Uplink transmission in new radio systems operating on unlicensed spectrum

Abstract

The systems, methods, and apparatus disclosed herein may perform uplink (UL) transmissions in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. The systems, methods, and apparatus may receive a downlink (DL) signal containing information associated with a listen-before-talk (LBT) type. The systems, methods, and apparatus may perform the UL transmission based on the LBT type.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 839,952, filed on April 29, 2019, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Technical Field

[0003] Various embodiments may generally relate to the field of wireless communications. Summary of the invention

[0004] Some embodiments may include a method of performing an uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. The method may include receiving, by a user equipment (UE), a downlink (DL) signal including information associated with a listen-before-talk (LBT) type, and performing, by the UE, an UL transmission based on the LBT type.

[0005] In these embodiments, the LBT type may include a Category 1 (CAT-1) LBT type, a Category 2 (CAT-2) LBT type, or a Category 4 (CAT-4) LBT type.

[0006] In those embodiments, where the LBT type is a CAT-1 LBT type, the performing may include:

[0007] determining that UL transmission will begin no later than T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number, and

[0008] UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs.

[0009] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs.

[0010] In those embodiments, where the LBT type is a CAT-2 LBT type, the performing may include:

[0011] determining that a duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold; and

[0012] In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number.

[0013] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs or 25μs.

[0014] In these embodiments, the threshold may be 584 μs.

[0015] Some embodiments may include a user equipment (UE) that performs uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. The UE may include a radio front end circuit and a processing circuit. The radio front end circuit may perform wireless communication on the unlicensed spectrum. The processing circuit may receive a downlink (DL) signal including information associated with a listen-before-talk (LBT) type, and perform an UL transmission based on the LBT type.

[0016] In these embodiments, the LBT type may include a Category 1 (CAT-1) LBT type, a Category 2 (CAT-2) LBT type, or a Category 4 (CAT-4) LBT type.

[0017] In those embodiments, where the LBT type is a CAT-1 LBT type, the processing circuit may:

[0018] determining that UL transmission will begin no later than T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; and

[0019] UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs.

[0020] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs.

[0021] In these embodiments, when the LBT type is a CAT-2 LBT type, the processing circuit may:

[0022] determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold, and

[0023] In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number.

[0024] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs or 25μs.

[0025] In these embodiments, the threshold may be 584 μs.

[0026] Some embodiments may include a system for performing uplink (UL) transmissions in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. The system may include an access node and a user equipment (UE). The access node may provide a downlink (DL) signal including information associated with a listen-before-talk (LBT) type. The UE may perform UL transmissions based on the LBT type.

[0027] In these embodiments, the LBT type may include a Category 1 (CAT-1) LBT type, a Category 2 (CAT-2) LBT type, or a Category 4 (CAT-4) LBT type.

[0028] In these embodiments, where the LBT type is a CAT-1 LBT type, the UE may:

[0029] determining that UL transmission will begin no later than T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; and

[0030] UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs.

[0031] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs.

[0032] In these embodiments, where the LBT type is a CAT-2 LBT type, the UE may:

[0033] determining that a duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold; and

[0034] In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number.

[0035] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs or 25μs.

[0036] In these embodiments, the threshold may be 584 μs.

[0037] Unless otherwise expressly stated, any of the above embodiments may be combined with any other embodiment (or combination of embodiments). The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. In view of the above teachings, modifications and variations are possible or can be obtained from the practice of various embodiments. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0038] The present disclosure is described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, the same reference numerals indicate the same or functionally similar elements. In addition, the leftmost digit of a reference numeral identifies the drawing in which the reference numeral first appears. In the drawings:

[0039] Figure 1 graphically illustrates exemplary time resources for a multi-slot PUSCH according to various embodiments;

[0040] Figure 2 graphically illustrates another exemplary time resource for a multi-slot PUSCH according to various embodiments;

[0041] Figure 3 graphically illustrates exemplary time resources for CG PUSCH according to various embodiments;

[0042] Figure 4 Another exemplary time resource for CG PUSCH according to various embodiments is graphically illustrated;

[0043] Figure 5A and Figure 5B graphically illustrates an exemplary demodulation reference signal (DMRS) pattern according to various embodiments;

[0044] Figure 6 graphically illustrates exemplary applicable LBT types for PUSCH according to various embodiments;

[0045] Figure 7 FIG. 1 graphically illustrates exemplary slot type dependent N for PUSCH transmission according to various embodiments TA Sure;

[0046] Figure 8 FIG. 1 graphically illustrates exemplary slot type dependent N for PUSCH transmission according to various embodiments TA Sure;

[0047] Fig. 9 graphically illustrates an exemplary PUSCH transmission timing determination according to various embodiments;

[0048] Fig.10 An exemplary offset for a starting position no earlier than OS k according to various embodiments is graphically illustrated;

[0049] Fig.11 An exemplary offset for a starting position no later than OS k is graphically illustrated according to various embodiments;

[0050] Fig.12 graphically illustrates an exemplary offset with a starting position fixed to OS k according to various embodiments;

[0051] Fig.13 An exemplary architecture of a system illustrating a network according to various embodiments;

[0052] Fig.14 An exemplary architecture of a system including a first CN according to various embodiments is shown;

[0053] Fig.15 shows the architecture of a system including a second CN according to various embodiments;

[0054] Fig.16 Examples of infrastructure equipment according to various embodiments are shown;

[0055] Fig.17Examples of platforms (or "devices") according to various embodiments are shown;

[0056] Fig.18 shows exemplary components of a baseband circuit and a radio front end module (RFEM) according to various embodiments;

[0057] Fig.19 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to various embodiments;

[0058] Fig. 20 illustrates components of a core network according to various embodiments;

[0059] Fig.21 is a block diagram illustrating components of a system for supporting network function virtualization (NFV) according to some exemplary embodiments;

[0060] Fig. 22 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 described herein, according to some exemplary embodiments; and

[0061] Fig.23 A flow chart for operating on an unlicensed spectrum is shown according to some embodiments.

[0062] The present disclosure will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0063] The following specific embodiments relate to the accompanying drawings. The same figure numbers may be used to identify the same or similar elements in different drawings. In the following description, for the purpose of illustration and not limitation, specific details, such as specific structures, architectures, interfaces, technologies, etc., are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art who benefit from the present disclosure that various aspects of various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that deviate from these specific details. In some cases, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of various embodiments due to unnecessary details. For the purposes of this document, the phrase "A or B" refers to (A), (B), or (A and B).

[0064] Every year, the number of mobile devices connected to wireless networks increases significantly. Some embodiments described herein describe changes to the system requirements to meet these requirements to keep pace with the requirements in mobile data traffic. For example, many key areas that need to be enhanced to achieve this traffic increase may include greater bandwidth, lower latency, and / or higher data rates, to provide some examples.

[0065] One of the limiting factors in wireless innovation can include the availability of spectrum. To alleviate this, unlicensed spectrum has been an area of ​​great interest in extending the availability of LTE. In this context, one of the major enhancements to LTE in 3GPP Release 13 is to enable it to operate in unlicensed spectrum via Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), which extends the system bandwidth by leveraging the flexible carrier aggregation (CA) framework introduced by the Advanced LTE system.

[0066] Since the main building blocks of the NR framework have been established, some of the embodiments described herein may similarly operate in unlicensed spectrum. To facilitate NR operation in unlicensed spectrum, these embodiments may include:

[0067] Example physical layer aspects include [RAN1]:

[0068] Some embodiments may include a frame structure with single and multiple downlink (DL) to uplink (UL) and UL to DL switching points within a shared channel occupancy time (COT) and with associated identified listen-before-talk (LBT) requirements (Technical Report (TR) Section 7.2.1.3.1).

[0069] Some embodiments may include an extended UL data channel with a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). These embodiments may support frequency block staggered transmission based on physical resource blocks (PRBs). It should be understood that the end position is indicated by the UL grant, and these embodiments may support multiple PUSCH start positions in one or more time slots based on the LBT results. These embodiments do not require the UE to change the authorized transport block size (TBS) for PUSCH transmission based on the LBT results. These embodiments may include PUSCH enhancement based on cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM). For example, these embodiments may determine the applicability of sub-PRB frequency block staggered transmission of approximately 60 kilohertz (kHz) by RAN1.

[0070] Example physical layer procedures include [RAN1, RAN2]:

[0071] For load-based equipment (LBE), some implementations may include channel access mechanisms consistent with the NR unlicensed spectrum (NR-U) study item (TR 38.889, Section 7.2.1.3.1). These implementations may be performed by RAN1.

[0072] Some embodiments may include hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) operation. In these embodiments, the NR HARQ feedback mechanism may represent a baseline for NR-U operation with extensions consistent with the research phase (NR-U TR Section 7.2.1.3.3), such as immediate transmission of HARQ acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (A / N) for corresponding data in the same shared COT and / or transmission of HARQ A / N in a subsequent COT. These embodiments may support mechanisms to provide multiple and / or complementary time and / or frequency domain transmission opportunities. (RAN1).

[0073] Some implementations may include scheduling multiple transmission time intervals (TTIs) for PUSCH as per the study phase (TR 38.889, section 7.2.1.3.3). (RAN1)

[0074] Some embodiments may include configuration authorization operation. In these embodiments, the NR Type 1 and Type 2 configuration authorization mechanism may be a baseline for NR-U operation modified from the research phase (NR-U TR Section 7.2.1.3.4). (RAN1).

[0075] Some embodiments may include data multiplexing aspects (for both UL and DL) taking into account LBT and channel access priority. (RAN1 / RAN2).

[0076] Some embodiments maintain fair coexistence with other existing technologies. In these embodiments, some restrictions may be considered depending on the specific frequency band in which they may operate. For example, if operating in the 5 gigahertz (GHz) band, these embodiments may perform an LBT process to acquire the medium before transmission can occur. In these embodiments, grant-based PUSCH (GB PUSCH) and configured grant-based PUSCH (CG PUSCH) may exist in the same cell. In these embodiments, correct handling of these two types of transmission schemes may be included for efficient cell operation, especially considering multi-TTI transmissions based on grants (GB) and CG PUSCH with repetitions. Some embodiments may include the design of GB PUSCH transmissions and NR's CGPUSCH transmissions to allow efficient operation in unlicensed spectrum.

[0077] Some embodiments, for example, in NR systems operating on unlicensed spectrum, should minimize the impact of LBT on PUSCH transmissions, since the transmission is conditional on the success of the LBT process. For example, GB PUSCH may be prioritized over CG PUSCH. In these embodiments, the DL control information (DCI) format for scheduling multi-TTI PUSCH may be designed taking into account overhead and blind detection. In these embodiments, the direct forwarding indication (DFI) overhead may be minimized taking into account code block group (CBG) based CG PUSCH transmissions.

[0078] Example DCI formats for single-TTI / multi-TTI PUSCH

[0079] NR-U may support multiple TTIs for scheduling PUSCH, for example, scheduling multiple transport blocks (TBs) with different HARQ process identifiers (IDs) over multiple time slots using a single UL grant. Based on the two DCI formats 0_0 and 0_1 defined in NR Release 15 (Rel-15), some implementations may include a DCI format for scheduling multi-TTI PUSCH. In these implementations, due to regulatory restrictions on occupied channel bandwidth (OCB), PUSCH resource allocation may be redesigned compared to Rel-15. In these implementations, the frequency resource allocation field in the DCI may be changed, which results in the DCI being different from DCI 0_0 and 0_1. In these implementations, the frequency resource allocation field in the DCI may follow the frequency resource allocation in NR-U. In this document, the term "single TTI scheduling" refers to the scheduling of a single TB, while the term "multi-TTI scheduling" refers to the scheduling of multiple TBs.

[0080] In some embodiments, two new DCI formats may be derived based on DCI 0_0, denoted as DCI 0_0A and DCI 0_0B. In these embodiments, the two new DCI formats may support single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling, respectively. In these embodiments, the two new DCI formats may be derived based on DCI 0_1, denoted as DCI 0_1A and 0_1B, which support single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling, respectively.

[0081] In some embodiments, a new DCI format may be derived based on DCI 0_0, denoted as DCI 0_0A. In these embodiments, the new DCI format may support single TTI scheduling. In these embodiments, two new DCI formats may be derived based on DCI 0_1, denoted as DCI 0_1A and DCI 0_1B. In these embodiments, the two new DCI formats may support single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling, respectively. In these embodiments, DCI0_0 may represent a fallback DCI to provide robustness of transmission.

[0082] In some embodiments, only one new DCI format may be derived based on DCI 0_0, denoted as DCI 0_0A. In these embodiments, the new DCI format may support single-TTI scheduling. In these embodiments, only one new DCI format may be derived based on DCI 0_1, denoted as DCI 0_1C. In these embodiments, the new DCI format may support dynamic switching between single-TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling.

[0083] In some embodiments, such as the above-mentioned DCI formats 0_0B, 0_1B or 0_1C, at least some of the following fields may be included:

[0084] New Data Indicator (NDI) for each Transport Block (TB).

[0085] Redundancy version (RV) per TB, for example 1 bit or 2 bits.

[0086] A single HARQ process number h, for example a single number h, may be allocated to the first TB, while the kth TB uses HARQ process number h+k, h=0, 1, ..., N-1, where N represents the number of TBs predefined or configured for multi-TTI PUSCH.

[0087] Channel access type, such as no LBT; aggressive LBT, such as one-shot LBT with 25 μs clear channel assessment (CCA); or conservative LBT, such as CAT-4 LBT. "No LBT" herein means direct transmission without LBT with a gap of less than, for example, 16 μs.

[0088] Channel access priority level, e.g., 2 bits as defined in LTE License Assisted Access (LAA).

[0089] The number of scheduled time slots represents the maximum number of scheduled time slots, which may be predefined or configured by RRC signaling. In an implementation using both DCI 0_1A and DCI 0_1B, DCI0_1B may indicate the number of scheduled time slots from 2 to N. In an implementation, for example, for DCI 0_1C, the number of scheduled time slots may be in the range of 1 to N, where N represents the number of TBs predefined or configured in the multi-T IPUSCH.

[0090] The starting position of PUSCH, for example, LTE LAA can support 4 starting positions, such as the starting point of orthogonal sequence (OS) 0, 25μs after the starting point of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing symbol (OS) 0, 25μs after the starting point of OS 0 + timing advance (TA), and the starting point of OS 1. In some embodiments, a value may be defined for NR-U. In some embodiments, the starting position of PUSCH is OS X, OS X + 25μs, OS X + 25μs + TA, and OS X + 1, where X represents the starting symbol that can be indicated in different fields.

[0091] The starting symbol index and the ending symbol index of the time resource. In some embodiments, these two indices can be signaled separately or jointly encoded.

[0092] When CBG based transport is configurable, CBG transport information (CBGTI) may be present.

[0093] An indication of whether COT sharing is allowed for the CG User Equipment (UE). In some embodiments, this field may consist of one bit and indicate whether COT sharing is enabled or disabled. In some embodiments, this field may consist of 2 bits / 3 bits to indicate the length of the available shared COT so that the CG UE can pre-evaluate whether to transmit in the shared COT. In these embodiments, the CG UE may perform transmissions within the shared COT when there is enough data to utilize those available time domain resources.

[0094] In some embodiments, the channel access field in DCI 0_0A or DCI 0_0B may be implemented using one bit, while the channel access field in DCI 0_1A, DCI 0_1B, or DCI 0_1C may be implemented using two bits. In some embodiments, the channel access field in DCI 0_0A or DCI 0_0B may indicate no LBT or one-time LBT, while the channel access field in DCI 0_1A, DCI 0_1B, or DCI 0_1C may indicate no LBT, one-time LBT, or CAT-4 LBT. In some embodiments, for all DCI formats 0_0A, 0_0B, 0_1A, 0_1B, or 0_1C, the channel access field is one bit, and the two states indicated by the field are configured by radio resource control (RRC) signaling. In some embodiments, the channel access field in DCI 0_0A may be implemented using two bits, indicating no LBT, one-time LBT, or category 4 (CAT-4) LBT.

[0095] In some embodiments, both DCI 0_1A and DCI 0_1B are used, and the two DCIs may have different sizes. In some embodiments, the CBGTI of DCI 0_1A may be implemented using bits to indicate whether a CBG is transmitted for a TB / which CBGs are transmitted for a TB. In some embodiments, the CBGTI of DCI 0_1B may be implemented using M bits per TB, assuming that there are N TBs in a multi-TTI PUSCH, and the total number of CBGTI bits is MN bits. In some embodiments, S, M, and / or N may be predefined or configured by RRC signaling. In some embodiments, MN may be much larger than S. In these embodiments, in order to limit the size of DCI 0_1B, the maximum value of M may be reduced compared to S. For example, S may be 2, 4, or 8, and M may be 2 or 4.

[0096] In some embodiments, a TB scheduled by DCI 0_1A cannot be rescheduled by DCI 0_1B, and a TB scheduled by DCI 0_1B cannot be rescheduled by DCI 0_1A. In some embodiments, any DCI format including DCI 0_1A, 0_1B and other DCI formats can be used to schedule any transmission or retransmission of a TB. Specifically, for DCI 0_1A and DCI 0_1B, the number of CBGTI bits is S and M per TB, respectively, where S is generally larger than M. In these embodiments, assuming that S is greater than M, the S CBGs of a TB can be grouped into M CBG groups. Each CBG group uses one CBGTI bit of a TB in DCI 0_1B. In some embodiments, CBGs with index k are grouped into CBG groups mod(k, M), k=0, 1...S-1. If the CBGTI bit of a TB in DCI 0_1B is ACK, the CBGs of the TB in the CBG group corresponding to the CBGTI bit are rescheduled. Alternatively, the TB may be first divided into M CBGs applied to DCI 0_1B, and then each of the M CBGs may be divided into ceil(S / M) or floor(S / M) subgroups. Each subgroup then uses one CBGTI bit of the TB in DCI 0_1A. In some implementations, where k < mod(k, M), the CBG with index k from the M CBGs is divided into ceil(S / M) subgroups, and additionally ceil(S / M), k = 0, 1 ... M-1. If the CBGTI bit of the TB in DCI 0_1A is ACK, the subgroup of the corresponding CBG of the TB corresponding to the CBGTI bit may be rescheduled.

[0097] In some embodiments, DCI 0_1C may be used to support dynamic switching between single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling. In these embodiments, assuming that there are N TBs in a multi-TTI PUSCH and the total number of CBGTI bits is MN bits, the CBGTI of DCI0_1C may be M bits per TB. When less than N TBs are scheduled, the number of CBGs per TB may be greater than M.

[0098] In some embodiments, for example, when DCI 0_1C schedules only a single TB, M CBG bits may be used for the TB. In these embodiments, no special processing is required for CBG grouping. In some embodiments, for example, when DCI 0_1C schedules a single TB, S CBGTI bits from the MN bit, S>M may be used for the TB. In these embodiments, the TB may be first divided into S CBGs, which is suitable for single TTI scheduling, and then the S CBGs may be divided into M CBG groups. Each CBG group may use one CBGTI bit of the TB in multi-TTI scheduling. In some embodiments, CBGs with index k may be grouped into CBG groups mod(k, M), k=0, 1...S-1. If the CBGTI bit of a TB in multi-TTI scheduling is ACK, the CBGs in the CBG group of the TB corresponding to the CBGTI bit are rescheduled. In some embodiments, the TB may first be divided into M CBGs suitable for multi-TTI scheduling. In these embodiments, each of the M CBGs may be divided into ceil(S / M) or floor(S / M) subgroups. Each subgroup then uses one CBGTI bit of the TB in single TTI scheduling. In some implementations, in the case of k < mod (k, M), the CBG with index k from the M CBGs may be divided into ceil (S / M) subgroups, and otherwise ceil (S / M), k = 0, 1 ... M-1. If the CBGTI bit of a TB in single TTI scheduling is ACK, the subgroup of the corresponding CBG of the TB corresponding to the CBGTI bit is rescheduled.

[0099] In some embodiments, for example, when n TBs are scheduled by DCI 0_1C, 1≤n≤N, the MN bits of the CBGTI may be reallocated to n TBs. In these embodiments, f(n) bits of the CBGTI may be allocated to one TB. For example, T=MN / n or T=min(MN / n, S), where S represents the maximum number of CBGs for a TB. In these embodiments, the TB may be divided into f(1) CBGs, and then the f(1) CBGs may be grouped into f(n) CBG groups. In these embodiments, a CBG with index k may be grouped into CBG groups mod(k, f(1), k=0, 1...f(1)-1. A CBG group maps to one CBG TI bit. In some embodiments, a TB may be divided into f(m) CBGs, and then for m+1 TBs, the m TBs may be grouped into f(m+1) CBGs, m=1...N-1. A CBG with index k may be grouped into CBG groups mod(k, f(m+1)), k=0, 1...f(m)-1. In these embodiments, a CBG group may be mapped to one CBG TI bit. In these embodiments, f(m+1) may be a factor of f(m).

[0100] In some embodiments, DCI 0_1C (eg, a single TB) is scheduled, the TB may use a 2-bit RV, otherwise, the RV may be 1 bit per TB.

[0101] In some embodiments, if CBG-based transmission is not configured, only one DCI format is used, for example, DCI 0_1C can be dynamically switched between single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling, otherwise, both DCI formats 0_1A and 0_1B are used.

[0102] Example HARQ Feedback Using DFI

[0103] In some embodiments, for example, in further enhanced LAA (FeLAA) autonomous UL (AUL), DFI may be introduced to indicate HARQ-ACK for PUSCH. In these embodiments, one HARQ-ACK bit may be transmitted for each TB in the DFI. However, in some cases, since the NR-U CG PUSCH may support CBG-based transmissions, the scheme may result in considerable overhead. In these cases, assuming that the CG has 16 HARQ processes and each TB has 8 CBGs, 128 bits should be carried in the DFI.

[0104] In some embodiments, N HARQ-ACK bits may be allocated for each HARQ process configured for the CG, while only 1 bit may be allocated for other HARQ processes. In these embodiments, N may be a number predefined or configured by RRC signaling. N may be configured by the same signaling as the number of CBG configurations for the TB, or N may be configured by separate RRC signaling. In these embodiments, the 1 bit for the HARQ process that is not configured for the CG is not used to trigger the transmission or retransmission of the grant-based PUSCH, but it may be a piece of information used in the contention window size (CWS) adjustment. This means that even if the GB PUSCH is also based on CBG, only 1 bit is allocated in the DFI to reduce overhead.

[0105] In some implementations, the DFI in NR-U may match the size of a DCI with a larger size (e.g., DCI 0_1B or 0_1C). Specifically, the DFI in NR-U may match the size of a DL DCI with a larger size.

[0106] In some embodiments, the HARQ processes for GB PUSCH and CG PUSCH may be divided into X subsets, where X is greater than 1. In these embodiments, each subset of HARQ processes may be mapped to a separate DFI, for example, to reduce the size of the DFI.

[0107] In some embodiments, the HARQ processes configured for the CG may be divided into X subsets, where X is greater than 1. In these embodiments, each subset of the HARQ processes may be mapped to a separate DFI. In the DFI, for the corresponding subset of the HARQ processes configured for the CG, N HARQ-ACK bits may be allocated to each HARQ process. For all other HARQ processes that do not belong to the subset, each HARQ process may include a 1-bit HARQ-ACK, regardless of whether it is configured for the CG. In these embodiments, N may be a number predefined or configured by RRC signaling. In these embodiments, N is configured by the same signaling as the number of CBGs configured for the TB, or N may be configured by separate RRC signaling. In these embodiments, each HARQ 1-bit process may be used for CWS adjustment. For the HARQ process configured for the CG, the UE may refer to this 1 bit for new transmission or retransmission. For example, assuming that if at least one CBG is erroneous, the 1 bit of each HARQ process is generated as NACK, and when the 1 bit is ACK, the UE can stop the continuous repeated PUSCH transmission of the relevant HARQ process.

