Mechanism for allocation of reserved slots

Abstract

A wireless device obtains a first set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of a first sidelink resource pool bitmap for a first radio access technology (RAT) and a second set of

Description

FIELDS

[0001] Various example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to methods, devices, apparatuses and computer readable storage medium for allocating reserved slots. BACKGROUND

[0002] Sidelink is proposed to enable communications between peer devices. Different radio access technologies may be applied to sidelink scenarios. In this case, different radio access technologies may coexist in a same channel. Therefore, it is worth studying a co-channel coexistence of different radio access technologies. SUMMARY

[0003] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a device. The device includes at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus to: obtain a first set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and determine from the first set of parameters and the second set of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots, for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0004] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method includes obtaining, at a device, a first set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and determining from the first set of parameters and second set of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0005] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus. The apparatus includes means for obtaining a first set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and means for determining from the first set of parameters and the second set of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots, for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0006] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium includes instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the second aspect.

[0007] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer program product. The computer program product includes instructions which, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform the method according to the second aspect.

[0008] It is to be understood that the Summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0009] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0010] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of synchronization period and direct frame number period and resource pool bitmap period;

[0011] FIG. 2 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0001] FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling chart for determining a positioning measurement gap according to some example embodiments;

[0002] FIG. 4A to FIG. 4F illustrate schematic diagrams of slot allocation according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure, respectively;

[0003] FIG. 5A to FIG. 5D illustrate schematic diagrams of alignments between slots and a subframe according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure, respectively;

[0004] FIG. 6 illustrates a schematic diagram of a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) symbol according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0012] FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second device according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0013] FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0014] FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0015] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0016] Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

[0017] In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

[0018] References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an example embodiment,” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

[0019] It shall be understood that although the terms “first,” “second,”..., etc. in front of noun(s) and the like may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another, and they do not limit the order of the noun(s). For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and / or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

[0020] As used herein, “at least one of the following: ” and “at least one of ” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or”, mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

[0021] As used herein, unless stated explicitly, performing a step “in response to A” does not indicate that the step is performed immediately after “A” occurs and one or more intervening steps may be included.

[0022] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “has”, “having”, “includes” and / or “including”, when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and / or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and / or combinations thereof.

[0023] As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following: (a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and / or digital circuitry) and (b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable): (i) a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuit(s) with software / firmware and (ii) any portions of hardware processor(s) with software (including digital signal processor(s)), software, and memory(ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and (c) hardware circuit(s) and or processor(s), such as a microprocessor(s) or a portion of a mi c oprocessor! s), that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

[0024] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and / or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

[0025] As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G) communication protocols, and / or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0026] As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP), for example, a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), an NR NB (also referred to as a gNB), a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), a radio header (RH), a remote radio head (RRH), a relay, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) node, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In some example embodiments, radio access network (RAN) split architecture may include a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. An IAB node may include a Mobile Terminal (IAB-MT) part that behaves like a UE toward the parent node, and a DU part of an IAB node behaves like a base station toward the next-hop IAB node.

[0027] The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), a Subscriber Station (SS), a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS), or an Access Terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE), an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and / or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and / or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, and the like. The terminal device may also correspond to a Mobile Termination (MT) part of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node). In the following description, the terms “terminal device”, “communication device”, “terminal”, “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

[0028] As used herein, the term “resource,” “transmission resource,” “resource block,” “physical resource block” (PRB), “uplink resource,” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other combination of the time, frequency, space and / or code domain resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

[0029] As used herein, the term “sidelink (SL)” refers to a link between two terminal devices, which enables device-to-device communications. The term “sidelink resource pool” used herein may refer to a collection of resources that can be used for sidelink communications. Sidelink resource pool may include time domain resources and frequency domain resources.

[0030] As used herein, the term “radio access technology (RAT)” may refer to a connection technology used in a mobile network. For example, the radio access technology may refer one or more of: NR, LTE, LTE-A, WCDMA, HSPA, NB-IoT and the like. The term “subcarrier spacing (SCS)” used here may refer to a spacing size between subcarriers. The term “synchronization signal and physical broadcast channel block (SSB)” used here may refer to a signal that includes a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS) and a physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH). The term “resource pool bitmap” used herein may refer to an array of binary data the represent whether a resource (for example, a subframe / slot) is allocated.

[0031] As mentioned above, it is worth studying a co-channel coexistence of different radio access technologies. For example, objects for co-channel coexistence of LTE and NR sidelinks may be shown below: 1. Study and specify, if necessary, mechanism(s) for co-channel coexistence for LTE sidelink and NR sidelink including performance, necessity, feasibility, and potential specification impact if any [RANI, RAN2, RAN4] - Reuse the in-device coexistence framework defined in Rel-16 as much as possible - Note, RANI continues the work on dynamic resource pool sharing based on existing agreements and WID with high priority for Type A devices and operating combination A - RANI is tasked to support only 15 and 30 kHz SCSs for dynamic resource pool sharing. Existing RANI agreements for dynamic resource pool sharing apply to support of 30 kHz. o For NR PSCCH / PSSCH transmissions in 30kHz SCS, NR SL UE selects in MAC layer at least the first of NR SL slots overlapping with an LTE SL subframe, and can select the subsequent overlapping NR SL slot in MAC layer ■ No change to the RI6 / 17 resource allocation procedure in PHY due to this restriction ■ The existing SL slot structure from Rel-16 is unchanged ■ The starting symbol of the first of the overlapping NR SL slots is assumed to be aligned with the first symbol of the LTE SL subframe o For NR SL with 15 / 30kHz SCSs, NR SL UE avoids selecting resources for PSCCH / PSSCH transmissions where the corresponding PSFCH transmission occasions overlap with LTE SL reservations in time domain ■ Note, this is inline with Option 1-2 in the working assumption made in RAN1#112. No other options from the working assumption need to be considered. o Mode 2 operation only

