Start stop bit data transmission using deactivation maps

Abstract

An indication of a codebook is shared between apparatus indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements. The first subset of resource elements is

Description

[0002] As communication networks and services increase in size, complexity, and number of users, operations in the communication networks may become increasingly more complicated, which leads to remarkably increasing resource occupation. Hence, the efficiency of resource allocation is generally expected to be further improved. SUMMARY

[0003] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: receive, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; and perform a decoding operation based on the codebook.

[0004] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: determine, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; and transmit an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0005] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; and performing a decoding operation based on the codebook.

[0006] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: determining, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; and transmitting an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0007] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; and means for performing a decoding operation based on the codebook.

[0008] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for determining, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; and means for transmitting an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0009] In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third aspect.

[0010] In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the fourth aspect.

[0011] 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

[0012] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0013] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0014] FIG. 2 illustrates an example method with a plurality of parallel start stop bits for the parallel transmission of a plurality of bit sequences;

[0015] FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling chart for communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 4 is an example high level illustration of a hybrid mode according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0017] FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram for comparing a conventional transmission method, a start stop bit method and a resulting hybrid mode,

[0018] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating bit error rates for different scenarios;

[0019] FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating SBER for different scenarios including a normal start stop bit mode and a hybrid mode;

[0020] FIG. 8 is an example high level illustration of a further hybrid mode according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0021] FIG. 9 is an example high level illustration of a still further hybrid mode according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0022] FIG. 10 illustrates flowcharts for gNB, UE1 and UE2 according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0023] FIG. 11 illustrates a signaling chart for application of sparse start stop bit method in hybrid mode based on deactivation map codebooks;

[0024] FIG. 12 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0025] FIG. 13 illustrates a flowchart of a method implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0026] FIG. 14 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0027] FIG. 15 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0028] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0029] 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.

[0030] 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.

[0031] 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.

[0032] 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.

[0033] 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.

[0034] 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.

[0035] 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.

[0036] 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 microprocessor(s), that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

[0037] 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.

[0038] 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), 5.5G, 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.

[0039] 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 comprises a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. An IAB node comprises 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.

[0040] 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.

[0041] 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.

[0042] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. In the communication environment 100, there are a plurality of communication devices, for example, a first apparatus 110 and a second apparatus 120. These apparatuses can communicate with each other.

[0043] It is to be understood that the number of devices and their connections shown in FIG. 1 are only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitation. The communication environment 100 may include any suitable number of devices configured to implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. By way of example rather than limitation, in some example embodiments, the communication environment 100 may further comprises one or more apparatuses (not shown in FIG. 1).

[0044] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, 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), 5.5G, 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, comprising 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.

[0045] A basic start stop bit data transmission scheme as well as concepts for enhanced resource efficiency, e.g., by multiple parallel bit sequence method, have been studied. Study and research are made on the start stop bit method for the application of a very efficient cooperative Distributed Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (D-MIMO) system as a promising 6G use case.

[0046] Downlink Control Information (DCI) format 21 is used for notifying the Physical Resource Block(s) (PRB(s)) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol(s) where UE may assume no transmission is intended for the UE. This DCI is scrambled by Interference-Radio Network Temporary Identifier (INT-RNTI). The size of DCI format 21 is configurable by higher layers up to 126 bits and each preemption indication is 14 bits. Table 1 illustrates the DCI format 21. Table 1 - DCI format 2 1 Field (Item) Bits Reference Identifier for DCI formats 1 Pre-emption indication variable

[0047] DCI format 2_2 is used for the transmission of transmit power control (TPC) commands for physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). This DCI is scrambled by scrambled by TPC-PUSCH-RNT1 or TPC-PUCCH-RNTI. Table 2 illustrates the DCI format 2 2. Table 2 - DCI format 2 2 Field (Item) Bits Reference Identifier for DCI formats 1 block number 1, block number 2,, block number N variable Fields illustrates in Table 3 are defined for each block. Table 3 - Field for each block Field (Item) Bits Reference Closed loop indicator 0, 1 TPC Command 2 bite

[0048] As illustrates above, a pre-emption indication is given by DCI format 2_1 for 3GPP NR radio systems. The idea of the pre-emption is to allow a UE with urgent traffic to use resource elements originally scheduled to another UE. The limit for pre-emption is 126 bits and the resource indication is limited to 14 bits and following quite simple frequency and time domain allocations. It will become obvious that such limited resource allocation will not fit to our novel data transmission method which requires a more comprehensive mapping. In addition, the pre-emption UE will overwrite the user data of the first UE, i.e., the data rate of the first UE will reduce depending on the size of the preemption area of the second UE. In contrast, in our case the data rate of the first UE will be not affected by the transmission of the second UE.

[0049] For purpose of illustration, a basic start stop bit method is illustrated for 10 parallel data messages in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 illustrates an example method with M parallel start stop bits for the parallel transmission of M bit sequences. For example, M may be an integer. On the right is an illustration of the M times M permutation matrix for reordering the start stop bit sequences. Each bolded bit is related sequentially to the increasing values of the stop bits 1... M and indicates the relative position with respect to the other M bits sequences.

[0050] Advanced applications like D-MIMO require highest resource usage so that the advanced start stop bit methods including a time and frequency shift per subcarrier as well as the transmission of a classical modulation and coding scheme (MCS) per each stop bit must been relied on.

