High reliability enhanced physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission

Abstract

A technique for a user equipment (UE) capable of operating for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission is disclosed. The UE may be configured to: decode a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator, wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allows multiple PUCCH transmissions from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmit reception points (TRPs); decode one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI); and identify from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ‑ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ‑ACK feedback.

Description

Background Art

[0001] A wireless system typically includes a plurality of user equipment (UE) devices communicatively coupled to one or more base stations (BSs). The one or more BSs may be a Long Term Evolution (LTE) evolved NodeB (eNB) or a New Radio (NR) NodeB (gNB), a Next Generation Node B (gNB), or a New Radio Base Station (NR BS) that may be communicatively coupled to one or more UEs by a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network.

[0002] The next generation of wireless communication systems is expected to be a unified network / system designed to meet distinct and sometimes conflicting performance dimensions and services. New air access technologies (RATs) are expected to support a wide range of use cases, including enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine type communications (mMTC), mission critical machine type communications (uMTC), and similar service types operating in the frequency range up to 100GHz. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0003] Features and advantages of the present disclosure will be apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which together illustrate features of the present disclosure by way of example; and wherein:

[0004] Figure 1 A block diagram illustrating a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) New Radio (NR) Release 15 frame structure according to an example;

[0005] Figure 2 Depicting the functionality of multiple physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmissions according to an example radio resource control (RRC) configuration;

[0006] Figure 3 depicts a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) (MAC CE) payload according to an example;

[0007] Figure 4 Depicted are the functionality of a user equipment (UE) operable for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network according to one example;

[0008] Figure 5 Depicted are the functionality of a new radio Node B (gNB) operable for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network according to one example;

[0009] Figure 6A flow diagram of a machine-readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network is depicted according to an example;

[0010] Figure 7 An exemplary architecture of a system of a network according to an example is shown;

[0011] Figure 8 An example of a platform or device according to an example is shown;

[0012] Fig. 9 shows exemplary components of a baseband circuit and a radio front end module (RFEM) according to one example;

[0013] Fig.10 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium according to one example;

[0014] Fig.11 A diagram showing a wireless device (eg, UE) according to an example; and

[0015] Fig.12 Various protocol functions are shown according to one example.

[0016] Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. However, it will be understood that no limitation of the scope of the technology is intended thereby. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0017] Before disclosing and describing the technology of the present invention, it should be understood that the technology is not limited to the specific structures, process operations or materials disclosed herein, but extends to their equivalents as will be recognized by those of ordinary skill in the relevant art. It should also be understood that the terms used herein are only for the purpose of describing specific examples and are not intended to be limiting. The same figure numbers in different figures represent the same elements. The numbers provided in the flow charts and processes are for the purpose of clearly illustrating the actions and operations and do not necessarily indicate a specific order or sequence.

[0018] Exemplary embodiments

[0019] The following provides an initial overview of the technical embodiments, and specific technical embodiments will be described in more detail later. This initial summary is intended to help readers understand the technology more quickly, but is not intended to identify the key features or essential features of the technology, nor is it intended to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

[0020] Enhancements to ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) could further improve reliability and reduce latency for different use cases, such as factory automation, transportation, and power distribution, with standards that may be more stringent than those considered in NR Release 15. Some use cases may have 1×10 -6 Reliability levels and radio access network (RAN) latency at sub-millisecond (ms) levels (e.g., 0.5 ms to 1.0 ms). In addition, there may be an increasingly diverse mix of latency and reliability standards with different traffic flows in Release 15, ranging from enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) to URLLC and enhanced URLLC (eURLLC).

[0021] Different specific implementations may support multiple transmit receive points (TRPs) transmission and reception and may be applied to URLLC use cases. Specifically, use cases based on multiple downlink control information (DCI) and single DCI can be implemented. In the case of multiple DCI, different physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) can be sent independently from multiple TRPs to schedule corresponding physical downlink shared channels (PDSCH) transmissions. Different physical uplink control channels (PUSCHs) can be signaled by corresponding scheduling PDCCHs for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback, so that PUCCH transmission for multi-TRP reception can be supported. When the same transport block (TB) is scheduled and sent from multiple TRPs and the corresponding HARQ-ACK is received by multiple TRPs, the overall reliability can be improved due to the enhanced diversity order.

[0022] In contrast, for multi-TRP transmission based on a single DCI, one DCI can be used to schedule PDSCHs transmitted from multiple TRPs. Using traditional PUCCH resource signaling in PDCCH, PUCCH can support reception based on a single TRP, but not on multiple TRPs. Even when PDSCH / PDCCH transmission based on multiple TRPs meets the reliability criteria for the eURLLC use case, PUCCH reception based on a single TRP may become a performance bottleneck and reduce overall communication efficiency.

[0023] In one example, multi-TRP reception of PUCCH HARQ-ACK feedback for multi-TRP transmissions scheduled by a single DCI may be used for an eURLLC use case. Specifically, PUCCH transmissions in the eURLLC use case may be used to support multi-TRP PUCCH reception to enable dynamic signaling in multiple PUCCH resources in a DCI that schedules multi-TRP-based PDSCH transmissions. The first signaled PUCCH resource may be associated with a primary TRP, and the second signaled PUCCH resource may be associated with a secondary TRP.

[0024] In one example, a user equipment (UE) is operable for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network. The UE may include one or more processors. The one or more processors may be configured to decode, at the UE, a multi-PUCCH transmission indicator received from a new radio Node B (gNB), wherein the multi-PUCCH transmission indicator allows multi-PUCCH transmission from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmit receive points (TRPs). The one or more processors may be configured to decode, at the UE, one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI). The one or more processors may be configured to identify, at the UE, from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP in the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP in the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback. The UE may also include a memory interface configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

[0025] Figure 1 An example of a frame structure for 3GPP NR Release 15 is provided. Specifically, Figure 1 1 shows a downlink radio frame structure. In this example, a radio frame 100 of a signal for transmitting data may be configured to have a duration T of 10 milliseconds (ms). f Each radio frame may be segmented or divided into ten subframes 110i, each subframe being 1 millisecond in length. Each subframe may be further subdivided into one or more time slots 120a, 120i, and 120x, each time slot having a duration T of 1 / μms. slot , where for 15kHz subcarrier spacing μ=1, for 30kHz μ=2, for 60kHz μ=4, for 120kHz μ=8, and for 240kHz u=16. Each time slot may include a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and / or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).

[0026] Each time slot of a component carrier (CC) used by a node and a wireless device may include a plurality of resource blocks (RBs) 130a, 130b, 130i, 130m, and 130n, depending on the CC frequency bandwidth. A CC may have a carrier frequency including a bandwidth. Each CC time slot may include downlink control information (DCI) present in a PDCCH. The PDCCH is transmitted in a control channel resource set (CORESET), which may include one, two, or three orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols and a plurality of RBs.

[0027] Each time slot of each RB (physical RB or PRB) may include 12 subcarriers (on the frequency axis) and 14 orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols (on the time axis). If a short cycle or standard cyclic prefix is ​​adopted, the RB may use 14 OFDM symbols. If an extended cyclic prefix is ​​used, the RB may use 12 OFDM symbols. A resource block may be mapped to 168 resource elements (REs) using a short cycle or standard cyclic prefix, or may be mapped to 144 REs using an extended cyclic prefix (not shown). RE may be a unit containing one OFDM symbol 142 and one subcarrier (i.e., 15kHz, 30kHz, 60kHz, 120kHz, and 240kHz) 146.

[0028] When using quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation, each RE 140i can transmit two bits of information 150a and 150b. Other modulation types, such as 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or 64QAM, can be used to transmit more bits in each RE, and bi-phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation can be used to transmit fewer bits (one bit) in each RE. RBs can be configured for downlink transmission from an NR BS to a UE, and can also be configured for uplink transmission from a UE to an NR BS.

[0029] This example of a frame structure for 3GPP NR Release 15 provides an example of a way or transmission mode to transmit data. This example is not intended to be limiting. In the 5G frame structure included in 3GPP LTE Release 15, MulteFire Release 1.1 and higher, many Release 15 features will evolve and change. In such systems, due to the coexistence of different network services such as eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband), mMTC (massive machine type communication or massive IoT) and URLLC (ultra-reliable low latency communication or critical communication), design constraints may coexist with multiple 5G parameter sets in the same carrier. Carriers in a 5G system may be above or below 6GHz. In one embodiment, each network service may have a different parameter set.

[0030] In one example, dynamic signaling of multiple PUCCH resources in a DCI that schedules a PDSCH transmission based on multiple TRPs may be implemented. The first signaled PUCCH resource may be associated with a primary TRP, and the second signaled PUCCH resource may be associated with a secondary TRP. In the first case, a radio resource control (RRC) configured multiple PUCCH transmission may be used. In the second case, a DCI with a multiple PUCCH resource field may be used. In the third case, a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) that signals PUCCH resource partitions for different TRPs may be used.

[0031] Case 1: Multiple PUCCH transmissions configured by RRC .

[0032] In one example, in a first operation, a Boolean type RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the information element "PUCCH-Config" to enable or disable multi-PUCCH transmission.

[0033] In another example, in the second operation, when the information element "PUCCH-Config" is enabled, the PUCCH resource field in the DCI can signal the first PUCCH resource in the PUCCH-resource pair for HARQ-ACK feedback. The second PUCCH resource can be a subsequent PUCCH resource after the first PUCCH resource in the corresponding PUCCH resource set.

