WO2022135668A1 - Technique for pdcch radio signal reception - Google Patents
Technique for pdcch radio signal reception Download PDFInfo
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- WO2022135668A1 WO2022135668A1 PCT/EP2020/087470 EP2020087470W WO2022135668A1 WO 2022135668 A1 WO2022135668 A1 WO 2022135668A1 EP 2020087470 W EP2020087470 W EP 2020087470W WO 2022135668 A1 WO2022135668 A1 WO 2022135668A1
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- pdcch
- power receiver
- signal
- hypothesis
- pdcch signal
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- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 title claims abstract description 112
- 230000005540 biological transmission Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 60
- 238000013468 resource allocation Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 44
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Classifications
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
- H04W52/00—Power management, e.g. TPC [Transmission Power Control], power saving or power classes
- H04W52/02—Power saving arrangements
- H04W52/0209—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices
- H04W52/0225—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices using monitoring of external events, e.g. the presence of a signal
- H04W52/0229—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices using monitoring of external events, e.g. the presence of a signal where the received signal is a wanted signal
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
- H04W52/00—Power management, e.g. TPC [Transmission Power Control], power saving or power classes
- H04W52/02—Power saving arrangements
- H04W52/0209—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices
- H04W52/0261—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level
- H04W52/0274—Power saving arrangements in terminal devices managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level by switching on or off the equipment or parts thereof
-
- Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
- Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
- Y02D—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THEIR OWN ENERGY USE
- Y02D30/00—Reducing energy consumption in communication networks
- Y02D30/70—Reducing energy consumption in communication networks in wireless communication networks
Definitions
- the present disclosure relates to a technique for receiving a radio signal on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). More specifically, and without limitation, methods and devices are provided for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment for receiving the PDCCH and for triggering such a selective activation.
- PDCCH physical downlink control channel
- RRC radio resource control
- RRCJDLE radio resource control
- RRCJNACTIVE radio resource control
- UE regularly wakes up from sleep for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) signal reception and decoding, e.g., as specified in section 7.1 of the document TS 36.304.
- PDCCH physical downlink control channel
- DRX discontinuous reception
- the PDCCH signal may be comprise paging information, system information (SI) or a random access response (RAR).
- the regular wake-up is the major contribution to U E power consumption (i.e., consumption of energy per time by the UE) in the idle mode and in the inactive mode.
- U E power consumption i.e., consumption of energy per time by the UE
- a technique that reduces power consumption of a user equipment in particular if the UE is in (e.g., radio resource control, RRC) idle, inactive and/or discontinuous reception (DRX) mode.
- SI system information
- RAR random access response
- a method of selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The method comprises or initiates a step of determining a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel.
- the method further comprises or initiates a step of receiving a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the method further comprises or initiates a step of selectively activating the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may be indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain in combination with the control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel.
- each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise a candidate for the radio signal comprising the encoded control information at the time domain and/or at the frequency domain according to the allocation of the PDCCH.
- the technique may be implemented for low-power reception of the PDCCH.
- the reception using the low-power receiver may be a discontinuous reception (DRX), e.g., in at least one of a connected mode, an idle mode and an inactive mode.
- the reception using the low-power receiver may be allow for paging the UE in a radio resource control (RRC) idle mode or inactive mode.
- RRC radio resource control
- the PDCCH may comprise a common control channel (e.g., for paging).
- the data channel may comprise a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and/or a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).
- the low-power receiver may be configured to (e.g., exclusively) receive radio signals on the PDCCH.
- the high-power receiver may be a default receiver (e.g., of the data channel and a control channel, e.g., comprising the PDCCH).
- the high-power receiver may function as a full-power receiver or a non-reduced power receiver.
- the high-power receiver may be configured to (e.g., exclusively) receive data on the data channel, e.g. the PDSCH.
- the high-power receiver may be configured as a transceiver comprising a transmitter and a receiver. The transceiver may be configured to transmit data on the data channel, e.g. the PUSCH.
- the low-power receiver may be configured to receive a control signal as the radio signal on the PDCCH (briefly: "PDCCH signal").
- the PDCCH signal may be or may comprise a PDCCH paging signal.
- the PDCCH signal may comprise system information (SI) and/or a random access response (RAR).
