Method for fast secondary cell activation and deactivation

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, which is performed by a user equipment (UE) for communicating by fast activation or deactivation on a secondary cell (SCell). The method includes receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including multiple bits from a serving cell, wherein each bit in the multiple bits indicates whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated. The method includes determining, based on a parameter set of the serving cell, an activation delay time of one or more activated SCells indicated by the multiple bits of the MAC CE. The method includes communicating using the one or more activated SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 862,508, filed on June 17, 2019, entitled “METHODS FOR FAST SECONDARY CELL ACTIVATION AND DEACTIVATION,” the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Technical Field

[0003] The present disclosure generally relates to timing adjustment of uplink transmissions in wireless communications. Background Art

[0004] The use of wireless communication systems is growing rapidly. In addition, wireless communication technology has evolved from voice-only communications to also include the transmission of data (such as the Internet and multimedia content) to various devices. In order to accommodate the increasing number of devices that transmit both voice and data signals, many wireless communication systems share available communication channel resources between devices. Summary of the invention

[0005] In 3GPP Rel-15 New Radio (NR) wireless communication networks, a carrier aggregation (CA) activation or deactivation command is sent in a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE), as described in 3GPP TS 38.321, NR, Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol Specification (Release 15), Version 15.4.0, published in April 2019, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Typically, for a typical activation or deactivation scenario, the minimum required activation delay is about 5 milliseconds (ms). The 5 ms delay time is relatively long compared to other NR procedures. In addition, the maximum allowed activation delay described in 3GPP TS 38.133, NR, Requirements for Supporting Radio Resource Management (Release 15), Version 15.4.0, published in April 2019 (incorporated herein by reference in its entirety) creates a big problem for CA operations of services with strict latency requirements, and similar problems already exist for Long Term Evolution (LTE) CA operations. Due to such long delays, it is risky for NR networks to frequently deactivate secondary cells (SCells) due to the fact that reconfiguring the UE back to the SCell activated state may take anywhere from a minimum of about 5ms to a maximum allowed value of tens or hundreds of milliseconds, depending on the specific scenario and UE specific implementation.

[0006] A new key element in NR is to enable the utilization of much larger spectral bandwidths, ultimately leading to peak data rates of about 10 times higher than LTE. Latency in accessing high-capacity (small) cells is detrimental to performance, and in NR this may be even more significant (e.g., especially if the macro is still LTE). In order to fully exploit the large bandwidth (BW) possibilities, efficient and fast utilization of the large BW should be ensured in all cases, including initial connection establishment, CA reconfiguration, and dual connectivity (DC) and adding secondary cells.

[0007] The embodiments described in this specification include one or more of the following advantages. The present specification describes a UE configured for communicating using an SCell, wherein activation or deactivation uses only a few timing slots and is much less than the 5 ms time used to activate or deactivate the SCell. Specifically, the method described in this specification is configured to efficiently and dynamically signal fast SCell activation or deactivation, and significantly reduce the activation and deactivation timing delays of the SCell. Therefore, SCell activation and deactivation can be implemented at the timing slot level, so that the NR carrier aggregation / dual connectivity (CA / DC) procedure can operate more efficiently based on traffic demand and bandwidth availability.

[0008] In general, a process for communicating by user equipment (UE) on a secondary cell (SCell) by fast activation or deactivation includes receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including multiple bits from a serving cell. Each of the multiple bits indicates whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated. The process includes determining, based on a parameter set (numerology) of the serving cell, an activation delay time of one or more activated SCells indicated by multiple bits of the MAC CE. The process includes communicating using one or more activated SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

[0009] In some implementations, the determined activation delay time is less than 5 milliseconds. In some implementations, the determined activation delay time is based on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) to hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) response delay signaled in downlink control information (DCI).

[0010] In some implementations, the parameter set includes the subcarrier spacing or symbol length used by the serving cell.

[0011] In some implementations, the MAC CE includes a MAC PDU subheader with a logical channel ID (LCID) to indicate the size of the MAC CE. In some implementations, the size of the MAC CE is one octet or four octets. In some implementations, the LCID is not included in the LCID set for 3GPP Release 15 SCell activation or deactivation timing.

[0012] In some implementations, the MAC CE includes an indicator for indicating that the activation delay time is to be determined based on a parameter set of the serving cell. In some implementations, the indicator is a single bit. In some implementations, the MAC CE is a first MAC CE, wherein the indicator is a first indicator having a first value, wherein the activation delay time is a first activation delay time. In this example, the process includes receiving a second MAC CE with a second indicator to indicate that the second activation delay time is to be used for one or more activated SCells indicated by the second MAC CE. In some implementations, the second activation delay time is determined according to 3GPP Release 15 procedures.

[0013] In general terms, a process for communicating by user equipment (UE) on a secondary cell (SCell) by fast activation or deactivation includes receiving downlink control information (DCI) indicating the deactivation of the SCell of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network. Typically, the DCI includes one or more of the following. The DCI includes a channel state information (CSI) report indicator to indicate whether the UE will perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell. The DCI includes a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission indicator to indicate whether the PUCCH resources on the SCell are still available for PUCCH transmission if they have been configured. The DCI includes a sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission indicator to indicate whether the UE will transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell. The process includes communicating on a wireless cellular network based on the DCI.

[0014] In some implementations, the process includes entering a SCell deactivation mode based on a DCI. While in the SCell deactivation mode, the process includes monitoring a SCell activation DCI to indicate that the SCell is activated.

[0015] In some specific implementations, the process includes entering the SCell deactivation mode in the next subframe after receiving the first subframe of the DCI.

[0016] In some implementations, the process includes receiving configuration information for monitoring SCell activation DCI. In some implementations, the SCell activation DCI indicates whether the SCell is activated or whether the SCell will remain in a deactivated state. In some implementations, the process includes receiving SCell activation DCI. The process includes activating the SCell based on the SCell activation DCI.

[0017] In some implementations, the DCI includes deactivation information for multiple SCells.

[0018] In general, a UE is configured to communicate with a next generation node (gNB) on a fifth generation (5G) wireless network. The UE is configured to perform operations including: receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including multiple bits from a serving cell. Each of the multiple bits indicates whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of the fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated. Based on a parameter set of the serving cell, the UE is configured to determine an activation delay time for one or more activated SCells indicated by multiple bits of the MAC CE. The UE is configured to communicate using one or more activated SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

[0019] In some implementations, the determined activation delay time is based on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) to hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) response delay signaled in downlink control information (DCI).

[0020] The details of one or more specific implementations are set forth in the drawings and description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from the detailed description and drawings, and from the claims. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0021] Figure 1 An example of a wireless communication system is shown.

[0022] Figure 2 An example of infrastructure equipment is shown.

[0023] Figure 3 Examples of platforms or devices are shown.

[0024] Figure 4 Exemplary components of baseband circuitry and radio front-end circuitry are shown.

[0025] Figure 5 Exemplary protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication system are shown.

[0026] Figure 6 An exemplary system supporting network function virtualization is shown.

[0027] Figure 7 An exemplary computer system is shown.

[0028] Figure 8 A diagram showing an example of timing for fast SCell activation and / or deactivation utilizing MAC CE.

[0029] Fig. 9 and Fig.10 Shown for Figure 8 Example of an exemplary timing of a fast SCell MAC CE.

[0030] Fig.11 and Fig.12 Shown for Figure 8 Illustration of an exemplary enhanced MAC CE for timing of secondary cell activation / deactivation is shown.

[0031] Fig.13 A diagram of a timing diagram for SCell activation / deactivation operations based on downlink control information (DCI) is shown.

[0032] Fig.14 and Fig.15 An exemplary process for fast secondary cell activation and deactivation is shown.

[0033] Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] This specification describes a process for implementing fast secondary cell (SCell) activation and / or deactivation. Fast SCell activation and / or deactivation reduces SCell activation and deactivation delay by at least tens of milliseconds (ms) to one or more time slots for transmission over the SCell.

[0035] The first exemplary process includes a new medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) for fast secondary cell activation and / or deactivation at the slot level. In this example, the activation delay time depends on the parameter set of the serving cell that activates the SCell. In other words, the delay time depends on f=15kHz*2 nThe subcarrier spacing in NR is a function of , where n is the parameter set subcarrier spacing step. In this case, the MAC CE is used for fast SCell activation and / or deactivation on slot level timing. The MAC CE is signaled by a logical channel ID. The user equipment (UE) configures the MAC CE with a channel ID for fast SCell activation and / or deactivation (activation / deactivation). This occurs at a given time slot, such as time slot n. The UE starts transmitting a channel state information (CSI) report at time slot n+k1+1, where k1 represents the delay caused by the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signaled in the downlink control information (DCI) to the hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) response. The UE also monitors the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) reception.

[0036] The second exemplary process includes an enhanced MAC CE for SCell activation / deactivation. In this method, the SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE described in 3GPP TS 38.321 can be enhanced to support a typical SCell activation / deactivation procedure with SCell activation / deactivation delay and fast SCell activation / deactivation delay, as previously described in the first example. Therefore, the enhanced MAC CE can be identified by a logical channel ID (LCID) as a MAC CE described in 3GPP TS 38.321.

[0037] The third exemplary process includes an SCell activation / deactivation operation based on downlink control information (DCI). In this method, a newly defined DCI field or a redefined DCI field (DCI from 3GPP TS 38.321) indicates the SCell activation / deactivation command. When the UE receives an SCell deactivation command at a given time slot n, the UE can immediately enter the SCell deactivation mode at time slot n+1. When the remaining SCells are in the deactivated state, the UE can monitor the configured SCell activation DCI to determine whether to activate the SCell or allow the SCell to remain in the deactivated state. Relative to other available services, the periodicity of the configured SCell activation DCI search space (SS) can be set to the maximum allowed delay value for a given service with the most stringent delay requirements.

[0038] As previously described, these processes are configured to efficiently and dynamically signal fast SCell activation / deactivation and significantly (e.g., tens of milliseconds) reduce SCell activation / deactivation latency. Thus, SCell activation / deactivation can occur at a timeslot level, allowing new radio (NR) carrier aggregation / dual connectivity (CA / DC) procedures to operate more efficiently based on traffic demand and bandwidth availability, relative to not having activation / deactivation occur at the timeslot level.