[0032] In some solutions, slots that belong to a sidelink resource pool may be defined in the following way: The set of reserved slots that may belong to a sidelink resource pool is denoted by where - 0 <tfL <10240 x 2", 0 <i <Tmax, - the slot index is relative to slot#0 of the radio frame corresponding to SFN 0 of the serving cell or DFN 0, - the set includes all the slots except the following slots, - slots in which S-SS / PSBCH block (S-SSB) is configured, - NnonSL slots in each of which at least one of Y-th, (Y+l)-th, ..., (Y+X-l)-th OFDM symbols are not semi-statically configured as UL as per the higher layer parameter tdd-UL-DL-ConfigurationCommon of the serving cell if provided or sl-TDD-Configuration if provided or sl-TDD-Config of the received PSBCH if provided, where Y and X are set by the higher layer parameters sl-StartSymbol and $ / -LeogthSymbols, respectively. - The reserved slots which are determined by the following steps. 1) the remaining slots excluding NS_SSB slots and NnonSL slots from the set of all the slots are denoted by Go» ^(10240x2^—w$_ssB—ivraons£-i)) arranged in increasing order of slot index. 2) a slot lr (0 <r <10240 x 2^ — NS_SSB — NnonSL) belongs to the reserved slots if r = I—ns-ssb wnonSL)| _ $ ,Nreserved — 1 and L reserved J ^reserved (10240 X 2^ ^S—SSB ^nonSL^ mod Lbu-map where / ‘bitmap denotes the length of bitmap configured by higher layers. - The slots in the set are arranged in increasing order of slot index. The UE determines the set of reserved slots assigned to a sidelink resource pool as follows: - a bitmap (^0 / ^1 / - / ^^^-1) associated with the resource pool is used where ^bitmap the length of the bitmap is configured by higher layers. - a slot t^L (0 <k <10240 X 2^ - NS_SSB - NnonSL - Nreserved) belongs to the set if bkt = 1 where k' = k mod Lbitmap. - The slots in the set are re-indexed such that the subscripts i of the remaining slots t'fL are successive {0, 1, ..., T'max — 1} where T'max is the number of the slots remaining in the set.

[0033] For example, for 30 kHz SCS (2g = 2), four S-SSBs per 160ms (NS_SSB= 4*64 =256), Bitmap length 100 slots (Lbitmap = 100), the number of reserved slots may be ^reserved = (10240 x 2^ - NS_SSB - NnonSL) mod Lbitmap = 24. Reserved slots may not be used for sidelink transmissions. The reserved slot indexes r may be shown in Table 1. 5 Table 1 1 842 2 1685 3 2528 4 3370 5 4213 6 5056 7 5898 8 6741 9 7584 10 8426 11 9269 12 10112 13 10954 14 11797 15 12640 16 13482 17 14325 18 15168 19 16010 20 16853 21 17696 22 18538 23 19381 24 20224

[0034] It can be seen that sidelink-SSB (S-SSB) slots, non-SL slots (i.e. slots that are not configured for uplink in a shared carrier) and reserved slots do not belong to sidelink resource pool, i.e., resource pool (RP) bitmap may skip those slots. S-SSB slots may be allocated based on 160 ms synchronization periodicity 102 so that there may be two or 10 three S-SSB slots within 160 ms period for 15 kHz SCS (for 30 kHz SCS the number of S-SSB slots can be double compared to 15 kHz SCS). The number of reserved slots may depend on RP bitmap length. For example, if 100 slots (15kHz SCS) bitmap length is used and 2 S-SSB slots per 160ms period may be configured, the number of reserved slots may be 12. In LTE, the configuration of bitmaps may be essentially the same except that SCS 15 dependent term 2" is not needed. Reserved subframes in LTE may be specified in the same way as NR reserved slots. LTE RP bitmap length can be 16, 20 or 100 subframes in dedicated sidelink carriers. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, the synchronization period 102 may be 160 ms. A length of the NR bitmap 101 may be 20 slots and the NR bitmap 101 may be repeated 8 times. As shown in FIG. 1, the synchronization period 102 and the 5 length of 8 repetitions of the NR bitmap 101 may not be aligned, because the NR RP bitmap has skipped two S-SSB slots and possibly a reserved subframe. Remaining or reserved slots may be distributed to a direct frame number (DFN) period 103 that may be 10240ms. For example, if length of RP bitmap is 100 slots and 15kHz SCS is used (and S-SSB are not configured) then DFN period 10240 divided by bitmap length 100 = 102 10 and the remaining slots may be 40. Those 40 slots may be distributed using the equations presented in 3GPP 38.214 to the DFN period, and they may be called reserved slots. It is noted that FIG. 1 is only an illustrative diagram and not in scale.

[0035] In some solutions, an in-device coexistence operation may be as follows: If a UE - would transmit a first channel / signal using E-UTRA radio access and second channels / signals using NR radio access, and - a transmission of the first channel / signal would overlap in time with a transmission of the second channels / signals, and - the priorities of the channels / signals are known to both E-UTRA radio access and NR radio access at the UE T msec prior to the start of the earliest of the two transmissions, where T <4 and is based on UE implementation, the UE transmits only the channels / signals of the radio access technology with the highest priority - as determined by the SCI formats scheduling the transmissions, or - as indicated by higher layers in case of a S-SS / PSBCH block or a sidelink synchronization signal using E-UTRA radio access, or - as determined in clause 16.2.4.2 in case of PSFCH transmissions. If a UE - would respectively transmit or receive a first channel / signal using E-UTRA radio access and receive a second channel / signal or transmit second channels / signals using NR radio access, and - a transmission or reception of the first channel / signal would respectively overlap in time with a reception of the second channel / signal or transmission of the second channels / signals, and - the priorities of the channels / signals are known to both E-UTRA radio access and NR radio access at the UE T msec prior to the start of the earliest transmission or reception, where T <4 and is based on UE implementation, the UE transmits or receives the channels / signals of the radio access technology with the highest priority - as determined by the SCI formats scheduling the transmissions, or - as indicated by higher layers in case of a S-SS / PSBCH block or a sidelink synchronization signal using E-UTRA radio access, or - as determined in clause 16.2.4.2 among PSFCH transmissions / receptions.

