PDCCH design for narrowband deployment

A non-transitory machine readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a base station to:

• schedule a plurality of Internet of Things (IoT) devices for one or more of an uplink grant or a downlink allocation;
• generate at least one Downlink Control Information (DCI) message associated with the plurality of IoT devices, wherein each DCI message of the at least one DCI message has a narrowband-specific DCI format;
• construct one or more narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) signals based on the at least one DCI message;
• map a first NPDCCH DCI message of the one or more NPDCCH signals to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols across a plurality of subframes;
• and
• transmit the one or more NPDCCH signals in one or more NPDCCH regions via a narrowband transmission mode, wherein the narrowband transmission mode comprises narrowband transmission via a bandwidth of one physical resource block (PRB),
• wherein the first NPDCCH DCI comprises an indication of a resource assignment subframe for an associated narrowband physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the resource assignment subframe for the associated narrowband PDSCH is after the plurality of subframes comprising the first NPDCCH DCI.

A user equipment (UE), comprising:

• an antenna port configured to receive a narrowband transmission comprising a set of two or more narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) Downlink Control Information (DCI) messages, wherein each DCI message of the two or more NPDCCH DCI messages has a narrowband-specific DCI format;
• and
• a processor operably coupled to the antenna port and configured to:
• predecode, demodulate, and descramble the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages from one or more NPDCCH regions via a narrowband transmission mode, wherein the narrowband transmission mode comprises narrowband transmission via a bandwidth of one physical resource block (PRB);
• attempt blind decoding on a first subset of the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages associated with a common search space (CSS), wherein at most one NPDCCH DCI message of the first subset is successfully blind decoded;
• attempt blind decoding of a second subset of the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages associated with a UE-specific search space (USS);
• and
• identify a NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE among the first subset or the second subset upon successful decoding of the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE as determined by a lack of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error after blind decoding of the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE, wherein the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE is mapped to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols across a plurality of subframes,
• wherein the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE comprises an indication of a resource assignment subframe for an associated narrowband physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the resource assignment subframe for the associated narrowband PDSCH is after the plurality of subframes comprising the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE.

A baseband processor of a user equipment (UE) configured to:

• predecode, demodulate, and descramble a set of two or more narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) Downlink Control Information (DCI) messages from one or more NPDCCH regions via a narrowband transmission mode, wherein the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages are part of a narrowband transmission, wherein each DCI message of the two or more NPDCCH DCI messages has a narrowband-specific DCI format, wherein the narrowband transmission mode comprises narrowband transmission via a bandwidth of one physical resource block (PRB);
• attempt blind decoding on a first subset of the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages associated with a common search space (CSS), wherein at most one NPDCCH DCI message of the first subset is successfully blind decoded;
• attempt blind decoding of a second subset of the set of two or more NPDCCH DCI messages associated with a UE-specific search space (USS);
• and
• identify a NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE among the first subset or the second subset upon successful decoding of the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE as determined by a lack of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error after blind decoding of the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE, wherein the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE is mapped to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols across a plurality of subframes,
• wherein the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE comprises an indication of a resource assignment subframe for an associated narrowband physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), wherein the resource assignment subframe for the associated narrowband PDSCH is after the plurality of subframes comprising the NPDCCH DCI message associated with the UE.