[0108] In some embodiments, CBG grouping may be applied to reduce the number of HARQ-ACK bits configured for each HARQ process for CG. Assuming that the configured number of CBGs is S for a TB, S CBGs need to be grouped into N CBG groups. In these embodiments, N is a number predefined or configured by RRC signaling. In these embodiments, N may be configured by the same signaling as the number of CBGs configured for the TB, or N may be configured by separate RRC signaling. Assuming that the number of CBGTI bits per TB is different for single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling, N may be equal to the smaller number of CBGTI bits per TB between single TTI scheduling and multi-TTI scheduling. One HARQ-ACK bit for each CBG group may be included in the DFI. Preferably, CBGs with index k may be grouped into CBG groups mod(k, N), k=0, 1...S-1. If one bit of a CBG group of a TB is ACK in the DFI, all CBGs in the CBG group are ACK, otherwise, a bundled NACK is signaled for the CBGs in the CBG group via the DFI.

[0109] In some embodiments, CBG (re)transmission may be enabled for CG. In this case, the 8 bits for CBGTI are carried in the CG UCI, and based on the configuration, only the first or last N (0, 2, 4, 6, 8) carry useful information, while the other bits may be interpreted as padding bits.

[0110] Example time resources for multi-slot PUSCH

[0111] In NR-U, when PUSCH is triggered due to the limitation of LBT, the UE cannot always acquire the channel. Therefore, methods to reduce LBT attempts may be beneficial.

[0112] Figure 1 Graphs are shown showing exemplary time resources for a multi-slot PUSCH according to various embodiments. Figure 1 As shown in , for grant-based multi-slot PUSCH, once a UE occupies the shared COT channel 100 by successfully performing LBT 102, the UE can continuously transmit in slots 1 to 4. Figure 1 In the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 1 , communication via the shared COT channel 100 may be based on a frame structure having a shared downlink (DL) burst and a shared uplink (UL) burst, wherein the shared downlink (DL) burst has a Figure 1 The time slot represented by D in the example, and the shared uplink (UL) burst has Figure 1 The UL time slot represented by U in Figure 1Assuming that information about the start symbol index and the end symbol index is indicated, these two pieces of information can be signaled separately or jointly encoded. Figure 1 As shown, in the first time slot for channel occupation, the UE may follow the indicated start symbol, and the last symbol in the first time slot is the last symbol of the time slot, such as symbol 13. In the last time slot for channel occupation, the UE may follow the indicated end symbol, and the first symbol in the last time slot is symbol 0. For any intervening time slots that exist, they start at symbol 0 and end at symbol 13. In some embodiments, if the UE passes through LBT 102 in a time slot, the UE may transmit continuously in time slots 1 to 4, such as Figure 1 In some embodiments, if the UE fails to pass the LBT 102 in a time slot, the UE may try the LBT 102 again in the next time slot, as shown in FIG. Figure 1 As shown in 106 in the figure. Preferably, Figure 1 As shown, the UE may attempt LBT 102 at symbol 0 of the next time slot. Figure 1 As highlighted at 106 in FIG. 1 , the UE fails to pass the LBT 102 in time slot 1, as shown in FIG. Figure 1 As shown by the shading in , the UE may then attempt LBT 102 at the next time slot 2. In some embodiments, within a time slot, the UE may attempt to perform LBT 102 at multiple opportunities, for example, the UE may attempt LBT 102 in symbols 0 and 7 as follows: If LBT 102 succeeds at symbol 0, the remaining time slots may be used to transmit TBs. However, if it fails, the UE may attempt LBT 102 at symbol 7, and if successful, the transmission may be punctured or rate matched in the remaining 7 symbols of the time slot.

[0113] In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to attempt LBT 102 at different occasions through DCI signaling or higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to start at a specific starting position, for example, which is not necessarily at a slot boundary.

[0114] In a shared COT initiated by a next generation NodeB (gNB) with multiple DL to UL and UL to DL switching points, the UL symbols may be discontinuous. Figure 2 Another exemplary time resource of a multi-slot PUSCH according to various embodiments is shown graphically. In some embodiments, as Figure 2As shown, for grant-based multi-slot PUSCH, in the first time slot of the multi-slot PUSCH in a shared UL burst, the starting symbol in the first time slot is determined by the starting symbol indicated by the DCI. In some embodiments, for example, in the case where the next few time slots are complete UL time slots, the UE may continue UL transmission in consecutive UL time slots. In the last time slot of the multi-slot PUSCH in the shared UL burst, the UE may stop PUSCH transmission at the end symbol indicated by the DCI. In some embodiments, if the UE fails to pass the LBT 102 in a time slot (e.g., time slot 1), the UE may try the LBT 102 again in the next time slot (e.g., time slot 2), and if the LBT 102 fails in time slot 2, then try time slot 3. Preferably, as Figure 2 As shown, if the next time slot is a full UL time slot, the UE may attempt LBT 102 at symbol 0 of the next time slot. In some embodiments, within the shared COT channel 200 of the gNB, the UE may attempt to perform LBT 102 at multiple opportunities within the shared resources, for example, the UE may attempt LBT 102 in symbols 0 and 7 of each shared time slot: so that if LBT 102 succeeds at symbol 0, the remaining time slots can be used to transmit TBs. However, if LBT 102 fails, the UE may attempt LBT 102 at symbol 7, and if LBT 102 succeeds, the transmission may be punctured or rate matched in the remaining 7 symbols of the time slot. The same process may be applied to all remaining UL time slots within the shared COT.

[0115] In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to attempt LBT 102 at different occasions through DCI signaling or higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, the UE may be configured to start at a specific starting position, which is not necessarily at a slot boundary.

[0116] Note that the above concept is also applicable to the case of multiple DL / UL switching points.

[0117] In some embodiments, the number of time slots or mini-time slots for multi-slot PUSCH can be jointly encoded with PUSCH mapping type K2 and start indicator value and length indicator value (SLIV). In these embodiments, the combination of PUSCH mapping type K2, SLIV and number of time slots can be configured by radio resource control (RRC signaling) and dynamically indicated by DCI. The overhead in DCI can be the same as that in Rel-15. Alternatively, a larger number of combinations can be used, for example, more bits can be used to indicate the combination in DCI to obtain better flexibility.

[0118] In some embodiments, the number of TTIs for multi-TTI PUSCH can be individually or jointly encoded with PUSCH mapping types (K2 and SLIV). TTI is defined as a time period equal to the duration of SLIV. More specifically, PUSCH transmissions on multiple mini-slots can be continuous in the time domain. The starting symbol in SLIV can be used to indicate the starting symbol in the first slot, and the last symbol is determined based on the combination of the starting symbol in SLIV, the length in SLIV, and the number of slots / mini-slots. It should be noted that the applicable combination of PUSCH mapping type K2, SLIV and the number of TTIs can be configured by RRC signaling and dynamically indicated by DCI. TTIs are restricted within a slot, or TTIs can cross slot boundaries. If a TTI is within a slot, the last TTI may have a length shorter than the duration of SLIV. Alternatively, the second last TTI and the last TTI can be merged and counted as a single longer TTI.

[0119] Time resources of CG PUSCH

[0120] In NR-U, when PUSCH is triggered due to the limitation of LBT, the UE cannot always obtain the channel. In some embodiments, it is assumed that the high layer configures the time slots for CG PUSCH, for example, there may be an N-bit bitmap. In these embodiments, the time slots mapped to "1" in the bitmap can be used for CG PUSCH transmission. In some embodiments, the bitmap can be 40 bits long, regardless of the subcarrier spacing. In some embodiments, for time domain resources that coincide with the discovery reference signal (DRS) timing, the UE is not allowed to attempt CG, and the UE skips those resources even if the UE can be configured to perform CG transmission. In some embodiments, the parameter set used to interpret the bitmap after is the parameter set configured for PUSCH.

[0121] Figure 3 An exemplary time resource of the CG PUSCH according to various embodiments is shown in a graphical manner. In some embodiments, once the UE occupies the channel by successfully performing LBT 102, the UE may continuously transmit in multiple time slots mapped by the value '1' in the bitmap. Assuming that the information about the start symbol index and the end symbol index is indicated or configured, the two pieces of information may be signaled or jointly encoded. Figure 3As shown, in the first time slot for channel occupation, the UE shall follow the indicated or configured start symbol, and the last symbol in the first time slot is the last symbol of the time slot, such as symbol 13. In the last time slot for channel occupation, the UE shall follow the indicated or configured end symbol, and the first symbol in the last time slot is symbol 0. For any intervening time slots that exist, the intervening time slots start at symbol 0 and end at symbol 13. In some embodiments, if the UE passes through LBT 102 in a time slot, the UE may transmit continuously in time slots 1 to 4, such as Figure 3 In some embodiments, if the UE fails to pass the LBT 102 in a time slot, the UE must try the LBT 102 again in the next time slot, such as Figure 3 As shown in 306 in the figure. Preferably, Figure 3 As shown, the UE may try LBT again after the indicated or configured starting symbol 102. In this way, the GB PUSCH scheduled to start from an earlier position than the CG PUSCH in the slot may be given priority.

[0122] Figure 4 Another exemplary time resource for CG PUSCH according to various embodiments is graphically illustrated. In some embodiments, for example, in a gNB-initiated shared COT with multiple DL-to-UL and UL-to-DL switching points, the UL symbols may not be contiguous. In some embodiments, if CG PUSCH is allowed in the shared COT channel 400, such as Figure 4 As shown, in the first time slot of the CG PUSCH in the shared UL burst, the start symbol in the first time slot is determined by the indicated or configured start symbol. In the case where the next few time slots are full UL time slots, the UE can continue UL transmission of CG PUSCH in consecutive UL time slots. In the last time slot of the CG PUSCH in the shared UL burst, the UE must stop PUSCH transmission at the indicated or configured end symbol. In some embodiments, if the UE fails to pass LBT in a time slot, the UE must try LBT again in the next time slot, such as Figure 4 As shown in 404 and 406. Preferably, Figure 4 As shown, the UE may try LBT again after the indicated or configured start symbol.

[0123] In some embodiments, if a UE schedules a multi-slot PUSCH within a shared COT channel 400 with multiple DL-to-UL and UL-to-DL switching points, and if the UE is indicated as no LBT, the UE may perform no LBT to start its transmission in each UL burst used by the multi-slot PUSCH. Alternatively, the UE performs no LBT only in the first UL burst of the multi-slot PUSCH, and the UE will attempt 25μs of LBT in other UL bursts. Alternatively, the UE performs no LBT in the first burst of the multi-slot PUSCH, and for other UL bursts, if the starting symbol of the multi-slot PUSCH is indicated by DCI 2_0 as a flexible symbol, the UE still performs no LBT, otherwise, if it is indicated by DCI 2_0 as an uplink symbol, the UE performs 25μs of LBT. Alternatively, the UE performs no LBT in the first burst of multi-slot PUSCH, and for other UL bursts, if the starting symbol of the multi-slot PUSCH is indicated by DCI 2_0 as a flexible symbol or is the first UL symbol indicated by DCI 2_0, the UE still performs no LBT, otherwise, if it is after the first UL symbol indicated by DCI 2_0, the UE performs 25μs LBT. Alternatively, for other UL bursts, the UE performs no LBT in the exact first burst of multi-slot PUSCH, if the starting symbol of the multi-slot PUSCH may follow a downlink symbol or a flexible symbol as indicated by DCI 2_0, the UE still performs no LBT, otherwise, the UE performs 25μs LBT. If the UE fails to pass LBT in the first slot of a UL burst of multi-slot PUSCH, the UE always performs 25μs in subsequent slots in the UL burst.

[0124] In some embodiments, if the PUSCH in the time slot is actually available for transmission, the channel state information (CSI) may be preferentially carried on the last time slot of the multi-slot PUSCH. For example, due to a symbol direction conflict between, for example, the PUSCH in the time slot and the flexible symbol indicated by DCI 2_0, the PUSCH in the time slot may be cancelled, as indicated by the shaded time slot 2 in 404 and the shaded time slot 2 and time slot 3 in 406. Due to LBT, the probability of availability of the last time slot of the multi-slot PUSCH is higher than that of the earlier time slots. If the last time slot is not available for transmission, the transmission of the CSI carried on the PUSCH of its previous time slot is checked. If the multi-slot PUSCH is divided into multiple shared UL bursts, the CSI may be carried on the last time slot of the shared UL burst with the maximum number of time slots. In some embodiments, if no LBT is available for scheduling the multi-slot PUSCH, the CSI may be carried on the exact first time slot of the multi-slot PUSCH.

[0125] Figure 5A and Figure 5B An exemplary demodulation reference signal (DMRS) pattern according to various embodiments is shown graphically. In some embodiments, the demodulation reference signal (DMRS) pattern in a slot of a multi-slot PUSCH may follow the PUSCH type indicated by the DCI format. That is, Figure 5A As shown, DMRS starts from the first symbol in the time slot. Specifically, the entire time slot can be used by PUSCH and is considered as PUSCH type B. In some embodiments, such as Figure 5B As shown, the DMRS pattern in the first time slot may follow the PUSCH type indicated by the DCI format, while the DMRS in the remaining time slots may follow PUSCH type A. In some embodiments, PUSCH type A mapping may be used for CG transmissions. In some embodiments, the CG UE has multiple starting symbols, which are a subset of the symbols before the DMRS (e.g., symbol #0, #1) when PUSCH type A can be used. In some embodiments, the CG UE attempts LBT at the time slot boundary (symbol #0).

[0126] Rate matching and reception of CG PUSCH

[0127] In NR-U, a TB may be repeated multiple times. In some embodiments, the CG UL control information (UCI) may be carried in the first time slot repetition of the TB. In some embodiments, the CG UCI may be carried in each time slot. In some embodiments, the multiple time slot repetitions of the TB may be mapped to more than one UL burst, and the CG UCI may be carried in the starting time slot repetition of the TB on each UL burst. Multiple reasons may lead to time slot repetitions in different UL bursts. In these embodiments, the value '1' in the bitmap configured by the higher layer may not be continuous, so that the time slots allocated to the CG PUSCH are discontinuous. In a shared COT with multiple DL / UL switching points, this can include multiple separate shared UL bursts.

[0128] In some embodiments, data transmission is rate matched around the CG UCI. In some embodiments, the UCI is included in each time slot and the RV is specified according to each time slot. In some embodiments, if the UCI is included in the first time slot of a burst of repeated time slots, the UCI includes an indication of the RV for the first time slot, and for another time slot, the traditional sequence is followed starting from the RV indicated in the UCI: for example, if the UCI indicates RV=0, the next RV will be 2 3 1 0 23 1. In some embodiments, different sequences may be used. In some embodiments, the number of repetitions within the COT is capped by the length of the MCOT, or in the case of a shared COT by the remaining shared COT. In some embodiments, if the UCI is included in the first time slot of a burst of repeated time slots, rate matching (RM) is completed according to the total number of available resource elements (REs) of the CG PUSCH in the repeated time slot set. In detail, the UCI includes an indication of a redundancy version (RV) that points to the starting position in the circular buffer of the RM, and the number of bits read out is determined by the total number of REs.

[0129] In some embodiments, the CG UE may perform LBT in multiple locations within the timeslot. The CG UE may attempt LBT in symbols 0, 7 as an example as follows: If LBT succeeds at symbol 0, the rest of the timeslot may be used to transmit the TB. However, if it fails, the UE may attempt LBT at symbol 7, and if successful, the transmission may be punctured or rate matched in the remaining 7 symbols of the timeslot. In some embodiments, UCI is carried in the second part of the timeslot, for example, in symbols 10, 11, and 12.

[0130] In some embodiments, the CG UE may be configured to attempt LBT at different times by activating / deactivating DCI or by higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, the CG UE may be configured to start at a specific starting position, which is not necessarily at a timeslot boundary.

[0131] In some embodiments, the UE may transmit UCI in the first slot of N consecutive slots within the maximum channel occupancy time (MCOT) and rate match the TB over the N consecutive slots. In some embodiments, the rate-matched transmission may be repeated M times. In some embodiments, both N and M are RRC configured.

[0132] In some embodiments, if the CG is allowed to perform time domain repetition and the UCI is carried in the first repetition, the CGUCI carries information related to the number of time domain repetitions performed.

[0133] In some embodiments, for the multiple slot repetitions of the TB, the UE performs rate matching on the TB assuming a total number of REs for N slots. The N slots may be contiguous in time, or may be separated by other slots that are not configured for the CG, for example, by a bitmap configured by a higher layer. In addition, each of the N slots may be a complete UL slot, or only a portion of the slot may be used as UL. The rate matching operation is repeated M times, so that the total number of slot repetitions of the TB is MN. Both N and M are RRC configured.

[0134] Starting position of UL transmission

[0135] In LTE LAA, GB PUSCH may start from one of four possible starting positions indicated by DCI, namely starting from OS 0, starting 25μs after starting OS 0, starting 25μs + TA after starting OS 0, and after starting OS 1. In NR-U, the potential starting position may depend on the parameter set of PUSCH. NR supports both PUSCH type A and PUSCH type B. The DMRS for PUSCH type B may be located in the first symbol of the PUSCH resource, which is to reduce gNB processing time. Whereas PUSCH type A starts from symbol 0 and the DMRS is in symbol 2 or 3. In the selection of the starting position, the position of the DMRS in the PUSCH may be considered.

[0136] Some embodiments assume that the starting symbol of PUSCH SLIV is in symbol k. In NR Rel-15, for PUSCH type A, k is equal to 0, and for PUSCH type B, k can be any value in [0,13]. These embodiments may be applied only to GBPUSCH, or to both GB PUSCH and CG PUSCH. These embodiments may also be generalized to apply to PUCCH, SRS and other UL channels / signals. In these embodiments, the starting symbol of PUCCH, SRS or other UL channels / signals is denoted as OS k. In some embodiments, the UL transmission may be PUSCH, PUCCH, SRS or other UL channels / signals.

[0137] In some embodiments, multiple candidates for the starting position of the UL transmission may be generally expressed as "reference symbol boundary + X μs". If the subcarrier spacing (SCS) is equal to 60 kHz, the offset X may be a duration. For example, the offset X may be 0 μm, 25 μm, 25 μm + TA, 16 μm, 16 μm + TA, TA, the length of 1 symbol, the length of 2 symbols, etc. The offset X may also be any other predefined value or a higher layer configuration value. The above reference symbol boundary may be indicated by the gNB or interpreted based on the scheduling information of the gNB, and if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is at or after the start of symbol k, it may be the start of OS k. The start X μs of the UL transmission may be punctured. Alternatively, if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is not later than the start of symbol k, the above reference symbol boundary may be the start of OS k-1 or OS k-2. A padding signal (e.g., a CP extension of OS k) may be transmitted before OS k. For different offsets X, the above reference symbol boundaries may be selected differently from OS k-1 or OS k-2.

[0138] In some embodiments, for example, unlicensed cell operation, the LBT types used by the UE to start UL transmissions may include Category 1 (CAT-1), Category 2 (CAT-2), and Category 4 (CAT-4). CAT-1 is used for situations where the gap between UL transmissions following DL signals is less than or equal to T1μs, which is also referred to as "no LBT". In an exemplary embodiment, T1 may be 16μs. CAT-2 is a one-time LBT with a duration of T2μs. In an exemplary embodiment, if a one-time CCA is required within a duration of 16μs, T2 may be 25μs or 16μs. In one embodiment, within the shared COT CAT-2 of the gNB, the UE may use LBT if the UL transmission is longer than Hμs even if the gap is less than 16μs. For example, H may be 584μs, which simulates Wi-Fi performance. In one embodiment, when the gap is less than 16 μs, the use of CAT-2 LBT is signaled within the downlink control information (DCI), or it may be configurable radio resource control (RRC) and may be optionally enabled by the gNB as described in 11.axa. In one embodiment, if the gNB configures the UE to use CAT-2, CAT-2 is used regardless of the information carried by the DCI. As for CAT-4, the UE must randomly generate a backoff counter, decrement the counter by 1 for each idle CCA slot, and may start transmitting after the backoff counter is 0.

[0139] X = 0 μs, for example, if a gap is generated before OS k, the starting position OS k can be used. It is up to the gNB to decide whether to use LBT CAT-2 or LBT CAT-4 as well as LBT CAT-1. Under certain conditions, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs can be used. For example, if the duration of the UL transmission is less than a certain value (e.g., 584 μs or about 8 OS at 15 KHz, 1 slot at 30 KHz, or 2 slots at 60 KHz), CAT-1 can be used; otherwise, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs can be used.

[0140] X=1 symbol, for example, if the gap is generated before OS k+1, the starting position OS k+1 can be used. It is up to the gNB to decide whether to use LBT CAT-2 or CAT-4. Under certain conditions, CAT-1 may also be a possible LBT type.

[0141] X=2 symbols, for example, if the gap is generated before OS k+2, the starting position OS k+2 can be used. It is up to the gNB to decide whether to use LBT CAT-2 or CAT-4. Under certain conditions, CAT-1 may also be a possible LBT type.

[0142] At least in the case where a UE's UL transmission follows another UE's UL transmission, X=16 μs may be used. CAT-2 and / or CAT-4 may be used.

[0143] At least in the case where a UE's UL transmission may follow another UE's UL transmission, X=25 μs may be used. CAT-2 and / or CAT-4 may be used.

[0144] X=TA may be used in situations where a UE's UL transmission starts in a symbol that other UEs may use to start transmissions of msg1 of a 4-step RACH or msgA of a 2-step random access channel (RACH). Potential LBT types may be CAT-1, CAT-2, or CAT-4. Under certain conditions, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs may also be a possible LBT type. For example, if the duration of the UL transmission is less than a certain threshold (e.g., 584 μs or approximately 8 OS at 15 KHz, 1 time slot at 30 KHz, or 2 time slots at 60 KHz), CAT-1 may be used; otherwise, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs may be used.

[0145] In the case where the UE's UL transmission can follow the DL transmission and LBT CAT-1 is indicated as the start of the UL transmission, X=16μs+TA can be used. Under certain conditions, CAT-2 can be used. For example, if the duration of the UL transmission is less than a certain threshold (e.g., 584μs or about 8OS at 15KHz, 1 time slot at 30KHz, or 2 time slots at 60KHz), CAT-1 can be used; otherwise, CAT-2 can be used.

[0146] In the case where the UE's UL transmission may follow the DL transmission and LBT CAT-2 is indicated as the start of the UL transmission, X=25μs+TA may be used. Alternatively, when the UE's UL transmission may follow message 1 (msg1) of another UE for 4-step RACH or message A (msgA) of another UE for 2-step RACH, 25μs+TA may be used with LBT CAT-2.

[0147] Special X can be used if the UL transmission should follow the DL reception timing at the UE. This also addresses the case where the UE's UL transmission starts in a symbol that other UEs might use to start transmissions of msg1 for 4-step RACH or msgA for 2-step RACH. In this way, puncturing the beginning of the UL transmission is avoided. Potential LBT types can be CAT-1, CAT-2 or CAT-4.

[0148] The starting position of the required LBT mechanism can be applied according to whether all the above candidates of the starting position can be supported. However, if all candidates can be supported, too much overhead may be required to indicate them. Therefore, the trade-off between performance and signaling overhead can be considered. The following principles may be included for overhead reduction:

[0149] Due to the flexible configuration of SLIV of PUSCH or the starting symbol and duration of PUCCH, the gNB has the flexibility to configure multiple starting symbols and dynamically indicate the correct starting symbol in actual scheduling. Therefore, if only one starting position is supported from OS k, OS k+1 and OS k+2, it may not cause many problems.

[0150] For simultaneous UL transmission with RACH message, X=TA is high priority. Instead, a special X may be used. Transmission of RACH message is usually more important than other UL transmissions. Without puncturing the start X us of UL transmission, UL transmission may block CCA operation required to start RACH message. X=25us+TA may be low priority because it is optimized UL transmission after RACH message which may not affect RACH message.

[0151] Applying 16μs+TA to PUSCH may be subject to regulation. LBT type can be CAT-1 or CAT-2 if required. If CAT-2 with LBT duration of 25μs is used when the gNB shares its initiated COT for PUSCH to the UE, then 25μs+TA becomes significant for PUSCH.

