Communication device, network infrastructure equipment, wireless communication network and method

Abstract

A method of receiving data at a communications device from a wireless communications network is provided. The method comprises receiving downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data; and receiving the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources. In accordance with an automatic repeat request procedure, the communications device subsequently performs the steps of determining whether the downlink data is successfully received; and generating an automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received. The communications device subsequently performs the steps of determining that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available; using a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK; and determining, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as the resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present disclosure relates to communication devices, network infrastructure equipment, wireless communications networks and methods. Implementations can provide improvements to or relate to improvements in wireless communications systems operating to communicate data using an automatic repeat request protocol, for example a hybrid automatic repeat request protocol (HARQ).

[0002] The present disclosure claims Paris Convention priority from European Patent Application No. EP20187993.9 filed on 27 July 2020, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. BACKGROUND

[0003] The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. The work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that can not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the application.

[0004] The most recent generation of mobile telecommunications systems are able to support a wider range of services than the simple voice and messaging services offered by previous generations of mobile telecommunications systems. For example, through improved radio interfaces and enhanced data rates offered by LTE systems, users are able to enjoy high data rate applications such as mobile video streaming and mobile video conferencing which would previously only have been available via a fixed line data connection. Consequently, there is a large demand for such networks to be deployed and it is expected that the coverage area of these networks, i.e. the geographical locations where access to networks is possible, will continue to grow rapidly.

[0005] It is expected that future wireless communications networks will efficiently support communications with a wider range of devices and data traffic profiles than current systems are optimised to support. For example, it is expected that future wireless communications networks will efficiently support communications with devices including reduced complexity devices, machine type communication devices, high-resolution video displays, virtual reality headsets etc. Some of these different types of devices can be deployed in very large numbers, for example low complexity devices for supporting the “Internet of Things”, and can typically be associated with the transmission of relatively small amounts of data with relatively high delay tolerance.

[0006] In view of the need to support new types of devices with various applications, it is expected that future wireless communications networks will be expected to more efficiently support connectivity with a variety of devices associated with different application and different characteristic data traffic profiles and requirements. For example, future wireless communications networks and systems, for example wireless communications networks and systems being developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), for example 5G or New Radio (NR) systems / New Radio Access Technology (RAT) systems, and future iterations / releases of existing systems, aim to introduce new developments and techniques to support new applications.

[0007] Example use cases currently being considered for next and latest generation wireless communication systems include so-called Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) / Enhanced Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communication (eURLLC). See, for example, 3GPP documents RP-160671, “New SID Proposal: Study on New Radio Access Technology,” NTT DOCOMO, RAN#71 [1]; RP-172834, “Work Item on New Radio (NR) Access Technology,” NTT DOCOMO, RAN#78 [2]; RP-182089, “New SID on Physical Layer Enhancements for NR Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC),” Huawei, HiSilicon, Nokia, Nokia Shanghai Bell, RAN#81 [3]; and RP-190654, “Physical Layer Enhancements for NR Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communication (URLLC),” Huawei, HiSilicon, RAN#89, Shenzhen, China, March 18-21, 2019 [4].

[0008] URLLC services are low-latency and high-reliability services (e.g., supporting applications such as factory automation, transportation industry, power distribution, etc.). For example, a URLLC service can aim to transmit data over a radio network with a target 32-byte packet transmission time of 1 ms (i.e., the time from the ingress of a Layer 2 packet to its egress from the network), with 99.999% reliability within the target packet transmission time of 1 ms [5], and recently there has been a proposal to increase this to 99.9999% with a latency between 0.5 ms and 1 ms.

[0009] 3GPP projects have recently completed a Release 16 work item for eURLLC [6] to specify functionality in the 5G system that requires high reliability and low latency, e.g., factory automation, transportation industry, power distribution, etc. The eURLLC functionality is further enhanced in Release 17 in a new work item [7], with one goal being to enhance the acknowledgement signaling (HARQ-ACK feedback) related to URLLC downlink transmissions. SUMMARY

[0010] The present disclosure can help to address or mitigate at least some of the above problems.

[0011] In one example, embodiments of the technology can provide a communication device that operates a method of receiving data from a wireless communication network. The method comprises receiving downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data; and receiving the downlink data from the allocated downlink communication resources. In accordance with an automatic repeat request procedure, the communication device then performs the steps of determining whether the downlink data is successfully received; and generating an automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received. The communication device then performs the steps of determining that an uplink communication resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available; using a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communication resource that presents an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK; and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as the resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0012] For example, the uplink communication resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK can not be available because the communication device can be operating with the wireless communication network using an unlicensed frequency band, and therefore must use a contention access procedure to access the communication resources of the uplink and downlink. As such, the contention access procedure can fail when the communication device is accessing the uplink communication resource that can have been allocated for transmitting the HARQ-ACK. In another example, the procedural codebook used by the HARQ procedure can use the indication in the downlink control information to indicate that no uplink communication resource has been currently allocated for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0013] Embodiments can therefore provide an arrangement for transmitting the HARQ-ACK but utilising the next available communication resource of the uplink in accordance with a transmission rule that can prioritise the use of these resources over other transmissions.

[0014] Corresponding aspects and features of the present disclosure are defined in the appended claims.

[0015] It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, but are intended to provide further explanation of the principles of the technology claimed. The described embodiments will be better understood from the following detailed description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0016] The present disclosure will be better understood with reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the following drawings, in which like numerical references designate like elements in the several figures, and wherein:

[0017] Figure 1 schematically represents some aspects of an LTE-type wireless telecommunications network which can be configured to operate in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0018] Figure 2 schematically represents some aspects of a new radio access technology (RAT) wireless telecommunications network which can be configured to operate in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0019] Figure 3 shows a schematic diagram of a telecommunications system in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0020] Figures 4 to 6 schematically illustrates an example of radio resources associated with a communications device in an uplink grid of radio communications resources (upper half of the diagram) and a downlink grid of radio communications resources (lower half of the diagram) for a communications device operating in accordance with previously proposed techniques;

[0021] Figure 7 schematically illustrates an example of unlicensed new radio (NR-U) channel access on a grid of wireless communications resources;

[0022] Figure 8 schematically represents type 1 and type 2 dynamic channel access on uplink and downlink grids of radio communications resources;

[0023] Figure 9 shows an example of type 2 dynamic channel access on a grid of wireless communications resources;

[0024] Figure 10 shows an example of HARQ-ACK transmission failure on uplink and downlink grids of wireless communications resources;

[0025] Figure 11 shows an example effect of using an e-type 2 codebook introducing two PDSCH groups on uplink and downlink grids of radio communications resources for channel access;

[0026] Figure 12 shows an example effect of using a type 3 codebook on uplink and downlink grids of wireless communications resources for channel access;

[0027] Figure 13An example of a PUCCH-only grant for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown;

[0028] Figure 14 An example of a UE selecting an earliest resource opportunity associated with a high L1 priority for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown;

[0029] Figure 15 An example of a UE selecting an earliest resource opportunity irrespective of L1 priority of resources for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown;

[0030] Figure 16 An example of a UE selecting an earliest resource opportunity from two resource opportunities with same L1 priority for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown;

[0031] Figure 17 An example of candidate resource opportunities in an opportunity time window for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown;

[0032] Figure 18 An example of a base station or gNB ensuring availability of high L1 priority resources for a UE for transmission of missed HARQ-ACK transmissions on uplink and downlink grid of wireless communication resources according to an example embodiment is shown; and

[0033] Figure 19 is a flowchart showing a method performed by a communication device according to an example embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] Long Term Evolution Advanced wireless access technology (4G)

[0035] Figure 1 A schematic diagram showing some basic functions of a mobile telecommunication network / system 100 operating generally in accordance with LTE principles, but which can also support other radio access technologies and can be adapted to implement embodiments of the present disclosure, as described herein, is provided. Figure 1Certain aspects of the various elements and their corresponding modes of operation are well known and defined in the relevant standards administered by the 3GPP (RTM) body and are also described in many books on the subject, for example, Holma H. and Toskala A

[11] . It will be appreciated that operational aspects of the telecommunications (or simply communications) networks discussed herein that are not specifically described (for example, with respect to specific communication protocols and physical channels used to communicate between different elements) can be implemented in accordance with any known techniques, for example, in accordance with the relevant standards and known proposed modifications and additions to the relevant standards.

[0036] The network 100 comprises a plurality of base stations 101 connected to a core network 102. Each base station provides a coverage area 103 (i.e. a cell) within which data can be communicated to and from terminal devices 104. Data is transmitted from the base stations 101 to the terminal devices 104 within their respective coverage areas 103 via wireless downlinks (DL). Data is transmitted from the terminal devices 104 to the base stations 101 via wireless uplinks (UL). The core network part 102 routes data to and from the terminal devices 104 via the respective base stations 101 and provides functions such as authentication, mobility management, charging and so on. Terminal devices can also be referred to as mobile stations, user equipment (UE), user terminals, mobile radios, communication devices and so forth. Base stations are one example of network infrastructure equipment / network access nodes and can also be referred to as transceiver stations / nodeBs / e-nodeBs / eNBs / g-nodeBs / gNBs and so on. In this regard, different terminology is often associated with different generations of wireless telecommunications systems for elements providing broadly comparable functionality. However, certain embodiments of the disclosure can be equally implemented in different generations of wireless telecommunications systems and, for the sake of simplicity, certain terminology can be used regardless of the underlying network architecture. That is, use of a particular term in relation to certain example implementations is not intended to indicate that the implementation is limited to a particular generation of network for which that particular term can be most associated.

[0037] New radio access technology (5G)

[0038] Figure 2 is a schematic diagram showing a network architecture of a new RAT wireless communication network / system 200 based on previously proposed methods which can also be applied to provide functionality in accordance with embodiments of the disclosure described herein. Figure 2The new RAT network 200 is represented in Figure 1. It comprises a first communication cell 201 and a second communication cell 202. Each communication cell 201, 202 comprises a control node (centralised unit) 221, 222 which communicates with a core network component 210 over a respective wired or wireless link 251, 252. The respective control nodes 221, 222 also each communicate with a plurality of distributed units (wireless access nodes / remote transmission and reception points (TRPs)) 211, 212 in their respective cell. Again, these communications can be over respective wired or wireless links. The distributed units (DUs) 211, 212 are responsible for providing the radio access interface for communication devices connected to the network. Each distributed unit 211, 212 has a coverage area (radio access footprint) 241, 242, where the sum of the coverage areas of the distributed units under the control of the control node collectively define the coverage of the respective communication cell 20, 21. Each distributed unit 211, 212 comprises transceiver circuitry for transmitting and receiving wireless signals and processor circuitry configured to control the respective distributed unit 211, 212.

[0039] In terms of broad top-level functionality, Figure 2 The core network component 210 of the new RAT communication network represented in Figure 1 can broadly be considered to correspond to Figure 1 The core network 102 represented in Figure 1, and the respective control nodes 221, 222 and their associated distributed units / TRPs 211, 212 can broadly be considered to provide functionality corresponding to Figure 1 The term network infrastructure equipment / access node can be used to encompass these elements of a wireless communication system and more traditional base station type elements. Depending on the application at hand, the responsibility for scheduling transmissions over the radio interface between the respective distributed units and the communication devices can be borne by the control node / centralised unit and / or the distributed units / TRPs.

[0040] Within the coverage area of the first communication cell 201, a communication device or UE 260 is represented in Figure 2 The communication device 260 can thus exchange signalling with the first control node 221 in the first communication cell via one of the distributed units 221 associated with the first communication cell 201. In some cases, communications for a given communication device are routed through only one distributed unit, but it will be appreciated that in some other implementations communications associated with a given communication device can be routed through more than one distributed unit, for example in soft handover scenarios and other scenarios.

[0041] In Figure 2In the example shown, two communication cells 201, 202 and one communication device 260 are shown for simplicity, but it will of course be appreciated that in practice the system can comprise a large number of communication cells (each supported by a respective control node and a plurality of distributed units) serving a large number of communication devices.

