Method for UE to communicate, UE, method for base station, and base station

Abstract

A communication system provides reliable broadband communication with reduced power consumption in a user equipment (UE) receiver. The UE may include a receiver circuit for receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network and outputting an analog baseband signal. The RF signal includes M copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain. The analog baseband signal includes the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and includes gaps between adjacent copies. The UE also includes an anti-aliasing analog filter, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The ADC samples the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a sampling frequency selected to obtain a digital baseband signal, the digital baseband signal including a combined digital copy of the M copies of the replica signal overlapping each other.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application generally relates to wireless communication systems, including broadband communication systems. Background Art

[0002] Wireless mobile communication technology uses various standards and protocols to transmit data between base stations and wireless mobile devices. Wireless communication system standards and protocols may include: 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) (e.g., 4G) or New Radio (NR) (e.g., 5G); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard, which is generally referred to as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) by industry organizations; and IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs), which is generally referred to as Wi-Fi by industry organizations. In a 3GPP radio access network (RAN) in an LTE system, a base station may include a RAN node such as an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Node B (also commonly referred to as an evolved Node B, an enhanced Node B, an eNodeB, or an eNB) and / or a radio network controller (RNC) in an E-UTRAN, which communicates with a wireless communication device referred to as a user equipment (UE). In the fifth generation (5G) wireless RAN, the RAN nodes may include 5G nodes, NR nodes (also called next generation Node B or g NodeB (gNB)).

[0003] The RAN uses radio access technologies (RATs) to communicate between RAN nodes and UEs. The RAN may include a global system for mobile communications (GSM), an enhanced data rate for GSM evolution (EDGE) RAN (GERAN), a universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN), and / or an E-UTRAN, which provides access to communication services through a core network. Each RAN in the RAN operates according to a specific 3GPP RAT. For example, GERAN implements GSM and / or EDGE RAT, UTRAN implements Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) RAT or other 3GPP RAT, E-UTRAN implements LTE RAT, and NG-RAN implements 5G RAT. In some deployments, E-UTRAN may also implement 5G RAT.

[0004] The frequency bands for 5G NR can be divided into two different frequency ranges. Frequency Range 1 (FR1) may include frequency bands operating at frequencies below 6 GHz, some of which may be used by previous standards and may potentially be expanded to cover new spectrum products from 410 MHz to 7125 MHz. Frequency Range 2 (FR2) may include frequency bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz or higher. The frequency bands in the millimeter wave (mmWave) range of FR2 may have a smaller range but potentially higher available bandwidth than the frequency bands in FR1. The skilled person will recognize that these frequency ranges, which are provided by way of example, may vary from time to time or region to region. Summary of the invention

[0005] According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a method for communication by user equipment (UE) is provided, the method comprising: receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network, the RF signal comprising M copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain; processing the RF signal to obtain an analog baseband signal, the analog baseband signal comprising the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and comprising gaps between adjacent copies; filtering the analog baseband signal using an anti-aliasing filter; and sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a sampling frequency selected to obtain a digital baseband signal, the digital baseband signal comprising a combined digital copy of the M copies of the replica signal overlapping each other.

[0006] According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a user equipment UE is provided, comprising: a receiver circuit, the receiver circuit being used to receive a radio frequency RF signal from a wireless network and output an analog baseband signal, the RF signal comprising M copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain, the analog baseband signal comprising the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and comprising gaps between adjacent copies; an anti-aliasing analog filter, the anti-aliasing analog filter being used to filter the analog baseband signal; and an analog-to-digital converter ADC, the ADC being used to sample the output of the anti-aliasing analog filter at a sampling frequency selected for obtaining a digital baseband signal, the digital baseband signal comprising a combined digital copy of the M copies of the replica signal overlapping each other.

[0007] According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a method for a base station is provided, the method comprising: generating multiple copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain; generating a radio frequency (RF) signal, the RF signal comprising a uniform frequency offset between the multiple copies of the replica signal and comprising gaps between adjacent copies; multiplexing one or more other signals with the multiple copies of the replica signal in the RF signal, wherein the multiple copies of the replica signal are used for one or more user equipment (UE) operating in a diversity operation mode, and the one or more other signals are used for one or more other UE operating in a high throughput operation mode; and transmitting the RF signal to the one or more UEs.

[0008] According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a user equipment is provided, wherein the user equipment comprises a module for processing each of the above steps.

[0009] According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a base station is provided, comprising a module for executing each of the above steps. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010] To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit(s) in a reference number refers to the drawing number that first introduces the element.

[0011] Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating components of a UE receiver according to one embodiment.

[0012] Figure 2 is a simplified block diagram of a receiver circuit that may be used with certain embodiments herein.

[0013] Figure 3A Phase / gain estimation of a pilot signal in the digital domain according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0014] Figure 3B Phase / gain estimation of a pilot signal in the analog domain according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0015] Figure 4 Replicated signals intended for a first group of UEs and other signals intended for a second group of UEs are illustrated according to one embodiment.

[0016] Figure 5 An exemplary use case according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0017] Figure 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for a UE to communicate according to one embodiment.

[0018] Figure 7Exemplary NR radio operating bandwidths according to certain embodiments are illustrated.

[0019] Figure 8 is a flow chart of a method for a base station according to one embodiment.

[0020] Fig. 9 A system according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0021] Fig.10 Infrastructure equipment according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0022] Fig.11 A platform according to one embodiment is illustrated.

[0023] Fig.12 Components according to one embodiment are illustrated. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0024] Some communication systems use links with wide bandwidths to provide high data rates. Exemplary broadband systems may include controlled environments with unlicensed spectrum (e.g., 3GPP Release 17 (Rel-17) Ultra-Reliable and Low-Delay Communications (URLLC)), mmWave systems where channel occupancy rules and / or power spectral density (PSD) requirements result in broadband transmission (FR2, e.g., over 52.6 GHz), and / or other broadband systems where spectrum is not in short supply. Unlicensed spectrum provides a cost-saving alternative to licensed spectrum. For example, unlicensed spectrum does not require operators to spend the cost of acquiring spectrum and may be less expensive to implement because the emission mask used with unlicensed spectrum may be looser than the emission mask used for licensed spectrum. In addition, URLLC is useful in creating a compelling user experience and may also provide a new source of revenue. In order to achieve reliability, URLLC can use a large amount of spectrum.

[0025] However, receiving signals over large bandwidths can be challenging for UE implementations because it can use a lot of power. Over wide bandwidths, the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in the receiver can be a major source of power consumption. Therefore, certain embodiments herein provide systems and methods for highly reliable broadband communications, wherein the ADC in the receive chain reduces power consumption.

[0026] Figure 11 is a block diagram illustrating a UE receiver component 100 according to one embodiment. The UE receiver component 100 includes an anti-aliasing analog filter 102, an ADC 104, and a digital front-end processing circuit 106. The anti-aliasing analog filter 102 is configured to receive an analog baseband signal 108, which includes a signal or channel that is replicated in the frequency domain. In this example, four copies of the replica signal 110 are used (shown as copies C1, C2, C3, and C4). Those skilled in the art will recognize from the disclosure herein that fewer copies (including only two copies) or more than four copies may be used, depending on the specific application. For the purposes of discussion herein, "M" represents the number of copies of the replica signal 110.

[0027] like Figure 1 As shown, the M copies of the replica signal 110 are offset from each other in the frequency domain by a bandwidth "F". Thus, for example, the starting point of C1 differs from the starting point of C2 by F megahertz (MHz). Similarly, the starting point of C2 differs from the starting point of C3 by F MHz, and the starting point of C3 differs from the starting point of C4 by F MHz. Each copy of the replica signal 110 has a signal bandwidth "Fs" that occupies a portion of the bandwidth F, such that there is a uniform gap 112 between adjacent copies of the replica signal 110. For purposes of illustration, F and Fs are shown and discussed in MHz, which may correspond to the baseband of certain communication systems. However, the disclosure herein is not limited thereto, and other units such as Hertz (Hz), kilohertz (kHz), gigahertz (GHz), etc. may also be used.

[0028] In radio frequency (RF) and intermediate frequency (IF) processing (see e.g. Figure 2 ), the analog baseband signal 108 is passed through the anti-aliasing analog filter 102. The anti-aliasing analog filter 102 may have a passband of, for example, M×F MHz (M times F) to attenuate or remove frequencies other than the M copies of the replica signal 110. The output of the anti-aliasing analog filter 102 is provided to the ADC 104. In the first operating mode, in order to reduce power consumption, the ADC 104 is configured to sample at a rate of 2×F MHz (twice the value of F) or at a rate of A×F MHz, which is suitable for receiving a signal with a maximum bandwidth at A×F MHz, where A≥1. In a second operating mode, as discussed below, the ADC 104 may be configured to sample at a rate of B×M×F MHz (B times M times F), where B≥1, which consumes more power than in the first mode but provides higher data throughput (e.g., when the analog baseband signal 108 does not include a replica in the frequency domain, different signals / content are sent on the frequencies shown as occupied by C1, C2, C3, and C4).