[0036] It can be seen that UE may select a higher priority transmission / reception in case of overlap and the priority of LTE SESS / PSBCH and NR S-SSB is given by higher layers.

[0037] In an example solution, for NR SL with dynamic resource pool sharing, UE may not expect to be (pre)configured such that overlapping in time domain between LTE 5 SLSS / PSBCH and NR SL resource pool and overlapping in time domain between NR S-SSB and LTE SL resource pool may be present. (Pre)configuration of resource pool in LTE and NR sidelink may be based on a bitmap that is repeated during the DFN period. The above solution may aim at configuring RP bitmap so that during NR S-SSB, LTE bitmap would be configured so that the LTE subframe overlapping with NR S-SSB does 10 not belong to RP. And vice versa so that NR slot(s) overlapping with LTE SLSS / PSBCH would not belong to NR RP. However, this type of configuration may not be straightforward, and it may limit the RP configurability largely as described below.

[0038] In LTE the length of the bitmap can be 16, 20 or 100 subframes for dedicated SL carriers. On the other hand, the periodicity of synchronization signals may be 160 15 subframes in LTE. Because the two (or three) LTE SLSS / PSBCH subframes may be excluded from the resource pool bitmap, the starting position of the resource pool bitmap cannot continuously be aligned (even with 16 or 20 subframe bitmap) with synchronization signal periodicity but the starting position of the RP bitmap shifts two or three subframes forward with each synchronization period. Therefore, inventors of the present disclosure recognize that only two configurations that may be used: • LTE subframes and NR slots (assuming 15 kHz SCS) may be allocated so that one of the technologies (LTE or NR) uses odd subframes / slots and the other technology uses even subframes / slots. This limits the configurability substantially and could only be considered for TDM based RP sharing but it is not suitable for dynamic resource pool sharing. • The other option may be to configure LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR S-SSB to overlapping subframes / slots and transmit just LTE SLSS / PSBCH.

[0039] In some other solutions, it proposes to use the in-device coexistence operation to solve the problem of overlapping transmissions. The in-device coexistence operation may be used for UEs operating simultaneously in NR SL carrier and LTE SL carrier. A co-channel coexistence may be intended for joint NR and LTE operation in the single carrier. In the carrier there can be LTE only devices that do not support the in-device coexistence operation and they would not consider priority of their transmission compared priority of potential overlapping NR transmission. Therefore, a solution on allocating reserved slots is needed. Example Environment

[0040] FIG. 2 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. The communication environment 100 includes a device 110-1 and a device 110-2 that may be peer devices. The device 110-1 and the device 110-2 can communicate with each other. The communication environment 100 may also include a device 120 that can communicate with the device 110-1. The device 120 may also communicate with the device 110-2. The device 110-1 and the device 110-2 may be in a coverage of the device 120. Alternatively, at least one of the device 110-1 or the device 110-2 may be out of the coverage of the device 120. It is noted that the communication environment 100 may include any proper number of devices.

[0041] In the following, for the purpose of illustration, some example embodiments are described with the device 110-1 and the device 110-2 operating as a terminal device and the device 120 operating as a network device. However, in some example embodiments, operations described in connection with a terminal device may be implemented at a network device or other device, and operations described in connection with a network device may be implemented at a terminal device or other device.

[0042] In some example embodiments, if the device 110-1 is a terminal device and the device 120 is a network device, a link from the device 120 to the device 110-1 is referred to as a downlink (DL), and a link from the device 110-1 to the device 120 is referred to as an uplink (UL). In DL, the device 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the device 110-1 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver). In UL, the device 110-1 is a TX device (or a transmitter) and the device 120 is a RX device (or a receiver).

[0043] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), including, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G), and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and / or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, including but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and / or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future. Work Principle and Example Signaling for Communication

[0044] According to embodiments of the present disclosure, a solution on allocating reserved slots is proposed. In particular, a device obtains a set of parameters are used to define time domain locations of sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a radio access technology and another set of parameters are used to define time domain locations of another sidelink resource pool bitmaps of another radio access technology. The device determines time locations of sets of reserved slots of the other radio access technology from the set of parameters and the other set of parameters. Each of the sets of reserved slots includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing and their time domain location takes into account time domain locations of LTE sidelink transmissions. In this way, the allocation of reserved slots is enhanced.

[0045] Example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0046] Reference is now made to FIG. 3, which shows a signaling chart 300 for communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 3, the signaling chart 300 involves the device 110-1 and the device 110-2.

[0047] The device 110-1 obtains (3010) a set of parameters (referred to as “first set of parameters” hereinafter) and another set of parameters (referred to as “second set of parameters”). The first set of parameters is used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a radio access technology (referred to as “first radio access technology” hereinafter). For example, the device 110-1 may determine which subframe(s) in a sidelink resource pool (referred to as “a first sidelink resource pool”) is allocated to the first access technology based on the first sidelink resource pool bitmap that is obtained from the first set of parameters. It may also determine the length of the resource pool bitmap and the number of reserved slots (NR) / subframes(LTE). The second set of parameters is used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for another radio access technology (referred to as “second radio access technology” hereinafter). For example, the device 110-1 may determine which slot(s) in another sidelink resource pool (referred to as “second sidelink resource pool”) is allocated to the second access technology based on the second sidelink resource pool bitmap that is obtained from the second set of parameters. The first radio access technology and the second radio access technology may co-exist in a same channel. For example, the device 110-1 may support both the first radio access technology and the second radio access technology on a sidelink channel between the device 110-1 and the device 110-2.

[0048] In some example embodiments, the device 120 may configure the first sidelink resource pool and the second sidelink resource pool to the device 110-1. Each of the sidelink resource pool may include time domain and frequency domain resources. For example, as shown in FIG. 4A to FIG. 4F, the device 110-1 may obtain the sidelink resources 410 for the first radio access technology and the sidelink resources 420 for the second radio access technology.

[0049] The first radio access technology and the second radio access technology are different radio access technologies. For example, the first radio access technology may be a LTE radio access technology and the second radio access technology may be a NR radio access technology. It is noted that the first and second radio access technologies can be any suitable radio access technology types.