[0042] It will also be appreciated that, Figure 2 only represents one example of a proposed architecture for a new RAT communication system in which approaches in accordance with the principles described herein can be employed, and the functionality disclosed herein can also be applied to wireless communication systems having different architectures.

[0043] Thus, example embodiments of the disclosure discussed herein can be implemented in accordance with a variety of different architectures, for example, Figure 1 and Figure 2 The example architecture shown in Figure 1 , an LTE-type base station 101 suitable for providing functionality in accordance with the principles described herein, and in other examples the network infrastructure equipment can comprise Figure 2 , a control unit / control node 221, 222 and / or a TRP 211, 212 of the type shown in

[0044] In Figure 3 , a more detailed illustration of a UE 270 and an example network infrastructure equipment 272, which can be considered to be a gNB 101 or a combination of a control node 221 and a TRP 211, is presented. As Figure 3 shown, the UE 270 is shown transmitting uplink data to the infrastructure equipment 272 over the resources of the wireless access interface, as indicated by arrow 274. The UE 270 receives downlink data transmitted by the infrastructure equipment 272 over the communications resources of the wireless access interface (not shown). As Figure 1 and Figure 2As such, the infrastructure equipment 272 is connected to the core network 276 via an interface 278 to a controller 280 of the infrastructure equipment 272. The infrastructure equipment 272 comprises a receiver 282 connected to an antenna 284 and a transmitter 286 connected to the antenna 284. Correspondingly, the UE 270 comprises a controller 290 connected to a receiver 292 which receives signals from an antenna 294 and a transmitter 296 which is also connected to the antenna 294.

[0045] The controller 280 is configured to control the infrastructure equipment 272 and can comprise processor circuitry which in turn can comprise various sub-units / sub-circuits for providing the functionality explained further herein. These sub-units can be implemented as discrete hardware elements or as appropriately configured functions of the processor circuitry. The controller 280 can thus comprise circuitry which is suitably configured / programmed to provide the desired functionality for a device in a wireless telecommunication system using conventional programming / configuring techniques. The transmitter 286 and the receiver 282 can comprise signal processing and radio frequency filters, amplifiers and circuitry in accordance with conventional arrangements. For ease of representation, the transmitter 286, the receiver 282 and the controller 280 are shown schematically as separate elements in Figure 3 . It will be appreciated, however, that the functionality of these elements can be provided in various different ways, for example using one or more appropriately programmed programmable computer(s), or one or more suitably configured application-specific integrated circuit(s) / circuitry / chip(s) / chipset(s). It will be appreciated that the infrastructure equipment 272 will in general comprise various other elements associated with its operating functionality.

[0046] The controller 290 of the UE 270 is correspondingly configured to control the transmitter 296 and the receiver 292 and can comprise processor circuitry which in turn can comprise various sub-units / sub-circuits for providing the functionality explained further herein. These sub-units can be implemented as discrete hardware elements or as appropriately configured functions of the processor circuitry. The controller 290 can thus comprise circuitry which is suitably configured / programmed to provide the desired functionality for a device in a wireless telecommunication system using conventional programming / configuring techniques. Likewise, the transmitter 296 and the receiver 292 can comprise signal processing and radio frequency filters, amplifiers and circuitry in accordance with conventional arrangements. For ease of representation, the transmitter 296, the receiver 292 and the controller 290 are shown schematically as separate elements in Figure 3 . It will be appreciated, however, that the functionality of these elements can be provided in various different ways, for example using one or more appropriately programmed programmable computer(s), or one or more suitably configured application-specific integrated circuit(s) / circuitry / chip(s) / chipset(s). It will be appreciated that the UE 270 will in general comprise various other elements associated with its operating functionality, for example a power source, user interface, etc., but these are not shown for simplicity.Figure 3 An example is shown in Figure 2.

[0047] The controllers 280, 290 can be configured to execute instructions stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-volatile memory. The processing steps described herein can be performed by, for example, a microprocessor in conjunction with random access memory, operating according to instructions stored on a computer readable medium.

[0048] Example services

[0049] As mentioned above, wireless communication networks can support a variety of services. Developments in physical layer, radio access and media access protocols and techniques can be made to support such services. Example services defined for 5G / New Radio (NR) are Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) and Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services. URLLC has very low latency and high reliability, where a URLLC data packet (e.g. 32 bytes) needs to be transmitted within 1 ms with 99.999% [5] to 99.9999% reliability from a radio protocol layer ingress point to a radio protocol layer egress point of the radio interface. On the other hand, eMBB needs to have high data rates, e.g. 20 Gbps, with moderate latency and reliability (e.g. 99% to 99.9%).

[0050] Example developments for 3GPP are eURLLC [6] and NR Unlicensed (NR-U) [8]. For eURLLC, proposals have been made to specify functionality in the 5G system for high reliability and low latency services, e.g. factory automation, transportation industry, power distribution, etc. Unlicensed radio frequency resources refer to a concept where radio resources are not exclusively allocated to a specific operator or radio communication system, but are shared between systems which compete for these resources to some extent. One example application for unlicensed spectrum is the 3GPP Release 16 NR-U work item, which specifies functionality to include Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) in the NR frame structure to enable NR operation in unlicensed bands.

[0051] Further developments for eURLLC have been proposed for 3GPP Release 17 in the work item [7], where one target is to include characteristics associated with communicating via unlicensed radio resources, thereby enabling eURLLC to operate in unlicensed bands.

[0052] One aspect that should be addressed for using eURLLC in unlicensed frequency resources is HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH.

[0053] PDSCH HARQ-ACK feedback

[0054] Certain embodiments of the present disclosure relate to apparatuses and methods for handling acknowledgement signaling (e.g., HARQ-ACK signaling) regarding data transmissions in wireless telecommunication systems. Acknowledgement signaling is used in wireless telecommunication systems to indicate whether a transmission was successfully received. If a transmission is successfully received, the receiving entity will send a positive acknowledgement signaling (i.e., ACK), and if a transmission is not successfully received, the receiving entity is expected to send a negative acknowledgement signaling (i.e., NACK). The term acknowledgement signaling will be used herein to collectively refer to both positive acknowledgement signaling (i.e., ACK) and negative acknowledgement signaling (i.e., NACK).

[0055] For scheduled transmissions of data in wireless telecommunication systems from a network access node (base station) to a communication device, the network access node typically first transmits control signaling, e.g., on a downlink control channel (e.g., PDCCH physical downlink control channel), including downlink control information (DCI) indicating (granting) downlink radio resources to be used for transmitting data, e.g., on a downlink shared channel (e.g., PDSCH). Thereby, the communication device can determine uplink radio resources to be used for transmitting uplink control information (UCI) including acknowledgement signaling regarding the data, e.g., on an uplink control channel (e.g., PUCCH), although also on an uplink shared channel (e.g., PUSCH). The communication device then attempts to receive the data on the indicated radio resources on the downlink shared channel. If the communication device successfully decodes the data, it transmits the UCI on the determined uplink radio resources including an ACK indication, and if the communication device does not successfully decode the data, it transmits the UCI on the determined uplink radio resources including a NACK indication. This allows the network access node to determine whether a retransmission of the data should be scheduled.

[0056] To provide some specific examples, certain embodiments of the present disclosure will be described herein in the context of acknowledgement signaling for downlink transmissions of URLLC data and using terminology, e.g., regarding channel names such as PUCCH and PDSCH and signaling names such as DCI and UCI, which are typically used in connection with current 3GPP wireless telecommunication systems. However, it should be understood that this is merely for convenience, in general, the methods discussed herein are applicable to other service types and wireless telecommunication systems using different terminology. Thus, unless the context requires otherwise, references herein to PUCCH should be understood to generally refer to a physical uplink control channel, rather than to a specific format of the physical uplink control channel, and so on, for other channels and terminology that can be referred to herein.

[0057] With respect to PDSCH scheduling, the communication device transmits HARQ-ACK (hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement signaling) feedback to the base station to inform the base station whether the communication device has successfully decoded the corresponding PDSCH. Radio resources in a wireless telecommunications resource comprise a resource grid spanning frequency and time (i.e. a radio frame structure). The frequency dimension is divided into subcarriers and the time dimension is divided into symbols grouped into slots.

[0058] In some current systems, for a PDSCH ending in slot n, the corresponding PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK acknowledgement signaling is transmitted in slot n+K1, where the value of K1 is indicated in the field “PDSCH to HARQ_feedback timing indicator” in the downlink (DL) grant of the PDSCH (carried by DCI (downlink control information) format 1_0 or DCI format 1_1). Multiple (different) PDSCHs can point to the same slot for transmission of their respective HARQ-ACKs, and multiple HARQ-ACKs in the same slot can be multiplexed into a single PUCCH. Thus, a PUCCH can contain multiple HARQ-ACKs for multiple PDSCHs. Figure 4 An example of this is given.

[0059] Figure 4 An uplink radio resource grid (upper half of the figure) and a downlink radio resource grid (lower half of the figure) are schematically illustrated, representing radio resources in time (horizontal axis) and frequency (vertical axis). Figure 4 An example scenario is schematically illustrated in which a communication device uses radio resources during a period spanning five slots (slots n to n+4, identified in Figure 4 In slot n, the communication device receives a downlink control information (DCI #1) indicating a radio resource allocation on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH #1) in slot n+1 (represented by arrow 402), where the PDSCH to HARQ feedback timing indicator value K1 = 3, and the “PUCCH resource indicator” (PRI) field indicates resources in the first half of the slot (i.e. the first 3 symbols of slot n+1). In slot n+1, the communication device receives a PDSCH #1 (represented by arrow 404) on the allocated resources. In slot n+2, the communication device transmits a PUCCH #1 (represented by arrow 406) carrying HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH #1. In slot n+3, the communication device receives a PDSCH #2 (represented by arrow 408) on the allocated resources. In slot n+4, the communication device transmits a PUCCH #2 (represented by arrow 410) carrying HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH #2. In slot n+5, the communication device receives a PDSCH #3 (represented by arrow 412) on the allocated resources. In slot n+6, the communication device transmits a PUCCH #3 (represented by arrow 414) carrying HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH #3. Figure 4In time slot n+1, the communication device receives downlink control information (DCI#2) indicating the allocation of radio resources on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH#2) in time slot n+2 (indicated by arrow 404), where the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indicator value K1 = 2, and the PRI field indicates the same resources as DCI#1 (i.e., PUCCH#1) in the first half of the time slot. In time slot n+2, the communication device receives downlink control information (DCI#3) indicating the allocation of radio resources on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH#3) in time slot n+3 (indicated by arrow 406), where the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indicator value K1 = 1, and the PRI field indicates the resources in the second half of the time slot (i.e., ...). Figure 4 (PUCCH#2 in the example). Therefore, in this particular example scenario, the HARQ-ACK feedback for each of the three downlink transmissions on the physical downlink shared channel is scheduled to be transmitted by the communication device in time slot n+4 (as shown by arrows 408, 410, 410), and thus can be transmitted in a multiplexed manner. To support this multiplexed HARQ-ACK functionality, a multiplexing window can be defined, where the multiplexing window is a time window indicating how many PDSCHs in a single time slot can multiplex their associated HARQ-ACK signaling in the PUCCH, and can depend on the range of the K1 value. Figure 4 In the example, the PUCCH multiplexing window is assumed to be from slot n to slot n+3, which means that the maximum K1 value that can be used during this period is 4.

