MAC CE Triggering for XR Delay Budget Compliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Extended Reality (XR) services in mobile networks face challenges with high data bursts and stringent delay budgets, requiring sophisticated uplink scheduling to avoid resource waste and ensure timely data transmission, while existing technologies fail to efficiently manage power consumption and data status reporting effectively.
Innovation Solution
The method involves receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message to trigger a specific Medium Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE) when the remaining time for Protocol Data Units (PDUs) is less than a delay threshold, using Buffer Status Reports (BSR) and Delay Reports (DR) to manage data transmission and minimize power consumption by optimizing uplink transmission periods and resource allocation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional uplink scheduling is used for XR services, then resource allocation is simplified, but data bursts cannot be transmitted timely and delay budgets are violated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by triggering MAC CEs in advance when PDUs are identified as approaching their discard threshold. The MAC CE reports remaining time until discard to the base station before the actual transmission deadline, enabling the base station to pre-allocate resources and prioritize transmission, thus ensuring delay budget compliance without requiring complex real-time scheduling decisions.
2Reliability
If frequent uplink transmissions are performed to ensure timely data delivery, then delay budget is met, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by continuously monitoring the remaining time until PDU discard and reporting this status via MAC CEs when thresholds are approached. This feedback mechanism allows the base station to receive information about urgent data that needs timely transmission, enabling targeted uplink transmissions only when necessary to meet delay budgets, thereby avoiding unnecessary transmissions and reducing power consumption.
3Reliability
If sophisticated uplink scheduling is implemented to manage data bursts, then delay budget compliance improves, but resource allocation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the critical timing information (remaining time until discard) from the PDU metadata and reports it separately via MAC CEs to the base station. This extraction allows the base station to focus resource allocation decisions on the most time-sensitive data without needing to process complete PDU information, simplifying the resource allocation complexity while maintaining delay budget compliance.
4Loss of information
If MAC CEs are triggered for all logical channel groups, then complete data status reporting is achieved, but signaling overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by triggering MAC CEs selectively only for specific logical channel groups that contain PDUs approaching their discard threshold, rather than reporting all logical channel groups uniformly. This selective triggering ensures that data status reporting is complete for urgent data while minimizing signaling overhead by excluding non-urgent channels from frequent reporting.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus to support XR services is provided. Method for supporting XR services includes receiving from a base station a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, triggering a specific Medium Access Control (MAC) CE (Control Element), and transmitting to the base station the specific MAC CE. The specific MAC CE is triggered in case that remaining time until discard of a one or more Protocol Data Units (PDUs) becomes less than a delay threshold and the one or more PDUs belong to a specific logical channel group. The specific MAC CE comprises a field indicating remaining time until discard.