Start stop bit compressed permutation matrix

Abstract

An apparatus receives a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus. The permutation matrix is obtained by compressi

Description

FIELD

[0001] Various example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to methods, devices, apparatuses and computer readable storage medium for start stop bit compressed permutation matrix. BACKGROUND

[0002] As communication networks and services increase in size, complexity, and number of users, operations in the communication networks may become increasingly more complicated. A permutation matrix describes the order of the parallel start stop bit sequences. Since the size of the permutation matrix increases quadratically with the number of parallel sequences, in a case of a high number of start stop bit sequences, the number of resource elements needed for the conventional permutation matrix, i.e., the overhead per data block, is large for a high number of start stop bit sequences. Hence, the efficiency of permutation matrix compression is generally expected to be further improved. SUMMARY

[0003] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and reorder the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

[0004] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: determine a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and transmit the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

[0005] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

[0006] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: determining a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and transmitting the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

[0007] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and means for reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

[0008] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for determining a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and means for transmitting the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

[0009] In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third aspect.

[0010] In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the fourth aspect.

[0011] It is to be understood that the Summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0013] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0014] FIG. 2 illustrates an example method with a plurality of parallel start stop bits for the parallel transmission of a plurality of bit sequences;

[0015] FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling chart for communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 4 illustrates a compression scheme according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0017] FIG. 5 illustrates a further compression scheme according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0018] FIG. 6 illustrates a further solution according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0019] FIG. 7 illustrates flowcharts for the basic start stop method using a compressed permutation matrix,

[0020] FIG. 8 illustrates a signalling chart for application of sparse start stop bit method with a compressed permutation matrix

[0021] FIG. 9 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0022] FIG. 10 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0023] FIG. 11 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0024] FIG. 12 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0025] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0026] Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

[0027] In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

[0028] References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an example embodiment,” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

[0029] It shall be understood that although the terms “first,” “second,”..., etc. in front of noun(s) and the like may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another and they do not limit the order of the noun(s). For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and / or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

[0030] As used herein, “at least one of the following: ” and “at least one of ” and similar wording, where the list 5 of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or”, mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

[0031] As used herein, unless stated explicitly, performing a step “in response to A” does not indicate that the step is performed immediately after “A” occurs and one or more intervening steps may be included. 10

[0032] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “has”, “having”, “includes” and / or “including”, when 15 used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and / or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and / or combinations thereof.

[0033] As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following: (a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and / or digital circuitry) and (b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable): (i) a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuit(s) with software / firmware and (ii) any portions of hardware processor(s) with software (including digital signal processor(s)), software, and memory(ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and (c) hardware circuit(s) and or processor(s), such as a microprocessor(s) or a portion of a microprocessor(s), that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

[0034] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and / or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

[0035] As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G), 5.5G, the sixth generation (6G) communication protocols, and / or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0036] As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP), for example, a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), an NR NB (also referred to as a gNB), a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), a radio header (RH), a remote radio head (RRH), a relay, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) node, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In some example embodiments, radio access network (RAN) split architecture comprises a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an I AB donor node. An I AB node comprises a Mobile Terminal (I AB-MT) part that behaves like a UE toward the parent node, and a DU part of an IAB node behaves like a base station toward the next-hop IAB node.

[0037] The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), a Subscriber Station (SS), a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS), or an Access Terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE), an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and / or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and / or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, and the like. The terminal device may also correspond to a Mobile Termination (MT) part of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node). In the following description, the terms “terminal device”, “communication device”, “terminal”, “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

[0038] As used herein, the term “resource,” “transmission resource,” “resource block,” “physical resource block” (PRB), “uplink resource,” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other combination of the time, frequency, space and / or code domain resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

[0039] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. In the communication environment 100, there are a plurality of communication devices, for example, a first apparatus 110 and a second apparatus 120. These apparatuses can communicate with each other.

[0040] It is to be understood that the number of devices and their connections shown in FIG. 1 are only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitation. The communication environment 100 may include any suitable number of devices configured to implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. By way of example rather than limitation, in some example embodiments, the communication environment 100 may further comprises one or more apparatuses (not shown in FIG. 1).