[0060] for Figure 4 The example shown has two PUCCHs indicating the communication device in time slot n+4 (i.e., PUCCH#1 is on the symbol including the first half of the time slot, and PUCCH#2 is on the symbol including the second half of the time slot). For wireless telecommunications systems operating according to 3GPP version 15, even if the different indicated PUCCHs do not overlap in time, such as Figure 4 As shown, only one PUCCH is allowed to carry the HARQ-ACK of the same communication device per time slot. Therefore, when a communication device operating according to 3GPP version 15 needs to multiplex HARQ-ACK signaling for multiple PDSCHs, it does so using the PUCCH resource indicated in the PRI associated with the last PDSCH in the PUCCH multiplexing window (because after allocating the last PDSCH, the communication device will only know the total number of HARQ-ACK bits). Therefore, in Figure 5In the example of FIG. 1, DCI#1 and DCI#2 indicate PUCCH#1 for HARQ-ACK signaling, but DCI#3 indicates PUCCH#2. Even though PUCCH#1 and PUCCH#2 do not overlap in time in this example, according to Release 15 of the 3GPP standard, they cannot be transmitted in the same slot. In this case, since DCI#3 schedules the last PDSCH, PDSCH#3, in the PUCCH multiplexing window, the communication device will use PUCCH#2 to carry the multiplexed HARQ-ACK for PDSCH#1, PDSCH#2, and PDSCH#3. (It can be noted that if they do not overlap in time, the PUCCH carrying other UCI, e.g., scheduling request (SR), can be transmitted separately from the PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK in the same slot.)

[0061] For Release 16 of the 3GPP standard, the possibility of sub-slot operation of HARQ-ACK acknowledgment signaling is introduced. Sub-slot operation of HARQ-ACK allows the timing of HARQ-ACK UCI on PUCCH to be configured with a resolution smaller than one slot (i.e., the HARQ-ACK process operates with sub-slot timing granularity). Thus, sub-slot based PUCCH allows more than one PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK to be transmitted within one slot. This provides more opportunities to transmit PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK for PDSCH transmissions within one slot, which can help reduce the latency of HARQ-ACK feedback. In sub-slot based PUCCH, the granularity of the K1 parameter (i.e., the time difference between the end of a PDSCH and the start of its corresponding PUCCH) is in sub-slots instead of slots, where the sub-slot size can be 2 symbols or 7 symbols. Figure 5 An example of sub-slot HARQ-ACK operation is shown.

[0062] Figure 4 Similar to Figure 4 and will be understood from Figure 5 , but this example schematically shows the uplink radio resource grid (top half of the figure) and the downlink radio resource grid (bottom half of the figure) representing the radio resources in time (horizontal axis) and frequency (vertical axis) in a scenario supporting sub-slot size of 7 symbols (i.e., half a slot in this case) for HARQ-ACK feedback for sub-slot operation. Thus, Figure 5 schematically shows the transmission of PUCCHs carrying HARQ-ACK in the example of FIG. 2 across five slots (identified as slots n to n+4 in Figure 5 and ten sub-slots (identified as sub-slots n1 to n10 in Figure 6The radio resources used by the communication device in the example scenario during the period identified as sub-slots m to m+9. In sub-slot m, the communication device receives a downlink control information (DCI#1) indicating an allocation of radio resources on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH#1) in sub-slot m+2 (indicated by arrow 502), where the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indication value K1 = 6. This means that the communication device determines that the resource PUCCH#1 is used for transmitting acknowledgement signalling regarding PDSCH#1 (indicated by arrow 506) as indicated by the PRI associated with DC#1 in sub-slot m+8 (as this is the sub-slot among the K1 = 6 sub-slots after the sub-slot in which PDSCH#1 ends). In sub-slot m+2, the communication device receives a downlink control information (DCI#2) indicating an allocation of radio resources on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH#2) (indicated by arrow 504) spanning sub-slots m+4 and m+5, where the PDSCH-to-HARQ feedback timing indication value K1 = 4. This means that the communication device determines that the resource PUCCH#2 is used for transmitting acknowledgement signalling regarding PDSCH#2 (indicated by arrow 506) as indicated by the PRI associated with DCI#2 in sub-slot m+9 (as this is the sub-slot among the K1 = 4 sub-slots after the sub-slot in which PDSCH#2 ends). In contrast to the approach according to Release 15 of the 3GPP standard specification series, where only one PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK is allowed in a slot, in sub-slot based operation, the communication device can transmit two PUCCHs (i.e. PUCCH#1 and PUCCH#2) carrying HARQ-ACK in a slot.

[0063] Uplink L1 priority indicator

[0064] Certain embodiments described in the following paragraphs can involve different priority indicators when uplink resources are allocated to a UE for uplink transmissions. Priority indicators for uplink transmissions have been proposed for the 3GPP standard, where different priorities are assigned to uplink transmissions where these uplink transmissions collide and therefore one has to be selected over the other. In previous releases of the 3GPP standard, e.g. Release 15, no different priorities are provided at the physical layer and when two uplink transmissions collide, the information of the uplink transmissions is multiplexed and transmitted using a single channel. Possible collisions of uplink resources can include PUCCHs with PUCCHs and PUCCHs with PUSCHs. In this regard, collisions occur and can be identified at the physical layer. Release 15 provides different priorities for the medium access control layer, including 16 priorities, but not the physical layer.

[0065] As mentioned above, a UE can be configured to provide both eMBB and URLLC services simultaneously. Since eMBB and URLLC have different latency requirements, their uplink transmissions can collide. For example, after an eMBB uplink transmission has been scheduled, an urgent URLLC packet arrives that needs to be scheduled immediately, and its transmission can collide with the eMBB transmission. To handle such intra-UE collision with different latency and reliability requirements, two priorities of physical layer have been proposed in Rel-16 for uplink transmissions, e.g., transmissions via PUCCH and PUSCH channels. In Rel-16, intra-UE prioritization is used, i.e., when two UL transmissions with different physical layer priority levels (L1 priority) collide, the UE will drop the lower priority transmission. If two UL transmissions have the same L1 priority, the UE is configured to multiplex the transmissions according to the scheme proposed in Rel-15 procedures. The gNB indicates the L1 priority to the UE in a 1-bit “priority indicator” DCI field, where “0” indicates low L1 priority and “1” indicates high L1 priority, and:

[0066] ■For PUSCH, the L1 priority is indicated in the uplink grant carried by DCI formats 0_1 and 0_2;

[0067] ■For PUCCH carrying HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH, the L1 priority is indicated in the downlink grant scheduling the PDSCH, carried by DCI formats 1_1 and 1_2.

[0068] Thus, according to these examples, downlink control information (DCI) carries a priority indicator associated with downlink data for which resources are granted on the downlink, and for different DCI formats for PUSCH and PUCCH, the indicator can be different.

[0069] HARQ-ACK codebook

[0070] The HARQ-ACK codebook is used to carry multiple HARQ-ACK feedbacks for PDSCH. In Rel-15, there are two types of HARQ-ACK codebook:

[0071] ■ Type 1 HARQ-ACK codebook: also known as semi-static HARQ-ACK codebook, where the number of HARQ-ACK entries is fixed, i.e. configured semi-statically by RRC. Since the number of HARQ-ACK entries is fixed, there is no confusion between the UE and the gNB about the number of HARQ-ACK feedback the UE should transmit to the gNB if the UE misses a downlink grant, i.e. misses a PDSCH. However, allocating a fixed number of HARQ-ACK feedback wastes resources, since an unscheduled PDSCH is still feedback as a NACK.

[0072] ■ Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook: also known as dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook, where the number of HARQ-ACK entries is dynamic and based on the actual number of PDSCHs being received. To avoid confusion about the number of HARQ-ACK feedback due to the UE missing a downlink grant, a “Downlink Assignment Index” (DAI) is used to keep track of the number of PDSCHs transmitted to the UE. The DAI is included in the downlink grant and the DAI is incremented when the gNB schedules a PDSCH to the UE using a Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook.

[0073] Since a PUCCH can have two L1 priorities, a UE can be configured with two HARQ-ACK codebooks of different priorities. This allows the multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs of high L1 priority into a high L1 priority HARQ-ACK codebook and the multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs of low L1 priority into a low L1 priority HARQ-ACK codebook.

[0074] Figure 6 An example is shown in FIG. 5, which shows an arrangement where two HARQ-ACK codebooks have two different priorities. In Figure 6 In the example shown, the gNB transmits four downlink control information transmissions, DCI#1, DCI#2, DCI#3, DCI#4, to the UE in the PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel), indicating the allocation of downlink resources, PDSCH#1, PDSCH#2, PDSCH#3, PDSCH#4, respectively, as shown by arrows 601, 602, 603, 604. As shown in FIG. 5, the DCI#1, DCI#2, DCI#3, DCI#4 are transmitted in the PDCCH in the order DCI#1, DCI#2, DCI#3, DCI#4, as shown by arrows 605, 606, 607, 608. The DCI#1, DCI#2, DCI#3, DCI#4 are transmitted in the PDCCH in the order DCI#1, DCI#2, DCI#3, DCI#4, as shown by arrows 605, 606, 607, 608. Figure 7As shown, the two downlink control information transmissions, DCI#1, DCI#2, schedule a low L1-priority PUCCH#1 in sub-slot m+8, which carries a low L1-priority HARQ-ACK codebook to multiplex the HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH#1 and PDSCH#2, as shown by the arrows. In contrast, the second two downlink control information transmissions, DCI#3, DCI#4, schedule a high L1-priority PUCCH#2 in sub-slot m+9, which carries a high L1-priority HARQ-ACK codebook to multiplex the HARQ-ACK feedback for PDSCH#3, PDSCH#4, as shown by the arrows 620, 622. Thus, according to this example, the gNB can use different PUCCHs with different reliabilities to carry HARQ-ACKs with different L1-priorities.

[0075] Channel access in unlicensed bands

[0076] In the following paragraphs, an explanation of current proposals for accessing communications from unlicensed bands is provided. In unlicensed bands, two or more systems can operate to communicate using the same communication resources. Thus, transmissions from different systems can interfere with each other, especially when, for example, each of the different systems is configured according to different technical standards (e.g., WiFi and 5G). Therefore, for each transmitter operating in the unlicensed band, there are regulatory requirements to use a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol to reduce interference between different systems sharing the band. In LBT, a device wishing to transmit a packet will first sense the band for any energy level above a threshold to determine whether any other device is transmitting, i.e., “listening,” and if no transmission is detected, the device will transmit its packet. Otherwise, if the device senses a transmission from another device, it will back off and retry at a later time.

[0077] In NR-U, channel access can be dynamic (also referred to as load-based equipment) or semi-static (also referred to as frame-based equipment). Dynamic channel access schemes include one or more clear channel assessment (CCA) procedures in a contention window, followed by a channel occupancy time (COT), as Figure 8The NR-U device (e.g., gNB or UE) that wishes to perform a transmission performs LBT during the CCA phase. Depending on the CCA phase, the NR-U device listens to one or more CCA slots and, if no other transmissions are detected (i.e., the energy level is below a threshold) after the CCA phase, the NR-U device enters the COT phase, in which the NR-U device can transmit its packet in the COT resources. In dynamic channel access (DCA), the CCA and COT phases can be different lengths between different systems, while in semi-static channel access, the CCA and COT phases have fixed time windows and are synchronized for all systems sharing the frequency band.

[0078] In NR-U, a device can be an initiating device or a responding device. The initiating device acquires the COT by performing CCA and typically initiates the first transmission, e.g., a gNB transmitting an uplink grant. The responding device receives the transmission from the initiating device and responds with a transmission to the initiating device, e.g., a UE receiving an uplink grant and transmitting a corresponding PUSCH. It should be understood that a UE can also be an initiating device, e.g., when transmitting a configured grant PUSCH, while a gNB can be a responding device.

[0079] There are two types of dynamic channel access (DCA), referred to as Type 1 and Type 2. In Type 1 DCA, a counter N is generated as a random number between 0 and CW p , where the contention window size CW p is set between CW min,p and CW max,p . The duration and value of the COT {CW min,p , CW max,p} depends on the value p, which is the channel access priority class (CAPC) of the transmission, which can be determined by, e.g., the QoS of the transmitted packet. The initiating device performs Type 1 DCA, and one or more responding devices can use Type 2 DCA for transmissions within the COT once the COT is acquired. Type 2 DCA can require a short CCA or no CCA before transmission if the gap between two transmissions of a device is less than a predetermined value (e.g., 25 μβ). If the gap is greater than the predetermined value (e.g., 25 μβ), the responding device needs to perform Type 1 DCA.