[0029] At a sampling rate of A×F MHz (where A=1), aliasing is unavoidable. However, the embodiments disclosed herein use aliasing to exploit the benefits of frequency diversity (using multiple widely spaced frequency channels to send the same message to reduce the effects of channel fading and interference) without paying the price of supporting wideband radio (e.g., increased power consumption). As the M copies of the replica signal 110 overlap each other due to aliasing, the UE receiver processes a low bandwidth signal instead of a large bandwidth signal for digital baseband processing. At a sampling rate of A×F MHz (where A=2 and M=4), aliasing is unavoidable; however, the receiver is still allowed to process at a lower rate than the full rate typically used to receive a signal with M×F MHz (B=1).

[0030] In certain embodiments, the ratio Fs / F is selected as a design parameter to improve transmission efficiency while still allowing a low Q filter to be implemented at the UE, where "Q" is a quality factor associated with the width of the passband of the anti-aliasing analog filter 102. If the ratio Fs / F is too small, the PSD limit may not be fully utilized (e.g., when operating at 50 MHz, if half of the spectrum is not used, the transmitter may not be able to inject more power on the other part (the occupied part) to compensate for the loss. In certain implementations, this depends on regulation. In addition, if the ratio Fs / F is too large, the design of the anti-aliasing analog filter 102 may be expensive or challenging to achieve the desired Q. Therefore, the gap 112 may be based on a trade-off between increasing the utilization of the PSD of the analog baseband signal 108 (or RF signal) and reducing the complexity of the anti-aliasing analog filter 102, depending on the specific implementation.

[0031] Certain embodiments disclosed herein can be used with FR1 and / or FR2 transmissions from a base station. According to certain embodiments discussed herein, other design considerations address issues such as ADC sampling clock inaccuracy, spurious processing, coherence loss, and ADC switching time. For example, with respect to ADC sampling clock inaccuracy, for example, perfect or near-perfect overlap relies on the ADC sampling clock being perfectly or nearly perfectly locked to the Tx sampling clock. If the ADC sampling clock is not fully locked to the Tx sampling clock, there may be slight differences in the frequency domain alignment between different copies of the replica signal 110. If there is ADC sampling clock inaccuracy, each copy may actually experience a small frequency offset difference. Therefore, it is advantageous to reduce the inaccuracy of the ADC sampling clock. In addition, with respect to spurious processing, since the spurious positions are known, aliasing can still be easily used for spurious processing, and when the sampling frequency is F MHz, the dynamic range of the ADC 104 will not be negatively affected.

[0032] Figure 22 is a simplified block diagram of a receiver circuit 200 that may be used with certain embodiments herein. In this simplified example, the receiver circuit 200 includes an antenna 202, an RF front-end circuit 204, a first mixer 206, a first local oscillator (shown as LO 208), an IF circuit 210, an automatic gain control circuit (shown as AGC 212), a second mixer 214, and a second local oscillator (shown as LO 216). The antenna 202 provides an RF signal to the RF front-end circuit 204. The RF front-end circuit 204 may include, for example, a low noise amplifier (LNA), filters, and other circuits (e.g., switches) to detect and amplify the RF signal and provide it to the first mixer 206. According to certain embodiments herein, the RF signal includes M copies of a replica signal or channel transmitted from a base station (e.g., an eNB, gNB, or other network node). The RF signal includes a uniform frequency offset between multiple copies of the replica signal and includes gaps between adjacent copies.

[0033] A first input of the first mixer 206 receives an RF signal from the RF front end circuit 204, and a second input of the first mixer 206 receives a signal from the LO 208. The first mixer 206 outputs an IF signal. The IF signal is provided to the IF circuit 210, which may include a high gain amplifier, a filter, and other circuits (e.g., a switch). In some embodiments, the output of the IF circuit 210 is fed back to the RF front end circuit 204 through the AGC 212 to adjust the ADC (e.g., Figure 1 214). Alternatively, the baseband signal may be fed back through the AGC 212. A first input of the second mixer 214 receives the IF signal from the IF circuit 210, and a second input of the second mixer 214 receives a signal from the LO 216 to convert the IF signal to a baseband signal. As discussed herein, the baseband signal includes M copies of the replica signal that are uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and include gaps between adjacent copies.

[0034] Coherence refers to the frequency of the signal within the bandwidth that may experience comparable or related amplitude fading. Coherence loss may be due to transmit (Tx) or receive (Rx) chain group delay or due to the wireless channel. In the coherence loss caused by Tx / Rx chain group delay, the combination from M copies may not be perfect, where the combined gain may be smaller instead of obtaining a log2(M)dB boost. However, some embodiments provide low group delay without significant coherence loss.

[0035] Regarding the loss of coherence due to the wireless channel, if the delay spread of the wireless channel is small, the phase rotation of the different copies will also be small. However, if the delay can be estimated or the phase rotation can be estimated (for example, based on previous observations), the analog baseband signal can be pre-compensated during anti-aliasing filtering (combined processing) or before the analog baseband signal. Therefore, certain embodiments include a phase adjustment circuit before the anti-aliasing filter, so that the phase in the frequency domain can be adjusted (for example, 30 degrees around 50MHz, 40 degrees around 100Mhz, etc.). Since impedance matching for the antenna (at RF) and Rx beamforming at RF for millimeter wave communication can be achieved in actual implementations, phase adjustment at the baseband frequency may be even easier for implementation.

[0036] In some embodiments, to compensate for the coherence loss, for each replica signal 110, a pilot signal (also referred to herein as a pilot tone) is included in the RF signal from the base station and subsequently included in the analog baseband signal 108. At the base station (e.g., gNB) side, the pilot signal P is inserted for replica k. k , and each pilot signal P k are in different relative positions. For example, Figure 3A and Figure 3B The additional UE receiver component 300 is illustrated using the pilot signal P k (shown as pilot signals P1, P2, P3 and P4) to compensate for the coherence loss, the pilot signal is separated from the lower edge of replica k by Δf k Hz, where Δf1≠Δf2≠Δf3≠Δf4. In other words, pilot signal P1 is separated from the lower edge of replica C1 by Δf1, pilot signal P2 is separated from the lower edge of replica C2 by Δf2, pilot signal P3 is separated from the lower edge of replica C3 by Δf3, and pilot signal P4 is separated from the lower edge of replica C4 by Δf4. Since the pilot signals are at different relative positions with respect to the corresponding copies of replica signal 110, ADC 104 does not cause the pilot signals to overlap each other.

[0037] After digital baseband processing or analog baseband processing (e.g., with four notch filters), the phase at each pilot tone is estimated and fed to the phase / gain adjustment circuit 302. To make the design more robust, according to some embodiments, a phase factor can be calculated for each pilot signal P k More than one tone (e.g., two or more tones) is used so that frequency selective fading will not be a serious problem. The pilot signal P can be estimated by phase / gain estimation on the pilot signal circuit k The phase and / or gain of the circuit is determined and the estimated phase is fed to the phase / gain adjustment circuit 302.

[0038] For example, Figure 3A Phase / gain estimation of pilot signals in the digital domain is shown according to one embodiment. After the analog baseband signal 108 passes through the anti-aliasing analog filter 102, the ADC 104, and the digital front-end processing circuit 106, the combined digital replica 304 of the replica signal (C1 / C2 / C3 / C4) is provided to the control channel / data channel processing circuit 306, and the digital replicas of the pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4 are provided to the digital phase / gain estimation circuit 308. In one example, the pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4 are derived from the same baseband signal P(t), and their corresponding RF signals are from the transmitter.

[0039] where f c is the carrier frequency of C1; at the input of the phase / gain adjustment circuit 302, the corresponding baseband signal is where h1, h2, h3 and h4 are due to the wireless channel and group delay in the transmitter / receiver circuits. Since these baseband signals have known frequency offsets from each other and P(t) is known at the UE receiver, estimates of h1, h2, h3 and h4 can be obtained when h1 is used as a reference and can be obtained from Estimating relative phase / gain. Digital phase / gain estimation circuit 308 sends feedback of the relative phase and / or gain of the digital replicas of pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4 to phase / gain adjustment circuit 302. Phase / gain adjustment circuit 302 adjusts the relative phase of the replica signals (e.g., if C1 has the strongest replica |h2|, |h3|, |h4|≤|h1|, then Applied to C2 / C3 / C4 respectively to align their phases with the phase of C1) to adjust the coherence loss. In the phase / gain adjustment circuit, the receiver can choose to adjust only the phase compensation, only the gain, or both the phase and the gain. After only the phase adjustment, ignoring interference and noise, the signal at the input of the digital front-end processing circuit 106 is proportional to |h1|C1(t)+|h2|C2(t)+|h3|C3(t)+|h4|C4(t), where C1(t), C2(t), C3(t), C4(t) are the baseband signals of C1 / C2 / C3 / C4; for repetition, C1(t)=C2(t)=C3(t)=C4(t). After only the gain adjustment (where ), ignoring interference and noise, the signal at the input of the digital front-end processing circuit 106 is Proportional, where C1(t), C2(t), C3(t), C4(t) are the baseband signals of C1 / C2 / C3 / C4; for repetition, we get C1(t)=C2(t)=C3(t)=C4(t). After phase and gain adjustment (where Conj(h k ), k = 1, 2, 3, 4), ignoring interference and noise, the signal at the input of the digital front-end processing circuit 106 is the same as |h1| 2 C1(t)+|h2| 2 C2(t)+|h3| 2 C3(t)+|h4| 2 C4(t), proportional, where C1(t), C2(t), C3(t), C4(t) are baseband signals of C1 / C2 / C3 / C4; for repetition, C1(t)=C2(t)=C3(t)=C4(t). Therefore, ADC104 aligns the replica signals to overlap each other. Similar to the insertion of pilot signals for different replicas, the insertion of resources for interference and noise estimation can also be used to estimate interference / noise at different replicas. Then, the input of the phase / gain adjustment circuit is not only regulated by the estimate from the pilot signal, but also takes into account the interference and noise estimate. In some cases, the interference level at a given replica (e.g., C2) may be high, or the channel fading at a given replica (e.g., C2) may be severe; the end result is that the SINR or signal strength at a given replica may be low. In this case, a low gain, such as zero or a value close to zero, can be set for the frequency bandwidth around the replica with low SINR / signal strength, so that the overlapping signal contains a small input from the replica to avoid the replica from reducing the SINR in the overlapping signal.