[0039] Figure 1 An exemplary wireless communication system 100 is shown. For convenience and not limitation, the exemplary system 100 is described in the context of LTE and 5G NR communication standards defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specifications. More specifically, the wireless communication system 100 is described in the context of a non-standalone (NSA) network that combines both LTE and NR, such as an E-UTRA (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access)-NR dual connectivity (EN-DC) network and a NE-DC network. However, the wireless communication system 100 may also be an independent (SA) network that combines only NR. In addition, other types of communication standards are also possible, including future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), and the like.

[0040] System 100 includes UE 101a and UE 101b (collectively referred to as "UE 101"). In this example, UE 101 is shown as a smartphone (eg, a handheld, touch-screen mobile computing device that can connect to one or more cellular networks). In other examples, any of the multiple UEs 101 may include other mobile computing devices or non-mobile computing devices, such as consumer electronic devices, cellular phones, smart phones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handheld devices, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE) devices, instrument clusters (ICs), heads-up display (HUD) devices, on-board diagnostic (OBD) devices, on-board mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), electronic engine management systems (EEMS), electronic / engine control units (ECUs), electronic / engine control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or "smart" appliances, machine type communication (MTC) devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, or combinations thereof, etc.

[0041] In some examples, any of the plurality of UEs 101 may be an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with an MTC server or device utilizing, for example, a public land mobile network (PLMN), a short-range service (ProSe), a device-to-device (D2D) communication, a sensor network, an IoT network, or a combination thereof. 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 or status updates) to facilitate connectivity to the IoT network.

[0042] UE 101 is configured to connect (e.g., be communicatively coupled) to an access network (AN) or radio access network (RAN) 110. In some examples, RAN 110 may be a next generation RAN (NG RAN), an evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, such as a UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) or a GSM EDGE radio access network (GERAN). As used herein, the term "NG RAN" may refer to a RAN 110 operating in a 5G NR system 100, while the term "E-UTRAN" may refer to a RAN 110 operating in an LTE or 4G system 100.

[0043] In order to connect to RAN 110, multiple UEs 101 utilize connections (or channels) 103 and 104, respectively, each of which may include a physical communication interface or layer, as described below. In this example, connections 103 and 104 are shown as air interfaces to achieve communication coupling, and may be consistent with cellular communication protocols, such as global system for mobile communications (GSM) protocols, code division multiple access (CDMA) network protocols, push-to-talk (PTT) protocols, cellular PTT (POC) protocols, universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) protocols, 3GPP LTE protocols, 5G NR protocols, or combinations thereof, as well as other communication protocols. In some examples, multiple UEs 101 may use interfaces 105 such as ProSe interfaces to directly exchange communication data. Interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as sidelink interface 105 and may include one or more logical channels, such as physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH), physical sidelink downlink channel (PSDCH) or physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH) or combinations thereof, etc.

[0044] UE 101b is shown configured to access access point (AP) 106 (also referred to as "WLAN node 106", "WLAN 106", "WLAN termination 106", "WT 106", etc.) using connection 107. Connection 107 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 106 will include wireless fidelity Router. In this example, AP 106 is shown connected to the Internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system, as described in further detail below. In various examples, UE 101b, RAN 110 and AP 106 may be configured to use LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation or LTW / WLAN radio level operation integrated with IPsec tunnel (LWIP). LWA operation may involve UE 101b in RRC_CONNECTED state being configured by RAN nodes 111a, 111b to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 101b using IPsec protocol tunnel to use WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 107) to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent through connection 107. IPsec tunnel transmission may include encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packet.

[0045] The RAN 110 includes one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 111a and 111b (collectively referred to as "RAN nodes 111") that enable connections 103 and 104. As used herein, the terms "access node", "access point", etc. may describe equipment that provides radio baseband functions for data or voice connections or both between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as base stations (BS), gNodeBs, gNBs, eNodeBs, eNBs, NodeBs, RAN nodes, road side units (RSUs), transmit receive points (TRxPs or TRPs), 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), etc. As used herein, the terms "NG RAN nodes" and the like may refer to RAN nodes 111 (e.g., gNBs) operating in a 5G NR system 100, while the term "E-UTRAN node" may refer to RAN nodes 111 (e.g., eNBs) operating in an LTE or 4G system 100. In some examples, multiple RAN nodes 111 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices such as macrocell base stations or low power (LP) base stations for providing femtocells, picocells, or other similar cells with smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than macrocells.

[0046] In some examples, some or all of the multiple RAN nodes 111 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 cloud RAN (CRAN) or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). The CRAN or vBBUP may implement RAN functional partitioning, such as a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) partitioning, where the radio resource control (RRC) and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and other layer 2 (e.g., data link layer) protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 111; a medium access control (MAC) / physical layer (PHY) partitioning, where the RRC, PDCP, MAC, and radio link control (RLC) layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111; or a "lower PHY" partitioning, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers and the upper portion of the PHY layer are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the lower portion of the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111. This virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of the RAN nodes 111 to execute, for example, other virtualized applications. In some examples, individual RAN nodes 111 may represent nodes using respective F1 interfaces ( Figure 1 In some examples, the gNB-DU may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., Figure 2 ), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN 110 or by a server pool in a manner similar to the CRAN / vBBUP. In addition or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), including a RAN node that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminals to the UE 101 and is connected to a 5G core network (e.g., the core network 120) using a next generation interface.

[0047] In a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be or act as an RSU. The term "roadside unit" or "RSU" refers 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 some examples, the RSU is a computing device coupled to a radio frequency circuit located on the road side that provides connectivity support to a passing vehicle UE 101 (vUE 101). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications or other 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) or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications, or both. Some or all of the computing device and the RSU's RF circuitry may be packaged in a weather-resistant enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network, or both.

[0048] Any of the RAN nodes 111 may serve as an endpoint for the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 101. In some examples, any of the multiple RAN nodes 111 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 110, including but not limited to functions of a radio network controller (RNC), such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0049] In some examples, multiple UEs 101 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of multiple RAN nodes 111 over a multi-carrier communication channel using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals according to various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the techniques described herein is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0050] In some examples, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any of a plurality of RAN nodes 111 to a plurality of UEs 101, 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.

[0051] In some examples, multiple UEs 101 and multiple RAN nodes 111 communicate (e.g., transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to as a "licensed spectrum" or a "licensed band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as an "unlicensed spectrum" and / or an "unlicensed band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz band. NR in an unlicensed spectrum may be referred to as NR-U, and LTE in an unlicensed spectrum may be referred to as LTE-U, License Assisted Access (LAA), or MulteFire.

[0052] To operate in an unlicensed spectrum, multiple UEs 101 and multiple RAN nodes 111 may operate using license assisted access (LAA), enhanced LAA (eLAA), or another enhanced LAA (feLAA) mechanism. In these specific implementations, multiple UEs 101 and multiple RAN nodes 111 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations or carrier sensing operations or both 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 operation may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol. LBT is a mechanism for equipment (e.g., multiple UEs 101, multiple RAN nodes 111) to sense a medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmit when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specific channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include a clear channel assessment (CCA), which uses energy detection to determine whether there are other signals on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or clear. The LBT mechanism allows cellular / LAA networks to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. Energy detection may include sensing RF energy over an intended transmission band over a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

[0053] The existing system in the 5 GHz band may be a WLAN based on IEEE 802.11 technology. The WLAN adopts a contention-based channel access mechanism (e.g., CSMA with collision avoidance (CSMA / CA). In some examples, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS) such as UE 101, AP 106, etc.) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmitting. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid conflicts. The backoff mechanism can be a counter randomly drawn within the contention window size (CWS), which increases exponentially when a conflict occurs and is reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. In some examples, the LBT mechanism designed for LAA is similar to CSMA / CA for WLAN. In some examples, the LBT process for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmission) may have a LAA contention window of variable length between X and Y extended CAA (ECCA) time slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values ​​of the CWS for LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWS and the maximum channel occupancy time (e.g., transmission burst) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

[0054] In some examples, the LAA mechanism is built on the carrier aggregation technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a component carrier. In some examples, the component carrier may have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, and up to five component carriers may be aggregated to provide a maximum aggregate bandwidth of 100 MHz. In a frequency division duplex (FDD) system, the number of aggregated carriers may be different for DL ​​and UL. For example, the number of UL component carriers may be equal to or less than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, each component carrier may have a different bandwidth from other component carriers. In a time division duplex (TDD) system, the number of component carriers and the bandwidth of each component carrier are typically the same for DL ​​and UL.

[0055] Carrier aggregation may also include separate serving cells to provide separate component carriers. The coverage of the serving cells may be different, for example, because component carriers on different frequency bands may experience different path losses. The primary serving cell (PCell) may provide a primary component carrier for both UL and DL, and may handle RRC and non-access stratum (NAS) related activities. Other serving cells are referred to as secondary component carriers (SCells), and each SCell may provide a separate secondary component carrier for both UL and DL. Secondary component carriers may be added and removed as needed, and changing the primary component carrier may require UE 101 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 a licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL authorizations on the configured LAA SCells, indicating different PUSCH start positions within the same subframe.

[0056] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to multiple UEs 101. 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 101 about the transport format, resource allocation, and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) information related to the uplink shared channel. Downlink scheduling (e.g., allocating control and shared channel resource blocks to UE 101b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 111 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 101. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of the UEs 101.

[0057] PDCCH uses control channel elements (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. In some examples, one or more of these CCEs can be used to transmit each PDCCH, where each CCE can correspond to four sets of nine physical resource elements, collectively referred to as resource element groups (REGs). Four quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) symbols can be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and channel conditions, one or more CCEs can be used to transmit the PDCCH. In LTE, there may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

[0058] Some implementations may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some implementations may utilize an enhanced PDCCH (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. One or more enhanced CCEs (ECCEs) may be used to transmit EPDCCH. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, collectively referred to as enhanced REGs (EREGs). In some examples, ECCEs may have other numbers of EREGs.

[0059] The RAN nodes 111 are configured to communicate with each other using an interface 112. In an example, such as when the system 100 is an LTE system (e.g., when the core network 120 is an evolved packet core (EPC) network), the interface 112 may be an X2 interface 112. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC 120, or between two eNBs connected to the EPC 120, or both. In some examples, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user packets transmitted over the X2 interface, and may be used to transmit information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, X2-U may provide specific sequence number information about user data transmitted from the primary eNB to the secondary eNB; information about successful in-sequence delivery of PDCP protocol data units (PDUs) from the secondary eNB to the UE 101 for user data; information about PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to the UE 101; information about the current minimum expected buffer size at the secondary eNB for transmitting user data to the UE; etc. X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functions, including context transfer from a source eNB to a target eNB, or user plane transmission control; load management functions; inter-cell interference coordination functions; etc.

