base station to apply the level of PDCP concatenation.

15 . The method of claim 11 , wherein UE capability information indicates whether the UE supports PDCP concatenation.

16 . A User Equipment (UE) comprising:
a configuration circuit that establishes a connection with a base station in a wireless network, wherein the UE and the base stations exchange data traffic with a low data rate and/or a small packet size; a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer protocol stack that concatenates a plurality of IP packets into a single PDCP layer protocol data unit (PDU), wherein a level of PDCP concatenation indicates a number of IP packets to be concatenated in the single PDCP PDU, and wherein the level of PDCP concatenation is configured by the base station or implemented by the UE; and a radio frequency (RF) transceiver that performs downlink reception or uplink transmission based on a downlink/uplink scheduling over a physical layer signaling from the base station.

17 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein the PDCP concatenation is activated, deactivated, or modified via one of a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, a media access control (MAC) control element (CE), and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) order.

18 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein the level of PDCP concatenation is configured per data radio bearer (DRB) and separately for uplink and downlink.

19 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein the UE sends a request to the base station to apply the level of PDCP concatenation.

20 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein UE capability information indicates whether the UE supports PDCP concatenation.

Assignees

• Mediatek Inc

Inventors

• Nuggehalli Pavan Santhana Krishna
• Hsu Chia-Chun
• Cheng Ming-Yuan

Classifications

• H04L5/0091

  Signalling for the administration of the divided path, e.g. signalling of configuration information · CPC title

• H04L5/0046

  Determination of the number of bits transmitted on different sub-channels · CPC title

• H04L69/16

  Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] · CPC title

• H04L69/22

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L69/166

  IP fragmentation; TCP segmentation · CPC title