[0040] In another possible design of the pilot signal design, code division multiple access (CDM) can be used instead of using frequency offset to distinguish the pilot signals. S1(t), S2(t), ..., S4(t) can be generated as mutually orthogonal sequences (e.g., Zadoff-Chu sequence, Fourier sequence, Walsh-Hadamard sequence, etc.) to facilitate detection at the receiver side. Quasi-orthogonal sequences (such as m sequence, Gold sequence, etc.) can also be used, P1, P2, P3 and P4 are respectively covered in C1 / C2 / C3 / C4, or they use dedicated resources in C1 / C2 / C3 / C4, with sufficient processing gain, and both overlapping and transmission using dedicated resources can allow the receiver to estimate h1, h2, h3 and h4 or their ratios, and apply the aforementioned given procedures to compensate for phase and / or gain differences.

[0041] Figure 3BPhase / gain estimation of a pilot signal in the analog domain according to another embodiment is illustrated. Figure 3B , analog phase / gain estimation circuit 310 is configured to receive analog baseband signal 108. Analog phase / gain estimation circuit 310 may include, for example, a notch filter to separate pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4 from analog baseband signal 108. Analog phase / gain estimation circuit 310 may provide phase estimates of pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4, or pilot signals P1, P2, P3, and P4 themselves, to phase / gain adjustment circuit 302 for phase / gain adjustment to correct for coherence loss. Thus, ADC 104 aligns the replica signals to overlap each other.

[0042] In some embodiments, ADC 104 has two modes of operation. In the first mode (mode 1), ADC 104 is configured to have a low sampling frequency, such as F MHz. Mode 1 can be considered as a diversity mode or diversity utilization mode in which replication in the frequency domain is used. Mode 1 may be useful for, for example, data communications with high reliability and medium rates. In the second mode (mode 2), ADC 104 is configured to have a high sampling frequency, such as M×F MHz. Mode 2 may be considered as a high throughput mode in which replication in the frequency domain is not used. Mode 2 may be useful for, for example, high throughput data communications. As discussed above, the trade-off of such high throughput communications is that the power consumed by ADC 104 in mode 2 may be much greater than the power consumed in mode 1.

[0043] As discussed above, a design consideration for certain embodiments is the ADC switching time for mode switching between mode 1 and mode 2. In certain embodiments, for FR1, the ADC switching time is at the cyclic prefix (CP) level (e.g., a few milliseconds). For FR2, more margin can be used for ADC switching. For example, if mode 1 is used for the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) and mode 2 is used for the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in FR2, since different Rx beams can be used for the reception of PDCCH and PDSCH, a switching gap between the reception of PDCCH and PDSCH may have been reserved, which can also be used for mode switching. In certain embodiments, the switching gap between the reception of PDCCH and PDSCH is sufficient for the ADC switching between processing PDCCH in mode 1 and processing PDSCH in mode 2.

[0044] If the replica signal 110 is a PDCCH, the number of non-overlapping control channel elements (CCEs) may not need to be increased compared to the case where the UE receives the PDCCH over a small bandwidth (e.g., a single copy of the PDCCH), so the channel estimation work does not surge or become too difficult due to the use of a wide bandwidth for PDCCH transmission. In some embodiments, once the PDCCH is decoded and the downlink control information (DCI) scheduling the PDSCH is detected, the ADC 104 switches from mode 1 to mode 2 for PDSCH reception. However, if replication is also used for PDSCH, some embodiments may stay in mode 1 for both PDCCH and PDSCH. The mode switch from mode 1 to mode 2 may be explicitly indicated or implicitly indicated in the DCI. In one example, a field for mode switching may be introduced in the DCI, which may be 1 bit: for example, "0" for mode 1 and "1" for mode 2. For example, if the PDSCH transport block size is below a threshold level, the UE stays in mode 1 for PDSCH. On the other hand, if the PDSCH is above the threshold level, the UE switches the ADC for the PDSCH from mode 1 to mode 2. As another example of an implicit indication of an ADC mode switch, according to another embodiment, certain entries in a frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) table may be associated with using mode 1, and other entries in the FDRA table may be associated with using mode 2.

[0045] In some embodiments, from a network perspective, Mode 1 and Mode 2 can be reused. Figure 4 A replica signal 110 (with replicas C1, C2, C3, and C4) intended for a first group of UEs and other signals 402 intended for a second group of UEs are illustrated. By way of example, three UEs operating in mode 1 may be served by replicas C1, C2, C3, and C4 of the replica signal 110, and four UEs operating in mode 2 may be served by the other signals 402. UEs operating in mode 1 may use a low pass filter 404 having a passband configured to remove other signals 402 that are not part of mode 1 operation. Similarly, UEs operating in mode 2 may filter out the replica signal 110 and process the other signals 402.

[0046] In certain embodiments, for initial access (e.g., in FR2 and / or above 52.6 GHz), the replica signal 110 shown in the figures discussed above may include a synchronization signal block (SSB). In certain such embodiments, the UE is configured to perform cell search only on the SSB grid, even if the base station (e.g., gNB) places its replicas across frequencies.

[0047] Figure 5Exemplary use cases are illustrated, where different modes (three are shown) of multiplexing of an SSB (shown as SS PBCH block 502), control source set 0 (shown as CORESET 504), and remaining minimum system information (RMSI) PDSCH (shown as PDSCH 506) can be handled by the embodiments disclosed herein.

[0048] Figure 6 is a flowchart showing a method 600 for a UE to communicate. In block 602, method 600 includes receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network. The RF signal includes M copies of a replicated signal in the frequency domain. In block 604, method 600 includes processing the RF signal to obtain an analog baseband signal that includes M copies of the replicated signal and includes a gap between adjacent copies, and the M copies are uniformly offset from each other in the frequency domain by a bandwidth F. In block 606, method 600 includes filtering the analog baseband signal using an anti-aliasing filter. In block 608, method 600 includes sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a sampling frequency selected to obtain a digital baseband signal that includes a combined digital copy of M overlapping copies of the replicated signal.

[0049] In certain embodiments of method 600, the anti-aliasing filter includes a passband of at least M×F, and wherein the sampling frequency is M’×F, where M’ is an integer less than M.

[0050] In certain embodiments of method 600, each of the M copies of the replicated signal in the analog baseband signal occupies a signal bandwidth Fs, where Fs < F (Fs is less than F).

[0051] In certain embodiments, method 600 further includes performing digital baseband processing on the combined digital copy for subsequent control channel or data channel processing.

[0052] In certain embodiments of method 600, the analog baseband signal also includes a pilot signal. Each pilot signal in the pilot signal is offset by a unique offset frequency with a corresponding one of the M copies of the replica signal. In certain such embodiments, method 600 also includes generating an estimate of at least one of the phase difference and gain difference between the pilot signals, and before filtering the analog baseband signal using an anti-aliasing filter, based on the estimate, one or more of the M copies of the replica signal are phase adjusted and / or gain adjusted to compensate for coherence loss. In addition, or in other embodiments, the digital signal also includes a digital version of the pilot signal, and generating an estimate includes processing the digital version of the pilot signal using a digital circuit to estimate at least one of the phase difference and gain difference, and providing feedback from the digital circuit to a phase adjustment and / or gain adjustment circuit configured to provide phase adjustment. In other embodiments, generating an estimate includes separating the pilot signal from the analog baseband signal using a notch filter, processing the pilot signal using an analog circuit to estimate at least one of the phase difference and gain difference, and providing feedback from the analog circuit to a phase adjustment circuit configured to provide phase adjustment.

[0053] In some embodiments, the method 600 further includes switching from sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a first sampling frequency F in the first mode to sampling at a second sampling frequency M×F in the second mode. In some such embodiments, the method 600 further includes selecting the first mode for frequency diversity to receive high reliability and medium throughput data, and selecting the second mode for high throughput data. Additionally, or in other embodiments, the method 600 further includes switching from the first mode to the second mode using a first predetermined switching time for FR1 and a second predetermined switching time for FR2.

[0054] In certain embodiments of the method 600, the replica signal includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), wherein the switch from the first mode to the second mode is explicitly indicated to the UE in downlink control information (DCI) that schedules a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH). In other embodiments, the UE implicitly determines to switch from the first mode to the second mode based on a transport block size of the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or an entry in a frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) table associated with the second mode. The method 600 may also include selectively filtering the analog baseband signal to pass M copies of the replica signal in the first mode and pass one or more other signals in the second mode.