[0041] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), the fifth generation (5G), 5.5G, the sixth generation (6G), and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and / or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and / or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.

[0042] A basic start stop bit data transmission scheme as well as concepts for enhanced resource efficiency, e.g., by multiple parallel bit sequence method, have been studied. Study and research are made on the start stop bit method for the application of a very efficient cooperative Distribute Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (D-MIMO) system as a promising 6G use case.

[0043] For purpose of illustration, a basic start stop bit method is illustrated for 10 parallel data messages in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 illustrates an example method with M parallel start stop bits for the parallel transmission of M bit sequences. M may be an integer. On the right is an illustration of the M times M permutation matrix for reordering the start stop bit sequences. Each bolded bit is related sequentially to the increasing values of the stop bits 1...M and indicates the relative position with respect to the other M bits sequences.

[0044] A basic method for the start stop bit permutation matrix is illustrated in FIG. 2 on the right. There, each start stop bit sequence is allocated a bitmap where one single nonzero bit indicates the order of the related start stop bit sequence. Here, the order means the relative positions of the stop bit sequences, i.e., a non-zero bit at the k-th position of the m-th bitmap means that the m-th stop bit is for the k-th stop bit sequence.

[0045] The basic start stop bit method is illustrated for 10 parallel data messages in FIG. 2. Advanced applications like D-MIMO require highest resource usage so that the advanced start stop bit methods including a time and frequency shift per subcarrier as well as the transmission of a classical modulation and coding scheme (MCS) per each stop bit have to been relied on.

[0046] To achieve a high user data rate for the start stop bit method, it is important that the number of transmitted bits per stop bit becomes large as well as that the number of supported sequences M is high. Here, embodiments of the present disclosure address specifically the configurations with a high number of start stop bit sequences. The analysis of the start stop bit method indicates that the user throughput gain for higher number of sequences is limited or even degrading due to the quadratically increasing size of the permutation matrix P This means that the permutation matrix overhead for high values of M is eventually larger than the gain due to the transmission of additional stop bit sequences.

[0047] If there are M sequences, the permutation matrix P will have a size of M*(M-1), where M is the number of parallel transmitted start stop bit sequences. For small M (such as, M=5 to 8), the required number of resource elements for the permutation matrix will be 20 to 56 and therefore the overhead is still acceptable. For higher M (like M=10 to 16), the overhead becomes 90 to 240 resource elements, which will be a large part of the overall available resource elements. For example, for a stop bit sequence length of N=8 to 10, the related number of resource elements will be 256 to 1024. Then, for M equal to 16, the relative overhead for the permutation becomes almost 100% for N=8, and about 25% for N=10.

[0048] To allow for a more flexible parameter selection including high to very high number of stop bit sequences M>10, a more efficient and more compressed definition of the permutation matrix P is desired.

[0049] One option for an efficient reporting of permutation matrix P is to report the sequence order as binary numbers. Then, for example, M=16 bit sequences can be reported with M*4 = 64 resource elements, where the factor of 4 comes from log2(16) = 4. The challenge of this approach in the context of a start stop bit method is that the 64 resource elements will now all be non-zero, i.e., the overall sparsity of the method will be small. For that reason, in some conventional designs, bitmaps with only one single non-zero resource element per sequence had been chosen as the better approach. However, as discussed above, for high M, the related overhead for the required resource elements becomes an issue.

[0050] The user data rate of the start stop bit method has been compared with that of a conventional 3GPP NR orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system. There, the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) user data rate will increase linearly with the modulation and coding scheme (MCS), which describes the effective number of bits transmitted per resource element. On the contrary, for the start stop bit method a single stop bit with a high MCS will count only for this stop bit, i.e., the related stop bit sequence of length 2N, where N is the number of bits transmitted per basic stop bit sequency. This means, for the sparse stop bit method a high MCS or time frequency shift coding scheme is additive per transmit sequence. For example, for N = 8 bit per stop bit sequency, there would be 2N=256 empty resource elements per each stop bit. Then, the number of bits coded into the time frequency shifts has to be extremely high to be able to compete with the conventional method, where a MCS like 4 bits per resource element is multiplicative per resource element leading to, e.g., 2Nx MCS = 256 x MCS = 256 x 4 = 1024 bits per data transmission.