[0060] In some examples, such as when the system 100 is a 5G NR system (e.g., when the core network 120 is a 5G core network), the interface 112 may be an Xn interface 112. The Xn interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the 5G core network 120, between a RAN node 111 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB connected to the 5G core network 120, or between two eNBs connected to the 5G core network 120, or a combination of the above. In some examples, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support / provide data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functions for managing functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for UE 101 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED), including functions for managing UE mobility in a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 111; and the like. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 111 to the new (target) serving RAN node 111, and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) serving RAN node 111 and the new (target) serving RAN node 111. The protocol stack of Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP-U) layer for carrying user plane PDUs on top of a user datagram protocol (UDP) or IP layer or both. 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 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver signaling PDUs. In other specific implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack or the Xn-C protocol stack or both may be the same or similar to the user plane and / or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

[0061] RAN 110 is shown as being communicatively coupled to a core network 120 (referred to as "CN 120"). CN 120 includes one or more network elements 122 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UE 101) connected to CN 120 using RAN 110. Components of CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes and may include 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 examples, network function virtualization (NFV) may be used to virtualize some or all of the network node functions described herein using executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media, as will be described in further detail below. A logical instance of CN 120 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instance of a portion of CN 120 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, a NFV system may be used to perform virtual or reconfigurable implementations, or both, of one or more network components or functions.

[0062] In general, the application server 130 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS packet service (PS) domain, LTE PS data service, etc.). The application server 130 may also be configured to utilize the CN 120 to support one or more communication services for the UE 101 (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social network services, etc.).

[0063] In some examples, CN 120 may be a 5G core network (referred to as "5GC 120"), and RAN 110 may be connected to CN 120 using a next generation interface 113. In some examples, next generation interface 113 may be divided into two parts: a next generation user plane (NG-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between multiple RAN nodes 111 and a user plane function (UPF); and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN node 111 and an access and mobility management function (AMF).

[0064] In some examples, CN 120 may be an EPC (referred to as “EPC 120” or the like), and RAN 110 may be connected to CN 120 using an S1 interface 113. In some examples, S1 interface 113 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between RAN node 111 and a serving gateway (S-GW); and an S1-MME interface 115, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 111 and a mobility management entity (MME).

[0065] Figure 2 An example of infrastructure equipment 400 is shown. Infrastructure equipment 400 (or "system 400") can be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node (such as the RAN node 111 or AP 106 shown and described previously), an application server 130, or any other component or device described herein. In other examples, system 400 can be implemented in or by a UE.

[0066] System 400 includes: application circuit 405, baseband circuit 410, one or more radio front end modules (RFEM) 415, memory circuit 420, power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 425, power tee circuit 430, network controller circuit 435, network interface connector 440, satellite positioning circuit 445 and user interface circuit 450. In some examples, system 400 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory, storage, display, camera, one or more sensors or input / output (I / O) interface or a combination thereof. In other examples, the components described with reference to system 400 may be included in more than one device. For example, various circuits may be separately included in more than one device for CRAN, vBBU or other specific implementations.

[0067] The application circuit 405 may include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, one or more of the following: a low dropout regulator (LDO), an interrupt controller, a serial interface such as SPI, I2C or a general programmable serial interface module, a real-time clock (RTC), a timer-counter including an interval timer and a watchdog timer, a general input / output (I / O or IO), a memory card controller such as a secure digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar products, a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interface, and a joint test access group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 405 may be coupled to or may include a memory or storage element, and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory or storage element to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 400. In some examples, the memory or storage element may include an on-chip memory circuit, which may include any suitable volatile or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, or a combination thereof, etc.

[0068] The processor of the application circuit 405 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 a combination thereof, etc. In some examples, the application circuit 405 may include or may be a dedicated processor or controller configured to perform various techniques described herein. As an example, the processor of the application circuit 405 may include one or more Intel FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or a combination thereof. or Processor: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) or processors; 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 MIPS Warrior P-class processor; etc. In some examples, system 400 may not utilize application circuit 405, and instead may include a dedicated processor or controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5GC.

[0069] In some examples, the application circuit 405 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) or deep learning (DL) accelerators or both. In some examples, 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) or high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs); ASICs, such as structured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), or combinations thereof, etc. In such specific implementations, the circuits of the application circuit 405 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 described herein. In some examples, the circuitry of application circuit 405 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), or anti-fuse)) for storing logic blocks, logic architectures, data, or other data in a look-up table (LUT), etc.

[0070] Baseband circuit 410 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. Figure 4 Various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 410 are discussed.

[0071] The user interface circuit 450 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 400 or a peripheral component interface designed to enable a peripheral component to interact with the system 400. 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, or a combination thereof, 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.

[0072] The radio front end module (RFEM) 415 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some examples, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Figure 6 The antenna array 611) can be connected to multiple antennas, and the RFEM can be connected to multiple antennas. In some examples, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions can be implemented in the same physical RFEM 415 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0073] Memory circuit 420 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM); and non-volatile memory (NVM), such as high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), or a combination thereof. In some examples, memory circuit 420 may include a memory device obtained from and For example, the memory circuit 420 may be implemented as one or more of the following: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0074] The PMIC 425 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources, such as a battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of a brownout (undervoltage) and a surge (overvoltage) condition. The power tee circuit 430 may provide power extracted from the network cable to provide both power and data connections for the infrastructure equipment 400 using a single cable.

[0075] The network controller circuit 435 may provide connectivity to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet based on a GRE tunnel, Ethernet based on a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may be provided to and from the infrastructure equipment 400 using a network interface connector 440 using a physical connection, which may be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. The network controller circuit 435 may include one or more dedicated processors or FPGAs, or both, for communicating using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some examples, the network controller circuit 435 may include multiple controllers for providing connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[0076] The positioning circuit 445 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted or broadcast by a positioning network of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of GNSS include the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the United States, the Global Navigation System (GLONASS) of Russia, the Galileo system of the European Union, the Beidou Navigation Satellite System of China, a regional navigation system or a GNSS augmentation system (e.g., using the Indian constellation (NAVIC), the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) of Japan, the Doppler Orbit Chart and Satellite Integrated Radio Positioning (DORIS) of France for navigation), etc. The positioning circuit 445 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 examples, the positioning circuit 445 may include a micro technology (micro PNT) IC for positioning, navigation and timing, which uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking and estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 445 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 410 or RFEM 415 or both to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuitry 445 may also provide data (eg, location data, time data) to the application circuitry 405 , which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (eg, RAN node 111 , etc.).

[0077] Figure 2 The components shown can communicate with each other using interface circuits that can include any number of bus 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 or IX can be a proprietary bus, for example, used in a SoC-based system. Other bus or IX systems can be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus, etc.

[0078] Figure 3 An example of a platform 500 (or "device 500") is shown. In some examples, the computer platform 500 may be suitable for use as a UE 101, 201, 301, an application server 130, or any other component or device discussed herein. The platform 500 may include any combination of the components shown in the examples. The components (or portions thereof) of the platform 500 may be implemented as integrated circuits (ICs), discrete electronic devices, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or combinations thereof adapted in the computer platform 500, or as components otherwise incorporated within the chassis of a larger system. Figure 5The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of platform 500. However, in some examples, platform 500 may include fewer, additional, or alternative components, or include Figure 5 Different arrangements of components are shown.

[0079] The application circuit 505 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more LDOs, interrupt controllers, serial interfaces (such as SPI), I2C or general programmable serial interface modules, RTCs, timers-counters (including interval timers and watchdog timers), general I / Os, memory card controllers (such as SD MMC or similar controllers), USB interfaces, MIPI interfaces, and JTAG test access ports. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 505 may be coupled to or may include a memory / storage element, and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory or storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 500. In some examples, the memory or storage element may be an on-chip memory circuit, which may include any suitable volatile or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, or a combination thereof.

[0080] The processor of application circuit 405 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 examples, application circuit 405 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for performing techniques described herein.

[0081] As an example, the processor of the application circuit 505 may include an Apple A series processor. The processor of the application circuit 505 may also be one or more of the following: 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 company( Another such processor is Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU); from Snapdragon by Technologies, Inc. TM Processor, Texas Instruments, Open Multimedia ApplicationsPlatform(OMAP) TM processors; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M series processors; etc. In some implementations, the application circuit 505 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which the application circuit 505 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit.

[0082] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 505 may include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more field programmable devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs; programmable logic devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs); ASICs, such as structured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), or combinations thereof, etc. In some examples, the application circuit 505 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 described herein. In some examples, the application circuit 505 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) or antifuse)) for storing logic blocks, logic structures, data or other data in a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0083] Baseband circuit 510 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. Figure 4 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 510 are discussed.

[0084] The RFEM 515 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some examples, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Figure 4 The antenna array 611) can be connected to multiple antennas, and the RFEM can be connected to multiple antennas. In some examples, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions can be implemented in the same physical RFEM 515 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0085] The memory circuit 520 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a fixed amount of system memory. As an example, the memory circuit 520 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) or synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM); and non-volatile memory (NVM), such as high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) or a combination thereof. The memory circuit 520 may be developed according to the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) based low power double data rate (LPDDR) design such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc. The memory circuit 520 may be implemented as one or more of the following: 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, or soldered to a motherboard using a ball grid array (BGA). In a low-power implementation, the memory circuit 520 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 505. To provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 520 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, for example, 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. In some examples, the computer platform 500 may be combined with a computer obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0086] The removable memory circuit 523 may include a device, circuit, housing, casing, port or socket, etc., for coupling a portable data storage device to the platform 500. 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), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, or external HDDs, or combinations thereof, etc.

[0087] The platform 500 may further include an interface circuit (not shown) for connecting external devices to the platform 500. External devices connected to the platform 500 using the interface circuit include a sensor circuit 521 and an electromechanical component (EMC) 522, and a removable memory device coupled to a removable memory circuit 523.