[0051] The user data rate of the start stop bit method is compared with that of a conventional 3GPP NR OFDM system. There, the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) user data rate will increase linearly with the modulation and coding scheme (MCS), which describes the effective number of bits transmitted per resource element. On the contrary, for the start stop bit method a single stop bit with a high MCS will count only for this stop bit, i.e., the related stop bit sequence of length 2N, where N is the number of bits transmitted per basic stop bit sequency. This means, for the sparse stop bit method a high MCS or time frequency shift coding scheme is additive per transmit sequence. For example, for N = 8 bit per stop bit sequency, there would be 2N =256 empty resource elements per each stop bit. Then, the number of bits coded into the time frequency shifts has to be extremely high to be able to compete with the conventional method, where a MCS like 4 bits per resource element is multiplicative per resource element leading to, e.g., 2N x MCS=256 x MCS = 256 x 4=1024 bits per data transmission.

[0052] A main challenge arises in case of higher signal-to-noise and interference ratios (SINRs), when the conventional system can transmit with high modulation and coding schemes (MCS) like 2, 3 or even 5 bits per resource element. The inner reason for the increasing mismatch between the data rates of the conventional and the start stop bit method is that a high MCS for the conventional system multiplies the data rate for all resource elements, while for the start stop bit method the MCS is additive to the number of bits per stop bit sequence.

[0053] To achieve a high data rate for the start stop bit UE, it is important that the number of transmitted bits per stop bit becomes large. For that reason, there is proposed means to optimize the number of bits per stop bit sequence by a specific signal allocation to a set of resource elements of a stop bit area.

[0054] For small to moderate MCS for the conventional system one is able to find LUT configurations, which get to a similar data rate as conventional systems, while still having a certain sparsity level. But for higher MCS like 4 bit per resource usage like discussed above then there will remain a data rate gap with a small gain r (i.e., data rate gain over the conventional non-sparse transmission method) or one has to accept significant reductions in the sparsity level of p.

[0055] So typical numbers for the stop bit method might be M=18 sequences with up to N=8 bits per sequence plus 10 bits for the MCS plus time frequency shift coding scheme per stop bit, which leads to a data rate of, e.g., 18x(8-10) = 324 bits for about 28 = 256 resource elements, which is then for a MCS = 4 as discussed above in the order of the 1024 bits of the conventional system. This means that even with the optimized LUT approach the gain is equal to r = 0.31, i.e., less than 30 percent of the data rate of the conventional data transmission, at least for the high SINR region.

[0056] Table 3 illustrates some optimized parameter constellations. They are optimized per SNR value by upper bounding the error probabilities of the start-stop bit method. The throughput gain T hereby varies between 0.11 and 1.49. Ladd describes the number of additional REs for the shift pattern, Lareas describes how many of those shift patterns are added to the stop bit and M describes the number of parallel stop bits. N^t describes the number of bits encoded into each shift pattern, whereby this number depends on the minimum distance between two shifts. Nclt describes the bits encoded into each stop bit position. Nmcs and N^ts are the bits used for the MCS on top of the stop bits and shift REs respectively. Table 3 - Typical Look-Up Table (LUT) parameters optimized for different SINR levels S v&sf j | 1 1 gam 1' sparsity p -3 | 20 1 2 | 8 j M 5 1 1 0,11 | 0J8 1 0 | 20 1 3 ] 8 | / | 4 1 1 0.20 | OJO | 3 | 20 1 100 § 8 ! $ 5 1 1 0.13 | 0J1 1 6 | 12 16 82 1..........7.........r 7 5 [ 2 0.75 j 0.84 j 8 | 8 16 100 i 6 । f 5 [ 3 1,12 | 0.76 12 | 8 ..................4-................. 1.5 § 8 16 w" 100 .......WD 1 6 1 .......................1. 7 5 [ $ 1 4 —4......................... 5 J: 1.24 j ......J 0.76 0. / 1 >j

[0057] In view of the foregoing, the problem to be solved is to achieve high sparsity, especially for cell edge UEs in combination of highest overall user throughput and / or spectral efficiency. The latter could be achieved if the conventional transmission method, which uses the totality of the frequency-time grid, and the capabilities of the start stop bit method for sparse transmission, can coexist while exploiting the best of each scheme.

[0058] Several solutions are proposed herein to at least address the above-mentioned problems. The proposed solutions involve one or more of the following features:

[0059] (1) Reuse of already allocated resource elements for a UE1 to a second UE2 without degrading the data rate of UE1.

[0060] (2) Improve the BER of the stop bit detection by efficient reporting of a deactivation map in form of a codebook ID Ci.

[0061] (3) Selection of a set of predefined codebooks, which allow the gNB to adapt the deactivation map to various start stop bit configurations, load conditions, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like energy saving, data rate maximization and others.

[0062] (4) Adapt C-RNTI allocation to UE1 and UE2 so that parts of the DCI messages are decodable by UE1 and UE2 and other parts of the DCI message are only decodable by UE1 or UE2.

[0063] (5) Split of DCI message in a long term part with overall allocation of resource elements, MCS selection, LUT IDs, etc. and short term part providing per TTI the current deactivation map.

[0064] In aid of the above-mentioned features, sparse D-MIMO systems can benefit from a high sparsity level like p = 0.9 and higher. Then, the inter cooperation area interference as well as the precoding complexity can be reduced significantly. For the conventional start stop bit method one challenge is to simultaneously achieve a high performance gain r (similar to a high spectral efficiency) close to one, or, even larger than one. The proposed hybrid mode combines the data rates of a conventional UE2, which reuses the so far empty resource elements as already used by the sparse start stop bit UE1. As a result, the combined data rate might be even higher than that of a conventional system alone.

[0065] It should be noted that such a double use of the same resources by UE2 without affecting the user data rate of UE1 is only possible as the start stop bit method based on LUT IDs concentrates the user data to few stop bit areas.

[0066] A codebook-based reporting of the deactivation map minimizes the DCI overhead for reporting the fragmented shape of the so far not used resource elements by UE1. UE1 benefits from the DCI message with the codebook ID describing the deactivation map as it decreases the BER for the stop bit detection, i.e., it has some similarities to very specific FEC. UE2 benefits as it can transmit its user data on resource elements, which would be blocked in case of conventional radio systems.