- SI system information
- RAR random access response
- the UE may comprise two different front ends connected to a radio antenna, e.g., coupled to the same radio antenna.
- the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be embodied by the two different front ends, namely by a low-power front end and a high-power front end, respectively.
- the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be a low-power front end (FE) and a high- power FE of the UE, respectively.
- Each of the FEs may comprise at least one of an antenna; an amplifier (e.g., a low noise amplifier, LNA); and/or an analogue to digital converter (ADC).
- LNA low noise amplifier
- ADC analogue to digital converter
- the method may comprise a step of the comparing of the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the step of comparing may be performed by the low-power receiver.
- at least some embodiments of the UE can save power by comparing each PDCCH signal hypothesis with the received radio signal.
- a result of the comparison indicating matching (i.e., identity or equality) of one of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis and the received radio signal may replace and/or correspond to decoding the received radio signal.
- the low-power receiver may save power by not explicitly decoding (e.g., by not performing a step of decoding) the received radio signal.
- the comparison may be a comparison at a level of encoded control information, i.e., by comparing the encoded information as received in the received radio signal with the encoded information comprised in each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Comparing the received radio signal with each of the PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing a time domain and/or a frequency domain in which the radio signal was received with the time domain and/or the frequency domain of the allocation of the PDCCH of each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- comparing the received radio signal with each of the PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing a resource allocation and a transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the control information.
- Comparing the resource allocation and transmission format of the data channel comprised in the control information may comprise performing a convolution of the received radio signal with at least part of the PDCCH signal hypothesis (e.g., a time domain representation of the encoded control information), optionally if the low-power receiver operates in a time-domain mode (also: "T-domain mode” or briefly "T-domain”).
- a convolution of the received radio signal with at least part of the PDCCH signal hypothesis e.g., a time domain representation of the encoded control information
- the low-power receiver operates in a time-domain mode (also: "T-domain mode” or briefly "T-domain”).
- comparing the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel comprised in the control information may comprise performing a scalar multiplication (i.e., computing a scalar product) of the received radio signal with at least part of the PDCCH signal hypothesis (e.g., a frequency domain representation of the encoded control information), optionally if the low-power receiver operates in a frequencydomain mode (also: "F-domain mode” or briefly "F-domain”).
- a scalar multiplication i.e., computing a scalar product
- the low-power receiver operates in a frequencydomain mode (also: "F-domain mode” or briefly "F-domain”).
- the high-power receiver may be activated if the result of the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set indicates a scheduling assignment, e.g. on the PDSCH, and/or a scheduling grant, e.g. on the PUSCH, for the UE (e.g., for the high-power receiver, optionally being configured as a transceiver).
- a scheduling assignment e.g. on the PDSCH
- a scheduling grant e.g. on the PUSCH
- the high-power receiver may be activated if the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set indicates an inequality, e.g., if the received radio signal does not match the resource allocation and/or the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) of any one of the PDCCH signal hypotheses within the set.
- a lack of equality and/or no match may be indicative of the low-power receiver being unable to read and/or decode the received radio signal.
- the PDCCH and the data channel may be channels of a radio access network (RAN), e.g., a radio channel between the UE and a base station of the RAN.
- RAN radio access network
- Determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise encoding the respective control information into the respective one of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise redundant bits, e.g., a bit field for a cyclic redundancy check (CRC).
- the redundant bits e.g., the bit field for the CRC
- RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier
- the PDCCH may comprise scheduling information for system information (SI) and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a system information RNTI (SI-RNTI, e.g., a value fixed to 65535, i.e., OxFFFF) and/or the data channel may comprise the SI.
- SI-RNTI system information RNTI
- the PDCCH may comprise paging information and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a paging RNTI (P-RNTI, e.g., a value fixed to 65534, i.e., OxFFFE) and/or the data channel may comprise a paging massage for the UE.
- P-RNTI e.g., a value fixed to 65534, i.e., OxFFFE
- the PDCCH may comprise random access (RA) information and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a RA-RNTI and/or the data channel may comprise a RA response (RAR) in response to a RA preamble transmitted by the UE.
- the RAR may be multicasted to multiple UEs including the UE, e.g., to all UEs in a cell comprising the UE.
- the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may represent a proper subset of a paging search space and/or a common search space (e.g., for broadcasted SI and/or RAR).
- the control information may be a paging control information and/or a common control information.
