CN110168999B - User Equipment (UE) device and method thereof, and gNB device and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

Systems and methods for enabling unlicensed transmission are disclosed. The UE receives a Transmission Pattern (TP) for the unlicensed transmission. The transmission patterns are arranged in a resource pool comprising frequency and time domain resource pool configurations. The TPs are formed from cell-specific or cell group-specific orthogonal transmission patterns or UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns. The frequency is indicated by a bitmap or starting frequency and the number of consecutive frequency units. The time configuration is indicated by a bitmap or by an offset, the number of consecutive frequency cells and the period. The frequency and time domain resource pool configurations are periodically changed.

Description

User Equipment (UE) device and method thereof, and gNB device and method thereof

Priority

This application claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application serial No. 62/455,439, entitled "RELIABLE unlicensed upload link TRANSMISSION with GRANT IN NR URLLC (RELIABLE unlicensed upload link TRANSMISSION in NR URLLC"), filed on 6/2/2017, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

Embodiments relate to radio access networks. Certain embodiments relate to low latency communications, and more particularly to ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) in cellular networks including third generation partnership project long term evolution (3GPP LTE) networks and LTE-advanced (LTE-a) networks, as well as legacy 4 th generation (4G) networks and 5 th generation (5G) networks.

Background

The use of 3GPP LTE systems, including LTE and LTE-advanced systems, has grown due to the increase in device types of User Equipment (UEs) that use network resources, as well as the amount of data and bandwidth used by various applications (e.g., video streaming) operating on these UEs. As a result, the 3GPP LTE system continues to evolve by means of the next generation wireless communication system 5G (or New Radio (NR)) to improve access to information and data sharing. NR systems seek to satisfy the vastly different and sometimes conflicting performance dimensions and services driven by different services and applications, while maintaining compatibility with legacy UEs and applications. NR systems may be designed to increase the available UE data rate to peak data rates in excess of 10Gps, support a large number of Machine Type Communication (MTC) UEs, and support low latency communications. New types of communications, including URLLC, may continue to be developed due to changes in the types of communications.

Drawings

In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar members in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar members. The drawings illustrate by way of example, and not by way of limitation, various embodiments discussed in the present document.

Fig. 1 illustrates an architecture of a network system in accordance with certain embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates example components of a device according to some embodiments.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example interface of a baseband circuit in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 4 is a diagram of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 5 is a diagram of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 6 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

Fig. 7A illustrates grant-based uplink transmissions, in accordance with certain embodiments; fig. 7B illustrates an unlicensed uplink transmission in accordance with certain embodiments.

Fig. 8 illustrates an unlicensed uplink transmission in accordance with certain embodiments.

FIG. 9 illustrates bitmap-based allocation in accordance with certain embodiments.

Fig. 10 illustrates a time pattern of a single transmission prior to acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) feedback, in accordance with certain embodiments.

Fig. 11 illustrates a time pattern of bundled transmissions with single ACK/NACK feedback, in accordance with certain embodiments.

Fig. 12 illustrates a time pattern for bundled transmission with multiple ACK/NACK feedbacks, in accordance with certain embodiments.

Detailed Description

The following description and the drawings sufficiently illustrate specific embodiments to enable those skilled in the art to practice them. Other embodiments may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, and other changes. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in, or substituted for, those of others. Embodiments set forth in the claims encompass all available equivalents of those claims.

Fig. 1 illustrates an architecture of a system 100 of networks, in accordance with some embodiments. System 100 is shown to include a User Equipment (UE)101 and a UE 102. UEs 101 and 102 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as a Personal Data Assistant (PDA), pager, laptop computer, desktop computer, wireless handset, or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

In certain embodiments, any of the UEs 101 and 102 can include an internet of things (IoT) UE, which can include a network access stratum designed for low power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. IoT UEs can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or Machine Type Communication (MTC) to exchange data with MTC servers or devices via Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMNs), proximity-based services (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC data exchange may be a machine initiated data exchange. An IoT network describes interconnected IoT UEs that may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the internet infrastructure) with short-term connections. The IoT UE may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connection of the IoT network.

UEs 101 and 102 may be configured to connect with (e.g., communicatively couple with) a Radio Access Network (RAN) 110-RAN 110 may be, for example, an evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), a next generation RAN (ng RAN), or other type of RAN. UEs 101 and 102 utilize connections 103 and 104, respectively, where each connection includes a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as air interfaces to enable communicative coupling and can be consistent with a cellular communication protocol, such as a global system for mobile communications (GSM) protocol, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network protocol, a push-to-talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over cellular (poc) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a 5G/NR protocol, and so forth.

In this embodiment, the UEs 101 and 102 may further exchange communication data directly via the ProSe interface 105. Alternatively, the ProSe interface 105 may be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including, but not limited to, a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelink shared channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).

UE 102 is shown configured to access an Access Point (AP)106 via a connection 107. The connection 107 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where the AP 106 would comprise a wireless fidelity (wifi) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown connected to the internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

RAN 110 can include one or more access nodes that enable connections 103 and 104. These Access Nodes (ANs) can be referred to as Base Stations (BSs), nodebs, evolved nodebs (enbs), next generation nodebs (gigabit NodeB-gnnbs), RAN nodes, etc., and can include ground stations (e.g., ground access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). RAN 110 may include one or more RAN nodes (e.g., macro RAN node 111) to provide a macro cell, and one or more RAN nodes (e.g., Low Power (LP) RAN node 112) to provide a femto cell or a pico cell (e.g., a cell with smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to the macro cell).

Either of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 101 and 102. In certain embodiments, any of RAN nodes 111 and 112 is capable of satisfying various logical functions of RAN 110, including, but not limited to, Radio Network Controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

In accordance with certain embodiments, UEs 101 and 102 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of RAN nodes 111 and 112 over a multicarrier communication channel using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) communication signals in accordance with various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or side-link communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal can include a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some embodiments, the downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 to the UEs 101 and 102, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is a physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is common practice for OFDM systems, which makes radio resource allocation intuitive. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in the resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid includes a plurality of resource blocks that describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a set of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the minimum amount of resources that can currently be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels transmitted using such resource blocks.

The Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher layer signaling to UEs 101 and 102. A Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) may carry information on a transport format and resource allocation related to a PDSCH channel, etc. It may also inform UEs 101 and 102 of transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 102 within a cell) may be performed at any of RAN nodes 111 and 112 based on channel quality information fed back from any of UEs 101 and 102. The downlink resource allocation information may be transmitted on a PDCCH used for (e.g., allocated to) each of UEs 101 and 102.

The PDCCH may transmit control information using Control Channel Elements (CCEs). The PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets before mapping to resource elements, and then the quadruplets may be permuted using a subblock interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as Resource Element Groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of Downlink Control Information (DCI) and channel conditions. There are four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L ═ 1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, certain embodiments may utilize an Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more Enhanced Control Channel Elements (ECCEs). Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as Enhanced Resource Element Groups (EREGs). In some cases, an ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

RAN 110 is shown communicatively coupled to a Core Network (CN)120 via an SI interface 113. In embodiments, the CN 120 may be an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network, a next generation packet core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN. In this embodiment, the S1 interface 113 is divided into two parts: an S1-U interface 114, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes 111 and 112 and the serving gateway (S-GW)122, and an S1-Mobility Management Entity (MME) interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 111 and 112 and the MME 121.

In this embodiment, CN 120 includes MME121, S-GW122, Packet Data Network (PDN) gateway (P-GW)123, and Home Subscriber Server (HSS) 124. MME121 may be similar in function to the control plane of a conventional serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) support node (SGSN). MME121 may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. HSS 124 may include a database for network users including subscription-related information for supporting network entities to handle communication sessions. The CN 120 may include one or several HSS 124 depending on the number of mobile users, the capabilities of the devices, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 124 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, and the like.