[0088] Sensor circuit 521 includes a device, module, or subsystem that is intended to detect events or changes in its environment and send information about the detected events (e.g., sensor data) to one or more other devices, modules, or subsystems. Examples of such sensors include: an inertial measurement unit (IMU), such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, or magnetometer; a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) including a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, or a magnetometer; a liquid 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 audio capture device, or a combination thereof, etc.

[0089] The EMC 522 includes devices, modules or subsystems that are intended to enable the platform 500 to change its state, position, or orientation or to move or control a mechanism, system or subsystem. In addition, the EMC 522 may be configured to generate messages or signaling and send messages or signaling to other components of the platform 500 to indicate the current state of the EMC 522. Examples of EMC 522 include one or more power switches, relays (such as electromechanical relays (EMRs) or solid-state relays (SSRs)), actuators (e.g., valve actuators), audible sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors or stepper motors), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, or combinations thereof, in addition to other electromechanical components. In some examples, the platform 500 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 522 based on one or more capture events, instructions or control signals received from a service provider or client or both.

[0090] In some examples, the interface circuit may connect the platform 500 to the positioning circuit 545. The positioning circuit 545 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted or broadcast by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples of GNSS may include the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou navigation satellite system, a regional navigation system or a GNSS augmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, etc. The positioning circuit 545 includes 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 examples, the positioning circuit 545 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking or estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 545 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 410 or RFEM 515 or both to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 545 may also provide data (eg, position data, time data) to application circuitry 505, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (eg, radio base stations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, and the like.

[0091] In some examples, the interface circuit may connect the platform 500 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 540. The NFC circuit 540 is configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, wherein a magnetic field is sensed to enable communication between the NFC circuit 540 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 500. The NFC circuit 540 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip or IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 540 by executing an NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit a short-range RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to the NFC circuit 540, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuit 540 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smart phone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) close to the platform 500.

[0092] The driver circuit 546 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 500. The driver circuit 546 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 500 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 500. For example, the driver circuit 546 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 500, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor circuit 521 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor circuit 521, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 522 or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 522, 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.

[0093] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 525 (also referred to as “power management circuit 525”) may manage power provided to various components of the platform 500. Specifically, the PMIC 525 may control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion with respect to the baseband circuit 510. The PMIC 525 may be included when the platform 500 is capable of being powered by a battery 530, for example, when the device is included in a UE 101, 201, 301.

[0094] In some examples, the PMIC 525 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 500. For example, if the platform 500 is in the RRC_Connected state, in which the platform is still connected to the RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, then after a period of inactivity, the platform may enter a state known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 500 may be powered off for short time intervals, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for a longer period of time, the platform 500 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which it is disconnected from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback or switching. This may allow the platform 500 to enter a very low power state in which it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers off again. In some examples, the platform 500 may not receive data in the RRC_Idle state, but must transition back to the RRC_Connected state to receive data. 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 period, the device may not be able to connect to the network and may be completely powered off. Any data sent during this period may be significantly delayed, and it is assumed that the delay is acceptable.

[0095] Battery 530 can power platform 500, but in some examples, platform 500 can be deployed in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to a power grid. Battery 530 can be a lithium-ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, or a lithium-air battery, etc. In some examples, such as in V2X applications, battery 530 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0096] In some examples, the battery 530 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 500 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 530. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 530, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 530 to provide fault prediction. The BMS may transmit information about the battery 530 to the application circuit 505 or other components of the platform 500. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 505 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 530 or the current from the battery 530. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 500 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0097] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid can be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 530. In some examples, the power block 530 can be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 500. 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 530 and therefore the required current. 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.

[0098] The user interface circuit 550 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 500, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 500 or peripheral component interfaces designed to implement interaction with peripheral components of the platform 500. The user interface circuit 550 includes input device circuits and output device circuits. The input device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including 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, or a headset, or a combination thereof, 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 information). The output device circuitry may include any number or combination of audio or visual displays, including one or more simple visual outputs or indicators (e.g., binary state indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs, such as a display device or touch screen (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD), an LED display, a quantum dot display, or a projector), where the output of characters, graphics, or multimedia objects is generated or produced by the operation of the platform 500. The output device circuitry may also include a speaker or other audio emitting device, or a printer. In some examples, the sensor circuitry 521 may be used as an input device circuit (e.g., an image capture device or a motion capture device) and one or more EMCs may be used as an output device circuit (e.g., an actuator for providing tactile feedback). In another example, an NFC circuit may be included to read an electronic tag or connect to another NFC-enabled device, the NFC circuitry including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled to an antenna element. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, or a power interface.

[0099] Although not shown, the components of platform 500 can communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which can include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx, PCIe, time-triggered protocol (TTP) systems, FlexRay systems, or any number of other technologies. The bus or IX can be a proprietary bus or IX, for example, used in a SoC-based system. Other bus or IX systems can be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus, etc.

[0100] Figure 4 6 and 615. The baseband circuit 610 may correspond to Figure 4 The baseband circuit 410 and Figure 5The baseband circuit 510 of FIG. RFEM 615 may correspond to Figure 4 RFEM415 and Figure 5 RFEM 515. As shown in the figure, RFEM 615 may include a radio frequency (RF) circuit 606, a front end module (FEM) circuit 608, and an antenna array 611 coupled together.

[0101] The baseband circuit 610 includes circuits or control logic components or both, which are configured to execute various radio or network protocols and control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks using the RF circuit 606. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation and demodulation, encoding and decoding, and radio frequency shifting. In some examples, the modulation and demodulation circuits of the baseband circuit 610 may include fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding or constellation mapping and demapping functions. In some examples, the encoding and decoding circuits of the baseband circuit 610 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or low-density parity check (LDPC) encoder and decoder functions. The modulation and demodulation and encoder and decoder functions are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functions in other examples. The baseband circuit 610 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of the RF circuit 606 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 606. The baseband circuit 610 is configured to communicate with application circuits (e.g., Figure 2 and Figure 3 The application circuits 405 and 505 are shown to interact to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of the RF circuit 606. The baseband circuit 610 can handle various radio control functions.

[0102] The aforementioned circuits and control logic components of the baseband circuit 610 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 604A, a 4G or LTE baseband processor 604B, a 5G or NR baseband processor 604C, or some other baseband processor 604D for other existing generations, generations under development, or generations to be developed in the future (e.g., the sixth generation (6G)). In some examples, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 604A-D may be included in a module stored in the memory 604G and executed using a central processing unit (CPU) 604E. In some examples, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 604A-D may be provided as a hardware accelerator (e.g., FPGA or ASIC) loaded with an appropriate bitstream or logic block stored in a corresponding memory unit. In some examples, the memory 604G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which, when executed by the CPU 604E (or other baseband processor), is used to enable the CPU 604E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuit 610, schedule tasks, or perform other operations. Examples of RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE) provided TM , by Mentor Nucleus RTOS provided TM , by Mentor Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Express Provided by ThreadX TM ,Depend on FreeRTOS and REX OS provided by OpenKernel (OK) OKL4 is provided, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuit 610 includes one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 604F. The audio DSP 604F includes elements for compression and decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in some examples.

[0103] In some examples, each of processors 604A-604E includes a corresponding memory interface to send data to and receive data from memory 604G. Baseband circuit 610 may also include one or more interfaces for communicatively coupling to other circuits or devices, such as an interface for sending data to and receiving data from a memory external to baseband circuit 610; an interface for sending data to and receiving data from a memory external to the baseband circuit; Figure 2 and Figure 3The application circuit interface for sending data to and receiving data from the application circuit 405, 505; Figure 4 RF circuit 606 to send data and receive data from the RF circuit; an 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 and receive data from these wireless hardware elements; and a power management interface for sending power or control signals to the PMIC 525 and receiving power or control signals from the PMIC.

[0104] In some examples (which may be combined with the above examples), the baseband circuit 610 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 using an interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem may also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem using another interconnection subsystem. Each of the interconnection subsystems may include a bus system, a point-to-point connector, a network on chip (NOC) structure, or some other suitable bus or interconnection technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include a DSP circuit, a buffer memory, a program memory, a voice processing accelerator circuit, a data converter circuit such as an analog-to-digital converter circuit and a digital-to-analog converter circuit, an analog circuit including one or more of an amplifier and a filter, etc. In some examples, the baseband circuit 610 may include a protocol processing circuit having one or more control circuit instances (not shown) to provide control functions for a digital baseband circuit or a radio frequency circuit (e.g., a radio front end module 615).

[0105] although Figure 4Not shown, but in some examples, the baseband circuit 610 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 some examples, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In some examples, the protocol processing circuit operates or implements various protocol layers or entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. For example, when the baseband circuit 610 or the RF circuit 606 or both are part of a millimeter wave communication circuit or some other suitable cellular communication circuit, the protocol processing circuit may operate an LTE protocol entity or a 5G NR protocol entity or both. In this example, the protocol processing circuit may operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In some examples, when the baseband circuit 610 or the RF circuit 606 or both are part of a Wi-Fi communication system, the protocol processing circuit may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols. In this example, the protocol processing circuit may operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 604G) for storing program code and data for operating protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing program code and performing various operations using data. The baseband circuitry 610 may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

[0106] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuit 610 discussed herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In some examples, the components of the baseband circuit 610 may be appropriately combined in a single chip or a single chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board. In some examples, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 610 and the RF circuit 606 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) or a system-level package (SiP). In some examples, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 610 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuit 606 (or multiple instances of the RF circuit 606). In some examples, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 610 and the application circuits 405, 505 may be implemented together as a separate SoC mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

[0107] In some examples, baseband circuitry 610 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, baseband circuitry 610 may support communications with E-UTRAN or other WMANs, WLANs, or WPANs. Examples in which baseband circuitry 610 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0108] RF circuit 606 can use modulated electromagnetic radiation to achieve communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium. In some examples, RF circuit 606 may include components such as switches, filters, or amplifiers to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuit 606 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuits for down-converting RF signals received from FEM circuit 608 and providing baseband signals to baseband circuit 610. RF circuit 606 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuits for up-converting baseband signals provided by baseband circuit 610 and providing RF output signals for transmission to FEM circuit 608.