[0055] In certain embodiments of the method 600, the replica signal includes a synchronization signal block (SSB), and the method 600 further includes performing a cell search by the UE only on the SSB raster.

[0056] In certain embodiments of method 600, the M copies include at least four copies of the replicated signal.

[0057] like Figure 7 As shown, it may happen that the operating bandwidth of the NR radio (e.g., at 400 MHz to 500 MHz) is smaller than the operating bandwidth of another radio (e.g., a radio with IEEE 802.11ad or IEEE 802.11ay standards). The IEEE802.11ad / IEEE 802.11ay bandwidth may be 2.16 GHz. For the operation of the NR device, including receiving PBCH / PSS / SSS, receiving PDCCH and PDSCH, the operation is limited to the aforementioned small bandwidth (e.g., 400 MHz to 500 MHz). However, due to considerations of coexistence with radios with large operating bandwidths (such as IEEE 802.11ad / 802.11ay), it may be necessary for the NR radio to perform CCA (clear channel assessment) on a wideband channel operation at 2.16 GHz in a listen-before-talk procedure. In this case, even though the IEEE 802.11ad / 802.11ay signal may not consist of duplicate copies of a single signal, the overlap due to undersampling may still be exploited to reduce UE power consumption in CCA and avoid high-speed sampling only for the LBT procedure. Since energy detection is the goal of CCA, the overlapping signal spectrum (e.g., at 400 MHz to 500 MHz) from IEEE 802.11ad / 802.11ay may still indicate its power level. In this case, the receiver of block 606 and / or block 608 may be used to perform CCA for a wideband signal with narrowband baseband processing (note that in this case, the anti-aliasing analog filter is set to have M×F Mhz as a passband; and in contrast, for operations other than CCA in LBT, the anti-aliasing analog filter is set to F MHz as a passband).

[0058] Figure 8 A flow chart of a method 800 for a base station is shown. In block 802, the method 800 includes generating multiple copies of a replicated signal in the frequency domain. In block 804, the method 800 includes generating an RF signal that includes a uniform frequency offset between the multiple copies of the replicated signal and includes gaps between adjacent copies. In block 806, the method 800 includes transmitting the RF signal to one or more UEs.

[0059] In certain embodiments, method 800 further includes selecting the gap based on a tradeoff between increasing utilization of a power spectral density (PSD) of the RF signal and reducing complexity of an anti-aliasing filter in one or more UEs.

[0060] In certain embodiments of method 800, the plurality of copies includes at least two copies of the replicated signal. In other embodiments, the plurality of copies includes at least four copies of the replicated signal.

[0061] In certain embodiments, method 800 further includes including in the RF signal pilot signals, each of the pilot signals being offset by a unique offset frequency from a corresponding one of the plurality of copies of the replica signal.

[0062] In certain embodiments of method 800, the replica signal includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and method 800 also includes sending downlink control information (DCI) to the one or more UEs to schedule a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) after transmitting the RF signal to the one or more UEs, the DCI including an indication to switch from a diversity operating mode to a high throughput operating mode.

[0063] In some embodiments, method 800 also includes multiplexing one or more other signals with multiple copies of the replica signal in the RF signal, wherein the multiple copies of the replica signal are used for one or more UEs operating in a diversity operation mode and the one or more other signals are used for one or more other UEs operating in a high throughput operation mode.

[0064] Fig. 9 An exemplary architecture of a system 900 of a network according to various embodiments is shown. The following description is provided for an exemplary system 900 operating in conjunction with LTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards provided by 3GPP technical specifications. However, the exemplary embodiments are not limited in this regard, and the embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), and the like.

[0065] like Fig. 9As shown, system 900 includes UE 922 and UE 920. In this example, UE 922 and UE 920 are illustrated as smart phones (e.g., handheld touch screen mobile computing devices that can connect to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing devices, such as consumer electronic devices, mobile phones, smart phones, feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handheld devices, desktop computers, laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE) devices, instrument clusters (ICs), heads-up display (HUD) devices, on-board diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), electronic engine management systems (EEMS), electronic / engine control units (ECUs), electronic / engine control modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or "smart" appliances, MTC devices, M2M, IoT devices, etc.

[0066] In some embodiments, UE 922 and / or UE 920 may be an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with an MTC server or device via PLMN, ProSe or D2D communications, sensor networks, or IoT networks. M2M or MTC data exchanges may be machine-initiated data exchanges. The IoT network describes interconnected IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) with short-lived connections. The IoT UE may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connectivity to the IoT network.

[0067] UE 922 and UE 920 may be configured to be connected, e.g., communicatively coupled, to an access node or radio access node (shown as (R) AN 908). In an embodiment, (R) AN 908 may be an NG RAN or SG RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a traditional RAN, such as a UTRAN or GERAN. As used herein, the term "NG RAN" or the like may refer to an (R) AN 908 operating in an NR or SG system, and the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to an (R) AN 908 operating in an LTE or 4G system. UE 922 and UE 920 utilize connections (or channels) (shown as connection 904 and connection 902, respectively), each connection (or channel) comprising a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below).

[0068] In this example, connection 904 and connection 902 are air interfaces for enabling communication coupling, and may conform to a cellular communication protocol, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a SG protocol, a NR protocol, and / or any other communication protocol discussed herein. In an embodiment, UE 922 and UE 920 may also directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 910. The ProSe interface 910 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink (SL) interface 110, and may include one or more logical channels, including but not limited to PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

[0069] UE 920 is shown as being configured to access AP 912 (also referred to as a "WLAN node," "WLAN," "WLAN terminal," "WT," etc.) via connection 924. Connection 924 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where AP 912 would include Wireless Fidelity. router. In this example, AP 912 may be connected to the Internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, UE 920, (R) AN 908, and AP 912 may be configured to utilize LWA operation and / or LWIP operation. LWA operation may involve UE 920 in RRC_CONNECTED being configured by RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 920 using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 924) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent through connection 924. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packet.

[0070] (R)AN 908 may include one or more AN nodes, such as RAN node 914 and RAN node 916, that enable connection 904 and connection 902. As used herein, the terms "access node", "access point", etc. may describe equipment that provides radio baseband functions for data and / or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP or TRP, etc., and may include ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the terms "NG RAN node" and the like may refer to RAN nodes (e.g., gNBs) operating in NR or SG systems, while the terms "E-UTRAN nodes" and the like may refer to RAN nodes (e.g., eNBs) operating in LTE or 4G systems 900. According to various embodiments, the RAN node 914 or the RAN node 916 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices such as a macrocell base station and / or a low power (LP) base station for providing a femtocell, picocell or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity or higher bandwidth than a macrocell.

[0071] In some embodiments, all or part of RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network that may be referred to as a CRAN and / or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vBBUP may implement RAN functional splits, such as PDCP splits, where the RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes (e.g., RAN node 914 or RAN node 916); MAC / PHY splits, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes (e.g., RAN node 914 or RAN node 916); or "lower PHY" splits, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers, and upper portions of the PHY layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the lower portions of the PHY layers are operated by individual RAN nodes. This virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of the RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 to execute other virtualized applications. In some specific implementations, each RAN node may represent a node via each F1 interface ( Fig. 9In some implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs, and the gNB-CUs may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the (R)AN 908 or by a server pool in a manner similar to the CRAN / vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 914 or 916 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), which is a RAN node that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations to the UE 922 and UE 920 and is connected to the SGC via an NG interface (discussed below). In a V2X scenario, the RAN node 914 or one or more of the RAN nodes 916 may be an RSU or act as an RSU.

[0072] The term "roadside unit" or "RSU" may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. The RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, wherein an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU", and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled to a radio frequency circuit located on the roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs (vUEs). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuits for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications / software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz direct short range communication (DSRC) band to provide extremely low latency communications required for high-speed events, such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate on a cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low-latency communications as well as other cellular communications services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4 GHz band) and / or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Some or all of the computing device and the RSU's RF circuitry may be packaged in a weather-resistant enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and / or backhaul network.

[0073] The RAN node 914 and / or the RAN node 916 may terminate the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 922 and the UE 920. In some embodiments, the RAN node 914 and / or the RAN node 916 may perform various logical functions of the (R)AN 908, including but not limited to radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0074] In an embodiment, UE 922 and UE 920 may be configured to communicate with each other or with RAN node 914 and / or RAN node 916 over a multi-carrier communication channel using OFDM communication signals according to various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communication) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communication), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0075] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from RAN node 914 and / or RAN node 916 to UE 922 and UE 920, while uplink transmissions may utilize similar techniques. The grid may be a time-frequency grid, referred to as a resource grid or a time-frequency resource grid, which is a physical resource in the downlink in each time slot. For OFDM systems, such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice, which makes radio resource allocation intuitive. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to an OFDM symbol and an OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to a time slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in the resource grid is represented as a resource element. Each resource grid includes a plurality of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block includes a set of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the minimum amount of resources that can currently be allocated. Such resource blocks are used to transmit several different physical downlink channels.

[0076] According to various embodiments, UE 922 and UE 920 and RAN node 914 and / or RAN node 916 communicate data (e.g., transmit data and receive data) through a licensed medium (also referred to as a "licensed spectrum" and / or a "licensed frequency band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as an "unlicensed spectrum" and / or an "unlicensed frequency band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz frequency band.