[0067] Furthermore, there is a benefit with respect to energy efficiency as the effective reuse of the resource elements used by UE1 for a second UE2 enables the use of start stop bit modes with very long sequence length and respectively very power efficient transmit modes for the cell edge UE1. These transmit modes might be otherwise not usable due to a limited availability of resource elements.

[0068] According to the proposed solutions, the sparsity of the start stop bit transmission is exploited, so that a first UE UE1 transmits its stop bits in a certain set of resource elements without any impact on its data rate. The second UE UE2 uses some of the so far not used resource elements for an additional parallel transmission of user data, without degrading the data rate of UE1 as it would be the case for classical pre-emption methods.

[0069] It should be noted that, for conventional pre-emption techniques, the second UE UE2 with urgent data will take away the already scheduled resources from UE1 so that the data rate of this UE1 is reduced. In the proposed solutions, the UE1 data rate is not affected as the selected resource elements are anyway reserved for the UE1 using the start stop bit method. This implies an accurate deactivation map ( also referred to as a codebook herein) that can avoid the overlapping of data transmissions from one UE to the other.

[0070] Example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0071] FIG. 3 illustrates a signaling chart 300 for communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purposes of discussion, the signaling chart 300 will be discussed with reference to FIG. 1, for example, by using the first apparatus 110 and the second apparatus 120. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may comprise a terminal device (such as UE or the like), and the second apparatus 120 may comprise a network device (such as gNB or the like).

[0072] In the signaling chart 300, the second apparatus 120 determines 310, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus. The predetermined set of resource elements further comprises a second subset of resource elements which is allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus 110 It should be noted that the third apparatus may be the same as or different from the first apparatus 110, which will be described in detail below.

[0073] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may identify the second subset of resource elements carrying the one or more start / stop bits, and determine unused resource elements from the predetermined set of resource elements based on the second subset of resource elements. The first subset of resource elements may be determined from the unused resource elements.

[0074] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may select the codebook from a codebook table based on a start / stop bit configuration associated with the first apparatus 110. Additionally or alternatively, the second apparatus 120 may select the codebook from a codebook table based on a load condition associated with the first apparatus 110. In some further example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may select the codebook from a codebook table based on a key performance indicator of energy saving associated with the first apparatus 110. In some additional or alternative example embodiments, the second apparatus 120 may select the codebook from a codebook table based on a key performance indicator of data rate maximization associated with the first apparatus 110. It should be understood that the above illustrations are described merely for purpose of description. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0075] For example, the codebook table may comprise one or more entries, and each of the entries may correspond to a predetermined codebook. In addition, the second apparatus 120 may transmit a configuration of the codebook table to the first apparatus 110 and / or the third apparatus, e.g., via a Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

[0076] Moreover, the second apparatus 120 transmits 320 an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus 110. Additionally or alternatively, the second apparatus 120 may transmit the indication of the codebook to the third apparatus. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 110 receives 330 the indication of the codebook from the second apparatus 120. By way of example rather than limitation, the indication of the codebook may be transmitted and / or received via downlink control information (DCI) or the like.

[0077] In some example embodiments, the DCI may comprise a long term part and a short term part, and the short term part may comprise the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI). For example, a first Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) may be allocated to the first apparatus 110 and a second RNTI may be allocated to the third apparatus. The second RNTI may be the same as the first RNTI. Alternatively, the second RNTI may be different from the first RNTI. Furthermore, the first apparatus 110 may decode the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI.

[0078] Furthermore, the first apparatus 110 performs 340 a decoding operation based on the codebook. In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may decode the one or more start / stop bits in the second subset of resource elements based on the codebook. In this case, the third apparatus may be different from the first apparatus 110 and comprise a further terminal device (such as UE or the like). By way of example rather than limitation, the first apparatus 110 may be the above-described UE1, while the third apparatus may be the above-described UE2. In some alternative example embodiments, the first apparatus 110 may decode data associated with the third apparatus in the first subset of resource elements based on the codebook. In this case, the first apparatus 110 may be the same as the third apparatus. By way of example rather than limitation, both the first apparatus 110 and the third apparatus may be the above-described UE2.

[0079] In addition, the first apparatus 110 may determine, from a codebook table, the codebook based on the received indication of the codebook. The codebook table may comprise one or more entries, each of the entries corresponding to a predetermined codebook. For example, the codebook table may be predefined (e.g., in a standard specification or the like). Alternatively, the codebook table may be configured by the second apparatus 120 via a configuration of a codebook table. By way of example rather than limitation, the configuration of the codebook table may be received via a Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE), a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, and / or the like.

[0080] In one example embodiment, the codebook may be selected from the codebook table based on a start / stop bit configuration associated with the first apparatus 110. Additionally or alternatively, the codebook may be selected from the codebook table based on a load condition associated with the first apparatus 110. In a further example embodiment, the codebook may be selected from the codebook table based on a key performance indicator of energy saving associated with the first apparatus 110. Additionally or alternatively, the codebook may be selected from the codebook table based on a key performance indicator of data rate maximization associated with the first apparatus 110. It should be understood that the above examples are described merely for purpose of description. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0081] It should be understood that the above illustrations and / or examples are described merely for purpose of description. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0082] In view of the above, the proposed solutions can advantageously improve the spectral efficiency as well as the reliability of the start stop schemes, and thus enable a more efficient usage of the same allocated time frequency resources for two, or even more terminal devices.

[0083] The solutions presented in FIG. 3 will be described in more details below with reference to FIGS. 4-11.