[0109] The receive signal path of the RF circuit 606 includes a mixer circuit 606a, an amplifier circuit 606b, and a filter circuit 606c. In some examples, the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 606 may include a filter circuit 606c and a mixer circuit 606a. The RF circuit 606 also includes a synthesizer circuit 606d for synthesizing frequencies used by the mixer circuit 606a for the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 608 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 606d. The amplifier circuit 606b may be configured to amplify the down-converted signal, and the filter circuit 606c may be a low pass filter (LPF) or a band pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to the baseband circuit 610 for further processing. In some examples, the output baseband signal can be a zero frequency baseband signal, although this is not required.In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path can include a passive mixer.

[0110] In some examples, mixer circuit 606a of the transmit signal path can be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 606d to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 608. The baseband signal can be provided by baseband circuit 610 and can be filtered by filter circuit 606c.

[0111] In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 606a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for orthogonal down-conversion and up-conversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 606a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image suppression (e.g., Hartley image suppression). In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 606a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixer circuit 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 606a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0112] In some examples, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals. In some examples, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be electronic baseband signals, and the RF circuit 606 may include an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit, and the baseband circuit 610 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuit 606.

[0113] In some dual-mode examples, separate radio IC circuits may be provided to process signals for each spectrum, but the techniques described herein are not limited in this respect.

[0114] In some examples, synthesizer circuit 606d can be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N / N+1 synthesizer, although other types of frequency synthesizers can be used. For example, synthesizer circuit 606d can be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0115] Synthesizer circuit 606d can be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by mixer circuit 606a of RF circuit 606. In some examples, synthesizer circuit 606d can be a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer.

[0116] In some examples, 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 610 or the application circuit 405 / 505 according to the desired output frequency. In some examples, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on the channel indicated by the application circuit 405, 505.

[0117] The synthesizer circuit 606d of the RF circuit 606 may include a frequency divider, a delay locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some examples, the frequency divider may be a dual-mode frequency divider (DMD), and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some examples, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some examples, the DLL may include a cascaded, tunable, delay element, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a set of D-type flip-flops. 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.

[0118] In some examples, the synthesizer circuit 606d can be configured to generate a carrier frequency as an output frequency, while in other examples, the output frequency can be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and can be used with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate multiple signals with multiple different phases relative to each other at the carrier frequency. In some examples, the output frequency can be an LO frequency (fLO). In some examples, the RF circuit 606 can include an IQ or polarity converter.

[0119] FEM circuitry 608 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 611, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to RF circuitry 606 for further processing. FEM circuitry 608 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify transmit signals provided by RF circuitry 606 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in antenna array 611. Amplification by either the transmit signal path or the receive signal path may be accomplished only in RF circuitry 606, only in FEM circuitry 608, or in both RF circuitry 606 and FEM circuitry 608.

[0120] In some examples, FEM circuit 608 may include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. FEM circuit 608 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of FEM circuit 608 may include an LNA to amplify a received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to RF circuit 606). The transmit signal path of FEM circuit 608 may include a power amplifier (PA) for amplifying an input RF signal (e.g., provided by RF circuit 606), and one or more filters for generating an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of antenna array 611.

[0121] The antenna array 611 includes one or more antenna elements, each of which is configured to convert an electrical signal into a radio wave to travel through the air and convert the received radio wave into an electrical signal. For example, a digital baseband signal provided by the baseband circuit 610 is converted into an analog RF signal (e.g., a modulated waveform), which is amplified and transmitted using the antenna elements of the antenna array 611 including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed into a variety of arrangements as known and / or discussed herein. The antenna array 611 may include a microstrip antenna or a printed antenna fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 611 may be formed as a patch of metal foil (e.g., a patch antenna) of various shapes and may be coupled to the RF circuit 606 and / or the FEM circuit 608 using a metal transmission line or the like.

[0122] The processors of the application circuits 405 / 505 and the processors of the baseband circuits 610 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuit 610 may be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processors of the application circuits 405, 505 may utilize data received from these layers (e.g., packet data) and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include an RRC layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may include a PHY layer of a UE / RAN node, which will be described in further detail below.

[0123] Figure 5 Various protocol functions that can be implemented in a wireless communication device are shown. Specifically, Figure 5 An arrangement 800 is included to illustrate the interconnection between various protocol layers / entities. Various protocol layers and entities operating in conjunction with the 5G NR system standard and the LTE system standard are provided. Figure 5 The following description, but Figure 5 Some or all aspects of the invention may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0124] In addition to other higher layer functions not shown, the protocol layers of arrangement 800 may also include one or more of PHY 810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840, SDAP 847, RRC 855, and NAS layer 857. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g., Figure 5Items 859, 856, 850, 849, 845, 835, 825 and 815).

[0125] PHY 810 can transmit and receive physical layer signals 805, which can be received from or transmitted to one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signals 805 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY 810 may also perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and switching purposes) and other measurements used by higher layers (e.g., RRC 855). PHY 810 may further perform error detection on transmission channels, forward error correction (FEC) encoding and decoding of transmission channels, modulation and demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to physical channels, and MIMO antenna processing. In some examples, an instance of PHY 810 may use one or more PHY-SAP 815 to process requests from an instance of MAC 820 and provide instructions thereto. In some examples, requests and instructions transmitted using PHY-SAP 815 may include one or more transmission channels.

[0126] An instance of MAC 820 may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of RLC 830 using one or more MAC-SAPs 825. These requests and indications transmitted using MAC-SAPs 825 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 820 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC service data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TBs) to be delivered to PHY 810 using transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 810 using transport channels to one or more logical channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

[0127] An instance of RLC 830 may utilize one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 835 to process requests from an instance of PDCP 840 and provide indications thereto. These requests and indications transmitted using RLC-SAPs 835 may include one or more logical channels. RLC 830 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM), and acknowledged mode (AM). RLC 830 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 830 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.

[0128] An instance of PDCP 840 may utilize one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Access Points (PDCP-SAP) 845 to process requests from an instance of RRC 855 or an instance of SDAP 847, or both, and provide indications thereto. These requests and indications transmitted using PDCP-SAP 845 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 840 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP sequence numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of higher 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, or integrity verification).

[0129] An instance of SDAP 847 may utilize one or more SDAP-SAPs 849 to process requests from one or more higher layer protocol entities and provide instructions thereto. These requests and instructions transmitted using SDAP-SAPs 849 may include one or more QoS flows. SDAP 847 may map QoS flows to data radio bearers (DRBs) and vice versa, and may also mark QoS flow identifiers (QFIs) in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 847 may be configured for a separate PDU session. In the UL direction, NG-RAN 110 may control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, SDAP 847 of UE 101 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 847 of UE 101 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 310 may mark the DL packets with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. The explicit mapping may involve the RRC 855 configuring the SDAP 847 with explicit mapping rules of QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 847. In some examples, the SDAP 847 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

[0130] The RRC 855 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers using one or more management service access points (M-SAPs), which may include one or more instances of PHY 810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840, and SDAP 847. In some examples, instances of the RRC 855 may process requests from one or more NAS entities 857 using one or more RRC-SAPs 856 and provide indications thereto. The main services and functions of the RRC 855 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in a master information block (MIB) or system information block (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 101 and the RAN 110 (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. The MIB and SIB may include one or more information elements, each of which may include separate data fields or data structures.

[0131] NAS 857 may form the highest layer of the control plane between UE 101 and AMF 321. NAS 857 may support the mobility and session management procedures of UE 101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 101 and P-GW in the LTE system.

[0132] In some examples, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 800 may be implemented in UE 101, RAN node 111, AMF 321 in NR implementation or MME 221 in LTE implementation, UPF 302 in NR implementation or S-GW 222 and P-GW 223 in LTE implementation, etc., for control plane or user plane communication protocol stacks between the aforementioned devices. In some examples, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of UE 101, gNB 111, AMF 321, etc. may communicate with corresponding peer protocol entities that may be implemented in or on another device (using services of corresponding lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication). In some examples, the gNB-CU of gNB 111 may host the gNB's RRC 855, SDAP 847, and PDCP 840 that control operations of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB 111 may each host the RLC 830, MAC 820, and PHY 810 of gNB 111.

[0133] In some examples, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 857, RRC 855, PDCP 840, RLC 830, MAC 820, and PHY 810. In this example, upper layers 860 may be built on top of NAS 857, which includes an IP layer 861, SCTP 862, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 863.

[0134] In some examples such as NR implementations, AP 863 may be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 863 for an NG interface 113 defined between an NG-RAN node 111 and an AMF 321, or AP 863 may be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 863 for an Xn interface 112 defined between two or more RAN nodes 111.

[0135] The NG-AP 863 may support the functionality of the NG interface 113 and may include an elementary procedure (EP). The NG-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321. The NG-AP 863 services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the UE 101) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321). These services may include functions such as, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to the NG-RAN node 111 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing the AMF 321 to establish, modify or release the UE context in the AMF 321 and the NG-RAN node 111; a mobility function for the UE 101 in ECM-CONNECTED mode, for intra-system HO to support mobility within the NG-RAN, and for inter-system HO to support mobility from / to the EPS system; a NAS signaling transport function for transporting or rerouting NAS messages between the UE 101 and the AMF 321; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF 321 and the UE 101; an NG interface management function for setting up the NG interface and monitoring errors over the NG interface; a warning message transport function for providing a means to transport a warning message using the NG interface or to cancel an ongoing warning message broadcast; a function for utilizing the CN 120 is a configuration transmission function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (eg, SON information, or performance measurement (PM) data) between two RAN nodes 111; or a combination thereof, etc.

[0136] The XnAP 863 may support the functions of the Xn interface 112 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the NG RAN 111 (or E-UTRAN 210), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, or procedures related to dual connectivity, etc. The XnAP global procedures may include procedures not related to a specific UE 101, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, or cell activation procedures, etc.

[0137] In an LTE specific implementation, AP 863 can be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 863 for the S1 interface 113 defined between the E-UTRAN node 111 and the MME, or AP 863 can be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 863 for the X2 interface 112 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 111.

[0138] The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 863 may support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, the S1-AP may include an S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the E-UTRAN node 111 and the MME 221 within the LTE CN 120. The S1-AP 863 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.

[0139] The X2AP 863 may support the functions of the X2 interface 112 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 120, 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, or a procedure related to dual connectivity, etc. The X2AP global procedure may include a procedure not related to a specific UE 101, such as an X2 interface setup and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, or a cell activation procedure, etc.