[0077] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UE 922 and UE 920 and the RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms. In these specific implementations, the UE 922 and UE 920 and the RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations and / or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied before transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium / carrier sensing operations may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0078] LBT is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., UE 922 and UE 920 and RAN node 914 or RAN node 916, etc.) senses the medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a particular channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine whether other signals are present on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or idle. The LBT mechanism allows cellular / LAA networks to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over a period of time on an expected transmission band and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

[0079] Typically, existing systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs use a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA / CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS) such as UE 922, AP 912, etc.) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmitting. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid conflicts. The backoff mechanism may be a counter randomly introduced within the CWS that increases exponentially when a conflict occurs and is reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA / CA of WLAN. In some specific implementations, the LBT process for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmission) may have a LAA contention window of variable length between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values ​​of the CWS of LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmissions may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWS and MCOT (eg, transmission burst) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

[0080] The LAA mechanism is built on the CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a CC. A CC can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, and up to five CCs can be aggregated, so the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In an FDD system, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DL ​​and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, each CC may have a different bandwidth from other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC are typically the same for DL ​​and UL.

[0081] CA also includes individual serving cells to provide individual CCs. The coverage of the serving cells may be different, for example, because CCs on different frequency bands will experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell may provide the PCC for both UL and DL, and may handle activities related to RRC and NAS. Other serving cells are called SCells, and each SCell may provide individual SCCs for both UL and DL. SCCs may be added and removed as needed, and changing PCCs may require the UE 922 to undergo switching. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in an unlicensed spectrum (referred to as "LAA SCells"), and the LAA SCells are assisted by the PCells operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCells, indicating different PUSCH start positions within the same subframe.

[0082] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to UE 922 and UE 920. The PDCCH carries, among other information, information about the transport format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It may also inform UE 922 and UE 920 about the transport format, resource allocation, and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UE 920 within a cell) may be performed at either RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 based on channel quality information fed back from either UE 922 and UE 920. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of UE 922 and UE 920.

[0083] PDCCH uses CCE to transmit control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols can first be organized into quadruplets, which can then be arranged using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. One or more of these CCEs can be used to transmit each PDCCH, where each CCE can correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, respectively, called REGs. Four quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) symbols can be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the DCI and channel conditions, one or more CCEs can be used to transmit the PDCCH. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

[0084] Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some embodiments may utilize EPDCCH that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. One or more ECCEs may be used to transmit EPDCCH. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, referred to as EREG. In some cases, ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

[0085] The RAN node 914 or the RAN node 916 may be configured to communicate with each other via the interface 930. In an embodiment where the system 900 is an LTE system (e.g., when the CN 906 is an EPC), the interface 930 may be an X2 interface. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC, and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC. In some specific implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user packets transmitted over the X2 interface, and may be used to transmit information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number information about user data transmitted from the MeNB to the SeNB; information about the successful delivery of PDCP PDUs from the SeNB to the UE 922 in sequence for user data; information about PDCP PDUs not delivered to the UE 922; information about the current minimum expected buffer size at the Se NB for transmitting user data to the UE; and the like. X2-C can provide intra-LTE access mobility functions, including context transfer from the source eNB to the target eNB, user plane transmission control, etc.; load management functions; and inter-cell interference coordination functions.

[0086] In an embodiment where the system 900 is a SG or NR system (e.g., when the CN 906 is an SGC), the interface 930 may be an Xn interface. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the SGC, between a RAN node 914 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB connected to the SGC, and / or between two eNBs connected to a 5GC (e.g., CN 906). In some specific implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support / provide data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functions for managing the functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for the UE 922 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED) includes functions for managing UE mobility in a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 914 or RAN nodes 916. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) service RAN node 914 to the new (target) service RAN node 916, and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) service RAN node 914 and the new (target) service RAN node 916. The protocol stack of Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on the Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of the UDP and / or IP layer for carrying user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as the Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer built on SCTP. SCTP may be on top of the IP layer and may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver signaling PDUs. In other specific implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and / or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same or similar to the user plane and / or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

[0087] (R)AN 908 is illustrated as being communicatively coupled to a core network—in this embodiment, communicatively coupled to CN 906. CN 906 may include one or more network elements 932 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UE 922 and UE 920) connected to CN 906 via (R)AN 908. The components of CN 906 may be implemented in one physical node or in separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the above-mentioned network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). The logical instantiation of CN 906 may be referred to as a network slice, and the logical instantiation of a portion of CN 906 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. The NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0088] In general, the application server 918 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 918 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social network services, etc.) for UE 922 and UE 920 via the EPC. The application server 918 may communicate with the CN 906 via the IP communication interface 936.

[0089] In an embodiment, CN 906 may be an SGC, and (R)AN 116 may be connected to CN 906 via an NG interface 934. In an embodiment, NG interface 934 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 926, which carries traffic data between RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 and UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 928, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 and AMF.

[0090] In an embodiment, CN 906 may be an SG CN, while in other embodiments, CN 906 may be an EPC. In the case where CN 906 is an EPC, (R)AN 116 may be connected to CN 906 via an S1 interface 934. In an embodiment, S1 interface 934 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 926, which carries traffic data between RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 and S-GW; and an S1-MME interface 928, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 914 or RAN node 916 and MME.

[0091] Fig.10 An example of infrastructure equipment 1000 according to various embodiments is shown. The infrastructure equipment 1000 can be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node, an AN, an application server, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. In other examples, the infrastructure equipment 1000 can be implemented in or by a UE.

[0092] The infrastructure equipment 1000 includes application circuits 1002, baseband circuits 1004, one or more radio front end modules 1006 (RFEM), memory circuits 1008, power management integrated circuits (shown as PMIC 1010), power tee circuits 1012, network controller circuits 1014, network interface connectors 1020, satellite positioning circuits 1016, and user interface circuits 1018. In some embodiments, the infrastructure equipment 1000 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory / storage devices, displays, cameras, sensors, or input / output (I / O) interfaces. In other embodiments, these components may be included in more than one device. For example, the circuits may be included separately in more than one device for a CRAN, vBBU, or other similar implementation. The application circuits 1002 include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of the following: a low dropout regulator (LDO), an interrupt controller, a serial interface (such as SPI, l 2C or universal programmable serial interface module), a real-time clock (RTC), a timer-counter including an interval timer and a watchdog timer, a general purpose input / output (I / O or IO), a memory card controller (such as a secure digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar controller), a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interface, and a joint test access group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 1002 can be coupled to or can include a memory / storage element and can be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the infrastructure equipment 1000. In some specific implementations, the memory / storage element can be an on-chip memory circuit that can include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, and / or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

[0093] The processor of the application circuit 1002 may include, for example, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuit 1002 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein. As an example, the processor of the application circuit 1002 may include one or more Intel FPGAs. or Processor: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) or Processor; ARM-based processors licensed by ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A series processors provided by Cavium (TM), Inc. and MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior P-class processor; etc. In some embodiments, the infrastructure equipment 1000 may not utilize application circuits 1002, and instead may include a dedicated processor / controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5GC.

[0094] In some implementations, the application circuit 1002 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, etc. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and / or deep learning (DL) accelerators. For example, the programmable processing device may be one or more field programmable devices (FPDs), such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), etc.; programmable logic devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), etc.; ASICs, such as structured ASICs, etc.; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); etc. In such implementations, the circuits of the application circuit 1002 may include logic blocks or logic architectures, as well as other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions (such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein). In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 1002 may include a memory unit (e.g., an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a flash memory, a static memory (e.g., a static random access memory (SRAM), an anti-fuse, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic architectures, data, etc. in a look-up table (LUT), etc. The baseband circuit 1004 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits.

[0095] The user interface circuit 1018 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the infrastructure equipment 1000 or a peripheral component interface designed to enable a peripheral component to interact with the infrastructure equipment 1000. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touch pad, a touch screen, a speaker or other audio transmitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, etc. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0096] The radio front end module 1006 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) radio front end module (RFEM) and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical radio front end module 1006 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0097] The memory circuit 1008 may include one or more of the following: a volatile memory including a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and / or a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM); and a non-volatile memory (NVM) including a high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as a "flash memory"), a phase change random access memory (PRAM), a magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may be combined with and The memory circuit 1008 may be implemented as one or more of: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0098] The PMIC 1010 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources such as batteries or capacitors. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of a brownout (undervoltage) and a surge (overvoltage) condition. The power tee circuit 1012 may provide electrical power extracted from a network cable to provide both power and data connections for the infrastructure equipment 1000 using a single cable.