[0080] Figure 8 A frequency versus time illustration of transmissions in an unlicensed band is provided. As shown in the example of FIG. 3, examples of Type 1 DCA transmissions and Type 2 DCA transmissions are shown. According to the example of FIG. 3, a gNB performs Type 1 DCA to acquire the COT, and a UE performs Type 2 DCA to transmit a packet within the COT. Figure 8 Figure 9 ​In the example shown, at time t0, the gNB wishes to transmit an uplink grant UG1 to the UE to schedule PUSCH1. The gNB performs Type 1 DCA starting from the contention window with four CCAs 800, so for this example, the random number N = 4, and no energy is detected during this contention window 802, thus acquiring COT 804 between times t1 to t4. The gNB then transmits UG1 to the UE scheduling PUSCH1 at time t3, as shown by arrow 810. If the gap between UG1 and the start of its PUSCH1 transmission between times t2 and t3 is below a threshold, then the UE receiving the uplink grant UG1 can then use Type 2 DCA, otherwise the UE will have to perform Type 1 DCA. That is, if the granted PUSCH1 is less than a threshold time from the transmission of the uplink grant UG1 by the gNB, then the UE does not need to contend for resources on the unlicensed band itself by transmitting in the CCA and then in the COT according to Type 1 DCA.

[0081] As Figure 10 shown, there are three types of Type 2 DCA, these are defined with respect to the length of the gap 900 between the first device (initiating device) and the second device 904 (responding device) transmissions 902 within the COT, thus whether the second responding device needs to perform a CCA:

[0082] • Type 2A: the gap between the two transmissions is no more than 25 μβ, and the UE performs a single contention channel access (CCA) within this gap 900;

[0083] • Type 2B: the gap between the two transmissions is no more than 16 μβ, and the UE performs a single CCA within this gap 900;

[0084] • Type 2C: the gap between the two transmissions is no more than 16 μβ, no CCA is needed within this gap 900.

[0085] Enhanced HARQ-ACK

[0086] In licensed bands, the gNB can schedule PUCCH resources exactly at a specific slot / sub-slot. However, in unlicensed band operation, due to the need for LBT (or CCA), the scheduled resources for PUCCH can not be available if the UE fails in the LBT procedure.

[0087] Figure 10 An example is shown. In Figure 10In the illustrated example, the gNB acquires COT after performing CCA and transmits two downlink control information transmissions, DCI1, DCI2, scheduling PDSCH1 and PDSCH2 for UE1 and UE2, respectively. The respective HARQ-ACK for PDSCH1 and PDSCH2 are scheduled in PUCCH1 and PUCCH2, respectively. Prior to transmitting PUCCH1, the UE performs Type 2 DCA but fails in the CCA procedure 1001, thus not being able to acquire the channel to transmit the HARQ-ACK for PDSCH1, as indicated by X 1002, such that the attempt to transmit the HARQ-ACK, represented by arrow 1004, fails. PUCCH2 is scheduled outside of the COT, thus, UE2 has to perform Type 1 DCA and here too, fails to pass the CCA procedure, thus not being able to transmit the HARQ-ACK for PDSCH2, as indicated by X 1012, such that the attempt to transmit the HARQ-ACK, represented by arrow 1010, fails. The gNB can have to retransmit PDSCH1 and PDSCH2 even if successfully received by UE1 and UE2, respectively, because no corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback is transmitted.

[0088] Recognizing that resources for HARQ-ACK can not be available, a non-numerical K1 (NN-K1) and two new HARQ-ACK codebooks (CBs) have been proposed for NR-U. The K1 indicator is a known value indicating the time position of the uplink resource in PUCCH after the end of the PDSCH for which HARQ-ACK is to be transmitted. The NN-K1 indicates to the UE that no resources have been provided for the HARQ-ACK to be transmitted.

[0089] As mentioned above, the time resource of the PUCCH carrying the HARQ-ACK is indicated in the downlink grant’s “PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator” as K1 slots or sub-slots after the end of the relevant PDSCH. Since PUCCH resources are not guaranteed in NR-U, the gNB can want to delay providing the PUCCH resource or not be confident to provide the PUCCH resource at the time of sending the downlink grant. In this case, a non-numerical K1 (NN-K1) is indicated in the downlink grant’s “PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator”, thus not reserving any PUCCH resource for the HARQ-ACK feedback of the PDSCH. This makes it less likely for the UE to have an opportunity to acquire the channel for the scheduled PUCCH (e.g., resources outside of the COT, e.g., Figure 11It is beneficial to have a case where the UE is configured with PUCCH2) in the PUCCH resource set. Indeed, the NN-K1 indication allows the gNB to delay the transmission of the PDSCH HARQ-ACK feedback. For Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook operation, the HARQ-ACK associated with NN-K1 is transmitted in the next available PUCCH, i.e. the PUCCH scheduled by the downlink grant, where K1 has the value of 1.

[0090] Two new HARQ-ACK codebooks can also be used, these are the enhanced Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook (e-Type 2 CB) and the Type 3 HARQ-ACK codebook (Type 3 CB), which are introduced to provide resources for NN-K1 HARQ-ACK and retransmission of HARQ-ACK due to failed LBT (contend access in unlicensed band).

[0091] The enhanced Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook (e-Type 2 CB) is derived from the Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook, which is a dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook. In the e-Type 2 CB, two PDSCH groups are introduced, where PDSCHs can be grouped into PDSCH Group 1 or PDSCH Group 2. The PDSCH group is indicated in a new DCI field “PDSCH Group Index” of DCI Format 1_1 and each PDSCH group has a separate downlink assignment index (DAI) to track the number of PDSCHs assigned. The gNB can indicate in another new 1-bit DCI field “Number of requested PDSCH groups” whether to multiplex the HARQ-ACK of the PDSCH group indicated in the DCI field “PDSCH Group Index” or to multiplex the HARQ-ACK of both PDSCH groups into the scheduled PUCCH. The gNB can also indicate to the UE to discard all previous HARQ-ACK of a PDSCH group (including those associated with NN-K1) in a new DCI field “New Feedback Indicator” (NFI). The NFI field is a toggle 1-bit field, so if the NFI is toggled, the UE discards the HARQ-ACK feedback associated with the PDSCH group indicated in the DCI field “PDSCH Group Index” and resets the DAI counter for that PDSCH group.

[0092] Figure 11 An example of the transmission from the gNB and the UE according to the e-Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook is shown in FIG. 2. According to the e-Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook, the UE is configured with PUCCH2) in the PUCCH resource set. Figure 12In the example shown in FIG. 11, the gNB acquires COT1 at time t1 and transmits three downlink control information transmissions, DCI1, DCI2, DCI3, to schedule downlink data transmissions, PDSCH1, PDSCH2, PDSCH3, for the UE, respectively. PDSCH1 and PDSCH3 are associated with PDSCH group 1, while PDSCH2 is associated with PDSCH group 2. The transmission of HARQ-ACK on uplink control channels, PUCCH1, PUCCH2, denoted by arrows 1101, 1102, are scheduled to carry HARQ-ACK for PDSCH1 and PDSCH2, respectively. However, due to contention access in unlicensed band, the UE fails to acquire the channels for these PUCCHs, denoted by Xs 1104, 1106. The gNB indicates NN-K1 for PDSCH3, which means the corresponding HARQ-ACK is not allocated PUCCH resources. At time t 12 , the gNB acquires COT2 and transmits DCI4 to schedule PDSCH4, which is indicated as PDSCH group 1, and the HARQ-ACK is scheduled to be carried by PUCCH4. The “number of requested PDSCH groups” field in DCI4 is set to 1, so only the previous HARQ-ACKs that belong to PDSCH group 1 are multiplexed into PUCCH4. At time t 15 , the UE successfully acquires the channel and transmits PUCCH4, which includes HARQ-ACK for PDSCH1, PDSCH3, and PDSCH4, as shown by arrow 1110.

[0093] The Type 3 HARQ-ACK codebook introduces a new 1-bit DCI field “one-shot HARQ-ACK request” (1-shot) in DCI format 1_1, which indicates to the UE to transmit PDSCH HARQ-ACK feedback for all configured HARQ processes, regardless of whether the HARQ-ACK has been transmitted previously, failed due to LBT, or not transmitted due to NN-K1 indication.

[0094] Figure 12 An example of application of 1-shot HARQ-ACK is shown. According to Figure 12For the illustrated example, the UE is configured with eight HARQ processes for downlink transmissions via shared resources of PDSCH. According to the example, the gNB acquires COT1 at time t1 and transmits downlink control information DCI1, DCI2, DCI3 to schedule data transmissions on three respective downlink physical channels PDSCH1, PDSCH2, PDSCH3. HARQ-ACK for the data transmitted on PDSCH1, PDSCH2 is scheduled in resources of uplink control channels PUCCH1, PUCCH2, respectively, as indicated by arrows 1201, 1202. However, DCI3 indicates NN-K1 for PDSCH3, which means that no specific uplink resources are allocated for transmission of HARQ-ACK. The UE successfully transmits PUCCH1, but LBT and contention access fails, so PUCCH2 is not transmitted. At time t 12 , the gNB acquires COT2 and transmits DCI4 to schedule PDSCH4 with corresponding HARQ-ACK for Ack4 scheduled in PUCCH4, as indicated by arrow 1204. DCI4 also sets 1x complete to true, so the UE transmits HARQ-ACK for all eight HARQ processes Ack1, Ack2, Ack3, Ack4, Ack5, Ack6, Ack7, Ack8, including those that have been successfully transmitted (Ack1) (e.g., for PDSCH1) and those that have not been transmitted, e.g., for PDSCH2 and PDSCH3. For this example, the UE also transmits PDSCH HARQ-ACK for other HARQ processes not shown in FIG. 12. Figure 13

[0095] Example implementations address the relationship between HARQ-ACK codebooks and the priority of transmitting downlink data. For example, e-Type 2 and Type 3 HARQ-ACK codebooks (CBs) and NN-K1 were introduced in NR-U without the L1 priority indicator configured for eURLLC. In addition, e-Type 2 and Type 3 CBs are supported only in DCI format 1_1. There have been proposals to support NN-K1, e-Type 2 CB, and Type 3 CB with L1 priority in DCI format 1_1 and DCI format 1_2.

[0096] For example, some proposals [9] to support NN-K1 in DCI format 1_2 suggest that if a first DCI indicates NN-K1, then a second later DCI scheduling a PUCCH with a valid K1 value should:

[0097] • For Type 2 codebook: the PUCCH scheduled by the second DCI must have the same L1 priority as the first DCI.

[0098] ​• For e-Type 2 codebook: PUCCH L1 priority and PDSCH group of the second DCI must match that of the second DCI.

[0099] • For Type 3 codebook: Transmit all HARQ-ACKs regardless of L1 priority.

[0100] However, none of the above proposals take into account the low latency requirement of URLLC. For example, there can be no data to schedule in the second DCI with the same priority as the first DCI, so there will be a delay in providing the HARQ-ACK. Furthermore, there can be no PDSCH to transmit after the first DCI, so no PUCCH is scheduled and the UE has to wait for the next downlink grant, which increases the latency.

[0101] Example embodiments can provide, in one example, a UE operating a method of receiving data from a wireless communication network. The method comprises receiving a DCI indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving downlink data on a PDSCH, the DCI further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data transmitted on the PDSCH; and receiving the downlink data from the allocated PDSCH. In accordance with a HARQ process, the UE then determines whether the downlink data (PDSCH) is successfully received and generates a HARQ-ACK in accordance with whether the downlink data is successfully received. The UE then performs the following steps: determining that an uplink communication resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available; using a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK; and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the UE can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

[0102] Example embodiments can provide different transmission rules for missing HARQ-ACKs (for PDSCH) with different priorities. A missing HARQ-ACK is a HARQ-ACK feedback for a PDSCH that the UE knows was not transmitted, e.g. due to NN-K1 indication, LBT failure, or collision with a high priority UL transmission.

[0103] High L1 priority HARQ-ACK

[0104] In some embodiments, the missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK is transmitted in the next resource opportunity regardless of the priority associated with this opportunity. In other words, the missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK has a low delay requirement and is thus transmitted with the next available resource regardless of the priority of the next available resource. In some embodiments, more than one missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK can be transmitted in the next available resource.

