Early termination of repeated transmissions for MTC

Abstract

Systems, apparatus, user equipment (UE), evolved Node B (eNB), and methods for machine type communication (MTC) with early termination of repeated transmissions are described. In narrow bandwidth MTC implementations, a large number of retransmissions may be scheduled based on channel quality measurements. If a large number of retransmissions remain while data is successfully decoded at a receiving device, system resources are wasted. Therefore, embodiments described herein use downlink control messaging or intermediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) messaging to terminate repeated messages early.

Description

[0001] Division Statement

[0002] This application is a divisional application of the Chinese invention patent application with the application date of November 4, 2015, the invention name of which is “Early Termination of Repeated Transmission for MTC” and the application number is 201580056245.9.

[0003] Priority claim

[0004] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 62 / 076,198, filed on November 6, 2014, entitled “METHODS FOR SUPPORT OF EARLYTERMINATION OF REPEATED TRANSMISSIONS FOR MTC USE IN ENHANCED COVERAGE MODE,” the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Technical Field

[0005] Embodiments relate to systems, methods, and component devices for wireless communications, and more particularly to early termination using repeated transmissions in machine type communications (MTC). Background Art

[0006] MTC is an emerging technology related to the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT). Existing mobile broadband networks are designed to optimize performance mainly for human communications, and therefore are not designed or optimized to meet MTC-related requirements. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] Figure 1 is a block diagram of a system including an evolved Node B (eNB) and a user equipment (UE) that may operate with MTC, according to certain embodiments.

[0008] Figure 2 Various aspects of system operation with early termination of repeated transmissions in MTC communications are shown in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0009] Figure 3 Methods for early termination of repeated transmissions according to some example embodiments are described.

[0010] Figure 4 Methods for early termination of repeated transmissions according to some example embodiments are described.

[0011] Figure 5 Various aspects of system operation with early termination of repeated transmissions in MTC communications are shown in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0012] Fig. 6AAspects of intermediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) operations in a system with early termination of repeated transmissions in accordance with certain embodiments are shown.

[0013] Figure 6B Various aspects of intermediate HARQ-ACK operations in a system with early termination of repeated transmissions are shown in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0014] Figure 7 Methods for early termination of repeated transmissions according to some example embodiments are described.

[0015] Figure 8 Methods for early termination of repeated transmissions according to some example embodiments are described.

[0016] Fig. 9 Various aspects of intermediate HARQ-ACK operations in a system with early termination of repeated transmissions are shown in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0017] Fig.10 Various aspects of a computing machine are shown according to some example embodiments.

[0018] Fig.11 Various aspects of a UE according to some example embodiments are shown.

[0019] Fig.12 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer system machine that can be used in connection with the various embodiments described herein. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0020] Embodiments relate to systems, devices, apparatuses, components, methods, and computer-readable media for enhancing wireless communications, and in particular to early termination using repeated transmissions under machine type communications (MTC) or extended machine type communications. The following description and accompanying drawings illustrate specific embodiments that enable those skilled in the art to implement them. Other embodiments may include structural changes, logical changes, electrical changes, process changes, and other changes. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in or substituted for portions and features of other embodiments, and are intended to cover all available equivalents of the described elements.

[0021] Figure 1 A wireless network 100 is shown according to some embodiments. The wireless network 100 comprises a UE 101 and an eNB 150 connected via an air interface 190.

[0022] In some embodiments described herein, the UE 101 or a component of the UE 101 supports or is configured to support early termination of uplink retransmissions using an indication received via a downlink control information (DCI) communication.

[0023] In some embodiments described herein, the eNB 150 or a component of the eNB 150 performs or is configured to use DCI communications to early terminate uplink retransmissions.

[0024] In some embodiments described herein, the UE 101 or a component of the UE 101 performs or is configured to use an intermediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) communication to terminate downlink retransmissions early.

[0025] In some embodiments described herein, the eNB 150 or a component of the eNB 150 performs or is configured to use intermediate HARQ-ACK communications to early terminate downlink retransmissions.

[0026] In some embodiments described herein, UE 101 or a component of UE 101 performs or is configured to terminate uplink retransmissions early using an intermediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) communication, where the HARQ-ACK communication may be transmitted using a DCI communication.

[0027] In some embodiments described herein, the eNB 150 or a component of the eNB 150 performs or is configured to use an intermediate HARQ-ACK communication to terminate uplink retransmissions early, wherein the HARQ-ACK communication may be transmitted using a DCI communication.

[0028] Additional details of these and other embodiments are described below.

[0029] UE 101 and any other UE in the system may be, for example, a laptop, a smart phone, a tablet, a printer, a machine type device (e.g., a smart meter or a dedicated device for medical monitoring, remote safety monitoring, intelligent traffic systems), or any other wireless device with or without a user interface. The eNB 150 provides network connectivity to a wider network (not shown) to the UE 101 via an air interface 190 in the eNB service area provided by the eNB 150. In some embodiments, this wider network may be a wide area network operated by a cellular network provider, or may be the Internet. Each eNB service area associated with the eNB 150 is supported by an antenna integrated with the eNB 150. The service area is divided into a plurality of sectors associated with certain antennas. These sectors may be physically associated with fixed antennas, or may be assigned to a physical area by a tunable antenna or antenna setting that is adjustable in a beamforming process for directing signals to a particular sector. For example, one embodiment of the eNB 150 includes three sectors, each sector covering a 120 degree area with antenna arrays pointed toward each sector to provide 360 ​​degree coverage around the eNB 150 .

[0030] UE 101 includes a control circuit 105 coupled to a transmit circuit 110 and a receive circuit 115. The transmit circuit 110 and the receive circuit 115 may each be coupled to one or more antennas. The control circuit 105 may be adapted to perform operations associated with MTC. In some embodiments, the control circuit 105 of UE 101 may perform calculations or may initiate measurements associated with the air interface 190 to determine the channel quality of an available connection to eNB 150. These calculations may be performed in conjunction with the control circuit 155 of eNB 150. The transmit circuit 110 and the receive circuit 115 may be adapted to send data and receive data, respectively. The control circuit 105 may be adapted to or configured to perform various operations, such as those described elsewhere in this disclosure with respect to the UE. The transmit circuit 110 may transmit multiple multiplexed uplink physical channels. Multiple uplink physical channels may be multiplexed according to time division multiplexing (TDM) or frequency division multiplexing (FDM). The transmit circuit 110 may be configured to receive block data from the control circuit 105 for transmission over the air interface 190. Similarly, the receiving circuit 115 can receive multiple multiplexed downlink physical channels from the air interface 190 and relay these physical channels to the control circuit 105. The uplink physical channels and the downlink physical channels can be multiplexed according to TDM or FDM. The transmitting circuit 110 and the receiving circuit 115 can send and receive control data and content data (e.g., messages, images, videos, etc.), which are arranged in data blocks carried by the physical channels.

[0031] Figure 1 Also shown is an eNB 150 according to various embodiments. The eNB 150 circuitry may include control circuitry 155 coupled to transmit circuitry 160 and receive circuitry 165. Transmit circuitry 160 and receive circuitry 165 may each be coupled to one or more antennas, which may be used to enable communications via air interface 190.

[0032] The control circuit 155 may be adapted to perform operations associated with MTC. The transmit circuit 160 and the receive circuit 165 may be adapted to transmit and receive data, respectively, within a narrow system bandwidth narrower than a standard bandwidth arranged for human-to-human communications. In some embodiments, for example, the transmission bandwidth may be set to or close to 1.4 MHz. In other embodiments, other bandwidths may be used. The control circuit 155 may perform various operations, such as those related to the eNB described elsewhere in this disclosure.

[0033] Within the narrow system bandwidth, the transmission circuit 160 can transmit multiple multiplexed downlink physical channels. The multiple downlink physical channels can be multiplexed according to TDM or FDM. The transmission circuit 160 can transmit multiple multiplexed downlink physical channels in a downlink superframe composed of multiple downlink subframes.

[0034] The receiving circuit 165 may receive multiple multiplexed uplink physical channels within a narrow system bandwidth. The multiple uplink physical channels may be multiplexed according to TDM or FDM. The receiving circuit 165 may receive multiple multiplexed uplink physical channels in an uplink superframe consisting of multiple uplink subframes.

[0035] As further described below, control circuits 105 and 155 may be involved in measuring channel quality of air interface 190. Channel quality may be based, for example, on physical obstacles between UE 101 and eNB 150, electromagnetic signal interference from other sources, reflections or indirect paths between UE 101 and eNB 150, or other such signal noise sources. Based on the channel quality, a data block may be scheduled to be retransmitted multiple times, so that transmit circuit 110 may send copies of the same data multiple times, and receive circuit 115 may receive multiple copies of the same data multiple times.