[0140] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 862 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). The SCTP 862 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 111 and the AMF 321 / MME 221 based in part on the IP protocol supported by the IP 861. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 861 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 861 may deliver and transmit PDUs using point-to-point transport. In this regard, the RAN node 111 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0141] In some examples, the user plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, SDAP 847, PDCP 840, RLC 830, MAC 820, and PHY 810. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between UE 101, RAN node 111, and UPF 302 in a NR implementation, or communication between S-GW 222 and P-GW 223 in a LTE implementation. In this example, the upper layer 851 may be built on top of the SDAP 847 and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP / IP) 852, a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol layer (GTP-U) 853 for the user plane, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 863.

[0142] The transport network layer 854 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and the GTP-U 853 may be used on top of the UDP / IP layer 852 (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.

[0143] GTP-U 853 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the transmitted user data may be packets in any of the IPv4, IPv6 or PPP formats. UDP / IP 852 may provide a checksum 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 111 and the S-GW 222 may utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user plane data using a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 810), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840 and / or SDAP 847), a UDP / IP layer 852, and a GTP-U 853. The S-GW 222 and the P-GW 223 may utilize an S5 / S8a interface to exchange user plane data using a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP / IP layer 852, and a GTP-U 853. As previously discussed, the NAS protocol may support mobility of UE 101 and session management procedures to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 101 and P-GW 223 .

[0144] In addition, despite Figure 5Not shown, but an application layer may exist above AP 863 and / or transport network layer 854. The application layer may be a layer where a user of UE 101, RAN node 111, or other network element interacts with a software application, for example, executed by application circuitry 405 or application circuitry 505, respectively. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for the software application to interact with a communication system (such as baseband circuitry 610) of UE 101 or RAN node 111. In some examples, the IP layer or the application layer, or both, may provide functionality the same or similar to layers 5 to 7 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, or portions thereof (e.g., OSI layer 7—application layer, OSI layer 6—presentation layer, and OSI layer 5—session layer).

[0145] Figure 6 100 is a block diagram illustrating components of a NFV-enabled system 1000. The system 1000 is shown to include a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) 1002, a network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) 1004, a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) 1006, a virtualized network function (VNF) 1008, an element manager (EM) 1010, a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) 1012, and a network manager (NM) 1014.

[0146] The VIM 1002 manages resources of the NFVI 1004. The NFVI 1004 may include physical or virtual resources and applications (including a hypervisor) for executing the system 1000. The VIM 1002 may utilize the NFVI 1004 to manage the lifecycle of virtual resources (e.g., creation, maintenance, and teardown of 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.

[0147] The VNFM 1006 can manage the VNF 1008. The VNF 1008 can be used to perform, for example, EPC components and functions. The VNFM 1006 can manage the life cycle of the VNF 1008 and track the performance, failures, and security of the virtual aspects of the VNF 1008. The EM 1010 can track the performance, failures, and security of the functional aspects of the VNF 1008. The tracking data from the VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 can include, for example, PM data used by the VIM 1002 or the NFVI 1004. The VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 can both scale up or down the number of VNFs of the system 1000.

[0148] The NFVO 1012 may coordinate, authorize, release, and engage the resources of the NFVI 1004 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., to execute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 1014 may provide an end-user functional package responsible for network management, which may include network elements with VNFs, non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs may occur using the EM 1010).

[0149] Figure 7 is a block diagram illustrating components for reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the techniques described herein. Specifically, Figure 7 A schematic diagram of hardware resources 1100 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1110, one or more memories or storage devices 1120, and one or more communication resources 1130, each of which may be communicatively coupled using a bus 1140. For specific implementations in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1102 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices or sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1100.

[0150] Processor 1110 may include processor 1112 and processor 1114. Processor 1110 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

[0151] The memory / storage device 1120 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 1120 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, or solid-state storage devices, or combinations thereof.

[0152] The communication resources 1130 may include an interconnect or network interface component or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1104 or one or more databases 1106 using the network 1108. For example, the communication resources 1130 may include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling using USB), a cellular communication component, an NFC component, (or Low power consumption) components, components and other communication components.

[0153] The instructions 1150 may include software, programs, applications, applet, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 1110 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1150 may reside in whole or in part in at least one of the processor 1110 (e.g., in a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 1120, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 1150 may be transmitted to the hardware resources 1100 from any combination of the peripheral device 1104 or the database 1106. Thus, the memory of the processor 1110, the memory / storage device 1120, the peripheral device 1104, and the database 1106 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0154] Figure 8 A diagram showing an example of timing for fast SCell activation and / or deactivation utilizing a MAC CE. Typically, when a UE is configured with carrier aggregation, the UE uses a MAC CE for SCell activation or deactivation in order to activate or deactivate a SCell configured for use by the UE. In this example, a new MAC CE may be used for fast SCell activation / deactivation using slot level timing. The MAC CE is configured to perform fast SCell activation / deactivation when the activation delay time depends on a parameter set of the serving cell that activates the SCell. In other words, the delay time depends on f=15kHz*2 n The subcarrier spacing in NR is a function of , where n is the parameter set subcarrier spacing step. Thus, the parameter set includes the subcarrier spacing and / or symbol length used by the serving cell. Depending on the delay of the HARQ-ACK response delay, the delay can be less than 5ms, down to several timing slots. The MAC CE can be signaled by a newly defined logical channel ID. In timing diagram 1200, the UE configures MAC CE 1202 for fast SCell activation / deactivation at timing slot n. At slot n+k1, there is an acknowledgment 1204 of MAC CE 1202, and the SCell is deactivated or activated 1206. The UE starts transmission of the CSI report at slot n+k1+1. The UE also monitors PDCCH reception. Typically, k1 represents the PDSCH to HARQ-ACK response delay signaled in the DCI.

[0155] For operation using timing of fast SCell activation or deactivation, the UE performs the following steps. The UE receives a MAC CE including a plurality of bits from a serving cell, wherein each of the plurality of bits indicates whether a corresponding SCell is activated or deactivated. Based on a parameter set of the serving cell, the UE determines an activation delay time for one or more activated SCells indicated by the plurality of bits of the MAC CE. The UE then communicates using the activated SCell based on the determined activation delay time. In some embodiments, the MAC CE includes a MAC protocol data unit (PDU) subheader with a logical channel ID to indicate the size of the MAC CE. Relative to Figures 9 and 10 Several possible sizes of MAC CE are described.

[0156] As previously described, the delay time is based on the parameter set of the serving cell. The exact delay time may be indicated by a MAC CE. For example, the MAC CE may include an indicator for indicating that the activation delay time is to be determined based on the parameter set of the serving cell. In some implementations, the indicator is a single bit. In some implementations, the MAC CE is one MAC CE among many MAC CEs. The timing indicator is one indicator among many indicators and has a specific value indicating the activation delay time. Here, another MAC CE with a different indicator may indicate that a different activation delay time is to be used for one or more activated SCells indicated by the additional MAC CE. As described later with respect to Figure 11 to Figure 12 As described, the second activation delay time may be determined according to typical 3GPP Release 15 procedures, while the first delay time is a fast activation / deactivation delay time. In some implementations, both the first and second MAC CEs use the fast SCell activation or deactivation procedure described previously.

[0157] Figures 9 and 10 An example of a fast SCell MAC CE is shown. Fig. 9 A diagram of an exemplary fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1300 with one octet 1302 is shown. Fig.10 A diagram of an exemplary fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1350 having four octets is shown, including octet 1352, octet 1354, octet 1356, and octet 1358. In general, the fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CEs 1300 and 1350 for each of one octet and four octets, respectively, can be identified by a MAC PDU subheader having a different LCID. The subheader has a fixed size and consists of one octet and four octets including seven C fields and one R field.

[0158] Fig. 9 and Fig.10 The fields of the fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1300 and 1350 are defined as follows. Each octet in octets 1302, 1352, 1354, 1356 and 1358 includes at least one C field titled Ci, where I is an index value. If there is an SCell configured for a MAC entity with SCellIndex i as specified in 3GPP TS 38.331, NR; Radio Resource Control (RRC) Protocol Specification (Release 15) Version 15.5.1 Section 6.3.2 published in May 2019 is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. This field indicates the activation / deactivation status of the SCell with SCellIndex i. Otherwise, the MAC entity ignores the Ci field. The Ci field is set to a value of "1" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i is activated. The Ci field is set to "0" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i is deactivated. The field denoted as R is a reserved bit and is set to "0".

[0159] Fig.11 and Fig.12 A diagram of an exemplary enhanced MAC CE for secondary cell activation / deactivation is shown. Fig.11 A diagram of an exemplary enhanced MAC CE 1400 including octets 1402 is shown. Fig.12 A diagram of an exemplary enhanced MAC CE 1450 is shown having four octets, including octet 1452, octet 1454, octet 1456, and octet 1458. MAC CEs 1400 and 1450 are based on the Rel-15 MAC CE of 3GPP TS 38.321.

[0160] The SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1400, 1450 is further enhanced to support both typical SCell activation / deactivation procedures with SCell activation / deactivation delay and fast SCell activation / deactivation delay, as described in relation to Figure 8 As described. Therefore, the enhanced MAC CE is identified by LCID, such as the Rel-15 MAC CE of 3GPP TS 38.321. Specifically, the enhanced fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1400, 1450 of one octet and four octets have a fixed size. MAC CE 1400 includes one octet 1402, and MAC CE 1450 includes four octets 1452, 1454, 1456 and 1458, each octet including seven C fields and one F field.

[0161] The fields of enhanced SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE 1400 and 1450 are defined as follows. i For each field in C, there is a SCell configured for the MAC entity with SCellIndex i as specified under Radio Resource Control element 3GPP TS 38.331 version 15.5.1 section 6.3.2. This field indicates the activation / deactivation status of the SCell with SCellIndex i. Otherwise, the MAC entity ignores C i Field. C i The field is set to "1" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i is activated. i The field is set to "0" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i is deactivated. The field marked F represents a flag bit. If the value of field F is set to "0", the typical Rel-15 SCell activation / deactivation timing procedure described in 3GPP TS38.133 version 15.4.0 published in April 2019 applies. If the field is set to "1", the relevant Figure 8 A fast SCell activation / deactivation timing procedure based on a slot level is described.