[0034] Case 2: DCI with multiple PUCCH resource fields .

[0035] In another example, in the first operation, a Boolean type RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the information element "PUCCH-Config" to enable or disable multi-PUCCH transmission.

[0036] In another example, in the second operation, the DCI for scheduling multi-TRP-based PDSCH transmission may include two PUCCH resource fields: "PUCCH-Resource-ID#1" and "PUCCH-Resource-ID#2". The PUCCH resource field "PUCCH-Resource-ID#1" may be associated with the primary TRP, and the PUCCH resource field "PUCCH-Resource-ID#2" may be associated with the secondary TRP.

[0037] Case 3: MAC CE signals PUCCH resource partitioning for different TRPs .

[0038] In another example, in the first operation, a Boolean type RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the information element "PUCCH-Config" to enable or disable multi-PUCCH transmission.

[0039] In another example, in the second operation, the MAC CE may signal the number of PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP. In this example, the remaining PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource set may be associated with the secondary TRP.

[0040] In another example, in the third operation, the DCI for scheduling multi-TRP-based PDSCH transmission may include two PUCCH resource fields: "PUCCH-Resource-ID#1" and "PUCCH-Resource-ID#2". The PUCCH resource field "PUCCH-Resource-ID#1" may be indexed within a subset associated with a primary TRP, and the PUCCH resource field "PUCCH-Resource-ID#2" may be associated with a secondary TRP.

[0041] In another example, multi-TRP reception for PUCCH transmissions in response to multi-TRP based PDSCH transmissions for eURLLC use cases in Release 16 may be enabled. In this example, the resulting overall system reliability may be significantly increased.

[0042] In another example, in NR Release 15, PUCCH-resources may define time-frequency resources based on the number of symbols and the number of resource blocks sent by the corresponding PUCCH. PUCCH-resources may be grouped into specific sets based on the number of information bits of uplink control information (UCI) to be carried by the PUCCH and configured by RRC signaling. The spatial information parameter PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfo may include beam-to-link (BPL) correspondence, which defines aligned downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) beam pairs signaled by the synchronization signal block (SSB), channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), sounding reference signal (SRS), UE-BPL specific reference power setting P_o, and index of closed-loop power control (PC) state. The mapping between PUCCH resources (e.g., time-frequency resources) and BPL-power resources defined by PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfo may be activated by MAC CE. For closed-loop PC, the closed-loop transmit power (TP) adjustment operation may be defined as shown in Table 1 below and signaled in the downlink control information (DCI).

[0043] Table 1 Mapping of the closed-loop transmit power control (TPC) command field in DCI to the actual transmit power (TP) adjustment

[0044]

[0045]

[0046] In another example, in NR Release 15, the PUCCH resource field in the DCI may explicitly indicate a specific PUCCH resource for HARQ-ACK feedback for the scheduled PDSCH. For multiple TRP transmissions based on a single DCI, one PUCCH resource may be signaled in the DCI for HARQ-ACK feedback.

[0047] In another example, to enable multi-TRP PUCCH reception, where multiple BPLs can be enabled for PUCCH transmission and reception to improve PUCCH reception performance for eURLLC use cases, the following scenario can be used to implement this functionality.

[0048] Case 1: Multiple PUCCH transmissions configured by RRC .

[0049] In another example, Figure 2 As shown, a Boolean type RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the RRC information element "PUCCH-Config" 200 to enable or disable multi-PUCCH transmission.

[0050] In another example, when the RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" of the RRC information element "PUCCH-Config" 200 is set to "true", a pair of PUCCH resources may be used for HAQR-ACK feedback for each scheduled multi-TRP PDSCH transmission.

[0051] In another example, the PUCCH resource field in the DCI may signal the first PUCCH resource in a PUCCH resource pair for HARQ-ACK feedback. In another example, the second PUCCH resource may be a subsequent PUCCH resource after the first PUCCH resource in the corresponding PUCCH resource set signaled in the DCI. In one example, if a PUCCH-resource identifier (ID) n is signaled in the DCI, where n is an integer greater than or equal to 1, the UE may use two PUCCH resources with IDs n and n+1 for HARQ-ACK feedback. In this example, the two PUCCH resources may be associated with two different BPLs defined by the corresponding activated PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfo. Therefore, multi-TRPPUCCH reception may be used.

[0052] Case 2: DCI with multiple PUCCH resource fields

[0053] In another example, the RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the RRC information element "PUCCH-Config". When the RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" is set to "true", the DCI scheduling multi-TRP based PDSCH transmission may include two PUCCH resource fields. The two PUCCH resource fields may be "PUCCH-Resource-ID#1" and "PUCCH-Resource-ID#2". The DCI may signal two PUCCH resources for HARQ-ACK feedback for the scheduled PDSCH in these two PUCCH resource fields. The two signaled PUCCH resources may be associated with two different BPLs defined by the corresponding activated PUCCH-SpatialRelationInfo. Therefore, multi-TRP PUCCH reception may be used.

[0054] Case 3: MAC CE signals PUCCH resource partitioning for different TRPs .

[0055] In another example, an RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" may be added to the RRC information element "PUCCH-Config." When the RRC parameter "multiPucchTransmission" is set to "true," a pair of PUCCH resources may be used for HARQ-ACK feedback for each scheduled multi-TRP PDSCH transmission.

[0056] In this example, PUCCH resource partitioning in PUCCH reception can be obtained through MAC CE signaling to improve the dynamic adjustment of the amount of PUCCH resources associated with different TRPs. For example, a PUCCH resource set for HARQ-ACK feedback (e.g., PUCCH-resource set #0) may include two subsets of PUCCH resources (e.g., subset #0 and subset #1). Specifically, the first subset (e.g., subset #0) may include PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP, and the second subset (e.g., subset #1) may include PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP.

[0057] In another example, Figure 3As shown, the MAC CE 300 may signal the number 324 of PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource set associated with the primary TRP. In this example, the remaining PUCCH resources in the PUCCH resource set may be associated with the secondary TRP. The MAC CE 300 may include one or more additional fields, including: (a) a serving cell ID 322, (b) a bandwidth part (BWP) ID 332, (c) a PUCCH-resource set ID 334, (d) the number 324 of PUCCH resources for the primary TRP, (e) one or more reserved bits R 312 and R 314. The MAC CE may have a length of 8 bits (e.g., 301-308).

[0058] In another example, the serving cell ID 322 may indicate the identity of the serving cell to which the MAC CE applies. In one example, the length of the field may be 5 bits (eg, 302-306).

[0059] In another example, the BWP ID 332 may be the BWP ID of the uplink bandwidth portion in which the PUCCH transmission is applied. In one example, the length of the BWP ID field may be 2 bits (eg, 307-308).

[0060] In another example, the PUCCH-resource set ID 334 may be a PUCCH resource set ID (eg, 307-308) of length 2 bits.

[0061] In another example, the number of PUCCH resources for a primary TRP (mTRP) 324 may indicate the number of PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP in the signaled PUCCH resource set. In one example, the length of the number of PUCCH resources for an mTRP field 324 may be 5 bits (e.g., 302-306).

[0062] In another example, MAC CE 300 may include one or more reserved bits (eg, R 312 and R 314 ).

[0063] In another example, after HARQ-ACK has been sent in response to the PDSCH carrying the MAC CE, a specific configuration may be applied within a period of x ms (eg, x=3 ms).

[0064] In another example, when two PUCCH resource fields are signaled in the DCI as in Case 2, the two PUCCH resource fields may be associated with the primary TRP and the secondary TRP, respectively. The first PUCCH resource field in the DCI may signal a PUCCH resource index within a first subset of PUCCH resources for the primary TRP in the PUCCH resource set, and the second PUCCH resource field in the DCI may signal a PUCCH resource index within a second subset of PUCCH resources for the secondary TRP in the PUCCH resource set.

[0065] Another example provides a user equipment (UE) functionality 400 capable of operating for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, such as Figure 4 As shown. The UE may include one or more processors. The one or more processors may be configured to decode, at the UE, a multi-PUCCH transmission indicator received from a new radio Node B (gNB), wherein the multi-PUCCH transmission indicator allows multi-PUCCH transmission from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmission reception points (TRPs), as shown in box 410. The one or more processors may be configured to decode, at the UE, one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI), as shown in box 420. The one or more processors may be configured to identify, at the UE, from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP in the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP in the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback, as shown in box 430. Furthermore, the UE may include a memory interface configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

[0066] Another example provides a function 500 of a new radio node B (gNB) capable of operating for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, such as Figure 5As shown. The gNB may include one or more processors. The one or more processors may be configured to encode a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator at the gNB for transmission to a user equipment (UE), the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allowing multiple PUCCH transmissions from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmission reception points (TRPs), as shown in block 510. The one or more processors may be configured to encode one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI) at the gNB for transmission to the UE, wherein the one or more PUCCH resource fields identify: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP of the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP of the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback, as shown in block 520. In addition, the gNB may include a memory interface, the memory interface configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

[0067] Another example provides at least one machine-readable storage medium having instructions 600 embodied thereon for physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, such as Figure 6 As shown. The instructions are executable on a machine, wherein the instructions are included on at least one computer-readable medium or a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium. The instructions, when executed, perform at a UE decoding of a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator received from a new radio Node B (gNB), wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allows multiple PUCCH transmissions from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmission reception points (TRPs), as shown in block 610. The instructions, when executed, perform at a UE decoding of one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI), as shown in block 620. When executed, these instructions identify at the UE from one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback, as shown in box 630.