[0036] Although repeated transmissions of data blocks can be used to ensure that the data is correctly received, repeated transmissions consume a lot of resources. In some embodiments, for example, each data block can be scheduled to be retransmitted 50 or 100 times based on the measured channel quality on the air interface 190. Reducing unnecessary transmissions is one way to improve the performance of MTC communications, especially when integrated into current and next generation mobile broadband networks (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced).

[0037] Existing mobile broadband networks are designed to optimize performance primarily for human communications and are therefore not designed or optimized to meet MTC-related considerations. Some MTC systems are constructed to reduce the human communication aspect and instead focus on reducing equipment costs, improving coverage, and reducing power consumption. The embodiments described herein are used to reduce costs and power consumption. In some implementations of the embodiments described herein, the bandwidth used for the MTC system is reduced to, for example, 1.4 MHz, the minimum bandwidth of the LTE system. In this implementation, the transmission bandwidth for both control channels and data channels can be reduced to 1.4 MHz. In some embodiments, a large number of MTC devices will be deployed in a system for a specific service within a cell. When these large numbers of MTC devices attempt to access the network and communicate with the network, multiple MTC areas of 1.4 MHz bandwidth may be allocated by the eNB. In other embodiments, other bandwidths may be used.

[0038] In some embodiments, coverage enhancement can be achieved by reducing bandwidth and repeating data over multiple subframes for various physical channels so that energy can be accumulated at the receiver side. However, the use of a large number of repeated transmissions over multiple subframes increases the inefficiency of system resource usage, thereby reducing system spectral efficiency. The power consumption of MTC UEs increases with the number of retransmissions, which contradicts the goal of reducing power consumption of MTC UEs as a 3GPP enhancement target. In some embodiments, for example, a single data block may be retransmitted 50 or 100 times in order to achieve correct decoding at the receiver.

[0039] Therefore, the embodiments described herein improve resource utilization over multiple repetitions on a subframe in the following manner: specifically targeting different channels and signals in a UE-specific manner. In the embodiments described herein, depending on the instantaneous channel conditions, the receiver may be able to successfully decode a transmitted transport block with fewer repetitions for an initial transmission or retransmission than the number of repetitions used on the transmitter side. In order to improve resource utilization, the embodiments described herein use early termination of transmissions on a physical channel to notify the transmitter that the data has been successfully decoded before a set number of retransmissions occur. The transmitter then terminates the scheduled repetition transmission of the initial transmission or retransmission before the actual number of repetitions originally intended based on long-term channel conditions or the enhanced coverage level required for a given physical channel for a particular UE.

[0040] The embodiments described herein implement the concept of early termination of repeated transmissions described above. Although the embodiments are mainly described in the context of uplink shared channels and downlink shared channels, they can be used with different channels in different embodiments. The embodiments described herein may particularly include: early termination of physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) repetitions from UE 101 based on layer 1 control signaling from eNodeB 150, and layer 1 control signaling uses downlink control information (DCI) format 0 in a manner supported by similar SPS release indications. Additional embodiments described herein implement early termination of physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and PUSCH repetitions based on an enhanced HARQ feedback scheme, wherein an MTC UE 101 in enhanced coverage (EC) mode sends HARQ-ACK feedback at an intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback opportunity within a repeated transmission time window. Early termination using HARQ-ACK feedback can be used to terminate uplink transmissions from UE 101 to eNB 150 and downlink transmissions from eNB 150 to UE 101.

[0041] These embodiments include the advantages described above as well as advantages beyond using a physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel (PHICH) to signal PUSCH transmissions. In particular, when used directly for early termination, the PHICH is not suitable for early termination as described herein because the system will not know which PUSCH transport block the early termination is for. In particular, without early termination sent via the PHICH, intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback sent before the expected HARQ-ACK feedback can create confusion as to which PUSCH transport block a particular HARQ-ACK message is associated with.

[0042] Therefore, according to the above, in some embodiments, in addition to the standard HARQ-ACK and / or negative acknowledgement (NACK) messages performed on the air interface 190 according to the predetermined HARQ message schedule, the transmitting circuit 110 and the receiving circuit 115 may respectively send and receive early or intermediate HARQ-ACK messages associated with early termination of transmission. Similarly, the transmitting circuit 160 and the receiving circuit 165 may respectively send and receive early or intermediate HARQ-ACK messages and standard HARQ-ACK and / or NACK messages on the air interface 190. The predetermined HARQ-ACK message schedule for the standard HARQ message may indicate the uplink frame and / or downlink frame in which the HARQ-ACK and / or NACK message will appear. However, the intermediate HARQ-ACK message may be associated with different schedules in various embodiments, with optional timing, or without scheduling, as further described below.

[0043] Thus, MTC is implemented over the air interface 190 using circuitry of the UE 101 and the eNB 150. MTC enables a ubiquitous computing environment to enable devices to efficiently communicate with each other. IoT services and applications have inspired the design and development of MTC devices to be seamlessly integrated into current and next generation mobile broadband networks, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced communication systems operating in accordance with the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards (e.g., 3GPP LTE Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) Physical Layer Procedures (Release 12), September 26, 2014). As described above, the early termination embodiments described herein may then be integrated on top of such standards, or may be implemented in various different embodiments by making minor changes to such standards.

[0044] The embodiments described herein reduce cost and power consumption, among other things, by reducing the system bandwidth to roughly correspond to a single physical resource block (PRB) of the existing LTE design. Such cellular IoT using reduced system bandwidth can potentially operate in reallocated Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) spectrum, within a guard band of an LTE carrier, or within a dedicated spectrum.

[0045] Although the embodiments described below use 1.4 MHz bandwidth, the design can be extended to other narrow bandwidths (e.g., 1.5 MHz, 1 MHz, 2 MHz, 200 KHz, 180 KHz, etc.). In addition, although MTC is used as the initial target application for the proposed embodiments, it is obvious that the embodiments can be extended to other narrowband deployed applications (e.g., device-to-device communication, hybrid IoT networks, etc.).

[0046] Various physical channels may be used as part of such MTC, including different channels for both the download path and the upload path on the air interface 190. These physical channels include, but are not limited to, a synchronization channel (SCH), a physical broadcast channel (PBCH), a control channel, a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), a physical random access channel (M-PRACH), a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). These channels and other potential channels are described as follows. The MTC synchronization channel (SCH) may include an MTC primary synchronization signal (PSS) and / or an MTC secondary synchronization signal (SSS). It may be used to support time and frequency synchronization and provide the UE with a physical layer identification and cyclic prefix length of the cell. Note that although TDD may not be supported in some MTC systems, the SCH may or may not be used to distinguish between frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) systems. The MTC physical broadcast channel (PBCH) carries an MTC master information block (MIB), which consists of a limited number of the most frequently transmitted parameters for initial access to the cell. The MTC control channels include the MTC Physical Downlink Control Channel (M-PDCCH), which can be designed based on the LTE Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or the Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (EPDCCH). PRACH is used to send random access preambles. For initial access, it is used to achieve uplink synchronization. PUCCH is used to carry UCI. In particular, scheduling requests and HARQ acknowledgments for received SCH transport blocks can be supported in PUCCH transmissions. The MTC Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) is used to support Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS).

[0047] The PDSCH is used for all user data transmitted between the UE 101 and the eNB 150 over the air interface 190, as well as for broadcast system information not carried on the PBCH, and for paging messages. The PUSCH is used for uplink data transmission. As described above, the embodiments described herein are primarily directed to early termination of retransmissions of data blocks sent via the PDSCH and PUSCH as the primary physical channels for data. In other embodiments, any of the above channels or other channels in other systems may use the early termination of retransmissions described herein.

[0048] Figure 2 Various aspects of system operation with early termination of repeated transmissions in MTC communications according to certain embodiments are shown. In particular, Figure 2 Early termination of uplink communications from UE a 201 to eNB 250 using DCI layer 1 control signaling is shown.

[0049] Early termination of PUSCH repetitions may be achieved by notifying UE 201 of successful receipt of a PUSCH transmission even before the PUSCH repetition window for the initial transmission or any retransmissions. The eNB 250 may use layer 1 downlink control signaling to notify UE 201 of termination of repeated transmissions of a given transport block. In some embodiments, this is achieved by reusing DCI format 0. In other embodiments, a newly designed DCI format is used. In the present invention, reference to "DCI format 0" is intended to imply the use of a DCI format for carrying uplink scheduling information (uplink grant) to MTC UEs - this may be a new DCI format designed for MTC UEs based on the design of DCI format 0. In contrast, as described in detail below, the "newly designed DCI format" refers to the design of a DCI format customized for carrying HARQ-ACK, or generally speaking, for carrying early termination indication information.