[0084] In some example embodiments, a hybrid transmission mode is proposed. In the hybrid transmission mode, a certain first UE (also denoted as UE1 herein) uses the start stop bit method to transmit user plane data similar as illustrated in FIG. 4 left. FIG. 4 is an example high level illustration of a hybrid mode according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The dashed areas indicate the stop bit resource elements for one specific data block used by UE1. In a typical setup, only a small part (e.g., 10 percent) of the overall resource elements (REs) of a predefined set of resource elements (such as, 512REs or the like) are used per data transmission, while the other resource elements are so far unused.

[0085] The basic idea is then to reuse these so far unused resource elements for the data transmission of a second UE (also denoted as UE2 herein). The main challenge compared to prior art pre-emption is that the second UE should not destroy or affect the data transmission of the first UE. Therefore, the gNB has to first identify the resource elements carrying start stop bits for a given input data sequence of the UE1. Then, the gNB removes these resource elements from the overall set of resource elements pre-allocated for UE1 to find the so far unused resource elements, which can be used for scheduling of a second UE2. The main related challenge is that the resource elements carrying start stop bits changes for each data transmission of the UE1. Therefore, the gNB selects per transmission time interval (TTI) a different subset of the resource elements, which are not used for UE1 and therefore free for scheduling of the UE2. Then the gNB schedules physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) data of UE2 into this subset of so far empty resource elements.

[0086] UE1 as well as UE2 have to be informed by the gNB about the scheduled resource elements for UE2. UE1 requires this knowledge as it otherwise might wrongly identify stop bits at the UE resource elements and UE2 has to be aware of its active resource elements used for scheduling of data.

[0087] In some example embodiments, the gNB might report one single DCI message with the UE2 resource allocation to UE1 as well as to UE2. This requires that the single DCI message can be decoded by both UEs, which requires that the RNTI of the DCI message has to be known by UE1 as well as UE2. Therefore, as an alternative embodiment, the gNB might transmit two parallel DCI messages, where the first message for UE1 uses a first RNTI l and the second DCI to UE2 uses a second RNTI 2.

[0088] It should be noted that similar to reporting a DCI message with the resource elements not used by UE1 one could report a set of resource elements, which have been reserved for UE1 in this TTI. The resource elements used for UE2 are then the complementary resource elements, i.e., all resource elements of the current resource block allocated to UE1 minus the resource elements reserved for UE1.

[0089] The resulting combined transmission of UE1 plus UE2 for the proposed hybrid mode is illustrated in FIG. 4 right, where the assumption is that UE2 might be a cell-centre UE with a high SINR and uses therefore the full block of light blue resource elements. As shown in FIG. 4, the dotted area indicates the resource elements used by UE2 for the additional transmission of data simultaneously to the UE1 data.

[0090] This enables the so called “hybrid mode” proposed herein, where one UE1 using sparse transmission plus a second UE2 with the conventional transmission method, use the same resource elements for parallel data transmission has the benefit for UE1 to know the unused resource elements, i.e., the resource elements represented by the dotted area in FIG. 4 right, thereby avoiding a potentially wrong stop bit detection in this area. A codebook is used to identify those hybrid mode areas assigned to UE2. The codebook is informed to UE1 by the gNB. In order to avoid an overwhelming number of codebooks, those are pre-defined in tables computed offline and then fixed. The use of codebooks for identifying the areas used by UE2 increases the data decoding reliability for UE1 and can be seen as a very specific Forward Error Correction (FEC) code as it works only in combination with the start stop bit method.

[0091] For the overall system there is the benefit that the data rates of UE1 plus UE2 adds up and therefore will be similar as for conventional radio systems, or, for suitable configurations even higher than for conventional radio systems with optimized transmission resources.

[0092] In order to achieve a high performance of the hybrid mode, the optimal parameters of the start stop bit method from Table 3 can be further optimized. Hereby, it is more beneficial to use less parallel stop bits, which cover bigger areas so that the empty RE areas are less scattered.

[0093] FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram for comparing a conventional transmission method, a start stop bit method and a resulting hybrid mode. The sub-diagram 401 illustrates conventional transmission method, the sub-diagram 402 illustrates the start stop bit method, while the sub-diagram 403 illustrates the hybrid mode. The conventional transmission method is partially merged with the start-stop bit method to obtain the hybrid mode. In some embodiment, the stop bit areas may contain a number of zero power resource elements, which ensures a high sparsity.

[0094] In aid of combining a first start stop bit data transmission for a UE1 with the additional data transmission of a UE2, the proposed solutions can advantageously increase the combined user data rate r as the user data for UE1 plus UE2 may be transmitted on the same resources in parallel. By way of example, if 80% of the so far unused resource elements of UE1 is reused for a conventional data transmission for UE2 and ruei is for instance 0.4, then the combined data rate would be rcombined = ruei + rue2 = 0.4 + 0.8 = 1.2. In this case, there would be even a gain of 20% when compared to conventional system without the start stop bit transmission. It should be understood that the specific values recited herein are intended to be example rather than limiting the scope of the present disclosure.

[0095] It should be noted that, as typical use case, the start stop bit method is for example used for cell edge UEs, while the second UE2 might be a cell center UE with a high SINR and a low interference. The additional idea is that the cell edge UE1 applies a joint transmission, such as Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission (CoMP), with its neighboring cells to overcome the intercell interference, with the goal to boost the UE1 data rate as far as possible. Due to the high SINR of UE2, this UE can be served without CoMP and with a small fraction of the overall transmit power.

[0096] As can be seen in FIG. 4 right, the UE2 blocks part of the resource elements of the overall set of resource elements. If it is assumed that UE1 receives a pre-emption message about the blocked resource elements then this provides a useful information for UE1, i.e., at which resource elements it does not have to search for stop bits. Correspondingly, the reliability for the stop bit detection can be improved as has been verified by the link level simulation in Figs. 5 and 6.