[0068] Although examples have been provided that specify gNB, these examples are not intended to be limiting. An evolved Node B (eNB), a next generation Node B (gNB), a new radio Node B (gNB), or a new radio base station (NRBS) may be used in place of a gNB. Therefore, unless otherwise stated, any example herein that has disclosed a gNB may similarly disclose the use of an eNB, a gNB, or a new radio base station (NR BS).

[0069] Figure 7 An exemplary architecture of a system 700 of a network according to various embodiments is shown. The following description is provided for an example system 700 operating in conjunction with LTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards provided by 3GPP technical specifications. However, the exemplary embodiments are not limited in this regard, and the embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), and the like.

[0070] like Figure 7 As shown, system 700 includes UE 701a and UE 701b (collectively referred to as "multiple UEs 701" or "UE 701"). In this example, multiple UEs 701 are shown as smart phones (e.g., handheld touch screen mobile computing devices that can connect to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing devices, such as consumer electronic devices, mobile phones, smart phones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handheld devices, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) devices, instrument panels (ICs), head-up display (HUD) devices, on-board diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), electronic engine management systems (EEMS), electronic / engine electronic control units (ECUs), electronic / engine electronic control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or "smart" appliances, MTC devices, M2M, IoT devices, etc.

[0071] In some embodiments, any of the plurality of UEs 701 may include an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with an MTC server or device via PLMN, ProSe or D2D communications, sensor networks, or IoT networks. M2M or MTC data exchanges may be machine-initiated data exchanges. The IoT network describes interconnected IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) with short-lived connections. The IoT UE may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connectivity to the IoT network.

[0072] Multiple UEs 701 may be configured, for example, to be communicatively coupled to a RAN 710. In an embodiment, the RAN 710 may be an NG RAN or a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN or a GERAN. As used herein, the term "NG RAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 710 operating in an NR or 5G system 700, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 710 operating in an LTE or 4G system 700. Multiple UEs 701 utilize connections (or channels) 703 and 704, respectively, each connection comprising a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below).

[0073] In this example, connections 703 and 704 are shown as air interfaces to achieve communication coupling, and may be consistent with a cellular communication protocol, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, a NR protocol, and / or any other communication protocol discussed herein. In an embodiment, multiple UEs 701 may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 705. The ProSe interface 705 may alternatively be referred to as a SL interface 705, and may include one or more logical channels, including but not limited to PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

[0074] UE 701b is shown as being configured to access AP 706 (also referred to as "WLAN node 706", "WLAN 706", "WLAN terminal 706", "WT 706", etc.) via connection 707. Connection 707 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 706 will include Wireless Fidelity. router. In this example, AP 706 is shown connected to the Internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, UE 701b, RAN 710, and AP 706 may be configured to utilize LWA operation and / or LWIP operation. LWA operation may involve UE 701b in an RRC_CONNECTED state configured by RAN nodes 711a-b to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 701b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 707) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent over connection 707. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packet.

[0075] The RAN 710 may include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 711a and 711b (collectively referred to as "multiple RAN nodes 711" or "RAN node 711") that enable connections 703 and 704. As used herein, the terms "access node", "access point", etc. may describe equipment that provides radio baseband functions for data and / or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP or TRP, etc., and may include ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the terms "NG RAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 711 (e.g., a gNB) operating in an NR or 5G system 700, while the terms "E-UTRAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 711 (e.g., an eNB) operating in an LTE or 4G system 700. According to various embodiments, the plurality of RAN nodes 711 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices such as macrocell base stations and / or low power (LP) base stations for providing femtocells, picocells or other similar cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity or higher bandwidth than macrocells.

[0076] In some embodiments, all or part of the multiple RAN nodes 711 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network that may be referred to as a CRAN and / or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vBBUP may implement RAN functional splitting, such as PDCP splitting, where the RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 711; MAC / PHY splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 711; or "lower PHY" splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layer, and upper portions of the PHY layer are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while the lower portions of the PHY layer are operated by individual RAN nodes 711. The virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of the multiple RAN nodes 711 to execute other virtualized applications. In some specific implementations, separate RAN nodes 711 may represent a single RAN node 711 connected to the network via a separate F1 interface ( Figure 7 In some implementations, the gNB-DU may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs, and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN 710 or by a server pool in a manner similar to CRAN / vBBUP. In addition or alternatively, one or more of the multiple RAN nodes 711 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), which is a RAN node that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminals to multiple UEs 701 and is connected to the 5GC via an NG interface (discussed below).

[0077] In a V2X scenario, one or more of the multiple RAN nodes 711 may be an RSU or act as an RSU. The term "roadside unit" or "RSU" may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity used for V2X communication. The RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, wherein an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU", and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled to a radio frequency circuit located on the road side that provides connectivity support to a passing vehicle UE 701 (vUE 701). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications / software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct Short Range Communication (DSRC) band to provide extremely low latency communications required for high-speed events, such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, etc. In addition or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications as well as other cellular communication services. In addition or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4 GHz band) and / or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Some or all of the computing device and the RSU's RF circuitry may be packaged in a weather-resistant enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and / or backhaul network.

[0078] Any of the multiple RAN nodes 711 may serve as an endpoint for the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for multiple UEs 701. In some embodiments, any of the multiple RAN nodes 711 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 710, including but not limited to the functions of a radio network controller (RNC), such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0079] In an embodiment, multiple UEs 701 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of multiple RAN nodes 711 over a multi-carrier communication channel using OFDM communication signals according to various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communication) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communication), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0080] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any of a plurality of RAN nodes 711 to a plurality of UEs 701, while uplink transmissions may utilize similar techniques. The grid may be a time-frequency grid, referred to as a resource grid or a time-frequency resource grid, which is a physical resource in the downlink in each time slot. For OFDM systems, such a time-frequency plane representation is common practice, which makes wireless resource allocation intuitive. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to an OFDM symbol and an OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to a time slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in the resource grid is represented as a resource element. Each resource grid includes a plurality of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block includes a set of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the minimum amount of resources that can currently be allocated. Such resource blocks are used to transmit several different physical downlink channels.

[0081] According to various embodiments, multiple UEs 701 and multiple RAN nodes 711 communicate data (e.g., send data and receive data) through a licensed medium (also referred to as a "licensed spectrum" and / or a "licensed band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as an "unlicensed spectrum" and / or an "unlicensed band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz band.

[0082] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the plurality of UEs 701 and the plurality of RAN nodes 711 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the plurality of UEs 701 and the plurality of RAN nodes 711 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations and / or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium / carrier sensing operations may be performed in accordance with a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0083] LBT is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., multiple UEs 701, multiple RAN nodes 711, etc.) senses a medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a particular channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include a CCA that utilizes at least an ED to determine whether other signals are present on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or idle. The LBT mechanism allows cellular / LAA networks to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over a period of time on an expected transmission band and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

[0084] Typically, existing systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs use a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA / CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS) such as UE 701, AP 706, etc.) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmission. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid conflicts. The backoff mechanism may be a counter randomly introduced within the CWS that increases exponentially when a conflict occurs and is reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA / CA of WLAN. In some specific implementations, the LBT process for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmission) may have a LAA contention window of variable length between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values ​​of the CWS of LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmissions may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWS and MCOT (eg, transmission burst) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

[0085] The LAA mechanism is built on the CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a CC. A CC can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, and up to five CCs can be aggregated, so the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In an FDD system, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DL ​​and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, each CC may have a different bandwidth from other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC are typically the same for DL ​​and UL.

[0086] CA also includes individual serving cells to provide individual CCs. The coverage of the serving cells may be different, for example, because CCs on different frequency bands will experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell may provide the PCC for both UL and DL, and may handle activities related to RRC and NAS. Other serving cells are called SCells, and each SCell may provide individual SCCs for both UL and DL. SCCs may be added and removed as needed, and changing PCCs may require the UE 701 to undergo switching. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in an unlicensed spectrum (referred to as "LAA SCells"), and the LAA SCells are assisted by the PCells operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCells, indicating different PUSCH start positions within the same subframe.

[0087] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to multiple UEs 701. The PDCCH carries, among other information, information about the transport format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It can also inform multiple UEs 701 about the transport format, resource allocation, and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 701b within a cell) can be performed on any of the multiple RAN nodes 711 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the multiple UEs 701. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of the multiple UEs 701.

[0088] PDCCH uses CCE to transmit control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols can first be organized into quadruplets, which can then be arranged using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. One or more of these CCEs can be used to transmit each PDCCH, where each CCE can correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, respectively, called REGs. Four quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) symbols can be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the DCI and channel conditions, one or more CCEs can be used to transmit the PDCCH. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

[0089] Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some embodiments may utilize EPDCCH that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. One or more ECCEs may be used to transmit EPDCCH. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, referred to as EREG. In some cases, ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

[0090] The plurality of RAN nodes 711 may be configured to communicate with each other via an interface 712. In an embodiment where the system 700 is an LTE system, the interface 712 may be an X2 interface 712. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 711 (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC 720, and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC 720. In some implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user packets transmitted over the X2 interface, and may be used to transmit information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number information about user data transmitted from the MeNB to the SeNB; information about the successful in-sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs from the SeNB to the UE 701 for user data; information about PDCP PDUs not delivered to the UE 701; information about the current minimum expected buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting user data to the UE; and the like. X2-C can provide intra-LTE access mobility functions, including context transfer from source eNB to target eNB, user plane transmission control, etc.; load management functions; and inter-cell interference coordination functions.