The S-GW122 may terminate S1 interface 113 towards RAN 110 and route data packets between RAN 110 and CN 120. In addition, S-GW122 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handover and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, billing, and some policy enforcement.

The P-GW 123 may terminate the SGi interface towards the PDN. P-GW 123 may route data packets between EPC network 123 and an external network, such as a network including application server 130 (alternatively referred to as an Application Function (AF)), via Internet Protocol (IP) interface 125. In general, the application server 130 may be an element that provides applications (e.g., UMTS Packet Service (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.) that use IP bearer resources with the core network. In this embodiment, P-GW 123 is shown communicatively coupled to application server 130 via an IP communications interface 125. The application server 130 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., voice over internet protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) of the UEs 101 and 102 via the CN 120.

The P-GW 123 may also be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. A Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF)126 is a policy and charging control element of the CN 120. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in a Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with an internet protocol connectivity access network (IP-CAN) session of the UE. In a roaming scenario with local traffic bursts, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of the UE: a home PCRF (H-PCRF) within the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). PCRF 126 may be communicatively coupled to application server 130 via P-GW 123. Application server 130 may signal PCRF 126 to indicate the new traffic flow and select the appropriate quality of service (QoS) and charging parameters. PCRF 126 may employ an appropriate Traffic Flow Template (TFT) and QoS type identifier (QCI) to specify the rules in a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) that initiates the QoS and charging specified by application server 130.

FIG. 2 illustrates example components of a device 200, in accordance with certain embodiments. In some embodiments, device 200 may include application circuitry 202, baseband circuitry 204, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 206, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 208, one or more antennas 210, and Power Management Circuitry (PMC)212, coupled together at least as shown. The illustrated components of the apparatus 200 may be included in a UE or RAN node. In some embodiments, the apparatus 200 may include fewer elements (e.g., the RAN node may not utilize the application circuitry 202, but rather includes a processor/controller to process IP data received from the EPC). In certain embodiments, device 200 may include additional elements, such as memory/storage, a display, a camera, a sensor, or an input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., the circuitry may be included separately in multiple devices for a cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementation).

The application circuitry 202 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 202 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor may include any combination of general-purpose processors and special-purpose processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processor may be coupled with or include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the device 200. In some embodiments, the processor of the application circuitry 202 may process IP data packets received from the EPC.

The baseband circuitry 204 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. Baseband circuitry 204 may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of RF circuitry 206 and to generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of RF circuitry 206. The baseband processing circuitry 204 may interface with the application circuitry 202 for generating and processing baseband signals, and for controlling the operation of the RF circuitry 206. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor 204A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 204B, a 5G/NR baseband processor 204C, or other baseband processor(s) 204D for other existing generations, generations in development, or generations to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation (2G), sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 204 (e.g., one or more of the baseband processors 204A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 206. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of the baseband processors 204A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 204G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 204E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, and the like. In some embodiments, the modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 204 may include Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In certain embodiments, the encoding/decoding circuitry of baseband circuitry 204 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and may include other suitable functions in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may include one or more audio Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) 204F. The audio DSP 204F may include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. In some embodiments, the components of the baseband circuitry may be combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board, as appropriate. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 204 and the application circuitry 202 may be implemented together (e.g., on a system on a chip (SOC)).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may provide for communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 204 may support communication with an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN) or other Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 204 is configured to support radio communications of multiple wireless protocols may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

The RF circuitry 206 may enable communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium and using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 206 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, and the like to facilitate communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 206 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from FEM circuitry 208 and provide baseband signals to baseband circuitry 204. RF circuitry 206 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by baseband circuitry 204 and provide RF output signals to FEM circuitry 208 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of RF circuitry 206 may include mixer circuitry 206A, amplifier circuitry 206B, and filter circuitry 206C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of RF circuitry 206 may include filter circuitry 206C and mixer circuitry 206A. RF circuitry 206 may also include synthesizer circuitry 206D to synthesize the frequencies used by mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuitry 208 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 206D. The amplifier circuit 206B may be configured to amplify the downconverted signal and the filter circuit 206C may be a Low Pass Filter (LPF) or a Band Pass Filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the downconverted signal to produce an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to baseband circuitry 204 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, but this is not required. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 206A of the receive signal path may comprise a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert the input baseband signal based on a synthesis frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 206D to generate an RF output signal for the FEM circuitry 208. The baseband signal may be provided by the baseband circuitry 204 and may be filtered by the filter circuitry 206C.

In some embodiments, mixer circuit 206A of the receive signal path and mixer circuit 206A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, mixer circuit 206A and mixer circuit 206A of the receive signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 206A of the receive signal path and mixer circuit 206A of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, RF circuitry 206 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and baseband circuitry 204 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with RF circuitry 206.

In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuits may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 206D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N +1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. Synthesizer circuit 206D may be, for example, a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuit 206D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by the mixer circuit 206A of the RF circuit 206. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 206D may be a fractional N/N +1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), but this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by the baseband circuitry 204 or the application processor 202, depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on the channel indicated by the application processor 202.

Synthesizer circuit 206D of RF circuit 206 may include frequency dividers, Delay Locked Loops (DLLs), multiplexers, and phase accumulators. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual-mode divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a Digital Phase Accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N +1 (e.g., based on a carry bit) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable delay cells, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to decompose the VCO period into Nd equal phase packets, where Nd is the number of delay cells in the delay line. In this manner, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 206D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with a quadrature generator and frequency divider circuit to produce multiple signals at the carrier frequency having multiple different phases from one another. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 206 may include an IQ/polarity converter.

FEM circuitry 208 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 210, amplify the received signals, and provide amplified versions of the received signals to RF circuitry 206 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 208 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals provided by the RF circuitry 206 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 210. In various embodiments, amplification by the transmit or receive signal path may be done only in the RF circuitry 206, only in the FEM208, or both the RF circuitry 206 and the FEM 208.

In certain embodiments, FEM circuitry 208 may include TX/RX switches to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry may include an LNA to amplify the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to RF circuitry 206). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 208 may include: a Power Amplifier (PA) to amplify an input RF signal (e.g., the signal provided by RF circuitry 206); and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 210).

In some embodiments, PMC 212 may manage power provided to baseband circuitry 204. In particular, PMC 212 may control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC 212 may often be included when the device 200 is capable of being powered by a battery (e.g., when the device is included in a UE). The PMC 212 may improve power conversion efficiency while providing desired implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics.

Although fig. 2 shows the PMC 212 coupled only to the baseband circuitry 204, in other embodiments, the PMC 212 may additionally or alternatively be coupled to and perform similar power management operations for other components, such as, but not limited to, the application circuitry 202, the RF circuitry 206, or the FEM 208.

In some embodiments, PMC 212 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of device 200. For example, if the device 200 is in an RRC _ Connected (RRC _ Connected) state (where it is still Connected to the RAN node because it wishes to receive traffic for a short time), it may enter a state known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device 200 may be powered down for a brief interval of time, thus saving power.

The device 200 may transition to the RRC idle state if there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time. In the RRC idle state, the device 200 may disconnect from the network and refrain from performing operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. Device 200 may enter a very low power state and perform paging, where device 200 may wake up periodically to listen to the network and then power down again. To receive the data, the device 200 may transition back to the RRC _ connected state.

The additional power saving mode may allow the period for which the device is unavailable to the network to be longer than the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device has no access to the network at all and may be completely powered down. Any data transmitted during this period will incur a large delay and the delay is assumed to be acceptable.