[0050] The device 110-1 determines (3020) time locations of sets of reserved slots of the second radio access technology from the first and second sets of parameters. Each of the sets of reserved slots includes one slot or a plurality of consecutive slots that is based on a SCS of the second radio access technology. The set of reserved slots and reserved subframes may be time aligned between the first radio access technology and the second radio access technology. It is noted that there may be any suitable number of sets of reserved slots. For example, in a case the SCS of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, the set of reserved slots may include one slot. As shown in FIG. 5A, when the SCS of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, the reserved slot 520 for the second radio access technology may overlap with a subframe 510 for the first radio access technology. Alternatively, in a case the SCS of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, the set of reserved slots may include two slots 521-1 and 521-2. As shown in FIG. 5B, when the SCS of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, the reserved slots 521-1 and 521-2 for the second radio access technology may overlap with a subframe 510 for the first radio access technology. In some other example embodiments, in a case the SCS of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, the set of reserved slots may include four slots 522-1, 522-2, 522-3 and 522-4. As shown in FIG. 5C, when the SCS of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, the reserved slots 522-1, 522-2, 522-3 and 522-4 for the second radio access technology may overlap with a subframe 510 for the first radio access technology. In another example embodiment, in a case the SCS of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, the set of reserved slots may include four slots 523-1, 523-2, 523-3, 523-4, 523-5, 523-6, 523-7 and 523-8. As shown in FIG. 5D, when the SCS of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, the reserved slots 523-1, 523-2, 523-3, 523-4, 523-5, 523-6, 523-7 and 523-8 for the second radio access technology may overlap with a subframe 510 for the first radio access technology. In some example embodiments, there is no transmission using the first radio access technology in the at least part of the subframe.

[0051] Example embodiments are described in detail with referent to FIG. 4A to FIG. 4F below. As shown in FIG. 4A to FIG. 4F, subframe(s) 4101 may refer to reserved subframe(s), subframe(s) 4102 may refer to subframe(s) in the resource pool that are used for data transmission, subframe(s) 4103 may refer to subframe(s) on which a sidelink synchronization signal (SLSS) can be transmitted, and subframe(s) 4104 may refer to subframe(s) within the resource pool but empty. The subframes shown in FIG. 4A to 4F (for example, subframes 4101, 4102, 4103, 4104 and the like) and the first set of parameters 410 may refer to resource and configuration related to LTE, respectively. Further, as shown in FIG. 4A to FIG. 4F, slot(s) 4202 may refer to slot(s) in the resource pool that are used for data transmission and slot(s) 4204 may refer to slot(s) in the resource pool but empty. The slots shown in FIG. 4A to 4F (for example, subframes 4201, 4202, 4203, 4204 and the like) and the second set of parameters 42 may refer to resource and configuration related to NR, respectively.

[0052] In some example embodiments, the in-device coexistence may be used to handle overlap of the first and second radio access technologies synchronization signals and data transmissions. In this case, the device 110-1 may obtain locations of sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology from the first set of parameters. The device 110-1 may also obtain locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology from the second set of parameters. The first set of parameters, the second set of parameters and the locations may be preconfigured at the device 110-1. Alternatively, the device 120 may configure the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters and the locations to the device 110-1. The device 110-1 may determine allocation of the sets of reserved slots the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters, the location of the SLSS / PSBCH and the location and the location of the S-SSB. The sets of reserved slots may overlap with the subframes reserved for the first radio access technology.

[0053] FIG. 4A illustrates a schematic diagram of slot allocation where the in-device coexistence is used, according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, configuration of the sidelink resource pool bitmap locations 410 may include locations of subframes 4102 in the resource pool that are used for data transmission, a subframe 4103 in which a sidelink synchronization signal (SLSS) can be transmitted, and a subframe 4101 which is a reserved subframe in this case. The configuration of sidelink resource pool bitmap locations 420 may include locations of slots 4202 configured for the sidelink transmissions , a slot 4203 in which a S-SSB can be transmitted, and the reserved slots 4201-1 and 4201-2. The device 110-1 may determine the location of the SLSS / PSBCH, i.e., the subframe 4103 and the location of the S-SSB, i.e., the slot 4203. As shown in FIG. 4A, the reserved slots 4201-1 and 4201-2 overlap with the reserved subframe 4101, which means the reserved slots for the second radio access technology and the reserved subframe for the first radio access technology are aligned.

[0054] Referring back to FIG. 3, the device 110-1 may perform (3030) a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology in at least one of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology. For example, the device 110-1 may transmit the S-SSB to the device 110-2 in the set of reserved slots. Alternatively, or in addition, the device 110-1 may receive the S-SSB from the device 110-2 in the set of reserved slots. In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may determine whether a S-SSB for the second radio access technology is a slot configured for synchronization signal is dropped (due to higher priority transmission in LTE). In this case, if the S-SSB for the second radio access is dropped, the device 110-1 may transmit (3030) another S-SSB for the second radio access technology in the set of reserved slots for the second radio access technology. For example, if the S-SSB in the slot 4203 is dropped, the device 110-1 may transmit the other S-SSB in at least one of the reserved slots 4201-1 and 4201-2. Alternatively, the set of reserved slots may always be used for transmission or reception of the S-SSB, regardless of whether a previous S-SSB is dropped or not. In this way, it can ensure the transmission of S-SSB.