[0097] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating Bit Error Rates (BERs) for different scenarios, including a conventional system and several start stop bit method configurations. For the scenario represented by a block line with filled circle, a gain r = 1.12 of the user data rate of about 12% could be achieved, but at the cost of about 3 dB to 4 dB SINR and a relatively lower sparsity of about p = 0.76, i.e., 24% of resources are used for the stop bits. A high sparsity and low BER is achievable for the scenario represented by a black line with filled triangle, but at the cost of a relatively low r = 0.43.

[0098] FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating the stop bit bit error rate (SBER) for different scenarios including a normal start stop bit mode and a hybrid mode. As shown in FIG. 7, for the normal start stop bit mode, the UE has to assume potentially on all resource elements a stop bit, so that there is a risk that a noise signal is larger than a predefined threshold leading to false stop bit detection. For the hybrid mode, more or less of the resource elements are allocated to a second UE2. In case the UE1 can receive and decode the DCI message of UE2 or a specific pre-emption message, then the likelihood for a false stop bit detection decreases leading to some SINR gain for UE1. It is seen that for hybrid 1 / 8 (i.e., 1 / 8 of REs is used for the conventional transmission inside the start-stop bit cycles) mode, there is already a SINR gain of about 0.5dB, which is another benefit for UE1 by the allocation of UE2.

[0099] The example embodiments shown in FIG. 4 is only the simplest implementation option. It covers one empty area, where the size of this area depends on the available space left by the UE1 stop bit areas. Therefore, one important point is to define a flexible resource area definition for UE2.

[0100] FIG. 8 is an example high level illustration of a further hybrid mode according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure, which is an extension to the solution shown in FIG. 4. As illustrated in FIG. 8, it may consider transmitting more than one pre-emption message for UE2 for different areas of the resource element grid with the goal to reuse a larger part of the free resource elements. This requires the transmission of multiple pre-emption messages for the multiple subareas.

[0101] The conventional DCI pre-emption message has quite some limitations like a limited number of resource elements and only the definition of rectangular frequency time domain blocks. This does not fit well to the scattered allocation of the stop bits over the whole frequency time domain grid. In addition, the pre-emption method leads to an extra overhead as the UE2 has one DCI message for its resource allocation in parallel to the pre-emption DCI message for UE1. For that reason, it is proposed to define a codebook (CB), which covers as close as possible the resource element not used by UE1 for all possible UE1 stop bit allocations. Generally, such a codebook will be a tradeoff between the accuracy defining the free resource elements and the number of codewords, i.e., the overhead. When many stop bit configurations are covered by one codeword then the inaccuracy of the reporting will lead to unused resource elements for UE2.

[0102] One option to define a “free resource elements” codebook CBre is to i) calculate the expectation for certain stop bit configurations and then to ii) combine multiple similar stop bit configurations where the mismatch between the allocated resource elements is below a certain threshold (number of resource elements like, e.g. 10 REs) and iii) to allocate to this set of stop bit allocations one single codeword entry describing the empty resource elements for the combined set of stop bit configurations. This method might lead to an optimized codebook with respect to the overhead, but the effort of finding the codebook might be large. In addition, there will be a need for one codebook per start stop bit configuration.

[0103] Another option is to define a combinatorial CB, which is adapted to the LUT ID as described in the parallel submitted IR and the related configurations like number of parallel stop bit sequences M as well as number of resource elements per stop bit area Ladd so that a minimum number of bits is needed to report a certain stop bit allocation per each transmitted data block B. It may be assumed that there are M = 10 parallel stop bit sequences with N = 9 bit each, so that there are overall 2N = 512 resource elements and a stop bit area of size Ladd = 10. Then, the overall area of 2N = 512 2N resource elements may be divided into — = 51 subareas of size Ladd = 10. To address then for M = 10 parallel stop bit sequences all possible stop bit allocations we can apply the binominal coefficient and get, for example, R= log2(51 ! / (51-10)! 10!) = 37 bits. Relative to the overall 512 resource elements the related reporting overhead for the DL DCI part would be moderately small, i.e., about 7 percent if reported with one bit per resource element.

[0104] Note that the number of bits required for the reporting of R = 37 bit is in this case close to an upper bound as it allows for a very fine granular resource allocation of the empty areas left by UE1. Such a high granularity has benefits as it will allow to reallocate a large portion of the empty spaces of UE1 for UE2, but often a less accurate reporting of the empty spaces might be sufficient at the cost of a lower percentage of resource elements available for UE2. In that case instead of R = 37 bits, e.g., 20 bits might be sufficient. Especially, if one defines a fully flexible codebook as described above then on average one might achieve a comparably high reuse of the resources for UE2 in combination with a limited reporting overhead R.

[0105] Split DCI in a long term (overall resources + other parts of format 10 and 11) plus a short term DCI part, which is transmitted every TTI as it has to adapt to the stop bit allocation of UE1, which depends on the latest user data.

[0106] For the implementation a new DCI message or a corresponding extension of available DCI formats will be needed. DCI formats l_0 and format 1_1 can be seen as the basis as these messages schedule the PDSCH for one cell using a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) scrambled by a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (CRNTI). In addition, this DCI format contains a frequency domain (variable number of bits) and a time domain resource assignment (4 bit). This resource assignment is too inflexible for our scattered deactivation map and therefore one option is to replace these bits by the bits of the codebook IDs Cj.

[0107] Another effective option might be to allocate to UE1 as well as UE2 the same C RNTI so that both UEs can read the DCI format 10 messages and especially the codebook IDs Cj. This is probably the most effective implementation, but at the cost of the lost privacy between UE1 and UE2.

