Multiple prose group communication during a sidelink control period

An integrated circuit configured to control operation of a user equipment, the integrated circuit comprising:

• reception circuitry, which, in operation, controls reception of sidelink grants;
• control circuitry, which is coupled to the reception circuitry and which, in operation:
• associates the sidelink grants with sidelink processes, which are respectively associated with identifications (IDs);
• determines radio resources allocated to the sidelink grants;
• uses a logical channel prioritization (LCP) procedure in common for all the sidelink grants to select one sidelink destination group including a logical channel associated with a highest priority, out of a plurality of sidelink destination groups including logical channels having data available for transmission and not previously selected within one transmission control period, as a destination of one of a plurality of direct communication transmissions;
• and
• generates sidelink control information that identifies the selected destination group and that identifies the radio resource allocated to the corresponding sidelink grant;
• and
• transmission circuitry, which is coupled to the control circuitry and which, in operation, controls the plurality of direct communication transmissions including the direct communication transmission destined to the selected sidelink destination group, wherein the plurality of direct communication transmissions of sidelink control information and data over a plurality of direct sidelink connections use the sidelink grants for the sidelink processes, respectively, within said one transmission control period, wherein a maximum number of the sidelink processes executable in parallel is configured for the user equipment by a base station;
• wherein the sidelink grants indicate time resource patterns, which define radio resources in a time domain, with different bitmap patterns between the plurality of direct communication transmissions.