The processor of the application circuitry 202 and the processor of the baseband circuitry 204 may be used to execute the elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuitry 204 (alone or in combination) may be used to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuitry 204 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., Transmission Communication Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) layers). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, layer 2 may include a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, and a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, as described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may comprise the Physical (PHY) layer of the UE/RAN node, as will be described in further detail below.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example interface of a baseband circuit in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry 204 of fig. 2 may include processors 204A-XT04E and memory 204G used by the processors. The processors 204A-XT04E may each include a memory interface 304A-XU04E, respectively, to transmit/receive data to/from memory 204G.

The baseband circuitry 204 may also include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitry/devices, such as a memory interface 312 (e.g., an interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from memory external to baseband circuitry 204), an application circuitry interface 314 (e.g., an interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from application circuitry 202 of fig. 2), an RF circuitry interface 316 (e.g., an interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from RF circuitry 206 of fig. 2), a wireless hardware connection interface 318 (e.g., an interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, bluetooth components (e.g., bluetooth low power), Wi-Fi components, and other communication components), and a power management interface 320 (e.g., an interface for transmitting/receiving power or control signals to/from PMC 212).

Fig. 4 is a diagram of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, control plane 400 is shown as a communication protocol stack between UE101 (or optionally UE 102), RAN node 111 (or optionally RAN node 112), and MME 121.

PHY layer 401 may transmit or receive information used by MAC layer 402 over one or more air interfaces. The PHY layer 401 may also perform link adaptive or Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers such as the RRC layer 405. PHY layer 401 may also perform error detection for the transport channels, Forward Error Correction (FEC) encoding/decoding of the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of the physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to the physical channels, and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna processing.

The MAC layer 402 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC Service Data Units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels into Transport Blocks (TBs) to be delivered to the PHY via the transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs into one or more logical channels from Transport Blocks (TBs) to be delivered from the PHY via the transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs into TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction by hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization.

The RLC layer 403 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC layer 403 may perform transmission of upper layer Protocol Data Units (PDUs), error correction by automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transmission, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission. The RLC layer 403 may also perform re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfer, re-ordering RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfer, detecting duplicate data for UM and AM data transfer, discarding RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfer, detecting protocol errors for AM data transfer, and performing RLC re-establishment.

The PDCP layer 404 can perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of upper layer PDUs in reconstructing lower layers, eliminate duplication of lower layer SDUs for radio bearers mapped on the RLCAM in reconstructing lower layers, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

The main services and functions of the RRC layer 405 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in a Master Information Block (MIB) or a System Information Block (SIB) related to a non-access stratum (NAS)), broadcasting of system information related to an Access Stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance, and release of RRC connections between UEs and the E-UTRAN (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter-Radio Access Technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration of UEs. The MIB and SIBs may include one or more Information Elements (IEs), each of which may include a separate data field or data structure.

The UE101 and RAN node 111 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., LTE-Uu interface) to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack including a PHY layer 401, a MAC layer 402, an RLC layer 403, a PDCP layer 404, and an RRC layer 405.

Non-access stratum (NAS) protocol 406 forms the highest layer of the control plane between UE101 and MME 121. NAS protocol 406 supports mobility and session management procedures for UE101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE101 and P-GW 123.

The S1 application protocol (S1-AP) layer 415 may support the functionality of the S1 interface and include basic procedures (EP). An EP is an interworking unit between the RAN node 111 and the CN 120. The S1-AP layer traffic may include two groups: UE-associated traffic and non-UE-associated traffic. The functions performed by these services include, but are not limited to: E-UTRAN radio access bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transport.

Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer (alternatively referred to as SCTP/IP layer) 414 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between RAN node 111 and MME121 based in part on IP protocols supported by IP layer 413. The L2 layer 412 and the L1 layer 411 may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN nodes and MME to exchange information.

RAN node 111 and MME121 may exchange control plane data via a protocol stack including L1 layer 411, L2 layer 412, IP layer 413, SCTP layer 414, and S1-AP layer 415 using the S1-MME interface.

Fig. 5 is a diagram of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, user plane 500 is shown as a communication protocol stack between UE101 (or optionally UE 102), RAN node 111 (or optionally RAN node 112), S-GW122, and P-GW 123. The user plane 500 may use at least some of the same protocol layers as the control plane 400. For example, the UE101 and RAN node 111 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., LTE-Uu interface) to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including a PHY layer 401, a MAC layer 402, an RLC layer 403, a PDCP layer 404.

A General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) layer 504 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the user data transmitted can be in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats. UDP and IP security (UDP/IP) layer 503 may provide a checksum of data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data streams. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW122 may exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer 411, an L2 layer 412, a UDP/IP layer 503, and a GTP-U layer 504 using an S1-U interface. The S-GW122 and P-GW 123 may exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including L1 layer 411, L2 layer 412, UDP/IP layer 503, and GTP-U layer 504 using the S5/S8a interface. As discussed above with respect to fig. 4, the NAS protocol supports mobility and session management procedures for the UE101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between the UE101 and the P-GW 123.

Fig. 6 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments. In particular, fig. 6 shows a graphical representation of hardware resources 600, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 610, one or more memory/storage devices 620, and one or more communication resources 630, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 640. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, hypervisor 602 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/subslices to utilize hardware resources 600.

Processor 610 (e.g., a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 612 and a processor 614.

Memory/storage device 620 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage 620 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid state memory, and the like.

The communication resources 630 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripherals 604 or one or more databases 606 via the network 608. For example, communication resources 630 can include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, bluetooth components (e.g., bluetooth low energy), Wi-Fi components, and other communication components.

The instructions 650 may include software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 610 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 650 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 610 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), within the memory/storage 620, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the instructions 650 may reside on a tangible, non-volatile communication device-readable medium, which may include a single medium or multiple media. Further, any portion of instructions 650 may be communicated to hardware resource 600 from any combination of peripherals 604 or database 606. Thus, the memory of the processor 610, the memory/storage 620, the peripherals 604, and the database 606 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

As described above, with the advent of NR systems, other types of communication are currently being developed in addition to the types of communication developed for 4G systems. This type of communication includes URLLC and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) communication. URLLC may have a very tight delay bound of 0.5-1ms (compared to a more normal delay of > 4 ms). Such limitations may result in support of dynamically scheduled uplink transmissions and grant-free transmissions. These transmissions may take advantage of the following benefits: the transmission of a Scheduling Request (SR) on PUCCH from the UE to the gNB to schedule Uplink (UL) resources for a new transmission from the UE and the grant on PDCCH from the gNB to the UE to access the resources are eliminated.

Fig. 7A illustrates grant-based uplink transmissions, in accordance with certain embodiments; fig. 7B illustrates an unlicensed uplink transmission in accordance with certain embodiments. The transmission may be in a FDD system based on a mini-slot of 0.071 ms. By using dynamically scheduled uplink and grant-free transmissions, the delay target can be achieved within about 99.999%. As shown in fig. 7A, grant-based uplink transmission 710 may be triggered by the UE transmitting SR712 on the UL channel to the gbb to indicate that the UE has data to send to the gbb. The gNB may respond by transmitting a grant 714 to the UE on a Downlink (DL) channel for a later predetermined amount of time (e.g., 2 subframes). The grant 714 may indicate the timing of the UL transmission, as well as the UL channel to be used. The UE may respond to receiving the grant 714 by transmitting data 716 on an allocated UL channel (shown in fig. 7A as the same UL channel that sent SR 712). The gNB may then send another grant or ACK/NACK 718. In contrast, in fig. 7B, the unlicensed UL transmission 720 may include only the UE transmitting data on a predetermined UL channel (e.g., as provided in RRC signaling). The gNB may send an ACK/NACK in response to the data. Similar to fig. 7A, the UE may periodically send data and the gNB responds with an ACK/NACK.

