Apparatus and method for iot control channel

An apparatus, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• a processor in communication with the memory and arranged to cause a user equipment (UE) for narrowband internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) communication to:
• monitor signals on a first transmission bandwidth for a narrowband system with the first transmission bandwidth comprising a single physical resource block bandwidth;
• blind decode one or more narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) search space candidates by processing a first physical resource block of the first transmission bandwidth and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of a first subframe, wherein said blind decoding comprises attempting to blind decode one or more NB-PDCCH search space candidates of a plurality of NB-PDCCH search space candidates, wherein each of the plurality of NB-PDCCH search space candidates are defined using a pair of an aggregation level (AL) and a repetition level (RL) to monitor, wherein the AL is defined as a number of narrowband control channel elements used within a subframe for NB-PDCCH transmission and the RL is defined as a number of subframes over which the narrowband control channel element(s) are repeated in a time dimension;
• and
• extract modulated symbols of a control channel transmission after successful blind decoding of a first NB-PDCCH search space candidate.

A method for operating a user equipment (UE) for narrowband internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) communication, the method comprising:

• monitoring signals on a first transmission bandwidth for a narrowband system with the first transmission bandwidth comprising a single physical resource block bandwidth;
• blind decoding one or more narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH) search space candidates by processing a first physical resource block of the first transmission bandwidth and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of a first subframe, wherein said blind decoding comprises attempting to blind decode one or more NB-PDCCH search space candidates of a plurality of NB-PDCCH search space candidates, wherein each of the plurality of NB-PDCCH search space candidates are defined using a pair of an aggregation level (AL) and a repetition level (RL) to monitor, wherein the AL is defined as a number of narrowband control channel elements used within a subframe for NB-PDCCH transmission and the RL is defined as a number of subframes over which the narrowband control channel element(s) are repeated in a time dimension;
• and
• extracting modulated symbols of a control channel transmission after successful blind decoding of a first NB-PDCCH search space candidate.

An apparatus of a base station for encoding control channel signals for narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) communications, the apparatus comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• a processor in communication with the memory and arranged to:
• encode a first control channel transmission using a first physical resource block of a first transmission bandwidth for a narrowband system and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed symbols of a first subframe;
• and
• transmit the first control channel transmission to a user equipment (UE) over a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NB-PDCCH), wherein the first control channel transmission comprises a first NB-PDCCH candidate for the UE to attempt to blind decode, wherein the NB-PDCCH candidate is selected from a plurality of NB-PDCCH candidates, wherein each of the plurality of NB-PDCCH search space candidates are defined using a pair of an aggregation level (AL) and a repetition level (RL) for monitoring, wherein the AL is defined as a number of narrowband control channel elements used within a subframe for the first control channel transmission and the RL is defined as a number of subframes over which the narrowband control channel element(s) are repeated in a time dimension.