Carrier aggregation for narrowband internet of things user equipment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2021014851-A1
Application number	US-202016909412-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 23, 2020
Priority date	Jul 12, 2019
Publication date	Jan 14, 2021
Grant date	—

Abstract

Various aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication. In some aspects, a user equipment (UE) may signal, to a base station, a capability of the UE relating to carrier aggregation for a particular category or class of the UE, such as for narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) UEs. The UE may receive, from the base station, a configuration for carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE based at least in part on the capability of the UE relating to carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE. The UE may communicate with the base station using carrier aggregation based at least in part on the configuration for carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE. Numerous other aspects are provided.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
signaling, to a base station, a capability of the UE relating to carrier aggregation for a particular category or class of the UE; receiving, from the base station, a configuration for carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE based at least in part on the capability of the UE relating to carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE; and communicating with the base station using carrier aggregation based at least in part on the configuration for carrier aggregation for the particular category or class of the UE.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the capability is a capability of the UE to aggregate at least one of inband carriers, guardband carriers, standalone carriers, or a combination thereof.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the capability indicates a number of carriers that the UE is capable of aggregating.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates multiple anchor carriers to be aggregated for carrier aggregation using a first anchor carrier as a primary cell and a second anchor carrier as a secondary cell.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates an anchor carrier and a non-anchor carrier to be aggregated for carrier aggregation using the anchor carrier as a primary cell and the non-anchor carrier as a secondary cell.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the configuration indicates at least one of:
a valid subframe bitmap for at least one of the primary cell or the secondary cell, a power boosting in a configured or predefined limitation of at least one of the primary cell or the secondary cell, or a combination thereof.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates multiple non-anchor carriers to be aggregated for carrier aggregation using a first non-anchor carrier as a primary cell and a second non-anchor carrier as a secondary cell.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the configuration indicates a valid subframe bitmap for at least one of the primary cell or the secondary cell.

9 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the multiple non-anchor carriers are associated with a same valid subframe bitmap and a same power boost.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein communicating with the base station comprises monitoring a single component carrier for a narrowband physical downlink control channel.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the single component carrier is indicated in the configuration.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein communicating with the base station comprises monitoring multiple component carriers for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH).

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the NPDCCH is monitored using frequency hopping or repetition on the multiple component carriers.

14 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the NPDCCH is mapped across the multiple component carriers, and wherein the multiple component carriers are contiguous and are associated with a same primary cell identifier.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates whether to use a single component carrier or multiple component carriers for a narrowband physical downlink control channel.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each component carrier, used for carrier aggregation for the UE, carries downlink control information for that component carrier.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein a single component carrier carries downlink control information (DCI) for multiple component carriers used for carrier aggregation for the UE.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the DCI is joint DCI that includes a field or a bit that indicates whether a corresponding configuration is for a primary cell or a secondary cell.

19 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the DCI includes different DCI for each component carrier, wherein each different DCI indicates whether a corresponding component carrier carries data.

20 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates whether each component carrier carries downlink control information (DCI) for that component carrier or whether a single component carrier carries DCI for all component carriers used for carrier aggregation for the UE.

21 . The method of claim 1 , wherein different component carriers, used for carrier aggregation for the UE, carry independently encoded transport blocks.

22 . The method of claim 21 , wherein each hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information for each independently encoded transport block is transmitted on a different narrowband physical uplink shared channel.

23 . The method of claim 21 , wherein hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information for each independently encoded transport block is transmitted on a joint narrowband physical uplink shared channel.

24 . The method of claim 21 , wherein a set of scheduled narrowband physical downlink shared channels on the different component carriers are scheduled to end at a same time.

25 . The method of claim 21 , wherein an offset between different scheduled narrowband physical downlink shared channels on the different component carriers is indicated to the UE.

26 . The method of claim 1 , wherein different component carriers, used for carrier aggregation for the UE, carry a jointly encoded transport block for a narrowband physical downlink shared channel.

27 . The method of claim 26 , wherein a single hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information for the jointly encoded transport block is transmitted on a narrowband physical uplink shared channel.

28 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates whether different component carriers, used for carrier aggregation for the UE, carry independently encoded transport blocks or a jointly encoded transport block for a narrowband physical downlink shared channel.

29 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the capability indicates a peak data rate per band combination or per bandwidth class.

30 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration indicates at least one of a hopping pattern for transmissions on different carriers, a bundle size of resource units per hop for the hopping pattern, a hopping distance between different hops, or a combination thereof.

31 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the UE is configured to monitor for narrowband reference signals on a carrier based at least in part on whether the carrier is a primary cell or a secondary cell.

32 . The method of claim 1 , wherein communicating with the base station comprises receiving a plurality of code block segments for a transport block.

33 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration or system information indicates one or more carriers to be used for paging, single cell point-to-multipoint communications, or a combination thereof.

34 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the particular category or class of the UE is a narrowband Internet of Things category or class.

35 . A method of wireless communication performed by a base station, comprising:
receiving, from a user equipment (UE), an indication of a capabi

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Liu Le
• Rico Alvarino Alberto
• Ananda Raghavendra Shyam
• Menon Srikanth
• Menon Murali

Classifications

• H04W72/51 Primary

  based on terminal or device properties · CPC title

• H04W72/23

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

• H04L5/0053

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

• H04L5/0058

  Allocation criteria · CPC title

• H04L5/0091

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