Joint Transport Block Processing for Carrier Aggregation Overhead Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current wireless technologies face inefficiencies in managing large numbers of component carriers due to high PDCCH overhead, especially in scenarios with numerous UEs and aggregated CCs, which limits spectral efficiency and data transmission capabilities.
Innovation Solution
Implementing joint processing of transport blocks across multiple carriers using a compact DCI format and shared CC-specific information fields, allowing for single PDCCH scheduling and unified HARQ processes to reduce overhead and enhance spectral efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple PDCCHs are used to schedule each carrier independently, then each carrier can be managed separately, but PDCCH overhead increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the scheduling of multiple component carriers into a single PDCCH by introducing a carrier indicator field (CIF) that identifies multiple carriers. This allows one PDCCH to schedule multiple carriers simultaneously, reducing PDCCH overhead while maintaining the ability to manage each carrier independently through the CIF mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The PDCCH is enhanced with multi-functionality by adding the carrier indicator field (CIF) and supporting multiple transport blocks. This allows a single PDCCH to perform multiple scheduling functions across different carriers, reducing the total number of PDCCH messages needed while preserving flexible carrier management capabilities.
2Reliability
If separate HARQ processes are used for each carrier, then carrier-specific error handling is achieved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple carrier-specific HARQ processes into a unified HARQ entity that handles multiple carriers. The unified HARQ process uses the CIF to identify which carrier the HARQ feedback pertains to, reducing processing complexity while maintaining carrier-specific error handling capabilities through the unified structure.
3Productivity
If more carriers are aggregated, then bandwidth and data rate increase, but PDCCH capacity becomes limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple carrier scheduling into single PDCCH messages using the carrier indicator field (CIF). This allows the system to aggregate more carriers (increasing data transmission capacity) without proportionally increasing PDCCH capacity, as one PDCCH can now schedule multiple carriers simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The enhanced PDCCH with CIF support provides multi-functionality, allowing a single PDCCH to schedule multiple carriers and transport blocks. This increases the effective PDCCH capacity without adding more physical PDCCH resources, enabling support for more aggregated carriers and higher data rates.
4Quantity of substance
If compact DCI format with shared fields is used, then PDCCH overhead is reduced, but scheduling flexibility may be limited
Solution Approach 1:
The compact DCI format achieves universality by incorporating the carrier indicator field (CIF) and supporting multiple transport blocks. This allows a single DCI message to schedule multiple carriers with different parameters, reducing overhead while maintaining scheduling flexibility through the flexible CIF and transport block assignment mechanisms.
Data Source
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AI summary
Techniques for joint transmission of a common transport block (TB) over a plurality of carriers via uplink and/or downlink are discussed. One example apparatus includes a processor, transmitter circuitry, and receiver circuitry. The processor can generate the common TB, prepare a physical layer encoding of the TB for each of the plurality of carriers, schedule each encoding to a set of physical resources in the associated carrier, and generate one or more control channel messages associated with the encodings. The transmitter circuitry can transmit the encodings via the scheduled sets of physical resources and transmit the one or more control channel messages on at least one of the carriers. The receiver circuitry can receive a common hybrid automatic repeat request feedback message associated with the physical layer encodings.