[0055] Only for the purpose of illustrations, the first radio access technology may refer to LTE and the second radio access technology may refer to NR. For example, if the indevice coexistence method is used to avoid overlapping NR S-SSB and LTE resource pool, and to avoid overlapping of LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR resource pool, it likely means that high priority is given to LTE SLSS / PSBCH because LTE only devices would anyway transmit it. Low priority would be given to NR S-SSB because LTE only devices could often have PSSCH transmission overlapping with NR S-SSB. This would result in that many NR S-SSBs need to be dropped. Regarding configuration of LTE SLSS / PSBCH subframes and NR S-SSB slots one option is that they are configured to overlap in time domain. In this case a device supporting Rel-16 in-device coexistence operation would only transmit higher priority synchronization signal which would typically be LTE SLSS / PSBCH. Another option may be that LTE and NR synchronization subframes / slots are configured to not overlap in time domain. In this case, a device supporting both LTE and NR operation may transmit both LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR S-SSB. Dropping of NR S-SSB may depend on whether there are overlapping LTE transmissions with higher priority. Thus, to guarantee that NR reserved slots are only available for NR S-SSB and not used by LTE, the RP bitmap configurations, and locations of LTE SLSS / PSBCHs and NR S-SSBs are (pre)configured at the device 110-1 so that reserved subframes / slots are aligned between LTE and NR. For example, if NR uses 30 kHz SCS, allocation of NR reserved slots (for NR S-SSB) may be modified so that NR reserved slots may be allocated in pairs overlapping with LTE reserved subframes. In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may determine whether S-SSB transmissions in reserved NR slots are needed depending on if S-SSBs in slots configured for synchronization signals are dropped.

[0056] In some other example embodiments, a time division multiplexing (TDM) based operation may be used in co-channel coexistence to prevent overlapping transmissions. As mentioned above, only for the purpose of illustrations, the first radio access technology may refer to LTE and the second radio access technology may refer to NR. For example, NR S-SSB and LTE SLSS / PSBCH may be configured in the overlapping subframes / slots and LTE SLSS / PSBCH may be used to synchronize both LTE and NR devices and NR S-SSB is not transmitted. Alternatively, both LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR S-SSB may be transmitted using FDM. In some example embodiments, a TDM based resource pool configuration can be realized if the length of the resource pool bitmap and the actual content of the bitmap (“ones” for slots / subframes belonging to RP and “zeros” for slots / subframes not belonging to RP) may be preconfigured at the device 110-1 so that overlapping in time domain between NR and LTE can be avoided. By way of example, for 30 kHz SCS in NR, a length and a content of NR and LTE RP bitmaps may be configured so that overlapping transmission in time domain can be avoided. For example, the length of the NR RP bitmap may be configured to be the same as the LTE RP bitmap in seconds (if LTE bitmap is 20 subframes or 20ms then NR bitmap length is 40 slots or 20 ms). Two NR-SSBs may be configured to overlap in time domain with LTE SLSS / PSBCH. For example, slots 4203-1 and 4203-2 in which the NR-SSBs are transmitted may overlap with the subframe 4103 in which the LTE SLSS / PSBCH is transmitted. Further, NR reserved slots may be allocated in pairs overlapping with LTE reserved subframes. For example, as shown in FIG. 4B, the reserved slots 4201-1 and 4201-2 may overlap with the reserved subframe 4101.

[0057] In some other embodiments, the sets of reserved slots may overlap with a latter part of the subframe of the first radio access technology. For example, as shown in FIG. 4C, the reserved slot 4201 for the second radio access technology may overlap with the part 4110 of the subframe 4104’ for the first radio access technology which may be an empty subframe in the resource pool.

[0058] Alternatively, the device 110-1 may determine a fist set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology from the first set of parameters and the first resource pool bitmap. In this case, the device 110-1 may determine from the first set of parameters a second set of time domain resources for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources. The device 110-1 may perform a transmission with the device 110-2 using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources. For example, as shown in FIG. 4D, subframes 4104 in the sidelink resource pool may be empty, which means that no transmissions using the first radio access technology are performed in the subframes 4104. In this case, slots 4205 in the sidelink resource pool that are not overlapped with subframes used for transmission in the first radio access technology may be determined for the second radio access technology. The device 110-1 may perform the transmission using the second radio access technology in the slots 4205. In other words, time domain resources available for the second radio access technology may be determined so that all slots that are not overlapping with the transmission resources or SLSS / PSBCH for the first radio access technology may be used for transmissions using the second radio access technology. In this case, the second RP bitmap configuration may not be needed for the purpose of TDMbased coexistence with the first radio access technology.

[0059] In another embodiment, an FDM approach to allow time domain overlap between LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR S-SSBs may be used. This can be achieved by offsetting the NR S-SSB by RRC parameters, for example, sl-AbsoluteFrequencySSB and sl-AbsoluteFrequencyPoint-A (if needed), as LTE may occupy the center 72 subcarriers. NR S-SSB may occupy 131 subcarriers. As shown in FIG. 6, the LTE SLSS / PSBCH 610 may occupy center 72 subcarriers and the NR S-SSB 620 may occupy 131 subcarriers. One challenge of FDM LTE SLSS and NR S-SSB may be the detection of LTE and NR S-PSS and S-SSS, which are typically detected using a time-domain correlation-based detector. In this case, it can be addressed by several measures: applying a lower transmission power for NR to minimize the impact to LTE SLSS detection performance; offsetting the two as much as possible; accepting a detector performance degradation; UE implementation applying a more granular frequency domain filter before engaging the time domain detector.

[0060] In some example embodiments, a dynamic resource pool sharing used for allocating resources between the first radio access technology and the second radio access technology may be applied. As mentioned above, only for the purpose of illustrations, the first radio access technology may refer to LTE and the second radio access technology may refer to NR. For example, NR S-SSB and LTE SLSS / PSBCH may be configured in the overlapping subframes slots and LTE SLSS / PSBCH is used to synchronize both LTE and NR devices and NR S-SSB is not transmitted. Alternatively, both LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR S-SSB may be transmitted using FDM. For 30kHz SCS in NR, two NR S-SSBs may be configured to overlap in time domain with LTE SLSS. The RP bitmap configuration in dynamic resource pool sharing may be all “ones” in both LTE and NR i.e. all the slots / subframes are available for both technologies and sensing is used to determine slots that can be used for transmission.

[0061] In an example embodiment, for 30 kHz SCS in NR, NR reserved slots may be allocated in pairs overlapping with LTE subframe. The motivation to allocate NR reserved slots in pairs is that individual allocation of NR reserved slots could result in that NR PSFCH transmissions, intended to be always in the second slot overlapping with an LTE subframe, could move to the first slot overlapping with LTE subframe. Compared to TDM case above, alignment of NR reserved slot and LTE reserved subframes may not be needed (it may be beneficial to avoid such alignment because then slots / subframes that are not available to either LTE or NR can be avoided). For example, as shown in FIG. 4E, the reserved slots 4201-1 and 4201-2 in the sidelink resource pool may overlap with the subframe 4101 and may not be aligned with the reserved subframe 4105 in the sidelink resource pool.