[0091] In an embodiment where the system 700 is a 5G or NR system, the interface 712 may be an Xn interface 712. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 711 (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the 5GC 720, between a RAN node 711 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB connected to the 5GC 720, and / or between two eNBs connected to the 5GC 720. In some specific implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support / provide data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functions for managing the functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for the UE 701 in a connected mode (e.g., a CM connection) includes functions for managing UE mobility in a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 711. The mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 711 to the new (target) serving RAN node 711; and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) serving RAN node 711 and the new (target) serving RAN node 711. The protocol stack of Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and / or IP layer for carrying user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as the Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer built on SCTP. SCTP may be on top of the IP layer and may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver signaling PDUs. In other specific implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and / or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same or similar to the user plane and / or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

[0092] RAN 710 is shown as being communicatively coupled to a core network—in this embodiment, communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 720. CN 720 may include a plurality of network elements 722 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / users (e.g., users of a plurality of UEs 701) connected to CN 720 via RAN 710. The components of CN 720 may be implemented in one physical node or in separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the above-mentioned network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). A logical instance of CN 720 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instance of a portion of CN 720 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0093] Generally speaking, the application server 730 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 730 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social network services, etc.) for multiple UEs 701 via the EPC 720.

[0094] In an embodiment, CN 720 may be a 5GC (referred to as "5GC 720" or the like), and RAN 710 may be connected to CN 720 via an NG interface 713. In an embodiment, NG interface 713 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 714, which carries traffic data between RAN node 711 and UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 715, which is a signaling interface between multiple RAN nodes 711 and multiple AMFs.

[0095] In an embodiment, CN 720 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5GC 720", etc.), while in other embodiments, CN 720 may be an EPC. In the case where CN 720 is an EPC (referred to as "EPC 720", etc.), RAN 710 may be connected to CN 720 via an S1 interface 713. In an embodiment, S1 interface 713 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 714, which carries traffic data between RAN node 711 and S-GW; and an S1-MME interface 715, which is a signaling interface between multiple RAN nodes 711 and multiple MMEs.

[0096] Figure 8 An example of a platform 800 (or "device 800") according to various embodiments is shown. In an embodiment, the computer platform 800 may be suitable for use as multiple UEs 701, application servers 730, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. The platform 800 may include any combination of components shown in the example. The components of the platform 800 may be implemented as an integrated circuit (IC), part of an IC, a discrete electronic device, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted in the computer platform 800, or as components otherwise incorporated within the chassis of a larger system. Figure 8 The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of computer platform 800. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangements of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

[0097] The application circuit 805 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and LDO, interrupt controller, serial interface (such as SPI), I 2 C or general programmable serial interface module, RTC, timer (including interval timer and watchdog timer), general I / O, memory card controller (such as SD MMC or similar controller), USB interface, MIPI interface and JTAG test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 805 can be coupled with or can include a memory / storage element, and can be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage element to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 800. In some embodiments, the memory / storage element can be an on-chip memory circuit that can include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory and / or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

[0098] The processor of the application circuit may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, multi-threaded processors, ultra-low voltage processors, embedded processors, some other known processing elements, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuit may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein.

[0099] As an example, the processor of the application circuit 805 may include a processor based on Architecture Core TM Processors such as Quark TM 、Atom TM , i3, i5, i7 or MCU class processors, or available from Santa Clara, CA The processor of application circuit 805 may also be one or more of the following: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU); from Inc.'s A5-A9 processors, Snapdragon by Technologies, Inc. TM Processor, Texas Instruments, Open Multimedia Applications Platform(OMAP) TM processors; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M series processors; etc. In some implementations, the application circuit 805 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which the application circuit 805 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, such as available from Edison Corporation TM or Galileo TM SoC board.

[0100] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 805 may include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more field programmable devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs, etc.; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), etc.; ASICs such as structured ASICs, etc.; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); etc. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 805 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that can be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 805 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic structures, data, etc. in a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0101] Baseband circuit 810 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Fig. 9 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 810 are discussed.

[0102] The RFEM 815 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., below). Fig. 9 Antenna array 911), and the RFEM can be connected to multiple antennas. In an alternative implementation, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions can be implemented in the same physical RFEM 815 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0103] The memory circuit 820 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a quantitative system memory. For example, the memory circuit 820 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory, including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and / or synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM); and non-volatile memory (NVM), including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuit 820 may be developed according to the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) based low power double data rate (LPDDR) design such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc. The memory circuit 820 may be implemented as one or more of a solder-in package integrated circuit, a single die package (SDP), a dual die package (DDP), or a quad die package (Q17P), a socketed memory module, a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) including a micro DIMM or a mini DIMM, and / or soldered to a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In a low-power implementation, the memory circuit 820 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 805. In order to provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 820 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, among others, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), a hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, a resistive change memory, a phase change memory, a holographic memory, or a chemical memory. For example, the computer platform 800 may be combined with a computer system obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0104] The removable memory circuitry 823 may include devices, circuits, housings / casings, ports or receptacles, etc., for coupling portable data storage devices to the platform 800. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage, and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, micro SD cards, xD picture cards, etc.), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, etc.

[0105] The platform 800 may further include an interface circuit (not shown) for connecting external devices to the platform 800. External devices connected to the platform 800 via the interface circuit include a sensor circuit 821 and an electromechanical component (EMC) 822, and a removable memory device coupled to a removable memory circuit 823.

[0106] Sensor circuitry 821 comprises a device, module, or subsystem that is intended to detect events or changes in its environment, and to send information about the detected events (sensor data) to some other device, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, among others: an inertial measurement unit (IMU) including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) including a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a level sensor; a flow sensor; a temperature sensor (e.g., a thermistor); a pressure sensor; a barometric pressure sensor; a gravity meter; an altimeter; an image capture device (e.g., a camera or a lensless aperture); a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor; a proximity sensor (e.g., an infrared radiation detector, etc.), a depth sensor, an ambient light sensor, an ultrasonic transceiver; a microphone or other similar audio capture device; etc.

[0107] EMC 822 includes devices, modules or subsystems that are intended to enable platform 800 to change its state, position and / or orientation or to move or control mechanisms or (sub) systems. In addition, EMC 822 can be configured to generate messages / signaling and send messages / signaling to other components of platform 800 to indicate the current state of EMC 822. EMC 822 includes one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMR) and / or solid-state relays (SSR)), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), audible sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks and / or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, platform 800 is configured to operate one or more EMC822 based on one or more capture events and / or instructions or control signals received from service providers and / or various clients.

[0108] In some specific implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 800 to the positioning circuit 845. The positioning circuit 845 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by the positioning network of the GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include the GPS of the United States, the GLONASS of Russia, the Galileo system of the European Union, the Beidou navigation satellite system of China, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., NAVIC, QZSS of Japan, DORIS of France, etc.), etc. The positioning circuit 845 may include various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. for facilitating OTA communication) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 845 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 845 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit and / or RFEM 815 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 845 may also provide position data and / or time data to application circuitry 805 , which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (eg, radio base stations) for use in turn-by-turn navigation applications, and the like.

[0109] In some implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 800 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 840. The NFC circuit 840 is configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, where a magnetic field is sensed to enable communication between the NFC circuit 840 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 800. The NFC circuit 840 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip / IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 840 by executing an NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit a short-range RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to the NFC circuit 840, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuit 840 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) proximate to the platform 800.

[0110] The driver circuit 846 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 800. The driver circuit 846 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 800 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 800. For example, the driver circuit 846 may include: a display driver for controlling and allowing access to a display device, a touch screen driver for controlling and allowing access to a touch screen interface of the platform 800, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor circuit 821 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor circuit 821, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 822 and / or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 822, a camera driver for controlling and allowing access to an embedded image capture device, and an audio driver for controlling and allowing access to one or more audio devices.

[0111] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 825 (also referred to as “power management circuit 825”) may manage power provided to various components of the platform 800. Specifically, the PMIC 825 may control power selection, voltage regulation, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion relative to the baseband circuit 810. When the platform 800 is capable of being powered by a battery 830, for example, when the device is included in the UE 701, the PMIC 825 may be generally included.

[0112] In some embodiments, the PMIC 825 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 800. For example, if the platform 800 is in the RRC_Connected state, in which the platform is still connected to the RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, then after a period of inactivity, the platform may enter a state known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 800 may be powered off for short time intervals, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 800 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which the platform is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handovers, etc. are performed. The platform 800 enters an extremely low power state and performs paging, in which the platform periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers off again. The platform 800 may not receive data in this state; in order to receive data, the platform must transition back to the RRC_Connected state. Additional power saving modes may prevent the device from using the network for longer than the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to several hours). During this time, the device is completely unable to connect to the network and can be completely powered off. Any data sent during this time will be significantly delayed, and it is assumed that the delay is acceptable.