[0152] From the above embodiments, in order to handle UL transmissions starting from the same symbol as RACH msg1 or msgA of other UEs, an offset X=TA or a special X may be used. Only one of these two offsets X may be supported. In some embodiments, an offset X=TA may be used. If only the above special offset X is supported, some embodiments may replace X=TA with the special offset X. Alternatively, two values ​​of offset X may be supported.

[0153] From the above embodiments, the offset X=25μs or X=16μs can be used to start UL transmission via CAT-2 LBT. In some embodiments, only one of the two values ​​of offset X needs to be supported. In the following description, offset X=25μs is used. If only the above X=16μs is supported, X=25μs in the following description can be replaced by X=16μs. It can be determined by adjustment whether X=25μs or X=16μs is applicable. Alternatively, both values ​​of offset X are supported.

[0154] In some embodiments, the offset X is designed to be independent of the LBT type. Assuming 2 bits of information for the starting position, the 4 supported starting positions may be associated with X=0μs, X=25μs, X=16μs+TA, X=TA, as shown in Option 1 in Table 1. This rule may be used if the rule allows the gNB to share its initiated COT to the UE for UL transmission of Category 1 (CAT-1). Alternatively, the four supported starting positions may be associated with X=0μs, X=25μs, X=25μs+TA, X=TA, as shown in Option 2 in Table 1. In the case where the gNB shares its initiated COT to the UE for UL transmission, this rule may be used if the rule requires CAT-2.

[0155] In some embodiments, assuming that the LBT type is indicated alone, the starting position can be interpreted based on the LBT type. According to the LBT type, for example, if CAT-1 is indicated, the starting position can be derived accordingly. If the LBT type is not CAT-1, the four supported starting positions can be associated with X=0μs, X=25μs, X=TA, and X=25+TA. If the LBT type is CAT-1, the supported starting positions are at least associated with X=0μs, X=16μs+TA, as shown in Option 3 in Table 1.

[0156] Table 1: Offset X

[0157]

[0158] In some embodiments, the LBT type may be indicated independently from the offset X. 2 bits may be used to indicate CAT-1, CAT-2 with a duration of 25 μs, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs, and CAT-4. Alternatively, 2 bits may be used to indicate CAT-1, CAT-2 with a duration of 25 μs, and CAT-4. If CAT-1 is indicated, the UE applies LBT CAT-1. Alternatively, if CAT-1 is indicated, the UE uses other information (e.g., the duration of the UL transmission) to determine the use of CAT-1 or CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs. If the duration of the UL transmission is less than a threshold, CAT-1 is used; otherwise, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs is used.

[0159] In some embodiments, it is not necessary to indicate a CAT-1 LBT, as CAT-2 is always used.

[0160] From the above implementation, the total number of candidate offsets X can be 8 or 9 (for SCS 60kHz), while the number of LBT types is 3. Therefore, if separate indications are used, 5 bits may be required, 3 bits may be required for the offset, and 2 bits may be required for the LBT type. However, it is not necessary to support all possible combinations, so joint encoding of the starting position and the LBT type can be used to indicate only meaningful combinations to reduce signaling overhead. Preferably, the candidate combination can be a subset of the following combinations:

[0161] For X = 0 μs, possible LBT types may be CAT-2 or CAT-4, as well as CAT-1;

[0162] For X=1 symbols, possible LBT types may be CAT-2 or CAT-4;

[0163] For X=2 symbols, for SCS 60kHz only, the potential LBT type can be CAT-2 or CAT-4;

[0164] For X = 16 μs, the potential LBT type can be CAT-2 or CAT-4;

[0165] For X = 25 μs, possible LBT types may be CAT-2 or CAT-4;

[0166] For X = TA, possible LBT types may be CAT-2 or CAT-4;

[0167] For X = 16 μs + TA, the potential LBT type can be CAT-1 or CAT-2;

[0168] For X = 25 μs + TA, the possible LBT type may be CAT-2;

[0169] For the special X meaning after DL reception timing, possible LBT types may be CAT-2 or CAT-4, as well as CAT-1.

[0170] In some embodiments, a 4-bit field in the DCI may be used to indicate all or a subset of the above combinations of offset X and LBT type. For example, as shown in Option 1 in Table 2, 15 combinations may be indicated. If starting position OSk+1 or OSk+2 is not used, because the gNB can use starting position OSk and flexible start symbol configuration for UL transmission to achieve similar functionality, 13 combinations may be indicated, as shown in Option 2 of Table X3. If CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs is not applicable, as shown in Option 3 or Option 4 of Table X3, the number of combinations is 12 or 10.

[0171] Table 2: Combinations of starting positions and LBT types

[0172]

[0173]

[0174] Assuming that the application of CAT-1 or CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs can be derived from other information, the indication of CAT-1 or CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs can share the same entry. If the entry is indicated, the applicable LBT type can be derived from the duration of the UL transmission. If the duration of the UL transmission is less than the threshold, CAT-1 can be used; otherwise, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs can be used. For example, as shown in Table 2, entries 1, 8, and 9 are common entries for CAT-1 and CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs. As shown in Option 1 in Table 3, 12 combinations can be indicated. Assuming that the starting position OS k+1 or OS k+2 is not used, as shown in Option 2 in Table 3, 10 combinations can be indicated.

[0175] Table 3: Combinations of starting positions and LBT types

[0176]

[0177]

[0178] In some embodiments, a 3-bit field in the DCI may be used to indicate up to 8 of the above combinations of offset X and LBT type. It is assumed that starting position OS+1 or OS+2 is not used, as the gNB can achieve similar functionality using starting position OS k and flexible starting symbol configuration for UL transmissions. Table 2 includes 4 options. Option 1 may be used if the rules allow the gNB to share its initiated COT to the UE by CAT-1. In the case where the gNB shares its initiated COT to the UE, if the rules require CAT-2, option 2 may be used. In order to optimize UL transmissions immediately following another UE's RACH msg1 or msgA, and to allow the gNB to share its initiated COT to the UE by CAT-1, both 16μm+TA and 25μm+TA need to be available. Option 3 prohibits the use of CAT-1 with a starting offset of OS k. Option 4 prohibits the use of CAT-4 with a starting offset of 25μs. For entry 1 and entry 6 in Table 4, instead of indicating only CAT-1, the LBT type may be CAT-1 or CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs, depending on some other information. For example, the applicable LBT type may be derived from the duration of the UL transmission. If the duration of the UL transmission is less than a threshold, CAT-1 is used; otherwise, CAT-2 is used.

[0179] Table 4: Combinations of starting positions and LBT types

[0180] Offset X LBT Type Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 Option 4 1 0μm CAT-1 x x x 2 0μm CAT-2 x x x x 3 0μm CAT-4 x x x x 4 25μm CAT-2 x x x x 5 25μm CAT-4 x x x 6 16μm+TA CAT-1 x x x 7 TA CAT-2 x x x x 8 TA CAT-4 x x x x 9 25μm+TA CAT-2 x x x

[0181] In some embodiments, a 3-bit field in the DCI may be used to indicate up to 8 of the above combinations of offset X and LBT type. Assuming that starting position OS k+1 (for SCS 15kHz or 30kHz) or OS k+2 (for SCS 60kHz) is supported, the 3 other combinations should be removed. Table 3 includes four options. Option 1 can be used if the rules allow the gNB to share its initiated COT to the UE over CAT-1, but it may not optimize simultaneous RACH messages and other UL transmissions. Option 2 can be used if the rules require CAT-2 in the case where the gNB shares its initiated COT to the UE, but it may not optimize simultaneous RACH messages and other UL transmissions. Option 3 can be used if the rules allow the gNB to share its initiated COT to the UE over CAT-1, and consider starting the UE's UL transmission in a symbol that may be used for a RACH message for another UE. Option 4 can be used if the rules require CAT-2 in the case where the gNB shares its initiated COT to the UE and the UE's UL transmission starts in a symbol that may be used for a RACH message for another UE. Option 3 and Option 4 restrict LBT types to offsets of 0 μs and 25 μs. For entries 1 and 8 in Table 5, instead of indicating only CAT-1, the LBT type may be CAT-1 or CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs, depending on some other information. For example, the applicable LBT type may be derived from the duration of the UL transmission. If the duration of the UL transmission is less than a threshold, CAT-1 may be used; otherwise, CAT-2 may be used.

[0182] Table 5: Combinations of starting positions and LBT types

[0183]

[0184]

[0185] In some embodiments, to reduce signaling overhead, the offset X=TA or the above special X may share the same indicator with another value of the offset X. Based on the high-layer signaling on the RACH resource configuration, the UE may know the potential time resources of the RACH message. Therefore, in the configured random access channel (RACH) resources, if the UL transmission starts in a symbol that another UE may use to start the transmission of RACH msg1 or msgA, the UE may temporarily follow X=TA or the above special X. Otherwise, the UE may follow the above another value of the offset X listed in the above table.

[0186] In some embodiments, higher layer signaling to configure available candidates for the UE and gNB may use a reduced number of bits to indicate one of the configured candidates among all possible combinations of offset X and LBT type. This configuration may differ between UEs or may be the same for all UEs. For example, if the gNB configures 8 candidates for the UE, the gNB may use 3 bits of signaling to indicate one candidate.

[0187] Figure 6 An exemplary applicable LBT type for PUSCH according to various embodiments is illustrated graphically. In some embodiments, the gNB may schedule the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of multiple UEs using time division multiplexing (TDM) resources. Based on the first UE (e.g., Figure 6 If L is less than the threshold, CAT-1 is used; otherwise, CAT-2 with a duration of 16 μs is used. For all other UEs (e.g., Figure 6 UE 2 and UE 3 in ), use CAT-2 with a duration of 25μs.

[0188] According to the above embodiment, the starting position depends on the reference symbol boundary. It can be "the starting point of symbol k + offset X" or "the starting point of symbol k-a + offset X, a = 1 or 2 or 4". The starting position may depend on PUSCH type A or type B. The starting position may depend on SCS. The same solution can be applied to all kinds of UL transmission, or solutions can be designed for each UL transmission separately.

[0189] Option A: Starting at or after the start of symbol k

[0190] In some embodiments, the starting position of the PUSCH is determined as an offset X on symbol k, e.g., "start of symbol k + offset X". In this way, the starting position is at or after the start of symbol k. For PUSCH type A, k is equal to 0, and it is beneficial to restrict the possible values ​​of X to be earlier than the first DMRS symbol. For PUSCH type B, the DMRS must be shifted to the right after the starting position. The shifting of the DMRS can be UE-specific so that the DMRS is the first entire UL symbol after the starting position. Alternatively, the shifted DMRS can be determined by the maximum X that aligns the DMRS timing in the cell.

[0191] For example, possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 6. If 25μs CAT-2 LBT is indicated, the UE may follow X=25μs or X=25μs+TA; while if no LBT is indicated, the UE may follow X=16μs or X=16μs+TA. Further, if 16μs CAT-2 LBT is applicable, the UE may follow X=16μs or X=16μs+TA. Alternatively, information about the LBT type and information about the starting position may be jointly encoded in the DCI. For SCS 15kHz and PUSCH type A, it implements the same behavior as LTE LAA. For SCS 15kHz and PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbols may be shifted to the right by at least one symbol. For SCS30kHz, it may still generate four starting positions in a single symbol with a shorter reserved signal. For the value X=25μs+TA, the TA is the timing advance of the UE. If the starting position in one symbol is restricted, the round-trip delay can be about 10μs, which is large enough for NR-U operation. For the value X=16μs+TA, the supported round-trip delay is even larger. Similarly, the DMRS symbol can be shifted right by at least one symbol of PUSCH type B. For SCS 60kHz, at least two symbols are required to generate a gap for 25μs LBT. If X is equal to 0, PUSCH can start from symbol k; if X is equal to 16μs, PUSCH starts from symbol k+1; if X is equal to 16μs+TA, PUSCH can start from symbol k+1 or symbol k+2, depending on TA; and for other starting positions, PUSCH can start from symbol k+2. For PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol can be shifted right by one symbol or two symbols according to X, or always shifted right by two symbols.

[0192] Table 6: Determine the offset X of the starting position

[0193]

[0194]

[0195] Alternatively, the possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 6. The interval between the maximum X and the minimum X is fixed, for example, equal to 1 symbol with a 15kHz SCS. For SCS 15kHz and PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by at least one symbol. For SCS 30kHz, the maximum X is 2 symbols. For PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by one symbol or two symbols according to X, or always by two symbols. For SCS 60kHz, the maximum X is four symbols. For PUSCH type A, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by zero symbols, one symbol, or two symbols according to X, or always by 1 symbol or 2 symbols. For SCS 60kHz, the shift of one symbol is attributed to the original DMRS position in symbol 3. For SCS 60kHz, the shift of two symbols is attributed to the original DMRS position in symbol 2. For PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by two or four symbols according to X, or always by four symbols.

[0196] Table 7: Determine the offset X of the starting position

[0197]

[0198] Alternatively, possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 7. For SCS 15kHz and 30kHz, the interval between the maximum X and the minimum X is fixed to one symbol with 15kHz SCS. The interval between the maximum X and the minimum X is two symbols with 60kHz SCS. This avoids the impact on the DMRS symbol position of PUSCH type A. For SCS 15kHz and PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol can be shifted to the right by at least one symbol. For SCS 30kHz, the maximum X is two symbols. For SCS 30kHz and PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol can be shifted to the right by one symbol or two symbols according to X, or always shifted to the right by 2 symbols.

[0199] Table 8: Determine the offset X of the starting position

[0200]

[0201]

[0202] Alternatively, possible values ​​of X may be provided in Tables 1 to 5. This avoids impact on the DMRS symbol position for PUSCH type A. For SCS 15kHz or SCS 30kHz and PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by at least one symbol. For SCS 60kHz, at least two symbols are required to generate a gap of 25μs LBT. If X is equal to 0, the PUSCH may start from symbol k; if X is equal to TA or X=16μs+TA, the PUSCH may start from symbol k+1 or symbol k+2, depending on the value of TA; and for other starting positions, the PUSCH may start from symbol k+2. For PUSCH type B, the DMRS symbol may be shifted right by one symbol or two symbols depending on X, or always shifted right by two symbols.

[0203] Solution B: The starting position is no later than the starting point of symbol k

[0204] In some embodiments, the starting position of the PUSCH is determined as an offset X on symbol k-1, k-2, or k-4, for example, "the starting point of symbol ka + offset X, where a=1 or a=2 or a=4". In this way, the PUSCH starting position is no later than the starting symbol of symbol k. The first complete symbol available for PUSCH may be symbol k. For PUSCH type B, the starting position is no later than the starting symbol of PUSCH, so that the DMRS symbol position does not change.

[0205] For example, possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 7. The period of CCA before the start symbol of PUSCH is guaranteed by the gNB scheduling. For PUSCH type B, not used = 0 so that PUSCH can start from its first symbol k instead of k-1 or k-2. For SCS 15kHz and SCS 30kHz, a equal to 1 is used. For SCS 60kHz, if 25μs LBT is indicated, a equal to 2 can be used. In addition, if no LBT is indicated, a can be equal to 1. For the case of no LBT, if the TA is relatively large, a is equal to 2.

[0206] Alternatively, for SCS 15kHz, the possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 9, and for SCS30kHz and SCS60kHz, the possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 6. In this way, each possible starting position is aligned for a different SCS respectively. The period of CCA before the start symbol of PUSCH is guaranteed by gNB scheduling. For PUSCH type B, not used = 0, so that PUSCH can start from its first symbol k, instead of k-1 or k-2. For SCS 15kHz and SCS 30kHz, a equal to 1 is used. For SCS 60kHz, if 25us LBT is indicated, a equal to 2 can be used. If no LBT is indicated, a can be equal to 1. If TA is relatively large, a equal to 2 is still required for no LBT.

[0207] Table 9: Determine the offset X of the starting position

[0208]

[0209] *Y is equal to the length of 1 symbol with SCS 30kHz

[0210] Alternatively, possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 7. For SCS 15kHz, a is equal to 1; for SCS 30kHz, a is equal to 2; for SCS 60kHz, a is equal to 4. However, there may be an entire UL symbol before symbol k. Such UL symbols may only transmit filler signals, or the actual starting symbol of the PUSCH is shifted to the earliest entire UL symbol. Alternatively, the starting position of the entire UL symbol before symbol k is not applicable.

[0211] Alternatively, possible values ​​of X may be provided in Tables 1 to 5. Scheduled by the gNB to ensure that the period of CCA is performed before the starting symbol k of the PUSCH. For SCS 15kHz, SCS30kHz, the reference symbol boundary is the start of symbol k-1, for example, a is equal to 1. For SCS60kHz, the reference symbol boundary is the start of symbol k-1, for example, for an offset TA up to Y1μs for TA, or an offset 16μs+TA for TA up to Y2μs, a is equal to 1; otherwise, the reference symbol boundary is the start of symbol k-2, for example, a is equal to 2. For example, Y1 may be equal to the length of one symbol, and Y2 may be equal to "the length of one symbol - 16".

[0212] Solution C: A hybrid of Solution A and Solution B

[0213] In some embodiments, for PUSCH type A, the above-mentioned implementation is used to determine the starting position as "the starting point of symbol k + offset X"; for PUSCH type B, the above-mentioned implementation is used to determine the starting position as "the starting point of symbol ka + offset X, a=1 or a=2 or a=4", such as implementation B.

[0214] In some embodiments, possible values ​​of X are provided in Table 7. For PUSCH type A, for SCS 15kHz, a is equal to 0; for SCS 30kHz, a is equal to 0; for SCS 60kHz, a is equal to 2. For SCS 60kHz, PUSCH will start from symbol k+2 with the maximum value X as the earliest symbol of DMRS. Therefore, no special treatment of DMRS is required. For SCS60kHz and X=0, the starting symbol is k-2, a fill signal can be transmitted, or X=0 is not applicable. For PUSCH type B, when a is equal to 1 for SCS 15kHz, the DMRS symbol position is not changed; when a is equal to 1 for SCS 30kHz, PUSCH will start from symbol k+1 with the maximum value X, so the DMRS symbol should be shifted to the right by 1 symbol; when a is equal to 2 for SCS 60kHz, PUSCH will start from symbol k+2 with the maximum value X, so the DMRS symbol should be shifted to the right by 2 symbols. For PUSCH type B, X=0 is not used so that PUSCH can start at its first symbol k at the earliest.

[0215] Special X means after DL reception timing

[0216] Some implementations may apply different TA values ​​N for different UL time slots used for PUSCH transmission, depending on whether PRACH resources are configured in the same time slot. TA More specifically, N TA = 0 (eg, with the same activation time of the corresponding DL time slot) can be used for UL time slots with PRACH resources, and the accumulated TA value N TA It can be applied to another UL time slot without PRACH resources. TA The fact that earlier transmission of PUSCH with >0 will block PRACH transmission due to LBT operation alleviates the problem of PRACH transmission blocking by concurrent PUSCH in the same time slot.

[0217] Figure 7 FIG. 1 graphically illustrates exemplary slot type dependent N for PUSCH transmission according to various embodiments TA OK. Figure 7 In the UL time slot 710 and time slot 740, the accumulated TA value N can be used TA> 0, because there is no PRACH resource in this time slot. TA = 0 is applied to the PUSCH transmission in slot 720 to avoid blocking potential PRACH transmissions. In some examples, the last X symbols in slot 730 may be punctured for UL shared channel (UL-SCH) symbol mapping to avoid interference with PUSCH transmissions in subsequent slots 740. The exact value of X may be based on the accumulated TA value N TA >0 to determine or is fixed in the instructions.

[0218] Figure 8 FIG. 1 graphically illustrates exemplary slot type dependent N for PUSCH transmission according to various embodiments TA OK. Figure 8 In the exemplary embodiment shown, N TA = 0 can be applied to the time slot 810 with PRACH resources, but the normal accumulation N TA >0 should be used in other UL slots 820 to 840 without PRACH resources in order to maintain the orthogonality of PUSCH from different UEs in subsequent slots at the network (NW) side.

[0219] In some embodiments, N is used for PUSCH transmission in an UL slot with PRACH resources. TA = 0 may destroy the orthogonality property of PUSCH reception from different UEs at the gNB receiver and result in UL throughput loss. In order to maintain the orthogonality of PUSCH across UEs and still avoid the PRACH transmission blocking problem, the UE may TA >0 can be used) and then the UL-SCH symbol transmission from the first symbol starts after the corresponding DL time slot starts.

[0220] Fig. 9 An exemplary PUSCH transmission timing determination according to various embodiments is shown graphically. Fig. 9 The UL transmission starting from symbol 910 in the gNB is still time aligned with other UL transmissions received by the gNB. It should be noted that the coded UL-SCH symbols can be mapped starting from symbol 910 to avoid any redundancy on or in the systematic bits.

[0221] Process the starting position with an offset of X = TA or X = 16 μs + TA

[0222] As described, the starting position of the UL transmission may generally be expressed as "reference symbol boundary + Xμs". The reference symbol boundary may be indicated by the gNB or interpreted based on the scheduling information of the gNB, and if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is at or after the start of symbol k, the above reference symbol boundary may be the starting point of OS k. The beginning of the UL transmission Xus may be truncated. Alternatively, if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is not later than the start of symbol k, the above reference symbol boundary may be the starting point of OS k-1 or OS k-2. A padding signal (e.g., a cyclic prefix (CP) extension of OS k) may be transmitted before OS k. The starting position may depend on PUSCH type A or type B. The starting position may depend on the SCS.

[0223] In UL transmission, TA can be applied so that UL transmissions from different UEs can be aligned at the gNB side. TA may consist of two parts, for example TA=(TA0+d). TA0 is common to all UEs. For example, the gNB can form a gap for the UL to DL switching time by setting a relatively large TA. TA0 may be equal to the UL to DL switching time. The value d is a UE-specific value, for example, d depends on the location of the UE in the cell coverage. The value d may be related to the round-trip delay between the gNB and the UE. Due to potential misunderstanding of the exact TA value between the gNB and the UE, the TA-related offset X (e.g., X=TA or X=16μs+TA) may cause confusion in rate matching and RE mapping for UL transmission under certain conditions.

[0224] Taking SCS 60kHz as an example, for a small TA, the offset X=16μs+TA is still less than one symbol, so the beginning of one symbol is punctured. For a large TA, the duration of 16μs+TA corresponds to more than one symbol but less than two symbols, and the beginning of both the first symbol and the second symbol are punctured. However, due to potential misunderstanding of the exact TA value between the gNB and the UE, for a TA of about 1.8μs, the gNB and the UE may have different understandings about whether one symbol or two symbols are punctured, which affects the rate matching and mapping of UL transmissions. It may also affect the DMRS position of UL transmissions, especially for PUSCH Type B. Similarly, there may be confusion between the gNB and the UE for a TA associated with one symbol of the offset X=TA. If the TA is “one symbol with SCS 30kHz–16μs”, the offset 16μs+TA may also cause confusion for SCS 30kHz.

[0225] In the operation of LBT CAT-1, the maximum allowed gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is denoted as Gmax. For example, by rule, Gmax is 16 μs. In the operation of LBT CAT-1, the minimum allowed gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is denoted as Gmin. If the UE may not need to receive the last part of the DL signal, Gmin can be as small as 0 μs. Alternatively, Gmin needs to be greater than a threshold, which can be related to the DL-to-UL switching time, for example. It should be understood that the value of Gmin is not limited by nt.

[0226] Case A: The UE is responsible for generating a gap between the DL signal and the UL signal within the range of [Gmin, Gmax] according to the reference symbol boundary and the offset X indicated by the gNB.

[0227] In some embodiments, the reference symbol boundary is represented as the start of OS k. The starting position is generated at or after the start of symbol k. The UE may assume that OS k-1 is a complete DL symbol. The first complete UL symbol is denoted as OS k+b, where the length of one symbol is L. The value of b can be predefined, configured by a higher layer, or derived from other parameters. If necessary, the UE transmits a CP extension so that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is not greater than Gmax. If floor(X / L) == b-1, the UE can transmit a signal with a length of MOD(L-X, L) before OS k+b, so that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is Gmax. Otherwise, if floor(X / L) == b && mod(X, L) < Gmax - Gmin, the UE can start the UL transmission from OS k+b, which results in a reduction in the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal by Gmax - mod(X, L).