- the control information may be monitored by all UEs in a cell comprising the UE.
- the paging search space and/or the common control space may be used to carry important initial information including at least one of paging information, system information and information of the random access procedures (e.g., a Timing Alignment, TA; an initial UL grant; and/or an assignment of a cell radio network temporary identity, C-RNTI) to the UE.
- TA Timing Alignment
- C-RNTI cell radio network temporary identity
- the step of selectively activating the high-power receiver may comprise transmitting on the PUSCH and/or receiving on the PDSCH according to the control information, e.g., according to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel.
- baseband processing at the UE may comprise the step of comparing PDCCH signal hypotheses with a received radio signal.
- the comparing step may be implemented using a baseband processor.
- the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise at least two different PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the high-power receiver may be activated for receiving data on the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) according to the resource allocation and the transmission format comprised in the encoded control information of the PDCCH signal hypothesis that matches the received radio signal in the comparison.
- the result of the comparison may comprise a similarity measure (e.g., the convolution or the scalar product).
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis, for which the similarity measure exceeds a predetermined threshold may be the PDCCH signal hypothesis that matches the received radio signal in the comparison.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise a signal representation (e.g., one or more vectors of complex values representing one or more symbols of the respective PDCCH signal hypothesis) in which the control information is encoded.
- the step of determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise monitoring, during a predetermined time period, at least one of
- control information on the PDCCH as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
- the monitoring may be performed by the high-power receiver.
- the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be determined based on the monitored allocation of the PDCCH and/or the monitored control information on the PDCCH. For example, the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be determined based on a set of monitored combinations of the allocation of the PDCCH and the control information on the PDCCH.
- the step of determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise a step of receiving, from a network node (e.g., a base station) and/or the RAN, a message indicative of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses or a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the network node may be a network node (e.g., a base station) of the RAN.
- the message may be broadcasted, e.g., comprised in SI.
- the message may be transmitted via dedicated signaling, e.g., in an RRC connected mode (also "RRC connected state” or abbreviated by "RRC_CONNECTED”).
- RRC connected mode also "RRC connected state” or abbreviated by "RRC_CONNECTED”
- the message may be received by the high-power receiver.
- the step of receiving the message from the network node may trigger an activation of the low-power receiver. For example, after reception of the message, the low- power receiver may monitor the PDCCH according to the PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message, and the high-power receiver may be switched to and/or may remain in RRC idle mode and/or RRC inactive mode.
- the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing the time domain and/or the frequency domain in which the radio signal was received with the time domain and/or the frequency domain comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing the received radio signal with the encoded control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the data channel e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH
- the comparing of the received radio signal with the control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis may be performed if the result of comparing the time domain and/or the frequency domain, in which the signal was received, with the time domain and/or the frequency domain comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis is indicative of a match (i.e., an identity or equality).
- the data channel may comprise a PDSCH and/or a PUSCH.
- the radio signal may be received by the low-power receiver of the UE in at least one of a RRC inactive mode; an RRC idle mode; and a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode.
- a RRC inactive mode a RRC inactive mode
- RRC idle mode a RRC idle mode
- DRX discontinuous reception
- the radio signal may be received by the low-power receiver of the UE in an ON-time (e.g., a paging time window) of a DRX cycle.
- the RRC inactive mode, the RRC idle mode and the DRX mode may also be denoted as RRC inactive state, RRC idle state and DRX state, respectively.
- the received radio signal may be broadcasted on the PDCCH.
- the received radio signal may comprise at least one of a paging PDCCH signal, SI, and a RAR.
- the resource allocation of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may comprise a time domain and/or a frequency domain.
- the transmission format of the data channel may comprise at least one of a modulation and coding scheme (MCS); a transport block scaling (TB) scaling; and a virtual resource block (VRB) to physical resource block (PRB) mapping.
- MCS modulation and coding scheme
- TB transport block scaling
- VRB virtual resource block
- PRB physical resource block
- the method may further comprise a step of receiving, using the high-power receiver, data on the data channel (e.g., PDSCH) according to the result of the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the method may further comprise a step of transmitting data on the data channel (e.g., PUSCH) according to the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the low-power receiver may be configured to receive narrow-bandwidth signals.
- a bandwidth of the high-power receiver may be greater than, e.g., multiple times greater than, a bandwidth of the low-power receiver.