URLLC may involve two general types of traffic: periodic and sporadic. For periodic traffic (such as reference signals and reporting transmissions), the time of arrival and packet size may be known by the gNB. In this case, an unlicensed transmission scheme with orthogonal resource reservation may be optimal. For sporadic traffic, messages can be generated at random times, often with unpredictable packet generation rates. In this case, reserving resources for each associated user in an orthogonal manner may result in unsatisfactory resource utilization and system capacity. Non-orthogonal (contention-based) unlicensed resource allocation may provide better resource utilization for sporadic types of traffic. However, it should be noted that the unlicensed resource allocation is designed to meet the above-mentioned reliability of URLLC. For example, due to periodic resource reservation and forced UE transmissions, semi-static unlicensed transmission scheduling (SPS) may not be suitable for NR URLLC services even if the UE has no data to transmit. Furthermore, SPS may employ DCI activation and deactivation (layer 1 signaling), as opposed to unlicensed resource allocations that can be used immediately by the UE once scheduled; that is, transmission by the UE using the unlicensed resource allocation may be free of layer 1 signaling in the UE. Alternatively, contention-based unlicensed transmissions with random resource selection may be used, but the reliability target may not be guaranteed due to uncontrolled interference and the probability of persistent collisions.

Thus, the following provides a framework for resource configuration and adaptation for unlicensed transmission with sufficient control, including resource configuration, signaling, and retransmission schemes. These schemes may provide ultra-reliable and spectrally efficient operation for unlicensed uplink transmission schemes. In some embodiments, these and other concepts may also be applicable to grant-based uplink operations or a combination of grant-free and grant-based schemes.

Fig. 8 illustrates an unlicensed uplink transmission in accordance with certain embodiments. Fig. 8 may indicate a frequency-time resource configuration 800 that is notified by the gNB shown in one or more of fig. 1-6 to the UE shown in one or more of fig. 1-6. As described above, the gNB may send an indication of resource configuration 800 in control signaling, such as RRC signaling. Resource configuration 800 may include a pool of transmission resources 808. The transmission resource pool 808 may be a subset of resources from a common set of transmission resources (e.g., from all uplink shared channel resources). In various embodiments, the transmission resource pool 808 may be UE-specific, UE group-specific (for a particular UE group associated with a particular group ID), or cell-specific. As discussed in more detail below, the pool of transmission resources 808 may be used to allocate exclusive or partially overlapping resources for unlicensed transmissions in a cell, or to organize frequency/time reuse between different cells or different portions of a cell (e.g., cell center and cell edge). One of the IEs in the RRC signaling may be used to provide the active carriers for the bitmap, although other IEs may be used to provide the carrier range.

Transmission resource pool 808 may contain one or more frequency resource units 802 and one or more time resource units 804. The frequency resource unit 802 is a minimum portion of a logical frequency band assumed to be a single frequency resource. For example, frequency resource elements 802 may be measured in Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs). The logical to physical resource mapping may be distributed or centralized in frequency. The time resource unit 804 is a minimum portion of time assumed to be a single time resource. For example, in various embodiments, the duration granularity of the time resource elements 804 may be a mini-slot, a set of OFDM symbols, a slot, or a subframe. The transmission resource pool 808 may contain one or more transmission resource units. The transmission resource elements may be schedulable time-frequency resource elements. One frequency resource unit 802 allocated in one time resource unit 804 may constitute the smallest transmission resource unit. A set of transmission resource units within transmission resource pool 808 may be used for transmission and retransmission of transport blocks. The set of transmission resource units may be referred to as a transmission pattern 806 and may be UE-specific or UE-group specific. One or more transmission patterns 806 for one or more UEs or groups of UEs may exist in a single pool of transmission resources 808. As shown in fig. 8, the transmission patterns 806 may include the same number of frequency resource units 802 and/or time resource units 804, but in other embodiments, the number of one or both may differ between transmission patterns 806. Similarly, the transmission patterns 806 may be arranged in the same frequency resource unit 802 or time resource unit 804, but at least one may be different for different transmission patterns 806.

The resource pool configuration may be based on determining transmission resources for each time instant. In some embodiments, the bitmap approach may be used for frequency domain resource pool configuration; FIG. 9 illustrates bitmap-based allocation in accordance with certain embodiments. The bitmap-based allocation may indicate a frequency-time resource configuration used by the gNB shown in one or more of fig. 1-6 for one or more of fig. 1-6. As shown in fig. 9, one or more bit strings may be used to determine the logical frequency resources allocated to a particular resource pool. The number of bits used for each frequency bit string may be less than or equal to the number of resources in the transmission resource pool. In some embodiments, the bit strings may be of equal length, while in other embodiments, the bit strings (e.g., for indicating temporal patterns) may be different. For example, as shown in fig. 9, a "0" in a particular position in the bit string may indicate that a resource is not allocated for transmission by the UE, and a "1" may indicate that a resource has been allocated for transmission by the UE.

In another embodiment, the resource pool configuration may be indicated by a starting frequency resource unit index and a number of consecutive resource units allocated to a particular resource pool. In addition, the resource pool configuration may span multiple subbands. In one example, the end index may be used to indicate where the second portion of the resource pool ends, thus providing two subbands (with the same number of consecutive resource units) in the transmission resource pool. Each subband may contain the same number of frequency resource units. In some embodiments, the transmission pattern may be indicated by a plurality of starting and a plurality of consecutive frequency resource units. The number of consecutive frequency resource units may be different for different starting frequency resource units. In addition, the start and/or number of consecutive frequency resource units may be different for different time resource units.

Alternatively, the resource pool may be configured as all frequency resources. In this case, access to the frequency resources may be controlled by the transmission pattern.

Similarly, the bitmap approach may be used for time domain resource pool configuration. As shown in fig. 9, bit strings may additionally or alternatively be used to determine the time resources allocated to a particular resource pool. Mapping of the bitmap to the slots or mini-slots or groups of OFDM symbols indicated by the respective bits is performed by the gNB using a modulo operation of the bitmap size. An offset from the anchor time instant (e.g., system frame number zero) may be configured for mapping of the bitmap. The individual bits may have the same size as the frequency map (e.g., a slot), or may have different sizes (e.g., the frequency bitmap may be a subframe).

Alternatively, the time domain resource pool configuration may use a periodic equation method. In this case, conventional mapping rules may be used, which may be described by an offset, the number of consecutive time resource units and a period. For example, the resource pool including each second mini-slot in a slot may be indicated by an offset of 0 or 1, by a period of 2, and by the number of units in the case of 1.

In some embodiments, the resource pool may include all available time resources in the uplink spectrum. In this case, access to time resources may be controlled by a transmission pattern configured to a particular UE.

The bitmap approach may be able to provide the best trade-off between signaling overhead and flexibility. The bitmap approach may signal frequency and/or time resources similar to the signaling of an Almost Blank Subframe (ABS) pattern or a side link resource pool. In some embodiments, the resource pool configuration may be a semi-static parameter of the cell. When semi-static parameters, the resource pool configuration may be indicated in one or more IEs of an RRC message, such as an RRC connection reconfiguration (RRCConnectionReconfiguration) message. In some embodiments, both system information and UE-specific RRC messages may be used. After reception, the UE may store the bit string (or periodic equation, depending on the method) in memory. In some embodiments, the gNB may reconfigure transmission parameters of the UE after the UE has not successfully received the transport blocks.

Different cells may be configured with a set of resource pools, which may be different. In general, the pool configuration may be left to the gNB implementation and vendor specific inter-cell optimization. However, in the case where the gNBs from different vendors operate nearby, the configuration of the pool may be coordinated using inter-gNB communication protocols such as for the X2-AP interface. In this case, the resource pool configuration may be exchanged using an X2-AP message. This may be desirable for a UE at a cell edge or a UE in a network with multiple small cells.