[0051] Furthermore, the number of sequences M has to be increased to be able to compete with the conventional system and then - see above - the size of the permutation matrix P might become a limiting factor.

[0052] Therefore, the problem to be solved at least comprises overcoming this limitation and defining a permutation matrix P, which maintains the sparsity of the bitmap approach and, at the same time, minimizes the number of used resource elements to define such a permutation matrix.

[0053] Several solutions are proposed herein to at least address the above-mentioned problems. The proposed solutions involve one or more of the following features:

[0054] (1) Separating each bitmap of each bit sequence m of length M into 2MCS sub bitmap strings. The information of the position of the non-zero bitmap element is reported as one non-zero power resource element within the sub bitmap by the constellation point or bit value of the MCS transmitted at the related position of the compressed permutation matrix P.

[0055] (2) Mapping the position to one MCS constellation point and otherwise mapping all other zero sub bitmaps to single zero power resource elements, therefore the overall lossless compression factor becomes 2MCS.

[0056] (3) Compressing with skipped known zero positions for a higher compression factor; or Forming rectangular sub bitmap areas potentially covering two non-zero elements of two adjacent bitmap sequences per report, so as to achieve a higher average sparsity.

[0057] In aid of the above-mentioned features, compressed permutation matrices including a high level of sparsity are essential for the sparse start stop bit method when a high user throughput is intended. This requires a high number M of parallel transmitted start stop bit data sequences. From related studies it is clearly visible that for high M the size of the conventional permutation matrix P becomes the limiting factor to achieve higher gains. Therefore, the compressed permutation matrix P' overcomes these limitations.

[0058] For lower values of M like 8 to 10, a more efficient compression of the permutation matrix P will significantly improve the gain and performance of the start stop bit method. In addition, since one main target of the start stop bit method is to transmit user data with high sparsity, some example embodiments of the present disclosure, which reduce on average the non-zero power resource elements, are a supportive means to achieve on link level the highest possible sparsity.

[0059] Example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0060] FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling chart 300 for communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purposes of discussion, the signaling chart 300 will be discussed with reference to FIG. 1, for example, by using the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may comprise a terminal device (such as UE or the like), and the second apparatus 120 may comprise a network device (such as gNB or the like).

[0061] In the signaling chart 300, the second apparatus 120 determines 310 a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus 110. The first permutation matrix is obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit. By way of example rather than limitation, the second permutation matrix may be the above-mentioned uncompressed permutation matrix P, and the first permutation matrix may be the corresponding compressed permutation matrix P'

[0062] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may determine a compression factor for the first apparatus 110, and further determine the first permutation matrix based on the second permutation matrix and the permutation matrix configuration identifier. The compression factor may be determined based on at least one of the following: (1) a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120, (2) one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120, (3) inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120, or (4) power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits. It should be noted that the compression factor may also be determined based on any other suitable information. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0063] The second apparatus 120 transmits 320 the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus 110. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 receives 330 the first permutation matrix from the second apparatus 120. For example, the first permutation matrix may be transmitted and / or received via a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, a Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE), downlink control information, and / or the like. It should be understood that the above examples are described merely for purpose of description. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0064] Furthermore, the first apparatus 110 reorders 340 the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may determine a compression factor based on a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for decompressing of the first permutation matrix. For example, the first permutation matrix configuration identifier is obtained from a configuration received from the second apparatus 120 via a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, a Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE), downlink control information, and / or the like. By way of example, the second apparatus 120 may determine a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for the first apparatus 110 based on the compression factor, and transmit a configuration of the first permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus 110.