[0099] The network controller circuit 1014 may provide connectivity to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet based on a GRE tunnel, Ethernet based on a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. A physical connection may be used to provide a network connection to / from the infrastructure equipment 1000 via a network interface connector 1020, which may be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. The network controller circuit 1014 may include one or more dedicated processors and / or FPGAs for communicating using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the network controller circuit 1014 may include multiple controllers for providing connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[0100] The positioning circuit 1016 includes circuits for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by a positioning network of a global satellite navigation system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., using the Indian constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's Doppler Orbit Chart and Satellite Integrated Radio Positioning (DORIS), etc. for navigation), etc. The positioning circuit 1016 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices for facilitating OTA communications, such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc.) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 1016 may include a micro technology (micro PNT) IC for positioning, navigation, and timing that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1016 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 1004 and / or the radio front end module 1006 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuit 1016 may also provide location data and / or time data to the application circuit 1002, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructures, etc. Fig.10 The components shown may communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and / or interconnect (IX) technologies, such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Extended ISA (EISA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended (PCix), PCI express (PCie), or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus, such as used in SoC-based systems. Other bus / IX systems may be included, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0101] Fig.11 Examples of platforms 1100 according to various embodiments are shown. In an embodiment, computer platform 1100 may be suitable for use as a UE, an application server, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. Platform 1100 may include any combination of components shown in the examples. The components of platform 1100 may be implemented as an integrated circuit (IC), part of an IC, a discrete electronic device, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted in computer platform 1100, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. Fig.11The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of computer platform 1100. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangements of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

[0102] Application circuit 1102 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of the following: LDO, interrupt controller, serial interface (such as SPI, I 2 C or general purpose programmable serial interface module), RTC, timers including interval timers and watchdog timers, general purpose I / O, memory card controller (such as SD MMC or similar controller), USB interface, MIPI interface, and JTAG test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 1102 can be coupled to or can include a memory / storage element and can be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the platform 1100. In some specific implementations, the memory / storage element can be an on-chip memory circuit that can include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, and / or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

[0103] The processor of the application circuit 1102 may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, multi-threaded processors, ultra-low voltage processors, embedded processors, some other known processing elements, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuit 1102 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein.

[0104] As an example, the processor of the application circuit 1102 may include a processor based on Architecture Core TM Processors such as Quark TM 、Atom TM , i3, i5, i7 or MCU-class processors, or can be purchased from The processor of application circuit 1102 may also be one or more of the following: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU); from Inc.'s AS-A9 processor, Snapdragon by Technologies, Inc. TM Processor, Texas Instruments, OpenMultimedia Applications Platform(OMAP) TM processors; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M series processors; etc. In some implementations, the application circuit 1102 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which the application circuit 1102 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, such as company( Edison Corporation TM or Galileo TM SoC board.

[0105] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 1102 may include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more field programmable devices (FPDs), such as FPGAs, etc.; programmable logic devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), etc.; ASICs, such as structured ASICs, etc.; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); etc. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 1102 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 1102 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic structures, data, etc. in a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0106] Baseband circuitry 1104 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits.

[0107] The radio front end module 1106 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) radio front end module (RFEM) and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the millimeter wave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays, and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical radio front end module 1106 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0108] The memory circuit 1108 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a quantitative system memory. As an example, the memory circuit 1108 may include one or more of the following items: volatile memory, including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and / or synchronous dynamic RAM (SD RAM); and non-volatile memory (NVM), including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuit 1108 may be developed according to a Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) based low power double data rate (LPDDR) design (such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc.). The memory circuit 1108 may be implemented as one or more of a solder-in package integrated circuit, a single die package (SDP), a dual die package (DDP), or a quad die package (Q17P), a socketed memory module, a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) including a micro DIMM or a mini DIMM, and / or soldered to a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In a low-power implementation, the memory circuit 1108 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 1102. In order to provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 1108 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, among others, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), a hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, a resistive change memory, a phase change memory, a holographic memory, or a chemical memory. For example, the computer platform 1100 may be combined with a memory device obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0109] Removable memory 1126 may include devices, circuits, housings / casings, ports or receptacles, etc., for coupling portable data storage devices to platform 1100. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage, and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, micro SD cards, xD picture cards, etc.), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, etc.

[0110] Platform 1100 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) for connecting external devices to platform 1100. External devices connected to platform 1100 via the interface circuitry include sensors 1122 and electromechanical components (shown as EMC 1124), as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory 1126.

[0111] Sensors 1122 include devices, modules, or subsystems that are designed to detect events or changes in their environment and send information about the detected events (sensor data) to some other device, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, among others: an inertial measurement unit (IMU) including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) including a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a level sensor; a flow sensor; a temperature sensor (e.g., a thermistor); a pressure sensor; a barometric pressure sensor; a gravity meter; an altimeter; an image capture device (e.g., a camera or a lensless aperture); a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor; a proximity sensor (e.g., an infrared radiation detector, etc.), a depth sensor, an ambient light sensor, an ultrasonic transceiver; a microphone or other similar audio capture device; etc.

[0112] EMC 1124 includes devices, modules or subsystems for the purpose of enabling platform 1100 to change its state, position and / or orientation or to move or control mechanisms or (sub) systems. In addition, EMC 1124 may be configured to generate messages / signaling and send messages / signaling to other components of platform 1100 to indicate the current state of EMC 1124. Examples of EMC 1124 include one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMR) and / or solid-state relays (SSR)), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), audible sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks and / or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, platform 1100 is configured to operate one or more EMC 1124 based on one or more capture events and / or instructions or control signals received from service providers and / or various clients. In some specific implementations, the interface circuit may connect platform 1100 to positioning circuit 1116. The positioning circuit 1116 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou navigation satellite system, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., NAVIC, Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, etc.), etc. The positioning circuit 1116 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices for facilitating OTA communications, such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc.) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 1116 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1116 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 1104 and / or the radio front-end module 1106 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 1116 may also provide position data and / or time data to application circuitry 1102 , which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (eg, radio base stations) for use in turn-by-turn navigation applications, and the like.

[0113] In some implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 1100 with a near field communication circuit (shown as NFC circuit 1112). The NFC circuit 1112 is configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, where magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between the NFC circuit 1112 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 1100. The NFC circuit 1112 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip / IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 1112 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit a short-range RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to the NFC circuit 1112, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuit 1112 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smart phone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) near the platform 1100.

[0114] The driver circuit 1118 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 1100. The driver circuit 1118 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 1100 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 1100. For example, the driver circuit 1118 may include: a display driver for controlling and allowing access to a display device, a touch screen driver for controlling and allowing access to a touch screen interface of the platform 1100, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor 1122 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor 1122, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 1124 and / or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 1124, a camera driver for controlling and allowing access to an embedded image capture device, and an audio driver for controlling and allowing access to one or more audio devices.

[0115] A power management integrated circuit (shown as PMIC 1110) (also referred to as a "power management circuit") may manage power provided to various components of the platform 1100. Specifically, the PMIC 1110 may control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion with respect to the baseband circuit 1104. The PMIC 1110 may typically be included when the platform 1100 is capable of being powered by a battery 1114, for example, when the device is included in a UE.

[0116] In some embodiments, the PMIC 1110 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 1100. For example, if the platform 1100 is in the RRC_Connected state, in which the platform is still connected to the RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, then after a period of inactivity, the platform may enter a state known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 1100 may be powered off for short time intervals, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 1100 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which the device is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. are performed. The platform 1100 enters a very low power state and performs paging, in which the device wakes up periodically again to listen to the network and then powers off again. The platform 1100 may not receive data in this state; in order to receive data, the platform must transition back to the RRC_Connected state. Additional power saving modes may prevent the device from using the network for longer than the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is completely unable to connect to the network and can be completely powered off. Any data sent during this time will be significantly delayed, and it is assumed that the delay is acceptable.

[0117] The battery 1114 can provide power to the platform 1100, but in some examples, the platform 1100 can be mounted in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to a power grid. The battery 1114 can be a lithium-ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, etc. In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery 1114 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0118] In some implementations, the battery 1114 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a battery management system (BMS) or a battery monitoring integrated circuit. The BMS may be included in the platform 1100 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 1114. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 1114, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 1114 to provide fault prediction. The BMS may transmit information about the battery 1114 to the application circuit 1102 or other components of the platform 1100. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 1102 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 1114 or the current from the battery 1114. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 1100 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0119] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid may be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 1114. In some examples, the power block may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to wirelessly obtain power, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 1100. In these examples, a wireless battery charging circuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuit selected may depend on the size of the battery 1114 and, therefore, the current required. Charging may be performed using the aviation fuel standard published by the Aviation Fuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance, or the Rezence charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance.

[0120] The user interface circuit 1120 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 1100, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 1100 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to implement interaction with the peripheral components of the platform 1100. The user interface circuit 1120 includes input device circuits and output device circuits. The input device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, in particular, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. The output device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for displaying information or otherwise conveying information (such as sensor readings, actuator positions, or other similar information). The output device circuitry may include any number and / or combination of audio or visual displays, including, in particular, one or more simple visual outputs / indicators such as binary status indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs such as a display device or touch screen (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD), LED display, quantum dot display, projector, etc.), where the output of characters, graphics, multimedia objects, etc. is generated or produced by the operation of the platform 1100. The output device circuitry may also include a speaker or other audio emitting device, a printer, etc. In some embodiments, the sensor 1122 may be used as an input device circuit (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.) and one or more EMCs may be used as an output device circuit (e.g., an actuator for providing tactile feedback, etc.). In another example, an NFC circuit may be included to read an electronic tag and / or connect to another NFC-enabled device, the NFC circuit including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled to an antenna element. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0121] Although not shown, the components of platform 1100 may communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCix, PCie, a time-triggered protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus / IX, such as used in SoC-based systems. Other bus / IX systems, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0122] Fig.12 1 is a block diagram illustrating a component 1200 capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and capable of performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some exemplary embodiments. Specifically, Fig.12 A schematic diagram of hardware resources 1202 is shown, which includes one or more processors 1206 (or processor cores), one or more memory / storage devices 1214, and one or more communication resources 1224, each of which can be communicatively coupled via a bus 1216. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1222 can be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1202.