As described above, the transmission resource pattern configuration may be different in different transmission resource pools. For URLLC, two types of transmission patterns can be adapted to different situations: orthogonal Transmission Patterns (OTP) (type 1 transmission patterns) and quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns (QTP) (type 2 transmission patterns). The OTP may be a set of transmission patterns that do not overlap with each other. The group may be cell-specific or cell group-specific. In some embodiments, the cell-specific or cell group-specific transmission pattern may be located within the same transmission resource pool as at least one other gNB. This type of pattern may provide a completely orthogonal resource allocation between associated UEs if there are a sufficient number of resources and a relatively small number of UEs. In QTP, each pattern may overlap with one or more other patterns. In some embodiments, the overlap order N (i.e., overlap with up to N resources of other patterns) may be limited to a small value, e.g., 1 or 2, where N is _F -1 may be a maximum value. Note that if N is 0, the set becomes the type-1 transmission mode. In some embodiments, when high N is used, the gNB may use interference cancellation or rejection techniques.

The discussion of patterns can be divided into frequency domain patterns and time domain patterns. Either or both OTP or QTP may be used. OTP can be used when there are sufficient resources and there are a relatively small number of UEs, which can be provided in an orthogonal manner. QTP may have more patterns than OTP and thus may be used to improve resource utilization and spectral efficiency for unlicensed transmission of sporadic traffic. Potential collisions between patterns of different UEs transmitting simultaneously can be resolved by the gNB receive processing and retransmission scheduling.

The frequency domain transmission pattern may be defined by the variables: n is a radical of _F -a number of frequency resource units in a transmission resource pool, and K _F -a number of frequency resource units in the transmission pattern. The number of orthogonal patterns may be

Having at most K _F The number of quasi-orthogonal patterns of 1 overlapping resource may be nchosek (N) _F ，K _F ). As an example, the transmission resource pool size may be 24 PRBs. If the frequency resource unit is 3 PRBs, then N exists in the transmission resource pool _F 8 units. If each transmission pattern has two resource units, K _F 2. In this case, the number of orthogonal patterns is 4, and the number of quasi-orthogonal patterns is 28, as illustrated in table 1 below.

Table 1: having N _F Not more than 8 and K _F Frequency domain transmission pattern of 2

A set of frequency domain patterns may be configured to the UE by the gNB using RRC signaling. Different cells and/or UEs may have different pattern sets. May have different numbers of Ks depending on the channel quality and traffic demand of each UE _F Configured to the UE. For example, a UE with a larger data rate may be provided with a larger K than a UE with a small data rate _F The pattern of (2). The rules for selecting one pattern of the set may be defined and controlled by the gNB.

Similarly, the time domain transmission pattern may be OTP or QTP. Alternatively, a default scenario for the time-domain transmission pattern may be that every time unit in the transmission resource pool is available when a packet arrives at the UE, and possible collisions are resolved by frequency-domain partitioning. However, OTP or QTP time domain patterns may be useful for randomizing interference and collisions in intra-cell and inter-cell communications. The function describing the time domain pattern may count from the first slot or mini-slot in a subframe or frame. The time domain pattern may be configured by a bitmap or an equation featuring periodic occurrences of period values, offsets, and slot/mini-slot numbers in the occasion.

The time pattern may also indicate resources for initial transmission and retransmission. In this case, the round trip time of ACK/NACK feedback or retransmission grant (DCI) can be considered. Fig. 10 illustrates a time pattern of a single transmission prior to ACK/NACK feedback (or new grant) in accordance with certain embodiments. The temporal pattern may show an initial packet (data) transmission 1002 by a UE shown in one or more of fig. 1-6 and a single ACK/NACK 1004 sent by a gNB shown in one or more of fig. 1-6. Note that the packets and ACK/NACKs as other transmissions may be generated and encoded at the source (whether the UE or the gNB) and decoded and further processed at the destination (whether the gNB or the UE) all by processing circuitry in the respective devices.

In fig. 10, it may be assumed that one mini-slot is used for processing initial transmission, one mini-slot is used for ACK/NACK/grant transmission, and one mini-slot is used for processing at the UE. In general, there may be 3 mini-slot gaps between the initial transmission 1002 and the feedback-based retransmission 1004. Under these conditions, the temporal pattern may have at least 3 zeros, provided that there is no automatic repeat/retransmit, i.e. the repeat/retransmit is not based on feedback. In fig. 10, a single transmission may be allowed before the ACK/NACK is received.

However, in some cases, it may be desirable to increase the link budget of FIG. 10. Fig. 11 illustrates a time pattern of bundled transmissions with single ACK/NACK feedback, in accordance with certain embodiments. The time pattern may show an initial packet transmission by a UE shown in one or more of fig. 1-6, and a single ACK/NACK sent by a gNB shown in one or more of fig. 1-6. In FIG. 11, like TTI bundling and unlike FIG. 10, multiple (K, where K ≧ 1) automatic retransmissions can be scheduled prior to the time of feedback reception to improve the link budget. Thus, the initial transmission and at least one retransmission may occur prior to receiving the ACK/NACK/grant corresponding to the initial packet transmission.

In some cases, multiple ACK/NACK/grants may be used in response to the initial transmission to improve the link budget of the ACK/NACK/grants, rather than a single ACK/NACK/grant transmission. Fig. 12 illustrates a time pattern for bundled transmission with multiple ACK/NACK feedbacks, in accordance with certain embodiments. The temporal pattern may show an initial packet transmission by a UE shown in one or more of fig. 1-6, and a single ACK/NACK sent by a gNB shown in one or more of fig. 1-6. As shown, instead of sending feedback only after the last transmission within K retransmissions, the gNB may transmit a single ACK/NACK/grant transmission after each UE transmission. Multiple ACK/NACK/grant transmissions may be used if there is no limitation on DL ACK/NACK/DCI reliability and capacity.

In some embodiments, the K retransmissions may not be consecutive to the initial transmission. This may be used to further randomize potential collisions and interference between UEs. As discussed above, randomization may be controlled by a time-domain transmission pattern component.

In some embodiments, the value of K may be separately configurable for initial transmission and retransmission. The initial value K may be determined by the gNB based on, for example, quality of service (QoS) parameters, such as channel quality estimates and a target block error rate (BLER) or Packet Error Rate (PER), which may be higher than a target reliability for URLLC traffic. In other words, K may be determined assuming a certain BLER, e.g. a 1% or 10% BLER. The value of K (K) for the retransmission can be calculated ₁ ，K ₂ ,...) to take into account the K that has been sent ₀ One TTI to meet reliability. In certain embodiments, the value K may be dynamically signaled in DCI for retransmission and transmission patterns, as discussed above. The retransmission parameters in this case may be adjusted based on instantaneous channel and interference measurements performed by the UE during the initial transmission.

In some embodiments, a dedicated DCI format can be defined to carry information to reconfigure the unlicensed transmission parameters. The size of the DCI may be minimized to indicate only a limited set of changed transmission parameters and/or offsets from previous parameters, thus improving the reliability of such compact DCI reception.

Optionally, for unlicensed transmission, a set of K values ([ K ] for each of M possible retransmissions ₀ ，K ₁ ，K ₂ ，...K _M ]) The configuration may be advanced using RRC messages or higher layer signaling in the MAC Control Element (CE). This may be less spectrally efficient than dynamic adaptation to channel conditions, but may give up DCI signalingTo be retransmitted. In this case, NACK signaling may be sufficient. Note that transmission parameters other than the K value may also be configured for each transmission. These transmission parameters may include modulation, code rate, resource allocation, and power, which may be pre-configured using higher layer signaling.