- the selectively activating step may comprise that the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver and/or by decoding the received radio signal to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, e.g., if a channel quality of the PDCCH is greater than a predetermined first channel quality threshold.
- the selectively activating step may comprise that the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver and/or by decoding the received radio signal, e.g., if the channel quality of the PDCCH is less than the predetermined first channel quality threshold or a predetermined second channel quality threshold.
- Each of the first channel quality threshold and the second channel quality threshold may comprise a margin, e.g., within which variations of the channel quality over a predetermined time period are tolerated and/or not taken into account.
- the second channel quality threshold may be less than the first channel quality threshold.
- the channel quality may be indicated by a value of, or may comprise, at least one of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), a block error rate (BLER), and/or a cell selection criterion.
- SNR signal-to-noise ratio
- SINR signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio
- RSRP reference signal received power
- RSRQ reference signal received quality
- BLER block error rate
- the UE may receive the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses if the cell selection criterion is fulfilled.
- the cell selection criterion may also be referred to as an S-criterion.
- the cell selection criterion may be defined according to section 5.2.3.2 or 5.2.3.2a of the 3GPP document TS 36.304, version 16.2.0.
- the radio signal on the PDCCH may be further received, using the high-power receiver periodically and/or occasionally, in the time domain and/or the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- a periodicity of activating the high-power receiver may comprise a predefined number (e.g., an integer multiple) of paging occasions (POs), e.g., greater than 1.
- POs paging occasions
- the high-power receiver may be activated every A/-th PO, wherein N>1 is the predefined number.
- a predefined fraction (e.g., 10% or less) of the POs may be received using the high-power receiver.
- the channel quality may be determined based on a comparison of the radio signal received using the high-power receiver and the radio signal received using the low- power receiver (e.g., simultaneously with the reception using the high-power receiver).
- the high-power receiver may be activated periodically to verify or assess a robustness and/or an accurateness of the low-power receiver, e.g., by comparing the radio signal further received using the high-power receiver with the radio signal received using the low-power receiver.
- the high-power receiver may be activated according to the selective activating step for receiving or transmitting on the data channel according to the control information of the match.
- the high-power receiver may be activated for the PDCCH using the high- power receiver instead of the low-power receiver.
- the high-power receiver may be activated, if the result of comparing the radio signal received using the low-power receiver with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises no match.
- the high-power receiver may be activated, if the received radio signal comprises a paging signal and if the UE is being paged at an average paging rate, which is greater or less than a predetermined paging rate threshold.
- the method may comprise a step of measuring a strength and/or a quality of the received radio signal.
- the method may further comprise a step of transmitting a measurement report indicative of the measured strength and/or the measured quality of the received radio signal, e.g., to the RAN and/or the base station.
- the measurement report may be related to and/or may be triggered by a radio resource management (RRM).
- RRM radio resource management
- a network node may initiate a handover procedure to a neighboring network node.
- the measurement report may be transmitted to the network node.
- the method (or at least the steps of receiving the radio signal using the low-power receiver and selectively activating the high-power receiver) may be executed if a cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less or equal to a predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
- the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be a product K times L (KxL).
- K may denote or represent the number of different allocations of the time domain and/or the frequency domain of the PDCCH.
- L may denote or represent the number of different resource allocations and/or transmission formats of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH), e.g. comprised in the encoded control information of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the radio signal may be received using (e.g., exclusively) the high-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, the radio signal need not be received using the low-power receiver, if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses exceeds the predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
- the low-power receiver may comprise, or may be used in, a time-domain mode.
- the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise a convolution in the time-domain mode.
- the low-power receiver may comprise, or may be used in, a frequency-domain mode.
- the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise a scalar multiplication in the frequency-domain mode.
- activating any of the receivers or any of the receivers being activated may encompass operating and/or using the respective one of the receivers.
- the low-power receiver may be activated in the time-domain mode if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less than or equal to a predetermined second cardinality threshold value.
- the low-power receiver may be activated in the frequency-domain mode if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is greater than the predetermined second cardinality threshold value.
- Usage of the predetermined first cardinality threshold value may not need or imply the usage of the predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
- the second cardinality threshold value may be less than the first cardinality threshold value.