[0113] The battery 830 can power the platform 800, but in some examples, the platform 800 can be mounted in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to a power grid. The battery 830 can be a lithium-ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, etc. In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery 830 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0114] In some implementations, the battery 830 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a battery management system (BMS) or a battery monitoring integrated circuit. The BMS may be included in the platform 800 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 830. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 830, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 830, to provide fault prediction. The BMS may transmit information about the battery 830 to the application circuit 805 or other components of the platform 800. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 805 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 830 or the current from the battery 830. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 800 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0115] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid can be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 830. In some examples, the power block can be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 800. In these examples, a wireless battery charging circuit can be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuit selected can depend on the size of the battery 830 and therefore the current required. Charging can be performed using the aviation fuel standard published by the Aviation Fuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance, or the Rezence charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance.

[0116] The user interface circuit 850 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 800, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 800 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to implement interaction with the peripheral components of the platform 800. The user interface circuit 850 includes input device circuits and output device circuits. The input device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, in particular, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. The output device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for displaying information or otherwise conveying information (such as sensor readings, actuator positions, or other similar information). The output device circuitry may include any number and / or combination of audio or visual displays, including, in particular, one or more simple visual outputs / indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs, such as display devices or touch screens (e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCDs), LED displays, quantum dot displays, projectors, etc.), where outputs of characters, graphics, multimedia objects, etc. are generated or produced by the operation of the platform 800. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, etc. In some embodiments, the sensor circuitry 821 may be used as an input device circuitry (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.), and one or more EMCs may be used as output device circuitry (e.g., an actuator for providing tactile feedback, etc.). In another example, an NFC circuit may be included to read an electronic tag and / or connect to another NFC-enabled device, the NFC circuitry including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled to an antenna element. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0117] Although not shown, the components of platform 800 may communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx, PCIe, a time-triggered protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus / IX, such as used in SoC-based systems. Other bus / IX systems, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0118] Fig. 9 9 and 915. Exemplary components of a baseband circuit 910 and a radio front end module (RFEM) 915 are shown according to various embodiments. The baseband circuit 910 corresponds to Figure 8The baseband circuit 810 of FIG. RFEM 915 corresponds accordingly to Figure 8 RFEM 815. As shown, the RFEM 915 may include a radio frequency (RF) circuit 906, a front end module (FEM) circuit 908, and an antenna array 911 coupled together at least as shown.

[0119] The baseband circuit 910 includes circuits and / or control logic components that are configured to execute various radio / network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuit 906. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation / demodulation, encoding / decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the modulation / demodulation circuit of the baseband circuit 910 may include fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping / demapping functions. In some embodiments, the encoding / decoding circuit of the baseband circuit 910 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or low-density parity check (LDPC) encoder / decoder functions. The implementation of the modulation / demodulation and encoder / decoder functions is not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functions in other embodiments. The baseband circuit 910 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of the RF circuit 906 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 906. The baseband circuit 910 is configured to communicate with the application circuit 805 (see Figure 8 ) are connected to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of RF circuit 906. Baseband circuit 910 can handle various radio control functions.

[0120] The aforementioned circuits and / or control logic components of the baseband circuit 910 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 904A, a 4G / LTE baseband processor 904B, a 5G / NR baseband processor 904C, or some other baseband processors 904D for other existing generations, generations under development or generations to be developed in the future (e.g., the sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 904A-D may be included in a module stored in the memory 904G and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 904E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 904A-D may be provided as a hardware accelerator (e.g., FPGA, ASIC, etc.) loaded with an appropriate bitstream or logic block stored in a corresponding memory unit. In various embodiments, the memory 904G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which, when executed by the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor), will enable the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuit 910, schedule tasks, etc. Examples of RTOS may include: Operating System Embedded (OSE) provided TM , by Mentor Nucleus RTOS provided TM , by Mentor Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Express Provided by ThreadX TM ,Depend on FreeRTOS and REX OS provided by OpenKernel (OK) OKL4 provided, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuit 910 includes one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 904F. The audio DSP 904F includes elements for compression / decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

[0121] In some embodiments, each of processors 904A-904E includes a corresponding memory interface to send data to / receive data from memory 904G. Baseband circuit 910 may also include one or more interfaces for communicatively coupling to other circuits / devices, such as an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to baseband circuit 910; an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to the baseband circuit; Fig. 9 An application circuit interface for sending data to / receiving data from the application circuit 805; Fig. 9 RF circuit 906 to send data / receive data from the RF circuit RF circuit interface; for receiving data from one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., near field communication (NFC) components, Low power consumption components, components, etc.) to send data / receive data from these wireless hardware elements; and a power management interface for sending power or control signals to / receiving power or control signals from the PMIC 825.

[0122] In an alternative embodiment (which can be combined with the above embodiment), the baseband circuit 910 includes one or more digital baseband systems, which are coupled to each other and to the CPU subsystem, the audio subsystem and the interface subsystem via an interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem can also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem via another interconnection subsystem. Each of the interconnection subsystems may include a bus system, a point-to-point connector, a network on chip (NOC) structure and / or some other suitable bus or interconnection technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include a DSP circuit, a buffer memory, a program memory, a voice processing accelerator circuit, a data converter circuit such as an analog-to-digital converter circuit and a digital-to-analog converter circuit, an analog circuit including one or more of an amplifier and a filter, and / or other similar components. In one aspect of the present disclosure, the baseband circuit 910 may include a protocol processing circuit with one or more control circuit instances (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuit and / or the radio frequency circuit (e.g., the radio front end module 915).

[0123] although Fig. 9 Not shown, but in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 910 includes various processing devices (e.g., "multi-protocol baseband processor" or "protocol processing circuit") to operate one or more wireless communication protocols and various processing devices to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuit operates or implements various protocol layers / entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, when the baseband circuit 910 and / or the RF circuit 906 are part of a millimeter wave communication circuit or some other suitable cellular communication circuit, the protocol processing circuit may operate LTE protocol entities and / or 5G / NR protocol entities. In a first example, the protocol processing circuit will operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In a second example, when the baseband circuit 910 and / or the RF circuit 906 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system, the protocol processing circuit may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols. In a second example, the protocol processing circuit will operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 904G) for storing program code and data for operating protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing program code and performing various operations using data. The baseband circuitry 910 may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

[0124] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuit 910 discussed herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one example, the components of the baseband circuit 910 may be appropriately combined in a single chip or a single chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 910 and the RF circuit 906 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SOC) or a system-in-package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 910 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuit 906 (or multiple instances of the RF circuit 906). In yet another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 910 and the application circuit 805 may be implemented together as a separate SoC mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

[0125] In some embodiments, the baseband circuit 910 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 910 may support communications with E-UTRAN or other WMANs, WLANs, WPANs. Embodiments in which the baseband circuit 910 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuits.

[0126] RF circuit 906 may enable communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various embodiments, RF circuit 906 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuit 906 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuits for down-converting RF signals received from FEM circuit 908 and providing baseband signals to baseband circuit 910. RF circuit 906 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuits for up-converting baseband signals provided by baseband circuit 910 and providing RF output signals for transmission to FEM circuit 908.

[0127] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuit 906 may include a mixer circuit 906a, an amplifier circuit 906b, and a filter circuit 906c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 906 may include a filter circuit 906c and a mixer circuit 906a. The RF circuit 906 may also include a synthesizer circuit 906d, which is used to synthesize the frequency used by the mixer circuit 906a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 908 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 906d. The amplifier circuit 906b may be configured to amplify the down-converted signal, and the filter circuit 906c may be a low pass filter (LPF) or a band pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to the baseband circuit 910 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, although this is not required.In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receive signal path may include a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0128] In some embodiments, mixer circuit 906a of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 906d to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 908. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuit 910 and may be filtered by filter circuit 906c.

[0129] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receiving signal path and the mixer circuit 906a of the transmitting signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged to be used for orthogonal down-conversion and up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receiving signal path and the mixer circuit 906a of the transmitting signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged to be used for image suppression (e.g., Hartley image suppression). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receiving signal path and the mixer circuit 906a of the transmitting signal path may be arranged to be used for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receiving signal path and the mixer circuit 906a of the transmitting signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0130] In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, the RF circuit 906 may include an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit, and the baseband circuit 910 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuit 906.

[0131] In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuits may be provided to process signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0132] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 906d can be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N / N+1 synthesizer, but the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect, as other types of frequency synthesizers may also be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuit 906d can be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0133] Synthesizer circuit 906d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by mixer circuit 906a of RF circuit 906. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 906d may be a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer.

[0134] In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), but this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by baseband circuit 910 or application circuit 805 according to the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on the channel indicated by application circuit 805.

[0135] The synthesizer circuit 906d of the RF circuit 906 may include a frequency divider, a delay locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the frequency divider may be a dual-mode frequency divider (DMD), and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N+1 (e.g., based on carry) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a cascaded, tunable, delay element, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a D-type flip-flop set. In these embodiments, the delay element may be configured to divide the VCO cycle into Nd equal phase groups, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0136] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 906d can be configured to generate a carrier frequency as an output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency can be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and can be used with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate multiple signals with multiple different phases relative to each other at the carrier frequency. In some embodiments, the output frequency can be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuit 906 can include an IQ / polarity converter.

[0137] FEM circuitry 908 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 911, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to RF circuitry 906 for further processing. FEM circuitry 908 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify transmit signals provided by RF circuitry 906 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in antenna array 911. In various embodiments, amplification by the transmit or receive signal paths may be accomplished only in RF circuitry 906, only in FEM circuitry 908, or in both RF circuitry 906 and FEM circuitry 908.