[0108] Another related DCI format is format 21 (see Table 1), which so far is used for the pre-emption indication and scrambles the CRC check with an INT-RNTI. This leads to a modified implementation option on top of that, i.e., to replace the current variable in DCI 21, which defines the preemption resource elements by the codebook IDs Cj. As the DCI message 2_1 is decoded with the INT-RNTI, this will be known to UE1 and UE2. The other PDCCH information for UE1 and UE2 can be provided by a DCI message with format 10 with specific C RNTIs for UE1 and UE2 so that the privacy can be maintained and the UEs do not need to know the C RNTIs of the other UE. Note that this solution includes a main issue, i.e., UE2 has now to define its resource allocation in DCI 10 relative to the scattered deactivation map resource elements.

[0109] Instead of replacing the preemption resource elements of DCI 2_0 by the codebook IDs q, one might transmit multiple DCI 2 0 messages, where each message covers a certain part of the scattered deactivation map. While potentially possible, the related overhead might be only acceptable in more simpler cases.

[0110] The DCI for the hybrid mode might be separated into a long term and a short term part, The long term part defines then e.g., the start stop bit configuration including the sequence length, number of parallel sequences, the MCS scheme, etc., as well as the time frequency block used by the start stop bit UE1. The short term part would be then the codebook IDs q, which have to be reported every TTI with lowest possible overhead. Beneficial is to add a CRC scrambled with the C RNTI or an INT RNTI to each short term message to ensure a reliable transmission. Especially, the CRC might be applied including the first long term DCI part.

[0111] It is assumed that there are a limited set of predefined start stop bit configurations for a limited set of transmission modes, such as, i) one mode for high user throughput at high SINR (= high number of parallel sequences M with moderate sequence length N), ii) one mode for low data rate and high sparsity (= low number of parallel sequences M with high sequence length N), and iii) one mode for cell edge UEs (= moderate number of parallel sequences M with low sequence length N).

[0112] These different modes lead then to different sizes of the resource elements for UE1 as well as different number of stop bit subareas so that it makes sense to define a different codebook Ccb for each different start stop bit transmission mode. The set of possible codebooks Ccb,i, i = should be offline optimized and predefined. The gNB informs then all UEs about the set of preconfigured codebook options by a related RRC message. Then the gNB might select per UE depending on the UE channel conditions as well as on other criteria like the cell load or inter cell interference conditions the best fitting codebook index i from all possible predefined codebooks. UE1 as well as UE2 have to be informed about the currently used codebook ID, which might be done by a corresponding MAC CE message. This includes that UE1 and UE2 have always to use the same codebook ID per TTI. The index into the codebook I is then selected by a DCI message providing the Cj value for the currently selected codebook Ccb,l

[0113] It should be noted that UE2 might apply a conventional data transmission, but in another embodiment also the start stop method might be used for UE2 as well, but then on the reduced set of resource elements. Even a third UE might use the start stop bit method on the then further reduced set of resource elements. There might be then even a third UE scheduled on the left free resource elements from UE1 and UE2.

[0114] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example hybrid mode with illustration of a typical codebook entry covering as far as possible the so far unused resource elements, which will be then used for UE2 (the dotted areas).

[0115] The above-described codebook-based reporting of deactivation maps may require some update of the DCI messages. Especially, the DCI formats Format l_0 and 11 might be affected as the PDCCH has to report the fragmented resource elements of the deactivation maps efficiently per TTI, e.g., in form of a codebook ID Cj selected from a predefined codebook. This codebook might be defined explicitly or in form a of a combinatorial codebook design.

[0116] Depending on the start stop bit configuration, the data rate of UE2, as well as the LUT design then the gNB can select from a set of best fitting predefined codebooks and report this selection to the UE side.

[0117] Depending on the chosen implementation option, the C-RNTIs for UE1 and UE2 need some considerations. In one option the codebook ID Cj might be scrambled with a CRNTI known by UE1 and UE2, while the rest of the DCI message are scrambled by additional C RNTIs, which are then specific to UE1 and UE2. That way the privacy between UE1 and UE2 is preserved. Another way to achieve this is by repeating the codebook ID q in the DCI message for UE1 as well as the DCI message for UE2. In that case, privacy is achieved as in conventional systems, but at the cost of some extra overhead, i.e., the reporting of the codebook ID Cj twice.

[0118] The gNB side may have new scheduling options, allowing to combine cell edge with cell center UEs in a hybrid mode. In addition, the UE and the gNB have to implement the codebook of deactivation maps and the UE has to use the reported codebook ID Ci to identify the deactivation map to be able to decode the data for UE2 as well as to apply the FEC coding for the stop bits on UE1.

[0119] FIG. 10 illustrates flowcharts for gNB, UE1 and UE2 according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. Initially, the gNB receives the Channel State Information (CSI) from two UEs, e.g., UE1 and UE2. Then, the gNB requires to transmit data to UE1 and UE2, and selects one configuration of a deactivation map codebook to be further sent to UE1 and UE2 respectively. Specifically, for UE1 a sparse transmission mode with a given LUT ID is given, whereas for UE2 scheduling happens in the resource elements defined by deactivation map codebook ID. By having done this, UE1 and UE2 may receive data simultaneously by performing sparse stop bit transmission and the legacy conventional scheme coexisting in the same resources.

[0120] UE1 receives a codebook from the gNB, wherein the codebook indicates the resource elements allocated for a second UE2 from the overall resource area allocated for UE1 stop bits. Also, UE2 receives such a codebook enabling the scheduling relative to the scattered resource elements, which are free of UE1 start stop bits.

[0121] It should be noted that the underlying assumption is that the hybrid start stop bit mode has been configured in a first step by a related radio resource control (RRC) procedure including the definition of possible deactivation codebooks. These deactivation codebooks are adapted to different start stop bit configurations, where the configuration as well as the related codebook is then, for example, down selected by a MAC CE message. The DCI messages, which have to be transmitted per TTI, are then defined relative to the codebook selected by the last MAC CE message.