To combine the frequency and time transmission pattern components described above, the gNB may assign to the UE an index of the frequency and time pattern to be used by the UE when the UE has traffic to transmit in an unlicensed manner. The allocation of the pattern index may be indicated by the DCI using physical layer signaling, RRC message, or using a combination thereof. For example, RRC may specify a default pattern index, while DCI signaling may override the RRC configuration in a dynamic manner. In addition, a skip equation may be defined to change the pattern index over time. A hash function can be applied. The hash function may depend on one or more UE-specific and/or UE-independent variables such as UE ID, slot/mini-slot index, cell ID. Different cells may have different sets of patterns or different hopping behaviors to randomize inter-cell interference. The time pattern may be changed by DCI, which schedules retransmissions belonging to the initial transmission in a grant-free manner.

In some embodiments, the NR uplink unlicensed transmission may include a gNB that configures a pool of resources for unlicensed uplink transmission and a set of quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns. The gNB may also configure the transmission pattern index of the UE and reconfigure the transmission parameters after unsuccessful reception of the transport block. The resource pool configuration may include frequency domain and time domain resource pool configurations. The frequency domain resource pool configuration may include a bitmap of frequency resources, where a zero indicates that the corresponding unit is not included, and a 1 indicates that the corresponding resource unit is included in the resource pool. The frequency domain resource pool configuration may include a start index, an end index, and a plurality of frequency resource units. The time domain resource pool configuration may include a bitmap of time resources, where a zero indicates that the corresponding resource unit is not included, and a 1 indicates that the corresponding resource unit is included in the resource pool. The bitmap may repeat over a defined period and start at an offset from the anchor time. The anchor instant may be the system frame number zero. The time domain resource pool configuration may include offset, week in occasionA period, and a plurality of resource units. The UE transmission pattern may include a frequency domain pattern and a time domain pattern. The frequency domain patterns may be orthogonal to each other. The frequency domain patterns may be quasi-orthogonal to each other with a limited number of overlapping resources. The quasi-orthogonal pattern may include N _F An element in which K is present _F 1 and others are zero. Different UEs may be configured with different ks _F The value is obtained. Different cells may have different sets of patterns. The time domain pattern may indicate resources for an initial transmission and multiple retransmissions. The index of the time and frequency transmission pattern may be signaled to the UE by the gNB in DCI. The time pattern may be represented by a number K, which may include initial transmissions and retransmissions, and may be signaled in DCI. The index of the time and frequency transmission pattern may be signaled by the gNB to the UE in an RRC message. The indices of the initial transmission and retransmission may be configured separately. The transmission pattern may be a function of mini-slot/subframe index, a function of UE identity, and/or a function of cell identity. The resource pool configuration may be exchanged between the gNBs using X2-AP interface messages.

Examples of the invention

Example 1 is a User Equipment (UE) apparatus, comprising: a memory; and processing circuitry arranged to: decoding control signaling from a gNodeB (gNB), the control signaling indicating a transmission pattern for grant-less uplink transmissions to the gNB, the transmission pattern indicated in the control signaling being: at least one Frequency Resource Unit (FRU) indicated within a frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of FRUs, and at least one Time Resource Unit (TRU) indicated within a time domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of TRUs, wherein the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration are arranged within a resource pool that is a subset of resources from a common set of resources available to the gNB, and wherein the transmission pattern is selected from at least one of a set of Orthogonal Transmission Patterns (OTP) and a set of quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns (QTP) in the resource pool, the selection depending on the number of UEs served by the eNB and the size of the resource pool; storing in a memory a transmission pattern received from control signaling; and encoding, for transmission to the gNB, an unlicensed uplink transmission on the at least one FRU and TRU in the stored transmission pattern.

In example 2, the subject matter of example 1 includes, wherein: at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control message by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the resource pool, and the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine at least one of the FRU and the TRU using the bitmap of the at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration.

In example 3, the subject matter of examples 1-2 includes, wherein: indicating in the control message the frequency domain resource pool configuration by: a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting FRU, and a number of consecutive FRUs, and the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine the FRU using the starting frequency resource unit index and the number of consecutive FRUs.

In example 4, the subject matter of example 3 includes, wherein: the frequency domain resource pool configuration is further indicated in the control message by an ending frequency resource unit index indicating an ending FRU, the frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of sub-bands of a plurality of consecutive FRUs to which the number of consecutive FRUs corresponds, and the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine the FRU using the ending frequency resource unit index.

In example 5, the subject matter of examples 1-4 includes, wherein: the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic, the time domain resource pool configuration being indicated in the control message by an offset, a number of consecutive TRUs and a period, and the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine the TRU using the offset, the number of consecutive TRUs and the period.

In example 6, the subject matter of examples 1-5 includes, wherein: the control signal is a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

In example 7, the subject matter of examples 1-6 includes, wherein: the resource pool is one of a plurality of cell-specific resource pools.

In example 8, the subject matter of examples 1-7 includes, wherein: the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of cell-specific or cell group-specific OTP transmission patterns of the resource pool.

In example 9, the subject matter of examples 1-8 includes, wherein: the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of UE-specific QTP transmission patterns of the resource pool.

In example 10, the subject matter of examples 1-9 includes, wherein: the time domain resource pool configuration indicates resources for initial transmission and retransmission, and the TRU for retransmission depends on the time of round trip acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) feedback or retransmission grant.

In example 11, the subject matter of example 10 includes, wherein: the TRUs for multiple separate retransmissions of the initial transmission are scheduled before the UE receives the ACK/NACK feedback.

In example 12, the subject matter of examples 10-11 includes, wherein: a TRU for multiple bundled retransmissions of an initial transmission for a bundle is scheduled before the UE receives ACK/NACK feedback.

In example 13, the subject matter of example 12 includes, wherein: the number of retransmissions within each retransmission bundle depends on at least one quality of service (QoS) parameter.

In example 14, the subject matter of examples 12-13 includes, wherein: the number of retransmissions in each retransmission bundle is indicated along with the transmission pattern in the Downlink Control Information (DCI) for the retransmission.

In example 15, the subject matter of examples 10-14 includes, wherein: the TRUs for a plurality of separate adjacent retransmissions for each initial adjacent transmission are scheduled before the UE receives the ACK/NACK feedback, each retransmission, and each initial transmission.

In example 16, the subject matter of examples 1-15 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: different pattern indices are periodically decoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

In example 17, the subject matter of examples 1-16 includes, wherein: the processing circuitry includes a baseband processor configured to encode transmissions to and decode transmissions from the gNB.

Example 18 is a gsdeb (gnb) apparatus, comprising: a memory; and processing circuitry arranged to: determining transmission patterns of a plurality of User Equipments (UEs), transmission patterns for grant-free uplink transmission to a gNB, the transmission patterns being arranged within at least one resource pool, the at least one resource pool being a subset of resources from a common set of resources available to the gNB, the at least one resource pool comprising a resource pool configuration, the resource pool configuration comprising a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration, the transmission patterns of the at least one resource pool being selected from at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific Orthogonal Transmission Patterns (OTP) or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns (QTP) in the at least one resource pool; storing the transmission pattern in a memory; encoding, for a transmission to one of the UEs, control signaling indicating one of the transmission patterns stored in the memory using the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration; and decoding, from the UE, the unlicensed uplink transmission on the one transmission pattern.

In example 19, the subject matter of example 18 includes, wherein: at least one of a frequency domain resource pool configuration or a time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control message by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the resource pool.

In example 20, the subject matter of examples 18-19 includes, wherein: the frequency domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control message by a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting Frequency Resource Unit (FRU) and a number of consecutive FRUs.

In example 21, the subject matter of example 20 includes, wherein: the frequency domain resource pool configuration is further indicated in the control message by an ending frequency resource unit index indicating an ending FRU, the frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of subbands of a plurality of consecutive FRUs corresponding to the number of consecutive FRUs.

In example 22, the subject matter of examples 18-21 includes, wherein: the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic and indicated in the control message by an offset, a number of consecutive Time Resource Units (TRUs), and a periodicity.