[0228] Fig.10 Exemplary offsets where the starting position is not earlier than OS k are graphically shown according to various embodiments. As shown at 902 and 904, assuming b equals 1, the first complete symbol of the PUSCH is OS k+1. OS k-1 is a complete DL symbol. As shown at 1002, for a small TA, the offset X = 16 μs + TA is less than one symbol, and the remaining part of length "one OS - X" in OS k can be the CP extension of OS k+1. As shown at 1004, for a large TA, the offset X = 16 μs + TA is longer than one symbol, and the UE transmits the complete OS k+1, which reduces the gap to "one OS - TA".

[0229] In some embodiments, the reference symbol boundary is represented as the start of OS k, and the gNB can set an appropriate value of TA0 such that there is no ambiguity for the first complete UL symbol throughout the entire potential range of TA = TA0 + d. Assuming d is within [0, D], for example, for a smaller cell with a radius of up to 300 meters, the round-trip delay of D is approximately 2 μs. Assuming TA0 is set to 13 μs for the UL-to-DL switching time, the range of TA is within [13, 15]. The offset X = 16 μs + TA is within [29, 31] μs, which overlaps with OS k+1. As shown at 906, the UE can generate a 16-μs gap between the DL signal and the UL signal and transmit the first complete OS in OS k+2. When the offset X = TA overlaps with OS k, the UE can transmit the first complete OS in OS k+1.

[0230] In some embodiments, the first complete UL symbol is represented as OS k, where the length of one symbol is L. The starting position can be generated no later than the start of symbol k. Let the reference symbol boundary be represented as the start of OS k-b, and the UE can assume that OSk-b-1 is a DL symbol. The value b is predefined, higher-layer configured, or can be derived from other parameters. If necessary, the UE transmits a CP extension so that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is not greater than Gmax. If floor(X / L) == b - 1, the UE can transmit a signal with length MOD(L - X, L) before OS k such that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is Gmax. Otherwise, if floor(X / L) == b && mod(X, L) < Gmax - Gmin, the UE can start UL transmission from OS k, which results in a reduced gap between the DL signal and the UL signal of Gmax - mod(X, L).

[0231] Fig.11 Exemplary offsets where the starting position is no later than OS k are graphically illustrated according to various embodiments. As shown at 1102 and 1104, assuming b equals 1, the reference symbol boundary can be the start of OS k-1. OS k-2 is a complete DL symbol. As shown at 1102, for a small TA, the offset X = 16 μs + TA is still less than one symbol. Therefore, the remaining portion of length "one OS - X" in OS k-1 can be the CP extension of OS k. As shown at 1104, for a large TA, the offset X = 16 + TA is longer than one symbol. Therefore, the UE can transmit the complete OS k, which reduces the gap to "one OS - TA".

[0232] In some embodiments, the first complete UL symbol is OS k, and the gNB can set an appropriate value of TA0 such that there is no ambiguity on the reference symbol boundary throughout the entire potential range of TA = TA0 + d. Assuming d is in [0, D] μs, for example, for a smaller cell with a radius of up to 300 meters, the round-trip delay of D is about 2 μs. Assuming TA0 is set to 13 μs for the UL to DL switching time, the range of TA is within [13, 15] μs. The offset X = 16 + TA is in [29, 31] μs. The fixed reference symbol boundary is derived as OS k-2. OS k-3 is a complete DL symbol. Thus, the offset X = 16 μs + TA overlaps with OS k-1. As shown at 1106, the UE can generate a 16 μs gap between the DL signal and the UL signal and transmit the first complete OS in OS k. For the offset X = TA, the fixed reference symbol boundary is derived as OS k-1. The offset X = TA can overlap with OS k-1. The UE can transmit the first complete OS in OS k.

[0233] Case B: The gNB is responsible for generating a gap between the DL signal and the UL signal within the range [Gmin, Gmax], and the UE always starts UL transmission with a complete OS k

[0234] Represent the length of one symbol as L. The gNB can transmit the last complete DL OS k-b-1. The value b is predefined, higher layer configured, or can be derived from other parameters. The value b can depend on the gNB implementation. If necessary, the gNB can transmit a padding signal, such as a cyclic suffix extension of OS k-b-1, so that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is not greater than Gmax. Let Z be equal to (Gmax + TA), where Z is the length by which the DL transmission should be reduced to form a gap of Gmax between the DL signal and the UL signal. If floor(Z / L) == b - 1, the gNB can transmit a signal with length MOD(L - Z, L) after OS k-b-1 such that the gap between the DL signal and the UL signal is Gmax. Otherwise, if floor(Z / L) == b && MOD(Z, L) < Gmax - Gmin, the gNB can still stop the DL transmission after OS k-b-1, which results in a reduced gap between the DL signal and the UL signal of Gmax - mod(Z, L).

[0235] Fig.12An exemplary offset where the starting position is fixed to OS k according to various embodiments is graphically illustrated, as shown at 1202 and 1204, assuming b is equal to 1, the gNB may transmit the last complete DL OS k-2. As shown at 1202, for a small TA, Z = 16 μs + TA is still less than one symbol. Therefore, the gNB transmits a cyclic suffix extended padding signal of length "one OS - Z" after OS k-2. As shown at 1204, for a large TA, the offset Z = 16 μs + TA is longer than one symbol. Therefore, the gNB transmits a complete DL OS k-2, which reduces the gap to a length of "one OS - TA".

[0236] In some embodiments, letting the first complete UL symbol be OS k, the gNB may set an appropriate value for TA0 such that there is no confusion for the last complete DL symbol over the entire potential range of TA = TA0 + d. Assuming d is in [0, D] μs, for example, for smaller cells up to 300 meter radius, the round trip delay of D is about 2 μs. Assuming TA0 is set to 13 μs for the UL to DL switching time, the range of TA is in [13, 15] μs. In some embodiments, Z = 16 μs + TA is in the range of [29, 31] μs. The fixed last complete DL symbol is derived as OS k-3. As shown at 1206, the gNB transmits a cyclic suffix extended padding signal after OS k-3, generating a 16 μs gap between the DL signal and the UL signal, so that the UE performs an UL transmission from the complete UL OS k.

[0237] Starting position of CG PUSCH

[0238] As described above, the starting position of the UL transmission may generally be expressed as "reference symbol boundary + Xμs". The reference symbol boundary may be indicated by the gNB or interpreted based on the scheduling information of the gNB, and if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is at or after the start of symbol k, the reference symbol boundary may be the starting point of OS k. The beginning of the UL transmission Xus may be truncated. Alternatively, if the starting position of the UL transmission scheduled by the gNB is no later than the start of symbol k, the reference symbol boundary may be the starting point of OS k-1 or OS k-2. A fill signal (e.g., CP extension of OS k) may be transmitted before OS k. In some embodiments, the starting position may depend on PUSCH type A or type B. In some embodiments, the starting position may depend on the SCS. In this section, potential values ​​of the offset X are provided for the CG PUSCH.

[0239] In some embodiments, potential starting positions may be generated within 1 symbol or 2 symbols. If the CG PUSCH occupies the full bandwidth and is outside the COT initiated by the gNB, potential starting positions may be generated within 1 symbol for SCS15kHz and 30kHz, and within two symbols for SCS60kHz. For SCS 15kHz, the offset X may be 16μs, 25μs, 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol; for SCS 30kHz, the offset X may be 16μs, 25μs, 1 symbol; for SCS 60kHz, the offset X may be 16μs, 25μs, 2 symbols. Alternatively, for SCS60kHz, the offset X may be fixed to two symbols. If the CG PUSCH occupies the full bandwidth and is within the COT initiated by the gNB, only those starting positions where X is greater than 25us may be supported. For SCS 15kHz, the offset X can be 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol; for SCS 30kHz, the offset X can be 1 symbol; for SCS 60KHz, the offset X can be 2 symbols. In some embodiments, for PUSCH type B, the offset X for SCS 30kHz and SCS 60kHz can start from the first symbol of PUSCH. Alternatively, only those starting positions where X is greater than 16μs are supported, because GBPUSCH can be scheduled without LBT. If the frequency resources occupied by CG PUSCH are less than all interlaces, the exact value of X can be configured at a higher level.

[0240] In some embodiments, potential starting positions may be generated within one symbol duration of SCS 15kHz. If the CG PUSCH occupies the full bandwidth and is outside the COT initiated by the gNB, the potential starting position offset X within 1 symbol of SCS 15kHz may be 16μs, 25μs, 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol, etc. The same X value may also apply to SCS 30kHz and SCS 60kHz. If the CG PUSCH occupies the full bandwidth and is within the COT initiated by the gNB, only those starting positions where X is greater than 25μs may be supported, for example, the offset X may be 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol, etc. Alternatively, only those starting positions where X is greater than 16μs may be supported because GB PUSCH is scheduled using LBT-free, for example, the offset X may be 25μs, 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol, etc. If the CG PUSCH occupies less than all interlaces of the frequency resources, the exact value of X may be higher layer configured.

[0241] In some embodiments, for SCS and CG PUSCH of 15 kHz that occupies full or partial bandwidth and performs transmission outside the COT of the gNB, the following starting positions are allowed: 16 μs, 25 μs, 34 μs, 43 μs, 52 μs, 61 μs, 1 symbol, etc. For SCS and CG PUSCH of 30 kHz that occupies full or partial bandwidth and performs transmission outside the COT of the gNB, the following starting positions are allowed: 16 μs, 25 μs, 1 symbol, etc. For SCS of 60 kHz and for CG PUSCH that occupies full or partial bandwidth and performs transmission within the COT of the gNB, the first N symbols may be used as the starting position starting from the second symbol, where N is predefined or configured by RRC signaling.

[0242] In some embodiments, for 15KHz SCS and for CG PUSCH that occupies full bandwidth or partial bandwidth and performs transmission within the COT of the gNB, the following starting positions are allowed: 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, 1 symbol, etc. For 30KHz SCS and for CG PUSCH that occupies full bandwidth or partial bandwidth and performs transmission within the COT of the gNB, the following starting positions are allowed: first symbol + 16μs, first symbol + 25μs, second symbol. For 60KHz SCS and for CG PUSCH that occupies full bandwidth or partial bandwidth and performs transmission within the COT of the gNB, the first N symbols can be used as the starting position starting from the second symbol, where N is predefined or configured by RRC signaling.

[0243] In some embodiments, for SCS 15kHz SCS and CG PUSCH occupying full or partial bandwidth, the following starting positions may be allowed:

[0244] Outside of gNB’s MCOT: {16μs, 25μs, 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, OS#1}; and

[0245] Within MCOT of gNb: {34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, OS#1}.

[0246] For SCS 30kHz, the same offset as for SCS 15kHz is reused and extended to two OFDM symbols:

[0247] Outside of gNB’s MCOT: {16μs, 25μs, 34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, OS#2}; and

[0248] Within MCOT of gNb: {34μs, 43μs, 52μs, 61μs, OS#2}.

[0249] For SCS 60kHz, up to two OFDM symbols can be reused for the same offset for SCS 15kHz:

[0250] Outside the MCOT of gNB: {16μs, 25μs, 34μs, OS#2}. Alternatively, since 34μs is almost the same duration as 2 symbols, the offset can be {16μs, 25μs, OS#2}.

[0251] Within MCOT of gNB: {34μs, OS#2}. Alternatively, the offset can be {OS#2}.

[0252] For SCS 30kHz and SCS 60kHz, the UCI of the CG carries an indication of whether the first two symbols are used in the entire two bits, which indicates: (i) whether CG data transmission starts from symbol #0; (ii) whether CG data transmission starts from symbol #1, or (iii) whether CG data transmission starts from symbol #2. For example, "00" -> shared channel uplink (SCH-UL) starts from symbol 0; "01" -> SCH-UL starts from symbol 1; "10" -> SCH-UL starts from symbol 2; "11" -> reserved.

[0253] In some embodiments, a table of SLIVs may be configured for potential time domain resources. For GB PUSCH, the UE may follow the starting symbol indicated by each row of the table as the starting symbol of the GB PUSCH. While for CG PUSCH, an additional offset b may be added to the starting symbol indicated by the row of the table, for example, the starting symbol is indicated by the row as k, then the starting symbol of the CGPUSCH is exactly symbol k+b. In this way, even if the same group of starting position offsets X can be used, it still gives GB PUSCH priority over CG PUSCH. That is, the priority of CG PUSCH is lower than that of GB PUSCH. In some embodiments, a separate table of SLIVs may be used to conFIG. CG PUSCH from GB PUSCH. In this way, the SLIVs in the table for CG PUSCH may be managed.

[0254] In some embodiments, within a gNB-initiated shared COT, no LBT may be indicated in the DCI for GB PUSCH; however, if CG PUSCH within the COT is allowed, a 25 μs LBT may be used for CG PUSCH. In this embodiment, priority is given to GB PUSCH. In some embodiments, once GB PUSCH is not transmitted or the signal strength of GB PUSCH is insufficient for CCA of CG PUSCH to succeed, CG PUSCH may still be transmitted. In some embodiments, once the signal strength of GB PUSCH is insufficient for CCA of CG PUSCH to fail, CG PUSCH may still be transmitted.

[0255] Exemplary Systems

[0256] Fig.13 An exemplary architecture of a system of a network according to various embodiments is shown. The following description is provided for an exemplary system 1300 that operates in conjunction with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) system standard and the fifth generation (5G) or NR system standard provided by the third generation partnership project (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., WLAN, WiMAX, etc.), etc.

[0257] like Fig.13 As shown, system 1300 includes user equipment (UE) 1301a and UE 1301b (collectively referred to as "UEs 1301" or "UE 1301"). In this example, UE 1301 is shown as a smart phone (e.g., a handheld touch screen mobile computing device that can connect to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as a consumer electronic device, a portable phone, a smart phone, a feature phone, a tablet computer, a wearable computer device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a pager, a wireless handheld device, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) device, an in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) device, an instrument panel (IC), a head-up display (HUD) device, an on-board diagnostic (OBD) device, a dashtop mobile equipment (DME), a mobile data terminal (MDT), an electronic engine management system (EEMS), an electronic / engine control unit (ECU), an electronic / engine control module (ECM), an embedded system, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system (EMS), a networked or "smart" device, an MTC device, an M2M, an IoT device, etc.

[0258] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 1301 may be an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communication (MTC) to exchange data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), proximity services (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, a sensor network, or an IoT network. The M2M or MTC data exchange may be a machine-initiated data exchange. 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.

[0259] UE 1301 may be configured to connect, e.g., be communicatively coupled, to a radio access network (RAN) 1310. In some embodiments, RAN 1310 may be a next generation (NG) RAN or 5G RAN, an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, such as UTRAN or GSM EDGE radio access network (GERAN). As used herein, the term "NGRAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 1310 operating in an NR or 5G system 1300, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 1310 operating in an LTE or 4G system 1300. UE 1301 utilizes connections (or channels) 1303 and 1304, respectively, each of which includes a physical communication interface or layer (described in further detail below).

[0260] In this example, connection 1303 and connection 1304 are shown as air interfaces to achieve communication coupling, and may be consistent with the following cellular communication protocols, such as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network protocol, the Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, the Push-to-Talk over Cellular (POC) protocol, the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, the 3GPP LTE protocol, the 5G protocol, the NR protocol, and / or any of the other communication protocols described herein. In some embodiments, the UE 1301 may directly exchange communication data via a proximity-based service (ProSe) interface 1305. The ProSe interface 1305 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink (SL) interface 1305 and may include one or more logical channels, including, but not limited to, a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH), a physical sidelink downlink channel (PSDCH), and a physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH).

[0261] UE 1301b is shown as being configured to access an access point (AP) 1306 (also referred to as "WLAN node 1306," "WLAN 1306," "WLAN terminal 1306," "WT 1306," etc.) via a connection 1307. Connection 1307 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 1306 will include wireless fidelity. router. In this example, AP 1306 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 1301b, RAN 1310, and AP 1306 may be configured to utilize LWA operation and / or LWIP operation. LWA operation may involve UE 1301b in an RRC_CONNECTED state being configured by RAN nodes 1311a-b to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 1301b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 1307) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent through connection 1307. 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.

[0262] The RAN 1310 includes one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 1311a and 1311b (collectively referred to as "RAN nodes 1311") that enable connections 1303 and 1304. 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 in this application, the terms "NG RAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 1311 (e.g., a gNB) operating in an NR or 5G system 1300, while the terms "E-UTRAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 1311 (e.g., an eNB) operating in an LTE or 4G system 1300. According to various embodiments, the RAN node 1311 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices such as a macrocell base station and / or a low power (LP) base station for providing a femtocell, picocell or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity or higher bandwidth than a macrocell.

[0263] In some embodiments, all or part of the RAN node 1311 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 1311; MAC / PHY splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 1311; or "lower PHY" splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers, and upper portions of the PHY layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the lower portions of the PHY layers are operated by individual RAN nodes 1311. This virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of the RAN node 1311 to execute other virtualized applications. In some embodiments, a separate RAN node 1311 may represent a plurality of virtualized applications that are connected to the RAN node 1311 via individual F1 interfaces ( Fig.13 In these embodiments, the gNB-DU may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., Fig.16 ), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN 1310 or by a server pool in a manner similar to CRAN / vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 1311 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), which is a next generation eNB that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminals to the UE 1301 and is connected to the 5GC (e.g., Fig.15 CN 520) RAN node.

[0264] In a V2X scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 1311 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 UE1301 (vUE1301). 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 RF circuits of the computing device and the RSU may be encapsulated 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 a backhaul network.

[0265] Any of the RAN nodes 1311 may terminate the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 1301. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 1311 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 1310, including but not limited to Radio Network Controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0266] In some embodiments, UE 1301 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of RAN nodes 1311 using OFDM communication signals over a multi-carrier communication channel 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. OFDM signals may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0267] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 1311 to the UE 1301, 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.

[0268] According to various embodiments, UE 1301 and RAN node 1311 communicate data (e.g., send data and receive data) through a licensed medium (also referred to as "licensed spectrum" and / or "licensed frequency band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as "unlicensed spectrum" and / or "unlicensed frequency band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of approximately 1400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, while the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz frequency band.

[0269] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UE 1301 and the RAN node 1311 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the UE 1301 and the RAN node 1311 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 before transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium / carrier sensing operations may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0270] LBT is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., UE 1301, RAN node 1311, etc.) senses the 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 CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine whether other signals are present on the channel 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.

[0271] 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 1301, AP 1306, 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 may be 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 embodiments, the LBT process for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmission) may have a variable length LAA contention window 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.

[0272] 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.

[0273] 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 may experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell provides the PCC for both UL and DL, and handles activities related to RRC and NAS. Other serving cells are called SCells, and each SCell provides a separate SCC for both UL and DL. SCCs can be added and removed as needed, and changing PCCs may require UE 1301 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 the UE can be configured to have 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.

[0274] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to the UE 1301. The PDCCH carries, among other information, information about the transport format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It may also inform the UE 1301 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 1301b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 1311 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 1301. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of the UEs 1301.

[0275] 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, called REGs. Four quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) symbols can be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the DCI and the channel conditions, one or more CCEs can be used to transmit the PDCCH. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8) in LTE.

[0276] 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.

[0277] RAN nodes 1311 may be configured to communicate with each other via interface 212. In some embodiments where system 1300 is an LTE system (eg, when CN 1320 is a Fig.14 1420 in the EPC 1320), the interface 212 may be an X2 interface 212. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 1311 (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC 1320, and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC 1320. In some embodiments, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U provides a flow control mechanism for user data 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 provides 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 1301 for user data; information about PDCP PDUs that are not delivered to the UE 1301; information about the current minimum expected buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting user data to the UE; and the like. X2-C provides 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.

[0278] In some embodiments where system 1300 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., when CN 1320 is Fig.15In some embodiments, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U provides non-guaranteed delivery of user plane protocol data units (PDUs) and supports / provides data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C provides management and error handling functions for managing the functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE 1301 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-connected) includes functions for managing UE mobility in a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 1311. The mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 1311 to the new (target) serving RAN node 1311; and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) serving RAN node 1311 and the new (target) serving RAN node 1311. The protocol stack of Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer and a user plane GPRS tunneling protocol (GTP-U) layer on top of a user datagram protocol (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 a stream control transmission protocol (SCTP). SCTP may be on top of the IP layer and provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport may be 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.

[0279] RAN 1310 is shown as being communicatively coupled to a core network—in this embodiment, communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 1320. CN 1320 may include a plurality of network elements 1322 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UE 1301) connected to CN 1320 via RAN 1310. The components of CN 1320 may be implemented in one physical node or 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, network function virtualization (NFV) may be used to virtualize any or all of the above-described 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 1320 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instance of a portion of CN 1320 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architecture and infrastructure can be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources including a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, the NFV system can be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0280] In general, the application server 1330 may be an element that provides an application program that uses IP bearer resources with a core network (e.g., Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Packet Service (PS) domain, LTE PS data service, etc.). The application server 1330 may also be configured to support one or more communication services for the UE 1301 via the CN 1320 (e.g., VoIP session, PTT session, group communication session, social network service, etc.).

[0281] In some embodiments, CN 1320 may be a 5GC (referred to as "5GC 1320", etc.), and RAN 1310 may be connected to CN 1320 via an NG interface 1313. In some embodiments, NG interface 1313 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 1314, which carries traffic data between RAN node 1311 and UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 1315, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 1311 and AMF. Fig.15 An implementation of CN 1320 as 5GC 1320 is described in more detail.

[0282] In some embodiments, CN 1320 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5GC 1320", etc.), while in other embodiments, CN 1320 may be an EPC. In the case where CN 1320 is an EPC (referred to as "EPC 1320", etc.), RAN 1310 may be connected to CN 1320 via an S1 interface 1313. In some embodiments, S1 interface 1313 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 1314, which carries traffic data between RAN node 1311 and S-GW; and an S1-MME interface 1315, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 1311 and MME. Fig.14 An exemplary architecture is shown in which CN 1320 is EPC 1320.

[0283] Example Architecture

[0284] Fig.14 FIG. 1 shows an exemplary architecture of a system 1400 including a first CN 1420 according to various embodiments. In this example, the system 1400 may implement the LTE standard, wherein the CN 1420 is associated with Fig.13 In addition, UE 1301 can communicate with Fig.13 1301 is the same as or similar to UE 1301, and E-UTRAN 1310 may be Fig.13 The CN 1420 may be a RAN that is the same as or similar to the RAN 1310 of the present invention, and may include the previously described RAN node 1311. The CN 1420 may include a mobility management entity (MME) 1421, a serving gateway (S-GW) 1422, a PDN gateway (P-GW) 1423, a home subscriber server (HSS) 1424, and a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) 1425.

[0285] The MME 1421 may be similar in function to the control plane of a traditional SGSN, and may implement mobility management (MM) functions to keep track of the current location of the UE 1301. The MME 1421 may perform various MM procedures to manage mobility aspects in access, such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as "EPS MM" or "EMM" in an E-UTRAN system) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data stores, etc. for maintaining knowledge of the current location of the UE 1301, providing user identity confidentiality, and / or performing other similar services to the user / subscriber. Each UE 1301 and MME 1421 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and when the attachment procedure is successfully completed, an MM context may be established in the UE 1301 and the MME 1421. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information of the UE 1301. The MME 1421 may be coupled to the HSS 1424 via an S6a reference point, to the SGSN 1425 via an S3 reference point, and to the S-GW 1422 via an S11 reference point.

[0286] SGSN 1425 may be a node that serves UE 1301 by tracking the location of individual UE 1301 and performing security functions. In addition, SGSN 1425 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between 2G / 3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1421; handling of UE 1301 time zone functions as specified by MME 1421; and MME selection for handover to E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between MME 1421 and SGSN 1425 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in an idle state and / or an active state.