[0138] In some embodiments, the FEM circuit 908 may include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuit 908 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuit 908 may include an LNA to amplify the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to the RF circuit 906). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuit 908 may include a power amplifier (PA) for amplifying the input RF signal (e.g., provided by the RF circuit 906), and one or more filters for generating an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 911.

[0139] The antenna array 911 includes one or more antenna elements, each of which is configured to convert an electrical signal into a radio wave to travel through the air and convert the received radio wave into an electrical signal. For example, a digital baseband signal provided by the baseband circuit 910 is converted into an analog RF signal (e.g., a modulated waveform), which is amplified and transmitted via the antenna elements of the antenna array 911 including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed into a variety of arrangements as known and / or discussed herein. The antenna array 911 may include a microstrip antenna or a printed antenna fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 911 may be formed as a patch of metal foil of various shapes (e.g., a patch antenna) and may be coupled to the RF circuit 906 and / or the FEM circuit 908 using a metal transmission line or the like.

[0140] The processor of the application circuit 805 and the processor of the baseband circuit 910 can be used to execute elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuit 910 can be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuit 805 can utilize data received from these layers (e.g., packet data) and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include an RRC layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may include a PHY layer of a UE / RAN node, which will be described in further detail below.

[0141] Fig.10 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable medium or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some exemplary embodiments. Specifically, Fig.10 A schematic diagram of hardware resources 1000 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1010, one or more memory / storage devices 1020, and one or more communication resources 1030, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1040. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1002 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1000.

[0142] Processor 1010 may include, for example, processor 1012 and processor 1014. Processor 1010 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

[0143] The memory / storage device 1020 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 1020 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0144] The communication resources 1030 may include an interconnect or network interface component or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1004 or one or more databases 1006 via the network 1008. For example, the communication resources 1030 may include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling via USB), a cellular communication component, an NFC component, (or Low power consumption) components, components and other communication components.

[0145] The instructions 1050 may include software, programs, applications, applet, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 1010 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1050 may reside completely or partially in at least one of the processors 1010 (e.g., in a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 1020, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 1050 may be transmitted to the hardware resources 1000 from any combination of the peripheral device 1004 or the database 1006. Therefore, the memory of the processor 1010, the memory / storage device 1020, the peripheral device 1004, and the database 1006 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0146] Fig.11An exemplary illustration of a wireless device is provided, such as a user equipment (UE), a mobile station (MS), a mobile wireless device, a mobile communication device, a tablet computer, a handheld terminal, or other types of wireless devices. The wireless device may include one or more antennas configured to communicate with a node, a macro node, a low power node (LPN), or a transmission station such as a base station (BS), an evolved node B (eNB), a baseband processing unit (BBU), a remote radio head (RRH), a remote radio equipment (RRE), a relay station (RS), a radio equipment (RE), or other types of wireless wide area network (WWAN) access points. The wireless device may be configured to communicate using at least one wireless communication standard, such as but not limited to 3GPP LTE, WiMAX, high speed packet access (HSPA), Bluetooth, and WiFi. The wireless device may communicate using a separate antenna for each wireless communication standard or using a shared antenna for multiple wireless communication standards. The wireless device may communicate in a wireless local area network (WAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN), and / or a WWAN. The wireless device may also include a wireless modem. The wireless modem may include, for example, a wireless radio transceiver and baseband circuitry (eg, a baseband processor). In one example, the wireless modem may modulate signals transmitted by a wireless device via one or more antennas and demodulate signals received by a wireless device via one or more antennas.

[0147] Fig.11 Also provided are illustrations of microphones and one or more speakers that can be used for audio input and output from a wireless device. The display screen can be a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen or other types of display screens such as an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. The display screen can be configured as a touch screen. The touch screen can use capacitive, resistive or another type of touch screen technology. An application processor and a graphics processor can be coupled to an internal memory to provide processing and display capabilities. A non-volatile memory port can also be used to provide data input / output options to a user. The non-volatile memory port can also be used to expand the memory capacity of a wireless device. A keyboard can be integrated with a wireless device or wirelessly connected to the wireless device to provide additional user input. A touch screen can also be used to provide a virtual keyboard.

[0148] Fig.12 Various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to some embodiments are shown. Specifically, Fig.12 An arrangement 1200 is included to show the interconnection between various protocol layers / entities. Various protocol layers / entities operating in conjunction with 5G / NR system standards and LTE system standards are provided. Fig.12 The following description, but Fig.12 Some or all aspects of the invention may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0149] In addition to other higher layer functions not shown, the protocol layers of arrangement 1200 may also include one or more of PHY 1210, MAC 1220, RLC 1230, PDCP 1240, SDAP 1247, RRC 1255, and NAS layer 1257. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g., Fig.12 Items 1259, 1256, 1250, 1249, 1245, 1235, 1225, and 1215).

[0150] PHY 1210 can send and receive physical layer signals 1205, which can be received from or sent to one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signals 1205 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY 1210 may also perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and switching purposes) and other measurements used by higher layers (e.g., RRC1255). PHY 1210 may also further perform error detection on transmission channels, forward error correction (FEC) encoding / decoding of transmission channels, modulation / demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to physical channels, and MIMO antenna processing. In an embodiment, an instance of PHY 1210 may process a request from an instance of MAC 1220 and provide an indication thereof via one or more PHY-SAP1215. According to some embodiments, the request and indication transmitted via PHY-SAP 1215 may include one or more transmission channels.

[0151] An instance of MAC 1220 may process requests from an instance of RLC 1230 and provide indications thereto via one or more MAC-SAPs 1225. These requests and indications transmitted via MAC-SAP 1225 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 1220 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs to be delivered to PHY 1210 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 1210 via transport channels to one or more logical channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction via HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

[0152] An instance of RLC 1230 may process requests from an instance of PDCP 1240 and provide indications thereto via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 1235. These requests and indications transmitted via RLC-SAPs 1235 may include one or more logical channels. RLC 1230 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM), and acknowledged mode (AM). RLC 1230 may perform transmission of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transmission, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission. RLC 1230 may also perform resegmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transmission, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transmission, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect protocol errors for AM data transmission, and perform RLC re-establishment.

[0153] An instance of PDCP 1240 may process requests from an instance of RRC 1255 and / or an instance of SDAP 1247 and provide indications thereto via one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Points (PDCP-SAPs) 1245. These requests and indications transmitted via PDCP-SAPs 1245 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 1240 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP sequence numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of upper layer PDUs when lower layers are reestablished, eliminate duplication of lower layer SDUs when lower layers are reestablished for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, encrypt and decrypt control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification on control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., encryption, decryption, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[0154] An instance of SDAP 1247 may process requests from one or more higher layer protocol entities and provide indications thereto via one or more SDAP-SAPs 1249. These requests and indications transmitted via SDAP-SAPs 1249 may include one or more QoS flows. SDAP 1247 may map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and may also mark QFIs in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 1247 may be configured for a separate PDU session. In the UL direction, NG-RAN 710 may control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, SDAP 1247 of UE 701 may monitor the QFI of the DL packets of each DRB, and may apply the same mapping to packets flowing in the UL direction. For DRBs, SDAP 1247 of UE 701 may map UL packets belonging to a QoS flow corresponding to the QoS flow ID and PDU session observed in the DL packets of the DRB. To implement reflective mapping, the NG-RAN may mark the DL packets with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. The explicit mapping may involve RRC 1255 configuring SDAP 1247 with explicit mapping rules for QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by SDAP 1247. In an embodiment, SDAP 1247 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

[0155] The RRC 1255 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 1210, MAC 1220, RLC 1230, PDCP 1240, and SDAP 1247, via one or more Management Service Access Points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of the RRC 1255 may process requests from one or more NAS entities 1257 and provide instructions thereto via one or more RRC-SAPs 1256. The main services and functions of the RRC 1255 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in a MIB or SIB related to NAS), broadcasting of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance, and release of an RRC connection between the UE 701 and the RAN 710 (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. These MIBs and SIBs may include one or more IEs, each of which may include a separate data field or data structure.

[0156] NAS 1257 may form the highest layer of the control plane between UE 701 and AMF. NAS 1257 may support the mobility and session management procedures of UE 701 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 701 and P-GW in the LTE system.

[0157] According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of the arrangement 1200 may be implemented in the UE 701, the RAN node 711, the AMF in the NR implementation or the MME in the LTE implementation, the UPF in the NR implementation or the S-GW and P-GW in the LTE implementation, etc., for control plane or user plane communication protocol stacks between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of the UE 701, the gNB 711, the AMF, etc. may communicate with corresponding peer protocol entities that may be implemented in or on another device (using the services of corresponding lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication). In some embodiments, the gNB-CU of the gNB 711 may host the RRC 1255, SDAP 1247, and PDCP 1240 of the gNB that control the operation of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of the gNB 711 may each host the RLC 1230, MAC 1220, and PHY 1210 of the gNB 711.

[0158] In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 1257, RRC 1255, PDCP 1240, RLC 1230, MAC 1220, and PHY 1210. In this example, an upper layer 1260 may be built on top of NAS 1257, which includes an IP layer 1261, SCTP 1262, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 1263.

[0159] In a NR specific implementation, AP 1263 can be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 1263 for the NG interface 713 defined between the NG-RAN node 711 and the AMF, or AP 1263 can be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 1263 for the Xn interface 712 defined between two or more RAN nodes 711.