[0105] The term resource opportunity is intended to mean an available resource that can be used to transmit a HARQ-ACK according to a predetermined transmission rule applied by the UE when one resource was not available before. The opportunity represents the application of the predetermined transmission rule to use a resource that was not intended to be used before to transmit a HARQ-ACK.

[0106] In some embodiments, the next available resource is a PUCCH scheduled by a downlink grant. The PUCCH can have a low or high L1 -priority. The missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK is multiplexed into the PUCCH scheduled by the downlink grant.

[0107] In some embodiments, the low L1 -priority HARQ-ACKs are multiplexed with the missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK in the PUCCH scheduled by the downlink grant. In other words, all HARQ-ACKs are transmitted by the PUSCH scheduled by the downlink grant.

[0108] In some embodiments, the missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK overrides the low L1 -priority HARQ-ACK. In other words, the low L1 -priority HARQ-ACKs are dropped.

[0109] In some embodiments, if the PUCCH scheduled by the downlink grant has a low L1 -priority, the missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACK replaces some low L1 -priority HARQ-ACKs. In other words, some low L1 -priority HARQ-ACKs are dropped.

[0110] In some embodiments, if the PUCCH has a low L1 -priority, the HARQ-ACKs are only dropped if there is not enough space for all missing high L1 -priority HARQ-ACKs.

[0111] In some embodiments, the next available resource is a PUSCH transmission, which is scheduled by an uplink grant. In such embodiments, the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK is multiplexed into the PUSCH transmission. In such embodiments, the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK can be multiplexed into the PUSCH transmission using, for example, the UCI to PUSCH multiplexing method

[10] .

[0112] In some embodiments, the next available resource is a configured grant (CG) PUSCH.

[0113] CGs are uplink resources that are configured to a UE by RRC, such that the UE can use the resources without needing to carry a DCI of an uplink grant. CGs are useful for periodic traffic and low latency traffic.

[0114] In some embodiments, the next available resource is a PUSCH without data or with dummy data. The PUSCH without data or with dummy data can be scheduled by a CG or dynamically scheduled by an uplink grant. The UE can multiplex the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK into the PUSCH without data or with dummy data. Such embodiments are particularly advantageous if the UE does not have uplink data to transmit and thus allows the gNB or the UE to transmit the HARQ-ACK without data.

[0115] In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 13, the gNB schedules a PUCCH only resource using a DCI. The DCI can be a downlink grant without any PDSCH resources or a new type of grant. Here, the K1 value will be relative to the end of the PDCCH carrying the grant, not the end of the PDSCH. Such embodiments are particularly advantageous if there is no downlink data for the UE, as such embodiments allow the gNB to schedule a PUCCH for the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK. Figure 13

[0116] In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 13, the gNB acquires a COT 1301 and transmits DCI1, DCI2, DCI3 to schedule PDSCH1, PDSCH2, PDSCH3, respectively. The HARQ-ACK corresponding to PDSCH1, PDSCH3 is associated with a high L1 priority PUCCH, while PDSCH2 is associated with a low L1 priority PUCCH. As shown by arrows 1302, 1304, the HARQ-ACK for the data to be transmitted on PDSCH1, PDSCH2 is scheduled in the resources of uplink control channels PUCCH1, PUCCH2, respectively. Figure 14

[0117] ​​The UE causes LBT failure for PUCCH1 and PUCCH2, which are associated with PDSCH1 and PDSCH2 respectively, and DCI3 indicates NN-K1. As a result, the UE does not transmit any HARQ-ACK corresponding to the downlink data transmission on PDSCH1 and PDSCH2. The gNB acquires COT2 and sends DCI4, which is a PUCCH-only authorized scheduling PUCCH4, as shown by arrow 1306. The UE multiplexes the HARQ-ACK of the lost high L1 priority PDSCH (in other words, the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH1 and PDSCH3) into PUCCH4, thereby transmitting it to the gNB.

[0118] In some implementations, such as Figure 14 As shown, if more resources become available, the UE selects the resource opportunity associated with higher L1 priority. Currently, conflicts can occur between uplink transmissions such as PUSCH or PUCCH, thus potentially providing the UE with more than one resource opportunity. Higher L1 priority resources are expected to have higher reliability than lower L1 priority resources. Therefore, implementations can provide the UE with reliable resources for its lost higher L1 priority HARQ-ACK by selecting resources that become available.

[0119] exist Figure 13 In this context, gNB schedules PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 within COT1, similar to... Figure 14 Examples in [the text]. However, in [the text]... Figure 15 In COT2, as indicated by arrow 1402, the UE is scheduled with PDSCH4 having a corresponding low L1 priority PUCCH4. The UE is also configured with a CG PUSCH having a high L1 priority. In such an implementation, the UE multiplexes the lost high L1 priority HARQ-ACK into PUSCH4. In some implementations, if a PUSCH with no data or virtual data can be transmitted, the UE can use the CG to transmit a PUSCH containing only HARQ-ACK bits.

[0120] In some implementations, if more than one resource opportunity exists, the UE selects the earliest resource opportunity. For example... Figure 15 As shown, if the resources allocated to HARQ-ACK transmissions for low-L1 priority PDSCH transmissions are allocated earlier than the resources allocated to HARQ-ACK transmissions for high-L1 priority transmissions, the UE can use those resources. This implementation is particularly advantageous when latency requirements are very strict. Figure 13 In this context, gNB schedules PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 within COT1, similar to... Figure 14 and Figure 15 Examples are shown in the text.Figure 15 In COT2, the gNB schedules PDSCH4, which has a corresponding low L1 priority PUCCH4, as shown by arrow 1402. From Figure 16 It is understandable that PUCCH4 conflicts with the configured authorized PUSCH4. In this example, there is no uplink data to transmit, so the UE selects the earliest available resource (resource opportunity), which is PUCCH4, to transmit HARQ-ACK Ack1, Ack2, Ack3, Ack4, despite having a lower L1 priority than PUSCH4. In some implementations, if the UE has uplink data and uses PUSCH4, the UE will transmit PUSCH4 and discard the transmission in PUCCH4, as these cannot occur simultaneously. In some implementations, if mixed priority UCI multiplexing is introduced, the UE will provide UCI multiplexing of HARQ-ACK Ack1, Ack2, Ack3, Ack4 from PUCCH4 into PUSCH4.

[0121] In some implementations, if there are more than one resource opportunity with the same L1 priority (low or high), the UE selects the earliest resource opportunity. Figure 13 An example is shown where gNB schedules PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 in COT1, similar to... Figure 14 , Figure 15 and Figure 16 Examples are shown in the text. Figure 17 In COT2, DCI4 schedules the UE using PDSCH4, which has a corresponding low L1 priority PUCCH4. This PUCCH4 has an authorization conflict with the low L1 priority configuration of the uplink resource PUSCH4, as shown by arrow 1602. In this example, the UE has no uplink data to transmit, therefore it does not need the uplink resource PUSCH4. Because both PUCCH4 and PUSCH4 have low L1 priorities, the UE selects PUCCH4, which arrives earlier than PUSCH4, for the transmission of lost high L1 priority HARQ-ACK Ack1, Ack2, and Ack3. In this implementation, the high L1 priority HARQ-ACK Ack1 and Ack3 are multiplexed with the low L1 priority HARQ-ACK Ack2 and Ack4. Therefore, PUCCH4 carries all lost HARQ-ACK Ack1, Ack2, and Ack3 (from COT1) and Ack4, i.e., the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH4.

[0122] In some implementations, the opportunity time window T Opp It is defined as making the resource opportunities within that time window candidates for high L1 priority HARQ-ACKs used to transmit lost data, even if they do not conflict.Figure 17 An example is shown. In Figure 13 , similar to the examples in Figure 14 , Figure 15 , Figure 16 and Figure 17 , the gNB schedules PDSCH1, PDSCH2 and PDSCH3 in COT1. In Figure 17 , the gNB schedules PDSCH4 in COT2. The gNB schedules DCI4 in COT1, which schedules PDSCH4 in COT2. In Figure 17 , the gNB schedules DCI5 in COT2, which schedules PDSCH5 in COT3. 13 The opportunity time window T 16 is defined after the start of DCI4 between time t OPP and t Opp . Within T Opp , the candidate resource opportunities are uplink configured grant PUSCH1 and uplink dynamic grant PUSCH2, which are scheduled by DCI4 providing uplink grants. In some embodiments, the UE transmits the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK Ack1, Ack3 using the resource (PUSCH2 in

[0123] In some embodiments, the opportunity time window T Opp is the duration of the COT. In other words, T Opp starts when the COT starts and ends when the COT ends. Referring to the example in Figure 18 , T Opp starts at time t 12 and ends at time t 16 , which is the duration of COT2.

[0124] In some embodiments, the earliest resource opportunity for a UE with a missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK will always be associated with a high L1 priority. In other words, the gNB will ensure that the UE receives a high L1 priority resource to transmit its missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK. The UE will not expect the first resource opportunity to be associated with a low L1 priority. Such embodiments are particularly advantageous because the gNB knows which HARQ-ACKs were not transmitted by the UE and will therefore ensure that the high L1 priority HARQ-ACK is transmitted before the low L1 priority HARQ-ACK. In example embodiments, the UE can transmit one or more high L1 priority HARQ-ACKs in a high L1 priority resource provided by the gNB. In such example embodiments, the UE can not transmit a low L1 priority HARQ-ACK in a high L1 priority resource provided by the gNB.

[0125] In some embodiments, as shown in Figure 18 , if the UE misses a high L1 priority HARQ-ACK, the gNB ensures that the earliest resource opportunity from the start of the COT is T HThere is at least one high L1 priority resource for the UE within Figure 13 In an example, the gNB schedules PDSCH1, PDSCH2, and PDSCH3 in COT1, similar to Figure 14 , Figure 15 , Figure 16 , Figure 17 and Figure 18 In COT2 of Figure 15 , the gNB schedules high L1 priority PUSCH2 within time T H , as indicated by arrow 1802, to ensure that the UE can transmit its missed high L1 priority HARQ-ACK. In such an embodiment, the gNB can perform Type 2 C DCA before allocating the unlicensed PUSCH2 resource to the UE for transmitting the missed high priority HARQ-ACK, as described above.

[0126] In some embodiments, T H begins at the end of a previous COT in which the UE has a missed high L1 priority HARQ-ACK. Referring to the example in Figure 19 , T H begins at time t9 and ends at time t 15 .

[0127] In some embodiments, T Opp and T H are RRC configured and fixed in the specification or indicated in DCI. In such an embodiment, the gNB acquires the COT before transmitting the DCI.

[0128] PDSCH group

[0129] In some embodiments using e-Type 2 codebook, PDSCH groups can be configured.

[0130] In such an embodiment, the missed high L1 priority HARQ-ACK can be multiplexed into the resource opportunity. For example, if the HARQ-ACK and the resource opportunity are associated with the same PDSCH group, regardless of the L1 priority, then the resource opportunity can be a PUCCH. This allows the gNB to manage PUCCH resources between different PDSCH groups.

[0131] In such embodiments, the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK can be multiplexed into a resource opportunity, e.g., PUCCH, regardless of PDSCH group and L1 priority. These embodiments reduce latency by allowing the UE to multiplex into a PUCCH associated with any PDSCH group. If the resource opportunity (e.g., PUCCH) has a low L1 priority and the gNB wishes to multiplex all PDSCH groups regardless of priority (i.e., high & low L1 priority HARQ-ACK), the “number of requested PDSCH groups” can be indicated = 2.

[0132] In such embodiments, the UE can be configured to multiplex only the missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK (if matching the PDSCH group) or multiplex the HARQ-ACK for transmission in one or more PDSCHs from other groups.

[0133] Low L1 priority HARQ-ACK

[0134] In some embodiments, the missing low L1 priority HARQ-ACK is only multiplexed into a resource opportunity of low L1 priority.

