Side link carrier aggregation process

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network is described. The UE is configured to communicate with one or more further UEs in a wireless communication network via a sidelink (SL). The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs). The UEs are used to select CCs for SL communications according to a configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA, and / or based on Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) information (e.g., a Conflict Indicator (CI)) indicating available / preferred or unavailable / non-preferred resources or conflicts.

Description

[0001] This invention relates to the field of wireless communication systems or networks, and more specifically, to communication between various user equipment using sidelinks (SL). Embodiments of the invention relate to improvements and enhancements in implementing sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA).

[0002] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of a terrestrial wireless network 100. As shown in Figure 1(A), the network includes a core network 102 and one or more radio access networks RAN1, RAN2, ... RAN1. N Figure 1(B) shows the Radio Access Network (RAN). n A schematic diagram of an example, the Radio Access Network (RAN) n This may include one or more base stations gNB1 to gNB5, each serving a specific area around the base station, schematically represented by cells 1061 to 1065 respectively. The base stations are used to provide services to users within the cell. One or more base stations may provide services to users in licensed and / or unlicensed frequency bands. The term base station (BS) refers to gNB in ​​5G networks, eNB in ​​UMTS / LTE / LTE-A / LTE-A Pro networks, or simply BS in other mobile communication standards. The term base station may also refer to an access point (AP) in any Wi-Fi standard (e.g., belonging to the IEEE 802.11 family of standards). Users may be fixed or mobile devices. The wireless communication system may also be accessed by mobile or fixed Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected to the base station or to users. Mobile or fixed devices may include physical devices, ground vehicles (such as robots or cars), aerial vehicles (such as manned or unmanned aerial vehicles, the latter also known as drones), buildings, and other items or devices embedded with electronic components, software, sensors, actuators, or similar components and possessing network connectivity capabilities, enabling these items or devices to collect and exchange data through existing network infrastructure. Figure 1(B) shows an exemplary view of five cells, but RAN n It can contain more or fewer of these cells, and the RAN nIt may also contain only one base station. Figure 1(B) shows two users, UE1 and UE2 (also referred to as user equipment or user devices), located in cell 1062 and served by base station gNB2. Another user, UE3, is shown in cell 1064, served by base station gNB4. Arrows 1081, 1082, and 1083 schematically represent uplink / downlink connections for transmitting data from users UE1, UE2, and UE3 to base stations gNB2 and gNB4, or from base stations gNB2 and gNB4 to users UE1, UE2, and UE3. This can be implemented on licensed or unlicensed frequency bands. Furthermore, Figure 1(B) shows two additional devices, 1101 and 1102, in cell 1064, such as IoT devices; these additional devices can be fixed or mobile devices. Device 1101 accesses the wireless communication system via base station gNB4 to receive and transmit data, as schematically indicated by arrow 1121. Device 1102 accesses the wireless communication system via user UE3, as schematically indicated by arrow 1122. Each base station gNB1 to gNB5 can be connected to the core network 102 via its respective backhaul links 1141 to 1145, for example, via the S1 interface. These links are schematically represented in Figure 1(B) by arrows pointing towards the "core". The core network 102 can be connected to one or more external networks. External networks can be the Internet, or private networks, such as intranets or any other type of campus network, such as private WiFi communication systems or 4G or 5G mobile communication systems. Furthermore, some or all of the base stations gNB1 to gNB5 can be connected to each other via their respective backhaul links 1161 to 1165, for example, via the S1 or X2 interface, or the XN interface in NR. These backhaul links are schematically represented in Figure 1(B) by arrows pointing towards the "gNB". Sidelink channels allow direct communication between UEs, also known as device-to-device (D2D) communication. The sidelink interface in 3GPP is named PC5. Note that the term User Equipment (UE) or User Device can also refer to a Station (STA) used in any WiFi standard, such as those belonging to the IEEE 802.11 family.

[0003] For data transmission, a physical resource grid can be used. A physical resource grid can include a set of resource elements to which various physical channels and physical signals are mapped. For example, physical channels can include physical downlink shared channels (PDSCH), physical uplink shared channels (PUSCH), and sidelink shared channels (PSSCH) carrying user-specific data (also known as downlink, uplink, and sidelink payload data); physical broadcast channels (PBCH) and physical sidelink broadcast channels (PSBCH) carrying, for example, master information blocks (MIBs) and one or more system information blocks (SIBs) and one or more sidelink information blocks (SLIBs) (if supported); physical downlink control channels (PDCCH), physical uplink control channels (PUCCH), and sidelink control channels (PSSCH) carrying, for example, downlink control information (DCI), uplink control information (UCI), and sidelink control information (SCI); and physical sidelink feedback channels (PSFCH) carrying PC5 feedback responses. The sidelink interface can support a two-stage SCI, which refers to a first control region (also known as the first-stage SCI) that contains some parts of the SCI, and a second control region (also known as the second-stage SCI) that optionally contains a second part of the control information.

[0004] For the uplink, the physical channel may also include a physical random access channel (PRACH or RACH), which the UE uses to access the network after synchronizing and acquiring the MIB and SIB. Physical signals may include reference signals or symbols (RS), synchronization signals, etc. The resource grid may include frames or radio frames with a specific duration in the time domain and a given bandwidth in the frequency domain. A frame may have a predetermined number of subframes, each with a predefined length, such as 1 millisecond. Each subframe may include one or more time slots, each with 12 or 14 OFDM symbols, depending on the cyclic prefix (CP) length. Frames may also have fewer OFDM symbols, for example, when utilizing a shortened transmission time interval (sTTI) or a mini-slot / non-slot-based frame structure containing only a small number of OFDM symbols.

[0005] Wireless communication systems can be any single-tone or multi-carrier system using frequency division multiplexing, such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, or any other signal based on inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) (with or without cyclic prefix (CP)), such as discrete Fourier transform extended OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM). Other waveforms can also be used, such as non-orthogonal waveforms for multiple access, such as filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM), or universal filter multicarrier (UFMC). Wireless communication systems can operate, for example, according to 3GPP's LTE, LTE-Advanced, LTE-Advanced Pro, or 5G or 5G-Advanced, or 3GPP's NR (New Radio), or within LTE-U (LTE Unlicensed) or NR-U (New Radio Unlicensed), as specified in the LTE and NR specifications.

[0006] The wireless network or communication system depicted in Figure 1 can be a heterogeneous network with different coverage networks. For example, a macrocell network where each macrocell includes macro base stations (such as base stations gNB1 to gNB5), and a small cell base station network not shown in Figure 1, such as femtocells or picocells. In addition to the terrestrial wireless networks described above, there are also non-terrestrial wireless communication networks (NTNs), including spaceborne transceivers (such as satellites) and / or airborne transceivers (such as unmanned aerial vehicle systems). Non-terrestrial wireless communication networks or systems can operate similarly to the terrestrial systems described above with reference to Figure 1, for example, according to LTE-Advanced Pro, 5G, 5G-Advanced, NR (New Radio), or possibly future 6G radio systems.

[0007] In mobile communication networks, such as those described with reference to Figure 1 above (e.g., LTE or 5G / NR networks), there may be UEs that communicate directly with each other via one or more sidelink (SL) channels, for example, using PC5 / PC3 interfaces or WiFi Direct. UEs that communicate directly with each other via sidelinks may include: vehicles communicating directly with other vehicles (V2V communication), vehicles communicating with other entities in the wireless communication network (V2X communication), such as roadside units (RSUs), roadside entities (e.g., traffic lights, traffic signs, or pedestrians). An RSU may function as either a base station or a UE, depending on the specific network configuration. Other UEs may not be vehicle-related UEs and may include any of the aforementioned devices. Such devices may also communicate directly with each other via SL channels (D2D communication).

[0008] When considering two UEs communicating directly with each other via a sidelink, these two UEs can be served by the same base station, allowing the base station to provide sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance to the UEs. For example, both UEs can be located within the coverage area of ​​a base station, such as one of the base stations shown in Figure 1. This is called the "within coverage" scenario. Another scenario is called the "outside coverage" scenario. Note that "outside coverage" does not necessarily mean that the two UEs are outside the cell shown in Figure 1, but rather that these UEs:

[0009] - It may not be connected to a base station; for example, they are not in an RRC connection state, so the UE does not receive any sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance from the base station, and / or

[0010] - It can connect to the base station, but for one or more reasons, the base station may not provide the UE with sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance, and / or

[0011] - It can connect to base stations that may not support NR V2X services, such as GSM, UMTS, LTE base stations or WiFi APs.

[0012] Figure 2(A) is a schematic diagram of a scenario within the coverage area, where two UEs communicating directly with each other are both connected to the base station. The base station gNB has a coverage area, schematically represented by circle 200, which essentially corresponds to the cell schematically represented in Figure 1. The UEs communicating directly with each other include a first vehicle 202 and a second vehicle 204, both within the coverage area 200 of the base station gNB. Both vehicles 202 and 204 are connected to the base station gNB, and they are also directly interconnected via the PC5 interface. V2V traffic scheduling and / or interference management are assisted by the gNB through control signaling on the Uu interface (the radio interface between the base station and the UE). In other words, the gNB provides SL resource allocation configuration or assistance to the UEs, and the gNB allocates resources for V2V communication via sidelinks. This configuration is also referred to as Mode 1 configuration in NR V2X, or Mode 3 configuration in LTE V2X. Therefore, in Mode 1, the UE (e.g., UE 202) connects to the gNB via the Uu interface, and the gNB coordinates the resources for UE 202 to transmit control and / or data to other UEs (e.g., UE 204) via the SL interface (referred to as PC5 in NR).

[0013] Figure 2(B) is a schematic diagram of an out-of-coverage scenario where UEs communicating directly with each other are either not connected to a base station (although they may be physically located within a cell of the wireless communication network), or some or all of the UEs communicating directly with each other are connected to a base station but that base station does not provide SL resource allocation configuration or assistance. Three vehicles 206, 208, and 210 are shown communicating directly with each other via a side link (e.g., using a PC5 interface). V2V traffic scheduling and / or interference management are based on algorithms implemented between the vehicles. This configuration is also referred to as Mode 2 configuration in NR V2X, or Mode 4 configuration in LTE V2X. As mentioned above, the out-of-coverage scenario in Figure 2(B) does not necessarily mean that the corresponding NR Mode 2 UE or LTE Mode 4 UE is outside the coverage area of ​​the base station 200, but rather that the corresponding NR Mode 2 UE or LTE Mode 4 UE is not served by the base station, is not connected to a base station in the coverage area, or is connected to a base station but does not receive SL resource allocation configuration or assistance from the base station. Therefore, it is possible that within the coverage area 200 shown in Figure 2(A), in addition to NR mode 1 or LTE mode 3 UEs 202 and 204, there are also NR mode 2 or LTE mode 4 UEs 206, 208, and 210. Furthermore, Figure 2(B) schematically illustrates UEs outside the coverage area using relay and network communication. For example, UE 210 can communicate with UE 212 via a sidelink, and UE 212 can connect to the gNB via the Uu interface. Therefore, UE 212 can relay information between the gNB and UE 210. Thus, SL-UEs (e.g., UEs 206-210) do not need connectivity to the gNB to perform sensing and access resource allocation or random access-based resource allocation (e.g., when transmitting from UE 206 to UE 208). However, UEs 206-210 require basic configuration for successful data exchange. This information can be pre-configured or configured when the UE is within the gNB coverage area. To this end, the gNB can provide basic configuration (e.g., basic information), which can be transmitted via a broadcast channel, for example, using a System Information Block (SIB). The BS can also assist the Mode 2 UE by providing basic information about which resource pool (RP) to use, or it can act as a synchronization source.

[0014] Although Figures 2(A) and 2(B) illustrate vehicle UEs, note that the scenarios described for within and outside coverage also apply to non-vehicle UEs. In other words, any UE (such as a handheld device) that communicates directly with other UEs using the SL channel can be within or outside coverage.

[0015] Generally, Mode 1 refers to RAN-supported operation including base station support, while Mode 2 refers to autonomous mode, where the UE communicates directly without base station support. In the context of WiFi, coordination by a WiFi access point (AP) can be described as similar to Mode 1 operation, while Mode 2 transforms into WiFi autonomous mode. In the latter case, two WiFi devices can communicate directly with each other without the assistance of a WiFi AP.

[0016] In the aforementioned vehicle user equipment (UE) scenario, multiple such UEs can form a UE group (also simply referred to as a group), and communication within the group or between group members can be performed through a sidelink interface (such as a PC5 interface) between UEs. For example, the scenario using UEs described above can be applied to the transportation industry, where multiple vehicles equipped with UEs can be grouped together, for example, by a remote driving application. Other use cases for grouping multiple UEs together for sidelink communication include factory automation and power distribution. In the case of factory automation, multiple mobile or stationary machines within a factory can be equipped with UEs and grouped together for sidelink communication, for example, for controlling machine operation, such as robot motion control. In the case of power distribution, entities within a power distribution network can be equipped with corresponding UEs, which can be grouped together within specific areas of the system to communicate with each other via sidelink communication, thereby allowing system monitoring and handling of power distribution network failures and outages.

[0017] Initially, according to Rel-16, sidelink communication was developed to support advanced V2X applications. Rel-17 introduced proximity-based services, including public safety and business-related services, as well as power-saving solutions such as Partial Awareness or Discontinuous Reception (DRX), and introduced Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) to improve power consumption and reliability of sidelink transmissions in battery-constrained terminals. Although NR sidelinks were initially developed for V2X applications, there is growing industry interest in extending the applicability of NR sidelinks to commercial use cases. For commercial use cases or commercial sidelink applications, consideration is being given to increasing sidelink data rates and supporting new sidelink carrier frequencies.

[0018] Increased sidelink data rates may stem from applications sharing sensor information, such as sharing video information between highly automated driving vehicles. However, commercial use cases may require even higher data rates. These increased data rates can be achieved by supporting sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA) and / or allowing sidelinks to utilize resources in unlicensed spectrum.

[0019] Note that the information in the above sections is only used to enhance the understanding of the background of the present invention, and therefore may contain information that is not part of the prior art known to those skilled in the art.

[0020] Based on the above, SL-CA in wireless communication systems or networks may need to be improved or enhanced.

[0021] Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings:

[0022] Figures 1(A)-(B) illustrate wireless communication networks, where Figure 1(A) is a schematic diagram of an example of a terrestrial wireless network and Figure 1(B) is a schematic diagram of an example of a radio access network (RAN).

[0023] Figure 2(A) is a schematic diagram of the scene within the coverage area;

[0024] Figure 2(B) is a schematic diagram of the scene outside the coverage area;

[0025] Figure 3(A) shows an example of a UE that supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA) but applies carrier selection when communicating with other UEs;

[0026] Figure 3(B) shows an example of a UE that supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA) and applies carrier aggregation when communicating with other UEs;

[0027] Figure 4(A) shows an example of a UE that supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA) and communicates with another UE that is running on a single CC.

[0028] Figure 4(B) shows an example of a UE that supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA) and communicates with a UE that operates on a single CC and other UEs that support SL-CA.

[0029] Figure 5 This is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system implementing an embodiment of the present invention. Numerous wireless communication systems include transmitters (such as base stations) and one or more receivers (such as user equipment (UE)).

[0030] Figure 6 A user equipment (UE) according to an embodiment of the first aspect of the present invention is shown.

[0031] Figure 7 An embodiment of a first aspect of the present invention is shown for transmitting IuC information, such as Auxiliary Information Message (AIM), for aggregated carriers;

[0032] Figure 8 A combination of embodiments of the first aspect is shown, which implements broadcast type-specific component carriers and employs IuC information;

[0033] Figure 9A user equipment (UE) according to a second aspect of the present invention is shown.

[0034] Figure 10 A user equipment (UE) according to an embodiment of a third aspect of the present invention is shown.

[0035] Figure 11 An embodiment of the third aspect of the invention is shown, which applies pre-occupied periodic transmission to perform carrier selection for high-priority transmission;

[0036] Figure 12 Another embodiment of the third aspect of the invention is shown, which applies preemptive periodic transmission to perform high-priority transmission on aggregated carriers;

[0037] Figure 13 A user equipment (UE) according to an embodiment of a fourth aspect of the present invention is shown.

