Methods and apparatus for an autonomous downlink transmission

A method for wireless communication by a generic node B (gNB) to enable an autonomous downlink transmission over a shared spectrum, comprising:

• informing a user equipment (UE) via a triggering event that there is pending downlink (DL) data to be transmitted to the UE;
• and
• transmitting a first configuration command to the UE, in response to the triggering event, to enable an autonomous DL transmission (ADT) capability at the UE;
• and
• determining if an uplink (UL) transmission opportunity (TxOP) is available via a listen before talk (LBT) procedure of a first LBT type.

An apparatus for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE) to enable an autonomous downlink transmission over a shared spectrum, comprising:

• means for receiving a triggering event indicating that the UE has pending downlink (DL) data;
• means for receiving a configuration command from a serving generic NodeB (gNB), in response to the triggering event, to enable an autonomous DL transmission (ADT) capability at the UE;
• and
• means for upon receiving the configuration command, initiating a listen before talk (LBT) procedure of a first LBT type to obtain an uplink (UL) transmission opportunity (TxOP) after determining that the UE does not have any UL data to transmit.

An apparatus for wireless communication by a user equipment (UE) to enable an autonomous downlink transmission over a shared spectrum, comprising:

• a transceiver;
• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to:
• receive a triggering event indicating that the UE has pending downlink (DL) data;
• receive a configuration command from a serving generic NodeB (gNB) to enable an autonomous DL transmission (ADT) capability at the UE, in response to the triggering event;
• and
• upon receiving the configuration command, initiating a listen before talk (LBT) procedure of a first LBT type to obtain an uplink (UL) transmission opportunity (TxOP) after determining that the UE does not have any UL data to transmit.