[0162] Fig.13 An illustration of a timing diagram 1500 for SCell activation / deactivation operations based on downlink control information (DCI) is shown. As shown in Figure 1500, the newly defined DCI field or the redefined Rel-15 DCI field indicates the SCell activation / deactivation command. When the UE receives the SCell deactivation command at time slot n (marked as 1510), the UE can immediately enter the SCell deactivation mode (marked as 1512) at time slot n+1. When the remaining SCell is in the deactivated state, the UE can monitor the configured SCell activation DCI to determine whether to activate the SCell or remain in the deactivated state. The periodicity of the configured SCell activation DCI search space (SS) 1502 can be set to the maximum allowed delay value of the corresponding service with the most stringent delay requirement of the available service, ending at time slot 1514. The SCell activation DCI is then started at the next time slot 1516.

[0163] Typically, the SCell deactivation DCI format may also signal the characteristics of the SCell deactivation state 1504 to control UE operation during the deactivated state of the SCell. Specifically, the following operations may be signaled by the SCell deactivation DCI format. The CSI reporting indicator specifies whether the UE can still perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell. The physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission indicator specifies whether any PUCCH resources, if configured, are still available for PUCCH transmission. The sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission indicator specifies whether the UE can still transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell. The above signaling in the SCell deactivation DCI enables the UE to achieve different trade-offs between power consumption, service delay, and spectral efficiency when reactivated.

[0164] Therefore, the UE is configured to communicate on the SCell by fast activation or deactivation by receiving a DCI indicating the deactivation of the SCell for the wireless cellular network. The DCI includes at least one of the following. The DCI may include a CSI report indicator to indicate whether the UE will perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell. The DCI includes a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) transmission indicator to indicate whether the PUCCH resources on the SCell are still available for PUCCH transmission if they have been configured. The DCI includes an SRS transmission indicator to indicate whether the UE will transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell. The UE communicates on the wireless cellular network based on the DCI.

[0165] The UE can be configured to enter the SCell deactivation mode based on the DCI. When in the SCell deactivation mode, the UE monitors the SCell activation DCI to indicate that the SCell is activated. In some specific implementations, the UE will enter the SCell deactivation mode in the next subframe after receiving the subframe of the DCI, as previously described. The UE receives configuration information for monitoring the SCell activation DCI. The SCell activation DCI will indicate whether the SCell is activated or whether the SCell will remain in the deactivated state. The UE receives the SCell activation DCI and activates the SCell based on the SCell activation DCI. In some specific implementations, the DCI includes deactivation information for multiple SCells.

[0166] Fig.14 and Fig.15 An exemplary process for fast secondary cell activation and deactivation is shown. Fig.14A process for configuring a UE for fast secondary cell activation / deactivation at slot level via a MAC CE is shown 1600. This can reduce the delay of activation or deactivation to less than 5 ms or at most several timing slots, depending on the parameter set of the serving cell.

[0167] Process 1600 is used for communicating by user equipment (UE) on a secondary cell (SCell) through fast activation or deactivation. Process 1600 includes receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including multiple bits from a serving cell, wherein each bit of the multiple bits indicates whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated (1602). The process includes determining an activation delay time of one or more activated SCells indicated by multiple bits of the MAC CE based on a parameter set of the serving cell (1604). Process 1600 includes communicating using one or more activated SCells based on the determined activation delay time (1606).

[0168] Fig.15 A process 1700 is shown for configuring a UE for fast secondary cell activation / deactivation at the timeslot level via a MAC CE. This can reduce the delay of activation or deactivation to less than 5ms or up to several timing timeslots, depending on the parameter set of the serving cell. Process 1700 includes receiving downlink control information (DCI) (1702) indicating the deactivation of an SCell of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network. Process 1700 includes communicating on the wireless cellular network based on the DCI (1704). The DCI may include a channel state information (CSI) report indicator to indicate whether the UE will perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell. The DCI may include a PUCCH transmission indicator to indicate whether the PUCCH resources on the SCell are still available for PUCCH transmission if they have been configured. The DCI may include an SRS transmission indicator to indicate whether the UE will transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell. Typically, the DCI includes one of the above.

[0169] In some specific implementations, during process 1700, the UE is configured to enter a SCell deactivation mode based on a DCI, and when in the SCell deactivation mode, monitor the SCell activation DCI to indicate that the SCell is activated. Process 1700 may include the UE entering the SCell deactivation mode in the next subframe after receiving the first subframe of the DCI. Process 1700 may include receiving configuration information for monitoring the SCell activation DCI. In some specific implementations, the SCell activation DCI indicates whether the SCell is activated or whether the SCell will remain in a deactivated state. Process 1700 may include receiving a SCell activation DCI, and activating the SCell based on the SCell activation DCI. In some specific implementations, the DCI includes deactivation information for multiple SCells.

[0170] The techniques described herein may be performed by an apparatus implemented or employed in one or more types of network components, user equipment, or both. In some implementations, one or more non-transitory computer-readable media include instructions for causing an electronic device to perform one or more of the techniques described herein when the instructions are executed by one or more processors of an electronic device. An apparatus may include one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media, the computer-readable media including instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform one or more of the techniques described herein.

[0171] In different specific implementations, the methods described herein can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. In addition, the order of the blocks of the method can be changed, and various elements can be added, reordered, combined, omitted, modified, etc. Various modifications and changes can be made, which will be apparent to those skilled in the art who benefit from this disclosure. The various specific implementations described herein are intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. Many variations, modifications, additions, and improvements are possible. Therefore, multiple examples can be provided for the components described herein as a single example. The boundaries between various components, operations, and data repositories are arbitrary to a certain extent, and specific operations are shown in the context of a specific exemplary configuration. Other allocations of functions are contemplated, and they may fall within the scope of the appended claims. Finally, the structure and function presented as discrete components in the exemplary configuration may be implemented as a combined structure or component.

[0172] The methods described herein may be implemented in a circuit, such as one or more of an integrated circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and / or a memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an 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), or some combination thereof. Examples of processors may include Apple A series processors, Architecture Core TM Processors, such as Intel processors, ARM processors, AMD processors, and Qualcomm processors. Other types of processors are possible. In some specific implementations, the circuit can execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the functions. The term "circuit" can also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements and a program code for executing 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 codes can be referred to as a specific type of circuit. The circuit can also include a radio circuit, such as a transmitter, a receiver, or a transceiver.

[0173] As described above, some aspects of the subject matter of this specification include the collection and use of data from various sources to improve the services that mobile devices can provide to users. This disclosure contemplates that, in some cases, the collected data may identify a specific location or address based on device usage. Such personal information data may include location-based data, addresses, subscriber account identifiers, or other identifying information.

[0174] The disclosure also contemplates that entities responsible for the collection, analysis, disclosure, transmission, storage or other purposes of such personal information data will comply with established privacy policies and / or privacy practices. Specifically, such entities should implement and adhere to the use of privacy policies and practices that are recognized as meeting or exceeding the industry or government requirements for maintaining the privacy and security of personal information data. For example, personal information from users should be collected for the legal and reasonable purposes of the entity, and not shared or sold outside these legal purposes. In addition, such collection should only be carried out after the user's informed consent. In addition, such entities should take any necessary steps to safeguard and protect access to such personal information data, and ensure that others who can access personal information data comply with their privacy policies and procedures. In addition, such entities can subject themselves to third-party assessments to prove that they comply with widely accepted privacy policies and practices.

[0175] In the case of an advertisement delivery service, the present disclosure also contemplates implementations 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, in the case of an advertisement delivery service, the technology of the present invention may be configured to allow a user to choose to "opt in" or "opt out" of participating in the collection of personal information data during registration for the service.

[0176] Thus, while the present disclosure broadly covers 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 a portion of such personal information data. For example, content may be selected and delivered to a user by inferring preferences based on non-personal information data or an absolute minimum amount of personal information, such as content requested by a device associated with the user, other non-personal information available to a content delivery service, or publicly available information.

[0177] 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. In addition, the terms "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous and may be referred to as a client, mobile phone, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, 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.

[0178] 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.

[0179] 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.

[0180] As used herein, 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.

[0181] 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.

[0182] As used herein, the term "channel" refers to any tangible or intangible transmission medium for transmitting 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.

[0183] 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.

[0184] 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.

[0185] It is understood that the use of personally identifiable information should be subject to privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized to meet or exceed industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. Specifically, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of the authorized use should be clearly stated to users.

[0186] 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.

[0187] The term "SMTC" refers to the SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

[0188] The term "SSB" refers to SS / PBCH block.

[0189] 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.

[0190] 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.

[0191] 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.

[0192] 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.

[0193] The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED without CA / DC configured, where there is only one serving cell including the primary cell.

[0194] The term "serving cell" refers to a cell group including a special cell for a UE configured with CA / DC and in RRC_CONNECTED and all secondary cells.

[0195] 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.

[0196] A plurality of specific implementations have been described. However, it should be understood that various modifications may be made. Elements in one or more specific implementations may be combined, deleted, modified or supplemented to form other specific implementations. As another example, the logic flow shown in the accompanying drawings does not require the specific order or sequential order shown to achieve the desired result. In addition, other steps may be provided or steps may be eliminated from the described process, and other components may be added to the described system or removed from the described system. Therefore, other specific implementations are within the scope of the following claims.

[0197] Example

[0198] Embodiment 1 may include a new MAC CE that may be used for fast SCell activation / deactivation on slot level timing, where the activation delay time depends on the parameter set of the serving cell that activates the SCell.

[0199] Embodiment 2 may include a new MAC CE in Embodiment 1 or some other embodiments herein, wherein the MAC CE may be signaled by a new logical channel ID.

[0200] Example 3 may include: Figure 1 As shown, upon receiving a MAC CE for fast SCell activation / deactivation, for example, at time slot n, the UE can start transmitting CSI reports at time slot n+k1+1, and monitoring PDCCH reception, where k1 represents the PDSCH to HARQ-ACK response delay signaled in the DCI.

[0201] Embodiment 4 may include the fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE in Embodiment 3 or some other embodiments herein, wherein one octet and four octets may be identified by a MAC PDU subheader with different LCIDs.

[0202] Embodiment 5 may include the MAC CE in Embodiment 4 or some other embodiments herein, wherein the MAC CE has a fixed size and consists of one octet and four octets including seven C fields and one R field. Fig. 9 and Fig.10A fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE with one octet and four octets is shown in FIG. 1 , respectively.

