Base station and method for resource allocation in a 3GPP LTE network

A base station configured to communicate with mobile stations in accordance with one of third generation partnership project Long Term Evolution (3GPP LTE) standards, the base station comprising:

• physical layer circuitry to receive scheduling requests within resource elements of an uplink channel, the requests indicating a need for a mobile station to be scheduled, wherein the requests are received through a plurality of antennas and detected using a diversity combining process, wherein at least two of the received scheduling requests are to be included in adjacent resource elements;
• and
• processing circuitry to determine a resource allocation for the mobile station and generate a mapping,
• wherein the physical layer circuitry is to transmit the mapping on a downlink that indicates resources allocated,
• wherein when the request is received on a non-contention channel, the request is received within an assigned resource configured with an orthogonal sequence.

Signal processing circuitry comprising:

• circuitry configured to process scheduling requests that are received within resource elements of an uplink channel, the requests indicating a need for a mobile station to be scheduled, the requests being received through a plurality of antennas and detected using a diversity combining process, wherein at least two of the received scheduling requests are to be included in adjacent resource elements;
• and
• circuitry configured to determine a resource allocation for the mobile station and to generate a mapping for transmission on a downlink to indicate resources allocated to the mobile station,
• wherein when the request is received on a non-contention channel, the request is received within an assigned resource configured with an orthogonal sequence for an antenna, and
• wherein the uplink channel is either a contention channel or a non-contention channel.