Apparatus and method for IoT control channel
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsRalf Matthias Bendlin, Debdeep Chatterjee, Seunghee Han
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments described herein include user equipment (UE), evolved node B (eNB), methods, and systems for narrowband Internet-of-Things (IoT) communications. Some embodiments particularly relate to control channel communications between UE and eNB in narrowband IoT communications. In one embodiment, a UE blind decodes a first control resource block comprising all subcarriers of the transmission bandwidth and all orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of a first subframe to determine the first control transmission. In various further embodiments, various resource groupings of resource elements are used as part of the control communications.
Claims26
An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) for narrowband internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) communication, the apparatus comprising:
- a memory;
- and
- processing circuitry in communication with the memory and arranged to:
- monitor signals on a first transmission bandwidth for a narrowband system with the first transmission bandwidth comprising a single physical resource block bandwidth;
- determine that a control channel transmission from a base station comprising at least a first narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) is mapped to a first physical resource block including subcarriers of the first transmission bandwidth and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of at least a first subframe;
- and
- blind decode the control channel transmission comprising the first NB-PDCCH by processing a first physical resource block including the subcarriers of the first transmission bandwidth and the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of the first subframe to determine the control channel transmission, wherein said blind decoding further comprises attempting to blind decode a plurality of combinations of consecutive subframes, wherein different NB-PDCCH candidates are transmitted over different numbers of consecutive subframes.
A computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE), the one or more processors to configure the UE to:
- monitor signals on a first transmission bandwidth for a narrowband system with the first transmission bandwidth comprising a single physical resource block bandwidth;
- determine that a control channel transmission from a base station comprising at least a first narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) is mapped to a first physical resource block including subcarriers of the first transmission bandwidth and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of at least a first subframe;
- and
- blind decode the control channel transmission comprising the NB-PDCCH by processing a first physical resource block including the subcarriers of the first transmission bandwidth and the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of the first subframe to determine the control channel transmission, wherein said blind decoding further comprises attempting to blind decode a plurality of combinations of consecutive subframes, wherein different NB-PDCCH candidates are transmitted over different numbers of consecutive subframes.
An apparatus of a base station for encoding control channel signals for narrowband Internet-of-Things (IoT) communications, the apparatus comprising:
- a memory;
- and
- processing circuitry in communication with the memory and arranged to:
- encode a first control transmission using a first physical resource block, wherein the first resource block comprises all subcarriers of a transmission bandwidth for the IoT communications and all orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of a first subframe, for transmission to a first user equipment (UE), wherein the first control transmission comprises a first narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) candidate for the first UE to attempt to blind decode, wherein the NB-PDCCH candidate is selected from a plurality of NB-PDCCH candidates corresponding to transmission over different numbers of consecutive subframes.
A computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a base station, the one or more processors to configure the base station to:
- encode a control channel transmission for a first user equipment (UE), the control channel transmission comprising at least a first narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) that is mapped to a first physical resource block, wherein the first physical resource block comprises subcarriers of a transmission bandwidth and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of at least a first subframe, wherein the control channel transmission is for blind decoding at the UE via processing the first physical resource block including the subcarriers of the transmission bandwidth and the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of the first subframe to determine the control channel transmission, wherein the NB-PDCCH is selected from a plurality of NB-PDCCH candidates corresponding to transmission over different numbers of consecutive subframes;
- and
- initiate transmission of the NB-PDCCH to the first UE.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.