[0135] In some embodiments, the gNB indicates whether the missing low L1 priority HARQ-ACK can be multiplexed into a resource opportunity of high L1 priority. This indicator can be indicated in DCI or configured by RRC.

[0136] Thus, embodiments of the disclosure can allow for transmission of missing high L1 priority HARQ-ACK with low latency regardless of whether the next available resource belongs to the same PDSCH group and L1 priority.

[0137] Figure 19 is a flowchart illustrating a method performed by a communication device, in accordance with example embodiments. ​ A method of receiving data at a communication device from a wireless communication network is shown. After a start point, the method proceeds to step S1910 and the communication device receives downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information also providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data. For example, the downlink control information can allocate PDSCH resources to the communication device for receiving downlink data. For example, the relative priority can be a “high” or “low” layer 1 priority.

[0138] In step S1920, the communication device receives the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources. For example, the communication device can receive the downlink data in the allocated PDSCH resources.

[0139] In step S1930, the communication device determines whether the downlink data was successfully received.

[0140] In step S1940, the communication device generates a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, depending on whether the downlink data was successfully received. In other words, the communication device generates a HARQ-ACK if the downlink data was successfully received, and a HARQ-NACK if the downlink data was not successfully received.

[0141] In step S1950, the communication device determines that an uplink communication resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is unavailable. For example, the communication device can monitor the uplink communication resources and detect that another uplink transmission is occurring. In such an example, the communication device can determine that a listen before talk procedure failed.

[0142] In step S1960, the communication device uses the transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communication resource that presents an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK. In example embodiments, the communication device transmits the missed HARQ-ACK in the next available communication resource. In some embodiments, the communication device decides from two or more uplink transmission opportunities which to use to transmit the missed HARQ-ACK. For example, the communication device can identify a first uplink communication resource and a second uplink communication resource for another first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission, and use the transmission rule to decide which resources to transmit the missed HARQ-ACK on.

[0143] In step S1970, the communication device uses the indication of relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK. In example embodiments, the communication device can determine that a high LI priority HARQ-ACK can be transmitted in a low LI priority uplink resource. In some embodiments, the communication device can determine that a high LI priority HARQ-ACK can be transmitted in the earliest available uplink resource regardless of the priority of those uplink resources. After step S1970, the method ends.

[0144] It will be appreciated that while the above examples focus on using different time for transmitting the acknowledgement signalling depending on whether the acknowledgement signalling is positive (ACK) or negative (NACK), it will be appreciated that the same principles can be applied more generally to using different radio resources (e.g. occurring at / with different times and / or frequencies) for transmitting the acknowledgement signalling depending on whether the acknowledgement signalling is positive (ACK) or negative (NACK). For example, there can be certain frequencies on a system that are more reliable than others (e.g. due to lower interference), and negative acknowledgement signalling can be transmitted on the frequencies that are more reliable on the system, while positive acknowledgement signalling can be transmitted on the other frequencies at the same time (as reliable delivery of negative acknowledgement signalling can be considered relatively more important than reliable delivery of positive acknowledgement signalling in some circumstances). In another example, more radio resources can be used for transmitting negative acknowledgement signalling than positive acknowledgement signalling, which can for example allow more redundancy to increase the likelihood of reliable transmission (again as reliable delivery of negative acknowledgement signalling can be considered relatively more important than reliable delivery of positive acknowledgement signalling in some circumstances).

[0145] It will be appreciated that while the present disclosure focuses in certain aspects on implementations in LTE-based and / or 5G networks in order to provide specific examples, the same principles can be applied to other wireless telecommunication systems. Thus, while the terminology used herein is generally the same as or similar to that of the LTE and 5G standards, the present teachings are not limited to the current versions of LTE and 5G, but can be equally applied to any appropriate arrangements that are not based on LTE or 5G and / or that comply with any other future versions of the LTE, 5G or other standards.

[0146] It will be noted that the various example methods discussed herein can rely on predetermined / predefined information in the sense that it is known to both the base station and the terminal device. It will be appreciated that such predetermined / predefined information can generally be established, for example, by definition in the operating standards of the wireless telecommunication system, or in previously exchanged signalling between the base station and the terminal device, for example, in system information signalling, or in association with radio resource control setup signalling. That is, the specific manner in which the relevant predefined information is established and shared between the various elements of the wireless telecommunication system is not important to the operational principles described herein.

[0147] It will also be noted that the various example methods discussed herein rely on information exchanged / communicated between the various elements of the wireless telecommunication system, and it will be appreciated that such communication can generally be conducted in accordance with conventional techniques, for example, in accordance with the particular signalling protocols and the type of communication channel used, unless the context requires otherwise. That is, the specific manner in which the relevant information is exchanged between the various elements of the wireless telecommunication system is not important to the operational principles described herein.

[0148] The respective features of the present disclosure are defined by the following numbered paragraphs:

[0149] Paragraph 1. A method of receiving data at a communications device from a wireless communications network, the method comprising:

[0150] receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0151] receiving the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources,

[0152] determining, by the communications device, whether the downlink data is successfully received,

[0153] generating a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received,

[0154] determining that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available,

[0155] using a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and

[0156] using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as the resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0157] Paragraph 2. The method of paragraph 1, wherein determining that the uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available comprises:

[0158] identifying from the downlink control information whether the uplink communications resource has been allocated to the communications device to transmit the HARQ-ACK in relation to the transmission of the downlink data, and

[0159] determining that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for transmitting the HARQ-ACK if the downlink control information indicates that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for the transmission of the downlink data.

[0160] Paragraph 3. The method of paragraph 1, wherein the downlink communications resources and the uplink communications resources of the wireless access interface are accessed using a contention access procedure, and the downlink control information provides an indication of the uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and determining that the uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available comprises:

[0161] According to the contention access procedure, it is determined that the contention access procedure for accessing the allocated uplink communication resources indicated by the downlink control information has failed or is not allowed.

[0162] Paragraph 4. The method of any of paragraphs 1 to 3, wherein identifying, using the transmission rule, the next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0163] identifying an uplink communication resource that has been allocated for an uplink transmission,

[0164] determining that a relative priority of the uplink communication resource allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0165] identifying the uplink communication resource allocated to the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0166] Paragraph 5. The method of paragraph 4, wherein the uplink communication resource that has been allocated for the uplink transmission is an uplink communication resource allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the uplink communication resource forms part of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and the downlink data transmission uses downlink communication resources forming part of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).

[0167] Paragraph 6. The method of paragraph 4, wherein the uplink communication resource that has been allocated for the uplink transmission is an uplink communication resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting an uplink data transmission as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communication resource forms part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0168] Paragraph 7. The method of paragraph 4, wherein the uplink communication resource that has been allocated for the uplink transmission is an uplink communication resource that has been pre-configured for an uplink data transmission as part of a configured grant, the uplink communication resource forms part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0169] Paragraph 8. A method as claimed in paragraph 4, wherein the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information allocating resources for another downlink transmission that does not contain data or contains dummy data as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0170] Paragraph 9. A method as claimed in paragraph 4, wherein the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information transmission being for a HARQ-ACK in response to the other downlink control information transmission, without any downlink resources being allocated for the other downlink transmission, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

[0171] Paragraph 10. A method as claimed in any of paragraphs 4 to 9, wherein identifying the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission comprises:

[0172] identifying first and second uplink communications resources that have been allocated for first and second uplink transmissions respectively, and determining that the relative priority of the uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0173] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the uplink communications resources allocated to the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0174] identifying the first uplink communications resources allocated to the first uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as the resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0175] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources.

[0176] Paragraph 11. A method as claimed in paragraph 10, comprising:

[0177] the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission.

[0178] Paragraph 12. A method as claimed in paragraph 10, comprising:

[0179] the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission.

[0180] Paragraph 13. A method as claimed in paragraph 10, comprising:

[0181] the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission start at the same point in time as the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission.

[0182] Paragraph 14. A method as claimed in any of paragraphs 4 to 9, wherein identifying uplink communications resources that have been allocated for uplink transmissions comprises:

[0183] identifying first and second uplink communications resources that have been allocated for first and second uplink transmissions respectively,

[0184] determining that the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and

[0185] identifying the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of a HARQ-ACK.

[0186] Paragraph 15. A method as claimed in paragraph 14, comprising:

[0187] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit a HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as the resource opportunity for transmission of a HARQ-ACK, comprises:

[0188] determining that the communications device is able to transmit a HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources.

[0189] Paragraph 16. A method as claimed in paragraph 14, comprising:

[0190] determining that the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0191] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources.

[0192] Paragraph 17. The method of paragraph 14, comprising

[0193] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission and the second uplink resources allocated for the second uplink transmission are both equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0194] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first or second uplink communications resources.

[0195] Paragraph 18. The method of any of paragraphs 4 to 17, wherein identifying the first uplink communications resources and the second uplink communications resources that have been respectively allocated for the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission comprises:

[0196] identifying an opportunity time window of the candidate resource opportunities and determining that the first communications resources and the second communications resources are within the opportunity time window.

[0197] Paragraph 19. The method of any of paragraphs 1 to 3, wherein using the transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communications resources presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0198] identifying from the downlink control information a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs;

[0199] identifying an uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information indicating a group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs;

[0200] determining that the group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs is the same as the group of the received downlink data transmission for which the uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated, and

[0201] identifying the uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission that has been allocated by another downlink control information as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting a HARQ-ACK.

[0202] Paragraph 20. The method of any of paragraphs 1 to 3, wherein identifying, using the transmission rule, the next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting a HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0203] identifying, from the downlink control information, a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs;

[0204] identifying an uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information indicating a group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs;

[0205] determining that the group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs is different from the group of the received downlink data transmission for which the uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated,

[0206] determining that a relative priority associated with the received downlink data is equal to or greater than a relative priority of the uplink resource that has been allocated by the other downlink control information, and

[0207] identifying the uplink communication resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission that has been allocated by another downlink control information as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting a HARQ-ACK.

[0208] Paragraph 21. The method of paragraph 19 or 20, wherein the group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs and the group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs is one of a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) group or a second PDSCH group defined in an enhanced Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook.

[0209] Paragraph 22. A method as claimed in any of paragraphs 1 to 21, wherein receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information providing an allocation of downlink communications resources and an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data comprises:

[0210] receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, and

[0211] determining, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0212] determining, using the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

[0213] Paragraph 23. A method as claimed in any of paragraphs 1 to 22, wherein the indication of the HARQ-ACK is a Layer 1, LI, priority of the HARQ-ACK.

[0214] Paragraph 24. A method as claimed in any of paragraphs 1 to 21, wherein receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources and providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data comprises:

[0215] receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, and

[0216] determining, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0217] determining, using the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

[0218] Paragraph 25. A method of transmitting data by an infrastructure equipment forming part of a radio access network of a wireless communications network to one or more communications devices, the method comprising:

[0219] transmitting downlink control information to the one or more communications devices indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0220] transmitting downlink data to the one or more communications devices from the allocated downlink communications resources,

[0221] determining, at the infrastructure equipment, that no hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, is received in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received at the one or more communications devices,

[0222] providing to the one or more communications devices a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0223] Paragraph 26. The method of paragraph 25, wherein providing to the one or more communications devices a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0224] providing to the one or more communications devices a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK in response to determining that no HARQ-ACK is received at the infrastructure equipment.

[0225] Paragraph 27. The method of paragraph 26, wherein the uplink communications resource provided to the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK is received has a relative priority at least as high as the priority associated with the received downlink data.

[0226] Paragraph 28. The method of paragraph 26, wherein providing to the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK is received an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment comprises:

[0227] providing to the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK is received an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment within a predefined time period from the determination that no HARQ-ACK is received at the infrastructure equipment.