[0038] Figure 14 It shows the use of Figure 13 An example of UE implementing data replication;

[0039] Figures 15(A)-(C) show continuous CA within the band, discontinuous CA within the band, and discontinuous CA between the bands;

[0040] Figure 16 A wireless communication network including sidelink user equipment (UE) is illustrated, which uses resources from licensed and / or unlicensed spectrum and operates according to embodiments of the present invention; and

[0041] Figure 17 An example of a computer system is shown, on which the units or modules and method steps described in the method according to the invention can be executed.

[0042] Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein the same or similar elements are assigned the same reference numerals.

[0043] In wireless communication system networks, such as those described above with reference to Figures 1 and 2, sidelink communication can be implemented between multiple User Equipments (UEs). Sidelink communication can support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA). Traditionally, one of the candidate frequency bands for sidelink carrier aggregation is the NR band n47, which is the target frequency band for V2X services, such as those involving the exchange of security messages (e.g., Cooperative Aware Messages (CAM) or Distributed Environmental Notification Messages (DENM)). In some parts of the world, carrier aggregation (CA) may be required due to regulations, as some of these carriers are restricted to a 10MHz bandwidth for transmission. This may occur if these frequency bands are also designated for other technologies operating only within the 10MHz spectrum (e.g., IEEE 802.11p). The table below illustrates the possible CA candidate frequency bands for V2X services.

[0044]

[0045] Carrier aggregation (CA) can include carrier selection, where two UEs select the same component carriers for both transmission and reception. This can be achieved by the transmitting UE selecting one of the component carriers to transmit control data and / or user data (e.g., via PSSCH), while the receiving UE performs blind decoding on one or more potential sidelink component carriers. Once the receiving UE detects control data on a component carrier, it can select the same component carrier to transmit feedback (e.g., if PSSCH is enabled on that component carrier), or it can transmit data to the transmitting UE or another UE on that component carrier (e.g., if the receiving UE also has data to transmit). Component carriers are expected to be used independently, thus confining control transmissions / data transmissions / feedback transmissions to the same component carrier, avoiding the need to manage such transmissions across different carriers—a management also known as cross-carrier scheduling. Furthermore, resource selection can be performed on specific component carriers based on a Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) threshold to select specific resources of a given quality, allowing the UE to expect successful transmission on the corresponding component carrier.

[0046] For some transmissions, UEs may prefer to transmit via carrier selection, which allows them to use their full transmission power on a smaller bandwidth, potentially increasing the power spectral density. In the case of UE-aggregated bandwidth, power needs to be distributed among the involved component carriers. This power allocation may depend on the aggregated component carriers, the resources used on the component carriers, and the modulation and coding schemes and / or MIMO modes used on the component carriers. If the resources on a given component carrier are contaminated (e.g., interfered with by other transmissions, as measured by CBR), a particular UE may avoid applying carrier aggregation. For example, when the CBR thresholds on two component carriers are met for a specific number of resources (e.g., above a predefined CBR threshold), a UE may aggregate more than one component carrier and perform independent transmissions on the two carriers.

[0047] Figure 3 illustrates a comparison between the carrier selection and carrier aggregation described above. Figure 3 shows two user equipments, UE1 and UE2, communicating with each other via a sidelink and supporting SL-CA. The figure shows the corresponding component carriers (CCs) used by each UE, assuming these component carriers are all 10 MHz component carriers. Furthermore, the figure also shows the actual resources R used for transmission within each component carrier. Assuming UE1 is the transmitting UE, transmitting control / data to UE2 as the receiving UE, and UE2 can return feedback information to UE1, as shown by the arrows pointing from UE1 to UE2 and from UE2 to UE1 in the figure. Simultaneously, the CBR thresholds corresponding to each component carrier are also represented by dashed horizontal lines. These thresholds can vary depending on the component carrier, for example, depending on the channel quality required for transmission, such as based on the modulation and coding scheme level (MCS level), or based on the transmission distance (which may require certain resource quality), so that a specified MCS level combined with a specific transmit power can transmit and reach a specific UE, specifically enabling the UE to decode the received data stream with a certain SNR or SINR, and this SNR or SINR must be higher than a certain interference and / or noise level. Furthermore, the CBR threshold can also be selected based on resource priority (e.g., a sidelink priority threshold), ensuring that only resources with a CBR higher than a specific priority threshold are selected for high-priority transmissions (e.g., for data with ultra-low latency and / or high reliability requirements). It can be seen that not all available resources within the CC meet the CBR threshold; only those resources R that actually exceed the CBR threshold are shown and used or considered as resource candidates for communication. This means the UE may also select a subset of resource candidates exceeding the CBR threshold, for example, if the UE may have already found sufficient resources from the candidate set for transmission. This also depends on the quota required for a specific transmission (e.g., defined by the corresponding 5QI value). Such resource selection may mean the UE performs carrier switching (e.g., if it finds sufficient resources on a certain carrier and transmission is not required on other carriers). In this case, the UE can save transmission power because it can avoid performing further sensing and transmission on a component carrier.

[0048] Figure 3(A) illustrates the carrier selection method described above. UE1 supports SL-CA and can essentially aggregate two component carriers, CC1 and CC2. Within each component carrier, only a portion of the available resources R exceed the CBR threshold, therefore only these resources are available for SL communication, while the remaining resources (not shown) are below the CBR threshold and are not used. UE2 also supports carrier aggregation and aggregates component carriers CC2 and CC3, and as shown, within each CC, only the resources R exceeding the corresponding CBR threshold are used. When carrier selection is implemented, UE1 selects only a single CC for communication with UE2 within the available CCs. In the illustrated example, UE1 selects CC2 for communication with UE2 to send control / data to UE2, and UE2 accordingly receives transmissions on CC2. UE2 also applies carrier selection and returns feedback using CC2.

[0049] On the other hand, as shown in Figure 3(B), when carrier aggregation is applied, UE1 can use an additional component carrier CC3 in addition to CC1 and CC2. UE1 can transmit to UE2 on CC2 and CC3, and the transmissions can be independent of each other, while UE2 can also independently return feedback on CC2 and CC3.

[0050] Component carriers can also be used in a hybrid mode, where one of the UEs uses SL-CA for transmission, while the receiving UE only decodes one of the component carriers. Figure 4 illustrates an example of this hybrid mode operation. In Figure 4, it is assumed that UE1 supports SL-CA by aggregating three component carriers CC1 to CC3, each with a bandwidth of 10 MHz, and using resources R exceeding the CBR threshold in each CC for SL communication. Figure 4(A) illustrates a scenario where UE1 communicates with two other UEs (UE2 and UE3), which operate on separate CCs, namely CC2 and CC3, respectively, using resources R exceeding their respective CBR thresholds (represented by the dashed horizontal line). In the example of Figure 4(A), UE1 transmits / receives independently to UE2 and UE3 on CC2 and CC3, respectively. More specifically, UE1 uses CC2 to perform control / data transmission to UE2 and receives feedback from UE2 on the same CC. Independent of communication on CC2, UE1 communicates with UE3 on CC3 to perform control / data transmission from UE1 to UE3 and receive feedback transmissions from UE3, as indicated by the corresponding arrows.

[0051] In the scenario shown in Figure 4(B), it is assumed that UE2 also supports carrier aggregation and uses CC2 and CC3, more specifically, it uses those resources R in each CC that exceed the CBR threshold. In this scenario, UE2 receives control / data transmissions from UE1 on CC2 and returns feedback transmissions; simultaneously, it independently performs control / data transmissions to UE3 on CC3 and receives feedback transmissions from UE3.

[0052] Therefore, as shown in Figure 4, some UEs may only transmit and / or receive on a subset of available CCs, which can depend on the UE's capabilities, the UE's available battery power, or the distance between two UEs (e.g., path loss). For example, a UE performing power saving may avoid transmission on too many CCs and may limit its processing to a subset of carriers on which it is expected to receive messages with a given priority (such as Basic Security Messages (BSM)).

[0053] As can be seen from the above, the use of available component carriers during SL-CA implementation can depend on many situations or specific scenarios. Traditionally, when implementing SL-CA, the UE simply utilizes the available component carriers, which is not flexible enough and may not be suitable for all situations or scenarios encountered by the UE. Therefore, improvements / enhancements are needed when implementing SL-CA. This invention addresses this problem by providing aspects outlined below that improve the operation of SL-CA-enabled UEs, allowing the UE to decide which component carrier to use when encountering certain situations or scenarios. Furthermore, in the case of discontinuous CA, the UE performing CA can select a carrier based on its propagation characteristics, for example, by selecting a component carrier in a low-frequency band (e.g., a center frequency below 1 GHz) to extend the coverage of specific messages. This can be significant when transmitting security-related information (e.g., BSM).

[0054] Embodiments of the present invention can be implemented in wireless communication systems including base stations and users (such as mobile terminals or Internet of Things devices) as shown in FIG1, FIG2(A) or FIG2(B). Figure 5 This is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 310, including a transmitter 300 (such as a base station) and one or more receivers 302, 304 (such as user equipment (UE)). The transmitter 300 and receivers 302, 304 can communicate via one or more wireless communication links or channels 306a, 306b, 308 (such as radio links). The transmitter 300 may include one or more antennas ANT. T Alternatively, an antenna array with multiple antenna elements, a signal processor 300a, and a transceiver 300b may be coupled to each other. Receivers 302 and 304 include one or more antennas (ANTs). UEAlternatively, an antenna array with multiple antennas, signal processors 302a and 304a, and transceivers 302b and 304b may be coupled to each other. Base station 300 and UEs 302 and 304 can communicate via their respective first wireless communication links 306a and 306b (e.g., radio links using the Uu interface), while UEs 302 and 304 can communicate with each other via a second wireless communication link 308 (e.g., radio links using the PC5 or side link (SL) interface). When a UE is not served by a base station or is not connected to a base station (e.g., the UE is not in an RRC connection state), or more generally, when the base station does not provide SL resource allocation configuration or assistance, the UEs can communicate with each other via the side link. Figure 5 Systems or networks Figure 5 One or more UEs 302, 304 and Figure 5 All 300 base stations can be operated in accordance with the invention teachings described herein.

[0055] First aspect ‌

[0056] According to a first aspect of the invention, a UE supporting SL-CA is provided, wherein the UE selects CC for SL communication based on SL-CA configuration or pre-configuration, and / or based on inter-UE coordination (IuC).

[0057] According to a first aspect of the invention, a UE supporting SL-CA can determine specific information related to each component carrier based on the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA, thereby overcoming the aforementioned deficiencies in conventional methods. This allows the UE to determine which application carriers (CCs) are suitable for performing SL communication for specific scenarios or situations. For example, based on information defined in the SL-CA configuration, the UE can determine whether a certain CC meets the requirements for performing transmission on the sidelink according to predefined transmission parameters or requirements (such as sufficient bandwidth) to achieve the desired Quality of Service (QoS), or, for example, whether specific information (such as feedback information) can be received on that component carrier or on other component carriers. Furthermore, when IuC information (i.e., information about available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources, or information about conflicts on certain resources, for example, indicated by sending a conflict indicator (CI)) is applied alternatively or additionally, the UE can (e.g., in high-interference situations) determine that certain component carriers are unsuitable for communication via the sidelink, thereby allowing the UE to select only those suitable component carriers, thus improving SL communication.

[0058] This invention provides a user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network.

[0059] The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL).

[0060] The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs).

[0061] The UE selects the CC for SL communication in the following manner:

[0062] -Based on SL-CA's configuration or pre-configuration, and / or

[0063] - Based on Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) information, the IuC information indicates available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources or conflicts, such as conflict indicator CI.

[0064] According to an embodiment, the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA indicates one or more of the following:

[0065] -Given one or more attributes of CC,

[0066] - One or more CCs containing predefined signals or predefined information.

[0067] - One or more CCs to be used in a predefined scenario.

[0068] According to an embodiment, one or more properties include one or more of the following:

[0069] -Given the center frequency of the CC;

[0070] -Given the bandwidth of CC,

[0071] - The portion of bandwidth (BWP) to be used on a given CC.

[0072] -Given the bandwidth category of CC,

[0073] -Revert group

[0074] -Given the parameter set of CC,

[0075] -Given the resource pool configuration of CC,

[0076] - The broadcast type to be used on a given CC, such as broadcast, multicast, multicast, or unicast.

[0077] - The type of service to be used on a given CC.

[0078] - The transmission priority to be used on a given CC,

[0079] - Whether feedback is enabled on a given CC, for example, whether a feedback channel exists on a given CC, such as the Physical Side Link Feedback Channel (PSFCH).

[0080] - In the event that feedback on a given CC is not enabled, one or more CCs from the plurality of CCs are to be used for feedback.

[0081] - Among the multiple CCs, one or more are traditional CCs, which are monitored by traditional UEs.

[0082] - The type of UE to be used on a given CC, such as any of the following: V2X-UE, IoT-UE, RSU, relay node.

[0083] - For a given CC, the available / permitted NR version types, such as permitted NR Release 17 V2X features and / or permitted NR Release 18 features, or whether the CC is only for a specific 3GPP version type, such as Rel-16, to ensure backward compatibility.

[0084] - Whether the UE can perform power-saving operations such as DRX or eDRX on a given CC, and the possible DRX configurations for a given CC.

[0085] - Whether IuC is enabled or disabled on a given CC.

[0086] - Whether the transmission and / or reception of the wake-up signal (WUS) on a given CC is enabled or disabled.

[0087] - Whether a positioning reference signal, such as a PRS, can be transmitted on a given CC.

[0088] According to the embodiments, the predefined signals include one or more of the following:

[0089] -Data signal,

[0090] - Control signals,

[0091] -Feedback signal,

[0092] -One or more synchronization signals,

[0093] - A specific synchronization preamble used for resynchronization, for example, when the UE needs to resynchronize.

[0094] - Wake-up signal (WUS)

[0095] - Positioning Reference Signal (PRS)

[0096] - Narrowband signals, such as NB-IoT signals,

[0097] - Beam management related information,

[0098] - Measurement signals, such as signals containing Channel State Information (CSI) or channel quality-related information.

[0099] According to the embodiments, the predefined information includes one or more of the following:

[0100] - An interference threshold for a given CC, such as a CBR threshold or a non-empty set of CBR thresholds valid for one CC, some CCs, or all CCs.

[0101] - Beam management information, beam maintenance information, or beam recovery information.

[0102] - Control information on a specific CC used for Uu, such as information for situations where the UE wants to switch from mode 2 operation to mode 1 operation or vice versa, or the UE wants to switch from SL to Uu or switch to a connection using a relay node such as a relay UE.

[0103] - Information related to switching or conditional switching (CHO)

[0104] -Paging-related information,

[0105] -Relevant information was discovered.

[0106] - Broadcast-related information, such as broadcast control channels.

[0107] -IuC related information, such as AIM.

[0108] According to an embodiment, the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA indicates a proper subset of the CCs that contain predefined signals or predefined information among a plurality of CCs.

[0109] According to an embodiment, the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA indicates that there are 1 to a maximum of N-1 CCs containing predefined signals or predefined information, where N is an integer.

[0110] According to an embodiment, the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA indicates that only one of the multiple CCs contains predefined signals or predefined information.

[0111] According to an embodiment, when the SL-CA configuration or pre-configuration indicates that one or more CCs are to be used in a predefined scenario, one or more of the following are indicated:

[0112] - CC to be used depending on the UE's location;

[0113] - CCs to be used depending on the UE's mobility state;

[0114] - One or more CCs to be used when the UE or another UE with which the UE will communicate via SL cannot transmit or receive on a particular CC;

[0115] - One or more CCs to be used when the UE establishes a unicast link.

[0116] According to the embodiments, the CC to be used depending on the UE's location includes one or more of the following:

[0117] - The CC to be used depends on the distance between the UE and another UE with which the UE will communicate via SL, for example, as defined in the Minimum Required Communication Range (MCR);

[0118] - CCs to be used in a specific geographic location or region;

[0119] - The CC to be used depends on the UE's location in the wireless communication network.

[0120] According to an embodiment, the mobility status is one or more of the following:

[0121] -UE speed,

[0122] - UE's Mode 1 connectivity, such as connection to a specific gNB,

[0123] -UE's Mode 2 connectivity,

[0124] - The UE's altitude or its 2D or 3D trajectory, for example, in the case of a drone.

[0125] - Track type, such as whether the UE moves on a highway, dirt road, railway track, or waterway.

[0126] - State transition, for example, for a UE with connectivity to an eNB or gNB, the UE performs a handover between gNBs, such as HO or CHO.

[0127] According to an embodiment, the UE is configured to receive IuC information from one or more of the following:

[0128] - One or more other UEs that are not the communication partners of a specific SL communication for that UE.