[0122] FIG. 11 illustrates a signaling chart 1100 for application of sparse start stop bit method in hybrid mode based on deactivation map codebooks. In example embodiments discussed with respect to FIG. 11, the first apparatus 110, which may be a UE, is denoted by UE1 1101 and / or UE2 1102, and the second apparatus 120, which may be a base station, is denoted by gNB 1103.

[0123] At 1110, the gNB 1103 may optimize and define a set of deactivation map codebooks Cx. This may be performed offline. At 1112 and 1114, the gNB 1103 may transmit CSI RS (per access point (AP)) to UE1 1101 and UE2 1102, respectively. The UE1 1101 may estimate and predict CSI at 1116 and further report time domain CSI (per AP) to the gNB 1103 at 1118. Similarly, the UE2 1102 may estimate and predict CSI at 1120 and further report time domain CSI (per AP) to the gNB 1103 at 1122. The gNB 1103 may schedule UEs at 1124, schedule UE1 1101 with start stop bit method (LUT ID) at 1126, and select deactivation map codebook C_x fitting to UE1 1101 configuration at 1128. Furthermore, the gNB 1103 may transmit Medium Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) message with selected codebook C x to UE2 1102 at 1130, and transmit MAC CE message with selected codebook C_x to UE1 1101 at 1132.

[0124] Moreover, at 1134, the gNB 1103 may transmit DCI with deactivation map as code c i from codebook C_x to UE 1 and sparse PDSCH user data for UE1 1101. The UE1 1101 may decode DCI message and demodulate sparse PDSCH user data at 1138. The UE1 1101 may further calculate Acknowledgement / Negative Acknowledgement (ACK / NACK) at 1140 and report the ACK / NACK to the gNB 1103 at 1142.

[0125] At 1136, the gNB 1103 may transmit DCI with deactivation map as code c i from codebook C_x to UE 2 and PDSCH user data for UE2 1102. The UE2 1102 may decode DCI message and demodulate PDSCH user data at 1144. The UE2 1102 may further calculate ACK / NACK at 1146 and report the ACK / NACK to the gNB 1103 at 1148.

[0126] It should be understood that the steps described above may be performed in different orders, and / or in parallel. Further, the embodiment may include additional steps and / or omit performing one or more of the illustrated steps. The scope of the present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0127] In view of the above, the proposed solutions can advantageously improve the spectral efficiency as well as the reliability of the enhanced start stop methods. More specifically, deactivation maps have been proposed as a start stop specific coding method to enable the hybrid transmission of a sparse start stop UE transmission in combination with a conventional transmission for a UE in the unused resource elements as a result of the sparse transmission. This results in a more efficient usage of the same allocated time frequency resources for two, or even more UEs.

[0128] FIG. 12 shows a flowchart of an example method 1200 implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 1200 will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0129] At block 1210, the first apparatus 110 receives, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements. The first subset of resource elements is allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements. The second subset of resource elements is allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus.

[0130] At block 1220, the first apparatus 110 performs a decoding operation based on the codebook.

[0131] In some example embodiments, the method 1200 further comprises: decoding the one or more start / stop bits in the second subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is different from the third apparatus; or decoding data associated with the third apparatus in the first subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is the same as the third apparatus.

[0132] In some example embodiments, the method 1200 further comprises: determining, from a codebook table, the codebook based on the received indication of the codebook, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, each of the entries corresponding to a predetermined codebook.

[0133] In some example embodiments, the codebook table is predefined, or the codebook table is configured by the second apparatus via a configuration of a codebook table.

[0134] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the codebook table is received via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

[0135] In some example embodiments, the codebook is selected from the codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization.

[0136] In some example embodiments, the indication of the codebook is received via downlink control information (DCI).

[0137] In some example embodiments, the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

[0138] In some example embodiments, the method 1200 further comprises: decoding the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI, wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

[0139] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

[0140] FIG. 13 shows a flowchart of an example method 1300 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 1300 will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0141] At block 1310, the second apparatus 120 determines, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus. The predetermined set of resource elements further comprises a second subset of resource elements, and the second subset of resource elements is allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus.

[0142] At block 1320, the second apparatus 120 transmits an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0143] In some example embodiments, the method 1300 further comprises: identifying the second subset of resource elements carrying the one or more start / stop bits; determining unused resource elements from the predetermined set of resource elements based on the second subset of resource elements; and determining the first subset of resource elements from the unused resource elements.

[0144] In some example embodiments, the method 1300 further comprises: selecting the codebook from a codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, and each of the entries corresponds to a predetermined codebook.

[0145] In some example embodiments, the method 1300 further comprises: transmitting a configuration of the codebook table to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0146] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the codebook table is transmitted via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

[0147] In some example embodiments, the codebook table is predefined.

[0148] In some example embodiments, the indication of the codebook is transmitted via downlink control information (DCI).

[0149] In some example embodiments, the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

[0150] In some example embodiments, a first Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) is allocated to the first apparatus and a second RNTI is allocated to the third apparatus, and the first apparatus decode the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI, wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

[0151] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

[0152] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 1200 (for example, the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 1200. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first apparatus 110 in FIG. 1.

[0153] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; and means for performing a decoding operation based on the codebook.

[0154] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for decoding the one or more start / stop bits in the second subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is different from the third apparatus; or means for decoding data associated with the third apparatus in the first subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is the same as the third apparatus.

[0155] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for determining, from a codebook table, the codebook based on the received indication of the codebook, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, each of the entries corresponding to a predetermined codebook.

[0156] In some example embodiments, the codebook table is predefined, or the codebook table is configured by the second apparatus via a configuration of a codebook table.

[0157] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the codebook table is received via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

[0158] In some example embodiments, the codebook is selected from the codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization.

[0159] In some example embodiments, the indication of the codebook is received via downlink control information (DCI).