[0050] Figure 2Thus, starting at operation 210, the channel conditions and performance between the UE 201 and the eNB 250 are evaluated. Based on the results of the channel performance measured in operation 210, repeated transmissions of uplink data from the UE 201 to the eNB 250 are set and scheduled in operation 212, as information is set to be passed from the UE 201 to the eNB 250. This essentially sets a retransmission window 255. The retransmission window 255 can be based on a scheduling time (e.g., 10 milliseconds, 50 milliseconds, etc.), or can be directly associated with a set number of retransmissions (e.g., 10, 50, 100, etc.). The initial transmission of the data occurs in operation 214, and retransmissions of copies of the same data occur in operations 216A to 216N. In some embodiments, these retransmission communications are not the only communications on the link between the UE 201 and the eNB 250, but can be transmissions that occur between other data transmissions or control channel transmissions on the PUSCH or any other channel described above. In some embodiments, for example, while operations 216A-N are occurring, additional channel measurement communications may be made such that the channel state and scheduling of future PUSCH retransmissions are changed, or other aspects of the UE 201 and eNB 250 communications are adjusted. Ultimately, at operation 218, the eNB 250 successfully decodes the data from the PUSCH retransmission. In a system without early termination of retransmissions, the UE 201 would simply continue to send copies of the data on the PUSCH until a set number of retransmissions have occurred. Then, at the end of the retransmission window 255, a standard HARQ-ACK or NACK would occur to confirm successful reception or request additional retransmissions. However, in the embodiments described herein, when the PUSCH data is successfully decoded before the end of the retransmission window 255, a DCI message indicating early termination of retransmissions is sent from the eNB 250 to the UE 201 at operation 220. This stops any remaining retransmissions from the UE 201, thereby saving power and freeing up transmission resources. In some embodiments, after successfully decoding the PUSCH data in operation 218, the eNB 250 may determine the amount of time or number of retransmissions remaining in the retransmission window 255. If the threshold amount of time or number of retransmissions is maintained, operation 220 may be initiated, but if the threshold is not met, the system may simply allow the retransmission operation to occur without terminating early. In some embodiments, a calculation of resource savings may be performed, including resources consumed when sending the DCI in operation 220 and resources saved after receiving the DCI at the UE 201, and if the threshold resource savings is estimated, operation 220 is performed.

[0051] Figure 3 Methods for early termination of repeated transmissions according to some example embodiments are described. Figure 3Uplink communication of a UE (e.g., UE 101 or UE 201) to an eNB (e.g., eNB 150 or eNB 250) is described. In some embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readable medium includes instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, configure an eNB 150 for machine-type communication to perform method 300. In other embodiments, an eNB (e.g., eNB 150 or eNB 250) performs method 300 in conjunction with a corresponding UE. In some embodiments, a particular eNB may perform method 300 simultaneously with many different UEs at the same time. Method 300 begins at operation 305, which includes determining a channel connection quality to a user equipment (UE) based on one or more measurements associated with a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). In some embodiments, this may be managed by control circuitry 155 to schedule and process measurement communications to UE 101 over air interface 190.

[0052] After the measurement of operation 305, a retransmission value based on the channel quality is selected at operation 310, wherein the retransmission value is associated with a retransmission window. As described above, the retransmission window may be based on a selected number of retransmissions or another retransmission value. In some embodiments, the number of retransmissions may be selected based on one or more measured quality or noise characteristics of an air gap of a channel between an eNB and an associated UE performing method 300 using a table or some other calculated operation. The retransmission value may be selected by the eNB or may be set at the UE using a retransmission value selected at the eNB and then communicated to the UE.

[0053] After the UE begins transmitting and subsequently retransmitting a block of data, at operation 315, the eNB receives one or more transmissions of the block data on the PUSCH from the UE during the retransmission window. When the block data is received, the eNB aggregates energy from the transmissions and processes them to identify symbols and decode the transmission. When additional retransmissions are received, if the previous transmissions were insufficient for successful decoding, the eNB attempts to use the additional transmissions. Operation 320 includes determining that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using one or more transmissions of the block data. Once successful decoding has occurred, the eNB is prompted at operation 325 to terminate the retransmissions from the UE by sending an early termination of retransmission message containing a downlink control information (DCI) message during the retransmission window. As described above, in some embodiments, it can be determined that the retransmission window is almost over and that the early termination of retransmission message should not be sent, but the system will simply use a standard scheduled HARQ-ACK / NACK message. In some embodiments, if the initial set of retransmissions is not successful, a HARQ-NACK message will be sent at the end of the retransmission window and another set of retransmissions will be started. If the block data is successfully decoded before the end of the second retransmission window, operations 320 and 325 may be performed after the HARQ-NACK message and the second set of retransmissions, or after the start of the second set of retransmissions (if the communication is successfully decoded during the second set of transmissions). In other embodiments, other operations may be similarly performed between the described operations.

[0054] Figure 4 Method 400 is described which may be performed by a UE corresponding to the UE of method 300 that communicates with an eNB that performs method 300. As above for method 300, in some embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readable medium includes instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, configure a UE for MTC to perform method 400. In other embodiments, a UE (e.g., UE 101 or UE 201) performs method 400 in conjunction with a corresponding eNB. In some embodiments, method 400 may be performed by a processing integrated circuit device of a mobile device to manage wireless communications from the UE to a cellular network consisting of many eNBs. In such embodiments, method 400 may be performed by a single integrated circuit that manages the operation of the mobile device.

[0055] The method 400 begins at operation 405, in which the apparatus of the UE is configured to: receive retransmission information associated with the measured channel quality of the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) from the eNB. The retransmission information may be measurement data that can be used by the UE to select the number of retransmissions, or may be the number of retransmissions selected by the eNB for the UE. In other embodiments, this may be any other intermediate information or final information for the retransmission window.

[0056] At operation 410, the UE initiates transmission of block data to the eNB on the PUSCH, wherein the transmission of the block data includes: repeatedly transmitting the block data within a retransmission period based on the measured channel quality. At operation 415, the UE receives an early termination repetition transmission message including a downlink control information (DCI) format 0 message or a customized DCI message. The message is based on the eNB successfully decoding the block data before the end of the retransmission window.

[0057] Then, based on the message from operation 415, the UE terminates the repetitive transmission of the scheduled block data in operation 420 in response to receiving the early termination repetitive transmission message during the retransmission period.

[0058] Such use of DCI for early termination may be considered similar to the use of DCI format 0 in semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) release PDCCH validation. In such embodiments, the UE validates receipt of such a DCI format 0 transmission as an indication of early termination of a copy of a transport block corresponding to a PUSCH transmission whose first subframe satisfies a specified time relationship relative to the reception time of the DCI format 0 transmission. In a specific embodiment, the first subframe of the downlink control channel transmission is at a specific timing position to contain a DCI format 0 communication. In these various embodiments, the DCI communication carries data indicating the early termination.

[0059] In some embodiments, a DCI communication association with early termination of repeated transmissions is performed only when a number of conditions are met. The first condition is that the CRC parity bits of the downlink control channel payload are scrambled with the C-RNTI or similar identification number. Another condition is that the new data indicator value of the format 0 DCI is set to zero.

[0060] In further examples, in addition to the above conditions, the conditions described in Table 1 below were used.

[0061]

[0062]

[0063] Table 1

[0064] Therefore, Table 1 shows a special field for indicating early termination of PUSCH repetition transmission according to some embodiments. In Table 1, CS_val is the originally allocated DM-RS cyclic shift value.

[0065] In certain other embodiments, instead of using a specified time relationship between the first subframe of a PUSCH transmission and a downlink control channel transmission indicating early termination of a repeat transmission, a HARQ process number may be used. Such a HARQ process number may be used to identify block data of a PUSCH transmission. Such identification by a HARQ process number may be introduced so that the UE can identify the appropriate data block for which the early termination of a repeat transmission is indicated. In other words, multiple data blocks may be transmitted during an interleaved retransmission window. For this reason, an early termination retransmission system needs to be able to distinguish between different data blocks being retransmitted. Using a HARQ process number to identify a data block enables the system to distinguish between these different data blocks. Such use of a HARQ process number adds additional flexibility when transmitting an early termination indication in an asynchronous manner, but is associated with an additional change to the DCI format (in order to implement a new field for the HARQ process number).

[0066] In other embodiments, a new DCI format may be defined instead of using DCI format 0. In some such embodiments, an MTC-specific DCI format may be used to notify a UE in enhanced coverage mode of early termination of a PUSCH transmission. Such a compact DCI format may include a HARQ process number as described above. Other embodiments of such a compact new DCI format may include a cyclic shift bit field and / or an NDI field. The size reduction of such a compact DCI format may help reduce the number of repetitions of PDCCH or EPDCCH data transmissions, and may therefore allow an MTC UE in enhanced coverage mode to quickly receive a DCI indicating an early termination indication for PUSCH repetitions.

