Compressed ACK Feedback for Grant-Free Transport Block Sets

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Solution Overview

Problem

The excessive feedback overhead of acknowledgment signals in wireless communication systems, particularly in contention-based grant-free schemes, leads to a waste of spectrum resources due to the need for individual acknowledgment signaling for each of the thousands of user equipment served by a base station.

Innovation Solution

A method involving compression encoding of acknowledgment signaling for multiple user equipment, using prefix codewords, padding bit sequences, or compressed codewords to reduce the number of bits required for channel coding, thereby conserving spectrum resources and improving data transmission efficiency.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If individual acknowledgment signaling is provided for each user equipment, then the base station can distinguish and confirm data reception status for each UE, but the feedback overhead increases significantly consuming excessive spectrum resources

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata reception status confirmationVSAvoidspectrum resource consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges individual acknowledgment signals for multiple UEs into a single group acknowledgment signal. The base station receives transport blocks from multiple UEs using grant-free transmission, then generates one group ACK/NACK signal that indicates the reception status for all UEs in the group, rather than transmitting separate acknowledgment signals for each UE. This combining approach significantly reduces feedback overhead and spectrum resource consumption while maintaining reliable data reception confirmation for all user equipments.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

2Productivity

If thousands of acknowledgment bits are transmitted to serve thousands of UEs, then each UE receives individual feedback, but the feedback overhead becomes excessive leading to spectrum resource waste

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvenumber of served UEsVSAvoidfeedback overhead
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines acknowledgment feedback for thousands of UEs into a compact group acknowledgment signal. Instead of transmitting thousands of individual acknowledgment bits, the base station generates a single group ACK/NACK signal that efficiently represents the reception status for all UEs in the group, dramatically reducing feedback overhead from thousands of bits to a manageable size while maintaining the ability to serve large numbers of user equipments.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the parameter of feedback representation from individual bit-level acknowledgments to group-level status indication. By transforming the acknowledgment mechanism from transmitting one bit per UE to transmitting a compressed group status signal, the system achieves efficient feedback for large numbers of UEs without proportionally increasing feedback overhead, thus resolving the contradiction between serving capacity and resource consumption.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP4701109A1Information transmission method, communication device, storage medium, and program product
Publication Date: 2026.02.25 ZTE CORP
  • EP4701109A1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP4701109A1 patent drawingFigure 3~4
  • EP4701109A1 patent drawingFigure 5

AI summary

An information transmission method, a communication device, and a storage medium are disclosed. The method includes: receiving a plurality of transport blocks sent by at least one second node, where the plurality of transport blocks form a transport block set; sending feedback information of the transport block set to the at least one second node. The feedback information represents a reception status of the transport blocks sent by the at least one second node, and includes at least two of: a prefix codeword, a padding bit sequence, or a compressed codeword.