[0065] As mentioned above, the compression factor may be associated with a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120. For example, the signal quality may comprise a signal-to-noise and interference ratio (SINR), a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), or the like. In an additional or alternative example embodiment, the compression factor may be associated with one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120. In a further example embodiment, the compression factor may be associated with inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120. Additionally or alternatively, the compression factor may be associated with power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power MCS bits. It should be understood that the above illustrations are described merely for purpose of description. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0066] Furthermore, the first apparatus 110 may reorder the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix and the compression factor. For example, the first apparatus 110 may obtain information about the at least one start / stop bit (e.g., one block in the first permutation matrix) from the first permutation matrix. Moreover, the first apparatus 110 may determine the at least one start / stop bit based on the obtained information and the compression factor, and reorder the data sequences based on the at least one start / stop bit.

[0067] In some additional example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may determine a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier, if there is a change in at least one of the following: (1) a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120, (2) one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120, (3) inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus 110 and / or the second apparatus 120, or (4) power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power MCS bits. Moreover, the second apparatus 120 may transmit the second permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus 110. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 may receive the second permutation matrix configuration identifier from the second apparatus 120, so as to update permutation matrix configuration.

[0068] In view of the above, the proposed solutions can advantageously provide an effective compression of a permutation matrix, which supports a high number of start stop bit sequences with a low number of resource elements and simultaneously maintains the highest possible level of sparsity.

[0069] The solutions presented in FIG. 3 will be described in more details below with reference to FIGS. 4-8.

[0070] In some example embodiments, each bitmap of length M for each sequence m may be converted into sub bitmap strings of length 2MCS so that there is L = M / 2MCS sub bitmaps per bitmap string. MCS is the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) transmitted on each active resource element of the permutation matrix. For illustration see FIG. 4 for a Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) MCS, which allows to transmit 1 bit per resource element, i.e., a ‘-1 ’ as well as ‘+1’ (equivalently to a ‘0’ and ‘1’). This allows to convert the conventional permutation matrix P into sub bitstrings of length 2 as illustrated by the dashed boxes. For each dashed box, it is now checked if there is a nonzero resource element like in the first upper box and then the position of the non-zero resource element (dashed squares in the figure) relative to the box. In case the non-zero element is in the first position then a ‘ 1’ is selected and otherwise for the second position a ‘2’ is selected. This position information per sub bitstring is now mapped to the ‘-1’ and ‘ + 1’ constellation points of the BPSK modulation and transmitted as one non-zero resource element for the compressed permutation matrix P' as illustrated in FIG. 4 bottom.

[0071] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example compressed permutation matrix P’ (at the bottom) compared to the conventional permutation matrix P (at the top). The MGS per dashed dotted non-zero resource element is in this case just a BPSK modulation, i.e., one bit indicates with a ‘-1’ that the non-zero element is the first element of the sub bitmap of length two and with a ‘+1’ that it is the second element. The other empty elements are zero power resource elements and therefore maintain sparsity. With a BPSK MCS we can half the size of the permutation matrix P’ compared to P.

[0072] In addition, it is seen that an empty sub bitstring of P will be mapped to a single empty resource element for the permutation matrix P', now representing two empty resource elements for P. Overall, we see that a BPSK MCS can compress the permutation matrix P by a factor of two without increasing the number of non-zero resource elements, i.e., maintaining the same sparsity level.

[0073] Generally, for higher signal-to-noise and interference ratios (SINRs), it will be possible to use even higher MCS than BPSK, such as 4-State Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (4QAM) or even 16-State Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (16QAM). In these cases, the size of the permutation matrix P can be compressed significantly stronger by a factor of 4 or even 16 without changing the sparsity level.

[0074] In some example embodiments, it is proposed to transmit per non-zero resource element of a sub bitmap string a QAM constellation carrying MCS bits, where the value (=constellation point) of the MCS indicates the position of the non-zero element per sub bitmap string of the permutation matrix P. Furthermore, the other sub bitmap strings of length 2MCS carrying only zero power resource elements of the permutation matrix P will be compressed into one single zero power resource element in the matrix P'. Overall, this leads to a matrix P', which is compressed by a factor of 2MCS compared to permutation matrix P and has the same number of non-zero power resource elements as permutation matrix P.

