Methods and Apparatus for Control Channel Detection in An Uplink Shared Channel

A network device configured to obtain control information for wireless communication channels for a communications network, comprising:

• a descrambler configured to descramble radio frequency (“RF”) signals from an uplink shared channel for generating a descrambled bit stream;
• a first extraction and soft combiner coupled to the descrambler and configured to extract first soft bits relating to a channel quality indicator (“CQI”) from a time-frequency resource grid and combine the first soft bits to produce a first soft bit stream representing the CQI via the descrambled bit stream from the descrambler;
• a second extraction and soft combiner coupled to the descrambler and configured to extract second soft bits relating to an acknowledgement (“ACK”) from the time-frequency resource grid and combine the second soft bits to produce a second soft bit stream representing the ACK via the descrambled bit stream from the descrambler;
• and
• a third extraction and soft combiner coupled to the descrambler and configured to extract third soft bits relating to a rank indicator (“RI”) from the time-frequency resource grid and combine the third soft bits to produce a third soft bit stream representing the RI via the descrambled bit stream from the descrambler.

A method of obtaining control information relating to wireless communication channels for a communications network, comprising:

• descrambling radio frequency (“RF”) signals from an uplink shared channel to generate a descrambled bit stream;
• extracting acknowledgement (“ACK”) bits from a time-frequency resource grid by a first extraction and soft combiner via the descrambled bit stream and combining the ACK bits to produce an ACK soft bit stream;
• extracting channel quality indicator (“CQI”) bits from the time-frequency resource grid by a second extraction and soft combiner via the descrambled bit stream and combining the CQI bits to produce an CQI soft bit stream;
• and
• extracting rank indicator (“RI”) bits from the time-frequency resource grid by a third extraction and soft combiner via the descrambled bit stream and combining the RI bits to produce a RI soft bit stream.