[0203] Example 6 may include Fig. 9 and Fig.10 The fields of the fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE shown in TS 38.331 are defined as follows. Ci: If there is an SCell configured for a MAC entity with SCellIndex i as specified in TS 38.331, this field indicates the activation or deactivation status of the SCell with SCellIndex i, otherwise the MAC entity should ignore the Ci field. The Ci field is set to "1" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i should be activated. The Ci field is set to "0" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i should be deactivated; R: Reserved bit, set to "0".

[0204] Embodiment 7 may include a Rel-15 SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE, which may be further enhanced to support the normal SCell activation / deactivation procedure with Rel-15 SCell activation / deactivation delay and fast SCell activation / deactivation delay described in method 1.

[0205] Embodiment 8 may include the enhanced MAC CE in embodiment 7 or some other embodiments herein, which may be identified by LCID, such as Rel-15 MAC CE.

[0206] Embodiment 9 may include one octet and four octets of enhanced fast SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE in Embodiment 8, having a fixed size and consisting of one octet and four octets including seven C fields and one F field.

[0207] Embodiment 10 may include an enhanced SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE having one octet and four octets, respectively, in Fig.11 and Fig.12 Shown in.

[0208] Example 11 may include Figure 4 and Figure 5The fields of the enhanced SCell activation / deactivation MAC CE shown in TS 38.331 are defined as follows: Ci: If there is an SCell configured for the MAC entity with SCellIndex i as specified in TS 38.331, this field indicates the activation / deactivation status of the SCell with SCellIndex i, otherwise the MAC entity should ignore the Ci field. The Ci field is set to "1" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i should be activated. The Ci field is set to "0" to indicate that the SCell with SCellIndex i should be deactivated; F: Flag bit. If the field is set to "0", the Rel-15 SCell activation / deactivation timing procedure applies. If the field is set to "1", the Figure 8 The slot-level fast SCell activation / deactivation timing procedure described in.

[0209] Embodiment 12 may include a new DCI field or a redefined Rel-15 DCI field that may be used to indicate a SCell activation / deactivation command.

[0210] Embodiment 13 may include that when the UE receives a SCell deactivation command at time slot n, the UE may immediately enter the SCell deactivation mode at time slot n+1.

[0211] Embodiment 14 may include that when the remaining SCell is in a deactivated state, the UE may monitor the configured SCell activation DCI to determine whether to activate the SCell or remain in a deactivated state.

[0212] Embodiment 15 may include a configured SCell activation DCI search space (SS) periodicity, which may be set to a maximum allowed latency value for a service with the most stringent latency requirement.

[0213] Embodiment 16 may include a SCell deactivation DCI format which may also signal characteristics of the SCell deactivation state to control UE operation during the SCell deactivation state.

[0214] Embodiment 17 may include the following operations signaled by the SCell deactivation DCI format: CSI reporting indicator: whether the UE can still perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell. PUCCH transmission indicator: whether PUCCH resources are still available for PUCCH transmission if they have been configured. SRS transmission indicator: whether the UE can still transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell.

[0215] Embodiment 18 may include a method comprising: receiving a MAC CE comprising a plurality of bits from a serving cell, wherein each bit indicates whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of the wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated; determining an activation delay time of one or more activated SCells indicated by the MAC CE based on a parameter set of the serving cell; and communicating on the one or more activated SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

[0216] Embodiment 19 may include a method according to embodiment 18 or another embodiment herein, wherein the parameter set includes a subcarrier spacing and / or a symbol length used by the serving cell.

[0217] Embodiment 20 may include a method according to embodiment 18 to embodiment 19 or another embodiment herein, wherein the MAC CE includes a MAC PDU subheader with an LCID to indicate a size of the MAC CE.

[0218] Embodiment 21 may include a method according to embodiment 20 or another embodiment herein, wherein the size is one octet or four octets.

[0219] Embodiment 22 may include a method according to Embodiment 18 to Embodiment 21 or another embodiment herein, wherein the LCID is different from the LCID used for 3GPP Release 15 SCell activation / deactivation timing.

[0220] Embodiment 23 may include a method according to embodiment 18 to embodiment 21 or another embodiment herein, wherein the MAC CE further includes an indicator for indicating that the activation delay time is to be determined based on a parameter set of the serving cell.

[0221] Embodiment 24 may include a method as described in Embodiment 23 or another embodiment herein, wherein the indicator is a single bit.

[0222] Embodiment 25 may include a method according to embodiment 23 to embodiment 24 or another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the MAC CE is a first MAC CE, wherein the indicator is a first indicator having a first value, wherein the activation delay time is a first activation delay time, and wherein the method further includes receiving a second MAC CE having a second indicator to indicate that the second activation delay time is to be used for one or more activated SCells indicated by the second MAC CE.

[0223] Embodiment 26 may include the method of embodiment 25, wherein the second activation delay time is determined according to 3GPP Release 15 procedures.

[0224] Embodiment 27 may include a method according to embodiment 18 to embodiment 26 or another embodiment herein, wherein the parameter set includes a PDSCH to HARQ-ACK response delay received via DCI.

[0225] Embodiment 28 may include the method according to embodiment 18 to embodiment 27, wherein the method is performed by a UE or a part thereof.

[0226] Embodiment 29 may include a method performed by a UE or a portion thereof, the method comprising:

[0227] Receiving DCI for indicating deactivation of an SCell of a wireless cellular network, wherein the DCI includes one or more of the following: a CSI reporting indicator to indicate whether the UE will perform CSI reporting for the deactivated SCell; a PUCCH transmission indicator to indicate whether the PUCCH resources on the SCell are still available for PUCCH transmission if configured; or an SRS transmission indicator to indicate whether the UE will transmit the configured SRS in the deactivated SCell; and communicating on the wireless cellular network based on the DCI.

[0228] Embodiment 30 may include the method according to embodiment 29 or another embodiment of the present invention, further comprising: entering SCell deactivation mode based on DCI; and when in SCell deactivation mode, monitoring SCell activation DCI to indicate that the SCell is activated.

[0229] Embodiment 31 may include a method according to embodiment 30 or another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the UE will enter the SCell deactivation mode in the next subframe after receiving the subframe of the DCI.

[0230] Embodiment 32 may include the method according to embodiments 30 to 31, further comprising receiving configuration information for monitoring SCell activation DCI.

[0231] Embodiment 33 may include a method according to Embodiment 30 to Embodiment 32 or another embodiment herein, wherein the SCell activation DCI will indicate whether the SCell is activated or whether the SCell will remain in a deactivated state.

[0232] Embodiment 34 may include a method according to Embodiment 30 to Embodiment 33 or another embodiment herein, further comprising receiving an SCell activation DCI, and activating the SCell based on the SCell activation DCI.

[0233] Embodiment 35 may include the method according to embodiment 29 to embodiment 34, wherein the DCI includes deactivation information for multiple SCells.

[0234] Embodiment 36 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of Embodiments 1 to 35, or any other method or process described herein.

[0235] Embodiment 37 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, which 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 one of Embodiments 1 to 35 or any other method or process described herein.

[0236] Embodiment 38 may include a device comprising logic components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of Embodiments 1 to 35, or any other method or process described herein.

[0237] Embodiment 39 may include methods, techniques or processes described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 35, or parts or components thereof.

[0238] Embodiment 40 may include a device comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media, wherein the one or more computer-readable media include instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or a portion thereof, described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 35.

[0239] Embodiment 41 may include a signal as described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 35, or a portion or component thereof.

[0240] Embodiment 42 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message, or a portion or component thereof, as described or associated with any of Embodiments 1 to 35, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0241] Embodiment 43 may include a signal encoded with data as described or associated with any one of Embodiments 1 to 35, or a portion or component thereof, or otherwise described in this disclosure.

[0242] Embodiment 44 may include a signal encoding a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message as described in or associated with any of Embodiments 1 to 35, or a portion or component thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0243] Embodiment 45 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors will cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or a portion thereof, described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 35.

[0244] Embodiment 46 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 35, or a portion thereof.

[0245] Embodiment 47 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0246] Embodiment 48 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0247] Embodiment 49 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0248] Embodiment 50 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0249] Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any of the above examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples). 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. Modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings or may be obtained from the practice of the various embodiments.

Claims

1. A method for communicating by fast activation or deactivation on a secondary cell (SCell), the method comprising: receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) including a plurality of bits from a serving cell, wherein respective bits of the plurality of bits each indicate whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) is activated or deactivated; Determine, based on the parameter set of the serving cell, an activation delay time of one or more SCells indicated by the multiple bits of the MAC CE, where the activation delay time is indicated by the MAC CE; activating the one or more SCells in a time slot after the activation delay time; as well as Communicate using the activated one or more SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined activation delay time is less than 5 milliseconds.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determined activation delay time is based on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) to hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) response delay signaled in downlink control information (DCI).

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameter set comprises a subcarrier spacing or a symbol length used by the serving cell.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the MAC CE includes a MAC PDU subheader having a logical channel ID (LCID) to indicate a size of the MAC CE. 6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the size of the MAC CE is one octet or four octets.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the LCID is not included in a set of LCIDs used for 3GPP Release 15 SCell activation or deactivation timing.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the MAC CE comprises an indicator for indicating that the activation delay time is to be determined based on the parameter set of the serving cell.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the indicator is a single bit.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the MAC CE is a first MAC CE, wherein the indicator is a first indicator having a first value, wherein the activation delay time is a first activation delay time, and wherein the method further comprises: A second MAC CE with a second indicator is received to indicate that a second activation delay time is to be used for one or more activated SCells indicated by the second MAC CE.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the second activation delay time is determined according to 3GPP Release 15 procedures.

12. An apparatus, the apparatus being configured to, when executing instructions stored in a memory, perform operations comprising: receiving a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) comprising a plurality of bits from a serving cell, wherein respective bits of the plurality of bits each indicate whether a corresponding secondary cell (SCell) of a fifth generation (5G) wireless cellular network is activated or deactivated; Determine, based on the parameter set of the serving cell, an activation delay time of one or more SCells indicated by the multiple bits of the MAC CE, where the activation delay time is indicated by the MAC CE; activating the one or more SCells in a time slot after the activation delay time; as well as Communicate using the activated one or more SCells based on the determined activation delay time.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the determined activation delay time is based on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) to hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) response delay signaled in downlink control information (DCI).

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