[0062] In another example embodiment, for 30kHz SCS in NR, the NR reserved slots may be determined so that the slots may be overlapping a latter part of the LTE subframe. For example, for NR PSCCH / PSSCH transmissions in 30kHz SCS, NR SL UE may select in medium access control (MAC) layer at least the first of NR SL slots overlapping with an LTE SL subframe and can select the subsequent overlapping NR SL slot in MAC layer only if the first slot is also selected. The slot that is more often used may be the first slot overlapping with LTE and the subsequent slot cannot always be used. For example, as shown in FIG. 4F, the reserved slot 4201 in the sidelink resource pool may overlap with the latter part 4110 of the subframe 4102’.

[0063] In some example embodiments, the first set of parameters may be used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters may be used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology. The device 110-1 may obtain the first set of parameters to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology. In this case, the device 110-1 may apply a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology. The device 110-1 may further apply a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmission of the second radio access technology. In other words, the device 110-1 may apply different resource overlapping schemes to different sidelink resource pools. For example, the first resource overlapping scheme may include assigning, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted, and the second resource overlapping scheme may include configuring a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology. In one embodiment overlapping in time domain between NR S-SSB and LTE SL resource pool may be handled / avoided by using the in-device coexistence framework and overlapping in time domain between LTE SLSS / PSBCH and NR SL resource pool may be handled / avoided by (pre)configuration. It is noted that (pre)configuration of NR RP bitmap is more flexible than LTE RP bitmap. The length of the NR RP bitmap can be any value between 10 and 160 slots, and it is configured with the RRC parameter sl-TimeResource. The parameter may indicate the bitmap of the resource pool, which is defined by repeating the bitmap with a periodicity during a SFN or DFN cycle. Due to this, alignment between synchronization period (160ms) and RP bitmap may not be problematic even if S-SSB slots (that do not belong to RP) are configured. Example Methods

[0064] FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example method 700 implemented at a first device in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 700 will be described from the perspective of the device 110-1 in FIG. 2.

[0065] At block 710, the device 110-1 obtains (3010) a first set of parameters (410) that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters (420) that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology. In some example embodiments, the first radio access technology may be a long-term evolution (LTE) radio access technology, and the second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

[0066] At block 720, the device 110-1 determines (3020) from the first set of parameters (410) and the second set of parameters (420), time locations of sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology. Each of the sets of reserved slots includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology. In some example embodiments, the set of reserved slots may overlap with at least a part of a subframe for the first radio access technology in time domain.

[0067] In some example embodiments, in case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots may include one slot (520) that overlaps with a reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology. In some other embodiments, in case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots may include two consecutive slots (521-1, 521-2) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology. Alternatively, in case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots may include four consecutive slots (522-1, 522-2, 522-3, 522-4) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology. In yet example embodiments, in case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots may include eight consecutive slots (523-1, 523-2, 523-3, 523-4, 523-5, 523-6, 523-7, 523-8) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology.

[0068] In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may obtain locations of sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology from the first set of parameters (410). The device 110-1 may also obtain locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology from the second set of parameters (420). In this case, the device 110-1 may determine allocation of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters and the location of the SLSS / PSBCH and the location and the location of the S-SSB. The sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) may overlap with the reserved subframes (4101) of the first radio access technology.

[0069] In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 perform 3030 a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with the device 110-2 in at least one of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology. For example, in some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may determine whether a S-SSB for the second radio access technology in a slot configured for synchronization signal is dropped. In this case, if the S-SSB for the second radio access technology is dropped, the device 110-1 may transmit to the device 110-2 another S-SSB for the second radio access technology in the set of reserved slots for the second radio access technology.

[0070] In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may determine from the first set of parameters (410) and from the first resource pool bitmap, a first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology. In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may determine from the first set of parameters (410), a second set of time domain resources (4205) for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources. The device 110-1 may perform a transmission with another device using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources. In some example embodiments, the sets of reserved slots (4201, 4201-1, 4201-2) overlap with a latter part (4110) of subframe (4104’, 4102’) of the first radio access technology.

[0071] In some example embodiments, the first set of parameters (410) may be used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) may be used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology. The device 110-1 may also obtain the first set of parameters (410) to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology. In this case, the device 110-1 may apply a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmissions of the second radio access technology. The device 110-1 may also apply a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology. For example, in some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may according to the first resource overlapping scheme may include, assign, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted. In other words, applying the first resource overlapping scheme may include assigning, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted. The device 110-1 may according to the second resource overlapping scheme may include, configure a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology. In other words, applying the second resource overlapping scheme may include configuring a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology. Example Apparatus, Device and Medium

[0072] In some example embodiments, a device capable of performing any of the method 700 (for example, the device 110-1 in FIG. 2) may include at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to: obtain (3010) a first set of parameters (410) that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters (420) that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and determine (3020) , from the first (410) and the second sets of parameters (420), time domain locations of sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0073] In some example embodiments, the first radio technology and the second radio technology co-exist in a same channel.

[0074] In some example embodiments, in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes one slot (520) that overlaps with a reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes two consecutive slots (521-1, 521-2) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes four consecutive slots (522-1, 522-2, 522-3, 522-4) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes eight consecutive slots (523-1, 523-2, 523-3, 523-4, 523-5, 523-6, 523-7, 523-8) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology.

[0075] In some example embodiments, the device may be caused to obtain, from the first set of parameters (410), locations of sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology; obtain, from the second set of parameters (420), locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology; and determine allocation of the sets of consecutive reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, and wherein the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) overlap with the reserved subframes (4101) of the first radio access technology.

[0076] In some example embodiments, the device may further be caused to: perform (3030) a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with another device (110-2) in at least one of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology.