[0067] For UEs in enhanced coverage mode, the starting subframe of EPDCCH transmission is restricted to a subset of subframes in order to reduce the UE's blind decoding attempts for EPDCCH (which consumes power). When the eNB successfully decodes a PUSCH transmission, in some embodiments, the eNB will start sending EPDCCH transmissions in the next available designated starting subframe, or according to the repetition level of the EPDCCH transmission, which can be derived or set according to a mapping rule predefined or configured for the UE-specific coverage extension level.

[0068] In addition, in some embodiments operating in half-duplex frequency domain duplex (HD-FDD) and low complexity UEs in EC mode, the PUSCH retransmission window may be interspersed with downlink subframes. In other words, during the retransmission window, the retransmission window may be extended by the presence of downlink subframes on the shared channel during the retransmission of block data. This enables the UE to receive layer 1 control signaling indicating early termination of repeated transmissions within the retransmission window by using downlink frames originally scheduled for HD-FDD operation.

[0069] Figure 5 Various aspects of system operation with early termination of repeated transmissions in MTC communications according to certain embodiments are shown. In particular, Figure 5 FIG. 5 shows an example of using early or intermediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) operation in a system with early termination of repeated transmissions according to certain embodiments. In some embodiments, UE 501 and eNB 550 may be similar to Figure 1 UE 101 and eNB 150, or any other UE or eNB described herein. As described above, while embodiments using DCI messaging (including DCI format 0 messaging) may terminate uplink retransmissions from the UE to the eNB, the use of early HARQ-ACK messaging may be used to terminate both uplink and downlink retransmissions. Additionally, various embodiments may use both DCI messaging and early HARQ-ACK messaging for uplink and / or downlink termination of repeated messages. In one such embodiment, DCI carried by the M-PDCCH may be used to indicate HARQ-ACK messaging in response to a PUSCH transmission. Thus, in some embodiments, regarding Figure 2 The described embodiments may be used in conjunction with Figure 5 Combinations of described embodiments.

[0070] Similar to Figure 2 System operation, Figure 5 Beginning at: At operations 510 and 512, UE 501 and eNB 550 measure channel performance and select a repetition value based on the channel performance. The measured channel performance is used to establish a retransmission window 555 for retransmitting a particular data block. In an embodiment using DCI and early HARQ-ACK repetition termination, the retransmission window 555 may be used to perform Figure 2 and Figure 5 Both operating systems use the same channel performance measurements.

[0071] At operations 514 and 516A-N, the initial transmission and subsequent retransmission of the block data are performed. If the data is PUSCH data, it is decoded by the eNB 550 at operation 518A, while PDSCH data is decoded by the UE 501 at operation 518B. Whichever device verifies that the data has been correctly decoded during the retransmission window 555 then initiates communication of an early HARQ-ACK message at operation 520 to let the other device know that no additional scheduled retransmissions are needed.

[0072] Fig. 6A Various aspects of HARQ-ACK operation are shown, as well as the use of HARQ process numbers or process identifiers to track the transmission of data. Fig. 6ATransmissions (TX) 650 and 601 are shown for an eNB and UE, respectively, which may be similar to any UE or eNB described herein, including UEs 501 , 101 , and 201 and eNBs 550 , 150 , and 250 .

[0073] As shown, PDCCH 621 may transmit control data associated with PDSCH 622. PDCCH 621 may essentially schedule the transmission of data on PDSCH 622, which may be tracked by HARQ process number 620 associated with all processes transmitting a particular data set. HARQ process number 630 similarly tracks processes for different data sets. Although not shown, each transmission is associated with a corresponding reception in another device, such that PDSCH 622 data is transmitted from the eNB and received at the UE.

[0074] After a set of standard scheduled retransmissions associated with the data in PDSCH 622 (which may include retransmissions on additional scheduled frames of PDSCH), UE TX 601 may include a PUCCH 623 conveying a HARQ-ACK or NACK to let the eNB know whether the data from PDSCH 622 was successfully received. Fig. 6A In the illustrated example of , PUCCH 623 includes a HARQ-NACK indicating that the data from PDSCH 622 was not successfully decoded, so the HARQ process number 620 is then associated with additional scheduling and transmission of the same data in PDCCH 624 and PDSCH 625.

[0075] In contrast, PUCCH 633A may be identified as including HARQ-ACK identifying that data from PDSCH 632 scheduled by PDCCH 631 was successfully received since no subsequent PDSCH was additionally scheduled as part of the transmission associated with HARQ process number 630 .

[0076] Although in Fig. 6A The transmission channels are shown on the timeline in FIG. 1 , but in various embodiments, additional retransmissions may be included as described above. Fig. 6A Thus, in some embodiments, additional frames including data retransmissions associated with HARQ process number 620 may be transmitted between PDSCH 622 and PUCCH 623. Similarly, additional frames including retransmissions associated with HARQ process number 630 may be transmitted between PDSCH 632 and PUCCH 633A. Furthermore, it should be noted that in such embodiments and in Fig. 6AIn the embodiment specifically shown in FIG. 1 , transmissions associated with different HARQ process numbers 620 and 630 are simultaneously active in the system, such that in some embodiments, PUCCH 623 may occur after PUCCH 633A when PDSCH 622 occurs before PDSCH 632. This is the origin of the need for HARQ process tracking or timing of DCI messages used in early termination of repeated transmissions, since the device performing the repeated transmissions needs to know which retransmission process to terminate.

[0077] Fig. 6A The above description describes the standard HARQ-ACK / NACK messages scheduled by the system when the number of retransmissions is set before sending the first copy of a data block. Figure 6B The use of early or intermediate termination retransmissions is shown.

[0078] Figure 6B It shows that Fig. 6A A comparison of a transmission process associated with a HARQ process number 630 is shown and a system that additionally includes an option for early termination via an intermediate HARQ-ACK. As described above, scheduling occurs in the PDCCH 631, and the transmission or retransmission of the data block associated with the HARQ process number 630 occurs in the PDSCH 632. When the initial number of retransmissions is set, the scheduling uses a standard HARQ-ACK or NACK for the PUCCH 633A. However, in the embodiments described herein, an intermediate HARQ-ACK 639 may be sent before the scheduled time for the ACK / NACK for the PUCCH 633A. The intermediate HARQ-ACK 639 essentially preempts the standard HARQ-ACK / NACK for the PUCCH 633A. As described above, the early termination is always an ACK rather than a NACK because the HARQ-ACK 639 is sent in response to determining that the data block from the PDSCH 632 has been successfully decoded, and therefore there is no need to schedule any additional retransmissions between the timing of the HARQ-ACK 639 and the PUCCH 633A. Figure 6B In the above, the retransmission window starts at the first transmission of a data block as part of the eNB TX 650 and ends at the time scheduled for the standard HARQ-ACK / NACK or a threshold time period before the standard HARQ-ACK / NACK, where early termination after the threshold time is considered to be inefficient when compared to allowing the use of the standard HARQ-ACK / NACK. It will also be apparent that although Fig. 6A and Figure 6BAn embodiment is shown in which the eNB 650TX sends data and the UE TX 601 sends an early termination repetition transmission message, but the corresponding system can operate similarly with: the UE TX 601 sends data and the eNB TX 650 sends an intermediate HARQ-ACK as an early termination repetition transmission message. Similarly, some embodiments using DCI as described above can operate with timing that can be viewed as similar to the timing shown herein.

[0079] In addition, Figure 6B In, as Fig. 6A As such, although PDSCH 632 is shown as a single continuously scheduled time, any number of separately scheduled retransmissions may be set between the time scheduled for PDSCH 632 shown and the standard scheduled HARQ-ACK / NACK for PUCCH 633A.

[0080] In the following about Fig. 9 Additional details related to scheduling early termination repetition transmissions in the context of standard HARQ-ACK / NACK scheduling are included.

[0081] Figure 7 A method 700 for early termination of retransmission according to some example embodiments is described. The method 700 may be performed by an eNB (e.g., eNB 150, 250, 550, or any eNB described herein). In addition, it is apparent that a corresponding method will be performed by a UE receiving a transmission signal as described in the method 700. Details of such operations are included in the following examples.

[0082] In method 700, block data is transmitted to a UE (e.g., UE 101, 201, or 501) on a PDSCH at operation 710, wherein the transmission of the block data includes: repeatedly transmitting the block data during a retransmission period based on the measured channel quality. Then, the eNB performs repeated transmission during the retransmission period according to a schedule based on a set number of retransmissions.