In example 23, the subject matter of examples 18-22 includes, wherein: the resource pool is one of a plurality of cell-specific resource pools.

In example 24, the subject matter of examples 18-23 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: different pattern indices for a particular UE are periodically encoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

In example 25, the subject matter of example 24 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: a hash function is applied to each pattern index prior to transmission of the pattern index, the hash function being dependent on at least one of a UE Identification (ID), a slot or mini-slot index at the time of transmission of the pattern index, or a cell ID of the gNB.

In example 26, the subject matter of examples 24-25 includes, wherein: each pattern index is unique to the gNB.

In example 27, the subject matter of examples 18-26 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: the frequency and time domain resource pool configuration of the gNB and other gNBs is coordinated with other gNBs through an X2-AP message.

Example 28 is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for execution by one or more processors of a User Equipment (UE), the one or more processors to, when executing the instructions, configure the UE to: receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from a gnodeb (gNB), the RRC message indicating a transmission pattern for unlicensed uplink transmissions to the gNB, the transmission pattern being disposed within a resource pool that is a subset of resources of a common set of resources available to the gNB, the resource pool including a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration indicated in the RRC message, the transmission pattern including at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific Orthogonal Transmission Patterns (OTPs) in the resource pool, or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns (QTPs); and sending the grant-free uplink transmission to the gNB over the transmission pattern.

In example 29, the subject matter of example 28 includes, wherein one of: at least one of a frequency domain resource pool configuration or a time domain resource pool configuration indicated in the RRC message by a corresponding bitmap of resource units in the resource pool, the frequency domain resource pool configuration being indicated in the RRC message by a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting Frequency Resource Unit (FRU) and a plurality of consecutive FRUs, or the time domain resource pool configuration being periodic and indicated in the RRC message by an offset, a number of consecutive Time Resource Units (TRUs), and a periodicity.

In example 30, the subject matter of examples 28-29 includes wherein the instructions further configure the one or more processors to configure the UE to: different pattern indices are periodically decoded, each mode index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

Example 31 is at least one machine readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by processing circuitry cause the processing circuitry to perform operations to implement any of examples 1-30.

Example 32 is an apparatus, comprising means to implement any of examples 1-30.

Example 33 is a system to implement any of examples 1-30.

Example 34 is a method of implementing any of examples 1-30.

Although embodiments have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader scope of the disclosure. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. The accompanying drawings that form a part hereof show by way of illustration, and not of limitation, specific embodiments in which the subject matter may be practiced. The embodiments set forth are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed herein. Other embodiments may be utilized and derived therefrom, such that structural and logical substitutions and changes may be made without departing from the scope of this disclosure. The detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of various embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

The abstract of the present disclosure is provided to comply with 37 c.f.r. § 1.72(b) (an abstract which is required to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure). The abstract is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Additionally, in the foregoing detailed description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into the detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.

Claims (48)

1. An apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising:

a memory; and the number of the first and second groups,

processing circuitry arranged to:

decoding control signaling from a gNodeB (gNB), the control signaling indicating a transmission pattern for grant-less uplink transmission to the gNB, the transmission pattern indicated in the control signaling as:

at least one FRU indicated within a frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of frequency resource units, FRUs, and

at least one time resource unit, TRU, indicated within a time domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of TRUs,

wherein the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration are arranged within a resource pool that is a subset of resources from a common resource set available to the gNB, an

Wherein the transmission pattern is selected from at least one of a set of orthogonal transmission patterns, OTP, and a set of quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, in the resource pool, the selection depending on the number of UEs served by the gNB and the size of the resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern received from the control signaling in the memory; and the number of the first and second groups,

encoding, for transmission to the gNB, the at least one FRU and an unlicensed uplink transmission on the at least one TRU in the stored transmission pattern.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the resource pool, and

the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine at least one of a FRU and a TRU using the bitmap of the at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

indicating the frequency domain resource pool configuration in the control signaling by:

a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting FRU, and

the number of consecutive FRUs, and,

the processing circuit is further arranged to determine a FRU using the starting frequency resource unit index and the number of consecutive FRUs.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein:

further indicating the frequency domain resource pool configuration in the control signaling by an end frequency resource unit index indicating an end FRU,

the frequency domain resource pool configuration includes a number of sub-bands with the number of consecutive FRUs, and,

the processing circuitry is further arranged to determine an FRU using the end frequency resource unit index.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic,

the time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by an offset, a number of consecutive TRUs, and a period, and,

the processing circuit is further arranged to determine a TRU using the offset, the number of consecutive TRUs and the period.

6. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-5, wherein:

the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of cell-specific or cell group-specific OTPs of the resource pool.

7. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-5, wherein:

the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of UE-specific QTPs of the resource pool.

8. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-5, wherein:

the time domain resource pool configuration indicates resources for initial transmission and retransmission, and the TRU for retransmission depends on the time of round trip acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement, ACK/NACK, feedback or retransmission grant.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein:

scheduling TRUs for a plurality of separate retransmissions of the initial transmission prior to the UE receiving the ACK/NACK feedback.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein:

scheduling a TRU for a plurality of bundled retransmissions for a bundled initial transmission prior to the UE receiving the ACK/NACK feedback.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein:

the number of retransmissions within each retransmission bundle depends on at least one quality of service, QoS, parameter.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein:

the number of retransmissions in each retransmission bundle is indicated together with the transmission pattern in the downlink control information, DCI, for the retransmission.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein:

scheduling TRUs for a plurality of separate neighboring retransmissions for each initial neighboring transmission before the UE receives the ACK/NACK feedback, each retransmission, and each initial transmission.

14. The apparatus of any one of claims 1-5, wherein: the processing circuit is further configured to:

different pattern indices are periodically decoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

15. An apparatus of a gNodeB (gNB), the apparatus comprising:

a memory; and the number of the first and second groups,

processing circuitry arranged to:

determining a transmission pattern for a plurality of user equipments, UEs, the transmission pattern being for grant-free uplink transmission to the gNB, the transmission pattern being arranged within at least one resource pool, the at least one resource pool being a subset of resources from a common set of resources available to the gNB, the at least one resource pool comprising a resource pool configuration, the resource pool configuration comprising a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration, the transmission pattern of the at least one resource pool being selected from at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, the selection depending on a number of UEs served by the gNB and a size of the at least one resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern in the memory;

encoding control signaling for transmission to one of the UEs, the control signaling indicating one of the transmission patterns stored in the memory using the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration; and the number of the first and second groups,

decoding, from the one UE, the unlicensed uplink transmission on the one transmission pattern.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein:

indicating in the control signaling at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration or the time domain resource pool configuration by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the at least one resource pool.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein:

the frequency domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by a starting frequency resource unit index and a number of consecutive FRUs, the starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting frequency resource unit FRU.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

the frequency domain resource pool configuration is further indicated in the control signaling by an end frequency resource unit index indicating an end FRU, the frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of subbands with a number of the consecutive FRUs.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein:

the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic and indicated in the control signaling by an offset, a number of consecutive time resource units TRU and a periodicity.

20. The apparatus of any of claims 15-19, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

different pattern indices for a particular UE are periodically encoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:

applying a hash function to each pattern index prior to transmission of the pattern index, the hash function being dependent on at least one of a UE Identity (ID), a slot or mini-slot index at the time the pattern index is transmitted, or a cell ID of the gNB.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein:

each pattern index is unique to the gNB.

23. The apparatus of any of claims 15-19, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

coordinating frequency and time domain resource pool configurations of the gNB and the other gNBs with the other gNBs via an X2-AP message.

