Determination of enhanced physical downlink control channel candidates in a wireless communication network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9107162-B2
Application number	US-201313830277-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 14, 2013
Priority date	Sep 28, 2012
Publication date	Aug 11, 2015
Grant date	Aug 11, 2015

Abstract

In embodiments, an evolved Node B (eNB) of a wireless communication network may configure an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) physical resource block (PRB) set for a user equipment (UE). The EPDCCH-PRB set may include a plurality of PRB-pairs. The EPDCCH-PRB set may further include a plurality of enhanced resource element groups (EREGs) organized into localized enhanced control channel elements (ECCEs) having EREGs of the same PRB-pair and distributed ECCEs having EREGs of different PRB-pairs. In some embodiments, the eNB may determine a set of distributed EPDCCH candidates for the UE from the EPDCCH-PRB set, wherein the individual distributed EPDCCH candidates include one or more of the distributed ECCEs, and wherein the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates includes at least one EREG from each of the plurality of localized ECCEs. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus to be employed by an evolved Node B (eNB), the apparatus comprising:
communications circuitry to communicate with a user equipment (UE) over a wireless communication network; and
control circuitry, coupled to the communications circuitry, to:
configure, for the UE, a first enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH)-physical resource block (PRB) set including a plurality of PRB-pairs, wherein the first EPDCCH-PRB set is configured as a distributed EPDCCH-PRB set having distributed enhanced control channel elements (ECCEs) that include enhanced resource element groups (EREGs) spread among the plurality of PRB-pairs; and

determine, based on a search space equation, a set of distributed EPDCCH candidates for the UE from the PRB-pairs of the first EPDCCH-PRB set, wherein the individual distributed EPDCCH candidates include one or more of the distributed ECCEs, and wherein the different distributed EPDCCH candidates of the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates are first mapped to distributed ECCEs including EREGs of different localized ECCEs of the PRB-pairs, and then mapped to distributed ECCEs including EREGs of a same localized ECCE as another distributed EPDCCH candidate;
configure, for the UE or another UE, a second EPDCCH-PRB set including a plurality of PRB-pairs that are fully overlapped, partially overlapped, or fully non-overlapped with the PRB-pairs of the first EPDCCH-PRB set, wherein the second EPDCCH-PRB set is configured as a localized EPDCCH-PRB set including a plurality of localized ECCEs having EREGs of a same PRB-pair; and
determine, based on the search space equation, a set of localized EPDCCH candidates for the UE or the another UE from the second EPDCCH-PRB set.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the set of localized EPDCCH candidates includes localized ECCEs of each of the plurality of PRB-pairs of the second EPDCCH-PRB set.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first EPDCCH-PRB set includes four PRB-pairs and sixteen distributed ECCEs, and wherein the individual PRB-pairs include four localized ECCEs.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates is a first set of EPDCCH candidates, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to determine a second set of EPDCCH candidates for the UE, and wherein the control circuitry is configured to determine the first and second sets of EPDCCH candidates based on respective first and second starting candidate indexes that are different from one another.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the first and second starting candidate indexes are separated by a pre-defined offset.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is to transmit an EPDCCH including downlink control information (DCI) for the UE on one of the distributed EPDCCH candidates.

7. An eNB comprising the apparatus of claim 1 , and further comprising an Ethernet connection.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein a set of ECCEs corresponding to an EPDCCH candidate m of the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates is given by

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where p is an identifier of the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates; Y p,k is a starting candidate index for the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates; L is an aggregation level of an EPDCCH to be transmitted on one of the distributed EPDCCH candidates; M p (L) is a number of EPDCCH candidates in the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates; k is a subframe associated with the UE; N ECCE,p,k is a total number of ECCEs in a control region of subframe k in the wireless communication network; i=0, . . . , L−1; m=0, 1, . . . , M p (L) −1; and b is equal to a carrier indicator field value for a serving cell associated with the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates or 0.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first EPDCCH-PRB set has a first number of PRB-pairs, wherein the second EPDCCH-PRB set is configured for the UE and has a second number of PRB pairs, and wherein a number of EPDCCH candidates in the set of distributed EPDCCH candidates of the first EPDCCH-PRB set is based on a proportion of the first number of PRB-pairs relative to the second number of PRB-pairs.

10. An apparatus to be employed by an evolved Node B (eNB), the apparatus comprising:
communications circuitry to communicate with a user equipment (UE) over a wireless communication network; and
control circuitry, coupled to the communications circuitry, to:
configure, for one or more UEs, a localized enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH)-physical resource block (PRB) set having a plurality of localized enhanced control channel elements (ECCEs), and a distributed EPDCCH-PRB set having a plurality of distributed ECCEs; and
determine, based on a search space equation, a set of localized EPDCCH candidates, wherein the individual localized EPDCCH candidates correspond to one or more localized ECCEs of the localized EPDCCH-PRB set; and
determine, based on the search space equa

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Zhu Yuan
• Chen Xiaogang
• Han Seunghee
• Fwu Jong-Kae
• Li Qinghua

Classifications

• H04W52/0225

  using monitoring of external events, e.g. the presence of a signal · CPC title

• H04W52/0261

  managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level · CPC title

• H04W52/0258

  controlling an operation mode according to history or models of usage information, e.g. activity schedule or time of day · CPC title

• H04W52/0212

  managed by the network, e.g. network or access point is leader and terminal is follower · CPC title

• H04W88/06

  adapted for operation in multiple networks {or having at least two operational modes}, e.g. multi-mode terminals · CPC title