[0083] During the retransmission period, as part of operation 715, the eNB receives an early termination repeat transmission message from the UE. The early termination message in operation 715 is a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) message. This message is always an ACK rather than a NACK because the early termination is due to successful decoding of the message and a NACK would indicate that the message was not successfully received. A NACK would be delivered instead as part of a standard HARQ scheduled at the end of the retransmission period, but the standard HARQ is preempted by an intermediate HARQ-ACK received during the retransmission period. At operation 720, in response to receiving the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission period, the eNB terminates at least one additional repetition of the repeated transmission of the block data.

[0084] In addition to the above operations, the eNB may similarly perform the following operations: measure the channel quality of the communication with the UE, and select a retransmission value associated with or used to generate a retransmission window based on the channel quality. In some embodiments, the method may be performed by an eNB similar to eNB 150, wherein the transmission circuit is configured to: deliver one or more transmissions of block data to the UE on the PDSCH during the retransmission window, and the control circuit is configured to: determine the channel quality associated with the PDSCH based on one or more measurements before delivering the one or more transmissions of the block data.

[0085] As described above, using the HARQ-ACK message to terminate repetitive transmissions early may be applicable to both uplink and downlink channels. Figure 7 The method 700 of describes early termination of repeated transmissions for a downlink channel. In contrast, Figure 8 Early termination of repeated transmissions for uplink channels is described. This mirrors the operation described above, where the downlink PDSCH is replaced with the uplink PUSCH in the method and the eNB and UE swap positions.

[0086] Therefore, in method 800, in operation 810, block data is transmitted to an eNB (e.g., eNB 150, 250, or 550) on a PUSCH, wherein the transmission of the block data includes: repeatedly transmitting the block data during a retransmission period based on the measured channel quality. Then, the UE performs repeated transmission during the retransmission period according to the schedule based on the set number of retransmissions.

[0087] During the retransmission period, the UE receives an early termination of repeated transmission message from the eNB as part of operation 815. The early termination message in operation 815 is a HARQ-ACK message received due to successful decoding of the block data at the eNB. In operation 820, in response to receiving the early termination of repeated transmission message during the retransmission period, the UE terminates one or more additional repetitions of repeated transmissions of the block data.

[0088] In some embodiments, channel measurements may be managed by the eNB for both uplink and downlink early termination. In some embodiments, the same channel measurement values ​​and the same quality values ​​derived from these channel measurements may be used to set retransmission values ​​and periods for both uplink and downlink communications. During system operation, the eNB may manage updates or additional instances of these channel measurements so that the retransmission values ​​and retransmission periods may change over time during system operation. In some embodiments, when the channel quality is good enough or the quality value is above a predetermined threshold, early termination of repeated transmissions may be disabled because the number of retransmissions is limited and the benefit of early termination is correspondingly limited.

[0089] Fig. 9 Describe the multiple aspects of early termination. Fig. 9 The transmission diagram is similar to Figure 6B transmission diagram, but Fig. 9 Explicitly shown are multiple transmissions of a data block from eNB TX 950 occurring during PDSCH transmissions 932A-Z. In some embodiments, when channel quality data is used to set a retransmission window 955 and channel 931 schedules a standard HARQ-ACK / NACK message 933 at the end of the retransmission window 955, channel 931 may also be used to schedule optional intermediate HARQ-ACK messages 939A-C, which serve as messages for early termination of repeated transmissions. In such embodiments, rather than interrupting the transmission schedule after successfully decoding a data block, after successful decoding, the receiving device waits until the next scheduled HARQ-ACK message 939. This scheduled block is then used to send an early termination message. For example, if the UE successfully decodes a data block before the scheduled HARQ-ACK message 939A, the UE TX 901 will send an early termination of repeated transmissions message to the eNB, and assuming that message is received shortly thereafter, all retransmissions in PDSCH transmissions 932D-Z will be canceled, freeing up resources for other transmissions.

[0090] If the UE decodes the data block after the timing of the scheduled HARQ-ACK message 939A has passed but before the timing of the HARQ-ACK message 939B has passed, the UE TX 901 will skip the transmission during the timing of the HARQ-ACK message 939A, or the transmission period can be used for other data. The HARQ-ACK message 939B will be used and, if successfully sent, will cause the PDSCH transmissions 932N-Z to be cancelled and these resources to be released for other transmissions.

[0091] If the UE decodes the data block until after the timing of the scheduled HARQ-ACK message 939C, the UE TX 901 will not send an early termination repeat transmission message, but will simply send a standard HARQ-ACK / NACK message 933A at the end of the retransmission window 955, indicating whether the data was successfully decoded.

[0092] In various embodiments, HARQ-ACK message 939 scheduling may be managed in different ways. In one embodiment, a table of predetermined resources or other specific scheduling timing may be used within the retransmission window so that a standard pattern is used for all transmissions using the early termination repeat transmission function.

[0093] In another embodiment, starting from the (n+4)-th uplink subframe, the device may send intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback on PUCCH 1a / 1b resources, where the downlink subframe n corresponds to the f*Nth (rounded up or down in different embodiments) repeated transmission of the PDSCH transport block, where N is the total number of subframes for repeating the transport block, and the factor f is a value between 0 and 1.

[0094] In further embodiments, multiple intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback scheduling instances may be configured in a cell-specific or UE-specific manner. Given that, in a given channel condition, the PPUCCH transmission carrying the intermediate HARQ-ACK message 939 may also need to be repeated over multiple subframes, some embodiments may be constructed with HARQ-ACK messages 939 that are sufficiently extended to avoid collisions. In other words, the HARQ-ACK message 939A should be sufficiently separated from the HARQ-ACK message 939B to avoid collisions under a given repeated transmission message.

[0095] For UE-specific configurations, the number and location of intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback for scheduling within the retransmission window (given by the factor f, where 0 < f < 1) may be explicitly configured or specified as: the EC level set for the UE operating in the EC mode.

[0096] To avoid resource conflicts between conventional HARQ-ACK transmissions (e.g., standard HARQ-ACK / NACK message 933A) and intermediate HARQ-ACK transmissions (e.g., intermediate HARQ-ACK messages 939A-C) in the PUCCH, in some embodiments, separate regions may be defined by configuring different PUCCH starting offsets. In some embodiments, using the starting offset value N(1)PUCCH_interm's N(1)PUCCH value or transmission may work, where this parameter is configured in a cell-specific or UE-specific manner using higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, the starting CCE or nCCE of the original downlink control channel transmission carrying the downlink scheduling assignment may be used for this offset.

[0097] In embodiments where multiple intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback report instances occur under overlapping retransmission windows, multiple starting offsets are configured corresponding to each data transmission and the associated HARQ-ACK feedback to avoid PUCCH resource conflicts between different UEs transmitting different instances of the intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback.

[0098] Example 1 is an apparatus of an evolved Node B (eNB) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a receiving circuit configured to: receive one or more transmissions of block data from a first user equipment (UE) on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) during a retransmission window; a control circuit configured to: determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and generate an early termination repeat transmission message including a downlink control information (DCI) message; and a transmitting circuit configured to: send the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission window.

[0099] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 optionally includes, wherein the control circuit is further configured to: determine a channel quality associated with the PUSCH based on one or more measurements before receiving the one or more transmissions of the block data; and select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with the retransmission window.

[0100] In Example 3, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-2 optionally includes, wherein the DCI message includes a DCI format 0 message, the DCI format 0 message comprising: CRC parity bits scrambled with C-RNTI; and a new data indicator (NDI) value set to 0.

[0101] In embodiment 4, the subject matter of examples 1-3 optionally includes, wherein the DCI format 0 message further includes: a TPC command for PUSCH, set to 00; a cyclic shift DM RS, set to CS_val; a modulation coding scheme redundancy version, set to 11111; and resource block allocation and frequency hopping resource allocation values, all consisting of "1".

[0102] In Example 5, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-4 optionally includes, wherein the eNB is configured to: receive data from multiple transport blocks on the PUSCH during the retransmission window; wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block among the multiple transport blocks; and wherein the control circuit is configured to: associate the block data with the early termination repeat transmission message based on a timing relationship between a first subframe of the one or more transmissions of the block data and a first subframe of the early termination repeat transmission.

[0103] In Example 6, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-5 optionally includes, wherein the eNB is configured to: receive data from multiple transport blocks on the PUSCH during the retransmission window; wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block among the multiple transport blocks; wherein the control circuit is configured to: associate each of the multiple transport blocks with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) process number; and wherein the DCI message includes a first HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transport block.

[0104] In Example 7, the subject matter of Example 6 optionally includes, wherein the DCI message further includes a cyclic shift bit field and a new data indicator (NDI).