[0075] It should be understood that the present disclosure illustrates the compression of permutation matrix used for the specific implementation of the start stop bit method with multiple parallel sequences. Nonetheless, the ideas as illustrated in the present disclosure may be re-used in any other type of application in which a permutation matrix requires to be represented in a compressed manner.

[0076] The conventional start stop bit methods with multiple parallel sequences M requires a permutation matrix P, where the size is increasing quadratically with M. In aid of the proposed compressed permutation matrix P', the compressed matrix relying on the reporting of sub bitmap strings decreases the number of required resource elements depending on the SINR (and usable MCS) by a factor of 2, 4, 8 or even 16. Despite the very effective compression the sparsity for the reported permutation matrix P? remains constant. A sparse permutation matrix P' is the basis for high gain start stop bit transmission modes.

[0077] FIG. 5 illustrates a further compression scheme according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. In the compression scheme shown in FIG. 5, non-zero elements are reported over rectangular sub bitmap areas of the permutation matrix P (see dashed rectangles). Such a scheme reduces the size of the permutation matrix P' in both dimensions of the permutation matrix. In FIG. 5, the conventional permutation matrix P has a size of 12 * 11 = 132 resource elements. The compressed permutation matrix P? has a size of 3 * 6 = 18 resource elements, which is only 14% of the size of the conventional P matrix. For that purpose, the rectangular bitmap strings are chosen over two adjacent bitmaps m and m + 1. In the example, the size per sub bitmap area is then 2*4 = 8 resource elements. If all resource elements of a specific rectangular area are zero power elements (empty boxes) then the eight zero power resource elements will be transmitted with a single zero resource element in the compressed permutation matrix P'. That leads to compression by a factor of 8. Then, there are some dashed rectangular bitmap areas with one, or others with even two non-zero power resource elements. It is proposed to report this information by a single resource element with a MCS of at least 5 bits like QAM32 or QAM64. Then, the first bit may be used to identify if the rectangular contains one or two non-zero power resource elements, while the bits 2 and 3 are for the position information of the upper sequence m and the bits 4 and 5 for the lower sequence m + 1. The benefit of this more complicated method is that on average it will increase the sparsity of the permutation matrix P' as all dashed rectangles, which contain two non-zero power resource elements will decrease the nonzero power resource element in P' by one. It should be noted that alternative allocations like 3 times 3 rectangles are possible as well.

[0078] FIG. 6 illustrates a further solution according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure, which targets a further improved average compression ratio. In this case, it is taken into account that: if a non-zero resource element of a permutation sequence m has been detected in one of the first sub bitmap areas, then it is clear that all other sub bitmap areas of this sequence m will be zero (note that there is always only one non-zero element per bit sequence). For that reason, there is no need to report the related zero resource elements and instead these can be omitted. It should be noted that the number of zero sub bitmap areas is known from the overall length of the bit sequences. On average, this allows to reduce the number of zero power resource elements of the permutation matrix P' further, which leads to an improved compression ratio. Such a concept might be useful in a case where the gain is of highest importance. At the same time, it leads to a varying size of the permutation matrix P'. In addition, a strong Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding might be needed to ensure a proper decoding of P .

[0079] In FIG. 6, an example bit sequence of 6 messages of 8 bit (max value 255) is shown at the top. As shown in the second line in Fig.6, the order of the stop bit messages is changed during transmission. As shown in the third line in FIG. 6, the compressed permutation matrix 1 is compressed into two sub bitmaps as described above, i.e., there is one non-zero resource element with a two bit MCS. The fourth line in the FIG. 6 illustrates a further compressed permutation matrix 2, which skips all second sub bitmap elements, if the previous sub bitmap element has already indicated the position as given from the original permutation matrix.