[0129] - refers to one or more other UEs among the communication partners of a specific SL communication, such as UEs that transmit to / receive from SL.

[0130] - Different transceivers within the device (coexisting within the device), for example, the device has LTE and NR modems, or WiFi modems and NR modems, and other UE devices internally forward this information to the UE.

[0131] - Radio access network (RAN) entities, such as roadside units (RSUs), gNBs, or relay nodes.

[0132] According to the embodiment, IuC related information is valid and / or received within the selection window of the UE and / or other UEs.

[0133] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to transmit IuC information to another UE to perform one or more of the following:

[0134] - Notify other UEs about one or more future transmissions of the UE.

[0135] - Notify other UEs about resource conflicts, such as conflicts caused by other transmissions.

[0136] - Notify other UEs about preferred or unpreferred resources, such as interference-free resources or resources that may interfere with the UE.

[0137] - Request IuC information from another UE.

[0138] - Requests for location information, such as geographic location or reference signal (PRS).

[0139] - Wake-up signal (WUS)

[0140] -Mobility status,

[0141] - Switch related information, such as switching configurations, like preferred gNB sets, or CHO configurations.

[0142] According to the embodiment, the UE is used to transmit IuC information on one, some, or all of the CCs used by the UE.

[0143] According to the embodiment, the IuC information involves

[0144] -CC that only transmits IuC information, or

[0145] - In CC, the UE has one, more, or all of the CCs for future transmission.

[0146] According to an embodiment,

[0147] The UE is used to obtain selected resources for transmission by performing resource selection based on the channel busy ratio (CBR), the resource selection including:

[0148] - Select resources for SL transfers that are above a predefined or configured CBR threshold, or

[0149] - Remove resources used for SL transport that are below a predefined or configured CBR threshold, and

[0150] In response to receiving IuC information, the UE uses

[0151] - Remove received unavailable or unfavorable resources from the selected resources, such as based on a set of unfavorable resources or based on CI, or

[0152] - Add some or all of the received available or preferred resources to the selected resources.

[0153] The present invention provides a method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising:

[0154] The UE selects the CC for SL communication in the following manner:

[0155] -Based on SL-CA's configuration or pre-configuration, and / or

[0156] - Based on Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) information, the IuC information indicates available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources or conflicts, such as conflict indicators (CI).

[0157] Second aspect ‌

[0158] According to a second aspect of the invention, a UE supporting SL-CA selects the CC it uses to transmit to or receive from another UE, such that the UE and the other UE use the same CC combination or a CC combination that includes at least all carriers used by the other UE.

[0159] According to the second aspect, the shortcomings of conventional methods are addressed. These shortcomings stem from the fact that while UEs performing sidelink communication generally support SL-CA, among the available carrier aggregation (CCs), each UE may select different CCs for SL communication using carrier aggregation, resulting in a mismatch between the CCs used. According to an embodiment of the second aspect of the invention, the UE can perform appropriate carrier switching to select a CC for transmission to or reception from another UE, ensuring that the UE also uses the resources employed by the other UE. This avoids the other UE being unable to receive transmissions on a certain carrier, thereby improving overall SL communication when applying SL-CA.

[0160] This invention provides a user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network.

[0161] The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL).

[0162] The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs).

[0163] The UE selects one or more or all of the CCs for transmission to or reception from another UE, such that the UE and the other UE use the same CC combination or a CC combination including at least one or more carriers used by the other UE.

[0164] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to perform carrier switching to select the CC for transmission to another UE or reception from another UE.

[0165] According to an embodiment, in response to a specific event, the UE is used to automatically switch from using a selected CC back to...

[0166] - Specific CC configurations, such as the CC configuration previously used before performing SL CA, or a switch back to the configured or pre-configured default CC configuration. For example, the default CC configuration could be that the UE is configured to use carrier aggregation with a specific frequency band combination, such as two adjacent CCs in the ITS band, or the default configuration could be that the UE does not use CA at all, but instead uses a single CC with a specified center frequency and bandwidth.

[0167] - A single CC, for example, without using SL CA,

[0168] - Different bandwidth portions (BWP), such as having different center frequencies, bandwidths, and / or parameter sets.

[0169] - Different modes, such as from SL mode 2 to SL mode 1, or vice versa.

[0170] According to the embodiments, a specific event includes one or more of the following:

[0171] - SL communication with another UE using the selected CC is completed, for example, transmission to another UE and / or reception from another UE, for example, reception of feedback messages from another UE or transmission of feedback messages to another UE, such as HARQ-ACK or HARQ-NACK.

[0172] - The number of decoding errors in the data transmitted on the selected CC exceeds a predefined threshold, for example, receiving too many HARQ-NACKs.

[0173] - The duration of no transmission and / or reception on the selected CC exceeds a configured or pre-configured threshold, such as a timeout while waiting for HARQ feedback.

[0174] - The CBR on one, some, or all of the selected CCs is higher than the configured or pre-configured threshold.

[0175] - The number of LBT failures exceeds the (pre)configured threshold.

[0176] - Power saving objectives: For example, when the power budget exceeds a (pre)configured threshold, and / or the UE needs to perform DRX.

[0177] - In emergency situations, such as when the UE receives an emergency indicator, such as an emergency code.

[0178] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to indicate one or more of the following in a message to another UE:

[0179] -One or more time windows during which the UE receives data on a specific CC.

[0180] -Conflict indication when the UE cannot receive due to a switching gap or reception on different CCs.

[0181] - The default CC that the UE is receiving, unless the UE is switching to receive on a different CC.

[0182] - One or more DRX modes / configurations for the selected CC.

[0183] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to coordinate a selected CC for transmitting to or receiving from another UE by one or more of the following:

[0184] - Specifications for wireless communication networks, or

[0185] -Resource pool configuration

[0186] - Switch or conditional switching (CHO) configuration exchange,

[0187] -Use signaling such as PC5 RRC, MAC CE, or SCI, or

[0188] - When operating in SL mode 1, Uu signaling is used via RAN entities such as gNB, for example, using UCI.

[0189] According to an embodiment,

[0190] The UE performs resource selection based on the Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) and selects resources for SL transmission that are above a predefined or configured CBR threshold.

[0191] The UE uses this to restrict resource selection to the resources of the CC used for SL communication by the UE and other UEs.

[0192] According to an embodiment, if the set of available resources on a particular CC, for example based on a CBR threshold, is lower than a configured or pre-configured threshold, the UE does not select resources from that particular CC.

[0193] According to an embodiment, when the number of available resources on another CC is too small, the UE performs the transmission in the time domain without aggregating the other CC.

[0194] According to an embodiment, the UE is configured to restrict resource selection in one or more of the following situations:

[0195] - Expected feedback, such as HARQ feedback,

[0196] -Expected beam management control flow, such as beam fault recovery (BFR) indication,

[0197] -Expectation to receive control and / or data and / or feedback and / or synchronization signals from other UEs, such as those previously indicated via PSCCH TRIV / FRIV signaling.

[0198] - Channel access procedures (CAPs) intended for high-priority transmissions, such as in the case of SL (SL-U) in unlicensed bands, where specific CCs in carrier aggregation are restricted to allowing only certain CAPs to be performed or disallowing certain CAPs.

[0199] - The UE is already performing transmissions on other CCs, such as neighboring CCs or CCs with a specific distance or offset from the carrier frequency of said CC.

[0200] - Upcoming transmissions, such as data transmissions, control transmissions, feedback transmissions like PSFCH HARQ-ACK / NACK or HARQ-NACK only, IuC / AIM transmissions like preferred or non-preferred resource sets or conflict indicators (CI), transmissions of synchronization signals like S-SSB, or transmissions of beam management or beam maintenance control signals.

[0201] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to restrict resource selection in the following manner:

[0202] -Exclude CC resources from resource selection, or

[0203] - Apply a penalty factor or penalty threshold to CC's resources to avoid selecting those resources or to prioritize those resources.

[0204] According to an embodiment, the UE is configured to apply different penalty factors or thresholds based on one or more of the following:

[0205] -Transmission priority,

[0206] - QoS requirements, for example, if data with ultra-low latency requirements is to be transmitted, the data may prefer to be transmitted over a larger frequency bandwidth, which may only be achieved through carrier aggregation.

[0207] -Broadcast type,

[0208] - Transmission type, such as data / control / feedback / synchronization, etc.

[0209] Other transmissions, such as those in adjacent frequency bands, may interfere with a specific CC.

[0210] The present invention provides a method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising:

[0211] The UE selects one or more or all of the CCs for transmission to or reception from another UE, such that the UE and the other UE use the same CC combination or a CC combination that includes at least one or more carriers used by the other UE.

[0212] Third aspect ‌

[0213] According to a third aspect of the invention, a UE that supports SL-CA and selects a certain number of CCs for sending to or receiving from another UE can skip one or more resources in a periodic transmission in order to transmit a specific transmission (such as a high-priority transmission) on one of the selected CCs.

[0214] In other words, according to a third aspect of the invention, pre-occupancy is allowed when implementing SL-CA, thereby improving the overall communication capability of the UE by allowing the use of any available CC to perform certain transmissions (such as high-priority transmissions).

[0215] This invention provides a user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network.

[0216] The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL).

[0217] The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs).

[0218] The UE is used to select one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE.

[0219] The UE is used to skip one or more resources in a periodic transmission in order to transmit and / or receive a specific transmission on another CC, or on the same CC, or on aggregated CCs.

[0220] According to an embodiment, the specific transmission is a transmission on one or more of the following:

[0221] -Side link CC,

[0222] -Uu CC, for example, uplink transmission.

[0223] - Transmissions in unlicensed frequency bands, such as WiFi transmissions.

[0224] According to an embodiment, a particular transmission has one or more of the following:

[0225] - Priority exceeding a specific threshold, such as an absolute threshold or a threshold relative to the priority of periodic transmissions.

[0226] - Higher QoS, for example, regarding latency requirements and / or data volume and / or service category, such as small data, guaranteed bit rate (GBR) or latency-critical GBR, as defined in the 5G QoS (5QI) table.

[0227] According to an embodiment, a specific transmission includes one of the following:

[0228] -Data signal,

[0229] - Control signals,

[0230] -Feedback signal,

[0231] - Synchronization signal,

[0232] - Beam management related information,

[0233] - Measurement signals, such as signals containing channel state information (CSI) or channel quality-related information.

[0234] - Wake-up signal (WUS)

[0235] - Locating reference sequences, such as using positioning reference signals (PRS).

[0236] The present invention provides a method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising:

[0237] The UE can select one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE.

[0238] The UE can skip one or more resources in a periodic transmission in order to transmit and / or receive a specific transmission on another CC, or on the same CC, or on aggregated CCs.

[0239] Fourth aspect ‌

[0240] According to a fourth aspect of the invention, a UE that supports SL-CA and selects a certain number of CCs for transmission to another UE performs data replication by sending a data packet on a first CC and sending an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on another CC, thereby improving the reliability of data transmission to another UE.

[0241] This invention provides a user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network.

[0242] The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL).

[0243] The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs).

[0244] Among them, UE is used to select one, more, or all of CCs for transmitting to or receiving from other UEs, and

[0245] The UE performs data replication by sending a data packet on a first CC and an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on a second CC, which are different from each other.

[0246] According to an embodiment, the UE is used to perform data copying in response to the UE and / or data packet meeting one or more criteria.

[0247] According to the embodiments, the standard includes one or more of the following:

[0248] - The packet priority or QoS parameter, such as the 5QI value, exceeds a certain threshold.

[0249] - When the UE is unsure whether another UE is listening on a specific CC,

[0250] - Data packets must be transmitted according to a specific broadcast type; for example, data replication can be performed as the default for broadcast and / or multicast and / or unicast transmission.

[0251] - The quality on the second CC is higher or lower than a predefined threshold, which is based on, for example, CBR or interference, such as SINR.

[0252] - A sufficient number of CCs are available.

[0253] - For a specific CC, Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) or Auxiliary Information Message (AIM) is available.

[0254] - In cases where the number of LBT failures exceeds the configured or pre-configured number, for example, when the UE is operating on an unlicensed carrier, such as in a side-link unlicensed (SL-U) scenario,

[0255] Depending on its battery status, for example, when the UE's battery is low, the UE may want to perform data duplication to increase the probability of successful transmission and avoid retransmission, so as to enter DRX mode as soon as possible.

[0256] - The UE is triggered to perform replication by another device, such as by another SL UE, for example, via a control message, such as IuC.

[0257] The present invention provides a method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising:

[0258] The UE selects one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE, and

[0259] The UE performs data duplication by sending a data packet on a first CC and an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on a second CC, which is different from the second CC.

[0260] First aspect ‌ Second aspect ‌ Third aspect ‌ and the fourth aspect ‌

[0261] According to an embodiment, the UE operates in out-of-coverage mode.

[0262] ● The UE is not connected to a base station of a wireless communication system. For example, the UE operates in mode 2 or is not in an RRC connection state, so that the UE does not receive sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance from the base station, and / or

[0263] ● A base station connected to a wireless communication system that, for one or more reasons, cannot provide sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance to the UE, and / or

[0264] ● Connect to a base station in a wireless communication system that does not support sidelink services such as NR V2X services, such as GSM, UMTS, or LTE base stations.

[0265] According to embodiments, the UE includes one or more of the following: a power-limited UE, or a handheld UE such as one used by a pedestrian and referred to as a Vulnerable Road User (VRU) or Pedestrian UE (P-UE), or a personal or handheld UE used by public safety personnel and first responders and referred to as a Public Safety UE (PS-UE), or a LoT UE such as a sensor, actuator, or UE provided in a campus network for performing repetitive tasks and requiring periodic input from a gateway node, or a mobile terminal, or a fixed terminal, or a cellular LoT-UE, an Industrial LoT-UE (IIoT), or an SL UE, or vehicle-mounted UE, or vehicle-mounted group leader UE (GL-UE), or dispatch UE (S-UE), or IoT device or narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) device, or WiFi device or WiFi station (STA), or ground vehicle, or flying vehicle, or drone, or mobile base station, or roadside unit (RSU), or building, or any other item or device such as a sensor or actuator equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a wireless communication network, or any other item or device such as a sensor or actuator equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a sidelink of a wireless communication network, or any network entity that supports a sidelink.

[0266] The present invention provides a wireless communication system (e.g., a 3GPP system) including one or more user equipment (UE) and / or one or more base stations of the present invention.

[0267] According to embodiments, a base station includes one or more of the following: a macrocell base station, or a small cell base station, or a central unit of a base station, or a distributed unit of a base station, or an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node, or a roadside unit (RSU), or a WiFi access point (AP), or a UE, or an SL UE, or a group leader UE (GL-UE), or a relay or remote radio head, or an AMF, or an SMF, or a core network entity, or a mobile edge computing (MEC) entity, or a network slice such as in an NR or 5G core context, or any transmit / receive point (TRP) that enables an item or device to communicate using a wireless communication network, said item or device being equipped with network connectivity to communicate using said wireless communication network.

[0268] The present invention provides a computer program product comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform one or more methods of the present invention.

[0269] Embodiments of the invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the aspects or embodiments subsequently summarized and described can be combined such that one or more aspects / embodiments are implemented within a single embodiment. Furthermore, it should be noted that when the term "resource" is used in this specification, it should be understood to include one or more of the following:

[0270] - One or more symbols, such as OFDM symbols,

[0271] - One or more time slots or subframes or frames or transmission time intervals (TTI).

[0272] - One or more frequencies or carriers or channels or sub-channels or groups of sub-channels

[0273] -One or more interlacing blocks,

[0274] - One or more frequency bands, such as unlicensed sub-bands,

[0275] -One or more bandwidth portions,

[0276] -One or more resource pools,

[0277] -One or more LBT sub-bands

[0278] - One or more spatial resources, such as those using spatial multiplexing, precoding, and / or beamforming.

[0279] Furthermore, it should be noted that when the term "resource set" is used in this specification, the resource set may contain one or more resources, as defined above. Also, it should be noted that when the term "channel" is used in this specification, this may refer to the resource set as described above. Therefore, "channel" may also refer to a single carrier, subchannel, subband, resource pool, or SL BWP.