[0105] In Example 8, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-7 optionally includes, wherein the eNB is configured to: communicate with the first UE in a half-duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) operation mode such that the PUSCH is interspersed with downlink subframes during the retransmission window.

[0106] In Example 9, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-8 optionally includes, wherein the transmitting circuit is also configured to: deliver one or more transmissions of a second block of data to a first user equipment (UE) on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) during a second retransmission window; and wherein the control circuit is also configured to: initiate transmission of the second block of data on the PDSCH to the first UE, the transmission of the second block of data comprising: repeatedly transmitting the second block of data during the second retransmission window; managing receiving a second early termination repeat transmission message containing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message from the first UE during the second retransmission window, the second early termination repeat transmission message being based on a second decoding of the second block of data at the first UE before the second retransmission window is completed; and terminating repeated transmissions of the second block of data in response to receiving the second early termination repeat transmission message during the second retransmission window.

[0107] In Example 10, the subject matter of Example 9 optionally includes, wherein the retransmission window and the second retransmission window are both determined based on the same first channel quality measurement.

[0108] In Example 11, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-10 optionally includes, wherein the HARQ-ACK message consists of a positive acknowledgement message.

[0109] In Example 12, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-11 may optionally include, wherein the second retransmission window is based on a selected number of subframe retransmissions.

[0110] In Example 13, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-12 optionally includes, wherein, starting from the (n+4)th upload subframe of the second block of data in the PDSCH, the PDSCH is associated with HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), wherein the downlink subframe n corresponds to (f*N), where N is the number of selected subframe retransmissions, and 0 <f<1。

[0111] In Example 14, the subject matter of Example 13 optionally includes, wherein the HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on the PUCCH is associated with multiple subframes; wherein a first subframe of the multiple subframes is based on a first n, where f=0.25; wherein a second subframe of the multiple subframes is based on a second n, where f=0.5; and wherein a third subframe of the multiple subframes is based on a third n, where f=0.75.

[0112] In Example 15, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples 1-14 optionally includes, wherein the receiving circuit is further configured to: receive one or more transmissions of a third block of data from the first user equipment (UE) on a second physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) during a third retransmission window; wherein the control circuit is further configured to: determine that the third block of data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the third block of data; and generate a third early termination repeat transmission message including a second hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message; and wherein the transmitting circuit is further configured to: send the third early termination repeat transmission message during the third retransmission window.

[0113] Example 16 is a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, configure an evolved Node B (eNB) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: determining a channel connection quality to a user equipment (UE) based on one or more measurements associated with a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH); selecting a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with a retransmission window; receiving one or more transmissions of block data from the UE on the PUSCH during the retransmission window; determining that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and sending an early termination repeat transmission message containing a downlink control information (DCI) message during the retransmission window.

[0114] In Example 17, the subject matter of Example 16 optionally includes, wherein the DCI message comprises a DCI format 0 message; and wherein the block data is associated with the early termination repeat transmission message based on a timing relationship between a first subframe of the one or more transmissions of the block data and a first subframe of the early termination repeat transmission message.

[0115] In Example 18, the subject matter of any one or more of the above examples optionally includes, wherein the DCI message includes a custom DCI format, and the custom DCI format includes a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) process number for identifying the block data.

[0116] Example 19 is an apparatus of an evolved Node B (eNB) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a receiving circuit configured to: receive one or more transmissions of block data from a first user equipment (UE) on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) during a retransmission window; a control circuit configured to: determine a channel quality associated with the PUSCH based on one or more measurements before receiving the one or more transmissions of the block data; select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with the retransmission window; determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and generate an early termination repeat transmission message including a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message; and a transmitting circuit configured to: send the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission window.

[0117] In Example 20, the subject matter of any of the above examples may optionally include, wherein the retransmission window is based on a selected number of subframe retransmissions; and wherein, starting from the (n+4)th upload subframe of the block data in the PDSCH, the PUSCH is associated with periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), wherein downlink subframe n corresponds to (f*N), where N is the selected number of subframe retransmissions, and 0 <f<1。

[0118] In Example 21, the subject matter of any one or more of Examples q-20 optionally includes, wherein the eNB is configured to: schedule periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback in a cell-specific or UE-specific manner to avoid conflict with regular HARQ-ACK feedback.

[0119] In Example 22, the subject matter of Examples 1-21 optionally includes, wherein the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback is scheduled via higher layer signaling.

[0120] In Example 23, the subject matter of Examples 1-22 optionally includes, wherein the PUCCH resources used for the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback are derived from a starting CCE index of an initial downlink control channel transmission carrying a downlink scheduling assignment.

[0121] In Example 24, the subject matter of Examples 1-23 optionally includes, wherein the cell-specific or UE-specific scheduling method is based on a changing starting offset configured corresponding to each instance of the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback to avoid PUCCH resource conflicts between different UEs communicating with the eNB.

[0122] Example 25 is a non-transitory computer-readable medium, comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, configure an evolved Node B (eNB) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: determining a channel connection quality to a user equipment (UE) based on one or more measurements associated with a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH); selecting a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with a retransmission window; receiving one or more transmissions of block data from the UE on the PUSCH during the retransmission window; determining that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and sending an early termination repeat transmission message containing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) during the retransmission window.

[0123] Example 26 is an apparatus of an evolved Node B (eNB) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a transmitting circuit configured to: deliver one or more transmissions of block data to a first user equipment (UE) on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) during a retransmission window; a control circuit configured to: determine a channel quality associated with the PDSCH based on one or more measurements before delivering the one or more transmissions of the block data; select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with the retransmission window; initiate transmission of the block data to the first UE on the PDSCH, wherein the transmission of the block data comprises: repeatedly transmitting the block data during the retransmission window based on the measured channel quality; manage receiving an early termination repeat transmission message including a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message from the first UE during the retransmission window, the early termination repeat transmission message being based on decoding of the block data before completion of the retransmission window; and terminate repeated transmissions of the block data in response to receiving the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission window.

[0124] Example 27 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a receiving circuit configured to: receive retransmission information associated with a measured channel quality of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) from an evolved Node B (eNB); and a control circuit configured to: initiate transmission of block data to the eNB on the PUSCH, wherein the transmission of the block data comprises: repeatedly transmitting the block data during a retransmission window based on the measured channel quality; receiving an early termination repeat transmission message including a downlink control information (DCI) format 0 message; and terminating repeated transmission of the block data in response to receiving the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission window.

[0125] Example 28 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a receiving circuit, configured to: receive retransmission information from an evolved Node B (eNB) based on a measured channel quality associated with a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH); and a control circuit, configured to: initiate transmission of block data to the eNB on the PUSCH, wherein the transmission of the block data comprises: repeatedly transmitting the block data during the retransmission window based on the measured channel quality; managing reception of an early termination repeat transmission message including a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message during the retransmission window; and terminating repeated transmission of the block data in response to receiving the early termination repeat transmission message during the retransmission window.

[0126] Example 29 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a receiving circuit configured to: receive retransmission information from an evolved Node B (eNB) based on a measured channel quality associated with a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH); and receive one or more transmissions of block data from the eNB on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) during a retransmission window; a control circuit configured to: determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the UE using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and in response to determining that the block data has been successfully decoded, generate an early termination repeat transmission message including a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) message; and a transmitting circuit configured to: send the early termination repeat transmission message to the eNB before the end of the retransmission window.

[0127] Example 30 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) for machine type communication (MTC), comprising: a control circuit configured to: process retransmission information from an evolved Node B (eNB) based on a measured channel quality associated with a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH); and during a retransmission window, process one or more transmissions of block data on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) from the eNB; determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the UE using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and in response to determining that the block data has been successfully decoded, generate an early termination repeat transmission message including a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK).

[0128] Example 31 is an embodiment of any of the above examples, having an apparatus comprising: a receiving circuit coupled to an antenna and the control circuit, the receiving circuit being configured to: receive the retransmission information and the block data from the antenna, and pass the retransmission information and the block data to the control circuit; and a transmitting circuit coupled to the antenna and the control circuit, the transmitting circuit being configured to: send the early termination repeat transmission message to the eNB before the end of the retransmission window.

[0129] In addition, in addition to the specific combination of the above examples, any example that describes another implementation of an element of a device or medium in detail can be applied to any other corresponding device or medium, or can be implemented in conjunction with another device or medium. Therefore, each of the above examples can be combined with each other example in various ways, as a combination of implementations and elements in a system, to generate an embodiment from each example or a combination of each group of examples.

[0130] Fig.10 Various aspects of a computing machine are shown according to some example embodiments.The embodiments described herein may be implemented as system 1000 using any suitably configured hardware and / or software. Fig.10 For some embodiments, example system 1000 is shown to include radio frequency (RF) circuitry 1035, baseband circuitry 1030, application circuitry 1025, memory / storage 1040, display 1005, camera 1020, sensor 1015, and input / output (I / O) interface 1010, which are coupled to each other at least as shown.