[0228] Paragraph 29. A communications device configured to operate in a wireless communications network, the communications device comprising:

[0229] transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and to receive signals from the wireless communications network via a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network; and

[0230] controller circuitry configured to control the transceiver circuitry, wherein the control circuitry is configured to:

[0231] receive downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of the wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0232] receive the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources,

[0233] determine, by the communications device, whether the downlink data is successfully received,

[0234] generate, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received, a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK,

[0235] determine that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available,

[0236] identify, using a transmission rule, a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and

[0237] determine, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as the resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0238] Paragraph 30. A communications device according to paragraph 29, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to determine that the uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available by:

[0239] identifying, from the downlink control information, whether the uplink communications resource has been allocated to the communications device to transmit the HARQ-ACK in relation to the transmission of the downlink data, and

[0240] if the downlink control information indicates that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for the transmission of the downlink data, determining that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0241] Paragraph 31. A communications device according to paragraph 29, wherein the downlink and uplink communications resources of the wireless access interface are accessed using a contention access procedure, and the downlink control information provides an indication of the uplink communications resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and determining that the uplink communications resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK are not available comprises:

[0242] determining, in accordance with the contention access procedure, that the contention access procedure for accessing the allocated uplink communications resources indicated by the downlink control information has failed or is not permitted.

[0243] Paragraph 32. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 31, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to use the transmission rules to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK by:

[0244] identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated for an uplink transmission,

[0245] determining that a relative priority of the uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0246] identifying the uplink communications resource allocated to the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

[0247] Paragraph 33. A communications device according to paragraph 32, wherein the uplink communications resource that has been allocated for the uplink transmission is an uplink communications resource allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the uplink communications resource forms part of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and the downlink data transmission uses downlink communications resources forming part of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).

[0248] Paragraph 34. A communications device according to paragraph 32, wherein the uplink communications resource that has been allocated for the uplink transmission is an uplink communications resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmission of an uplink data transmission as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communications resource forms part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0249] Paragraph 35. A communications device according to paragraph 32, wherein the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been pre-configured for an uplink data transmission as part of a configured grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0250] Paragraph 36. A communications device according to paragraph 32, wherein the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information allocating resources for another downlink transmission that does not contain data or contains dummy data as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0251] Paragraph 37. A communications device according to paragraph 32, wherein the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the other downlink control information transmission being for a HARQ-ACK in response to the other downlink control information transmission, without any downlink resources being allocated for the other downlink transmission, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

[0252] Paragraph 38. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 32 to 36, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to identify the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission by:

[0253] identifying first and second uplink communications resources that have been allocated for first and second uplink transmissions respectively, and determining that the relative priority of the uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0254] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the uplink communications resources allocated to the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0255] identifying the first uplink communications resources allocated to the first uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as the resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0256] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communications resource.

[0257] Paragraph 39. A communications device according to Paragraph 38, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0258] determining that the first uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than the second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission.

[0259] Paragraph 40. A communications device according to Paragraph 38, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0260] determining that the second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than the first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission.

[0261] Paragraph 41. A communications device according to Paragraph 38, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0262] determining that the first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission starts at the same point in time as the second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission.

[0263] Paragraph 42. A communications device according to any of Paragraphs 32 to 36, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to identify, by operation:

[0264] identifying a first uplink communications resource and a second uplink communications resource that have been allocated for a first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission respectively,

[0265] determining that the first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than the second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission, and

[0266] identifying the first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

[0267] Paragraph 43. A communications device according to Paragraph 42, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0268] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0269] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources.

[0270] Paragraph 44. A communications device according to paragraph 42, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0271] determining that the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0272] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources.

[0273] Paragraph 45. A communications device according to paragraph 42, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to:

[0274] determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission and the second uplink resources allocated for the second uplink transmission are equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises:

[0275] determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first or second uplink communications resources.

[0276] Paragraph 46. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 31 to 45, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to identify the first and second uplink communications resources that have been respectively allocated for the first and second uplink transmissions by:

[0277] identifying an opportunity time window in which the candidate resource opportunities occur, and determining that the first and second communications resources are within the opportunity time window.

[0278] Paragraph 47. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 31, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to use the transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communications resource in which an opportunity to transmit a HARQ-ACK occurs by:

[0279] identifying from the downlink control information a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs;

[0280] identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the other downlink control information indicating a group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs;

[0281] determining that the group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs is the same as the group of the received downlink data transmission, that the uplink communications resource for transmitting a HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated for the received downlink data transmission, and

[0282] identifying the uplink communications resource that has been allocated by the other downlink control information for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for the other downlink data transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting a HARQ-ACK.

[0283] Paragraph 48. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 31, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to use the transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communications resource in which an opportunity to transmit a HARQ-ACK occurs by:

[0284] identifying from the downlink control information a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs;

[0285] identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the other downlink control information indicating a group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs;

[0286] determining that the group to which the further downlink data transmission belongs is different from the group of the received downlink data transmission for which the uplink communication resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK are not available as indicated,

[0287] determining that the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is equal to or greater than the relative priority of the uplink resources already allocated by the further downlink control information, and

[0288] identifying the uplink communication resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK for the further downlink data transmission already allocated by the further downlink control information as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

[0289] Paragraph 49. A communications device according to paragraph 47 or 48, wherein the group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs and the group to which the further downlink data transmission belongs is one of a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) group or a second PDSCH group defined in an enhanced Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook.

[0290] Paragraph 50. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 49, wherein the controller circuitry, together with the transceiver circuitry, is configured to receive, by the communications device, the downlink control information providing the indication of the allocation of the downlink communication resources and the relative priority associated with the received downlink data by:

[0291] receiving, by the communications device, the downlink control information indicating the allocation of the downlink communication resources of the wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, and

[0292] determining, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resources as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, including:

[0293] determining, using the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resources as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

[0294] Paragraph 51. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 50, wherein the indication of the HARQ-ACK is a Layer 1, LI, priority of the HARQ-ACK.

[0295] Paragraph 52. A communications device according to any of paragraphs 29 to 50, wherein the controller circuitry, with the transceiver circuitry, is configured to receive, by the communications device, downlink control information providing an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data and an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data by:

[0296] receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of transmitting the received downlink data, and

[0297] determining, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit a HARQ-ACK in a next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including:

[0298] determining, using the indication of the relative priority of transmitting the downlink data, whether the communications device is able to transmit a HARQ-ACK in a next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

[0299] Paragraph 53. An infrastructure equipment forming part of a radio access network of a wireless communications network, the infrastructure equipment comprising:

[0300] transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and receive signals from one or more communications devices via a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network; and

[0301] controller circuitry configured to control the transceiver circuitry, wherein the control circuitry is configured to:

[0302] transmit, to the one or more communications devices, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data,

[0303] transmit, to the one or more communications devices, downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources,

[0304] determine, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received at the one or more communications devices, that no hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, is received at the infrastructure equipment,

[0305] provide, to the one or more communications devices, a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting a HARQ-ACK.

[0306] Paragraph 54. Infrastructure equipment according to Paragraph 53, wherein the controller circuitry, together with the transmitter circuitry, is configured to provide the one or more communications devices with a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of a HARQ-ACK by:

[0307] providing the one or more communications devices with a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of a HARQ-ACK in response to determining that no HARQ-ACK was received at the infrastructure equipment.

[0308] Paragraph 55. Infrastructure equipment according to Paragraph 54, wherein the uplink communications resource provided to the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK was received has a relative priority at least as high as a priority associated with the received downlink data.

[0309] Paragraph 56. Infrastructure equipment according to Paragraph 54, wherein the controller circuitry, together with the transmitter circuitry, is configured to provide the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK was received with an uplink communications resource for transmission of a HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment by:

[0310] providing the one or more communications from which no HARQ-ACK was received with an uplink communications resource for transmission of a HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment within a predefined time period from determining that no HARQ-ACK was received at the infrastructure equipment.

[0311] Paragraph 57. A communications device comprising transceiver circuitry and control circuitry, the control circuitry comprising a processor for executing computer executable code and when executing the computer executable code the processor performs the method according to Paragraph 1.

[0312] Further particular and preferred aspects of the present application are set out in the accompanying dependent and independent claims. It should be understood that the features of the dependent claims can be combined with the features of the independent claims in any combination other than those explicitly set out in the claims.

[0313] References

[0314] [1] 3GPP document RP-160671, "New SID Proposal: Study on New Radio Access Technology," NTT DOCOMO, RAN#71, Gothenburg, Sweden, 7 to 10 March 2016

[0315] [2] 3GPP document RP-172834, “Work Item on New Radio (NR) Access Technology,” NTT DOCOMO, RAN#78, Lisbon, Portugal, 18 to 21 December 2017

[0316] [3] 3GPP document RP-182089, “New SID on Physical Layer Enhancements for NR Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communication (URLLC),” Huawei, HiSilicon, Nokia, Nokia Shanghai Bell, RAN#81, Gold Coast, Australia, 10 to 13 September 2018

[0317] [4] 3GPP document RP-190654, “New WID: Physical layer enhancements for NR ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC),” Huawei, HiSilicon, RAN#83, Shenzhen, China, 18 to 21 March 2019

[0318] [5] TR 38.913, “Study on Scenarios and Requirements for Next Generation Access Technologies (Release 14),” v14.3.0

[0319] [6] RP-190726, “Physical layer enhancements for NR ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC),” Huawei, HiSilicon, RAN#83

[0320] [7] RP-193233, “Enhanced Industrial Internet of Things (loT) and URLLC support,” Nokia, Nokia Shanghai Bell, RAN#86

[0321] [8] RP-191575, “NR-based Access to Unlicensed Spectrum,” Qualcomm, RAN#84

[0322] [9] R1-2003845, “Feature lead summary#2 on 101-e-NR-unlic-NRU-HARQ-03 (NNK1 value),” Huawei, RAN1#101e

[0323]

[10] TS 38.212, “NR: Multiplexing and channel coding (Release 16)” v16.1.0

[0324]

[11] Holma H. and Toskala A, “LTE for UMTS OFDMA and SC-FDMA based radio access”, John Wiley and Sons, 2009.

Claims

1. A method of receiving data at a communications device from a wireless communications network, the method comprising receiving, by the communications device, downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data, receiving the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources, determining, by the communications device, whether the downlink data is successfully received, generating a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received, determining that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available, using a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, wherein, using the transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK comprises identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated for an uplink transmission, determining that a relative priority of the uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, identifying the uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, determining that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available comprises identifying from the downlink control information whether an uplink communications resource has been allocated to the communications device to transmit the HARQ-ACK for transmission of the downlink data, and if the downlink control information indicates that an uplink communications resource has not been allocated for transmission of the downlink data, determining that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein, downlink communications resources and uplink communications resources of the wireless access interface are accessed using a contention access procedure, and the downlink control information provides an indication of an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and determining that an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available comprises determining, in dependence on the contention access procedure, that the contention access procedure has failed or is not permitted for accessing the allocated uplink communications resource indicated by the downlink control information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein, The uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information transmission being for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, and the downlink data transmission using downlink communications resources forming part of a physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, The uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information transmission being for transmission of an uplink data transmission as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein, The uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been pre-configured for an uplink data transmission as part of a configured grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein, The uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information allocating resources for another downlink transmission that does not contain data or contains virtual data as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein, The uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communications resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information transmission being for transmission of a HARQ-ACK in response to the another downlink control information transmission without allocating any downlink resources for another downlink transmission, the uplink communications resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein, Identifying the uplink communications resources that have been allocated for the uplink transmission comprises Identifying first and second uplink communications resources that have been allocated for first and second uplink transmissions respectively, and determining that the relative priority of the uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK comprises Determining that the relative priority of the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises identifying a first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission as a next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including determining that the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communication resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communication resource.

10. The method of claim 9, comprising determining that a first uplink communication resource allocated for the uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than a second uplink communication resource allocated for the second uplink transmission.

11. The method of claim 9, comprising determining that a second uplink communication resource allocated for the second uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than a first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission.

12. The method of claim 9, comprising determining that a first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission starts at the same point in time as a second uplink communication resource allocated for the second uplink transmission.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein, identifying uplink communication resources that have been allocated for uplink transmissions comprises identifying a first uplink communication resource and a second uplink communication resource that have been allocated for a first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission, respectively, determining that the first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission starts at an earlier point in time than the second uplink communication resource allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission as a next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

14. The method of claim 13, comprising determining that a relative priority of the first uplink communication resource allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than a relative priority of the second uplink communication resource allocated for the second uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including determining that the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communication resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communication resource.