[0280] First aspect ‌

[0281] An embodiment of the first aspect of the present invention is described. Figure 6A user equipment (UE) 400 according to an embodiment of a first aspect of the present invention is illustrated. UE 400 operates in a wireless communication network (e.g., the wireless communication network shown above with reference to FIG. 1 or FIG. 2). UE 400 communicates with one or more other UEs 400-1 to 400-n via a sidelink, as shown by the PC5 connection in the figure. As schematically shown in FIG. 402, UE 400 supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). UE 400 selects one or more or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE (e.g., UE 400-1). As schematically shown in FIG. 404, UE 400 selects CCs according to its configured or pre-configured SL-CA configuration for sidelink communication with the corresponding other UEs 400-1 to 400-n via the PC5 connection. Alternatively, UE 400 selects CC based on Inter-device Coordination (IuC) information, which indicates available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources, or conflicts, for example, indicated by conflict indicators (CI) on certain resources.

[0282] UE 400 has advantages over traditional UEs because it allows for more efficient SL communication when applying SL-CA. By selecting the CC based on SL-CA configuration or pre-configuration, the appropriate CC can be selected to perform the required SL communication in a specific situation or environment.

[0283] According to an embodiment, the SL-CA configuration can indicate one or more attributes of a given CC. For example, one or more attributes of a given CC may include one or more of the following:

[0284] -Given the center frequency of the CC;

[0285] -Given the bandwidth of CC,

[0286] - The portion of bandwidth (BWP) to be used on a given CC.

[0287] -Given the bandwidth category of the CC, such as the category defined by the aggregate transmission bandwidth configuration and the maximum number of component carriers supported by the UE,

[0288] - A fallback group is a set of carrier aggregation bandwidth classes. For this group, the UE must be able to fall back to a lower-level carrier aggregation bandwidth class configuration.

[0289] -Given the parameter set of CC,

[0290] -Given the resource pool configuration of CC,

[0291] Therefore, UE 400 can select one or more CCs for a specific transmission to be performed, for example, by providing a suitable center frequency. The UE can select a carrier in a lower frequency band to reach other UEs that are far from it, obstructed by objects, or shielded by materials that cause high penetration loss to radio signals (e.g., metal shielding windows) if the corresponding UE is located closer to the UE, and / or if the UE wants to reduce interference to other radio devices (e.g., UE, BS, or WiFi devices) that do not need the UE's transmission. Furthermore, the UE can select one or more CCs to provide sufficient transmission bandwidth. Additionally, some transmissions may use specific parameter sets, allowing the selection of CCs with suitable parameter sets based on the SL-CA configuration. Furthermore, different CCs can have different resource pool (RP) configurations, such that, for example, one resource pool can provide more suitable resources for a transmission than another, allowing the UE to select a CC with a suitable TX-RP configuration for a specific transmission. A specific transmission may require a specific center frequency because it may need to overcome specific path losses, for example, when the receiving UE is located at a certain distance from the transmitting UE. Furthermore, a particular component carrier may only support a specific bandwidth, which may not provide a sufficient data rate for a particular transmission. This allows the UE to decide to use different CCs by performing carrier switching and / or carrier aggregation in order to provide the required QoS for a particular transmission, such as meeting the 5QI value.

[0292] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include the broadcast type to be used on that CC; for example, the CC may be used only for broadcast, multicast, multicast, or unicast. Restricting a CC to a specific or preferred broadcast type is advantageous because it allows for the separation of corresponding broadcast type transmissions or communications between different CCs, so that for a UE interested in a specific broadcast type (e.g., when transmitting security-related broadcast messages), reception (e.g., blind decoding) only needs to be performed on a specific component carrier. Therefore, for specific broadcast type information, the UE does not need to perform blind decoding on all available carriers, but can limit its blind decoding work to specific component carriers, thereby reducing, for example, power consumption. Furthermore, this technique improves reliability because the UE does not need to search on multiple carriers to receive certain messages. In other words, if the wireless communication network supports unicast, multicast, multicast, and broadcast communications, restricting certain CCs to specific broadcast types is beneficial because the UE can limit its decoding to the corresponding CC, thereby saving power.

[0293] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include a service type. Therefore, similar to the above description of broadcast types, a UE primarily performing transmissions associated with a specific service type can restrict the transmission / reception of such transmissions to one or more CCs associated with that specific service type. Thus, blind decoding of such transmissions is again limited to that CC, saving power. On the other hand, transmissions can only occur on one or more CCs, allowing the UE to use its full transmission power when transmitting a specific service type transmission only to selected CCs associated with that service type. The service type can be any resource type defined within the 5G QoS framework (5QI), including Guaranteed Stream Bit Rate (GBR), non-GBR, or Delay-Critical GBR. Note that 5QI values ​​can be defined with corresponding default priority, packet delay budget (PDB), target packet error rate (PER), default maximum data burst size, and / or default average window. According to embodiments, the service type can define that certain messages (e.g., basic security messages such as BSM) are only allowed on specific component carriers, while other messages (e.g., multimedia messages) are provided on different carriers. According to other embodiments, the service type can be determined between NR transmission and legacy transmission, such that legacy transmission / reception is provided only on one or more specific component carriers, thereby gaining the advantage of NR UE compatibility with legacy UE, allowing NR UE to transmit legacy transmission to or receive legacy transmission from legacy UE.

[0294] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include the transmission priority to be used on the given CC. One or more CCs may be associated with transmissions having different priorities. For example, for a particular transmission, preferred component carriers may be determined based on the transmission priorities associated with each CC as defined by the SL-CA configuration. A preference list may be provided through the SL-CA configuration or the associated RP configuration. The preference list may be based on a simple ordering, for example, indicating a CC for the highest priority transmission, another CC for medium priority transmission, and a third CC for low priority transmission. According to embodiments, the list may include a primary CC for high priority transmission and multiple secondary CCs for transmissions with lower priorities; for example, a single secondary CC may be used for a non-high priority transmission, or, according to other embodiments, multiple secondary CCs may be used for transmissions with decreasing transmission priorities. The ordering of CCs can be used to modify blind decoding behavior, transmission and / or reception priorities, and / or the reception of reference signals (e.g., synchronization signals). This means that the UE may first perform blind decoding on the k highest priority carriers, where k is a natural number. In another embodiment, the UE may perform reception and transmission simultaneously on different carriers. To determine on which carriers to transmit and / or receive, or whether to transmit or receive on all carriers, the UE can use carrier ordering. For example, the UE can select the highest-ordered carrier on which it must perform reception and / or transmission, and then apply intra-carrier priority rules according to the specifications of the wireless communication network (such as the NR specification), i.e., the UE is pre-configured accordingly. In another embodiment, the UE may only expect to receive certain reference signals (e.g., synchronization signals) on the k highest-ordered carriers, where k is a natural number.

[0295] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include whether feedback is enabled on that given CC, for example, whether feedback sent in response to a transmission from another UE 400-1 to UE 400 is restricted to a specific component carrier. An advantage of this approach is that when feedback is restricted to a specific CC, UE 400 only needs to perform blind decoding of the feedback in that portion of the spectrum (i.e., only on the specific CC). Therefore, according to embodiments, SL-CA indicates whether feedback is enabled on a particular CC or on some or all CCs. For example, indicating that feedback is enabled on a given CC may include indicating whether a feedback channel (such as PSFCH) exists on the given CC. According to other embodiments, when feedback is not enabled on a particular CC, the SL-CA configuration may indicate which of a plurality of CCs can be used for feedback. In other words, when UE 400 transmits to UE 400-1 on the first component carrier CC1, CC1 may not allow UE-1 to transmit feedback to UE 400. However, the SL-CA configuration indicates that another CC (e.g., CC2 or CC3, see Figures 3 and 4) can be used to transmit feedback, or PSFCH may have been implemented. The advantage of this approach is that even if feedback transmission is not allowed on a given CC, both the receiving UE and the transmitting UE know on which CC to provide feedback. Therefore, the receiving UE can transmit feedback only on the indicated CC (e.g., using its full transmission power), thus ensuring secure transmission, while the transmitting UE only needs to listen to a small portion of the spectrum to obtain feedback, thereby reducing power consumption.

[0296] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include one or more CCs that are traditional CCs, which are listened to by a traditional UE.

[0297] According to other embodiments, one or more attributes of a given CC may include one or more of the following:

[0298] - The type of UE to be used on a given CC, such as any of the following: V2X-UE, IoT-UE, RSU, relay node.

[0299] - To ensure backward compatibility, consider the NR version types available / allowed for a given CC, such as allowed NR Release 17 V2X features and / or allowed NR Release 18 features, or whether the CC is only for a specific 3GPP version type (e.g., Rel-16).

[0300] - Whether the UE can perform power saving (such as DRX or eDRX) on a given CC, and the possible DRX configurations for a given CC.

[0301] - Whether IuC is enabled or disabled on a given CC.

[0302] - Whether the transmission and / or reception of the wake-up signal (WUS) on a given CC is enabled or disabled.

[0303] - Whether a positioning reference signal, such as a PRS, can be transmitted on a given CC.

[0304] According to another embodiment, the SL-CA configuration can indicate one or more CCs containing predefined signals or predefined information among a plurality of CCs.

[0305] According to other embodiments, the predefined signal includes one or more of the following:

[0306] -Data signals;

[0307] - Control signals;

[0308] -Feedback signal;

[0309] - One or more synchronization signals, such as one or more synchronization signals provided to the UE, such as the sidelink primary synchronization signal (S-PSS) and / or the sidelink secondary synchronization signal (S-SSS), and / or any other type of m-sequence and / or Gold sequence for synchronization purposes, and certain synchronization preambles for resynchronization, for example, to be used when the UE needs resynchronization. For example, if the UE has problems with time and / or frequency synchronization, such as a large carrier frequency offset (CFO), and must resynchronize using a preferred CC, then only certain synchronization preambles, i.e., SSBs, can be transmitted on a given CC;

[0310] - Broadcast signals, such as those transmitted via the Physical Side Link Broadcast Channel (PSBCH);

[0311] - Positioning Reference Signal (PRS) supports different positioning methods, such as Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA), Angle of Departure (AoD), and Multi-RTT.

[0312] - Wake-up signal (WUS) is typically used to reduce the capability of a device (RedCap) to wake up a device in a power-saving mode (such as discontinuous reception (DRX) or enhanced DRX (eDRX));

[0313] - Narrowband signals, such as NB-IoT signals;

[0314] - Signals containing beam management information;

[0315] - Measurement signals, such as signals containing channel state information (CSI) or channel quality-related information.

[0316] According to other embodiments, predefined information includes an interference threshold for a given CC. The SL-CA configuration may indicate a CBR threshold H or a set of valid or non-empty CBR thresholds for a CC, a subset of CCs, or all CCs. The CBR threshold can be used to determine which resources R within a CC will be used for communication. As shown in Figures 3 and 4 above, within a CC, only a subset of resources R (those exceeding the CBR threshold) are available for communication, while other resources (those below the CBR threshold, not shown in Figures 3 and 4) are not used for communication. In other words, if the CBR or interference indicator is below a configured or pre-configured threshold, the CC may be restricted from use. For example, UE 400 may prefer the highest-ranked carrier with a CBR / interference indicator below a specific threshold for new transmissions. According to embodiments, interference can be defined based on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), interference power, or interference caused by adjacent frequency bands, such as adjacent channel leakage power ratio (ACLR) or spurious emissions, or interference caused by non-3GPP systems operating in the same or adjacent frequency bands. Due to poor filtering of neighboring CCs by the UE, the UE may be unable to receive / decode on a given carrier, while other UEs or STAs (such as WiFi modems) are transmitting in the adjacent frequency band.

[0317] According to an embodiment, UE 400 may include an array antenna with multiple array elements, or may include multiple antenna elements to allow beamforming. Furthermore, one or more of the other UEs 400-1 to 400-n may also have this functionality. In such a scenario, a beam management process may be required, including finding beampair links (BPLs) so that:

[0318] - Direct the transmission beam in a specific direction;

[0319] - Point the receiving beam in a specific direction;

[0320] - Align the transmit and receive beams.

[0321] In high-frequency communications (e.g., in FR2), beam management is preferred, where beam radiation is limited due to the high carrier frequency, and it is desirable to extend coverage by utilizing beamforming techniques. Beamforming may also involve beam maintenance (e.g., performing beam steering when one or both user equipment involved in beamforming moves), and recovery procedures in case of beam misalignment. Beam misalignment can occur when one or both of the involved communication partners change their location or switch to different antenna panels, such as in the case of multiple TRP devices. This can also happen when some antennas are blocked. In the case of such blockage, beam alignment may not be possible, and it may even lead to radio link failure (RLF). To address or avoid RLF, beam management can intervene and perform one or more of the following:

[0322] - Beam Fault Detection (BFD);

[0323] - Beam Fault Recovery (BFR).

[0324] These processes may involve transmitting and / or receiving BFR requests (BFRQs) and / or BFR responses (BFRRRs), which include information about resources, transmission and / or reception beams, timing, etc.

[0325] According to other embodiments, when implementing beam management, predefined information may include beam management information, beam maintenance information, or beam recovery-related information. In some cases, it may be necessary to transmit beam management information on each CC, or on the CC where the UE uses beamforming for transmission or reception, in order to successfully establish a beampup link (BPL) on a specific carrier. In other cases, it may only be necessary to transmit BFD or BFR on some CCs, such as on carriers that the UE can still decode and are not affected by RLF, such as failsafe carriers (FS-CCs). This could be a carrier with a lower center frequency, thereby maximizing the probability of successful reception and allowing the UE to perform certain fault recovery procedures, such as switching from V2X mode 2 to mode 1 or vice versa, or switching to a gNB via Uu. In other words, beam management or beam maintenance information may include information about beam pairing and / or beam fault recovery (BFR) and / or beam fault detection (BFD).

[0326] According to other embodiments, the predefined information may include:

[0327] - Control information on a specific CC used for Uu, such as information for situations where the UE wants to switch from mode 2 operation to mode 1 operation or vice versa, or the UE wants to switch from SL to Uu or to a connection using a relay node (such as a relay UE);

[0328] - Information related to switching or conditional switching (CHO);

[0329] -Paging-related information;

[0330] -Relevant information was discovered;

[0331] - Broadcast related information, such as broadcast control channels;

[0332] -IuC related information, such as AIM. The advantage of providing AIM on a subset of carriers is that AIM can be transmitted on very robust carriers (e.g., lower frequencies), such as on configured or pre-configured FS-CCs, thereby ensuring AIM is transmitted with extremely high reliability and increasing the likelihood of successful decoding at the UE. This can then trigger the UE to execute certain failsafe mechanisms, such as changing its V2X mode (e.g., switching from mode 2 to mode 1 or vice versa), or performing a HO to the gNB.

[0333] According to an embodiment, the configuration or pre-configuration of SL-CA can indicate that a true subset of predefined signals or predefined information is contained in multiple CCs, i.e., one CC or some CCs (but not all CCs) contain predefined signals or predefined information. The advantage of this embodiment is that the UE expecting to receive a specific signal or specific information knows which CC the transmission occurs on, so that reception (e.g., blind decoding) can be limited to one or more CCs without listening to the entire bandwidth provided by the SL-CA method, thereby allowing for more efficient processing at the UE (i.e., reducing blind decoding work) and saving power. According to an embodiment, assuming SL-CA is configured with N CCs (N being a natural number), the predefined signal or predefined information may be contained in only one CC of the N CCs, or two CCs of the N CCs, or even at most N-1 CCs of the N CCs.

[0334] According to another embodiment, the SL-CA configuration can indicate one or more CCs to be used in a predefined scenario. When the SL-CA configuration or pre-configuration indicates one or more CCs to be used in a predefined scenario, one or more of the following are indicated:

[0335] - The CC to be used depends on the location of the UE; for example, based on the geographical location of the UE in 2D or 3D space, or based on the minimum required communication range (MCR), such as the distance between the UE and the corresponding transmitter or receiver UE;

[0336] - CCs to be used depending on the UE's mobility state;

[0337] - One or more CCs to be used when the UE or another UE with which the UE will communicate via SL cannot transmit or receive on a particular CC;

[0338] - One or more CCs to be used when the UE establishes a unicast link.

[0339] According to embodiments, depending on the UE's location, one, some, or all of the CCs can be associated with a specific location. This approach is advantageous because for some locations of the UE, not all CCs can support transmission / reception, or more generally, cannot perform SL communication with other UEs in a way that meets predefined or desired communication attributes. Therefore, associating CCs with a specific location of the UE enables more reliable and efficient SL communication because it avoids potential problems such as radio link failures (e.g., due to high path loss on high frequency bands) or interference on specific carriers (e.g., due to high SINR and / or ACLR and / or spurious emissions from certain neighboring carriers).