24. An apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising:

a module that receives a radio resource control, RRC, message from a gNodeB, gNB, the RRC message indicating a transmission pattern for unlicensed uplink transmissions to the gNB, the transmission pattern being arranged within a resource pool that is a subset of resources of a common set of resources available to the gNB, the resource pool including a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration indicated in the RRC message, the transmission pattern being selected from at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, in the resource pool, the selection depending on a number of UEs served by the gNB and a size of the resource pool; and the number of the first and second groups,

means for transmitting an unlicensed uplink transmission to the gNB on the transmission pattern.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein:

indicating in the RRC message at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration or the time domain resource pool configuration through a corresponding bitmap of resource units in the resource pool,

the frequency domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the RRC message by a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting frequency resource unit, FRU, or a number of consecutive FRUs

The time domain resource pool configuration is periodic and indicated in the RRC message by an offset, a number of consecutive time resource units TRU and a period.

26. A method of a User Equipment (UE), the method comprising:

decoding control signaling from a gNodeB (gNB), the control signaling indicating a transmission pattern for grant-less uplink transmission to the gNB, the transmission pattern indicated in the control signaling as:

at least one FRU indicated within a frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of frequency resource units, FRUs, and

at least one time resource unit, TRU, indicated within a time domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of TRUs,

wherein the time domain resource pool configuration indicates resources for initial transmission and retransmission, the TRUs for retransmission depending on a time of a round trip acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) feedback or a retransmission grant, and wherein the TRUs for a plurality of individual retransmissions of the initial transmission are scheduled prior to the UE receiving the ACK/NACK feedback;

wherein the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration are arranged within a resource pool that is a subset of resources from a common resource set available to the gNB, an

Wherein the transmission pattern is selected from at least one of a set of orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, and a set of quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, in the resource pool, the selection depending on the number of UEs served by the gNB and the size of the resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern received from the control signaling; and the number of the first and second groups,

encoding, for transmission to the gNB, the at least one FRU and an unlicensed uplink transmission on the at least one TRU in the stored transmission pattern.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein:

at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the resource pool, and

the method further comprises:

determining at least one of a FRU and a TRU using the bitmap of the at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein:

indicating the frequency domain resource pool configuration in the control signaling by:

a starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting FRU, and

the number of consecutive FRUs, and,

the method further comprises:

determining the FRU using the starting frequency resource unit index and the number of consecutive FRUs.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein:

further indicating the frequency domain resource pool configuration in the control signaling by an end frequency resource unit index indicating an end FRU,

the frequency domain resource pool configuration includes a number of sub-bands with the number of consecutive FRUs, and,

the method further comprises:

determining an FRU using the end frequency resource unit index.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein:

the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic and,

the time domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by an offset, a number of consecutive TRUs and a periodicity, and,

the method further comprises:

determining a TRU using the offset, the number of consecutive TRUs, and the period.

31. The method of any one of claims 26-30, wherein:

the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of cell-specific or cell group-specific OTPs of the resource pool.

32. The method of any one of claims 26-30, wherein:

the transmission pattern is one of a plurality of UE-specific QTPs of the resource pool.

33. The method of claim 26, wherein:

scheduling a TRU for a plurality of bundled retransmissions for a bundled initial transmission prior to the UE receiving the ACK/NACK feedback.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein:

the number of retransmissions within each retransmission bundle depends on at least one quality of service, QoS, parameter.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein:

the number of retransmissions in each retransmission bundle is indicated together with the transmission pattern in the downlink control information, DCI, for the retransmission.

36. The method of claim 26, wherein:

scheduling TRUs for a plurality of separate neighboring retransmissions for each initial neighboring transmission before the UE receives the ACK/NACK feedback, each retransmission, and each initial transmission.

37. The method of any one of claims 26-30, wherein: the method further comprises the following steps:

different pattern indices are periodically decoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

38. A method of a gNodeB (gNB), the method comprising:

determining transmission patterns for a plurality of user equipments, UEs, the transmission patterns being for unlicensed uplink transmissions to the gNB, the transmission patterns being arranged within at least one resource pool, the at least one resource pool being a subset of resources from a common set of resources available to the gNB, the at least one resource pool comprising a resource pool configuration comprising a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration, the transmission patterns of the at least one resource pool being selected from at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, of the at least one resource pool, the selection depending on a number of UEs served by the gNB and a size of the at least one resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern;

for transmission to one of the UEs, encoding control signaling indicating one of the stored transmission patterns using the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration; and (c) a second step of,

decoding, from the one UE, the unlicensed uplink transmission on the one of the stored transmission patterns.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein:

indicating in the control signaling at least one of the frequency domain resource pool configuration or the time domain resource pool configuration by a corresponding bitmap of resource units of the at least one resource pool.

40. The method of claim 38, wherein:

the frequency domain resource pool configuration is indicated in the control signaling by a starting frequency resource unit index and a number of consecutive FRUs, the starting frequency resource unit index indicating a starting frequency resource unit FRU.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein:

the frequency domain resource pool configuration is further indicated in the control signaling by an end frequency resource unit index indicating an end FRU, the frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a number of subbands with the number of consecutive FRUs.

42. The method of claim 38, wherein:

the time domain resource pool configuration is periodic and indicated in the control signaling by an offset, a number of consecutive time resource units TRU and a periodicity.

43. The method of any one of claims 38-42, wherein the method further comprises:

different pattern indices for a particular UE are periodically encoded, each pattern index configured to indicate a unique time and frequency resource pool configuration.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the method further comprises:

applying a hash function to each pattern index prior to transmission of the pattern index, the hash function being dependent on at least one of a UE Identity (ID), a slot or mini-slot index at the time the pattern index is transmitted, or a cell ID of the gNB.

45. The method of claim 43, wherein:

each pattern index is unique to the gNB.

46. The method of any one of claims 38-42, wherein the method further comprises:

coordinating frequency and time domain resource pool configurations of the gNB and the other gNBs with the other gNBs via an X2-AP message.

47. A computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors of a user equipment, UE, cause the UE to:

decoding control signaling from a gNodeB (gNB), the control signaling indicating a transmission pattern for grant-less uplink transmission to the gNB, the transmission pattern indicated in the control signaling as:

at least one frequency resource unit, FRU, indicated within a frequency domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of FRUs, and

at least one time resource unit, TRU, indicated within a time domain resource pool configuration comprising a plurality of TRUs,

wherein the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration are arranged within a resource pool that is a subset of resources from a common resource set available to the gNB, an

Wherein the transmission pattern is selected from at least one of a set of orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, and a set of quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, in the resource pool, the selection depending on the number of UEs served by the gNB and the size of the resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern received from the control signaling; and the number of the first and second groups,

encoding, for transmission to the gNB, the at least one FRU and the unlicensed uplink transmission on the at least one TRU in the stored transmission pattern.

48. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a gNodeB (gNB), cause the gNodeB to:

determining a transmission pattern for a plurality of user equipments, UEs, the transmission pattern being for grant-free uplink transmission to the gNB, the transmission pattern being arranged within at least one resource pool, the at least one resource pool being a subset of resources from a common set of resources available to the gNB, the at least one resource pool comprising a resource pool configuration, the resource pool configuration comprising a frequency domain resource pool configuration and a time domain resource pool configuration, the transmission pattern of the at least one resource pool being selected from at least one of a set of cell-specific or cell group-specific orthogonal transmission patterns, OTPs, or a set of UE-specific quasi-orthogonal transmission patterns, QTPs, the selection depending on a number of UEs served by the gNB and a size of the at least one resource pool;

storing the transmission pattern;

for transmission to one of the UEs, encoding control signaling indicating one of the stored transmission patterns using the frequency domain resource pool configuration and the time domain resource pool configuration; and (c) a second step of,

decoding, from the one UE, the unlicensed uplink transmission on the one of the stored transmission patterns.

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