[0123] Processor 1206 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) (such as a baseband processor), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, processor 1208 and processor 1210.

[0124] The memory / storage device 1214 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 1214 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0125] The communication resources 1224 may include interconnect or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1204 or one or more databases 1220 via the network 1218. For example, the communication resources 1224 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a universal serial bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Parts (such as Low power consumption), components and other communication components.

[0126] The instructions 1212 may include software, programs, applications, applet, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 1206 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 1212 may reside completely or partially in at least one of the processors 1206 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 1214, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 1212 may be transmitted to the hardware resources 1202 from any combination of the peripheral device 1204 or the database 1220. Therefore, the memory of the processor 1206, the memory / storage device 1214, the peripheral device 1204, and the database 1220 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0127] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components shown in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes and / or methods described in the following examples section. For example, the baseband circuit described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the following examples. For another example, the circuits associated with the UE, base station, network element, etc. described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the examples shown in the examples section below.

[0128] Examples

[0129] The following examples relate to additional embodiments.

[0130] Embodiment 1 is a method for user equipment (UE) to communicate. The method includes receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network. The RF signal includes M copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain. The method also includes: processing the RF signal to obtain an analog baseband signal, the analog baseband signal including the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by bandwidth F in the frequency domain and including gaps between adjacent copies; filtering the analog baseband signal using an anti-aliasing filter; and sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a sampling frequency selected to obtain a digital baseband signal, the digital baseband signal including a combined digital copy of the M copies of the replica signal that overlap each other.

[0131] Embodiment 2 includes the method of embodiment 1, wherein the anti-aliasing filter comprises a passband of at least M×F, and wherein the sampling frequency is M′×F, wherein M′ is an integer less than M.

[0132] Embodiment 3 includes a method according to embodiment 1, wherein each of the M copies of the replica signal in the analog baseband signal includes an occupied signal bandwidth Fs, wherein Fs is less than F.

[0133] Embodiment 4 includes the method according to embodiment 1, further comprising performing digital baseband processing on the combined digital replica for subsequent control channel or data channel processing.

[0134] Embodiment 5 includes a method according to embodiment 1, wherein the analog baseband signal also includes a pilot signal, each of the pilot signals is offset from a corresponding one of the M copies of the replica signal by a unique offset frequency, and the method also includes: generating an estimate of at least one of a phase difference and a gain difference between the pilot signals; and before or after filtering the analog baseband signal using the anti-aliasing filter, performing at least one of a phase adjustment and a gain adjustment on one or more of the M copies of the replica signal based on the estimate to compensate for coherence loss.

[0135] Embodiment 6 includes a method according to embodiment 5, wherein the digital signal also includes a digital version of the pilot signal, and wherein generating the estimate includes: processing the digital version of the pilot signal using a digital circuit for estimating at least one of the phase difference and the gain difference; and providing feedback from the digital circuit to a phase adjustment and / or gain adjustment circuit configured to provide the phase adjustment.

[0136] Embodiment 7 includes a method according to embodiment 5, wherein generating the estimate includes: using a notch filter to separate the pilot signal from the analog baseband signal; using an analog circuit to process the pilot signal for estimating at least one of the phase difference and the gain difference; and providing feedback from the analog circuit to a phase adjustment circuit configured to provide the phase adjustment.

[0137] Embodiment 8 includes the method according to embodiment 1, further comprising: switching from sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a first sampling frequency M'×F in a first mode to sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a second sampling frequency M×F in a second mode.

[0138] Embodiment 9 includes the method of embodiment 8, further comprising selecting a first mode for frequency diversity to receive high reliability and medium throughput data, and selecting a second mode for high throughput data.

[0139] Embodiment 10 includes the method according to embodiment 8, further comprising: using a first predetermined switching time for the first frequency range (FR1) and a second predetermined switching time for the second frequency range (FR2) to switch from the first mode to the second mode.

[0140] Embodiment 11 includes a method according to embodiment 8, wherein the replica signal includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), wherein the switching from the first mode to the second mode is explicitly indicated to the UE in the downlink control information (DCI) scheduling the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).

[0141] Embodiment 12 includes a method according to embodiment 8, wherein the replica signal includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and the method further includes: implicitly determining the switch from the first mode to the second mode based on the transmission block size of the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or an entry in a frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) table associated with the second mode.

[0142] Embodiment 13 includes the method according to embodiment 8, further comprising: selectively filtering the analog baseband signal to pass the M copies of the replica signal in the first mode and pass one or more other signals in the second mode.

[0143] Embodiment 14 includes a method according to embodiment 1, wherein the replica signal includes a synchronization signal block (SSB), and the method further includes performing a cell search by the UE only on the SSB raster.

[0144] Embodiment 15 includes the method according to embodiment 1, wherein the M copies include at least four copies of the replicated signal.

[0145] Embodiment 16 is a user equipment (UE), which includes: a receiver circuit, the receiver circuit being used to receive a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network and output an analog baseband signal, the RF signal including M copies of a replica signal in a frequency domain, the analog baseband signal including the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and including gaps between adjacent copies; an anti-aliasing analog filter, the anti-aliasing analog filter being used to filter the analog baseband signal; and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the ADC being used to sample the output of the anti-aliasing analog filter at a sampling frequency selected for obtaining a digital baseband signal, the digital baseband signal including a combined digital copy of the M copies of the replica signal that overlap with each other.

[0146] Embodiment 17 includes the UE of embodiment 16, wherein the anti-aliasing analog filter includes a passband of at least M×F, and wherein the sampling frequency is M′×F in a first mode of the ADC and is M×F in a second mode of the ADC.

[0147] Embodiment 18 includes a UE according to embodiment 17, which further includes one or more low-pass filters, which are used to receive an analog baseband signal and to pass the M copies of the replica signal in the first mode and to pass one or more other signals in the second mode.

[0148] Embodiment 19 includes the UE according to embodiment 16, wherein the UE further includes a digital front-end processing circuit, and the digital front-end processing circuit is used to process the digital baseband signal from the ADC.

[0149] Embodiment 20 includes a UE according to embodiment 16, which further includes a phase adjustment circuit, which is used to receive the analog baseband signal from the receiver circuit and to output the analog baseband signal to an anti-aliasing analog filter, and the phase adjustment circuit is used to phase adjust one or more of the M copies of the replica signal based on at least one of a phase estimate and a gain estimate of a pilot signal to compensate for coherence loss, wherein the pilot signal is offset from a corresponding one of the M copies of the replica signal by a unique offset frequency.

[0150] Embodiment 21 includes a UE according to embodiment 20, which further includes a digital estimation circuit, which is used to receive a digital copy of the pilot signal and to provide feedback including at least one of the phase estimate and the gain estimate to the phase adjustment circuit.

[0151] Embodiment 22 includes a UE according to embodiment 20, which further includes an analog estimation circuit, which is used to receive the analog baseband signal from the receiver circuit and to provide feedback including at least one of the phase estimation and the gain estimation to the phase adjustment circuit.

[0152] Embodiment 23 includes the UE according to embodiment 21, wherein the analog estimation circuit includes a notch filter, and the notch filter is used to separate the pilot signal from the analog baseband circuit.

[0153] Embodiment 24 is a method for a base station. The method includes: generating multiple copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain; generating a radio frequency (RF) signal, the RF signal including a uniform frequency offset between the multiple copies of the replica signal and including gaps between adjacent copies; and transmitting the RF signal to one or more user equipment (UE).

[0154] Embodiment 25 includes the method according to embodiment 24, further comprising: selecting the gap based on a trade-off between increasing the utilization of the power spectral density (PSD) of the RF signal and reducing the complexity of the anti-aliasing filter in the one or more UEs.

[0155] Embodiment 26 includes the method according to embodiment 24, wherein the multiple copies include at least two copies of the replicated signal.

[0156] Embodiment 27 includes the method according to embodiment 24, further comprising including pilot signals in the RF signal, each of the pilot signals being offset by a unique offset frequency from a corresponding one of the multiple copies of the replica signal.

[0157] Embodiment 28 includes a method according to embodiment 24, wherein the replica signal includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and wherein the method further includes: after transmitting the RF signal to the one or more UEs, sending downlink control information (DCI) to the one or more UEs to schedule a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), the DCI including an indication of switching from a diversity operation mode to a high throughput operation mode.

[0158] Embodiment 29 includes the method according to embodiment 24, and also includes multiplexing one or more other signals with the multiple copies of the replica signal in the RF signal, wherein the multiple copies of the replica signal are used for the one or more UEs operating in the diversity operation mode, and the one or more other signals are used for one or more other UEs operating in the high throughput operation mode.

[0159] Embodiment 30 is a user equipment comprising a module for processing each of the steps in any one of Embodiments 1 to 15.

[0160] Embodiment 31 is a base station comprising a module for performing each of the steps in any one of Embodiments 24 to 29.