[0340] According to an embodiment, the CC to be used depending on the UE's location can be a CC to be used depending on the distance between the UE and another UE communicating with the UE via a sidelink, for example... Figure 6 The distance between UE 400 and another UE 400-1. For example, based on the minimum required communication range (MCR), the communication control points (CCs) can be classified so that one or more CCs are used when communicating within the MCR, while other CCs may be more suitable when communicating with another UE outside the MCR. Note that the location can be based on 2D location or 3D location, for example, in the case where the UE is a drone (UAV) and communicates with another UE via SL.

[0341] According to other embodiments, certain CCs may be associated with specific geographic locations or regions. For example, based on a region index or region identifier (e.g., tracking region identifier TAI), associated CCs can be selected that provide SL communication within desired limits or meet desired attributes. Therefore, improvements in SL communication can be achieved by avoiding the use of CCs that have been determined to be unsuitable for communication in a specific geographic location or region.

[0342] According to other embodiments, the use of CCs may not depend on geographical location or region, but rather on the UE's location within the wireless communication network, such as its absolute location in a Cartesian coordinate system or its relative location relative to a reference point. For example, in certain areas of the world, some CCs may operate within prohibited frequency ranges, so for these locations, the UE knows that sidelink communication is not allowed on a particular CC. In other words, for a given location among multiple CCs, the UE is informed which CCs can be used, for example, according to regulations. Therefore, unwanted or illegal transmissions on prohibited CCs are avoided.

[0343] According to other embodiments, a specific CC may be associated with the mobility state of the UE, for example, with one or more of the following:

[0344] -UE speed,

[0345] - UE's Mode 1 connectivity, for example, connecting to a gNB.

[0346] -UE's Mode 2 connectivity,

[0347] - The UE's altitude or its 2D or 3D trajectory, for example, in the case of a drone.

[0348] - Track type, such as whether the UE moves on a highway, dirt road, railway track, or waterway.

[0349] - State transition, for example, for a UE with connectivity to an eNB or gNB, the UE performs a handover between gNBs, such as HO or CHO.

[0350] According to another embodiment, the SL-CA configuration can be indicated in UE 400 or Figure 6 This is the CC to be used when another UE 400-1, which communicates with UE 400 via SL, cannot transmit or receive on a particular CC. For example, transmission / reception on a particular CC may be impossible due to ongoing transmissions on other CCs, or due to ongoing transmissions on adjacent frequency bands (e.g., interference on that carrier component caused by power leakage or spurious emissions). Furthermore, transmissions by another technology within the same or adjacent CCs may prevent UE 400 and / or another UE 401 from operating on a particular CC. Such transmissions may include, for example, transmissions by a WiFi system, or IEEE-based V2X transmissions based on IEEE 802.11p or 802.11bd or similar technologies. This embodiment is advantageous because it avoids using only those CCs on which transmission / reception is possible in communication between UE 400 and UE 400-1, thereby avoiding transmission losses on CCs due to ongoing transmissions on the same or adjacent frequency bands.

[0351] According to another embodiment, the SL-CA configuration can indicate one or more CCs to be used when UE 400 establishes a unicast link. For example, while UE 400 may be able to broadcast to all other UEs 400-1 to 400-n or a subset thereof (hereafter referred to as multicast), UE 400 may also establish a unicast link between UE 400 and UE 400-1, i.e., a link only from UE 400 to a single UE among the other UEs. When a UE wishes to perform a unicast transmission to a single UE among the other UEs, UE 400 can notify that other UE of one or more CCs for the unicast link so that the other UE can adjust accordingly. For example, UE 400 may only send the possible CCs for reception so that the other UE can adjust its transmission to use said CCs upon reception. This can be advantageous when UE 400's selection of the CC may be limited due to interference, ACLR, or spurious emissions from other UEs, or when it wishes to benefit from beamforming gain (which may only be possible on a certain frequency band and on the CC, as beamforming gain may depend on the specified carrier frequency). It can also be advantageous if operating on unlicensed carriers (e.g., in SL-U), as UE 400 can select carriers less used by other technologies (e.g., IEEE-based technologies such as Bluetooth or WiFi), which other UEs may not be aware of because they may not understand the media usage of non-3GPP technologies in a given frequency band.

[0352] As referenced above Figure 6 In addition to selecting a CC based on the SL-CA configuration, according to the first aspect of the invention, a CC can be selected additionally or alternatively based on IuC information indicating available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources or indicating conflicts (e.g., via a conflict indicator CI). The UE 400 can perform resource selection, for example, when operating in NR mode 2. Resource selection can be performed based on CBR. If the UE calculates that a certain number of resources exceed a predefined or configured CBR threshold, the UE selects these resources for transmission. According to an embodiment, if the UE receives IuC information before selecting resources, the UE can remove resources indicated as unavailable / unpreferred by the IuC information from its resource selection, provided that sufficient resources remain available for transmission after removal.

[0353] According to another embodiment, UE 400 can use IuC information to increase the amount of resources available for transmission. For example, if the UE needs to find a certain percentage of available resources (these resources need to exceed a certain channel busy rate threshold, such as 20% of all resources need to exceed the threshold), and if UE 400 only finds 15%, the UE can include available / preferred resources indicated from the IuC information of potential receiving UEs (e.g., UE 400-1). For example, UE 400 can fill the missing 5% of resources to meet the 20% resource requirement for transmission. Therefore, IuC information can be used to adjust the CBR threshold, or in other words, to determine the CBR, UE 400 uses the union of a sufficiently good set of resources determined from perception and the set of resources obtained from IuC information, rather than relying solely on resources obtained through perception. Therefore, although the CBR threshold is fixed to a configured value, from the perspective of UE 400, the CBR threshold may appear low because it may not have selected these resources through its own CBR measurement, even though it obtains one or more resources from the IuC information. However, these resources may still provide high enough quality for the receiving UE to successfully decode the data.

[0354] According to another embodiment, UE 400 can use IuC to notify one or more other UEs of future transmissions. Since UEs typically operate in half-duplex mode, this prevents other UEs from transmitting on one of the CCs while UE 400 is transmitting itself.

[0355] Therefore, according to an embodiment of the first aspect of the invention, selecting a CC based on IuC information is advantageous because it improves the reliability of transmissions performed by the UE. This is because the resource selection of the UE 400 is improved, such that, for example, the required percentage of available resources in a CC (i.e., the percentage of such resources exceeding a certain CBR threshold) can be achieved or even improved by supplementing resources below or even above the CBR threshold with preferred / available resources in the IuC information that may satisfy the CBR threshold or even exceed one of the selected resources. Furthermore, using IuC information can avoid conflicts or simultaneous transmissions on the same CC. Therefore, overall communication on the sidelink is improved.

[0356] According to embodiments, IuC information can be received from one or more of other UEs 400-1 to 400-n, which are essentially capable of communicating with UE 400 via a sidelink, but are not necessarily communication partners of UE 400 for a specific SL communication. For example, if UE 400 wants to communicate with UE 400-1 via a sidelink, the IuC information can be received from any of the other UEs (i.e., UE 400-2 to UE 400-n). Alternatively, the IuC information can come from a communication partner for a specific SL communication, so UE 400-1 can provide the IuC information when considering communication between UE 400 and UE 400-1 via a sidelink. According to other embodiments, IuC information can be received from different transceivers within the device (coexisting within the device), for example, the device contains LTE and NR modems, or WiFi modems and NR modems, and other devices internally forward this information to the UE. This information can come from an LTE or NR modem (which can perform measurements on a certain CC), or even from a non-3GPP modem located within the device. This could be based on an IEEE-based modem, such as a Bluetooth or WiFi chipset, which can perform CBR measurements similar to those of a 3GPP modem, or it could forward proprietary information about spectrum usage, such as a Network Allocation Vector (NAV), which can indicate a specific frequency, bandwidth, and duration of use of the wireless medium. According to other embodiments, IuC information can be provided by one or more radio access network entities of the wireless communication system, such as roadside units (RSUs), base stations (gNBs), relay nodes, or smart repeaters.

[0357] As described above, IuC information can be provided to UE 400 by one or more of other UEs 400-1 to 400-n, which may or may not be communication partners of UE 400. According to an embodiment, IuC information can be transmitted on all CCs used by UE 400. Figure 7 An example of IuC information (such as Auxiliary Information Message AIM) transmission for aggregated carriers is shown. Figure 7 UE1 is shown (which may be) Figure 6 UE 400) and UE2 (which can be UE 400) and UE 2 (which can be UE 400) Figure 6 Another UE in this example is UE 400-1. UE1 operates on three component carriers CC1 to CC3, each with a bandwidth of 10 MHz. As shown by the dashed lines, each component carrier is associated with a certain CBR threshold, so only the resources R within the component carrier that exceed the CBR threshold are used for communication. UE2 operates on component carriers CC2 and CC3, which also have a bandwidth of 10 MHz, and as shown in the figure, only the resources R within the component carrier that exceed the associated CBR threshold are used. Figure 7In the illustrated embodiment, UE1 receives IuC information for component carriers CC2 and CC3 from UE2, such as the corresponding AIMs, namely AIM2 and AIM3. More specifically, the IuC information for component carriers CC2 and CC3 is transmitted on component carrier CC2, for example, when the resources for transmitting IuC information in CC3 are unavailable, as shown by the dashed arrows in the figure.

[0358] Therefore, according to the embodiments, IuC information can be used only on specific component carriers (such as...) Figure 7 Transmitted on CC2) to indicate all component carriers on which UE 400 may perform future transmissions, including component carriers on which UE 400 is not currently transmitting (such as CC3). According to other embodiments, UE1 can receive IuC information on all CCs it uses. UE1 can receive corresponding IuC information from UE2 and / or other UEs and / or RSUs, for example... Figure 7 The corresponding AIM on CC2 and CC3. The IuC information may contain only information about a specific CC, such as information about future transmissions, or, according to other embodiments, may contain information about more than one CC on which UE1 will make future transmissions, such as CCs on which UE1 is not currently transmitting.

[0359] According to another embodiment, IuC information can be transmitted to perform one or more of the following:

[0360] - Notify other UEs about resource conflicts, such as conflicts caused by other transmissions.

[0361] - Notify other UEs about preferred or unpreferred resources, such as interference-free resources or resources that may interfere with the UE.

[0362] - Request IuC information from another UE.

[0363] - Requests for location information, such as geographic location or reference signal (PRS).

[0364] - Wake-up signal (WUS)

[0365] -Mobility status,

[0366] Switch related information, such as switching configurations, like preferred gNB sets, or CHO configurations.

[0367] The embodiments of the first aspect of the present invention have been described in detail above, and it should be noted that the mentioned embodiments may be implemented individually or in combination. Figure 8 The illustration shows a combination of the first aspect embodiments described above, which implements broadcast type-specific component carriers and employs IuC information. Figure 8The diagram illustrates UE1, which can be... Figure 6 UE 400 is performing carrier aggregation and using two component carriers, CC1 and CC2, with a bandwidth of 10 MHz. Within each component carrier, UE1 only uses resources R that satisfy the respective CBR thresholds of CC1 and CC2. Figure 8 The illustration shows an embodiment where UE1, according to SL-CA configuration, associates CC1 with one of the other UEs (e.g., Figure 6 Unicast transmission is performed by UE 400-1, while component carrier CC2 is used for broadcasting to multiple other UEs (such as UE 400-1). Figure 6 UE 400-1, 400-n) transmits / or receives from multiple other UEs. Additionally, as Figure 8 As shown, the component carrier CC2 used for broadcasting also receives the aforementioned IuC information from one or more other UEs or from one of the radio access network entities to support UE1 in selecting its resources to perform transmissions on CC1 and / or CC2, as described in more detail above.

[0368] Second aspect ‌

[0369] An embodiment of the second aspect of the present invention has been described. Figure 9 The illustration depicts a user equipment (UE) 500 according to a second aspect embodiment of the present invention. The UE 500 operates in a wireless communication network, as described above with reference to FIG. 1 or FIG. 2. The UE 500 communicates with one or more other UEs 500-1 to 500-n via sidelinks, as schematically shown in the PC5 connection diagram. As schematically shown at 502 in the diagram, the UE 500 supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers. The UE 500 selects one or more or all of the component carriers (CCs) for transmission to or reception from another UE (such as UE 500-1). As schematically shown at 504 in the diagram, the UE 500 selects one or more or all of the component carriers (CCs) for transmission to or reception from another UE 500-1, such that the UE 500 and the other UE 500-1 use the same CC combination, or use a CC combination including at least one or more carriers used by the other UE 500-1. In other words, as shown at 504, the operation of UE 500 is to select from the available CCs to obtain a suitable combination of CCs for communicating with a communication partner (such as UE 500-1) on the side link.

[0370] The second aspect of the invention is advantageous because it ensures that the component carriers used for side-link communication between UE 500 and, for example, UE 500-1 are aligned, thereby allowing reliable and efficient communication.

[0371] According to an embodiment, UE 500 can operate in Mode 2, i.e., without control from a base station or network, as described above with reference to Figure 2(B). Furthermore, in this operating mode, CC alignment is required between UEs, and in the presence of multiple possible CC combinations, UEs participating in communication using CA need to coordinate which CCs to use for transmission and / or reception. The advantage of coordinating according to the second aspect of the invention is that less power is wasted because the spectral density is optimized to concentrate most of the power in fewer frequency bands. Moreover, since the UE knows where transmission is expected, i.e., which component carriers can actually be used for communication, less sensing and / or blind decoding is required.

[0372] According to an embodiment, UE 500 can perform carrier switching to select the CC for transmission to or reception from another UE 500-1. Carrier switching can involve the UE completely switching to a different frequency band (e.g., an adjacent frequency band), or even switching its transceiver to a completely different center frequency, for example, by switching its transceiver from a carrier operating at FR1 with a center frequency below 6 GHz to FR2 with a center frequency above 6 GHz. The advantage of carrier switching is that the device can operate on a smaller bandwidth because it does not aggregate bandwidth itself, but simply switches from one frequency band to another. Furthermore, it can switch to a frequency band with better transmission or reception quality, for example, in terms of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio and / or beamforming gain, and even switch to different bandwidth portions (BWPs) that support lower or higher parameter sets. Higher parameter sets may be beneficial because they can allow the UE to perform transmissions with lower latency.

[0373] According to another embodiment, UE 500 can use a selected CC, i.e., a certain combination of CCs for a specific communication, until a certain event occurs. Then, UE 500 can automatically switch back from using the selected CCs to a carrier component configuration, such as switching to the CC configuration previously used before performing SL-CA, or switching to a configured or pre-configured default CC configuration. For example, the default CC configuration could be that the UE is configured to use a combination of frequency bands for carrier aggregation, such as two adjacent CCs in an ITS band, or the default configuration could be that the UE does not use CA at all, but instead uses a single CC with a specified center frequency and bandwidth. In this case, the UE can stop using CA or switch back to the CC combination used before being configured as the current carrier combination. Furthermore, the UE can also switch back to the default CC configuration, such as using an ITS band or using a configured or pre-configured carrier or carrier combination or fail-safe carrier configuration, which can be configured or pre-configured by the UE or known to the UE (e.g., through firmware stored within the UE). This allows the UE to always switch to a valid carrier configuration, which can be important if the UE loses connectivity to the cellular network or experiences radio link failures of other nearby UEs.

[0374] According to other embodiments, UE 500 can switch back to using only a single carrier component, i.e., stop using SL-CA. For example, the UE can switch to a different carrier, for example, with a different center frequency. According to another embodiment, UE 500 can switch to a different bandwidth portion (BWP), for example, with a different center frequency, bandwidth, and / or parameter set. According to other embodiments, UE 500 can switch modes, for example, from SL mode to SL mode 1, or vice versa. The advantage here is that the UE can automatically switch back to a known mode and perform power savings because it only needs to perform sensing and blind decoding on a smaller bandwidth. Furthermore, as mentioned above, this allows the UE to switch back to a fail-safe mode, which is also known to other UEs in its vicinity. Therefore, in the case of RLF, surrounding UEs can also know the frequency bands they can use to attempt to re-establish a link with the UE. In addition, the network may also be aware of this process and use the relevant information to contact the UE. This can be beneficial in the case of RLF, or when the network needs to reconfigure the UE for other reasons, such as the network providing the UE with an updated sidelink configuration.