[0077] In some example embodiments, the device may further be caused to: determine, from the first set of parameters (410) and from the first resource pool bitmap, a first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology; determine, from the first set of parameters (410), a second set of time domain resources (4205) for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources; and perform a transmission using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources.

[0078] In some example embodiments, the sets of reserved slots (4201, 4201-1, 4201-2) may overlap with a latter part (4110) of the subframe (4104’, 4102’) of the first radio access technology.

[0079] In some example embodiments, the first set of parameters (410) may be used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) is used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology. In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may further be caused to: obtain the first set of parameters (410) to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology; apply a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmissions of the second radio access technology; and apply a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology.

[0080] In some example embodiments, the device 110-1 may further be caused to according to the first resource overlapping scheme, assign, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted, and the device may further be caused to according to the second resource overlapping scheme, configure a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology.

[0081] In some example embodiments, the first radio access technology is a long-term evolution (LTE) radio access technology, and the second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

[0082] In some example embodiments, the device includes a terminal device.

[0083] In some example embodiments, a method for determining reserved slots includes obtaining (3010), at a device (110-1), a first set of parameters (410) that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters (420) that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and determining (3020), from the first (410) and the second sets of parameters (420), time domain locations of sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0084] In some example embodiments, the first radio technology and the second radio technology co-exist in a same channel.

[0085] In some example embodiments, in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes one slot (520) that overlaps with a reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes two consecutive slots (521-1, 521-2) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes four consecutive slots (522-1, 522-2, 522-3, 522-4) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology, or wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots includes eight consecutive slots (523-1, 523-2, 523-3, 523-4, 523-5, 523-6, 523-7, 523-8) that overlap with the reserved subframe (510) of the first radio access technology.

[0086] In some example embodiments, determining the time locations of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology includes: obtaining, from the first set of parameters (410), locations of a sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology; obtaining, from the second set of parameters (420), locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology; and determining allocation of the set of consecutive reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters, the location of the SLSS / PSBCH and the location and the location of the S-SSB, and wherein the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) overlap with the reserved subframes (4101) of the first radio access technology.

[0087] In some example embodiments, the method further includes performing (3030) a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with another device (110-2) in at least one of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology.

[0088] In some example embodiments, the method further includes determining, from the first set of parameters (410) and from the first resource pool bitmap, a first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology; determining, from the first set of parameters (410), a second set of time domain resources (4205) for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources; and performing a transmission using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources.

[0089] In some example embodiments, the sets of reserved slots (4201, 4201-1, 4201-2) overlap with a latter part (4110) of the subframe (4104’, 4102’) of the first radio access technology.

[0090] In some example embodiments, the first set of parameters (410) is used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) is used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology. In some example embodiments, the method further includes: obtaining the first set of parameters (410) to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters (420) for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology; applying a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology; and applying a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology.

[0091] In some example embodiments, applying the first resource overlapping scheme includes assigning, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted; and applying the second resource overlapping scheme includes configuring a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology.

[0092] In some example embodiments, the first radio access technology is a long-term evolution (LTE) radio access technology, and the second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

[0093] In some example embodiments, the device (110-1) includes a terminal device.

[0094] In some example embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing any of the method 700 (for example, the device 110-1 in FIG. 2) may include means for performing the respective operations of the method 700. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The apparatus may be implemented as or included in the device 110-1 in FIG. 2.

[0095] In some example embodiments, the apparatus includes means for obtaining (3010) a first set of parameters (410) that are used to define time domain locations of a first sidelink resource pool bitmap for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters (420) that are used to define time domain locations of a second sidelink resource pool bitmap for a second radio access technology; and means for determining (3020), from the second set of parameters (420), a set of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) for the second radio access technology, wherein the set of reserved slots includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology, and wherein the set of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2) overlap with at least a part of a subframe (4101) for the first radio access technology in time domain. The apparatus may also include means for performing the method 700.

[0096] In some example embodiments, a computer readable medium includes instructions stored thereon for causing a device (110-1) to obtain (3010) a first set of parameters (410) that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters (420) that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; and determine (3020), from the first (410) and the second sets of parameters (420), time domain locations of sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots (4201-1, 4201-2...) for the second radio access technology includes one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

[0097] FIG. 8 is a simplified block diagram of a device 800 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 800 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the device 110-1 or the device 110-2 as shown in FIG.2. As shown, the device 800 includes one or more processors 810, one or more memories 820 coupled to the processor 810, and one or more communication modules 840 coupled to the processor 810.

[0098] The communication module 840 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 840 has one or more communication interfaces to facilitate communication with one or more other modules or devices. The communication interfaces may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements. In some example embodiments, the communication module 840 may include at least one antenna.

[0099] The processor 810 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 800 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

[0100] The memory 820 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 824, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM), a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD), a digital video disk (DVD), an optical disk, a laser disk, and other magnetic storage and / or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random access memory (RAM) 822 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

[0101] A computer program 830 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 810. The instructions of the program 830 may include instructions for performing operations / acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 830 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 824. The processor 810 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 830 into the RAM 822.

[0102] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 830 so that the device 800 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 3 to FIG. 7. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0103] In some example embodiments, the program 830 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 800 (such as in the memory 820) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 800. The device 800 may load the program 830 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 822 for execution. In some example embodiments, the computer readable medium may include any types of non-transitory storage medium, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. The term “non-transitory,” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i.e., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM).

[0104] FIG. 9 shows an example of the computer readable medium 900 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 900 has the program 830 stored thereon.

[0105] Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, and other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. Although various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

[0106] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provide at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computerexecutable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0107] Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0108] In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable medium, and the like.

[0109] The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0110] Further, although operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, although several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Unless explicitly stated, certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, unless explicitly stated, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in a plurality of embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

[0111] Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and / or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

1. A device comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to:obtain a first set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; anddetermine, from the first and the second sets of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology comprises one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the first radio technology and the second radio technology co-exist in a same channel.

3. The device of claim 1 or 2, wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises one slot that overlaps with a reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises two consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises four consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises eight consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology.