[0287] The HSS 1424 may include a database for network users, which includes subscription-related information that supports network entities in handling communication sessions. The EPC 1420 may include one or several HSSs 1424, depending on the number of mobile users, the capacity of the equipment, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 1424 may provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / address resolution, location dependency, etc. The S6a reference point between the HSS 1424 and the MME 1421 may enable the transmission of subscription data and authentication data for authenticating / authorizing user access to the EPC 1420 between the HSS 1424 and the MME 1421.

[0288] The S-GW 1422 may terminate the S1 for the user plane (S1-U) interface towards the RAN 1310 and route data packets between the RAN 1310 and the EPC 1420. In addition, the S-GW 1422 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers and also provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and enforcement of certain policies. The S11 reference point between the S-GW 1422 and the MME 1421 provides a control plane between the MME 1421 and the S-GW 1422. The S-GW 1422 may be coupled to the P-GW 1423 via the S5 reference point.

[0289] P-GW 1423 may terminate the SGi interface toward PDN 1430. P-GW 1423 may route data packets between EPC 1420 and external networks such as a network including an application server 1330 (alternatively referred to as "AF") via IP interface 1325 (see, e.g. Fig.13 In some embodiments, P-GW 1423 can communicate with the user via IP communication interface 1325 (see, e.g. Fig.13 ) is communicatively coupled to an application server ( Fig.13 Application server 1330 or Fig.14 The S5 reference point between the P-GW 1423 and the S-GW 1422 provides user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 1423 and the S-GW 1422. The S5 reference point can also be used for S-GW 1422 relocation due to UE 1301 mobility and if the S-GW 1422 needs to connect to a non-co-located P-GW 1423 for required PDN connectivity. The P-GW 1423 may also include nodes for policy implementation and charging data collection, such as a PCEF (not shown). In addition, the SGi reference point between the P-GW 1423 and the packet data network (PDN) 1430 can be an operator-external public, private PDN, or an internal operator packet data network, for example, for providing IMS services. The P-GW 1423 can be coupled to the PCRF 1426 via the Gx reference point.

[0290] PCRF 1426 is a policy and charging control element of EPC 1420. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 1426 in a home public land mobile network (HPLMN) associated with an Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session of UE 1301. In a roaming scenario with local traffic breakout, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of UE 1301: a home PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN). PCRF 1426 may be communicatively coupled to application server 1430 via P-GW 1423. Application server 1430 may signal PCRF 1426 to indicate a new service flow and select appropriate QoS and charging parameters. PCRF 1426 may configure the rule to a PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate TFT and QCI, which initiates QoS and charging specified by application server 1430. The Gx reference point between PCRF 1426 and P-GW 1423 may allow QoS policies and charging rules to be transferred from PCRF 1426 to the PCEF in P-GW 1423. The Rx reference point may reside between PDN 1430 (or "AF 1430") and PCRF 1426.

[0291] Fig.15 The architecture of a system 1500 including a second CN 520 is shown according to various embodiments. System 1500 is shown as including UE 1501, which may be the same or similar to the previously described multiple UEs 1301 and UE 1301; (R)AN 1510, which may be the same or similar to the previously described RAN 1310 and RAN 1410, and which may include the previously described RAN node 1311; and a data network (DN) 1503, which may be, for example, an operator service, Internet access, or a 3rd party service; and 5GC 520. 5GC 520 may include an authentication server function (AUSF) 522; an access and mobility management function (AMF) 1521; a session management function (SMF) 1524; a network exposure function (NEF) 1523; a PCF 1526; a NF repository function (NRF) 1525; a UDM 1527; an application function (AF) 1528; a user plane function (UPF) 1502; and a network slice selection function (NSSF) 1529.

[0292] The UPF 1502 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnected with the DN 1503, and a branch point to support multi-host PDU sessions. The UPF 1502 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform the user plane portion of policy rules, lawful interception of packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing on the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 1502 may include an uplink classifier for supporting routing of traffic to a data network. The DN 1503 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. The DN 1503 may include or be similar to the application server 1330 described previously. UPF 1502 interacts with SMF 1524 via the N4 reference point between SMF 1524 and UPF 1502.

[0293] AUSF 1522 stores data for authentication of UE 1501 and handles authentication-related functions. AUSF 1522 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. AUSF 522 communicates with AMF 1521 via the N12 reference point between AMF 1521 and AUSF 1522; and communicates with UDM 527 via the N13 reference point between UDM 1527 and AUSF 1522. In addition, AUSF 1522 may present an interface based on Nausf services.

[0294] AMF 1521 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., responsible for registering UE 1501, etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. AMF 1521 may be a termination point for the N11 reference point between AMF 1521 and SMF 1524. AMF 1521 provides transport for session management (SM) messages between UE 1501 and SMF 1524, and acts as a transparent pro15 for routing SM messages. AMF 1521 may also provide communication between UE 1501 and SMS function (SMSF) ( Fig.15The AMF 1521 may provide for the transmission of short message service (SMS) messages between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 (not shown). The AMF 1521 may act as a security anchor function (SEAF), which may include interaction with the AUSF 1522 and the UE 1501, receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE 1501 authentication process. In the case where authentication based on the universal user identity module (USIM) can be used, the AMF 1521 may retrieve security materials from the AUSF 1522. The AMF 1521 may also include a security context management (SCM) function that receives keys from the SEA for deriving access network specific keys. In addition, the AMF 1521 may be a termination point for the RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521; and the AMF 1521 may be a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling, and perform NAS encryption and integrity protection.

[0295] The AMF 1521 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 1501 over the N3 IWF interface. The N3 IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3 IWF may be the termination point for the N2 interface between the (R) AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 for the control plane, and may be the termination point for the N3 reference point between the (R) AN 1510 and the UPF 1502 for the user plane. Thus, the AMF 1521 processes N2 signaling for protocol data unit (PDU) sessions and QoS from the SMF 1524 and the AMF 1521, encapsulates / decapsulates packets for IPSec and N3 tunnels, marks N3 user plane packets in the uplink, and performs QoS corresponding to N3 packet markings, taking into account QoS requirements associated with such markings received over N2. N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control plane NAS signaling between UE 1501 and AMF 1521 via the N1 reference point between UE 1501 and AMF 1521, and relay uplink and downlink user plane packets between UE 501 and UPF 1502. N3IWF also provides a mechanism for establishing an IPsec tunnel with UE 1501. AMF 1521 may present an interface based on Namf services, and may be an N14 reference point between two AMF 1521 and AMF 1521 and 5G-EIR ( Fig.15 The termination point of the N17 reference point between the two (not shown).

[0296] UE 1501 may need to register with AMF 1521 to receive network services. Registration Management (RM) may be used to register or deregister UE 1501 with a network (e.g., AMF 1521) and establish a UE context in the network (e.g., AMF 1521). UE 1501 may operate in an RM-Registered state or an RM-Deregistered state. In the RM-Deregistered state, UE 1501 is not registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1521 does not hold valid location or routing information for UE 1501, so UE 1501 is not accessible by AMF 1521. In the RM-Registered state, UE 1501 is registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1521 may hold valid location or routing information for UE 1501, so UE 1501 is accessible by AMF 1521. In the RM-REGISTERED state, UE 1501 can perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiration of a periodic update timer (for example, to notify the network that UE 1501 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network, etc.

[0297] AMF 1521 stores one or more RM contexts for UE 1501, each RM context being associated with a specific access to the network. The RM context may be a data structure, a database object, etc., which indicates or stores, among other things, the registration status and periodic update timer for each access type. AMF 1521 may also store a 5GC mobility management (MM) context which may be the same or similar to the (E)MM context described previously. In various embodiments, AMF 1521 stores the CE mode B restriction parameters of UE 1501 in the associated MM context or RM context. AMF 1521 may also derive values ​​from the UE's usage setting parameters already stored in the UE context (and / or MM / RM context) when necessary.

[0298] Connection management (CM) establishes and releases a signaling connection between the UE 1501 and the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface. The signaling connection may be used to implement NAS signaling exchanges between the UE 1501 and the CN 520, and includes both a signaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., a radio resource control (RRC) connection for non-3GPP access or a UE-N3IWF connection) and an N2 connection of the UE 1501 between the AN (e.g., RAN 1510) and the AMF 1521. The UE 1501 may operate in one of two CM states (CM-idle mode or CM-connected mode). When the UE 1501 is operating in the CM-idle state / mode, the UE 1501 may not have a non-access stratum (NAS) signaling connection established with the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R) AN 1510 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 1501. When the UE 1501 is operating in the CM-connected state / mode, the UE 1501 may have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 1510 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 1501. The establishment of the N2 connection between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 may cause the UE 1501 to transition from the CM-idle mode to the CM-connected mode, and when the N2 signaling between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 is released, the UE 1501 may transition from the CM-connected mode to the CM-idle mode.

[0299] SMF 1524 is responsible for session management (SM) (e.g., session establishment, modification, and release, including tunnel maintenance between UPF and AN nodes); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of user plane (UP) functions; configuring UPF's traffic steering to route traffic to the correct destination; terminating the interface towards the policy control function; the control part of policy enforcement and QoS; lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system); terminating the SM part of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN-specific SM information sent to AN via N2 via access and mobility management function (AMF); and determining the session and service continuity (SSC) mode of the session. SM may refer to the management of a protocol data unit (PDU) session, and a PDU session or "session" may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or implements the exchange of PDUs between a UE 1501 and a data network (DN) 1503 identified by a data network name (DNN). The PDU session may be established upon request by UE 1501, modified upon request by UE 1501 and 5GC 520, and released upon request by UE 1501 and 5GC 520 using NAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between UE 1501 and SMF 1524. Upon request from an application server, 5GC 520 may trigger a specific application in UE 1501. In response to receiving a trigger message, UE 1501 may deliver the trigger message (or relevant parts / information of the trigger message) to one or more identified applications in UE 1501. The identified application in UE 1501 may establish a PDU session with a specific DNN. SMF 1524 may check whether the UE 1501 request complies with user subscription information associated with UE 1501. In this regard, SMF 1524 may retrieve and / or request to receive update notifications about SMF 1524 level subscription data from UDM 1527.

[0300] SMF 1524 may include the following roaming functions: handling local execution to apply QoS SLA (VPLMN); charging data collection and charging interface (VPLMN); lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system, in VPLMN); and support interaction with external DN to transmit signaling for PDU session authorization / authentication through external DN. In a roaming scenario, an N16 reference point between two SMFs 1524 may be included in the system 1500, which may be located between another SMF 1524 in the visited network and the SMF 1524 in the home network. In addition, SMF 1524 may present an interface based on Nsmf services.

[0301] NEF 1523 provides a device for securely exposing services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal exposure / re-exposure, application functions (e.g., AF 1528), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, NEF 1523 can authenticate, authorize and / or restrict AF. NEF 1523 can also convert information exchanged with AF 1528 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, NEF 1523 can convert between AF service identifiers and internal 5GC information. NEF 1523 can also receive information from other network functions (NFs) based on the exposure capabilities of other network functions. The information can be stored at NEF 1523 as structured data, or stored at a data storage NF using a standardized interface. The stored information can then be re-exposed to other NFs and AFs by NEF 1523, and / or used for other purposes such as analysis. In addition, NEF 1523 can present an interface based on Nnef services.

[0302] NRF 1525 supports service discovery functionality, receives NF discovery requests from network function (NF) instances, and provides information about discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 1525 also maintains information about available NF instances and the services they support. As used herein, the term "instantiation" and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to the specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of a program code. In addition, NRF 1525 may present an interface based on Nnrf services.

[0303] The PCF 1526 provides for control plane functions to enforce their policy rules and may also support a unified policy framework for managing network behavior. The PCF 1526 may also implement a front end (FE) to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 1527. In the case of roaming scenarios, the PCF 1526 communicates with the AMF 1521 via the N15 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the AMF 1521, which may include the PCF 1526 and the AMF 1521 in the visited network. The PCF 1526 communicates with the AF 1528 via the N5 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the AF 1528; and communicates with the SMF 1524 via the N7 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the SMF 1524. The system 1500 and / or the CN 520 may also include an N24 reference point between the PCF 1526 (in the home network) and the PCF 1526 in the visited network. Additionally, PCF 1526 may present an interface based on Npcf services.

[0304] UDM 1527 processes subscription-related information to support the network entity's handling of the communication session and stores subscription data of UE 1501. For example, subscription data may be transmitted between UDM 1527 and AMF 1521 via the N8 reference point between UDM 1527 and AMF. UDM 1527 may include two parts: Application Front End (FE) and UDR ( Fig.15 The FE and UDR are not shown). The UDR stores subscription data and policy data of the UDM 1527 and PCF 1526, and / or structured data for exposure and application data of the NEF 1523 (including PFD for application detection, application request information of multiple UEs 1501). An interface based on Nudr services may be presented by the UDR 221 to allow the UDM 1527, PCF 1526, and NEF 1523 to access specific sets of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of related data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE, which is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, etc. In different transactions, several different front ends may serve the same user. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR, and performs authentication credential processing, user identification processing, access authorization, registration / mobility management, and subscription management. The UDR interacts with the SMF 1524 via the N10 reference point between the UDM 1527 and the SMF 1524. The UDM 1527 may also support SMS management, where the SMS-FE implements similar application logic as described above. In addition, the UDM 1527 may present an interface based on the Nudm service.

[0305] AF 1528 provides the influence of applications on traffic routing, provides access to NCE, and interacts with the policy framework for policy control. NCE is a mechanism that allows 5GC 520 and AF 1528 to provide information to each other via NEF 1523, which can be used for edge computing implementation. In such implementations, network operators and third-party services can be hosted near the UE 1501 access point of the attachment to achieve effective service delivery through reduced end-to-end delay and load on the transmission network. For edge computing implementation, 5GC can select UPF 1502 near UE 1501 and perform traffic steering from UPF 1502 to DN 1503 via the N6 interface. This can be based on UE subscription data, UE location and information provided by AF 1528. In this way, AF 1528 affects UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1528 is considered a trusted entity, the network operator allows AF 1528 to interact directly with the relevant NF. In addition, AF 1528 can present an interface based on Naf services.

[0306] NSSF 1529 selects a set of network slice instances to serve UE 1501. If necessary, NSSF 1529 also determines the allowed network slice selection assistance information (NSSAI) and the mapping to the subscribed single NSSAI (S-NSSAI). NSSF 1529 also determines the set of access and mobility management functions (AMFs) to serve UE 1501, or a list of candidate AMFs 1521, based on appropriate configuration and possibly by querying NRF 1525. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 1501 may be triggered by AMF 1521, where UE 1501 registers by interacting with NSSF 1529, which may cause changes to AMF 1521. NSSF 1529 interacts with AMF 1521 via the N22 reference point between AMF 1521 and NSSF 1529; and communicates with AMF 1521 via the N31 reference point ( Fig.15 The NSSF 1529 may communicate with another NSSF 1529 in the visited network (not shown). In addition, the NSSF 1529 may present an interface based on the Nnssf service.

[0307] As previously described, CN 520 may include an SMS function (SMSF) that may be responsible for short message service (SMS) subscription checking and verification, and relaying SM messages to / from UE 1501 to / from other entities, such as SMS-GMSC / IWMSC / SMS routers. SMS also interacts with AMF 1521 and UDM 1527 for notification procedures so that UE 1501 is available for SMS transmission (e.g., setting a UE unreachable flag and notifying UDM 1527 when UE 1501 is available for SMS).

[0308] CN 520 may also include Fig.15 Other elements not shown in the diagram, such as data storage system / architecture, 5G Equipment Identity Register (EIR), Security Edge Protection Pro15 (SEPP), etc. The data storage system may include structured data storage function (SDSF), unstructured data storage network function (UDSF), etc. Any network function (NF) is connected via any NF and UDSF ( Fig.15 The N18 reference point between the NF and NF (not shown) stores or retrieves unstructured data in or from the UDSF (e.g., UE context). Individual NFs may share a UDSF for storing their respective unstructured data, or individual NFs may each have their own UDSF located at or near a single NF. In addition, the UDSF may present an interface based on the Nudsf service ( Fig.15). The 5G-EIR may be a NF that checks the status of the PEI to determine whether to blacklist a specific equipment / entity from the network; and the SEPP may be a non-transparent pro15 that performs topology hiding, message filtering, and policing on the inter-public land mobile network (PLMN) control plane interface.

[0309] Additionally, there may be more reference points and / or service-based interfaces between NF services in a NF; however, for clarity, Fig.15 These interfaces and reference points are omitted. In one example, CN 520 may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between an MME (e.g., MME 1 121) and an AMF 1521 to enable interworking between CN 520 and CN 1 120. Other exemplary interfaces / reference points may include an N5g-EIR service-based interface presented by 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between an NF repository function (NRF) in a visited network and an NRF in a home network; and an N31 reference point between a network slice selection function (NSSF) in a visited network and an NSSF in a home network.

[0310] Exemplary Infrastructure Equipment

[0311] Fig.16 An example of infrastructure equipment 1600 according to various embodiments is shown. Infrastructure equipment 1600 (or "system 1600") can be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node (such as the RAN node 1311 and / or AP 1306 shown and described previously), an application server 1330, and / or any other element / device described herein. In other examples, system 1600 can be implemented in or by a UE.

[0312] System 1600 includes: application circuit 1620, baseband circuit 1610, one or more radio front end modules (RFEM) 1615, memory circuit 1620, power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 1625, power tee circuit 1630, network controller circuit 1635, network interface connector 1640, satellite positioning circuit 1645 and user interface 1650. In some embodiments, device 1600 may include additional elements, such as, for example, memory / storage, display, camera, sensor, or input / output (I / O) interface. In other embodiments, these components may be included in more than one device. For example, the circuit may be included separately in more than one device for a cloud radio access network (CRAN), vBBU, or other similar implementation.

[0313] The application circuit 1620 includes, for example, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more low dropout regulators (LDO), an interrupt controller, a serial interface such as SPI, I 2 C or general programmable serial interface module, real-time clock (RTC), timer counter including interval timer and watchdog timer, general input / output (I / O or IO), memory card controller such as secure digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar products, universal serial bus (USB) interface, mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interface and joint test access group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of application circuit 1620 may be coupled to or may include memory / storage element, and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on system 1600. In some embodiments, the memory / storage element may be an on-chip memory circuit, which may 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 described in the present application.

[0314] The processor of application circuit 1620 may include, for example, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, application circuit 1620 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein. As an example, the processor of application circuit 1620 may include one or more Intel FPGAs. or Processor: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) or Processor; ARM-based processors licensed by ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A series processors provided by Cavium (TM), Inc. and MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPSWarrior P-class processor; etc. In some embodiments, system 1600 may not utilize application circuit 1620, and instead may include a dedicated processor / controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5GC.

[0315] In some embodiments, the application circuit 1620 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, etc. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and / or deep learning (DL) accelerators. For example, the programmable processing device may be one or more field programmable devices (FPDs), such as field programmable gate arrays (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 specific implementations, the circuits of the application circuit 1620 may include logic blocks or logic architectures, as well as other interconnected resources that can be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments described herein. In such an embodiment, the circuitry of application circuit 1620 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 architectures, data, etc. in a look-up table (LUT), etc.

[0316] Baseband circuit 1610 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.18 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 1610 are described.

[0317] The user interface circuit 1650 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 1600, or one or more peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral components to interact with the system 1600. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touch pad, a touch screen, a speaker or other audio transmitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, etc. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0318] The radio front end module (RFEM) 1615 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some embodiments, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFIC may include one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Fig.18 The antenna array 1811) is connected to the RFEM, 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 RFEM1615 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0319] The memory circuit 1620 may include one or more of the following: a volatile memory including a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and / or a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM); and a non-volatile memory (NVM) including a high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as a flash memory), a phase change random access memory (PRAM), a magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may be combined with and The memory circuit 1620 may be implemented as one or more of: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0320] The PMIC 1625 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources such as batteries or capacitors. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of a brownout (undervoltage) and a surge (overvoltage) condition. The power tee circuit 1630 provides electrical power extracted from the network cable to provide both power and data connections for the infrastructure equipment 1600 using a single cable.

[0321] The network controller circuit 1635 provides a connection to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet based on a GRE tunnel, Ethernet based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. A physical connection can be used to provide a network connection to / from the infrastructure equipment 1600 via a network interface connector 1640, which can be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. The network controller circuit 1635 may include one or more dedicated processors and / or FPGAs that communicate using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some embodiments, the network controller circuit 1635 may include multiple controllers for providing connections to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[0322] The positioning circuit 1645 includes circuits for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by a positioning network of a global satellite navigation system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., using the Indian constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's Doppler Orbit Chart and Satellite Integrated Radio Positioning (DORIS), etc. for navigation), etc. The positioning circuit 1645 may include various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. for facilitating OTA communications) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 1645 may include a micro technology (micro PNT) IC for positioning, navigation, and timing, which uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1645 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 1610 and / or RFEM 1615 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuit 1645 may also provide location data and / or time data to the application circuit 1620, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructures (e.g., RAN node 1311, etc.), etc.

[0323] Fig.16The components shown communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and / or interconnect (IX) technologies, such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Extended ISA (EISA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus, such as used in a system on a chip (SoC) based system. Other bus / IX systems may be included, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0324] Fig.17 An example of a platform 1700 (or "device 1700") according to various embodiments is shown. In some embodiments, the computer platform 1700 may be suitable for use as a UE 1301, 1401, an application server 1330, and / or any other element / device described herein. The platform 1700 may include any combination of components shown in the example. The components of the platform 1700 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 1700, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. Fig.17 The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of computer platform 1700. 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.

[0325] Application circuit 1705 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 The processor (or core) of the application circuit 1705 may be coupled to or may include a memory / storage element and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 1700. In some embodiments, the memory / storage element may be an on-chip memory circuit that may 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 described in the present application.

[0326] The processor of the application circuit 1705 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 1705 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein.

[0327] As an example, the processor of the application circuit 1705 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 1705 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 embodiments, application circuit 1705 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which application circuit 1705 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, such as company( Edison Corporation TM or Galileo TM SoC board.

[0328] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 1705 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 1705 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments described herein. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 1705 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.

[0329] The baseband circuit 1705 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.18 Describes the various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 1705.

[0330] The RFEM 1715 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some embodiments, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Fig.18 The antenna array 1811) is connected to the RFEM 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 1715 combining both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0331] The memory circuit 1720 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a fixed amount of system memory. For example, the memory circuit 1720 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 1720 may be developed according to a Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) low power double data rate (LPDDR) based design (such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc.). The memory circuit 1720 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 1720 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 1705. In order to provide persistent storage of information (such as data, applications, operating systems, etc.), the memory circuit 1720 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 1700 may be combined with a computer obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0332] Removable memory circuitry 1723 may include devices, circuitry, housings / casings, ports or receptacles, etc., for coupling portable data storage devices to platform 1700. 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.

[0333] The platform 1700 may also include an interface circuit (not shown) that can be used to connect external devices to the platform 1700. External devices connected to the platform 1700 via the interface circuit include a sensor circuit 1721 and an electromechanical component (EMC) 1722, and a removable memory device coupled to a removable memory circuit 1723.

[0334] Sensor circuitry 1721 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 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.

[0335] The EMC 1722 includes devices, modules or subsystems that are intended to enable the platform 1700 to change its state, position and / or orientation or to move or control a mechanism or (sub) system. In addition, the EMC 1722 may be configured to generate messages / signaling and send messages / signaling to other components of the platform 1700 to indicate the current state of the EMC 1722. The EMC 1722 includes one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and / or solid-state relays (SSRs)), 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 some embodiments, the platform 1700 may be configured to operate one or more EMCs 1722 based on one or more capture events and / or instructions or control signals received from service providers and / or various clients.

[0336] In some embodiments, the interface circuit connects the platform 1700 to the positioning circuit 1745. The positioning circuit 1745 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by the positioning network of the GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) 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 1745 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 1745 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1745 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 1705 and / or RFEM 1715 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 1745 may also provide location data and / or time data to application circuitry 1705, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio base stations) for use in turn-by-turn navigation applications, etc.