[0160] In some example embodiments, the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

[0161] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for decoding the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI, wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

[0162] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

[0163] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 1300 (for example, the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 1300. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second apparatus 120 in FIG. 1.

[0164] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for determining, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; and means for transmitting an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0165] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for identifying the second subset of resource elements carrying the one or more start / stop bits; means for determining unused resource elements from the predetermined set of resource elements based on the second subset of resource elements; and means for determining the first subset of resource elements from the unused resource elements.

[0166] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for selecting the codebook from a codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, and each of the entries corresponds to a predetermined codebook.

[0167] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting a configuration of the codebook table to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

[0168] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the codebook table is transmitted via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

[0169] In some example embodiments, the codebook table is predefined.

[0170] In some example embodiments, the indication of the codebook is transmitted via downlink control information (DCI).

[0171] In some example embodiments, the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

[0172] In some example embodiments, a first Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) is allocated to the first apparatus and a second RNTI is allocated to the third apparatus, and the first apparatus decode the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI, wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

[0173] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

[0174] FIG. 14 is a simplified block diagram of a device 1400 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 1400 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the first apparatus 110 or the second apparatus 120 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 1400 includes one or more processors 1410, one or more memories 1420 coupled to the processor 1410, and one or more communication modules 1440 coupled to the processor 1410.

[0175] The communication module 1440 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 1440 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 1440 may include at least one antenna.

[0176] The processor 1410 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 1400 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.

[0177] The memory 1420 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) 1424, 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) 1422 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

[0178] A computer program 1430 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 1410. The instructions of the program 1430 may include instructions for performing operations / acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 1430 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 1424. The processor 1410 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 1430 into the RAM 1422.

[0179] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 1430 so that the device 1400 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 3 to FIG. 13. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0180] In some example embodiments, the program 1430 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 1400 (such as in the memory 1420) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 1400. The device 1400 may load the program 1430 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 1422 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).

[0181] FIG. 15 shows an example of the computer readable medium 1500 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 1500 has the program 1430 stored thereon.

[0182] 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.

[0183] 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.

[0184] 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.

[0185] 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.

[0186] 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.

[0187] 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.

[0188] 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 first apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to:receive, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; andperform a decoding operation based on the codebook.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first apparatus is caused to:decode the one or more start / stop bits in the second subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is different from the third apparatus; ordecode data associated with the third apparatus in the first subset of resource elements based on the codebook, wherein the first apparatus is the same as the third apparatus.

3. The first apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first apparatus is caused to:determine, from a codebook table, the codebook based on the received indication of the codebook, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, each of the entries corresponding to a predetermined codebook.

4. The first apparatus of claim 3, wherein the codebook table is predefined, or the codebook table is configured by the second apparatus via a configuration of a codebook table.

5. The first apparatus of claim 4, wherein the configuration of the codebook table is received via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio ResourceControl (RRC) message.

6. The first apparatus of any of claims 3 to 5, wherein the codebook is selected from the codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization.

7. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the indication of the codebook is received via downlink control information (DCI).

8. The first apparatus of claim 7, wherein the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

9. The first apparatus of claim 8, wherein a first Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) is allocated to the first apparatus and a second RNTI is allocated to the third apparatus, and wherein the first apparatus is caused to:decode the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI,wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

10. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

11. A second apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to:determine, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; andtransmit an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

12. The second apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: identify the second subset of resource elements carrying the one or more start / stop bits;determine unused resource elements from the predetermined set of resource elements based on the second subset of resource elements; anddetermine the first subset of resource elements from the unused resource elements.

13. The second apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: select the codebook from a codebook table based on at least one of the following associated with the first apparatus: a start / stop bit configuration, a load condition, a key performance indicator of energy saving, or a key performance indicator of data rate maximization, wherein the codebook table comprises one or more entries, and each of the entries corresponds to a predetermined codebook.

14. The second apparatus of claim 13, wherein the second apparatus is caused to: transmit a configuration of the codebook table to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

15. The second apparatus of claim 14, wherein the configuration of the codebook table is transmitted via Media Access Control Control Element (MAC CE) or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

16. The second apparatus of any of claims 13 to 15, wherein the codebook table is predefined.

17. The second apparatus of any of claims 11 to 16, wherein the indication of the codebook is transmitted via downlink control information (DCI).

18. The second apparatus of claim 17, wherein the DCI comprises a long term part and a short term part, and wherein the short term part comprises the indication of the codebook per Transmission Time Interval (TTI).

19. The second apparatus of claim 18, wherein a first Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) is allocated to the first apparatus and a second RNTI is allocated to the third apparatus, and the first apparatus decode the short term part of the DCI based on the first RNTI,wherein the first RNTI is different from the second RNTI, or wherein the first RNTI is the same as the second RNTI.

20. The second apparatus of any of claims 11 to 19, wherein the first apparatus comprises a terminal device, the second apparatus comprises a network device, and the third apparatus comprises a terminal device.

21. A method comprising:receiving, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; andperforming a decoding operation based on the codebook.

22. A method comprising:determining, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; andtransmitting an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.23.A first apparatus comprising:means for receiving, from a second apparatus, an indication of a codebook indicating at least a first subset of resource elements among a predetermined set of resource elements, the first subset of resource elements being allocated for a third apparatus, and the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a secondsubset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop bits of a data sequence associated with the first apparatus; andmeans for performing a decoding operation based on the codebook.5 24. A second apparatus comprising:means for determining, from a predetermined set of resource elements, a codebook indicating a first subset of resource elements allocated for a third apparatus, the predetermined set of resource elements further comprising a second subset of resource elements, the second subset of resource elements being allocated for one or more start / stop 10 bits of a data sequence associated with a first apparatus; andmeans for transmitting an indication of the codebook to the first apparatus or the third apparatus.

25. A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for 15 causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of claim 21 or the method of claim41

Images