[0080] It should be noted that large sub bitmap areas are beneficial as the compression factor will be correspondingly large. But, a larger number of resource elements is also related to a higher MCS, which has to support a higher number of bits. Therefore, for a reliable reporting of the permutation matrix P' a sufficiently high SINR will be needed, and the best configuration of the permutation matrix P' has to be adapted per UE to its current radio link conditions. To improve the SINR, one can consider to schedule the permutation matrices on specific PRBs with lower inter cell interference. Power boosting of the active resource elements carrying the non-zero power MCS bits can be considered, especially as the number of these elements will be small. In addition, an efficient FEC should be added on top of the bits as usual for DCI messages.

[0081] In a case that the SINR is large, then it might be possible to support a very high MCS per non-zero power resource element. If the number of bits of the MCS is higher than needed for the indication of the position of the non-zero resource elements per sub bitmap area, then one can use the extra bits for other purposes. One natural purpose is then to use it for the FEC encoding over all stop bits and / or all bits of the permutation matrix P.

[0082] The above-described compressed permutation matrices involve reporting details like the size of the sub bitmap areas, the MCS used per non-zero power resource element, the potential skipping of zero power resource elements, the reporting over sub bitmap area rectangles covering two adjacent bit sequences, etc.

[0083] It may further require some update of the DCI messages. By way of example rather than limitation, the DCI formats Format 10 and 11 might be affected as the PDCCH has to report the details of the compressed permutation matrix P'. It should be noted that the configuration of the compression scheme will vary per UE as each UE has different radio conditions like different SINR, data rate, interference conditions, etc. Therefore, the maximum possible MCS varies as well and the gNB has to find the best configurations per UE. For moving UEs, the permutation matrix configurations may need to be updated from time to time by a new DCI message to adapt to the varying radio channel conditions. In some alternative embodiments, a Medium Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) message or even a Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration may be used.

[0084] Additionally or alternatively, the gNB side may configure and implement the compressed permutation matrix P' and inform the UE about the selected configuration parameters. The UE may reconstruct from the configured compressed permutation matrix P' the correct sequence of bit messages m.

[0085] FIG. 7 illustrates flowcharts for the basic start stop method using a compressed permutation matrix P'. Initially, an offline optimization of compressed permutation matrix parameters and standardization of value ranges may be performed. The gNB may transmit Non-Zero Power (NZP) Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI RS) to UE. The UE may receive NZP CSI RS and perform channel estimation. Furthermore, the UE may report CSI and Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) to the gNB. The gNB may receive CSI and CQI reports from the UE, estimate SINR and best MCS scheme, and select permutation matrix parameters of compressed permutation matrix P' fitting to SINR / CQI. In addition, the gNB may transmit a DCI message with the parameters of compressed permutation matrix P' to the UE, and further transmit sparse stop bit message including compressed permutation matrix P'. The UE may receive the DCI message with parameters of P', decode sparse stop bit message and reorder sequences based on estimated permutation matrix P' . The UE may determine Acknowledgement / Negative Acknowledgement (ACK / NACK) and report to the gNB. Correspondingly, the UE may receive the ACK / NACK.

[0086] FIG. 8 illustrates a signalling chart 800 for application of sparse start stop bit method with a compressed permutation matrix P'. In example embodiments discussed with respect to FIG. 8, the first apparatus 110, which may be a UE, is denoted by UE 801, and the second apparatus 120, which may be a base station, is denoted by gNB 802. It should be understood that although only one UE is shown in FIG. 8, the gNB may also communicate with a plurality of UEs and the solutions according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be applied to these UEs.

[0087] At 810, parameters of the compressed permutation matrix P' may be optimized and defined. This may be performed offline. At 812, the gNB 802 transmits CSI RS to the UE. After receiving the CSI RS, the UE 801 may estimate and predict CSI at 814, and reports time domain CSI and SINR / CQI to the gNB 802 at 816. The gNB 802 may schedule UEs at 818, select parameters of compressed permutation matrix P' per UE (e.g., based on SINR / CQI) at 820, and calculate transmit signal for UE data and a given compressed permutation matrix P' at 822. Furthermore, at 824, the gNB 802 may transmit DCI message with parameters of compressed permutation matrix P' and sparse physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) user data to the UE. The UE 801 may decode the DCI message and the sparse PDSCH user data at 826, reorder stop bit sequences based on the compressed permutation matrix P' at 830. In addition, the UE 801 may calculate ACK / NACK at 830 and reports ACK / NACK to the gNB 802 at 832.