[0131] Application circuitry 1025 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor may include any combination of general-purpose processors and special-purpose processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processor may be coupled to memory / storage 1040 and configured to execute instructions stored in memory / storage 1040 to implement various applications and / or operating systems running on system 1000.

[0132] The baseband circuit 1030 may include, for example, but not limited to, circuits of one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor may include a baseband processor. The baseband circuit 1030 may process various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuit 1035. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation, encoding, decoding, radio frequency offset, etc. In some embodiments, the baseband circuit 1030 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 1030 may support communications with an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN), other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs), wireless local area networks (WLANs), or wireless personal area networks (WPANs). An embodiment in which the baseband circuit 1030 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as a multimode baseband circuit.

[0133] In various embodiments, baseband circuitry 1030 may include circuitry that operates with signals that are not strictly considered to be at baseband frequencies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1030 may include circuitry that operates with signals having intermediate frequencies between baseband frequencies and radio frequencies.

[0134] RF circuitry 1035 may enable communication with a wireless network using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, RF circuitry 1035 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with a wireless network.

[0135] In various embodiments, RF circuit 1035 may include circuits that operate with signals that are not strictly considered to be at radio frequencies. For example, in some embodiments, RF circuit 1035 may include circuits that operate with signals having intermediate frequencies between baseband frequencies and radio frequencies.

[0136] In various embodiments, the transmitter circuitry or receiver circuitry discussed above with respect to a UE or eNB may be embodied in whole or in part in one or more of the RF circuitry 1035 , the baseband circuitry 1030 , and / or the application circuitry 1025 .

[0137] In some embodiments, some or all of the components of the baseband processor may be used to implement aspects of any of the embodiments described herein. These embodiments may be implemented by the baseband circuit 1030, the application circuit 1025, and / or the memory / storage 1040, and may be implemented together on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0138] Memory / storage 1040 may be used, for example, to load and store data and / or instructions for system 1000. For one embodiment, memory / storage 1040 may include any combination of suitable volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM)) and / or non-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory).

[0139] In various embodiments, the I / O interface 1010 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 1000 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to enable a peripheral component to interact with the system 1000. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, a physical keyboard or keypad, a touch pad, a speaker, a microphone, etc. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, and a power interface.

[0140] In various embodiments, sensor 1015 may include one or more sensing devices for determining environmental conditions and / or location information related to system 1000. In some embodiments, sensor 1015 may include, but is not limited to, a gyroscopic sensor, an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, and a positioning unit. The positioning unit may also be part of or interact with baseband circuit 1030 and / or RF circuit 1035 to communicate with components of a positioning network (e.g., global positioning system (GPS) satellites). In various embodiments, display 1005 may include a display (e.g., a liquid crystal display, a touch screen display, etc.).

[0141] In various embodiments, the system 1000 may be a mobile computing device such as, but not limited to, a laptop computing device, a tablet computing device, a netbook, an ultrabook, a smart phone, etc. In various embodiments, the system 1000 may have more or fewer components and / or a different architecture.

[0142] Fig.11An example UE is shown, shown as UE 1100. UE 1100 may be an implementation of UE 101, eNB 150, or any device described herein. UE 1100 may include one or more antennas configured to communicate with a transmission station, such as a base station (BS), an eNB, or another type of wireless wide area network (WWAN) access point. UE 1100 may be configured to communicate using at least one wireless communication standard, including 3GPP LTE, WiMAX, High Speed ​​Packet Access (HSPA), Bluetooth, and WiFi. UE 1100 may communicate using a separate antenna for each wireless communication standard, or may communicate using a shared antenna for multiple wireless communication standards. UE 1100 may communicate in a WLAN, a WPAN, and / or a WWAN.

[0143] Fig.11 Also shown are microphone 1120 and one or more speakers 1112, which can be used for audio input and output to UE 1100. Display screen 1104 can be a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen or another type of display screen, such as an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. Display screen 1104 can be configured as a touch screen. The touch screen can use capacitive, resistive or another type of touch screen technology. Application processor 1114 and graphics processor 1118 can be coupled to internal memory 1116 to provide processing and display capabilities. Non-volatile memory port 1110 can also be used to provide data I / O options to the user. Non-volatile memory port 1110 can also be used to expand the memory capacity of UE 1100. Keyboard 1106 can be integrated with UE 1100, or wirelessly connected to UE 1100 to provide additional user input. A touch screen can also be used to provide a virtual keyboard. A camera 1122 located on the front (display) side or back side of UE 1100 can also be integrated into the housing 1102 of UE 1100.

[0144] Fig.121 is a block diagram showing an example computer system machine 1200 on which any one or more of the methods discussed herein can be run and can be used to implement eNB 150, UE 101, or any other device described herein. In various alternative embodiments, the machine operates as a standalone device, or can be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine can operate in the role of a server or client in a server-client network environment, or it can act as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. The machine can be a personal computer (PC) (which may or may not be portable (e.g., a notebook or netbook)), a tablet, a set-top box (STB), a game console, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone or smart phone, a network appliance, a network router, a switch or a bridge, or any machine capable of executing (sequentially or otherwise) instructions specifying actions to be taken by the machine. In addition, although only a single machine is shown, the term "machine" should also be deemed to include a collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein.

[0145] The example computer system machine 1200 includes a processor 1202 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), or both), a main memory 1204, and a static memory 1206, which communicate with each other via an interconnect 1208 (e.g., a link, a bus, etc.). The computer system machine 1200 may also include a video display unit 1210, an alphanumeric input device 1212 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 1214 (e.g., a mouse). In one embodiment, the video display unit 1210, the input device 1212, and the UI navigation device 1214 are touch screen displays. The computer system machine 1200 may additionally include a mass storage device 1216 (e.g., a drive unit), a signal generating device 1218 (e.g., a speaker), an output controller 1232, a power management controller 1234, a network interface device 1220 (which may include one or more antennas 1230, transceivers or other wireless communication hardware, or be operable to communicate therewith), and one or more sensors 1228 (e.g., a GPS sensor, a compass, a position sensor, an accelerometer, or other sensor).

[0146] The storage device 1216 includes a machine-readable medium 1222 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures and instructions 1224 (e.g., software) that embody or are utilized by any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The instructions 1224 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 1204, static memory 1206, and / or processor 1202 during their execution by the computer system machine 1200, wherein the main memory 1204, static memory 1206, and processor 1202 also constitute machine-readable media.

[0147] Although the machine-readable medium 1222 is illustrated as a single medium in the example embodiment, the term "machine-readable medium" may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and / or associated caches and servers) that store one or more instructions 1224. The term "machine-readable medium" should also be taken to include any tangible medium that can store, encode, or carry instructions that are executed by a machine and cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methods of the present disclosure, or any tangible medium that can store, encode, or carry data structures used by or associated with such instructions.

[0148] The instructions 1224 may be further sent or received over a communications network 1226 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 1220 using any of a number of well-known transmission protocols (e.g., the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP). The term "transmission medium" should be construed to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions to be executed by the machine, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible media to facilitate communication of such software.

[0149] Various technologies, or some aspects or parts thereof, can be in the form of program codes (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media (e.g., floppy disks, CD-ROMs, hard disk drives, non-transient computer-readable storage media, or any other machine-readable storage media), wherein when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine such as a computer, the machine becomes a device for implementing various technologies. In the case of executing program codes on a programmable computer, a computing device may include a processor, a storage medium readable by a processor (including volatile and non-volatile memory and / or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. Volatile and non-volatile memory and / or storage elements may be RAM, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), flash drives, optical drives, magnetic hard disk drives, or other media for storing electronic data. Base stations and mobile stations may also include transceiver modules, counter modules, processing modules, and / or clock modules or timer modules. One or more programs that may implement or utilize the various technologies described herein may use application programming interfaces (APIs), reusable controls, etc. These programs may be implemented in high-level procedural programming languages ​​or object-oriented programming languages ​​to communicate with a computer system. However, if desired, the program can be implemented in assembly language or machine language. In any case, the language can be a compiled language or an interpreted language, combined with hardware implementation.

[0150] Various embodiments can use 3GPP LTE / LTE-A, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1202.11 and Bluetooth communication standards. Various alternative embodiments can use various other WWAN, WLAN and WPAN protocols and standards in conjunction with the technology described herein. These standards include but are not limited to other standards from 3GPP (e.g., HSPA+, UMTS), IEEE 1202.16 (e.g., 1202.16p) or Bluetooth (e.g., Bluetooth 11.0 or similar standards defined by Bluetooth Special Interest Group) standard families. Other applicable network configurations can be included in the scope of the communication network currently described. It should be understood that any number of PANs, LANs and WANs can be used, using any combination of wired transmission media or wireless transmission media to facilitate communication on such communication networks.