- the second cardinality threshold value may be in the range of three to several tens (e.g., 20 or 30) of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprised in the set.
- the first cardinality threshold value may, e.g., be in the range of one hundred to several hundreds of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprised in the set.
- the first method aspect may be performed by a radio device.
- the radio device may embody the UE and/or may be comprised in the UE.
- a method of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) comprises or initiates a step of transmitting, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel.
- the method further comprises or initiates a step of transmitting, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may trigger the UE to use the low-power receiver to receive the radio signal in the PDCCH.
- the message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may trigger the UE to use the set indicated by the message for comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may further trigger the UE to the selectively activating of the high-power receiver depending on a result of the comparison.
- the second method aspect may further comprise any feature, or may comprise or initiate any step, disclosed in the context of the first method aspect or may comprise a feature or step corresponding thereto.
- the transmitted radio signal according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise encoded control information as to a resource allocation in terms of a time allocation and/or a frequency allocation of the data channel.
- the data channel may comprise a PDSCH and/or a PUSCH.
- the transmission format of the data channel may comprise an MCS, a TB scaling, and/or a VRB-to-PRB mapping.
- the second method aspect may comprise a step of transmitting and/or receiving data on the data channel (e.g., by a network node on PDSCH and/or PUSCH, respectively) according to the control information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the second method aspect may be performed by a network node (e.g., a base station) and/or the RAN.
- a network node e.g., a base station
- the RAN may be accessed by a network node and/or the RAN.
- the first method aspect may be performed at or by a receiving station (briefly: receiver), e.g., the UE for a downlink connection.
- the second method aspect may be performed at or by a transmitting station (briefly: transmitter), e.g., the network node or the RAN.
- the PDCCH and/or the data channel (e.g., used for the data transmission and the radio reception), i.e., any of the channels between the transmitter and the receiver, may comprise multiple subcarriers as the frequency domain.
- the PDCCH and/or the data channel may comprise one or more slots for a plurality of modulation symbols as the time domain.
- the PDCCH and/or the data channel may comprise a directional transmission (also: beamformed transmission) at the transmitter, a directional reception (also: beamformed reception) at the receiver or a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel with two or more spatial streams (e.g., as a spatial domain).
- a directional transmission also: beamformed transmission
- a directional reception also: beamformed reception
- MIMO multiple-input multiple-output
- the transmitter and the receiver may be spaced apart.
- the transmitter and the receiver may be in communication of the radio signal and/or the data exclusively by means of the radio communication.
- the transmitter and the receiver may form, or may be part of, a radio network, e.g., according to the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) or according to the standard family IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi).
- the radio network may be a radio access network (RAN) comprising one or more base stations.
- RAN radio access network
- the radio network may be a vehicular, ad hoc and/or mesh network.
- the first method aspect may be performed by one or more embodiments of the receiver in the radio network.
- the second method aspect may be performed by one or more embodiments of the transmitter in the radio network.
- the UE may be a radio device, e.g., a mobile or wireless device, e.g., a 3GPP user equipment or a Wi-Fi station (STA).
- the UE may be a mobile or portable station, a device for machine-type communication (MTC), a device for narrowband Internet of Things (NB-loT) or a combination thereof.
- MTC machine-type communication
- NB-loT narrowband Internet of Things
- Examples for the UE include a mobile phone, a tablet computer and a self-driving vehicle.
- Examples for the portable station include a laptop computer and a television set.
- Examples for the MTC device or the NB-loT device include robots, sensors and/or actuators, e.g., in manufacturing, automotive communication and home automation.
- the MTC device or the NB-loT device may be implemented in a manufacturing plant, household appliances and consumer electronics.
- any of the UEs may be wirelessly connected or connectable (e.g., according to a radio resource control, RRC, state or active mode) with any of the network nodes (e.g., base stations).
- the base station may encompass any station that is configured to provide radio access to any of the radio devices.
- the base stations may also be referred to as transmission and reception point (TRP), radio access node or access point (AP).
- TRP transmission and reception point
- AP radio access node or access point
- the base station or one of the radio devices functioning as a gateway may provide a data link to a host computer providing the data.
- Examples for the base stations may include a 3G base station or Node B, 4G base station or eNodeB, a 5G base station or gNodeB, a Wi-Fi AP and a network controller (e.g., according to Bluetooth, ZigBee or Z-Wave).