[0337] In some embodiments, the interface circuit connects the platform 1700 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 1740. The NFC circuit 1740 can be configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, where magnetic field induction can be used to enable communication between the NFC circuit 1740 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 1700. The NFC circuit 1740 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller can be a chip / IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 1740 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack can be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware can be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit a short-range RF signal. The RF signal can power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to the NFC circuit 1740, or initiate data transmission between the NFC circuit 1740 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smart phone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) close to the platform 1700.

[0338] The driver circuit 1746 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 1700. The driver circuit 1746 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 1700 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 1700. For example, the driver circuit 1746 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 1700, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor circuit 1721 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor circuit 1721, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 1722 and / or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 1722, 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.

[0339] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 1725 (also referred to as “power management circuit 1725”) can manage power provided to various components of the platform 1700. Specifically, the PMIC 1725 can control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion with respect to the baseband circuit 1705. When the platform 1700 is capable of being powered by a battery 1730, for example, when the device is included in UE 1301, UE 1301, PMIC 1725 may generally be included.

[0340] In some embodiments, the PMIC 1725 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 1700. For example, if the platform 1700 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 called discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 1700 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 1700 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which the platform is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. are performed. The platform 1700 enters an extremely low power state and performs paging, in which the platform wakes up periodically again to listen to the network and then powers off again. The platform 1700 may not receive data in this state; in order to receive data, the platform should 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 a few 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.

[0341] The battery 1730 can power the platform 1700, but in some examples, the platform 1700 can be mounted in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to the grid. The battery 1730 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 embodiments, such as in V2X applications, the battery 1730 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0342] In some embodiments, the battery 1730 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 1700 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 1730. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 1730, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 1730 to provide fault prediction. The BMS transmits information about the battery 1730 to the application circuit 1705 or other components of the platform 1700. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 1705 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 1730 or the current from the battery 1730. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 1700 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0343] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid can be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 1730. In some examples, the power block 1730 can be replaced with a wireless power receiver to wirelessly obtain power, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 1700. 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 1730 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.

[0344] The user interface circuit 1750 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 1700, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 1700 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to implement interaction with the peripheral components of the platform 1700. The user interface circuit 1750 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 platform 1700. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, etc. In some embodiments, sensor circuitry 1721 may be used as an input device circuit (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.) and one or more EMCs may be used as output device circuits (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. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, non-volatile memory ports, USB ports, audio jacks, power interfaces, etc.

[0345] Although not shown, the components of platform 1700 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.

[0346] Exemplary baseband circuits and radio front-end modules

[0347] Fig.18 18 shows exemplary components of a baseband circuit 1810 and a radio front end module (RFEM) 1815 according to various embodiments. The baseband circuit 1810 corresponds to Fig.16 The baseband circuit 1610 and Fig.17 Baseband circuit 1705. RFEM1815 corresponds to Fig.16 RFEM 1615 and Fig.17 RFEM 1715. As shown, RFEM 1815 may include at least a radio frequency (RF) circuit 1806, a front end module (FEM) circuit 1808, and an antenna array 1811 coupled together as shown.

[0348] The baseband circuit 1810 includes circuits and / or control logic components configured to execute various radio / network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuit 1806. 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 1810 may include a fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping / demapping function. In some embodiments, the encoding / decoding circuit of the baseband circuit 1810 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 1810 may be configured to process the baseband signal received from the receiving signal path of the RF circuit 1806 and generate a baseband signal for the transmission signal path of the RF circuit 1806. The baseband circuit 1810 can be configured to communicate with the application circuit 1605 / 1705 (see Fig.16 and Fig.17 ) to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of RF circuit 1806. Baseband circuit 1810 handles various radio control functions.

[0349] The aforementioned circuits and / or control logic components of the baseband circuit 1810 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 1804A, a 4G / LTE baseband processor 1804B, a 5G / NR baseband processor 1804C, or some other baseband processors 1804D 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 1804A-D may be included in a module stored in the memory 1804G and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 1804E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 1804A-1804D 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 1804G stores program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which, when executed by the CPU 1804E (or other baseband processor), enables the CPU 1804E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuit 1810, schedule tasks, etc. Examples of RTOS may include: Operating System Embedded (OSE) provided TM , by Mentor Nucleus RTOS provided TM , by Mentor Versatile Real-TimeExecutive (VRTX) provided by Express Provided by ThreadX TM ,Depend on FreeRTOS and REX OS provided by Open Kernel (OK) OKL4 provided, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those described herein. In addition, the baseband circuit 1810 includes one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 1804F. The audio DSP 1804F includes elements for compression / decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

[0350] In some embodiments, each of processors 1804A-1804E includes a corresponding memory interface to send data to / receive data from memory 1804G. Baseband circuit 1810 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 1810; an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to the baseband circuit; Fig.16 and Fig.17 The application circuit interface for sending data to / receiving data from the application circuit 1605 / 1705; Fig.18 RF circuit 1806 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 PMIC1725.

[0351] In an alternative embodiment (which can be combined with the above embodiment), the baseband circuit 1810 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 interconnection subsystem in the interconnection subsystem may include a bus system, a point-to-point connection, a network on chip (NOC) structure and / or some other suitable bus or interconnection technology, such as those described in this application. 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 1810 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 1815).

[0352] although Fig.18Not shown, but in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 1810 includes various processing devices (e.g., a "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 1810 and / or the RF circuit 1806 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 1810 and / or the RF circuit 1806 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., 1804G) for storing program codes and data for operating protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing program codes and performing various operations using data. The baseband circuitry 1810 may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

[0353] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuit 1810 described herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged IC 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 1810 may be appropriately combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 and the RF circuit 1806 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) or a system-level package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuit 1806 (or multiple instances of the RF circuit 1806). In yet another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 and the application circuit 1605 / 1705 may be implemented together as a separate SoC (e.g., a "multi-chip package") mounted to the same circuit board.

[0354] In some embodiments, baseband circuit 1810 provides communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuit 1810 supports communications with E-UTRAN or other WMAN, WLAN, WPAN. Embodiments in which baseband circuit 1810 can be configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol can be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuits.

[0355] RF circuit 1806 may enable communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various embodiments, RF circuit 1806 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuit 1806 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry for down-converting an RF signal received from FEM circuit 1808 and providing a baseband signal to baseband circuit 1810. RF circuit 1806 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry for up-converting a baseband signal provided by baseband circuit 1810 and providing an RF output signal to FEM circuit 1808 for transmission.

[0356] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuit 1806 may include a mixer circuit 1806A, an amplifier circuit 1806B, and a filter circuit 1806C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 1806 may include a filter circuit 1806C and a mixer circuit 1806A. The RF circuit 1806 may also include a synthesizer circuit 1806D for synthesizing the frequencies used by the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 1808 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 1806D. The amplifier circuit 1806B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signal, and the filter circuit 1806C 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 baseband circuit 1810 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 1806A of the receive signal path may include a passive mixer, but the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this regard.

[0357] In some embodiments, mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 1806D to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 1808. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuit 1810 and may be filtered by filter circuit 1806C.

[0358] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and quadrature up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0359] 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, RF circuit 1806 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuits, and baseband circuit 1810 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with RF circuit 1806.

[0360] 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.

[0361] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1806D may 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 1806D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0362] Synthesizer circuit 1806D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on a frequency input and a divider control input for use by mixer circuit 1806A of RF circuit 1806. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1806D may be a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer.

[0363] In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by the baseband circuit 1810 or the application circuit 1605 / 1705 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 the application circuit 1605 / 1705.

[0364] The synthesizer circuit 1806D of the RF circuit 1806 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.

[0365] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 1806D 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 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 1806 can include an IQ / polarity converter.

[0366] FEM circuitry 1808 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 1811, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to RF circuitry 1806 for further processing. FEM circuitry 1808 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify transmit signals provided by RF circuitry 1806 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in antenna array 1811. In various embodiments, amplification by the transmit or receive signal path may be accomplished only in RF circuitry 1806, only in FEM circuitry 1808, or in both RF circuitry 1806 and FEM circuitry 1808.

[0367] In some embodiments, the FEM circuit 1808 may include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuit 1808 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuit 1808 may include an LNA to amplify a received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., provided to the RF circuit 1806). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuit 1808 may include a power amplifier (PA) for amplifying an input RF signal (e.g., provided by the RF circuit 1806), and one or more filters for generating an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 1811.

[0368] The antenna array 1811 includes one or more antenna elements, each of which can be 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 1810 is converted into an analog RF signal (e.g., a modulated waveform), which can be amplified and transmitted via the antenna elements of the antenna array 1811 including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements can be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements can form a variety of arrangements as known and / or described in this application. The antenna array 1811 may include a microstrip antenna or a printed antenna manufactured on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 1811 can be formed as a patch of metal foil of various shapes (e.g., a patch antenna) and can be coupled to the RF circuit 1806 and / or the FEM circuit 1808 using a metal transmission line or the like.

[0369] Exemplary Protocol Functionality That May Be Implemented in a Wireless Communication Device

[0370] The processor of the application circuit 1605 / 1705 and the processor of the baseband circuit 1810 can be used to execute elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuit 1810 can be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuit 1605 / 1705 can utilize data received from these layers (e.g., packet data) and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., transport communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include a radio resource control (RRC) layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may include a physical (PHY) layer of a UE / RAN node, which will be described in further detail below.

[0371] Fig.19 Various protocol functions that can be implemented in a wireless communication device according to various embodiments are shown. Specifically, Fig.19 An arrangement 1900 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.19 The following description, but Fig.19 Some or all aspects of the invention may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0372] In addition to other higher layer functions not shown, the protocol layers of arrangement 1900 may also include one or more of PHY 1910, MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940, SDAP 1947, RRC 1955, and NAS layer 1957. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g., Fig.19 Items 1959, 1956, 1950, 1949, 1945, 1935, 1925 and 1915).

[0373] PHY 1910 transmits and receives physical layer signals 1910, which can be received from or transmitted to one or more other communication devices. PHY 1910 may include one or more physical channels, such as those described herein. PHY 1910 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 (such as, RRC 1955). PHY 1910 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 some embodiments, via one or more PHY-SAP 1915, an instance of PHY 1910 may process a request from an instance of MAC 1920 and provide an indication thereof. According to some embodiments, the request and indication transmitted via PHY-SAP 1915 may include one or more transmission channels.

[0374] An instance of MAC 1920 processes requests from and provides indications to an instance of RLC 1930 via one or more MAC-SAPs 1925. These requests and indications transmitted via MAC-SAP 1925 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 1920 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 1910 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 1910 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.

[0375] An instance of RLC 1930 processes requests from an instance of PDCP 1940 and provides indications thereto via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 1935. These requests and indications transmitted via RLC-SAPs 1935 may include one or more RLC channels. RLC 1930 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM), and acknowledged mode (AM). RLC 1930 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 1930 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.

[0376] An instance of PDCP 1940 processes requests from and provides indications to an instance of RRC 1955 and / or an instance of SDAP 1947 via one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Access Points (PDCP-SAPs) 1945. These requests and indications transmitted via PDCP-SAP 1945 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 1940 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP sequence numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence 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.).

[0377] An instance of SDAP 1947 processes requests from one or more higher layer protocol entities via one or more SDAP-SAPs 1949 and provides instructions thereto. These requests and instructions transmitted via SDAP-SAPs 1949 may include one or more QoS flows. SDAP 1947 may map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and may also mark QFIs in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 1947 may be configured for a separate PDU session. In the UL direction, NG-RAN 1310 may control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, SDAP 1947 of UE 1301 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 1947 of UE 1301 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 the reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 510 may mark the DL packets with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. The explicit mapping may involve the RRC 1955 configuring the SDAP 1947 with explicit mapping rules of QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 1947. In some embodiments, the SDAP 1947 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

[0378] The RRC 1955 configures aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 1910, MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940, and SDAP 1947, via one or more Management Service Access Points (M-SAPs). In some embodiments, an instance of the RRC 1955 may process requests from one or more NAS entities 1957 and provide instructions thereto, via one or more RRC-SAPs 1956. The main services and functions of the RRC 1955 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 1301 and the RAN 1310 (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.

[0379] NAS 1957 forms the highest layer of the control plane between UE 1301 and AMF 521. NAS 1957 supports the mobility and session management procedures of UE 1301 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 1301 and P-GW in the LTE system.

[0380] According to various implementations, one or more protocol entities of the arrangement 1900 may be implemented in the UE 1301, the RAN node 1311, the AMF 521 in the NR implementation or the MME 1421 in the LTE implementation, the UPF 502 in the NR implementation or the S-GW 1422 and the P-GW 1423 in the LTE implementation, etc., for control plane or user plane communication protocol stacks between the aforementioned devices. In such implementations, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of the UE 1301, the gNB 1311, the AMF 521, etc. are capable of communicating 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 gNB 1311 may host the gNB's RRC 1955, SDAP 1947, and PDCP 1940 that control operations of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB 1311 may each host the RLC 1930, MAC 1920, and PHY 1310 of gNB 1311.

[0381] In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 1357, RRC 1355, PDCP 1940, RLC 1930, MAC 1320, and PHY 1310. In this example, an upper layer 1960 may be built on top of NAS 1357, which includes an IP layer 1961, SCTP 1962, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 1963.

[0382] In a NR specific implementation, AP 1963 can be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 1963 for the NG interface 1313 defined between the NG-RAN node 1311 and the AMF521, or AP 1963 can be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 1963 for the Xn interface 212 defined between two or more RAN nodes 1311.

[0383] NG-AP 1963 supports the functions of NG interface 1313 and may include a primary procedure (EP). NG-AP EP may be an interaction unit between NG-RAN node 1311 and AMF521. NG-AP 1963 services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to UE 1301) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between NG-RAN node 1311 and AMF521). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to the NG-RAN node 1311 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing the AMF521 to establish, modify and / or release the UE context in the AMF521 and the NG-RAN node 1311; a mobility function for the UE 1301 in ECM-CONNECTED mode, for enabling intra-system HO to support mobility within the NG-RAN and 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 1301 and the AMF521; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF521 and the UE 1301; 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 NAS signaling transport function for transmitting or rerouting NAS messages between the UE 1301 and the AMF521; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF521 and the UE 1301; a 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 NAS signaling transport function for transmitting or rerouting NAS messages via the CN 1320 A configuration transmission function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (eg, SON information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 1311; and / or other similar functions.

[0384] XnAP 1963 supports the functions of Xn interface 212 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within NG RAN 1311 (or E-UTRAN 1310), 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. XnAP global procedures may include procedures unrelated to a specific UE 1301, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, etc.

[0385] In an LTE specific implementation, AP 1963 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1963 for an S1 interface 1313 defined between an E-UTRAN node 1311 and an MME, or AP 1963 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 1963 for an X2 interface 212 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 1311.

[0386] The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1963 supports the functions of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP described previously, the S1-AP may include an S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the E-UTRAN node 1311 and the MME 1421 within the LTE CN 1320. The S1-AP 1963 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.

[0387] The X2AP 1963 supports the functions of the X2 interface 212 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 1320, 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 1301, such as an X2 interface setup and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, a cell activation procedure, etc.

[0388] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 1962 provides guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). SCTP 1962 can ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 1311 and the AMF521 / MME 1421 based in part on the IP protocol supported by IP 1961. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 1961 can be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some embodiments, the IP layer 1961 can deliver and transmit PDUs using point-to-point transmission. In this regard, the RAN node 1311 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0389] In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include SDAP 1947, PDCP 1940, RLC 1930, MAC 1320, and PHY 1310 in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between UE 1301, RAN node 1311, and UPF 502 in NR implementation, or communication between S-GW 1422 and P-GW 1423 in LTE implementation. In this example, the upper layer 1951 may be built on top of SDAP 1947 and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP / IP) 1952, a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for a user plane layer (GTP-U) 1953, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 1963.

[0390] The transport network layer 1954 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and the GTP-U 1953 may be used on top of the UDP / IP layer 1952 (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.

[0391] GTP-U 1953 is 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 packets in any of the IPv4, IPv6 or PPP formats. UDP / IP 1952 provides checksums for data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data flows. The RAN node 1311 and the S-GW 1422 can utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 1910), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940 and / or SDAP 1947), a UDP / IP layer 1952, and GTP-U 1953. S-GW 1422 and P-GW 1423 may exchange user plane data using an S5 / S8a interface via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP / IP layer 1952, and a GTP-U 1953. As previously described, the NAS protocol supports the mobility and session management procedures of UE 1301 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 1301 and P-GW 1423.

[0392] In addition, despite Fig.19Not shown, but an application layer may exist above the AP 1963 and / or transport network layer 1954. The application layer may be a layer where a user of the UE 1301, RAN node 1311, or other network element interacts with a software application, for example, executed by the application circuit 1620 or the application circuit 1705, respectively. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for the software application to interact with the communication system (such as the baseband circuit 1810) of the UE 1301 or RAN node 1311. In some embodiments, the IP layer and / or the application layer provide the same or similar functionality as 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).

[0393] Fig. 20 Components of the core network according to various embodiments are shown. The components of CN 1420 may be implemented in one physical node or 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, the components of CN 520 can be implemented in the same or similar manner as described herein with respect to the components of CN 1420. In some embodiments, NFV is 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). The logical instance of CN 1420 may be referred to as a network slice 2001, and each logical instance of CN1420 provides specific network functions and network characteristics. A logical instance of a portion of CN 1420 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 2002 (e.g., the network sub-slice 2002 is shown as including a P-GW 1423 and a PCRF 1426).

[0394] As used herein, the terms "instantiation" and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to the concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code. A network instance may refer to information identifying a domain, which may be used for traffic detection and routing in different IP domains or in the case of overlapping IP addresses. A network slice instance may refer to a set of network function (NF) instances and the resources (e.g., computing, storage, and networking resources) required to deploy a network slice.

[0395] Regarding 5G systems (see e.g. above Fig.15), a network slice always includes a radio access network (RAN) part and a core network (CN) part. Support for network slicing relies on the principle that traffic for different slices is handled by different protocol data unit (PDU) sessions. The network can implement different network slices by scheduling and also by providing different L1 / L2 configurations. If NAS has provided a radio resource control (RRC) message, UE 1501 provides auxiliary information for network slice selection in an appropriate RRC message. Although the network can support a large number of slices, the UE does not need to support more than 8 slices at the same time.

[0396] The network slice may include a CN 520 control plane and user plane network functions (NFs), a next generation radio access network (NG-RAN) 1510 in the serving PLMN, and an N3IWF function in the serving PLMN. Each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI and / or may have a different SST. The NSSAI includes one or more S-NSSAIs, and each network slice is uniquely identified by an S-NSSAI. The network slice may differ in terms of supported features and network function optimizations, and / or multiple network slice instances may deliver the same service / feature, but differ for different UE 1501 groups (e.g., enterprise users). For example, each network slice may deliver different committed services and / or may be dedicated to a specific customer or enterprise. In this example, each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI with the same SST but with a different slice differentiator. In addition, a single UE may be served simultaneously by one or more network slice instances via a 5G AN and be associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. In addition, an AMF 1521 instance serving a single UE 1501 may belong to each network slice instance serving that UE.

[0397] Network slicing in NG-RAN 1510 involves RAN slice awareness. RAN slice awareness includes differentiated processing of traffic for different network slices that have been pre-configured. Slice awareness in NG-RAN 1510 is introduced at the PDU session level by indicating the S-NSSAI corresponding to the PDU session in all signaling including PDU session resource information. How NG-RAN 1510 supports slices enabled in terms of NG-RAN functions (e.g., a set of network functions including each slice) is implementation-dependent. NG-RAN 1510 selects the RAN portion of the network slice using auxiliary information provided by UE 1501 or 5GC 520, which explicitly identifies one or more network slices in the pre-configured network slices in the PLMN. NG-RAN1510 also supports resource management and policy enforcement between slices according to SRA. A single NG-RAN node supports multiple slices, and NG-RAN 1510 can also apply appropriate RRM policies for SLAs in appropriate locations to each supported slice. NG-RAN 1510 can also support QoS differences within slices.

[0398] If available, the NG-RAN 1510 may also use UE assistance information to select an AMF 1521 during the initial attach. The NG-RAN 1510 routes the initial NAS to the AMF 1521 using the assistance information. If the NG-RAN 1510 cannot select an AMF 1521 using the assistance information, or the UE 1501 does not provide any such information, the NG-RAN 1510 sends the NAS signaling to a default AMF 1521, which may be in the AMF 1521 pool. For subsequent access, the UE 1501 provides the temp ID assigned to the UE 1501 by the 5GC 520 to enable the NG-RAN 1510 to route the NAS message to the appropriate AMF 1521, as long as the tempID is valid. The NG-RAN 1510 is aware of and can reach the AMF 1521 associated with the temp ID. Otherwise, the method for initial attach applies.

[0399] The NG-RAN 1510 supports resource isolation between slices. NG-RAN 1510 resource isolation can be achieved with the help of RRM policies and protection mechanisms, which can avoid the shortage of shared resources in the case where one slice interrupts the service level agreement of another slice. In some embodiments, NG-RAN 1510 resources can be fully assigned to a slice. How the NG-RAN 1510 supports resource isolation depends on the specific implementation.

[0400] Some slices may be partially available in the network. Awareness in the NG-RAN 1510 of the slices supported in its neighboring cells may be beneficial for inter-frequency mobility in connected mode. Slice availability may not change within the registration area of ​​the UE. The NG-RAN 1510 and 5GC 520 are responsible for handling service requests for slices that may or may not be available in a given area. The admission or denial of access to a slice may depend on factors such as support for the slice, availability of resources, support of the requested service by the NG-RAN 1510, and the like.

[0401] UE 1501 may be associated with multiple network slices simultaneously. In the case where UE 1501 is associated with multiple slices simultaneously, only one signaling connection is maintained and for intra-frequency cell reselection, UE 1501 attempts to camp on the best cell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, dedicated priorities may be used to control the frequency that UE 1501 camps on. 5GC 520 will verify that UE 1501 has the right to access the network slice. Prior to receiving the Initial Context Setup Request message, NG-RAN 1510 may be allowed to apply some temporary / local policies based on the perception of the specific slice that UE 1501 is requesting access to. During the Initial Context Setup, NG-RAN 1510 is informed of the slice for which resources are being requested.

[0402] Network Function Virtualization (NFV) architecture and infrastructure can be used to virtualize one or more NFs (alternatively executed by proprietary hardware) onto physical resources including a combination of industry standard server hardware, storage hardware or switches. In other words, the NFV system can be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0403] Fig.21 21 is a block diagram illustrating components of a system 2100 for supporting network function virtualization (NFV) according to some exemplary embodiments. The system 2100 is shown to include a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) 2102, a network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) 2104, a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) 2106, a VNF 2108, an element manager (EM) 2110, a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) 2112, and a network manager (NM) 2114.

[0404] The VIM 2102 manages resources of the NFVI 2104. The NFVI 2104 may include physical or virtual resources and applications (including hypervisors) for executing the system 2100. The VIM 2102 may utilize the NFVI 2104 to manage the lifecycle of virtual resources (e.g., creation, maintenance, and teardown of virtual machines (VMs) associated with one or more physical resources), track VM instances, track performance, failures, and security of VM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instances and associated physical resources to other management systems.

[0405] The VNFM 2106 may manage the VNF 2108. The VNF 2108 may be used to perform Evolved Packet Core (EPC) components / functions. The VNFM 2106 may manage the lifecycle of the VNF 2108 and track the performance, failures, and security of the virtual aspects of the VNF 2108. The EM 2110 may track the performance, failures, and security of the functional aspects of the VNF 2108. The tracking data from the VNFM 2106 and the EM 2110 may include, for example, PM data used by the VIM 2102 or the NFVI 2104. Both the VNFM 2106 and the EM 1910 may scale up / down the number of VNFs of the system 2100.

[0406] NFVO 2112 can coordinate, authorize, release, and engage resources of NFVI 2104 to provide requested services (e.g., execute EPC functions, components, or slices). NM 2114 provides an end-user functional grouping responsible for network management, which may include network elements with VNFs, non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of VNFs may occur via EM 2110).