[0151] The above embodiments may be implemented using one or a combination of hardware, firmware and software. Various methods or techniques, or some aspects or portions thereof, may be in the form of program codes (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media (e.g., flash memory, hard disk drives, portable storage devices, read-only memories (ROMs), RAMs, semiconductor memory devices (e.g., EPROMs, electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs)), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, and any other machine-readable storage media or storage devices), wherein when the program codes are loaded into and executed by a machine (e.g., a computer or a networked device), the machine becomes an apparatus for implementing the various techniques.

[0152] It should be understood that the functional units or capabilities described in this specification may be referred to or labeled as components or modules to more particularly emphasize their implementation independence. For example, a component or module may be implemented as a hardware circuit, which includes a custom large-scale integration (VLSI) circuit or gate array, a spot semiconductor (e.g., a logic chip), a transistor or other discrete component. A component or module may also be implemented with a programmable hardware device, such as a field programmable gate array, a programmable array logic, a programmable logic device, etc. A component or module may also be implemented with software so that it can be executed by various types of processors. The identified components or modules of the executable code may, for example, include one or more physical blocks or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may, for example, be organized as objects, processes, or functions. However, the executable files of the identified components or modules do not need to be physically located together, but may include disparate instructions stored in different locations, which, when logically combined together, constitute components or modules and implement the stated purpose of the components or modules.

[0153] In practice, a component or module of executable code may be a single instruction, or many instructions, and may even be distributed over several different code segments, between different programs, and across several memory devices. Similarly, operational data may be identified and shown within a component or module, and may be embodied in any suitable form and organized within any suitable type of data structure. The operational data may be collected as a single data set, or may be distributed over different locations, including over different storage devices, and exist at least in part only as electronic signals on a system or network. A component or module may be passive or active, including agents operable to perform a desired function.

Claims

1. A base station, comprising: Radio equipment; as well as a processor operably connected to the radio device, the processor being configured to cause the base station to: During Machine Type Communication MTC: receiving one or more transmissions of block data on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) from a first user equipment (UE) during a retransmission window; determining that the block data has been successfully decoded using the one or more transmissions of the block data; After determining successful decoding, generating an early termination repetition transmission message for the block data, the early termination repetition transmission message comprising a downlink control information DCI message, wherein the DCI message includes a cyclic redundancy check CRC parity bit scrambled with a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, a new data indicator NDI value set to 0, and a resource block allocation set to all "1"s; and The early termination repeat transmission message is sent during the retransmission window.

2. The base station according to claim 1, wherein: The DCI message also includes a transmit power command TPC set to 00.

3. The base station according to claim 1, wherein: The DCI message also includes: The cyclic shift of the demodulation reference signal DM RS set to CS_val; A modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; or A frequency hopping resource allocation value consisting entirely of "1s".

4. The base station according to claim 1, wherein: The processor is further configured to cause the base station to: During the retransmission window, data from a plurality of transport blocks is received on the PUSCH, wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks.

5. The base station according to claim 4, in, The block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; The processor is further configured to enable the base station to associate each of the multiple transport blocks with a hybrid automatic repeat request confirmation HARQ-ACK process number, wherein the DCI message includes a first HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transport block.

6. A user equipment UE, comprising: Radio equipment; as well as a processor operably connected to the radio device, the processor being configured to cause the UE to: During Machine Type Communication MTC: During the retransmission window, sending one or more transmissions of the block data to the base station on a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH; receiving an early termination repetition transmission message of the block data from the base station, The early termination repetitive transmission message comprises a downlink control information DCI message, wherein the DCI message comprises a cyclic redundancy check CRC parity bit scrambled with a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, a new data indicator NDI value set to 0, and a resource block allocation set to all "1"s; and In response to the early termination repeat transmission message, the transmission of the block data is terminated.

7. The UE according to claim 6, wherein: The DCI message also includes a transmit power command TPC set to 00.

8. The UE according to claim 6, wherein: The DCI message also includes: The cyclic shift of the demodulation reference signal DM RS set to CS_val; A modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; or A frequency hopping resource allocation value consisting entirely of "1s".

9. The UE according to claim 6, wherein: The processor is further configured to cause the UE to: During the retransmission window, data from a plurality of transport blocks is transmitted to the base station on the PUSCH, wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks.

10. The UE according to claim 9, in, The block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; The DCI message includes a first hybrid automatic repeat request confirmation HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transmission block.

11. The UE according to claim 6, wherein: The processor is also configured to cause the UE to communicate with the base station in a half-duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) mode of operation such that the PUSCH is interspersed with downlink subframes during the retransmission window.

12. A device of a user equipment UE, comprising: a processor configured to cause the UE to: During Machine Type Communication MTC: During the retransmission window, sending one or more transmissions of the block data to the base station on a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH; receiving an early termination repetition transmission message of the block data from the base station, The early termination repetitive transmission message comprises a downlink control information DCI message, wherein the DCI message comprises a cyclic redundancy check CRC parity bit scrambled with a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, a new data indicator NDI value set to 0, and a resource block allocation set to all "1"s; and In response to the early termination repeat transmission message, the transmission of the block data is terminated.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein: The DCI message also includes a transmit power command TPC set to 00.

14. The device according to claim 12, wherein: The DCI message also includes: The cyclic shift of the demodulation reference signal DM RS set to CS_val; A modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; or A frequency hopping resource allocation value consisting entirely of "1s".

15. The device according to claim 12, wherein: The processor is further configured to cause the UE to: During the retransmission window, data from a plurality of transport blocks is transmitted to the base station on the PUSCH, wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks.

16. The device according to claim 15, in, The block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; The DCI message includes a first hybrid automatic repeat request confirmation HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transmission block.

17. The device according to claim 12, wherein: The processor is also configured to cause the UE to communicate with the base station in a half-duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) mode of operation such that the PUSCH is interspersed with downlink subframes during the retransmission window.

18. A method for a base station, comprising: During Machine Type Communication MTC: receiving one or more transmissions of block data on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) from a first user equipment (UE) during a retransmission window; determining that the block data has been successfully decoded using the one or more transmissions of the block data; After determining successful decoding, generating an early termination repetition transmission message for the block data, the early termination repetition transmission message comprising a downlink control information DCI message, wherein the DCI message includes a cyclic redundancy check CRC parity bit scrambled with a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, a new data indicator NDI value set to 0, and a resource block allocation set to all "1"s; and The early termination repeat transmission message is sent during the retransmission window.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein: The DCI message also includes a transmit power command TPC set to 00.

20. The method according to claim 18, wherein: The DCI message also includes: The cyclic shift of the demodulation reference signal DM RS set to CS_val; A modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; or A frequency hopping resource allocation value consisting entirely of "1s".

21. The method according to claim 18, wherein: The method further comprises: During the retransmission window, data from a plurality of transport blocks is received on the PUSCH, wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks.

22. The method according to claim 21, in, The block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; Wherein, the method further comprises: Associating each of the plurality of transport blocks with a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ) process number, wherein the DCI message includes a first HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transport block.

23. A method for a user equipment UE, comprising: During Machine Type Communication MTC: During the retransmission window, sending one or more transmissions of the block data to the base station on a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH; receiving an early termination repetition transmission message of the block data from the base station, The early termination repetitive transmission message comprises a downlink control information DCI message, wherein the DCI message comprises a cyclic redundancy check CRC parity bit scrambled with a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, a new data indicator NDI value set to 0, and a resource block allocation set to all "1"s; and In response to the early termination repeat transmission message, the transmission of the block data is terminated.

24. The method according to claim 23, wherein: The DCI message also includes a transmit power command TPC set to 00.

25. The method according to claim 23, wherein: The DCI message also includes: The cyclic shift of the demodulation reference signal DM RS set to CS_val; A modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; or A frequency hopping resource allocation value consisting entirely of "1s".

26. The method of claim 23, wherein: The method further comprises: During the retransmission window, data from a plurality of transport blocks is transmitted to the base station on the PUSCH, wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks.

27. The method according to claim 26, in, The block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; The DCI message includes a first hybrid automatic repeat request confirmation HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transmission block.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein: The method further comprises: Communicating with the base station in a half-duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) mode of operation such that the PUSCH is interspersed with downlink subframes during the retransmission window.

29. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed, implement the method of any one of claims 18 to 28.

30. A computer program product comprising program code portions for performing the method according to any one of claims 18 to 28 when the computer program product is executed on one or more computing devices.

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