[0088] It should be understood that the steps described above may be performed in different orders, and / or in parallel. Further, the embodiment may include additional steps and / or omit performing one or more of the illustrated steps. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0089] In view of the above, the proposed solutions can advantageously provide an effective compression of a permutation matrix, which supports a high number of start stop bit sequences with a low number of resource elements and simultaneously maintains the highest possible level of sparsity.

[0090] FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of an example method 900 implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 900 will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0091] At block 910, the first apparatus 110 receives, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus. The first permutation matrix is obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit.

[0092] At block 920, the first apparatus 110 reorders the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

[0093] In some example embodiments, the method 900 further comprises: determining a compression factor based on a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for decompressing of the first permutation matrix; and reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix and the compression factor.

[0094] In some example embodiments, the method 900 further comprises: obtaining information about the at least one start / stop bit from the first permutation matrix; determining the at least one start / stop bit based on the obtained information and the compression factor; and reordering the data sequences based on the at least one start / stop bit.

[0095] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix configuration identifier is obtained from a configuration received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0096] In some example embodiments, the method 900 further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier.

[0097] In some example embodiments, the compression factor is associated with at least one of the following: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits.

[0098] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix is received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0099] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

[0100] FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example method 1000 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 1000 will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0101] At block 1010, the second apparatus 120 determines a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus. The first permutation matrix is obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit.

[0102] At block 1020, the second apparatus 120 transmits the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

[0103] In some example embodiments, the method 1000 further comprises: determining a compression factor for the first apparatus based on at least one of: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits; and determining the first permutation matrix based on the second permutation matrix and the permutation matrix configuration identifier.

[0104] In some example embodiments, the method 1000 further comprises: determining a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for the first apparatus based on the compression factor; and transmitting a configuration of the first permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

[0105] In some example embodiments, the configuration is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0106] In some example embodiments, the method 1000 further comprises: in response to a change in at least one of the following: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power MCS bits, determining a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier; and transmitting the second permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

[0107] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0108] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

[0109] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 900 (for example, the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 900. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0110] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and means for reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

[0111] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining a compression factor based on a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for decompressing of the first permutation matrix; and means for reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix and the compression factor.

[0112] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for obtaining information about the at least one start / stop bit from the first permutation matrix; means for determining the at least one start / stop bit based on the obtained information and the compression factor; and means for reordering the data sequences based on the at least one start / stop bit.

[0113] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix configuration identifier is obtained from a configuration received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0114] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier.

[0115] In some example embodiments, the compression factor is associated with at least one of the following: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits.

[0116] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix is received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0117] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

[0118] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 1000 (for example, the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 1000. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0119] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for determining a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; and means for transmitting the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

[0120] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining a compression factor for the first apparatus based on at least one of: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, intercell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits; and means for determining the first permutation matrix based on the second permutation matrix and the permutation matrix configuration identifier.

[0121] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for determining a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for the first apparatus based on the compression factor; and means for transmitting a configuration of the first permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

[0122] In some example embodiments, the configuration is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0123] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for in response to a change in at least one of the following: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power MCS bits, determining a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier; and means for transmitting the second permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

[0124] In some example embodiments, the first permutation matrix is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

[0125] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

[0126] FIG. 11 is a simplified block diagram of a device 1100 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 1100 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the first apparatus 110 or the second apparatus 120 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 1100 includes one or more processors 1110, one or more memories 1120 coupled to the processor 1110, and one or more communication modules 1140 coupled to the processor 1110.

[0127] The communication module 1140 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 1140 has one or more communication interfaces to facilitate communication with one or more other modules or devices. The communication interfaces may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements. In some example embodiments, the communication module 1140 may include at least one antenna.