- a network controller e.g., according to Bluetooth, ZigBee or Z-Wave.
- the RAN may be implemented according to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and/or 3GPP New Radio (NR).
- GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
- UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
- LTE 3GPP Long Term Evolution
- NR 3GPP New Radio
- Any aspect of the technique may be implemented on a Physical Layer (PHY), a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer and/or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer of a protocol stack for the radio communication.
- PHY Physical Layer
- MAC Medium Access Control
- RLC Radio Link Control
- RRC Radio Resource Control
- a computer program product comprises program code portions for performing any one of the steps of the method aspects disclosed herein when the computer program product is executed by one or more computing devices.
- the computer program product may be stored on a computer-readable recording medium.
- the computer program product may also be provided for download, e.g., via the radio network, the RAN, the Internet and/or the host computer.
- the method may be encoded in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and/or an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), or the functionality may be provided for download by means of a hardware description language.
- FPGA Field-Programmable Gate Array
- ASIC Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
- a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided.
- the device may be configured to perform any one of the steps of the first method aspect.
- the device may comprise a PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit configured to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel.
- the device may further comprise a radio signal receiving unit configured to receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain and the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the device may further comprise a high-power receiver selectively activating unit that is configured to selectively activate the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided.
- the device may be configured to perform any one of the steps of the second method aspect.
- the device may comprise a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmitting unit configured to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel.
- the device may further comprise a radio signal transmitting unit configured to transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) comprises processing circuitry (e.g., at least one processor) and memory.
- Said memory may comprise (e.g., may be operable to store) instructions executable by said processing circuitry whereby the device is operative to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain and the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and selectively activate the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the device may be further operative to perform any of the steps of the first method aspect.
- a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) comprises processing circuitry (e.g., at least one processor) and memory.
- Said memory may comprise (e.g., may be operable to store) instructions executable by said processing circuitry whereby the device is operative to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; and transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the device may be further operative to perform any of the steps of the second method aspect.
- Each of the (e.g., first) devices may comprise a radio device (e.g., the UE).
- each of the (e.g., second) devices may comprise a network node.
- a communication system comprising a user equipment (UE)
- the UE comprises a radio interface and processing circuitry, the processing circuitry of the UE being configured to execute any one of the steps of the first method aspect.
- the communication system may further comprise one or more base stations (e.g., network nodes) configured to communicate with the UE. Any one or each of the one or more base stations may be configured to execute any one of the steps of the second method aspect.
- base stations e.g., network nodes
- Any one of the devices, the UE, the base station, the system or any node or station for embodying the technique may further include any feature disclosed in the context of the method aspects, and vice versa.
- any one of the units and modules, or a dedicated unit or module may be configured to perform or initiate one or more of the steps of the method aspect.
- Fig. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH;
- Fig. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH;
- Fig. 3 shows a flowchart for an embodiment of method of selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH, which method may be implementable by the device of Fig. 1;
- Fig. 4 shows a flowchart for an embodiment of method of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH, which method may be implementable by the device of Fig- 2;
- Fig. 5 schematic illustrates radio resource elements in a time domain and a frequency domain for the PDCCH or the data channel in a time-frequency grid
- Fig. 6 schematically illustrates examples of decision criteria for selectively activating the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver depending on a channel quality and/or a cardinality of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, wherein the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be implementable by the device of Fig. 1;
- Fig. 7 shows an example schematic block diagram of a UE embodying the device of Fig. 1
- Fig. 8 shows an example schematic block diagram of a network node embodying the device of Fig. 2
- Fig. 7 shows an example schematic block diagram of a UE embodying the device of Fig. 1
- Fig. 8 shows an example schematic block diagram of a network node embodying the device of Fig. 2
- Fig. 7 shows an example schematic block diagram of a UE embodying the device of Fig. 1
- Fig. 8 shows an example schematic block diagram of a network node embodying the device of Fig. 2
- Fig. 9 schematically illustrates an example telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer, wherein the network may comprise one or more UEs as exemplified in Fig. 7 and one or more network nodes as exemplified in Fig. 8.
- the technique described herein may also be implemented for any other radio communication technique, including 3GPP LTE (e.g., LTE-Advanced or a related radio access technique such as MulteFire), in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) according to the standard family IEEE 802.11, for Bluetooth according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), particularly Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Mesh Networking and Bluetooth broadcasting, for Z-Wave according to the Z-Wave Alliance or for ZigBee based on IEEE 802.15.4.