[0161] Embodiment 32 may include an apparatus comprising modules for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of the above embodiments or any other method or process described herein.

[0162] Embodiment 33 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, which include instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of the above embodiments or any other method or process described herein.

[0163] Embodiment 34 may include an apparatus comprising logic components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of the above embodiments or any other method or process described herein.

[0164] Embodiment 35 may include methods, techniques or processes or parts or components thereof as described in or related to any of the above embodiments.

[0165] Embodiment 36 may include a device comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media, wherein the one or more computer-readable media include instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portion thereof, described in or related to any of the above embodiments.

[0166] Embodiment 37 may include a signal or a portion or component thereof as described in or related to any one of the above embodiments.

[0167] Embodiment 38 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message or a portion or component thereof as described in any of the above embodiments or related thereto, or as otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0168] Embodiment 39 may include a signal encoded with data or a portion or component thereof as described in any of the above embodiments or related thereto, or content otherwise described in this disclosure.

[0169] Embodiment 40 may include a signal or a portion or component thereof encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, PDU or message as described in any of the above embodiments or related thereto, or as otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0170] Embodiment 41 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of these computer-readable instructions by one or more processors will cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or a portion thereof, described in or related to any of the above embodiments.

[0171] Embodiment 42 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process, or a portion thereof, as described in or related to any one of the above embodiments.

[0172] Embodiment 43 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0173] Embodiment 44 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0174] Embodiment 45 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0175] Embodiment 46 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0176] Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any of the above embodiments may be combined with any other embodiment (or combination of embodiments). The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings or may be obtained from the practice of the various embodiments.

[0177] Embodiments and implementations of the systems and methods described herein may include various operations that may be embodied in machine executable instructions to be executed by a computer system. A computer system may include one or more general or special purpose computers (or other electronic devices). A computer system may include hardware components that include specific logic components for performing operations, or may include a combination of hardware, software, and / or firmware.

[0178] It should be appreciated that the systems described herein include descriptions of specific embodiments. These embodiments may be combined into a single system, partially incorporated into other systems, separated into multiple systems, or otherwise divided or combined. In addition, it is contemplated that parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. of one embodiment may be used in another embodiment. For clarity, these parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. are described only in one or more embodiments, and it should be appreciated that unless otherwise stated herein, these parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. may be combined with or substituted for parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. of another embodiment.

[0179] It is understood that the use of personally identifiable information should be subject to privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized to meet or exceed industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. Specifically, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of the authorized use should be clearly stated to users.

[0180] Although the foregoing has been described in considerable detail for the sake of clarity, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications may be made without departing from the principles of the invention. It should be noted that there are many alternative ways to implement both the processes and the apparatus described herein. Therefore, the embodiments of the present invention are to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive, and the specification is not limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for a user equipment UE to communicate, the method comprising: receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network, the RF signal comprising M copies of a replica signal in the frequency domain; processing the RF signal to obtain an analog baseband signal comprising the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and including gaps between adjacent copies; Filtering the analog baseband signal using an anti-aliasing filter; as well as The output of the anti-aliasing filter is sampled at a sampling frequency selected to obtain a digital baseband signal comprising a combined digital replica of the M copies of the replica signal overlapping each other. 2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the anti-aliasing filter comprises a passband of at least M×F, and wherein the sampling frequency is M′×F, wherein M′ is an integer less than M. 3 .

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the M copies of the replica signal in the analog baseband signal comprises an occupied signal bandwidth Fs, wherein Fs is less than F. 4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising digitally baseband processing the combined digital replica for subsequent control channel or data channel processing.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analog baseband signal further comprises a pilot signal, each of the pilot signals being offset by a unique offset frequency from a corresponding one of the M copies of the replica signal, the method further comprising: generating an estimate of at least one of a phase difference and a gain difference between the pilot signals; as well as Before or after filtering the analog baseband signal using the anti-aliasing filter, one or more of the M copies of the replica signal are at least one of phase adjusted and gain adjusted based on the estimate to compensate for coherence loss.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the digital signal further comprises a digital version of the pilot signal, and wherein generating the estimate comprises: processing the digital version of the pilot signal using digital circuitry for estimating at least one of the phase difference and the gain difference; as well as Feedback is provided from the digital circuit to a phase adjustment and / or gain adjustment circuit configured to provide the phase adjustment.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein generating the estimate comprises: separating the pilot signal from the analog baseband signal using a notch filter; processing the pilot signal using analog circuitry for estimating at least one of the phase difference and the gain difference; as well as Feedback is provided from the analog circuit to a phase adjustment circuit configured to provide the phase adjustment.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: The method switches from sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a first sampling frequency M'×F in a first mode to sampling the output of the anti-aliasing filter at a second sampling frequency M×F in a second mode.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising: The first mode is selected for frequency diversity to receive high reliability and medium throughput data, and the second mode is selected for high throughput data.

10. The method according to claim 8, further comprising: A first predetermined switching time for the first frequency range FR1 and a second predetermined switching time for the second frequency range FR2 are used to switch from the first mode to the second mode.

11. The method according to claim 8, wherein the replica signal comprises a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), wherein the switching from the first mode to the second mode is explicitly indicated to the UE in downlink control information (DCI) scheduling a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH).

12. The method according to claim 8, wherein the replica signal comprises a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the method further comprising: Switching from the first mode to the second mode is implicitly determined based on a transport block size of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) or an entry in a frequency domain resource allocation (FDRA) table associated with the second mode.

13. The method according to claim 8, further comprising: The analog baseband signal is selectively filtered to pass the M copies of the replica signal in the first mode and to pass one or more other signals in the second mode.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein the replica signal comprises a synchronization signal block (SSB), and the method further comprises performing a cell search by the UE only on an SSB raster.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the M copies comprise at least four copies of the replicated signal.

16. A user equipment UE, comprising: a receiver circuit for receiving a radio frequency (RF) signal from a wireless network and outputting an analog baseband signal, the RF signal comprising M copies of a replica signal in a frequency domain, the analog baseband signal comprising the M copies of the replica signal uniformly offset from each other by a bandwidth F in the frequency domain and comprising gaps between adjacent copies; an anti-aliasing analog filter, the anti-aliasing analog filter being used to filter the analog baseband signal; as well as an analog-to-digital converter ADC for sampling the output of the anti-aliasing analog filter at a sampling frequency selected for obtaining a digital baseband signal comprising a combined digital replica of the M replicas of the replica signal overlapping each other.

17. The UE of claim 16, wherein the anti-aliasing analog filter comprises a passband of at least MxF, and wherein the sampling frequency is M'xF in a first mode of the ADC and is MxF in a second mode of the ADC.

18. The UE according to claim 17 further includes one or more low-pass filters, which are used to receive the analog baseband signal and to pass the M copies of the replica signal in the first mode and pass one or more other signals in the second mode.

19. The UE of claim 16, further comprising a digital front-end processing circuit for processing the digital baseband signal from the ADC.

20. The UE according to claim 16 further includes a phase adjustment circuit, wherein the phase adjustment circuit is used to receive the analog baseband signal from the receiver circuit and to output the analog baseband signal to an anti-aliasing analog filter, and the phase adjustment circuit is used to phase adjust one or more of the M copies of the replica signal based on at least one of a phase estimate and a gain estimate of a pilot signal to compensate for coherence loss, and the pilot signal is offset from a corresponding one of the M copies of the replica signal by a unique offset frequency.

21. The UE of claim 20, further comprising a digital estimation circuit for receiving a digital copy of the pilot signal and for providing feedback including at least one of the phase estimate and the gain estimate to the phase adjustment circuit.

22. The UE of claim 20, further comprising an analog estimation circuit for receiving the analog baseband signal from the receiver circuit and for providing feedback including at least one of the phase estimate and the gain estimate to the phase adjustment circuit.

23. The UE of claim 22, wherein the analog estimation circuit comprises a notch filter for separating the pilot signal from the analog baseband circuit.

24. A method for a base station, the method comprising: generating multiple copies of the replica signal in the frequency domain; generating a radio frequency (RF) signal comprising a uniform frequency offset between the plurality of copies of the replica signal and comprising gaps between adjacent copies; multiplexing one or more other signals with the multiple copies of the replicated signal in the RF signal, wherein the multiple copies of the replicated signal are for one or more user equipment UEs operating in a diversity operation mode and the one or more other signals are for one or more other UEs operating in a high throughput operation mode; as well as The RF signal is transmitted to the one or more UEs.

25. The method according to claim 24, further comprising: The gap is selected based on a trade-off between increasing utilization of a power spectral density (PSD) of the RF signal and reducing complexity of an anti-aliasing filter in the one or more UEs.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the plurality of copies comprises at least two copies of the replicated signal.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising including pilot signals in the RF signal, each of the pilot signals being offset by a unique offset frequency from a corresponding one of the plurality of copies of the replica signal.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein the replica signal comprises a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and wherein the method further comprises: After transmitting the RF signal to the one or more UEs, downlink control information DCI is sent to the one or more UEs to schedule a physical downlink shared channel PDSCH, the DCI including an indication of switching from a diversity operation mode to a high throughput operation mode.

29. User equipment comprising a module for processing each of the steps in any one of claims 1 to 15.

30. A base station comprising means for performing each of the steps of any one of claims 24 to 28.

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