4. The device of any of claims 1-3, wherein the device is caused to:obtain, from the first set of parameters, locations of sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology;obtain, from the second set of parameters, locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology; anddetermine allocation of the sets of consecutive reserved slots for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, and wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with the reserved subframes of the first radio access technology.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein the device is further caused to:perform a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with another device in at least one of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology.

6. The device of any of claims 1-3, wherein the device is further caused to:determine, from the first set of parameters and from the first resource pool bitmap, a first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology;determine, from the first set of parameters, a second set of time domain resources for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources; andperform a transmission using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources.

7. The device of any of claims 1-3, wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with a latter part of the subframe of the first radio access technology.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the first set of parameters is used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters is used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, andwherein the device is further caused to:obtain the first set of parameters to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology;apply a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmissions of the second radio access technology; andapply a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology.

9. The device of claim 8, wherein the device is caused to:according to the first resource overlapping scheme, assign, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted; andaccording to the second resource overlapping scheme, configure a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology.

10. The device of any of claims 1-9, wherein the first radio access technology is a longterm evolution (LTE) radio access technology, andthe second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

11. The device of any of claims 1-10, wherein the device comprises a terminal device.

12. A method comprising:obtaining, at a device, that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; anddetermining, from the first and the second sets of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology comprises one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first radio technology and the second radio technology co-exist in a same channel.

14. The method of claim 12 or 13, wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises one slot that overlaps with a reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises two consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises four consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises eight consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology.

15. The method any of claims 12-14, wherein determining the time locations of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology comprises:obtaining, from the first set of parameters, locations of a sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology;obtaining, from the second set of parameters, locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology; anddetermining allocation of the set of consecutive reserved slots for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters, the location of the SLSS / PSBCH and the location and the location of the S-SSB, and wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with the reserved subframes of the first radio access technology.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:performing a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with another device in at least one of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology.

17. The method of any of claims 12-14, further comprising:determining, from the first set of parameters and from the first resource pool bitmap, a first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology;determining, from the first set of parameters, a second set of time domain resources forthe second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources; andperforming a transmission using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources.

18. The method of any of claims 12-14, wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with a latter part of the subframe of the first radio access technology.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the first set of parameters is used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters is used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, andwherein the method further comprises:obtaining the first set of parameters to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology;applying a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology; andapplying a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein applying the first resource overlapping scheme comprises:assigning, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted; andwherein applying the second resource overlapping scheme comprises:configuring a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology.

21. The method of any of claims 12-20, wherein the first radio access technology is along-term evolution (LTE) radio access technology, andthe second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

22. The method of any of claims 12-21, wherein the device comprises a terminal device.

23. An apparatus, comprising:means for obtaining that are used to define time domain locations of first sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a first radio access technology and a second set of parameters that are used to define time domain locations of second sidelink resource pool bitmaps for a second radio access technology; andmeans for determining, from the first and the second sets of parameters, time domain locations of sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology, wherein each of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology comprises one or more consecutive slots based on a subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the first radio technology and the second radio technology co-exist in a same channel.

25. The apparatus of claim 23 or 24, wherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 15 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises one slot that overlaps with a reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 30 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises two consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 60 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises four consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology, orwherein in a case the subcarrier spacing of the second radio access technology is 120 kHz, at least one of the sets of reserved slots comprises eight consecutive slots that overlap with the reserved subframe of the first radio access technology.

26. The apparatus any of claims 23-25, wherein the means for determining the time locations of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology comprises:means for obtaining, from the first set of parameters, locations of sidelinksynchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channels (SLSS / PSBCHs) for the first radio access technology;means for obtaining, from the second set of parameters, locations of sidelink synchronization signal blocks (S-SSBs) for the second radio access technology; andmeans for determining allocation of the set of consecutive reserved slots for the second radio access technology based on the first set of parameters, the second set of parameters, the location of the SLSS / PSBCH and the location and the location of the S-SSB, and wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with the reserved subframes of the first radio access technology.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the apparatus further comprises:means for performing a transmission or a reception of a S-SSB for the second radio access technology with another apparatus in at least one of the sets of reserved slots for the second radio access technology.

28. The apparatus of any of claims 23-25, wherein the apparatus further comprises:means for determining, from the first set of parameters and from the first resource pool bitmap, first set of time domain resources for the first radio access technology,means for determining, from the first set of parameters, a second set of time domain resources for the second radio access technology that does not overlap with the first set of time domain resources; andmeans for performing a transmission using the second radio access technology in the second set of time domain resources.

29. The apparatus of any of claims 23-25, wherein the sets of reserved slots overlap with a latter part of the subframe of the first radio access technology.

30. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the first set of parameters is used for sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters is used to determine S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, andwherein the apparatus further comprises:means for obtaining the first set of parameters to determine locations of sidelink synchronization signal / Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (SLSS / PSBCH) transmission of the first radio access technology and the second set of parameters for sidelink transmissions of the second radio access technology;means for applying a first resource overlapping scheme to the sidelink transmissions of the first radio access technology and to the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology; andmeans for applying a second resource overlapping scheme to the SLSS / PSBCH transmission of the first radio access technology and to the sidelink transmission of the second radio access technology.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the means for applying the first resource overlapping scheme comprises:means for assigning, based on a priority of the sidelink transmission of the first radio access technology and the S-SSB transmission of the second radio access technology, the sidelink transmission or the S-SSB to be transmitted; andwherein the means for applying the second resource overlapping scheme comprises:means for configuring a sidelink resource pool of the second radio technology in time domain so that there is no transmission in the sidelink resource pool of the second radio access technology during SLSS / PSBCH subframes of the first radio technology.

32. The apparatus of any of claims 23-31, wherein the first radio access technology is a long-term evolution (LTE) radio access technology, andthe second radio access technology is a new radio (NR) radio access technology.

33. The apparatus of any of claims 23-32, wherein the apparatus comprises a terminal device.

34. A computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing a device to perform the method according to any of claims 12-22.43

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