[0160] The NG-AP 1263 may support the functionality of the NG interface 713 and may include an elementary procedure (EP). The NG-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the NG-RAN point 711 and the AMF. The NG-AP 1263 services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the UE 701) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 711 and the AMF). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to the NG-RAN node 711 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing the AMF to establish, modify and / or release the UE context in the AMF and the NG-RAN node 711; a mobility function for the UE 701 in ECM-CONNECTED mode, for intra-system HO to support mobility within the NG-RAN, and for inter-system HO to support mobility from / to the EPS system; a NAS signaling transport function for transmitting or rerouting NAS messages between the UE 701 and the AMF; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF and the UE 701; an NG interface management function for setting up the NG interface and monitoring errors through the NG interface; a warning message sending function for providing a means for transmitting a warning message via the NG interface or cancelling an ongoing warning message broadcast; a configuration transfer function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 711 via the CN 720; and / or other similar functions.

[0161] The XnAP 1263 may support the functions of the Xn interface 712 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the NG RAN 711 (or E-UTRAN), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, procedures related to dual connectivity, etc. The XnAP global procedures may include procedures unrelated to a specific UE 701, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, etc.

[0162] In an LTE specific implementation, AP 1263 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1263 for an S1 interface 713 defined between an E-UTRAN node 711 and an MME, or AP 1263 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 1263 for an X2 interface 712 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 711.

[0163] The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1263 may support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, the S1-AP may include an S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the E-UTRAN node 711 and the MME within the LTE CN 720. The S1-AP 1263 services may include two groups: UE-associated services and non-UE-associated services. The functions performed by these services include, but are not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transmission, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transmission.

[0164] The X2AP 1263 may support the functions of the X2 interface 712 and may include an X2AP basic mobility procedure and an X2AP global procedure. The X2AP basic mobility procedure may include a procedure for handling UE mobility within the E-UTRAN 720, such as a handover preparation and cancellation procedure, an SN state transfer procedure, a UE context retrieval and a UE context release procedure, a RAN paging procedure, a procedure related to dual connectivity, etc. The X2AP global procedure may include a procedure that is not related to a specific UE 701, such as an X2 interface setup and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, a cell activation procedure, etc.

[0165] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 1262 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). The SCTP 1262 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 711 and the AMF / MME based in part on the IP protocol supported by the IP 1261. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 1261 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 1261 may deliver and transmit PDUs using point-to-point transport. In this regard, the RAN node 711 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0166] In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include SDAP 1247, PDCP 1240, RLC 1230, MAC 1220, and PHY 1210 in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between UE 701, RAN node 711, and UPF in NR implementation, or communication between S-GW and P-GW in LTE implementation. In this example, the upper layer 1251 may be built on top of SDAP 1247 and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP / IP) 1252, a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for a user plane layer (GTP-U) 1253, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 1263.

[0167] The transport network layer 1254 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and the GTP-U 1253 may be used on top of the UDP / IP layer 1252 (including the UDP layer and the IP layer) to carry the user plane PDU (UP-PDU). The IP layer (also referred to as the "Internet layer") may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets, for example, in any of the IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats.

[0168] GTP-U 1253 can be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the transmitted user data can be a packet in any of the IPv4, IPv6 or PPP formats. UDP / IP 1252 can provide a checksum for data integrity, a port number for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of the selected data stream. The RAN node 711 and the S-GW can exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 1210), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 1220, RLC 1230, PDCP 1240 and / or SDAP 1247), a UDP / IP layer 1252, and a GRP-U 1253 using an S1-U interface. The S-GW and the P-GW can exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP / IP layer 1252, and a GTP-U 1253 using an S5 / S8a interface. As previously discussed, the NAS protocol may support the mobility of UE 701 and session management procedures to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 701 and the P-GW.

[0169] In addition, despite Fig.12Not shown, but an application layer may exist above the AP 1263 and / or transport network layer 1254. The application layer may be a layer where a user of the UE 701, RAN node 711, or other network element interacts with a software application, such as executed by the application circuitry 805. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for the software application to interact with the communication system of the UE 701 or RAN node 711, such as the baseband circuitry 910. In some implementations, the IP layer and / or the application layer may provide functionality that is the same or similar to layers 5 to 7 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, or portions thereof (e.g., OSI layer 7—application layer, OSI layer 6—presentation layer, and OSI layer 5—session layer).

[0170] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components shown in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes and / or methods described in the following example section. For example, the baseband circuit described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the following embodiments. For another example, the circuits associated with the UE, base station, network element, etc. described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the embodiments shown in the example section below.

[0171] Example

[0172] The following examples are directed to particular technical embodiments, and indicate specific features, elements, or acts that may be used or otherwise combined in implementing such embodiments.

[0173] Embodiment 1 includes a device of a user equipment (UE) capable of operating for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, the device comprising: one or more processors, the one or more processors configured to: decode at the UE a multi-PUCCH transmission indicator received from a new radio node B (gNB), wherein the multi-PUCCH transmission indicator allows multi-PUCCH transmission from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmit reception points (TRPs); decode at the UE one or more PUCCH resources in downlink control information (DCI); field; and identifying at the UE from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback; and a memory interface, the memory interface being configured to store the multi-PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

[0174] Embodiment 2 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: decode at the UE a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

[0175] Embodiment 3 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identify, at the UE, the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP from the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

[0176] Embodiment 4 includes an apparatus according to embodiment 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identify, at the UE, from the MAC CE, one or more of: a serving cell identifier (ID) to which the MAC CE applies; a bandwidth part (BWP) ID of an uplink BWP in which PUCCH transmission occurs; or a PUCCH resource set ID.

[0177] Embodiment 5 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identify a PUCCH resource set for HARQ-ACK feedback at the UE, the PUCCH resource set comprising multiple subsets of PUCCH resources; and identify multiple PUCCH resource fields from the DCI at the UE, wherein: a first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a first subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources, the one or more PUCCH resources being associated with the primary TRP, and a second PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a second subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources, the one or more PUCCH resources being associated with the secondary TRP.

[0178] Embodiment 6 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identify, at the UE, a PUCCH resource field from the one or more resource fields in the DCI, wherein the PUCCH resource field identifies the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the main TRP based on a PUCCH resource index n, wherein n is a positive integer.

[0179] Embodiment 7 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 6, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: determine, at the UE, the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP based on resource index n+1.

[0180] Embodiment 8 includes the apparatus according to embodiment 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identify multiple PUCCH resource fields from the one or more resource fields in the DCI at the UE, wherein: the first PUCCH resource field identifies the PUCCH resource identifier (ID) of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP with index n, where n is a positive integer, and the second PUCCH resource field identifies the PUCCH resource ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP with index m, where m is a positive integer different from n.

[0181] Embodiment 9 includes the apparatus of any one of embodiments 1 to 8, wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator is a radio resource control (RRC) information element (IE) parameter configured via RRC signaling.

[0182] Embodiment 10 includes an apparatus of a new radio node B (gNB) operable for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, the apparatus comprising: one or more processors, the one or more processors configured to: encode at the gNB a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator for transmission to a user equipment (UE), the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allowing multiple PUCCH transmissions from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmit reception points (TRPs); and encode at the gNB one or more PUCCHs in downlink control information (DCI) A CCH resource field for transmission to the UE, wherein the one or more PUCCH resource fields identify: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback; and a memory interface, wherein the memory interface is configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

[0183] Embodiment 11 includes an apparatus according to embodiment 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: encode a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) at the gNB for transmission to the UE, the MAC CE including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

[0184] Embodiment 12 includes an apparatus according to embodiment 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: encode one or more resource fields in the DCI at the gNB for transmission to the UE, the DCI including a PUCCH resource field, and the PUCCH resource field identifies the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP based on a PUCCH resource index n, wherein n is a positive integer.

[0185] Embodiment 13 comprises the apparatus according to embodiment 12, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are based on resource index n+1.

[0186] Embodiment 14 includes an apparatus according to embodiment 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: encode one or more resource fields in the DCI at the gNB for transmission to the UE, wherein: a first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource identifier (ID) of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP indexed as n, where n is a positive integer, and a second PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP indexed as m, where m is a positive integer different from n.

[0187] Embodiment 15 includes the apparatus of any one of embodiments 10 to 14, wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator is a radio resource control (RRC) information element (IE) parameter configured via RRC signaling.

[0188] Embodiment 16 includes at least one machine-readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) network, the instructions when executed by one or more processors at a user equipment (UE) performing the following operations: decoding at the UE a multi-PUCCH transmission indicator received from a new radio Node B (gNB), wherein the multi-PUCCH transmission indicator allows multi-PUCCH transmission from the UE to the gNB via multiple transmit receive points (TRPs); Decoding one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information (DCI) at the UE; and identifying at the UE from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: one or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) feedback; or one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback.

[0189] Embodiment 17 includes at least one machine-readable storage medium according to embodiment 16, and also includes instructions for performing the following operations when executed: decoding at the UE a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

[0190] Embodiment 18 includes at least one machine-readable storage medium according to embodiment 17, and also includes instructions for performing the following operations when executed: identifying, at the UE, the number of one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP from the number of one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

[0191] Embodiment 19 includes at least one machine-readable storage medium according to embodiment 17, and also includes instructions for performing the following operations when executed: identifying one or more of the following from the MAC CE at the UE: a service cell identifier (ID) to which the MACCE applies; a bandwidth part (BWP) ID of an uplink BWP in which PUCCH transmission occurs; or a PUCCH resource set ID.