[0375] According to an embodiment, as described above, the event used for automatic conversion back from the selected CC set can be the completion of SL communication with another UE 500-1. For example, the completion of transmission to and / or reception from another UE 500-1, such as the reception of a feedback message from or transmission to another UE 500-1, where the feedback message is, for example, HARQ-ACK or HARQ-NACK. Other events can be the duration or time period of no transmission and / or reception on the selected CC exceeding a configured or pre-configured threshold, such as a timeout while waiting for HARQ feedback. Another event can be that the CBR on one, some, or all of the selected CCs is higher than a configured or pre-configured threshold, causing the corresponding CC to be busy and communication may no longer be guaranteed. Events may also include one or more of the following:

[0376] - The number of decoding errors in the data transmitted on the selected CC exceeds a predefined threshold, for example, receiving too many HARQ-NACKs.

[0377] - The number of LBT failures exceeds the (pre)configured threshold.

[0378] - Power saving objectives: For example, when the power budget exceeds a (pre)configured threshold, and / or the UE needs to perform DRX.

[0379] - In emergency situations, such as when the UE receives an emergency indicator, such as an emergency code.

[0380] According to an embodiment of the second aspect of the invention, in order to achieve a suitable combination of CCs for communication (e.g., communication with UE 500-1), UE 500 may provide appropriate information to UE 500-1, for example, by sending a message to UE 500-1. The message may include information about one or more time windows on which UE 500 is receiving. Furthermore, it may indicate a conflict when UE 500 is unable to receive due to a transition gap (e.g., when switching from transmission to reception or vice versa) or due to receiving on a different or other CC. A default CC may also be signaled, indicating that UE 500 will receive on the default CC unless UE 500 switches to a different CC. The message may also include one or more DRX modes / configurations for the selected CC. Signaling for the default CC is beneficial because the UE can switch to that default CC when transmission is complete, or when transitioning from an IDLE and / or INACTIVE state to a CONNECTED state (e.g., when there is data to transmit). This allows the UE to switch to a well-defined CC. Furthermore, other surrounding UEs can be aware of this default configuration. Additionally, when a UE operates in Mode 2 without base station control, it may be unable to align the carrier via network configuration (e.g., via RRC signaling). Therefore, such a default configuration allows the UE to be in a well-defined state, particularly during initial setup, mode transitions, or on-state events (e.g., waking from sleep mode). Furthermore, signaling DRX-related information for this CC can be beneficial, as each CC may have a different DRX cycle depending on the number of UEs using the carrier. If it is the default carrier, it may be used more frequently by a larger number of UEs. Therefore, a specific DRX configuration may include fields in the DRX-config (see ETSI TS 138 331 V17.4.0 (2023-05)), most importantly drx-onDurationTimer (indicating the duration at the start of each DRX cycle) and drx-InactivityTimer (indicating the length of the DRX inactivity timer preferred by the UE for power saving). Conversely, the UE may have to listen to the default CC more frequently, resulting in that carrier having a specific DRX configuration. In addition, the default CC can be implemented with a smaller bandwidth because it is mainly used to control and manage the UE. This reduces the decoding workload and saves power because each UE needs to process less bandwidth.

[0381] According to embodiments, coordination between UE 500 and UE 500-1 (e.g., transmitting the aforementioned information from UE 500 to UE 500-1) can follow wireless communication network specifications (such as NR specifications), i.e., the UE is pre-configured accordingly, or it can be achieved by using specific signaling (e.g., for sending the aforementioned message). This signaling can employ PC5 RRC, MAC CE, or SCI. According to other embodiments, this information can be transmitted via resource pool configuration or via handover or conditional handover (CHO) configuration exchange. For example, UE 500 can indicate its CC combination to other UE 500-1 to ensure that UE 500 and UE 500-1 use the same CC combination, or a CC combination containing at least all the CCs used by UE 500-1. The aforementioned signaling can be used, for example, when UE 500 is operating in mode 2. According to other embodiments, when the UE is operating in mode 1, the signaling can be performed by RAN entities, such as UU signaling using UCI via a base station or gNB.

[0382] According to another embodiment, UE 500 can (e.g., when operating in mode 2) perform resource selection based on the Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) and select only resources above a predefined or configured CBR threshold for SL transmission. Furthermore, UE 500 restricts resource selection to resources of the CCs used for SL communication by UE 500 and another UE 500-1. Therefore, if the set of available resources on a particular CC is lower than a configured or pre-configured threshold (such as a CBR threshold), UE 500 will not select resources from that particular CC. In other words, according to an embodiment of the second aspect of the invention, CC coordination can be configured or pre-configured by restricting resource selection (e.g., for upcoming transmissions), excluding resources in resource selection when one or more of the following apply:

[0383] - Expected feedback, such as HARQ feedback. In this scenario, limiting resource selection is advantageous because it ensures sufficient resources on the component carriers to reliably receive feedback at the UE 500.

[0384] - Expected beam management control traffic, such as beam fault recovery (BFR) indications, etc. This is advantageous because beam management control traffic can be reliably received at the UE 500 by selecting resources within the CC that exceed, for example, the CBR threshold.

[0385] - The UE expects to receive location-related information, such as PRS.

[0386] - The UE expects to receive channel state information, such as CSI.

[0387] - The UE expects to receive control signals and / or data signals and / or feedback signals and / or synchronization signals from other UEs (such as UE 500-1), which have previously indicated this via PSCCH Time Resource Indication Value / Frequency Resource Indication Value (TRIV / FRIV) signaling transmitted within the Side Link Control Information (SCI). By analyzing the TRIV / FRIV of other UEs, the UE can know the reservation status of n resources in the future (e.g., n = 3), thereby avoiding the selection of these resources and thus avoiding resource conflicts with other UEs transmitting nearby. If the location of other UEs with conflicting resources is known, and if these other UEs can move in different directions, and / or if these UEs can use beamforming to transmit to another UE in another direction, the UE can also decide to reuse one or more potentially conflicting resources, as the probability of resource conflict may be low, especially for moving UEs (e.g., in V2X). Furthermore, this probability can be signaled or specified, allowing the UE to calculate the probability of potential resource conflict, and if this probability is below a configured or pre-configured threshold, the UE can decide to transmit on said resource.

[0388] - A Channel Access Procedure (CAP) is employed for high-priority applications, such as sidelink communication utilizing unlicensed spectrum. Specific CCs in carrier aggregation are restricted to allowing only certain CAPs or disallowing certain CAPs. This approach is advantageous because it ensures the appropriate CAP is selected when using one or more CCs from unlicensed spectrum.

[0389] - The UE is already performing transmissions on other CCs, such as neighboring CCs or CCs with a specific distance offset from the carrier frequency of the currently used CC. This avoids interference and improves communication.

[0390] - Exclude resources from resource selection during the perception process (e.g., before performing resource selection).

[0391] In the above embodiments, certain resources are excluded from resource selection during the sensing process. However, according to other embodiments, the UE 500 may apply a penalty factor or penalty threshold (e.g., 3 dB) to the selection of resources or specific CCs to avoid selecting such resources or to completely avoid an upcoming transmission using a specific CC.

[0392] The upcoming transmission can be a data transmission or a control transmission. It can also be a feedback transmission, such as PSFCH HARQ-ACK / NACK or HARQ-NACK only. The transmission can also be an IuC transmission, such as a transmission of preferred or non-preferred resources or a collision indicator (CI) transmission. Furthermore, the upcoming transmission can be a synchronization signal transmission (such as S-SSB), or a beam management or beam maintenance control signal transmission. This can be applied to the aforementioned transmissions to protect them. Using a penalty factor may be preferred because if the resource to which the penalty factor is applied is below a certain threshold, using or not using the resource may still be beneficial for the UE's data transmission. For example, if a resource is severely interfered with, it can be avoided for important control messages (such as transmitting PSFCH). If the UE has urgent data messages to transmit, a different penalty factor can be applied, such as a smaller penalty factor or even a negative penalty factor, which may increase the likelihood that the UE will find a sufficient number of resources for transmission. A negative penalty factor can even allow the resource to be used as a preferred resource, which may be beneficial for data / control traffic with extremely high priority (e.g., high 5QI values). Therefore, introducing a penalty factor allows for more flexible adjustment of the UE's resource selection.

[0393] According to the embodiments, different penalty factors or thresholds may be applied depending on specific circumstances, for example, depending on one or more of the following:

[0394] - Transmission priority. For example, the higher the transmission priority, the lower the penalty factor, resulting in a higher probability that the resource will be used for high-priority transmissions. Conversely, for low-priority transmissions, the likelihood of selecting this resource may be very small, which can protect other data and / or control traffic transmitted by the UE and / or other UEs on the resource.

[0395] - QoS requirements: For example, if data with ultra-low latency requirements is to be sent, the data may prefer to be sent over a larger frequency bandwidth, which may only be achieved through carrier aggregation.

[0396] - Broadcast Type: Resources of a given broadcast type, such as multicast or multi-cast messages, can be prioritized for transmission because these messages may be safety-related (e.g., BSM), and emergency notifications (e.g., road hazards) can be sent via multicast to specific groups near the UE. Here, the group could be all vehicle or all pedestrian UEs (P-UEs), so multicast can be selected for certain high-priority messages. In other cases, broadcast is preferred if it is necessary to notify all UEs near the UE; additionally, this can also be used for unicast transmissions; if the UE knows that specific UEs are involved nearby, such as potential V2X-UEs involved in a predicted vehicle collision, it may be meaningful to send certain safety messages only to that specific UE.

[0397] - For transmission types, such as security-related transmissions (e.g., BSM), applying or not applying this penalty factor may be beneficial. Conversely, for general data transmissions, applying this penalty factor may be beneficial to prioritize other messages transmitted by this UE or other UEs, such as BSM and control messages.

[0398] Other transmissions, such as those in adjacent frequency bands, can interfere with the currently used CC. These are transmissions in other CCs, which may be CCs located next to the CC used by the UE (e.g., causing adjacent channel leakage power (ACLR) to the CC), or these interferences may be caused by transmissions on CCs in different frequency bands. Typically, such impairments may be caused by nonlinearities in the modulation process and transmitter. In addition, spurious emissions are emissions caused by undesired transmitter effects (e.g., harmonic emissions, parasitic emissions, intermodulation products, and frequency conversion products), which may cause additional impairment to transmissions in the CC.

[0399] Third aspect ‌

[0400] An embodiment of the third aspect of the present invention has been described. Figure 10 A user equipment (UE) 600 according to an embodiment of a third aspect of the present invention is illustrated. UE 600 operates in a wireless communication network, as shown above with reference to FIG. 1 or FIG. 2. UE 600 communicates with one or more other UEs 600-1 to 600-n via a sidelink, as shown in PC5 connection. As schematically shown at 602, UE 600 supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). UE 600 selects one or more or all of the CCs for transmission to or reception from another UE (e.g., UE 600-1). As schematically shown at 604, UE 600 can perform preemption so that, in the event of an upcoming specific transmission (e.g., a priority transmission), UE 600 skips one or more resources in a periodic transmission to transmit and / or receive that specific transmission on another CC or the same CC or aggregated CCs. In other words, UE 600 implements SL-CA in such a way that it uses preemption techniques to prioritize resource selection, carrier selection, or carrier aggregation so that one or more carriers or component carriers can be freed up when another transmission (the specific transmission mentioned above) is to be performed.

[0401] A specific transmission can be a transmission on one of the sidelink CCs, or a transmission on a UU component carrier (e.g., an uplink transmission), such as a high-priority transmission from UE 600 to a base station serving UE 600, or a transmission in an unlicensed frequency band (e.g., a WiFi transmission). In other words, the specific transmission can be a transmission with a priority exceeding a specific threshold (e.g., an absolute threshold). In this case, both the specific transmission and the periodic transmission have corresponding priorities associated with them, and the priority of the specific transmission is simply higher than that of the periodic transmission. According to other embodiments, in addition to using an absolute threshold, a threshold relative to the priority of the periodic transmission can also be used, such that not only the specific transmission with the highest priority is transmitted using a pre-emption method, but also any transmission with a higher priority than the periodic transmission is transmitted. According to other embodiments, the specific transmission has a higher QoS, such as with regard to latency requirements and / or data volume and / or service class (e.g., small data, guaranteed bit rate (GBR), or delay-critical GBR), as defined in the 5G QoS (5QI) table.

[0402] Pre-emption causes one or more resources of a periodically transmitted transmission to be skipped so that the specific transmission (such as data / control / feedback / synchronization signal) can be transmitted on another carrier, the same carrier, or aggregated carriers. According to embodiments, this method can be used if the transmission is urgent (e.g., it contains feedback to a higher-priority transmission). In this case, the UE 600 can cancel the transmission to provide feedback, which can be done across carriers. This can also be applied to other transmissions, such as communications for exchanging beam management-related information (such as BFR, beam pairing, etc.) to allow beam scanning to be performed at a given time instance to find or fine-tune beam pair links. In this scenario, simultaneous transmission is not possible. According to other embodiments, pre-emption can also be used when exchanging synchronization signals; for example, a transmission on a first component carrier can be canceled to allow a resynchronization process to be performed on another component carrier.

[0403] The third aspect of the invention is advantageous because it allows the advantages of the pre-occupancy method to also be applied to SL-CA, so that in such communication scenarios, a particular transmission can still be transmitted even if there is an ongoing periodic transmission, thereby transmitting the particular transmission efficiently and reliably.

[0404] Figure 11 An embodiment of the third aspect of the invention is shown, which performs carrier selection for high-priority transmission by applying pre-occupied periodic transmission. Figure 11The diagram schematically illustrates UE 600 implementing SL-CA by aggregating component carriers CC1 to CC3. These component carriers have a bandwidth of 10 MHz, and within each component carrier, the corresponding resource R used exceeds the CBR threshold associated with the corresponding CC. UE 600 performs periodic transmission P on component carrier CC1. The periodic transmission includes transmissions at times t1, t2, and t3. Before time t2, UE 600 recognizes that a high-priority transmission H needs to be performed at t2. According to an embodiment, UE 600 cancels the periodic transmission P at time t2, switches to component carrier CC2, and performs the high-priority transmission H at time t2 instead of the periodic transmission P. At time t3, UE 600 resumes the periodic transmission. In this case, performing carrier switching on the UE may be beneficial to reduce the UE's power consumption, as the UE may only transmit on a smaller carrier, thereby increasing its power spectral density. In addition, this may also involve the UE performing sense or listen-before-speak (LBT) before it switches to a carrier for transmission, which may be less power-consuming if the carrier can have a smaller bandwidth.

[0405] Figure 12 Another embodiment according to a third aspect of the invention is shown, wherein high-priority transmission is performed on aggregated carriers using pre-occupancy of periodic transmissions. Figure 12 It shows the relationship with Figure 11 In a similar scenario, the difference is that when it is determined that a high-priority transmission H should be performed during the execution of periodic transmission P, UE 600 performs carrier aggregation after canceling periodic transmission P at time t2 so that all component carriers CC1 to CC3 can be used to transmit the high-priority transmission H.

[0406] According to another embodiment, a specific transmission includes one of the following:

[0407] -Data signal,

[0408] - Control signals,

[0409] -Feedback signal,

[0410] - Synchronization signal,

[0411] - Beam management related information,

[0412] - Measurement signals, such as signals containing channel state information (CSI) or channel quality-related information.

[0413] - Wake-up signal, such as WUS

[0414] - Locating reference signals, such as PRS.

[0415] Fourth aspect ‌

[0416] An embodiment of the fourth aspect of the present invention has been described. Figure 10 A user equipment (UE) 700 according to an embodiment of a fourth aspect of the present invention is illustrated. UE 700 operates in a wireless communication network, as shown above with reference to FIG. 1 or FIG. 2. UE 700 communicates with one or more other UEs 700-1 to 700-n via a sidelink, as shown in PC5 connection. As schematically shown at 702, UE 700 supports sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). UE 700 selects one, more, or all of the CCs for transmission to or reception from another UE (such as UE 700-1). As schematically shown at 704, UE 700 performs data duplication by transmitting data packets on a first CC and transmitting an exact copy or additional redundant version of the data packets on a second CC, wherein the first CC and the second CC are different.

[0417] Embodiments of the fourth aspect of the invention are advantageous because data duplication increases the probability of successful decoding by the receiving receiver (e.g., UE 700-1) of the transmission by sending an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on different resource sets. For example, data duplication can be used outside of retransmissions (e.g., retransmissions using HARQ), which has the advantage of enabling parallel transmissions within the same time resources (e.g., OFDM symbols and / or slots and / or frames and / or subframes) without waiting for ACK / NACK from the intended receiver.

