Radio Base Station and User Equipment and Methods Therein

A user equipment for transmitting uplink control information in time slots of a subframe over a radio channel to a radio base station, wherein the uplink control information is comprised in a block of bits, and wherein the user equipment comprises

• a mapping circuit configured to map the block of bits to a sequence of complex valued modulation symbols;
• a block spreading circuit configured to block spread the sequence of complex valued modulation symbols across Discrete Fourier Transform Spread—Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFTS-OFDM) symbols by applying a spreading sequence to the sequence of complex valued modulation symbols, such that different sets of complex valued modulation symbols are respectively allocated to different DFTS-OFDM symbols;
• a cyclic shift circuit configured to cyclically shift each said set of complex valued modulation symbols in dependence on at least one of a DFTS-OFDM symbol index and a slot index;
• a transforming circuit configured to Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) transform each shifted set of complex valued modulation symbols;
• and
• a transmitter configured to transmit the DFT transformed sets of complex valued modulation symbols over the radio channel to the radio base station.

A method in a terminal for transmitting uplink control information in a slot of a subframe over a channel to a base station in a wireless communication system, wherein the uplink control information is comprised in a code word, and wherein the method comprises:

• mapping the code word to modulation symbols;
• block spreading the modulation symbols across Discrete Fourier Transform Spread—Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFTS-OFDM) symbols by repeating the modulation symbols for each DFTS-OFDM symbol and applying a block spreading sequence of weight factors to the repeated modulation symbols, to achieve a respective weighted copy of the modulation symbols for each DFTS-OFDM symbol;
• cyclically shifting each said weighted copy in dependence on at least one of a DFTS-OFDM symbol index and a slot index;
• Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) transforming each weighted copy, as cyclically shifted;
• and
• transmitting, on each DFTS-OFDM symbol, the respective weighted copy of the modulation symbols, as transformed, to the base station.

A method in a terminal for transmitting uplink control information in a slot of a subframe over a channel to a base station in a wireless communication system, wherein the uplink control information is comprised in a block of bits, and wherein the method comprises:

• scrambling the block of bits in dependence on at least one of a Discrete Fourier Transform Spread—Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFTS-OFDM) symbol index and a slot index;
• mapping the scrambled block of bits to a sequence of complex valued modulation symbols;
• block spreading the sequence of complex valued modulation symbols across DFTS-OFDM symbols by applying a spreading sequence to the sequence of complex valued modulation symbols, to obtain a block spread sequence of complex valued modulation symbols;
• Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) transforming the block spread sequence of complex valued modulation symbols in dependence on at least one of a DFTS-OFDM symbol index and a slot index;
• and
• transmitting the DFT transformed block spread sequence over the radio channel to the radio base station.