[0407] Fig. 22 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 described herein according to some exemplary embodiments. Specifically, Fig. 22 A schematic diagram of hardware resources 2200 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 2210, one or more memory / storage devices 2220, and one or more communication resources 2230, each of which can be communicatively coupled via a bus 2240. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 2202 can be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 2200.

[0408] Processor 2210 may include, for example, processor 2212 and processor 2214. Processor 2210 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 described herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

[0409] The memory / storage device 2220 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 2220 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.

[0410] The communication resources 2230 may include an interconnect or network interface component or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 2204 or one or more databases 2206 via the network 2208. For example, the communication resources 2230 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.

[0411] The instructions 2250 may include software, programs, applications, applets, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 2210 to perform any one or more of the methodologies described herein. The instructions 2250 may reside in whole or in part in at least one of the processors 2210 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 2220, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 2250 may be transferred to the hardware resources 2200 from any combination of the peripheral device 2204 or the database 2206. Therefore, the memory of the processor 2210, the memory / storage device 2220, the peripheral device 2204, and the database 2206 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0412] Exemplary Operation Methods

[0413] Fig.23A flow chart for operating on an unlicensed spectrum according to some embodiments is shown. The present disclosure is not limited to this operational description. On the contrary, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art that other operational control flows are also within the scope and spirit of the present disclosure. The following discussion describes an exemplary operational control flow 2300 for operating on an unlicensed spectrum as described above. The exemplary operational control flow 2300 may be executed by one or more of the processors or processor circuits described herein, including those included in the application circuit 1605 or 1705, the baseband circuit 1610 or 1710, and / or the processor 2214.

[0414] At operation 2302, the operation control flow 2300 may receive a downlink (DL) signal including information associated with a listen-before-talk (LBT) type.

[0415] At operation 2304, the operation control flow 2300 may perform UL transmission based on the LBT type.

[0416] Exemplary embodiments

[0417] The exemplary embodiments described herein are illustrative and not exhaustive. These exemplary embodiments are not intended to be limiting.

[0418] Some embodiments may include a method of performing an uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. In these embodiments, performing the UL transmission may include performing a grant-based physical uplink shared channel (CG PUSCH) transmission and performing a configuration grant-based PUSCH (CG PUSCH) transmission.

[0419] In these embodiments, downlink (DL) control information (DCI) format DCI0_1, can schedule multiple transmission time intervals (TTIs) for a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0420] In these embodiments, downlink (DL) control information (DCI) scheduled for multiple transmission time intervals (TTIs) for PUSCH may have a different number of code block group (CBG) transmission information (CBGTI) bits per transport block (TB) compared to DCI scheduled for a single TTI for PUSCH, where CBG regrouping is employed.

[0421] In these embodiments, for PUSCH transmission based on code block groups (CBGs), N>1 hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process is allocated for each hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process used to configure a grant (CG). In these embodiments, one bit may be allocated for other HARQ processes where N is an integer.

[0422] In these embodiments, for PUSCH transmission based on code block groups (CBGs), a subset of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes configured for a configured grant (CG) are allocated N>1 hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) bits. In these embodiments, one bit may be allocated for all other HARQ processes where N is an integer.

[0423] In these embodiments, for a GB PUSCH associated with a plurality of time slots, a user equipment (UE) may transmit continuously in the plurality of time slots in response to the UE occupying the channel by performing a listen-before-talk (LBT) operation. In these embodiments, the channel may be a GB PUSCH. In these embodiments, the UE may follow a start symbol indicated in a first time slot of the plurality of time slots used to occupy the channel. In these embodiments, the UE may follow an end symbol indicated in a last time slot of the plurality of time slots used to occupy the channel. In these embodiments, in response to a failure of the LBT operation in a first time slot of the plurality of time slots, the UE may perform a second LBT operation at symbol 0 of a time slot of the plurality of time slots, which may follow the first time slot of the plurality of time slots.

[0424] In these embodiments, in response to the UE being indicated as having no LBT:

[0425] The UE may perform LBT-free operation to start transmission in each UL burst.

[0426] The UE may perform LBT-free operation in the first UL burst, or

[0427] The UE may perform LBT-free operation in response to a start symbol of the GB PUSCH, which is associated with a number of slots following a downlink (DL) symbol or a flexible symbol, as shown in DL control information (DCI) format DCI 2_0.

[0428] In these embodiments, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) for a slot in the plurality of slots may be based on a PUSCH type indicated by downlink (DL) control information (DCI).

[0429] In these embodiments, a first demodulation reference signal (DMRS) associated with a first time slot of the plurality of time slots may be based on a PUSCH type indicated by downlink (DL) control information, and a second DMRS associated with a second time slot of the plurality of time slots may include a DMRS of PUSCH type A. In these embodiments, PUSCH type A mapping may be used for CG transmissions.

[0430] In these embodiments, in response to a GB PUSCH in a last time slot being available for transmission, channel state information (CSI) may be preferentially associated with a last time slot among multiple time slots, or in response to no LBT being used to schedule GB PUSCH associated with multiple time slots, the CSI may be associated with a first time slot among multiple time slots.

[0431] In these embodiments, a configured grant (CG) uplink (UL) control information (UCI) may be associated with the first time slot repetition of a transport block (TB); the CG UCI may be associated with each time slot of a plurality of time slots, or the CG UCI may be associated in the start time slot repetition of a TB on each UL burst.

[0432] In these embodiments, the user equipment (UE) may perform rate matching of a transport block (TB) over N time slots. In these embodiments, the rate matching operation may be repeated M times for a total number of time slot repetitions MN, where M and N are integers.

[0433] In these embodiments, the starting position of the uplink (UL) transmission can be determined as an offset X on symbol k, where k is the index of the starting symbol of the start and length indicator value (SLIV). In these embodiments, the starting position of the uplink (UL) transmission can be determined as an offset X on symbol k-1, symbol k-2, or symbol k-4. In these embodiments, the starting position can be generated in the form of 1, 2, or 4 symbols. In these embodiments, the starting position can be generated in one symbol of a 15 kilohertz (kHz) subcarrier spacing (SCS). In these embodiments, the offset X can be a subset of one or more of the following: 0μs, 16μs, 25μs, 25μs+timing advance (TA), 16μs+TA, TA, a length of 1 symbol, a length of 2 symbols, and a special value indicating that the UL transmission should follow the downlink (DL) reception timing. In these embodiments, the offset X can be designed independently of the listen-before-talk (LBT) type. In these embodiments, the offset X can be interpreted based on the listen-before-talk (LBT) type. In these embodiments, the offset X and the listen-before-talk (LBT) type may be jointly encoded. In these embodiments, for an offset X=16+timing advance (TA), a user equipment (UE) may form a gap between a downlink (DL) signal and an uplink (UL) signal. In these embodiments, the gap is in the range of Gmin microseconds (μs) to 16μs, where Gmin is the minimum value of the gap. In these embodiments, for an offset X=16+timing advance (TA), a next generation Node B (gNB) may generate a gap between a downlink (DL) signal and an uplink (UL) signal, where the gap is in the range of Gmin microseconds (μs) to 16μs, and where Gmin is the minimum value of the gap.

[0434] In these embodiments, within the next generation Node B (gNB) initiated channel occupancy time (COT), a starting position with an offset X>25μs may be applicable to the CG PUSCH. In these embodiments, within the next generation Node B (gNB) initiated channel occupancy time (COT), a starting position with an offset X>16μs may be applicable to the CG PUSCH. In these embodiments, within the next generation Node B (gNB) initiated channel occupancy time (COT), no listen before talk (LBT) may be indicated in the downlink (DL) control information (DCI), where the CG PUSCH is associated with a LBT with a value of 25μs. In these embodiments, code block group (CBG) transmission or CBG retransmission may be enabled for a configuration grant (CG) with 8 bits carrying CBG transmission information (CBGTI) in the CG uplink (UL) control information (UCI).

[0435] In these embodiments, radio resource control (RRC) signaling may be used to configure time domain resources associated with a configured grant (CG) transmission via a 40-bit long bitmap that may be independent of the subcarrier spacing (SCS) and in which each bit corresponds to a time slot.

[0436] In these embodiments, a configured granted (CG) user equipment (UE) may include a plurality of start symbols as a subset of symbols preceding a demodulation reference signal (DMRS). In these embodiments, the plurality of start symbols may include symbol #0 and symbol #1.

[0437] In these embodiments, for a subcarrier spacing (SCS) of 15 kilohertz (kHZ) SCS or an SCS of 60 kHz, the offset may be truncated until the second symbol.

[0438] In these embodiments, the uplink control information (UCI) for a configured grant (CG) carrier may include an indication of whether two symbols are used in the entire two bits, wherein the indication includes an indication of whether the CG data transmission starts from symbol #0, symbol #1, or symbol #2.

[0439] Some embodiments may include a method of performing an uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum. The method may include receiving or causing reception of a downlink (DL) signal including information associated with listen-before-talk (type); and performing or causing performance of the UL transmission based on the LBT type.

[0440] In these embodiments, the LBT type may include one or more of the following: a Category 1 (CAT-1) LBT type, a Category 2 (CAT-2) LBT type, and a Category 4 (CAT-4) LBT type.

[0441] In these embodiments, when the LBT type is a CAT-1 LBT type, performing or causing performance of UL transmission based on the LBT type may include determining or causing determination that the UL transmission will start no later than T microseconds (μs) after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; and performing or causing performance of the UL transmission at or before Tμs.

[0442] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs.

[0443] In these embodiments, when the LBT type is a CAT-2 LBT type, performing or causing an UL transmission to be performed based on the LBT type may include: determining or causing a determination that a duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold, and in response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, performing or causing an UL transmission to be performed at T microseconds (μs) after receiving a DL signal, where T is a number.

[0444] In these embodiments, Tμs may be 16μs or 25μs.

[0445] In these embodiments, the threshold may be 584 μs.

[0446] In these embodiments, when the LBT type is a CAT-4 LBT type, performing or causing an UL transmission to be performed based on the LBT type may include: generating or causing a counter to be generated, decrementing or causing the counter to be decremented based on the number of idle channel assessment (CCA) time slots, and performing or causing an UL transmission to be performed when the counter can no longer be decremented.

[0447] In these embodiments, the starting position of the UL transmission can be a boundary of a reference symbol, and the reference symbol can include one or more of: orthogonal frequency division multiplexing symbol (OS) k, OS k+1, and OS k+2, where k is a number equal to or greater than 0.

[0448] In these embodiments, the starting position of the UL transmission may be the sum of a boundary of a reference symbol boundary and an offset, and wherein each of the reference symbol boundary and the offset is expressed in microseconds (μs).

[0449] In these embodiments, the offset may be one or more of: 0 μs, 25 μs, 25 μs+Timing Advance (TA), 16 μs, 16 μs+TA, TA, a length of 1 symbol, and a length of 2 symbols.

[0450] Some embodiments may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of the above embodiments, or any other method or process described herein.

[0451] Some embodiments may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media that include instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of the above embodiments or any other method or process described herein.

[0452] Some embodiments may include an apparatus comprising logic components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of the above embodiments or any other method or process described herein.

[0453] Some embodiments may include methods, techniques, or processes, or portions or components thereof, as described in or related to any of the above embodiments.

[0454] Some embodiments may include a device comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media, the one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portion thereof, as described in or related to any of the above embodiments.

[0455] Some embodiments may include signals, or portions or components thereof, as described in or in connection with any of the above embodiments.

[0456] Some embodiments may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0457] Some embodiments may include methods of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0458] Some embodiments may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0459] Some embodiments may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0460] Some embodiments may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more of the methods described above in conjunction with the embodiments described above.

[0461] Some embodiments may include an apparatus including circuitry configured to perform one or more of the methods described above in conjunction with the embodiments described above.

[0462] Some embodiments may include an apparatus according to any of the above embodiments, wherein the apparatus or any part thereof is implemented in or by a user equipment (UE).

[0463] Some embodiments may include a method according to any of the above embodiments, wherein the method or any part thereof is implemented in or by a user equipment (UE).

[0464] Some embodiments may include an apparatus according to any of the above embodiments, wherein the apparatus or any part thereof is implemented in or by a base station (BS).

[0465] Some embodiments may include a method according to any of the above embodiments, wherein the method or any part thereof is implemented in or by a base station (BS).

[0466] Unless otherwise expressly stated, any of the above embodiments may be combined with any other embodiment (or combination of embodiments). The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. In view of the above teachings, modifications and variations are possible or can be obtained from the practice of various embodiments.

[0467] abbreviation

[0468] For purposes of this disclosure, the following abbreviations may be applied to the examples and embodiments described herein but are not intended to be limiting.

[0469] 3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project

[0470] 4G Fourth Generation

[0471] 5G Fifth Generation

[0472] 5GC 5G Core Network

[0473] ACK

[0474] AF Application Function

[0475] AM Confirmation Mode

[0476] AMBR Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate

[0477] AMF Access and Mobility Management Function

[0478] AN Access Network

[0479] ANR Automatic Neighbor Relation

[0480] AP application protocol, antenna port, access point

[0481] API Application Programming Interface

[0482] APN Access Point Name

[0483] ARP Assignment Retention Priority

[0484] ARQ Automatic Repeat Request

[0485] AS Access Layer

[0486] ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation

[0487] AUSF authentication server function

[0488] AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise

[0489] BCH Broadcast Channel

[0490] BER Bit Error Rate

[0491] BFD Beam Fault Detection

[0492] BLER Block Error Rate

[0493] BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying

[0494] BRAS Broadband Remote Access Server

[0495] BSS Business Support System

[0496] BS Base Station

[0497] BSR Buffer Status Report

[0498] BW Bandwidth

[0499] BWP Bandwidth Part

[0500] C-RNTI Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0501] CA Carrier Aggregation, Certification Authority

[0502] CAPEX Capital Expenditure

[0503] CBRA Contention-based random access

[0504] CC component carrier, country code, encryption checksum

[0505] CCA Clear Channel Assessment

[0506] CCE Control Channel Element

[0507] CCCH Common Control Channel

[0508] CE Coverage Enhancement

[0509] CDM Content Delivery Network

[0510] CDMA Code Division Multiple Access

[0511] CFRA Contention-free random access

[0512] CG Cell Group

[0513] CI Cell ID

[0514] CID Cell ID (eg, positioning method)

[0515] CIM Common Information Model

[0516] CIR Carrier to Interference Ratio

[0517] CK Cryptographic Key

[0518] CM Connection Management, Conditionally Mandatory

[0519] CMAS Commercial Mobile Alert Service

[0520] CMD command

[0521] CMS Cloud Management System

[0522] CO Conditional optional

[0523] CoMP Coordinated Multipoint

[0524] CORESET Control Resource Set

[0525] COTS Commercial Off-the-Shelf

[0526] CP Control Plane, Cyclic Prefix, Attachment Point

[0527] CPD Connection Point Descriptor

[0528] CPE user terminal equipment

[0529] CPICH Common Pilot Channel

[0530] CQI Channel Quality Indicator

[0531] CPU CSI processing unit, central processing unit

[0532] C / R Command / Response field bit

[0533] CRAN Cloud Radio Access Network, Cloud RAN

[0534] CRB Common Resource Block

[0535] CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check

[0536] CRI Channel State Information Resource Indicator, CSI-RS Resource Indicator

[0537] C-RNTI Cell RNTI

[0538] CS Circuit Switched

[0539] CSAR Cloud Service Archive

[0540] CSI Channel State Information

[0541] CSI-IM CSI interference measurement

[0542] CSI-RS CSI reference signal

[0543] CSI-RSRP CSI reference signal received power

[0544] CSI-RSRQ CSI reference signal reception quality

[0545] CSI-SINR CSI signal to interference plus noise ratio

[0546] CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access

[0547] CSMA / CA CSMA with collision avoidance

[0548] CSS Common Search Space, Cell Specific Search Space

[0549] CTS Clear to Send

[0550] CW codeword

[0551] CWS Contention Window Size

[0552] D2D Device to Device

[0553] DC Dual Connection, Direct Current

[0554] DCI Downlink Control Information

[0555] DF deployment preferences

[0556] DL Downlink

[0557] DMTF Distributed Management Task Force

[0558] DPDK Data Plane Development Kit

[0559] DM-RS, DMRS Demodulation Reference Signal

[0560] DN Data Network

[0561] DRB Data Radio Bearer

[0562] DRS Discovery Reference Signal

[0563] DRX Discontinuous Reception

[0564] DSL Domain Specific Language Digital Subscriber Line

[0565] DSLAM DSL Access Multiplexer

[0566] DwPTS Downlink Pilot Time Slot

[0567] E-LAN ​​Ethernet Local Area Network

[0568] E2E End-to-End

[0569] ECCA Extended Clear Channel Assessment, Extended CCA

[0570] ECCE Enhanced Control Channel Element, Enhanced CCE

[0571] ED Energy Detection

[0572] EDGE Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (GSM Evolution)

[0573] EGMF exposes governance management functions

[0574] EGPRS Enhanced GPRS

[0575] EIR Equipment Identity Register

[0576] eLAA Enhanced License Assisted Access, enhanced LAA

[0577] EM Element Manager

[0578] eMBB Enhanced Mobile Broadband

[0579] EMS Element Management System

[0580] eNB Evolved Node B, E-UTRAN Node B

[0581] EN-DC E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity

[0582] EPC Evolved Packet Core

[0583] EPDCCH Enhanced PDCCH, Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0584] EPRE Energy per resource element

[0585] EPS Evolved Packet System

[0586] EREG Enhanced REG, enhanced resource element group

[0587] ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute

[0588] ETWS Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System

[0589] eUICC embedded UICC, embedded universal integrated circuit card

[0590] E-UTRA Evolved UTRA

[0591] E-UTRAN Evolved UTRAN

[0592] EV2X Enhanced V2X

[0593] F1AP F1 Application Protocol

[0594] F1-C F1 control plane interface

[0595] F1-U F1 User Plane Interface

[0596] FACCH Fast Associated Control Channel

[0597] FACCH / F Fast Associated Control Channel / Full Rate

[0598] FACCH / H Fast Associated Control Channel / Half Rate

[0599] FACH Forward Access Channel

[0600] FAUSCH Fast Uplink Signalling Channel

[0601] FB Function Block

[0602] FBI Feedback

[0603] FCC Federal Communications Commission

[0604] FCCH Frequency Correction Channel

[0605] FDD Frequency Division Duplex

[0606] FDM Frequency Division Multiplexing

[0607] FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0608] FE Front End

[0609] FEC Forward Error Correction

[0610] FFS for further study

[0611] FFT Fast Fourier Transform

[0612] feLAA Further Enhanced License Assisted Access, further enhanced LAA

[0613] FN Frame Number

[0614] FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

[0615] FR Frequency Range

[0616] G-RNTI GERAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0617] GERAN GSM EDGE RAN, GSM EDGE Radio Access Network

[0618] GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node

[0619] GLONASS GLObal'naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (Chinese: Global Navigation Satellite System)

[0620] gNB Next Generation Node B

[0621] gNB-CU gNB centralized unit, next generation Node B centralized unit

[0622] gNB-DU gNB distributed unit, next generation Node B distributed unit

[0623] GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

[0624] GPRS General Packet Radio Service

[0625] GSM Global System for Mobile Communications, Mobile Association

[0626] GTP GPRS Tunneling Protocol

[0627] GTP-U GPRS Tunneling Protocol for the User Plane

[0628] GTS Go to sleep signal (related to WUS)

[0629] GUMMEI Globally Unique MME Identifier

[0630] GUTI Globally Unique Temporary UE Identifier

[0631] HARQ Hybrid ARQ, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

[0632] HANDO, HO switch

[0633] HFN Superframe Number

[0634] HHO Hard Handover

[0635] HLR Home Location Register

[0636] HN Home Network

[0637] HO Switchover

[0638] HPLMN Home Public Land Mobile Network

[0639] HSDPA High Speed ​​Downlink Packet Access

[0640] HSN Hopping Sequence Number

[0641] HSPA High Speed ​​Packet Access

[0642] HSS Home Subscriber Server

[0643] HSUPA High Speed ​​Uplink Packet Access

[0644] HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol

[0645] HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https is http / 1.1 over SSL (i.e. port 443))

[0646] I-Block Information Block

[0647] ICCID Integrated Circuit Card Identifier

[0648] ICIC Inter-cell Interference Coordination

[0649] ID

[0650] IDFT Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform

[0651] IE Information Elements

[0652] IBE In-Band Emission

[0653] IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

[0654] IEI Information Element Identifier

[0655] IEIDL Information Element Identifier Data Length

[0656] IETF Internet Engineering Task Force

[0657] IF Infrastructure

[0658] IM Interference Measurement, Intermodulation, IP Multimedia

[0659] IMC IMS credentials

[0660] IMEI International Mobile Equipment Identity

[0661] IMGI International Mobile Group Identity

[0662] IMPI IP Multimedia Privacy Identity

[0663] IMPU IP Multimedia Public Identity

[0664] IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem

[0665] IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0666] IoT

[0667] IP Internet Protocol

[0668] IPsec IP security, Internet Protocol security

[0669] IP-CAN IP connection access network

[0670] IP-M IP Multicast

[0671] IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4

[0672] IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6

[0673] IR

[0674] IS Synchronization

[0675] IRP Integration Reference Point

[0676] ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

[0677] ISIM IM Service Identity Module

[0678] ISO International Organization for Standardization

[0679] ISP Internet Service Provider

[0680] IWF interworking function

[0681] I-WLAN Intercommunication WLAN

[0682] K is the constraint length of the convolutional code, USIM individual key

[0683] kB kilobyte (500 bytes)

[0684] kbps kilobits per second

[0685] Kc Cryptographic key

[0686] Ki Individual user authentication key

[0687] KPI Key Performance Indicator

[0688] KQI Key Quality Indicator

[0689] KSI Key Set Identifier

[0690] ksps kilosymbols per second

[0691] KVM Kernel Virtual Machine

[0692] L1 Layer 1 (physical layer)

[0693] L1-RSRP Layer 1 reference signal received power

[0694] L2 Layer 2 (Data Link Layer)

[0695] L3 Layer 3 (Network Layer)

[0696] LAA License Assisted Access

[0697] LAN Local Area Network

[0698] LBT Listen before you speak

[0699] LCM Lifecycle Management

[0700] LCR Low Chip Rate

[0701] LCS Location Services

[0702] LCID Logical Channel ID

[0703] LI layer indicator

[0704] LLC Logical Link Control, low layer compatibility

[0705] LPLMN Local PLMN

[0706] LPP LTE Positioning Protocol

[0707] LSB Least Significant Bit

[0708] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0709] LWA LTE-WLAN Aggregation

[0710] LWIP LTE / WLAN radio level integration with IPsec tunneling

[0711] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0712] M2M Machine to Machine

[0713] MAC Medium Access Control (Protocol Layer Context)

[0714] MAC Message Authentication Code (Security / Cryptography Context)

[0715] MAC-A MAC for authentication and key agreement (TSG T WG3 context)

[0716] MAC-I MAC for data integrity of signalling messages (TSG T WG3 context)

[0717] MANO Management and Orchestration

[0718] MBMS Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service

[0719] MBSFN Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Single Frequency Network

[0720] MCC Mobile Country Code

[0721] MCG Master Cell Group

[0722] MCOT Maximum Channel Occupancy Time

[0723] MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

[0724] MDAF Management Data Analysis Function

[0725] MDAS Management Data Analysis Service

[0726] Minimization of MDT-driven testing

[0727] ME Mobile Equipment

[0728] MeNB Master eNB

[0729] MER message error rate

[0730] MGL Measurement Gap Length

[0731] MGRP measurement gap repetition period

[0732] MIB Master Information Block, Management Information Base

[0733] MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output

[0734] MLC Mobile Location Center

[0735] MM Mobility Management

[0736] MME Mobility Management Entity

[0737] MN Master Node

[0738] MO measurement object, mobile station calling

[0739] MPBCH MTC Physical Broadcast Channel

[0740] MPDCCH MTC Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0741] MPDSCH MTC Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0742] MPRACH MTC Physical Random Access Channel

