Methods and apparatus for an uplink control channel in NOMA asynchronous transmissions

A method for managing communications with user equipments by a base station over a wireless link, the method comprising:

• establishing a group user equipment-identifier (a group UE-ID) for a subset of user equipments included in a plurality of user equipments by deriving the group UE-ID from at least a user equipment-specific identifier (a UE-specific ID) assigned to a user equipment included in the plurality of user equipments;
• transmitting a non-orthogonal multiple access configuration message to the plurality of user equipments using the wireless link, the non-orthogonal multiple access configuration message including a plurality of multiple access signatures and available time-frequency resources for uplink transmissions from the plurality of user equipments;
• detecting a non-orthogonal multiple access uplink transmission in a first time-frequency resource of the available time-frequency resources and based on the group UE-ID, the non-orthogonal multiple access uplink transmission including a multiple access signature from the plurality of multiple access signatures and uplink control information;
• and
• receiving a non-orthogonal multiple access uplink data transmission, from the user equipment, in a second time-frequency resource of the available time-frequency resources based at least on the uplink control information.

A user equipment comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory system storing processor-executable instructions that, responsive to execution by the processor, direct the user equipment to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a non-orthogonal multiple access configuration message from a base station, the non-orthogonal multiple access configuration message including a plurality of multiple access signatures and available time-frequency resources for uplink transmissions;
• deriving a group user equipment identifier (a group UE-ID) from at least a user equipment-specific identifier (a UE-specific ID) assigned to the user equipment, the group UE-ID corresponding to a group of user equipments that includes the user equipment;
• while operating in a radio resource control inactive (RRC inactive) state or a radio resource control idle (RRC idle) state, selecting, for at least a first uplink transmission, a multiple access signature from the plurality of multiple access signatures;
• transmitting, using an uplink control channel, uplink control information in the first uplink transmission using a first time-frequency resource of the available time-frequency resources and the selected multiple access signature;
• and
• transmitting, using an uplink data channel, uplink data in a second uplink transmission using a second time-frequency resource of the available time-frequency resources and at least based on the uplink control information.