[0418] Figure 14 An example of data replication using UE 700 is illustrated. It is assumed that UE 700 performs sidelink carrier aggregation by aggregating component carriers CC1 to CC3, each with a bandwidth of 10MHz. Within each CC, communication is performed using resources R exceeding the CBR threshold associated with the respective CC. Figure 14 In the example, assume that UE 700 uses resource R of the second component carrier CC2 to transmit data packet P at a specific time. UE 700 applies data replication and at the same time uses resource R of component carrier CC3 to transmit copy D. As mentioned above, copy D can be an exact copy of P or a redundant version of P.

[0419] According to embodiments, data replication can be used for transmissions where low latency is critical because the transmitter (such as UE 700) can send a copy or redundant version of the data packet without waiting for ACK / NACK. According to embodiments, the data replication mechanism can be used outside of HARQ retransmission, or even without any HARQ configuration.

[0420] According to an embodiment, UE 700 may perform data replication on a component carrier in response to UE and / or data packet P satisfying one or more criteria. The criteria for performing or not performing data replication may include one or more of the following:

[0421] - The priority or QoS parameter of a data packet exceeds a predefined threshold, thereby enabling important transmissions associated with this priority or QoS parameter (e.g., a 5QI value) to be transmitted with higher reliability.

[0422] - In situations where the transmitter UE (e.g., UE 700) is unsure whether the receiver UE is listening on a specific component carrier. This is advantageous because it avoids the following situation: despite coordination of component carriers, the receiver UE (e.g., UE 700-1) may still be unable to receive data packet P on CC2 (see...). Figure 14 However, it may be able to receive data on CC3. Therefore, although it cannot receive data on CC2, the data transmitted by UE 700 can still be received by another UE 700-1 on CC3.

[0423] - Data duplication can be used when data packets need to be transmitted according to a specific broadcast type (e.g., broadcast, multicast, and / or unicast). This approach is advantageous because, in such scenarios, even if one or more of the multiple receivers for a broadcast / multicast transmission cannot receive the data on one of the CCs, data duplication will ensure that the information is available on other CCs, where the corresponding UE can receive it.

[0424] - If the quality on the second CC is higher than or equal to a predefined threshold (such as the CBR threshold) or a threshold based on interference (such as SINR). Figure 14 As shown, CC2 and CC3 have the same CBR threshold, so UE 700 can decide to perform data replication on CC3. It is advantageous to determine data replication based on whether the CBR threshold on the second CC reaches or exceeds the CBR threshold of the first CC, as this ensures that the transmission of the copy is performed on a CC using resources that meet at least the same requirements as the original packet transmission resources. If the CBR threshold is set higher than the initial CC's threshold, the advantage is that the transmission reliability may even be better than the initial CC. If the resource quality on the second CC used for replication is below a predefined threshold, that CC can still be used to transmit the redundant version because the packets can be merged at the receiver and may still be successfully decoded. Therefore, this exhaustive approach may be beneficial, especially for the last retransmission, to avoid retransmissions at higher layers, as the latter may lead to more delays. Note that the retransmission processing timescale at the MAC layer and even the application layer is much larger than that at the physical layer (PHY).

[0425] - Provided that a sufficient number of CCs are available, i.e. at least one additional CC that meets the CBR threshold requirement can be used to transmit a copy of packet P.

[0426] - In cases where the number of Listen-Before-Speak (LBT) failures exceeds the configured or pre-configured number, for example, when the UE is operating on an unlicensed carrier, such as in Side Link Unlicensed (SL-U).

[0427] - Depending on the UE's battery status, for example, when the UE's battery is low, the UE may want to perform data duplication to increase the probability of successful transmission and avoid retransmission, thereby entering RX mode as soon as possible.

[0428] - The UE is triggered by another device to perform replication, such as by another SL UE, for example, by a control message (such as IuC).

[0429] According to an embodiment, a UE (e.g., UE 700) may receive an Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) message or an Auxiliary Information (AIM) message for a specific component carrier (see also a first aspect of the invention). If a receiving UE (e.g., UE 700-1) sends a set of unpreferred resources to a transmitting UE (e.g., UE 700), UE 700 may avoid performing data duplication, thereby saving power and avoiding transmission on multiple carriers. If UE 700 receives a set of preferred resources via IuC, UE 700 may be triggered to perform data duplication.

[0430] Overview ‌

[0431] The embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above. Each embodiment and aspect can be implemented individually, or two or more embodiments or aspects can be combined.

[0432] In the embodiments of the first to fourth aspects described above, side-link carrier aggregation is described with reference to in-band contiguous aggregation. However, the invention is not limited to such embodiments, and in-band discontinuous aggregation or inter-band discontinuous aggregation may also be employed. Figure 15 illustrates the above-described aggregation alternatives, which are applied according to embodiments of the invention. Figure 15(A) illustrates in-band contiguous carrier aggregation, wherein component carriers CC1 and CC2 are contiguous within frequency band ①. Figure 15(B) illustrates in-band discontinuous carrier aggregation, according to which component carriers CC1 and CC2 are frequency-spaced apart within frequency band ①. Figure 15(C) illustrates inter-band discontinuous carrier aggregation, wherein component carriers CC1 and CC2 are located in different frequency bands ① and ②.

[0433] Although Figure 15 only shows two CCs, more than two CCs can be aggregated. For example, in Figure 15(A), one or more additional CCs can be consecutive with CC1 and CC2, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 7 , Figure 11 , Figure 12 or Figure 14 As shown, there is an additional CC. Similarly, in Figures 15(B) and 15(C), CC1 and / or CC2 may also be continuous with one or more additional CCs.

[0434] Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to all CCs having the same 10MHz bandwidth as described in the embodiments above. Instead, according to other embodiments, CCs can have different bandwidths; for example, CCs can have bandwidths of 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 15 MHz, or 20 MHz. Different CCs can have the same bandwidth, or some or all CCs can have different bandwidths. Furthermore, a maximum number of CCs (e.g., five component carriers) and / or a maximum aggregate bandwidth (e.g., 100MHz) can be defined or predefined.

[0435] Furthermore, the above embodiments relate to user equipment operating on a sidelink using licensed spectrum resources. However, the present invention is not limited to operation in the licensed spectrum; rather, other embodiments can realize sidelink communication that utilizes only or at least partially the licensed spectrum resources, such as... Figure 16As shown in the figure. This figure schematically illustrates a wireless communication system, such as the system described above with reference to Figures 1 or 2, such as a 3GPP system or network. The wireless communication system includes user equipment 800, 802 and one or more base stations 804. UE 800 (also referred to as a sidelink UE (SL-UE)), operating in accordance with embodiments of the above aspects of the invention, includes one or more antennas 800a and a signal processor 800b for performing one or more operations, such as operations involving antenna 800a, such as transmitting / receiving data (e.g., payload data or control data) or inter-UE coordination (IuC) messages. UE 800 can communicate with other UEs (such as UE 802) using a sidelink or PC5 interface, as schematically shown at 808. UE 802 (also known as a sidelink UE (SL-UE)) operates in accordance with embodiments of the above aspects of the present invention, including one or more antennas 802a and a signal processor 802b for performing one or more operations, such as operations involving antenna 802a, such as transmitting / receiving data (e.g., payload data and / or control data) or inter-UE coordination (IuC) messages. Furthermore, UE 800 and / or UE 802 may be connected to a base station or gNB 804. gNB 804 includes one or more antennas 804a (for wireless communication with other network entities such as UE 800 and / or 802) and a signal processor 804b. When operating in Mode 1, UE 800 and UE 802 receive resources allocated by gNB 804 via Uu interface 812, which will be used by the UE for communication via sidelink 808. When operating in Mode 2, UE 800 and / or UE 802 may have connectivity to gNB 804, and prior to transmission, the UE performs either sense-plus-access resource allocation or random-access-based resource allocation. Figure 16The spectrum 814, such as radio spectrum, is further illustrated schematically, including resources for communication within a wireless communication system or network. Resources available for SL communication may include one or more of the following: one or more symbols, one or more time slots or subframes or frames, one or more resource blocks (RBs) or frequencies or carriers or subchannels or subchannel groups, or one or more frequency bands. As shown, spectrum 814 includes licensed spectrum 816 and unlicensed spectrum 818. Licensed spectrum 816 is a portion of the spectrum reserved for the wireless communication system including UE 800, UE 802, and base station 804. In other words, resources in the licensed spectrum are exclusively used by that wireless system (as defined by regulatory agencies and entities). Unlicensed spectrum 818 includes resources that can be used by multiple wireless communication systems, such as another wireless communication system that conforms to 3GPP standards but is operated by a different operator, or by systems using different radio access technologies (RATs) (such as WiFi or Bluetooth). For sidelink communication, a resource pool 820 (also known as a sidelink resource pool (SL-RP)) may be provided, and UE 800 is configured or pre-configured with resource pool 820. Although only a single resource pool is depicted in the diagram, multiple such resource pools can be configured or pre-configured. A resource pool may consist only of resources from unlicensed spectrum 818, or only of resources from licensed spectrum 816, or, as... Figure 16 As shown in the embodiments, resources from licensed spectrum 816 and unlicensed spectrum 820 may be included.

[0436] According to embodiments, the wireless communication system may include a terrestrial network, a non-terrestrial network, or a network or network segment that uses airborne or spaceborne vehicles as receivers, or a combination thereof. Furthermore, the wireless communication system may be a system or network different from the aforementioned 4G or 5G mobile communication systems; conversely, embodiments of the method of the present invention may also be implemented in any other wireless communication network, such as in a private network (e.g., an intranet or any other type of campus network), or in a WiFi communication system.

[0437] According to embodiments of the present invention, the user equipment includes one or more of the following: a power-limited UE, or a handheld UE (such as a UE used by pedestrians and referred to as a Vulnerable Road User (VRU) or Pedestrian UE (P-UE), or a personal or handheld UE used by public safety personnel and first responders and referred to as a Public Safety UE (PS-UE), or a LoT UE such as a sensor, actuator, or UE provided in a campus network for performing repetitive tasks and requiring periodic input from a gateway node, or a mobile terminal, or a fixed terminal, or a cellular LoT-UE, an Industrial LoT-UE (IIoT), or an SL UE, or vehicle-mounted UE, or vehicle-mounted group leader UE (GL-UE), or dispatch UE (S-UE), or IoT device or narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) device, or WiFi device or WiFi station (STA), or ground vehicle, or flying vehicle, or drone, or mobile base station, or roadside unit (RSU), or building, or any other item or device such as a sensor or actuator equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a wireless communication network, or any other item or device such as a sensor or actuator equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a sidelink of a wireless communication network, or any network entity that supports a sidelink.

[0438] According to embodiments of the present invention, network entities include one or more of the following: macrocell base stations, or small cell base stations, or central units of base stations, or distributed units of base stations, or integrated access and backhaul (IAB) nodes, or roadside units (RSUs), or WiFi access points (APs), or UEs, or SL UEs, or group leader UEs (GL-UEs), or relays or remote radio heads, or AMFs, or SMFs, or core network entities, or mobile edge computing (MEC) entities, or network slices such as in NR or 5G core contexts, or any transmit / receive point (TRP) that enables an item or device to communicate using a wireless communication network, said item or device being equipped with network connectivity to communicate using said wireless communication network.

[0439] Although some aspects of the concepts have been described in the context of an apparatus, it is clear that these aspects also represent a description of the corresponding method, whereby a block or apparatus corresponds to a method step or feature of a method step. Similarly, aspects described in the context of a method step also represent a description of a corresponding block, item, or feature of the corresponding apparatus.

[0440] The various elements and features of this invention can be implemented in hardware using analog and / or digital circuits, in software by executing instructions through one or more general-purpose or special-purpose processors, or in a combination of hardware and software. For example, embodiments of this invention can be implemented in a computer system or other processing system environment. Figure 17 An example of a computer system 900 is shown. Various units or modules, and method steps performed by these units, can be executed on one or more computer systems 900. The computer system 900 includes one or more processors 902, such as dedicated or general-purpose digital signal processors. The processors 902 are connected to a communication infrastructure 904, such as a bus or network. The computer system 900 includes main memory 906 (e.g., random access memory RAM) and secondary memory 908 (e.g., hard disk drives and / or removable storage drives). The secondary memory 908 allows computer programs or other instructions to be loaded into the computer system 900. The computer system 900 may also include a communication interface 910 to allow software and data to be transferred between the computer system 900 and external devices. Communication can take the form of electronic, electromagnetic, optical, or other signals that can be processed by the communication interface. Communication can use wires or cables, optical fibers, telephone lines, cellular telephone links, radio frequency (RF) links, and other communication channels 912.

[0441] The terms "computer program medium" and "computer-readable medium" are generally used to refer to tangible storage media, such as removable storage units or hard disks installed in hard disk drives. These computer program products are means of providing software to computer system 900. The computer program (also referred to as computer control logic) is stored in main memory 906 and / or auxiliary memory 908. The computer program can also be received via communication interface 910. When executed, the computer program enables computer system 900 to implement the present invention. Specifically, when executed, the computer program enables processor 902 to implement the methods of the present invention, such as any of the methods described herein. Thus, such a computer program can represent a controller of computer system 900. When this disclosure is implemented using software, the software can be stored in the computer program product and loaded into computer system 900 via an interface such as a removable storage drive or similar communication interface 910.

[0442] The hardware or software implementation can be executed using digital storage media, such as cloud storage, floppy disks, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, CDs, ROMs, PROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, or flash memory, which store electronically readable control signals that cooperate with or are capable of cooperating with a programmable computer system to execute corresponding methods. Therefore, digital storage media can be computer-readable.

[0443] Some embodiments of the invention include a data carrier having electronically readable control signals that are capable of cooperating with a programmable computer system to perform one of the methods described herein.

[0444] Typically, embodiments of the present invention can be implemented as a computer program product having program code that, when run on a computer, performs one of the methods. The program code may, for example, be stored on a machine-readable medium.

[0445] Other embodiments include a computer program stored on a machine-readable medium for performing one of the methods described herein. In other words, therefore, embodiments of the methods of the present invention are computer programs having program code for performing one of the methods described herein when the computer program is run on a computer.

[0446] Therefore, another embodiment of the method of the present invention is a data carrier or digital storage medium, or a computer-readable medium, on which a computer program for performing one of the methods described herein is recorded. Therefore, another embodiment of the method of the present invention is a data stream or signal sequence representing a computer program for performing one of the methods described herein. The data stream or signal sequence may, for example, be configured to be transmitted via a data communication connection (e.g., via the Internet). Another embodiment includes a processing device, such as a computer or programmable logic device, configured or adapted to perform one of the methods described herein. Another embodiment includes a computer on which a computer program for performing one of the methods described herein is installed.

[0447] In some embodiments, a programmable logic device (e.g., a field-programmable gate array) may be used to perform some or all of the functions of the methods described herein. In some embodiments, the field-programmable gate array may cooperate with a microprocessor to perform one of the methods described herein. Generally, these methods are preferably performed by any hardware device.

[0448] The above embodiments are merely illustrative of the principles of the present invention. It should be understood that modifications and variations of the structures and details described herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, its intent is limited only by the scope of the forthcoming patent claims, and not by the specific details presented herein through the description and explanation of the embodiments.

Claims

1. A user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network. in, The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL). The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). The UE is configured to select the CC for SL communication in the following manner: -Based on the configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA, and / or - Based on Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) information, the IuC information indicates available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources or conflicts, such as conflict indicator CI.

2. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 1, wherein, The configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA indicates one or more of the following: -Given one or more attributes of CC, - One or more CCs containing predefined signals or predefined information are included among the plurality of CCs. - One or more CCs to be used in a predefined scenario.

3. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 2, wherein, The one or more attributes include one or more of the following: -Given the center frequency of the CC; -Given the bandwidth of CC, - The portion of bandwidth (BWP) to be used on a given CC. -Given the bandwidth category of CC, -Revert group -Given the parameter set of CC, -Given the resource pool configuration of CC, - The broadcast type to be used on a given CC, such as broadcast, multicast, multicast, or unicast. - The type of service to be used on a given CC. - The transmission priority to be used on a given CC, - Whether feedback is enabled on a given CC, for example, whether a feedback channel exists on a given CC, such as the Physical Side Link Feedback Channel (PSFCH). - In the event that feedback on a given CC is not enabled, one or more CCs from the plurality of CCs are to be used for feedback. - Among the multiple CCs, there are one or more traditional CCs, which are monitored by a traditional UE. - The type of UE to be used on a given CC, such as any of the following: V2X-UE, IoT-UE, RSU, relay node. - For a given CC, the available / permitted NR version types, such as permitted NR Release 17 V2X features and / or permitted NR Release 18 features, or whether the CC is only for a specific 3GPP version type, such as Rel-16, to ensure backward compatibility. - Whether the UE can perform power-saving operations such as DRX or eDRX on a given CC, and the possible DRX configurations for a given CC. - Whether IuC is enabled or disabled on a given CC. - Whether the transmission and / or reception of the wake-up signal (WUS) on a given CC is enabled or disabled. - Whether a positioning reference signal, such as a PRS, can be transmitted on a given CC.

4. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the predefined signal includes one or more of the following: -Data signal, - Control signals, -Feedback signal, -One or more synchronization signals, - A specific synchronization preamble used for resynchronization, for example, when the UE needs to resynchronize. - Wake-up signal (WUS) - Positioning Reference Signal (PRS) - Narrowband signals, such as NB-IoT signals, - Beam management related information, - Measurement signals, such as signals containing Channel State Information (CSI) or channel quality-related information.

5. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein the predefined information includes one or more of the following: - An interference threshold for a given CC, such as a CBR threshold or a non-empty set of CBR thresholds valid for one CC, some CCs, or all CCs. - Beam management information, beam maintenance information, or beam recovery information. - Control information on a specific CC used for Uu, such as information for situations where the UE wants to switch from mode 2 operation to mode 1 operation or vice versa, or the UE wants to switch from SL to Uu or switch to a connection using a relay node such as a relay UE. - Information related to switching or conditional switching (CHO) -Paging-related information, -Relevant information was discovered. - Broadcast-related information, such as broadcast control channels. -IuC related information, such as AIM.

6. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein the configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA indicates a proper subset of the CCs that contain the predefined signal or the predefined information.

7. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 2 to 6, wherein the configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA indicates that there are 1 to a maximum of N-1 CCs containing the predefined signal or the predefined information, where N is an integer.

8. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 2 to 7, wherein the configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA indicates that only one of the plurality of CCs includes the predefined signal or the predefined information.

9. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 2 to 8, wherein, When the SL-CA is configured or pre-configured to indicate that one or more CCs are to be used in a predefined scenario, one or more of the following are indicated: - CC to be used depending on the location of the UE; - CCs to be used depending on the mobility state of the UE; -One or more CCs to be used in cases where the UE or another UE with which the UE will communicate via SL cannot transmit or receive on a particular CC; - One or more CCs to be used when the UE establishes a unicast link.

10. The user equipment (UE) of claim 9, wherein the CC to be used depending on the location of the UE includes one or more of the following: - The CC to be used depends on the distance between the UE and another UE with which the UE will communicate via SL, for example, as defined in the Minimum Required Communication Range (MCR); - CCs to be used in a specific geographic location or region; - The CC to be used depends on the location of the UE in the wireless communication network.

11. The user equipment (UE) of claim 9, wherein the mobility state is one or more of the following: -UE speed, - UE's Mode 1 connectivity, such as connection to a specific gNB, -UE's Mode 2 connectivity, - The UE's altitude or its 2D or 3D trajectory, for example, in the case of a drone. - Track type, such as whether the UE moves on a highway, dirt road, railway track, or waterway. - State transition, for example, for a UE with connectivity to an eNB or gNB, the UE performs a handover between gNBs, such as HO or CHO.

12. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the UE is configured to receive the IuC information from one or more of the following: - One or more other UEs that are not the communication partners of the UE for the specific SL communication. - refers to one or more other UEs that are communication partners of the UE for a specific SL communication, such as UEs that the UE transmits to / receives from via the SL. - Different transceivers within the device (coexisting within the device), for example, the device has LTE and NR modems, or WiFi modems and NR modems, and other UE devices internally forward this information to the UE. - Radio access network (RAN) entities, such as roadside units (RSUs), gNBs, or relay nodes.

13. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein, IuC-related information is valid and / or received within the selection window of the UE and / or other UEs.

14. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the UE is configured to transmit the IuC information to another UE to perform one or more of the following: - Notify the other UE about one or more future transmissions of the UE. - Notify the other UE about resource conflicts, such as conflicts caused by other transmissions. - Inform the other UEs about preferred or unpreferred resources, such as interference-free resources or resources that may interfere with the UEs. - Request the IuC information from the other UE. - Requests for location information, such as geographic location or reference signal (PRS). - Wake-up signal (WUS) -Mobility status, - Switch related information, such as switching configurations, like preferred gNB sets, or CHO configurations.

15. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the UE is configured to transmit the IuC information on one, some, or all of the CCs used by the UE.

16. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 14 or 15, wherein the IuC information relates to -CC that only transmits the IuC information, or - The UE in the CC has one, more or all of the CCs for future transmission.

17. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein The UE is used to obtain selected resources for transmission by performing resource selection based on the channel busy ratio (CBR), the resource selection including: - Select resources for SL transfers that are above a predefined or configured CBR threshold, or - Remove resources used for SL transport that are below a predefined or configured CBR threshold, and In response to receiving the IuC information, the UE is used for - Remove received unavailable or unfavorable resources from the selected resources, for example, based on a set of unfavorable resources or based on CI, or - Add some or all of the received available or preferred resources to the selected resources.

18. A user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network. in, The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL). The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). The UE is configured to select one or more or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE, such that the UE and the other UE use the same CC combination or a CC combination including at least one or more carriers used by the other UE.

19. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 18, wherein, The UE is used to perform carrier switching to select the CC for transmission to or reception from another UE.

20. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 18 or 19, wherein, In response to a specific event, the UE is used to automatically switch from using a selected CC back to - Specific CC configurations, such as the CC configuration previously used before performing SL CA, or a switch back to the configured or pre-configured default CC configuration. For example, the default CC configuration could be that the UE is configured to use carrier aggregation with a specific frequency band combination, such as two adjacent CCs in the ITS band, or the default configuration could be that the UE does not use CA at all, but instead uses a single CC with a specified center frequency and bandwidth. - A single CC, for example, without using SL CA, - Different bandwidth portions (BWP), such as having different center frequencies, bandwidths, and / or parameter sets. - Different modes, such as from SL mode 2 to SL mode 1, or vice versa.

21. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 20, wherein, The specific event includes one or more of the following: - The SL communication with the other UE is completed using the selected CC, for example, the transmission to and / or reception from the other UE, for example, the reception of or transmission of a feedback message from the other UE, such as HARQ-ACK or HARQ-NACK. - The number of decoding errors in the data transmitted on the selected CC exceeds a predefined threshold, for example, receiving too many HARQ-NACKs. - The duration of no transmission and / or reception on the selected CC exceeds a configured or pre-configured threshold, such as a timeout while waiting for HARQ feedback. - The CBR on one, some, or all of the selected CCs is higher than the configured or pre-configured threshold. - The number of LBT failures exceeds the (pre)configured threshold. - Power saving purpose: for example, when the power budget exceeds a (pre)configured threshold, and / or when the UE needs to perform DRX. - In an emergency, such as when the UE receives an emergency indicator, such as an emergency code.

22. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 18 to 21, wherein, The UE is used to indicate one or more of the following in a message to another UE: - One or more time windows during which the UE receives data on a specific CC. - A conflict indication when the UE is unable to receive due to a switching gap or reception on different CCs. - The default CC that the UE is receiving, unless the UE is switching to receive on a different CC. - One or more DRX modes / configurations for the selected CC.

23. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 18 to 22, wherein, The UE is used to coordinate the selection of a CC for transmission to another UE and reception from another UE by one or more of the following: -The specifications of the wireless communication network, or -Resource pool configuration - Switch or conditional switching (CHO) configuration exchange, -Use signaling such as PC5 RRC, MAC CE, or SCI, or - When operating in SL mode 1, Uu signaling is used via RAN entities such as gNB, for example, using UCI.

24. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 18 to 23, wherein The UE is used to perform resource selection based on the Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) and select resources for SL transmission that are higher than a predefined or configured CBR threshold. The UE is used to restrict resource selection to the resources of CC used for SL communication by the UE and other UEs.

25. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 24, wherein, If the set of available resources on a particular CC, for example based on a CBR threshold, is lower than a configured or pre-configured threshold, the UE does not select resources from that particular CC.

26. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 25, wherein, When the number of available resources on another CC is too small, the UE is used to perform transmissions in the time domain without aggregating the other CCs.

27. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 24 to 26, wherein, The UE is used to restrict the resource selection in one or more of the following situations: - Expected feedback, such as HARQ feedback, -Expected beam management control traffic, such as beam failure recovery (BFR) indication, -Expectation to receive control and / or data and / or feedback and / or synchronization signals from other UEs, such as those previously indicated via PSCCHTRIV / FRIV signaling. - Channel access procedures (CAPs) intended for high-priority transmissions, such as in the case of SL (SL-U) in unlicensed bands, where specific CCs in carrier aggregation are restricted to allowing only certain CAPs to be performed or disallowing certain CAPs. - The UE is already performing transmissions on other CCs, such as neighboring CCs or CCs with a specific distance or offset from the carrier frequency of the stated CC. - Upcoming transmissions, such as data transmissions, control transmissions, feedback transmissions like PSFCH HARQ-ACK / NACK or HARQ-NACK only, IuC / AIM transmissions like preferred or non-preferred resource sets or conflict indicators (CI), transmissions of synchronization signals like S-SSB, or transmissions of beam management or beam maintenance control signals.

28. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 24 or 27, wherein The UE is used to restrict the resource selection in the following ways: -Resources that exclude CC from the resource selection, or - Apply a penalty factor or penalty threshold to CC's resources to avoid selecting those resources or to prioritize those resources.

29. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 28, wherein, The UE is used to apply different penalty factors or thresholds based on one or more of the following: -Transmission priority, - QoS requirements, for example, if data with ultra-low latency requirements is to be transmitted, the data may prefer to be transmitted over a larger frequency bandwidth, which may only be achieved through carrier aggregation. -Broadcast type, - Transmission type, such as data / control / feedback / synchronization, etc. Other transmissions, such as those in adjacent frequency bands, may interfere with a specific CC.

30. A user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network. in, The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL). The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). The UE is used to select one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE. The UE is used to skip one or more resources in a periodic transmission in order to transmit and / or receive a specific transmission on another CC, or on the same CC, or on aggregated CCs.

31. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 30, wherein, The specific transmission is a transmission on one or more of the following: -Side link CC, -Uu CC, for example, uplink transmission. - Transmissions in unlicensed frequency bands, such as WiFi transmissions.

32. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 30 or 31, wherein, The specific transmission has one or more of the following characteristics: - Priority exceeding a specific threshold, such as an absolute threshold or a threshold relative to the priority of periodic transmissions. - Higher QoS, for example, regarding latency requirements and / or data volume and / or service category, such as small data, guaranteed bit rate (GBR) or latency-critical GBR, as defined in the 5G QoS (5QI) table.

33. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of claims 30 to 32, wherein, The specific transmission includes one of the following: -Data signal, - Control signals, -Feedback signal, - Synchronization signal, - Beam management related information, - Measurement signals, such as signals containing channel state information (CSI) or channel quality-related information. - Wake-up signal (WUS) - Locating reference sequences, such as using positioning reference signals (PRS).

34. A user equipment (UE) for a wireless communication network. in, The UE is used to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a side link (SL). The UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), which includes multiple component carriers (CCs). The UE is used to select one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE. The UE is configured to perform data replication by sending a data packet on a first CC and an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on a second CC, wherein the first CC and the second CC are different.

35. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 34, wherein, The UE is used to perform data copying in response to the UE and / or the data packet meeting one or more criteria.

36. The user equipment (UE) according to claim 35, wherein, The standard includes one or more of the following: - The priority or QoS parameter of the data packet, such as the 5QI value, exceeds a specific threshold. -In cases where the UE is unsure whether the other UE is listening on a specific CC, - Data packets must be transmitted according to a specific broadcast type; for example, data replication can be performed as the default for broadcast and / or multicast and / or unicast transmission. - The quality on the second CC is higher or lower than a predefined threshold, which is based on, for example, CBR or interference, such as SINR. - A sufficient number of CCs are available. - For a specific CC, Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) or Auxiliary Information Message (AIM) is available. - In cases where the number of LBT failures exceeds the configured or pre-configured number, for example, when the UE is operating on an unlicensed carrier, such as in a side-link unlicensed (SL-U) scenario, Depending on its battery status, for example, if the UE's battery is low, the UE may want to perform data duplication to increase the probability of successful transmission and avoid retransmission, so as to enter DRX mode as soon as possible. - The UE is triggered by another device to perform replication, for example, by another SL UE, for example, via a control message, such as IuC.

37. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein, The UE operates in out-of-coverage mode, and in this out-of-coverage mode, the UE: ● A base station that is not connected to a wireless communication system, for example, the UE operates in mode 2 or is not in an RRC connection state, such that the UE does not receive sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance from the base station, and / or ● Connected to a base station in a wireless communication system that, for one or more reasons, cannot provide sidelink resource allocation configuration or assistance to the UE, and / or ● Connect to a base station in a wireless communication system that does not support sidelink services such as NR V2X services, such as GSM, UMTS, or LTE base stations.

38. The user equipment (UE) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the UE includes one or more of the following: a power-limited UE, or a handheld UE such as a UE used by a pedestrian and referred to as a vulnerable road user (VRU) or pedestrian UE (P-UE), or a personal or handheld UE used by public safety personnel and first responders and referred to as a public safety UE (PS-UE), or a LoT UEs include, for example, sensors, actuators, or UEs provided in a campus network for performing repetitive tasks and requiring periodic input from a gateway node; mobile terminals; fixed terminals; cellular LoT-UEs; industrial LoT-UEs (IIoT); SLUEs; vehicle-mounted UEs; vehicle-mounted group leader UEs (GL-UEs); dispatch UEs (S-UEs); LoT devices or narrowband LoT (NB-IoT) devices; WiFi devices or WiFi stations (STAs); ground vehicles; flying vehicles; drones; mobile base stations; roadside units (RSUs); buildings; or any other item or device, such as sensors or actuators, equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a wireless communication network; or any other item or device, such as sensors or actuators, equipped with network connectivity to enable the item / device to communicate using a sidelink of a wireless communication network; or any network entity that supports a sidelink.

39. A wireless communication system, such as a 3GPP system, comprising one or more user equipment (UE) and / or one or more base stations (BS) according to any one of the preceding claims.

40. The wireless communication system of claim 39, wherein the BS comprises one or more of the following: a macrocell base station, or a small cell base station, or a central unit of a base station, or a distributed unit of a base station, or an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) node, or a roadside unit (RSU), or a WiFi access point (AP), or a UE, or an SL UE, or a group leader UE (GL-UE), or a relay or remote radio head, or an AMF, or an SMF, or a core network entity, or a mobile edge computing (MEC) entity, or a network slice such as in an NR or 5G core context, or any transmit / receive point (TRP) that enables an item or device to communicate using the wireless communication network, said item or device being equipped with network connectivity to communicate using said wireless communication network.

41. A method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a sidelink (SL), and wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising: The UE selects the CC for SL communication in the following manner: -Based on the configuration or pre-configuration of the SL-CA, and / or - Inter-UE Coordination (IuC) information based on indications of available / preferred or unavailable / unpreferred resources or conflicts (e.g., conflict indicator CI).

42. A method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising: The UE selects one or more or all of the CCs for transmission to or reception from another UE, such that the UE and the other UE use the same CC combination or a CC combination that includes at least one or more carriers used by the other UE.

43. A method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a sidelink (SL), and wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising: The UE selects one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE, and The UE can skip one or more resources in a periodic transmission in order to transmit and / or receive a specific transmission on another CC, or on the same CC, or on aggregated CCs.

44. A method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication network, wherein the UE is configured to communicate with one or more other UEs in the wireless communication network via a sidelink (SL), and wherein the UE is configured or pre-configured to support sidelink carrier aggregation (SL-CA), the SL-CA comprising a plurality of component carriers (CCs), the method comprising: The UE selects one, more, or all of the CCs for transmitting to or receiving from another UE, and The UE performs data duplication by sending a data packet on a first CC and an exact copy or an additional redundant version of the data packet on a second CC, which is different from the second CC.

45. A non-transitory computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed on a computer, perform the method of any one of claims 41 to 44.

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