[0192] Embodiment 20 includes at least one machine-readable storage medium according to any one of embodiments 17 to 19, and also includes instructions that perform the following operations when executed: identifying a PUCCH resource set for HARQ-ACK feedback at the UE, the PUCCH resource set including multiple subsets of PUCCH resources; and identifying multiple PUCCH resource fields from the DCI at the UE, wherein: a first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a first subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources, the one or more PUCCH resources are associated with the primary TRP, and a second PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a second subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources, the one or more PUCCH resources are associated with the secondary TRP.

[0193] Various technologies or some aspects or parts thereof may be in the form of program codes (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media such as floppy disks, compact disk read-only memories (CD-ROMs), hard disk drives, non-transitory computer-readable storage media, or any other machine-readable storage media, wherein when the program code is loaded into a machine such as a computer and executed by the machine, the machine becomes a device for practicing various technologies. In the case of executing program codes on a programmable computer, a computing device may include a processor, a storage medium (including volatile and non-volatile memories and / or storage elements) readable by the processor, at least one input device, and at least one output device. Volatile and non-volatile memories and / or storage elements may be random access memories (RAMs), erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), flash drives, optical drives, magnetic hard disk drives, solid-state drives, or other media for storing electronic data. Nodes and wireless devices may also include transceiver modules (i.e., transceivers), counting modules (i.e., counters), processing modules (i.e., processors), and / or clock modules (i.e., clocks) or timing modules (i.e., timers). In one example, selected components of the transceiver module may be located in a cloud radio access network (C-RAN). One or more programs that may implement or utilize the various techniques described herein may use an application programming interface (API), reusable controls, and the like. Such programs may be implemented in a high-level procedural or object-oriented programming language to communicate with a computer system. However, if desired, one or more programs may be implemented in assembly language or machine language. In any case, the language may be a compiled or interpreted language and combined with a hardware implementation.

[0194] As used herein, the term "circuit" may refer to, may be part of, or may include an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), electronic circuit, processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and / or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes one or more software or firmware programs, combinational logic circuits, and / or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, a circuit may be implemented in one or more software or firmware modules, or the functionality associated with the circuit may be implemented by one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, a circuit may include a logic component that is capable of operating at least partially in hardware.

[0195] It should be understood that many of the functional units described in this specification have been labeled as modules in order to more specifically emphasize their implementation independence. For example, a module may be implemented as a hardware circuit that includes a custom very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit or gate array, an off-the-shelf semiconductor (such as a logic chip, a transistor), or other discrete components. A module may also be implemented in a programmable hardware device (such as a field programmable gate array, a programmable array logic, a programmable logic device, etc.).

[0196] Modules may also be implemented in software to be executed by various types of processors. An identified executable code module may, for example, include one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may, for example, be organized as objects, procedures, or functions. However, the executable files of the identified modules may not be physically located together, but may include different instructions stored in different locations, which, when logically connected together, comprise the module and achieve the intended purpose of the module.

[0197] In practice, a 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 over several memory devices. Similarly, operational data may be identified and shown herein within a 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 the operational data may exist at least in part only as electronic signals on a system or network. A module may be passive or active, including agents operable to perform a desired function.

[0198] References throughout the specification to "one example" or "exemplary" mean that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in conjunction with the example is included in at least one embodiment of the present technology. Thus, multiple appearances of the phrase "in one example" or the word "exemplary" throughout the specification are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment.

[0199] As used herein, for convenience, multiple items, structural elements, constituent elements and / or materials may be presented in a common list. However, these lists should be understood to be despite this, but each member of the list is identified as a separate and unique member. Therefore, any member in such a list should not be understood to be equivalent to any other member in the same list based solely on being presented in a common group in the absence of contrary instructions. In addition, various embodiments and examples of the present technology may be cited in this article together with alternatives of its various parts. It should be understood that such embodiments, examples and alternatives should not be understood to be equivalent to each other in fact, but should be considered as separate and autonomous representations of the present technology.

[0200] In addition, the features, structures or characteristics can be combined in one or more embodiments in any suitable manner. In the following description, many specific details are provided, such as examples of layouts, distances, network examples, to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the present technology. However, those skilled in the relevant art will recognize that the present technology can be practiced without one or more specific details or practiced with other methods, components, layouts, etc. In other cases, well-known structures, materials or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid blurring various aspects of the present technology.

[0201] Although the foregoing examples illustrate the principles of the present technology in one or more specific applications, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many modifications may be made to the form, use, and details of the specific implementation without exercising inventive talent and without departing from the principles and concepts of the present technology. Therefore, this document is not intended to limit the technology except as provided in the following claims.

Claims

1. A device for a user equipment UE capable of operating for physical uplink control channel PUCCH transmission for ultra-reliable low-latency communication URLLC in a fifth generation 5G new air interface NR network, the device comprising: One or more processors configured to: decoding, at the UE, a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator received from a base station, wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allows multiple PUCCH transmission from the UE to the base station via multiple transmission reception points (TRPs); Decoding one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information DCI at the UE; as well as identifying, at the UE, from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: One or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement HARQ-ACK feedback; as well as one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the plurality of TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback; and A memory interface is configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: A medium access control MAC control element CE including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP is decoded at the UE.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: The number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP is identified at the UE from the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identifying, at the UE, from the MAC CE, one or more of: The serving cell identifier ID to which the MAC CE is applicable; The BWP ID of the uplink wideband part BWP in which the PUCCH transmission occurs; or PUCCH resource set ID.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: identifying, at the UE, a PUCCH resource set for HARQ-ACK feedback, the PUCCH resource set comprising a plurality of subsets of PUCCH resources; and A plurality of PUCCH resource fields are identified at the UE from the DCI, wherein: The first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a first subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP, and The second PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a second subset, where the second subset is associated with the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: A PUCCH resource field is identified at the UE from the one or more resource fields in the DCI, wherein the PUCCH resource field identifies the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP based on a PUCCH resource index n, where n is a positive integer.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: The one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP based on resource index n+1 are determined at the UE.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: A plurality of PUCCH resource fields are identified at the UE from the one or more resource fields in the DCI, wherein: The first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource identifier ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP, The PUCCH resource ID has an index n, where n is a positive integer, and the second PUCCH resource field identifies the PUCCH resource ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP, and the PUCCH resource ID has an index m, where m is a positive integer different from n. 9 . The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator is an RRC information element (IE) parameter configured via radio resource control (RRC) signaling.

10. An apparatus of a base station capable of operating for physical uplink control channel PUCCH transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication URLLC in a fifth generation 5G new air interface NR network, the apparatus comprising: One or more processors configured to: encoding, at the base station, a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator for transmission to a user equipment UE, the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allowing multiple PUCCH transmission from the UE to the base station via multiple transmission reception points TRPs; as well as Encode, at the base station, one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information DCI for sending to the UE, wherein the one or more PUCCH resource fields identify: One or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement HARQ-ACK feedback; as well as one or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the plurality of TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback; and A memory interface is configured to store the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator in a memory.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: A medium access control MAC control element CE is encoded at the base station for sending to the UE, the MAC CE including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: One or more resource fields in the DCI are encoded at the base station for sending to the UE, the DCI including a PUCCH resource field, the PUCCH resource field identifying the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP based on a PUCCH resource index n, where n is a positive integer.

13. An apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are based on resource index n+1.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: encoding, at the base station, one or more resource fields in the DCI for transmission to the UE, wherein: The first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource identifier ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP, The PUCCH resource ID has an index n, where n is a positive integer, and the second PUCCH resource field identifies the PUCCH resource ID of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP, and the PUCCH resource ID has an index m, where m is a positive integer different from n. 15 . The apparatus according to claim 10 , wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator is an RRC information element (IE) parameter configured via radio resource control (RRC) signaling.

16. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions contained thereon for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in a fifth generation 5G new radio (NR) network, the instructions performing the following operations when executed by one or more processors at a user equipment (UE): decoding, at the UE, a multiple PUCCH transmission indicator received from a base station, wherein the multiple PUCCH transmission indicator allows multiple PUCCH transmission from the UE to the base station via multiple transmission reception points (TRPs); Decoding one or more PUCCH resource fields in downlink control information DCI at the UE; as well as identifying, at the UE, from the one or more PUCCH resource fields in the DCI: One or more PUCCH resources associated with a primary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP are used for hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement HARQ-ACK feedback; as well as One or more PUCCH resources associated with a secondary TRP among the multiple TRPs, wherein the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP are used for HARQ-ACK feedback.

17. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, further comprising instructions that, when executed, perform: A medium access control MAC control element CE including the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP is decoded at the UE.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising instructions that, when executed, perform the following operations: The number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP is identified at the UE from the number of the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising instructions that, when executed, perform the following operations: identifying, at the UE, from the MAC CE, one or more of: The serving cell identifier ID to which the MAC CE is applicable; The BWP ID of the uplink bandwidth part BWP in which the PUCCH transmission occurs; or PUCCH resource set ID.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of any one of claims 17 to 19, further comprising instructions that, when executed, perform the following operations: identifying, at the UE, a PUCCH resource set for HARQ-ACK feedback, the PUCCH resource set comprising a plurality of subsets of PUCCH resources; and A plurality of PUCCH resource fields are identified at the UE from the DCI, wherein: The first PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a first subset associated with the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the primary TRP, and The second PUCCH resource field identifies a PUCCH resource index of a second subset, where the second subset is associated with the one or more PUCCH resources associated with the secondary TRP.

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