[0128] The processor 1110 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 1100 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

[0129] The memory 1120 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 1124, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM), a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD), a digital video disk (DVD), an optical disk, a laser disk, and other magnetic storage and / or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random-access memory (RAM) 1122 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

[0130] A computer program 1130 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 1110. The instructions of the program 1130 may include instructions for performing operations / acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 1130 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 1124. The processor 1110 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 1130 into the RAM 1122.

[0131] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 1130 so that the device 1100 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 3 to FIG. 10. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0132] In some example embodiments, the program 1130 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 1100 (such as in the memory 1120) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 1100. The device 1100 may load the program 1130 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 1122 for execution. In some example embodiments, the computer readable medium may include any types of non-transitory storage medium, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. The term “non-transitory,” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i.e., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM).

[0133] FIG. 12 shows an example of the computer readable medium 1200 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 1200 has the program 1130 stored thereon.

[0134] Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, and other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. Although various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

[0135] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provide at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computerexecutable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0136] Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general-purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0137] In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable medium, and the like.

[0138] The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random-access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0139] Further, although operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, although several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Unless explicitly stated, certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, unless explicitly stated, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in a plurality of embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

[0140] Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and / or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

1. A first apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to:receive, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andreorder the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first apparatus is caused to:determine a compression factor based on a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for decompressing of the first permutation matrix; andreorder the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix and the compression factor.

3. The first apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first apparatus is caused to:obtain information about the at least one start / stop bit from the first permutation matrix;determine the at least one start / stop bit based on the obtained information and the compression factor; andreorder the data sequences based on the at least one start / stop bit.

4. The first apparatus of claim 2 or 3, wherein the first permutation matrix configuration identifier is obtained from a configuration received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

5. The first apparatus of any of claims 2 to 4, wherein the first apparatus is causedto:receive, from the second apparatus, a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier.

6. The first apparatus of any of claims 2 to 5, wherein the compression factor is associated with at least one of the following:a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus,one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, orpower boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits.

7. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the first permutation matrix is received from the second apparatus via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

8. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

9. A second apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to:determine a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andtransmit the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

10. The second apparatus of claim 9, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: determine a compression factor for the first apparatus based on at least one of:a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus,one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus,inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, orpower boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power modulation and coding scheme (MCS) bits; anddetermine the first permutation matrix based on the second permutation matrix and the permutation matrix configuration identifier.

11. The second apparatus of claim 10, wherein the second apparatus is caused to:determine a first permutation matrix configuration identifier for the first apparatus based on the compression factor; andtransmit a configuration of the first permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

12. The second apparatus of claim 11, wherein the configuration is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

13. The second apparatus of any of claims 10 to 12, wherein the second apparatus is caused to:in response to a change in at least one of the following: a signal quality for communication between the first apparatus and the second apparatus, one or more radio link conditions of the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, inter-cell interference associated with the first apparatus and / or the second apparatus, or power boosting of one or more active resource elements carrying non-zero power MCS bits, determine a second permutation matrix configuration identifier for updating the first permutation matrix configuration identifier; andtransmit the second permutation matrix configuration identifier to the first apparatus.

14. The second apparatus of any of claims 10 to 13, wherein the first permutation matrix is transmitted via one of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or downlink control information.

15. The second apparatus of any of claims 10 to 14, wherein the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, and the second apparatus comprises a network device.

16. A method comprising:receiving, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andreordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

17. A method comprising:determining a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andtransmitting the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

18. A first apparatus comprising:means for receiving, from a second apparatus, a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to the first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andmeans for reordering the data sequences based on the first permutation matrix.

19. A second apparatus comprising:means for determining a first permutation matrix associated with at least one start / stop bit for transmission of data sequences to a first apparatus, the first permutation matrix being obtained by compressing a second permutation matrix indicating an order of the data sequences with the at least one start / stop bit; andmeans for transmitting the first permutation matrix to the first apparatus.

20. A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of claim 16 or the method of claim 17.

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