Communications devices and methods

A communications device configured to receive data from a relay device, the communications device comprising

• a receiver configured to receive signals representing data from the relay device,
• a transmitter configured to transmit signals to the relay device, and
• a controller configured to control the transmitter to transmit the signals to the relay device and to control the receiver to receive the signals from the relay device, wherein the controller is configured in combination with the receiver and the transmitter
• to receive from the relay device a buffer status report message indicating that the relay device has data stored in a buffer for transmission to the communications device,
• to determine in response to the buffer status response message whether the communications device should receive the data from the buffer of the relay device,
• to transmit in response to the buffer status response message a scheduling request message to the relay device,
• to receive an indication of communications resource from the relay device in which the data is to be received, and
• to receive the data from the buffer of the relay device in the indicated communications resources.

A method of communicating using a communications device acting as a relay device, the method comprising

• receiving a buffer status report message from one or more of remote communications devices,
• receiving uplink data from the one or more remote communications devices for transmission to the infrastructure equipment,
• storing the received uplink data in the buffer, which should be transmitted to the infrastructure equipment,
• transmitting to the infrastructure equipment a representation of the buffer status report message received from each of the one or more remote communications devices indicating that the communications device acting as a relay node has uplink data for transmission to the infrastructure equipment,
• receiving from the infrastructure equipment in response to each of the transmitted buffer status report messages an indication of communications resources in which the uplink data is to be transmitted from the communications device acting as the relay device to the infrastructure equipment, and
• transmitting the uplink data from the buffer to the infrastructure equipment in the indicated communications resources.