[0743] MPUSCH MTC Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0744] MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching

[0745] MS Mobile Station

[0746] MSB Most Significant Bit

[0747] MSC Mobile Switching Center

[0748] MSI minimum system information, MCH scheduling information

[0749] MSID Mobile Station Identifier

[0750] MSIN Mobile Station Identification Number

[0751] MSISDN Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number

[0752] MT mobile station called, mobile terminal

[0753] MTC Machine Type Communication

[0754] mMTC Massive MTC, Massive Machine Type Communication

[0755] MU-MIMO Multi-User MIMO

[0756] MWUS MTC wake-up signal, MTC WUS

[0757] NACK Negative Acknowledgement

[0758] NAI Network Access Identifier

[0759] NAS Non-Access Stratum, Non-Access Stratum

[0760] NCT Network Connection Topology

[0761] NEC network capabilities exposed

[0762] NE-DC NR-E-UTRA dual connectivity

[0763] NEF Network Exposure Function

[0764] NF Network Function

[0765] NFP Network Forwarding Path

[0766] NFPD Network Forwarding Path Descriptor

[0767] NFV Network Function Virtualization

[0768] NFVI NFV Infrastructure

[0769] NFVO NFV Orchestrator

[0770] NG Next generation, next generation

[0771] NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity

[0772] NM Network Manager

[0773] NMS Network Management System

[0774] N-PoP Network Point of Presence

[0775] NMIB, N-MIB Narrowband MIB

[0776] NPBCH Narrowband Physical Broadcast Channel

[0777] NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0778] NPDSCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0779] NPRACH Narrowband Physical Random Access Channel

[0780] NPUSCH Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0781] NPSS Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal

[0782] NSSS Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal

[0783] NR New Radio, Neighbor Relations

[0784] NRF NF Repository Functionality

[0785] NRS Narrowband Reference Signal

[0786] NS Network Services

[0787] NSA Non-standalone operation mode

[0788] NSD Network Service Descriptor

[0789] NSR Network Service Record

[0790] NSSAI Network Slice Selection Assistance Information

[0791] S-NNSAI Single NSSAI

[0792] NSSF network slice selection function

[0793] NW Network

[0794] NWUS Narrowband wake-up signal, narrowband WUS

[0795] NZP Non Zero Power

[0796] O&M Operation and Maintenance

[0797] ODU2 Optical Channel Data Unit - Type 2

[0798] OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

[0799] OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0800] OOB Out of Band

[0801] OOS Out of Sync

[0802] OPEX Operating Expenditure

[0803] OSI Other System Information

[0804] OSS Operation Support System

[0805] OTA Air

[0806] PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio

[0807] PAR Peak to Average Ratio

[0808] PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel

[0809] PC Power Control, Personal Computer

[0810] PCC Primary Component Carrier, Primary CC

[0811] PCell Primary Cell

[0812] PCI Physical Cell ID, Physical Cell Identity

[0813] PCEF Policy and Charging Enforcement Function

[0814] PCF Policy Control Function

[0815] PCRF Policy Control and Charging Rules Function

[0816] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol, Packet Data Convergence Protocol Layer

[0817] PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0818] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol

[0819] PDN Packet Data Network, Public Data Network

[0820] PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0821] PDU Protocol Data Unit

[0822] PEI Permanent Equipment Identifier

[0823] PFD Packet Flow Description

[0824] P-GW PDN Gateway

[0825] PHICH Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel

[0826] PHY Physical Layer

[0827] PLMN Public Land Mobile Network

[0828] PIN Personal Identification Number

[0829] PM performance measurement

[0830] PMI Precoding matrix indicator

[0831] PNF Physical Network Function

[0832] PNFD Physical Network Functional Descriptor

[0833] PNFR Physical Network Function Record

[0834] POC PTT over Cellular

[0835] PP, PTP Point to Point

[0836] PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

[0837] PRACH Physical RACH

[0838] PRB Physical Resource Block

[0839] PRG Physical Resource Group

[0840] ProSe Proximity-based Services

[0841] PRS Positioning Reference Signal

[0842] PRR Packet Receive Radio

[0843] PS Packet Service

[0844] PSBCH Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel

[0845] PSDCH Physical Sidelink Downlink Channel

[0846] PSCCH Physical Sidelink Control Channel

[0847] PSSCH Physical Sidelink Shared Channel

[0848] PSCell Primary SCell

[0849] PSS Primary Synchronization Signal

[0850] PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

[0851] PT-RS Phase Tracking Reference Signal

[0852] PTT Push to Talk

[0853] PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

[0854] PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0855] QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

[0856] QCI QoS Class Identifier

[0857] QCL Quasi-Co-sited

[0858] QFI QoS flow ID, QoS flow identifier

[0859] QoS Quality of Service

[0860] QPSK Quadrature (Quaternary) Phase Shift Keying

[0861] QZSS Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

[0862] RA-RNTI Random Access RNTI

[0863] RAB Radio Access Bearer, Random Access Burst

[0864] RACH Random Access Channel

[0865] RADIUS Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service

[0866] RAN Radio Access Network

[0867] RAND random number (for authentication)

[0868] RAR Random Access Response

[0869] RAT Radio Access Technology

[0870] RAU Routing Area Update

[0871] RB Resource Block, Radio Bearer

[0872] RBG Resource Block Group

[0873] REG Resource Element Group

[0874] Rel Release

[0875] REQ Request

[0876] RF

[0877] RI Rank Indicator

[0878] RIV Resource Indicator Value

[0879] RL Radio Link

[0880] RLC Radio Link Control, Radio Link Control Layer

[0881] RLC AM RLC Acknowledgement Mode

[0882] RLC UM RLC Unacknowledged Mode

[0883] RLF Radio Link Failure

[0884] RLM Radio Link Monitoring

[0885] RLM-RS Reference signal for RLM

[0886] RM Registration Management

[0887] RMC Reference Measurement Channel

[0888] RMSI Remaining MSI, Remaining Minimum System Information

[0889] RN Relay Node

[0890] RNC Radio Network Controller

[0891] RNL Radio Network Layer

[0892] RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0893] ROHC Robust Header Compression

[0894] RRC Radio Resource Control, Radio Resource Control Layer

[0895] RRM Radio Resource Management

[0896] RS reference signal

[0897] RSRP Reference Signal Received Power

[0898] RSRQ Reference Signal Received Quality

[0899] RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator

[0900] RSU Road Side Unit

[0901] RSTD Reference Signal Time Difference

[0902] RTP Real Time Protocol

[0903] RTS Ready to Send

[0904] RTT Round Trip Time

[0905] Rx receive, receive, receiver

[0906] S1AP S1 Application Protocol

[0907] S1-MME is used for S1 control plane

[0908] S1-U S1 for user plane

[0909] S-GW Service Gateway

[0910] S-RNTI SRNC Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0911] S-TMSI SAE temporary mobile station identifier

[0912] SA Standalone Operation Mode

[0913] SAE system architecture evolution

[0914] SAP Service Access Point

[0915] SAPD Service Access Point Descriptor

[0916] SAPI Service Access Point Identifier

[0917] SCC Secondary Component Carrier, Secondary CC

[0918] SCell Secondary Cell

[0919] SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0920] SCG Secondary Cell Group

[0921] SCM Security Context Management

[0922] SCS Subcarrier Spacing

[0923] SCTP Stream Control Transmission Protocol

[0924] SDAP Service Data Adaptation Protocol, Service Data Adaptation Protocol Layer

[0925] SDL Supplemental Downlink

[0926] SDNF Structured Data Storage Network Function

[0927] SDP Service Discovery Protocol (Bluetooth related)

[0928] SDSF structured data storage function

[0929] SDU Service Data Unit

[0930] SEAF Security Anchoring Function

[0931] SeNB Assisted eNB

[0932] SEPP Security Edge Protection Proxy

[0933] SFI Slot Format Indicator

[0934] SFTD Space Frequency Time Diversity, SFN and Frame Timing Difference

[0935] SFN System Frame Number

[0936] SgNB

[0937] SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node

[0938] S-GW Service Gateway

[0939] SI System Information

[0940] SI-RNTI System Information RNTI

[0941] SIB System Information Block

[0942] SIM Subscriber Identity Module

[0943] SIP Session Initiation Protocol

[0944] SiP System in Package

[0945] SL Side Link

[0946] SLA Service Level Agreement

[0947] SM Session Management

[0948] SMF session management functions

[0949] SMS Short Message Service

[0950] SMSF SMS Function

[0951] SMTC SSB-based measurement timing configuration

[0952] SN Secondary node, serial number

[0953] SoC System on Chip

[0954] SON Self-Organizing Network

[0955] SpCell Special Cell

[0956] SP-CSI-RNTI Semi-persistent CSI RNTI

[0957] SPS Semi-persistent Scheduling

[0958] SON Serial Number

[0959] SR Scheduling Request

[0960] SRB Signalling Radio Bearer

[0961] SRS Sounding Reference Signal

[0962] SS Sync Signal

[0963] SSB Synchronization Signal Block, SS / PBCH Block

[0964] SSBRI SS / PBCH block resource indicator, synchronization signal block resource indicator

[0965] SSC Session and Service Continuity

[0966] SS-RSRP Reference signal received power based on synchronization signal

[0967] SS-RSRQ Reference signal reception quality based on synchronization signal

[0968] SS-SINR Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio based on synchronization signal

[0969] SSS Secondary synchronization signal

[0970] SSSG Search Space Group

[0971] SSSIF Search Space Set Indicator

[0972] SST Slice / Service Type

[0973] SU-MIMO Single User MIMO

[0974] SUL Supplementary Uplink

[0975] TA timing advance, tracking area

[0976] TAC Tracking Area Code

[0977] TAG Timing Advance Group

[0978] TAU Tracking Area Updates

[0979] TB Transfer Block

[0980] TBS Transport Block Size

[0981] TBD To be defined

[0982] TCI Transmission Configuration Indicator

[0983] TCP transport communication protocol

[0984] TDD Time Division Duplex

[0985] TDM Time Division Multiplexing

[0986] TDMA Time Division Multiple Access

[0987] TE Terminal Equipment

[0988] TEID Tunnel Endpoint Identifier

[0989] TFT Business Flow Template

[0990] TMSI Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0991] TNL Transport Network Layer

[0992] TPC Transmit Power Control

[0993] TPMI Transmitted Precoding Matrix Indicator

[0994] TR Technical Report

[0995] TRP,TRxP Transmission Receive Point

[0996] TRS Tracking Reference Signal

[0997] TRx Transceiver

[0998] TS Technical Specification, Technical Standard

[0999] TTI Transmission Time Interval

[1000] Tx transmission, transmission, transmitter

[1001] U-RNTI UTRAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[1002] UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter

[1003] UCI Uplink Control Information

[1004] UE User Equipment

[1005] UDM Unified Data Management

[1006] UDP User Datagram Protocol

[1007] UDSF Unstructured Data Storage Network Function

[1008] UICC Universal Integrated Circuit Card

[1009] UL Uplink

[1010] UM Unconfirmed Mode

[1011] UML Unified Modeling Language

[1012] UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

[1013] UP User Plane

[1014] UPF User Plane Function

[1015] URI Uniform Resource Identifier

[1016] URL Uniform Resource Locator

[1017] URLLC Ultra-Reliable Low Latency

[1018] USB Universal Serial Bus

[1019] USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module

[1020] USS UE-specific search space

[1021] UTRA UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access

[1022] UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network

[1023] UwPTS Uplink Pilot Time Slot

[1024] V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure

[1025] V2P Vehicle to Pedestrian

[1026] V2V Vehicle to Vehicle

[1027] V2X: Vehicle-to-Everything

[1028] VIM Virtualization Infrastructure Manager

[1029] VL Virtual Link

[1030] VLAN virtual LAN, virtual local area network

[1031] VM Virtual Machine

[1032] VNF Virtualized Network Function

[1033] VNFFG VNF forwarding graph

[1034] VNFFGD VNF Forwarding Graph Descriptor

[1035] VNFM VNF Manager

[1036] VoIP Voice over IP, Voice over Internet Protocol

[1037] VPLMN Visited Public Land Mobile Network

[1038] VPN Virtual Private Network

[1039] VRB Virtual Resource Block

[1040] WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access

[1041] WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

[1042] WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network

[1043] WPAN Wireless Personal Area Network

[1044] X2-C X2 control plane

[1045] X2-U X2 user plane

[1046] XML Extensible Markup Language

[1047] 2ES Expected User Response

[1048] XOR

[1049] ZC Zadoff-Chu

[1050] ZP Zero Power

[1051] Example Terms

[1052] For the purposes of this specification, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and embodiments described herein but are not intended to be limiting.

[1053] As used in this application, the term "circuit" refers to, is part of, or includes a hardware component such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and / or a memory (shared, dedicated, or group) configured to provide the described functions, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), a digital signal processor (DSP), etc. In some embodiments, the circuit may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functions. The term "circuit" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements and a program code for performing the functions of the program code (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system). In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a specific type of circuit.

[1054] As used herein, the term "processor circuit" refers to, is part of, or includes a circuit capable of sequentially and automatically performing a series of arithmetic or logical operations or recording, storing, and / or transmitting digital data. The term "processor circuit" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and / or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions (such as program code, software modules, and / or functional processes). The terms "application circuit" and / or "baseband circuit" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuit" and may be referred to as "processor circuit".

[1055] As used herein, the term "interface circuit" refers to a circuit that enables, is a part of, or includes information exchange between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I / O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, etc.

[1056] As used herein, the term "user equipment" or "UE" refers to a device that has radio communication capabilities and can describe a remote user of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous with, and may be referred to as, a client, a mobile phone, a mobile device, a mobile terminal, a user terminal, a mobile unit, a mobile station, a mobile user, a subscriber, a user, a remote station, an access agent, a user agent, a receiver, a radio equipment, a reconfigurable radio equipment, a reconfigurable mobile device, etc. In addition, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless / wired device or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

[1057] As used herein, the term "network element" refers to physical or virtualized equipment and / or infrastructure for providing wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous with and / or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN equipment, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, etc.

[1058] As used herein, the term "computer system" refers to any type of interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to one another. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to multiple computer devices and / or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled to one another and configured to share computing and / or networking resources.

[1059] As used in this application, the terms "appliance", "computer appliance", etc. refer to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide specific computing resources. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a device equipped with a hypervisor that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or is otherwise dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

[1060] As used herein, the term "resource" refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and / or a physical or virtual component within a specific device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, a processor / CPU time and / or a processor / CPU usage rate, a processor and accelerator load, a hardware time or usage rate, a power supply, an input / output operation, a port or a network socket, a channel / link allocation, throughput, memory usage rate, storage, a network, a database and an application, a unit of work, etc. "Hardware resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by physical hardware elements. "Virtualized resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by a virtualized infrastructure to an application, a device, a system, etc. The term "network resources" or "communication resources" may refer to resources that a computer device / system can access via a communication network. The term "system resources" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service, and may include computing resources and / or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services that can be accessed through a server, wherein such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and can be clearly identified.

[1061] As used in this application, the term "channel" refers to any tangible or intangible transmission medium that can be used to transmit data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and / or equivalent to "communication channel", "data communication channel", "transmission channel", "data transmission channel", "access channel", "data access channel", "link", "data link", "carrier", "radio frequency carrier" and / or any other similar terms representing a path or medium through which data is transmitted. In addition, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection between two devices for transmitting and receiving information over a RAT.

[1062] As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instantiate," and the like refer to the creation of an instance. "Instance" also refers to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code.

[1063] The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, may mean that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and / or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements said to be coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with each other by means of communication, including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or link, etc.

[1064] The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains the contents.

[1065] The term "SMTC" refers to the SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

[1066] The term "SSB" refers to SS / PBCH block.

[1067] The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency, where the UE either performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

[1068] The term "primary SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when reconfiguration is performed using a synchronization procedure for DC operation.

[1069] The term "secondary cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources on top of a special cell for a UE configured with CA.

[1070] The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells including a PSCell for a UE configured with DC and zero or more secondary cells.

[1071] The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED without CA / DC configured, where there may be one serving cell including the primary cell.

[1072] The term "serving cell" refers to a cell group including a special cell for a UE configured with CA and in RRC_CONNECTED and all secondary cells.

[1073] The term "special cell" refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell of the SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to the Pcell.

[1074] As described above, various aspects of the present technology may include collecting and using data available from various sources, thereby (for example) improving or enhancing functionality. The present disclosure contemplates that, in some instances, these collected data may include personal information data that uniquely identifies or can be used to contact or locate a specific person. Such personal information data may include demographic data, location-based data, phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter IDs, home addresses, data or records related to the user's health or fitness level (e.g., vital sign measurements, medication information, exercise information), date of birth, or any other identifying information or personal information. The present disclosure recognizes that the use of such personal information data in the present technology can be used to benefit users.

[1075] The present disclosure contemplates that entities responsible for collecting, analyzing, disclosing, transmitting, storing or otherwise using such personal information data will comply with established privacy policies and / or privacy practices. Specifically, such entities should implement and adhere to privacy policies and practices that are recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or government requirements for maintaining the privacy and security of personal information data. Such policies should be easily accessible to users and should be updated as the collection and / or use of data changes. Personal information from users should be collected for the legal and reasonable purposes of the entity and not shared or sold outside these legal uses. In addition, such collection / sharing should only be done after receiving the user's informed consent. In addition, such entities should consider taking any necessary steps to defend and safeguard access to such personal information data and ensure that others who have access to personal information data comply with their privacy policies and processes. In addition, such entities may subject themselves to third-party assessments to demonstrate that they comply with widely accepted privacy policies and practices. In addition, policies and practices should be adjusted to collect and / or access specific types of personal information data and apply to applicable laws and standards including specific considerations of jurisdiction. For example, in the United States, the collection or access of certain health data may be governed by federal and / or state laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), while health data in other countries may be subject to other regulations and policies and should be handled accordingly. Therefore, different privacy practices should be maintained in each country for different types of personal data.

[1076] Regardless of the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplates implementation schemes in which users selectively block the use or access of personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates providing hardware elements and / or software elements to prevent or block access to such personal information data. For example, the present technology may be configured to allow users to selectively participate in "opt-in" or "opt-out" of collecting personal information data at any time during (for example) registration for a service or thereafter. In addition to providing "opt-in" and "opt-out" options, the present disclosure contemplates providing notifications related to access or use of personal information. For example, a user may be notified that their personal information data will be accessed when downloading an application, and then reminded again just before the personal information data is accessed by the application.

[1077] Furthermore, it is an object of the present disclosure that personal information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use. Risks can be minimized by limiting data collection and deleting data once it is no longer needed. In addition, and when applicable, including in certain health-related applications, data de-identification can be used to protect the privacy of users. De-identification can be facilitated by removing specific identifiers (e.g., date of birth, etc.), controlling the amount or specificity of stored data (e.g., collecting location data at the city level rather than at the address level), controlling how data is stored (e.g., aggregating data between users), and / or other methods when appropriate.

[1078] Thus, while the present disclosure may broadly cover the use of personal information data to implement one or more of the various disclosed embodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that various embodiments may also be implemented without access to such personal information data. That is, various embodiments of the present technology will not fail to function properly due to the lack of all or part of such personal information data.

Claims

1. A method for performing uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum, the method comprising: receiving, by a user equipment UE, a downlink DL signal comprising information, the information comprising a listen-before-talk LBT type jointly encoded with an offset of a starting position of the UL transmission, wherein the information comprises a joint coding entry shared by a CAT-1 LBT type and a CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs, the CAT-1 LBT type referring to a category 1 LBT type, the CAT-2 LBT type referring to a category 2 LBT type, and wherein the duration of the UL transmission is used to determine whether the LBT type indicated by the joint coding entry is the CAT-1 LBT type or the CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs; as well as The UE performs the UL transmission based on the offset and the determined LBT type, wherein the UL transmission includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission, and wherein a timing advance value of a UL time slot for the PUSCH transmission is determined as follows: (a) if a PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined to be 0; or (b) If no PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined as a cumulative timing advance value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the candidate LBT types that can be selected to be jointly encoded in the information include: CAT-1LBT type; CAT-2LBT type; or CAT-4LBT type, that is, Category 4LBT type.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein when the determined LBT type is the When the CAT-1LBT type is used, the execution includes: determining that the UL transmission will start no later than T μs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; as well as The UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs. The method according to claim 3 , wherein the T μs is 16 μs.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein when the determined LBT type is the CAT-2 LBT type, the performing comprises: determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold; as well as In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed at T μs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the T μs is 16 μs. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the threshold value is 584 μs.

8. A user equipment (UE) for performing uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum, the UE comprising: a radio front end circuit configured to perform wireless communications over the unlicensed spectrum; as well as A processing circuit, the processing circuit being configured to: receiving a downlink (DL) signal comprising information, the information comprising a listen-before-talk (LBT) type jointly encoded with an offset of a starting position of the UL transmission, wherein the information comprises a joint coding entry shared by a CAT-1 LBT type and a CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs, the CAT-1 LBT type referring to a category 1 LBT type, the CAT-2 LBT type referring to a category 2 LBT type, and wherein the duration of the UL transmission is used to determine whether the LBT type indicated by the joint coding entry is the CAT-1 LBT type or the CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs; as well as performing the UL transmission based on the offset and the determined LBT type, wherein the UL transmission includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission, And wherein the timing advance value of the UL timeslot used for the PUSCH transmission is determined as follows: (a) if a PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined to be 0; or (b) If no PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined as a cumulative timing advance value.

9. The UE of claim 8, wherein the candidate LBT types that can be selected to be jointly encoded in the information include: CAT-1LBT type; CAT-2LBT type; or CAT-4LBT type, that is, Category 4LBT type.

10. The UE according to claim 9, wherein when the determined LBT type is the CAT-1 LBT type, the processing circuit is configured to: determining that the UL transmission will start no later than Tμs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; and The UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs. The UE according to claim 10 , wherein the T μs is 16 μs.

12. The UE according to claim 8, wherein when the determined LBT type is the CAT-2 LBT type, the processing circuit is configured to: determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold; and In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed at T μs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number. The UE according to claim 12 , wherein the T μs is 16 μs. The UE according to claim 13 , wherein the threshold is 584 μs.

15. A system for performing uplink (UL) transmission in a new radio (NR) system operating on an unlicensed spectrum, the system comprising: an access node configured to provide a downlink (DL) signal comprising information, the information comprising a listen-before-talk (LBT) type jointly encoded with an offset of a starting position of the UL transmission, wherein the information comprises a joint coding entry shared by a CAT-1 LBT type and a CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs, the CAT-1 LBT type referring to a category 1 LBT type, the CAT-2 LBT type referring to a category 2 LBT type, and wherein the duration of the UL transmission is used to determine whether the LBT type indicated by the joint coding entry is the CAT-1 LBT type or the CAT-2 LBT type having a duration of 16 μs; and A user equipment UE, the UE being configured to perform the UL transmission based on the offset and the determined LBT type, wherein the UL transmission comprises a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission, and wherein a timing advance value of a UL time slot for the PUSCH transmission is determined in the following manner: (a) if a PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined to be 0; or (b) If no PRACH resource is configured in the UL timeslot, the timing advance value is determined as a cumulative timing advance value.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein candidate LBT types that can be selected to be jointly encoded in the information include: CAT-1LBT type; CAT-2LBT type; or CAT-4LBT type, that is, Category 4LBT type.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein when the determined LBT type is the When the CAT-1LBT type is used, the UE is configured as follows: determining that the UL transmission will start no later than Tμs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number; and The UL transmission is performed at or before Tμs. The system of claim 17 , wherein the T μs is 16 μs.

19. The system according to claim 15, wherein when the determined LBT type is the CAT-2 LBT type, the UE is configured to: determining that a duration of the UL transmission will exceed a threshold; and In response to determining that the duration of the UL transmission will exceed the threshold, the UL transmission is performed at T μs after receiving the DL signal, where T is a number.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the Tμs is 16μs, and The threshold value is 584 μs.

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