15. The method of claim 13, comprising determining that a relative priority of second uplink communication resources allocated for the second uplink transmission is higher than a relative priority of first uplink communication resources allocated for the first uplink transmission, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises determining that the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communication resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communication resources.

16. The method of claim 13, comprising determining that a relative priority of first uplink communication resources allocated for the first uplink transmission and a relative priority of second uplink communication resources allocated for the second uplink transmission are equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises determining that the communication device can transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communication resources if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communication resources or the second uplink communication resources.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein, identifying first uplink communication resources and second uplink communication resources that have been allocated for a first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission, respectively, comprises identifying an opportunity time window of candidate resource opportunities and determining that the first communication resources and the second communication resources are within the opportunity time window.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein, using a transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK comprises identifying a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs from the downlink control information; identifying uplink communication resources that have been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the another downlink control information indicating a group to which the another downlink data transmission belongs; determining that the group to which the another downlink data transmission belongs is the same as the group of the received downlink data transmission, that the uplink communication resources for transmitting the HARQ-ACK are not available as indicated for the received downlink data transmission, and identifying the uplink communication resources that have been allocated by the another downlink control information for transmitting the HARQ-ACK for the another downlink data transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmitting the HARQ-ACK.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein, Using the transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises identifying a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs from the downlink control information; identifying an uplink communication resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmission of a HARQ-ACK of another downlink data transmission, the another downlink control information indicating a group to which the another downlink data transmission belongs; determining that the group to which the another downlink data transmission belongs is different from the group of the received downlink data transmission for which the uplink communication resource for transmission of the HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated, determining that the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is equal to or greater than a relative priority of the uplink communication resource that has been allocated by the another downlink control information, and identifying the uplink communication resource that has been allocated by the another downlink control information for transmission of a HARQ-ACK of the another downlink data transmission as a next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, The group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs and the group to which the another downlink data transmission belongs is one of a first physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH, group or a second PDSCH group defined in an enhanced type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein, receiving, by the communication device, the downlink control information providing an indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data and an allocation of downlink communication resources of the wireless interface provided by the wireless communication network for reception of the downlink data, comprises receiving, by the communication device, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of the wireless interface provided by the wireless communication network for reception of the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, comprises using the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein, The indication of the HARQ-ACK is a layer 1, L1, priority of the HARQ-ACK.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein, receiving, by the communication device, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources and providing an indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, comprises receiving, by the communications device, the downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of the wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of transmitting the received downlink data, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including using the indication of the relative priority of transmitting the downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

24. A method of transmitting data by an infrastructure equipment forming part of a radio access network of a wireless communications network to one or more communications devices, the method comprising transmitting, to one or more communications devices, downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data, transmitting, from the allocated downlink communications resources, the downlink data to the one or more communications devices, determining, at the infrastructure equipment, that no hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, is received in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received at the one or more communications devices, providing, to the one or more communications devices, a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, wherein if the communications device misses a high L1 priority HARQ-ACK, the infrastructure equipment ensures that there is at least one high L1 priority resource available to the communications device for a time from a channel occupancy time.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein, providing, to the one or more communications devices, a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, includes providing, to the one or more communications devices, the next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK in response to determining that the HARQ-ACK is not received at the infrastructure equipment.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein, the uplink communications resource provided to the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK has a relative priority at least as high as the priority associated with the received downlink data.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein, providing, to the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK, an uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment, includes to provide the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK with the uplink communications resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment within a predefined time period from determining that the HARQ-ACK was not received at the infrastructure equipment.

28. A communications device configured to operate in a wireless communications network, the communications device comprising transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and receive signals from the wireless communications network via a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network; and a controller circuit configured to control the transceiver circuit, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to receive downlink control information, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communications resources of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for reception of downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data, receive the downlink data from the allocated downlink communications resources, determine, by the communications device, whether the downlink data was successfully received, generate an automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, in dependence on whether the downlink data was successfully received, determine that an uplink communications resource for transmission of the HARQ-ACK is not available, use a transmission rule to identify a next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and use the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to use the transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK by identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated for an uplink transmission, determining that a relative priority of the uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority associated with the received downlink data, identifying the uplink communications resource allocated for the uplink transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

29. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuitry is configured to determine that an uplink communications resource for transmission of the HARQ-ACK is not available by identifying from the downlink control information whether an uplink communications resource has been allocated to the communications device to transmit the HARQ-ACK in respect of transmission of the downlink data, and if the downlink control information indicates that an uplink communications resource has not been allocated in respect of transmission of the downlink data, determining that the uplink communications resource has not been allocated for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

30. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, to access downlink communication resources and uplink communication resources of the wireless access interface using a contention access procedure, and the downlink control information provides an indication of uplink communication resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and the controller circuitry is configured to determine that the uplink communication resources for transmission of the HARQ-ACK are not available by determining, in accordance with the contention access procedure, that the contention access procedure has failed or is not permitted for accessing the allocated uplink communication resources indicated by the downlink control information.

31. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communication resources allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the uplink communication resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, and the downlink data transmission uses downlink communication resources forming part of a physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH.

32. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communication resources allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmission of an uplink data transmission as part of a dynamic grant, the uplink communication resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

33. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communication resources pre-configured for an uplink data transmission as part of a configured grant, the uplink communication resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

34. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communication resources allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information allocating resources for another downlink transmission as part of a dynamic grant that does not contain data or contains virtual data, the uplink communication resources forming part of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

35. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission are uplink communication resources allocated by another downlink control information transmission, the another downlink control information transmission allocating no downlink resources for another downlink transmission in response to the another downlink control information transmission HARQ-ACK, the uplink communication resources forming part of a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH.

36. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuitry is configured to identify the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission by identifying first uplink communication resources and second uplink communication resources that have been allocated for a first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission respectively, and determining that the relative priority of the uplink communication resources allocated for the uplink transmission is equal to or lower than the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK comprises determining that a relative priority of first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than a relative priority of second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmissions as a next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises identifying first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission as a next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resources if a relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the second uplink communications resources.

37. The communication device of claim 36, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that first uplink communications resources allocated for the uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission.

38. The communication device of claim 36, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission.

39. The communication device of claim 36, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission start at the same point in time as second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission.

40. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to identify uplink communications resources that have been allocated for uplink transmissions by identifying first and second uplink communications resources that have been allocated for first and second uplink transmissions respectively, determining that first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission start at an earlier point in time than second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, and identifying the first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission as a next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

41. The communication device of claim 40, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that a relative priority of first uplink communications resources allocated for the first uplink transmission is higher than a relative priority of second uplink communications resources allocated for the second uplink transmission, using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resources as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK comprises determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resource.

42. The communication device of claim 40, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that a relative priority of a second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission is higher than a relative priority of a first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission, and use the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resource.

43. The communication device of claim 40, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to determine that a relative priority of a first uplink communications resource allocated for the first uplink transmission and a relative priority of a second uplink communications resource allocated for the second uplink transmission are equal to or lower than a relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, use the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communications resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including determining that the communications device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the first uplink communications resource if the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is at least as high as the relative priority of the first uplink communications resource or the second uplink communications resource.

44. The communication device of claim 30, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to identify a first uplink communications resource and a second uplink communications resource that have been respectively allocated for a first uplink transmission and a second uplink transmission by identifying an opportunity time window of candidate resource opportunities, and determining that the first communications resource and the second communications resource are within the opportunity time window.

45. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to use a transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK by identifying a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs from the downlink control information; identifying an uplink communications resource that has been allocated by another downlink control information transmission for transmitting a HARQ-ACK for another downlink data transmission, the other downlink control information indicating a group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs; determining that the group to which the other downlink data transmission belongs is the same as the group of the received downlink data transmission, and that the uplink communications resource for transmitting the HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated for the received downlink data transmission, and identifying the uplink communication resource that has been allocated by the further downlink control information for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for the further downlink data transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

46. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuit is configured to use a transmission rule to identify the next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK by identifying a group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs from the downlink control information; identifying an uplink communication resource that has been allocated by a further downlink control information transmission for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for a further downlink data transmission, the further downlink control information indicating a group to which the further downlink data transmission belongs; determining that the group to which the further downlink data transmission belongs is different from the group of the received downlink data transmission for which the uplink communication resource for transmission of the HARQ-ACK is not available as indicated, determining that the relative priority associated with the received downlink data is equal to or greater than a relative priority of the uplink communication resource that has been allocated by the further downlink control information, and identifying the uplink communication resource that has been allocated by the further downlink control information for transmission of a HARQ-ACK for the further downlink data transmission as the next available resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

47. The communication device of claim 45, wherein, the group to which the received downlink data transmission belongs and the group to which the further downlink data transmission belongs is one of a first physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH, group or a second PDSCH group defined in an enhanced Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook.

48. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, the controller circuit, together with the transceiver circuit, is configured to receive, by the communication device, the downlink control information providing an allocation of downlink communication resources and an indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data receiving, by the communication device, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of the wireless access interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of the HARQ-ACK, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK, including using the indication of the relative priority of the HARQ-ACK to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

49. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, The indication of the HARQ-ACK is a Layer 1, LI, priority of the HARQ-ACK.

50. The communication device of claim 28, wherein, The controller circuit, together with the transceiver circuit, is configured to receive, by the communication device, the downlink control information providing an allocation of downlink communication resources and an indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data receiving, by the communication device, the downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of the wireless interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving the downlink data, the downlink control further providing an indication of a relative priority of transmitting the received downlink data, and using the indication of the relative priority associated with the received downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, including using the indication of the relative priority of transmitting the downlink data to determine whether the communication device is able to transmit the HARQ-ACK in the next available uplink communication resource as a resource opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK.

51. Infrastructure equipment forming part of a radio access network of a wireless communication network, the infrastructure equipment comprising transceiver circuitry configured to transmit signals to and receive signals from one or more communication devices via a wireless interface provided by the wireless communication network; and a controller circuit configured to control the transceiver circuit, wherein the controller circuitry is configured to transmit, to one or more communication devices, downlink control information indicating an allocation of downlink communication resources of the wireless interface provided by the wireless communication network for receiving downlink data, the downlink control information further providing an indication of a relative priority associated with the received downlink data, transmit, to the one or more communication devices, the downlink data from the allocated downlink communication resources, determine, at the infrastructure equipment, that no hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement, HARQ-ACK, is received at the infrastructure equipment in dependence on whether the downlink data is successfully received at the one or more communication devices, provide, to the one or more communication devices, a next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK, wherein, if the communication device misses a high LI priority HARQ-ACK, the infrastructure equipment ensures that there is at least one high LI priority resource available for the communication device for a time from a channel occupancy time.

52. An infrastructure equipment according to Claim 51 wherein the controller circuit, together with the transmitter circuit, is configured to provide, to the one or more communication devices, a next available uplink communication resource presenting an opportunity to transmit the HARQ-ACK by in response to determining that the HARQ-ACK was not received at the infrastructure equipment, providing the one or more communications devices with the next available uplink communications resource presenting an opportunity for transmission of the HARQ-ACK.

53. An infrastructure equipment according to Claim 52 wherein, the uplink communications resource provided to the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK has a relative priority at least as high as a priority associated with the received downlink data.

54. An infrastructure equipment according to Claim 52 wherein, the controller circuit, together with the transmitter circuit, is configured to provide the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK with an uplink communications resource for transmission of the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment by; the uplink communications resource provided to the one or more communications devices that did not receive the HARQ-ACK is for transmission of the HARQ-ACK to the infrastructure equipment within a predefined time period from determining that the HARQ-ACK was not received at the infrastructure equipment.

55. A communications device comprising a transceiver circuit and a controller circuit, the controller circuit comprising a processor to execute computer executable code and when executing the computer executable code the processor performs the method of claim 1.

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