- 3GPP LTE e.g., LTE-Advanced or a related radio access technique such as MulteFire
- WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
- Bluetooth Special Interest Group SIG
- Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Mesh Networking
- Bluetooth broadcasting for Z-Wave according to the Z-Wave Alliance or for ZigBee based on IEEE 802.15.4.
- Fig. 1 schematically illustrates an example block diagram of a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).
- the device is generically referred to by reference sign 100.
- the device 100 comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit 104 that is configured to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
- the device 100 further comprises a radio signal receiving unit 106 that is configured to receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or in the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- a radio signal receiving unit 106 that is configured to receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or in the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the low-power receiver may embody at least one of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit 104 and the radio signal receiving unit 106.
- the device 100 further comprises a high-power receiver selectively activating unit 108 that is configured to selectively activate the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the high-power receiver may embody the high-power receiver selectively activating unit 108.
- the device 100 optionally further comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message receiving unit 102 that is configured to receive, from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message receiving unit 102 that is configured to receive, from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- Any of the units of the receiving device 100 may be implemented by modules configured to provide the corresponding functionality.
- the device 100 may also be referred to as, or may be embodied by, the UE.
- the UE 100 and the network node are in a radio communication at least for the reception of the radio signal at the UE 100.
- Fig. 2 schematically illustrates an example block diagram of a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH.
- the device is generically referred to by reference sign 200.
- the device 200 comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmitting unit 202 that is configured to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
- the device 200 further comprises a radio signal transmitting unit 204 configured to transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- Any of the units of the device 200 may be implemented by modules configured to provide the corresponding functionality.
- the device 200 may also be referred to as, or may be embodied by, a network node.
- the network node 200 and the UE receiving the PDCCH signal hypothesis set message are in a radio communication at least for the PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmission at the network node 200.
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message by the network node 200 and received by the UE 100 may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the (e.g., full and/or extended) PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined at the UE 100.
- Fig. 3 shows an example flowchart for a method 300 of selectively activating a low- power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH.
- the method 300 comprises or initiates a step 304 of determining a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
- the method 300 further comprises or initiates a step 306 of receiving a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or in the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the method 300 further comprises or initiates a step 308 of selectively activating the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the method 300 optionally further comprises or initiates a step 302 of receiving, from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the method 300 may be performed by the device 100 (e.g., the UE).
- the units 102, 104, 106 and 108 may perform the steps 302, 304, 306 and 308, respectively.
- Fig. 4 shows an example flowchart for a method 400 of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH.
- the method 400 comprises or initiates a step 402 of transmitting, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain.
- Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
- the method 400 further comprises or initiates a step 404 of transmitting, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
- the method 400 may be performed by the device 200 (e.g., the network node).
- the units 202 and 204 may perform the steps 402 and 404, respectively.
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message and transmitted in the step 402 and received in the step 302 may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the (e.g., full and/or extended) PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined in the step 304.
- the UE 100 may be equipped with the low-power receiver (e.g., as a simplified receiver), which is implemented with a power consumption lower than the high- power receiver (e.g., as a default receiver, i.e., a main receiver).
- the UE 100 may keep its high-power receiver in deep sleep mode and use the low-power receiver for the reception of common PDCCH signaling (e.g., comprising paging, SI or RAR) during the RRCJDLE mode and/or the RRC_IN ACTIVE mode.
- common PDCCH signaling e.g., comprising paging, SI or RAR
- the UE 100 may detect a common (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission in the allocated time domain (e.g., the PO) using the low-power receiver. Once a matching of a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is observed (e.g., in terms of a timefrequency domain of the PDCCH signal in combination with the encoded control information), the UE 100 may activate its high-power receiver for data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) processing. If the high-power receiver wake-up time it not fast enough for PDSCH sample collection, the low-power receiver may record and/or store PDSCH samples for use by the high-power receiver.
- a common (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission in the allocated time domain e.g., the PO
- the UE 100 may activate its high-power receiver for data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) processing. If the high-power receiver wake-up time it not fast enough for PDSCH sample collection,
- the technique may be applied to uplink (UL), downlink (DL) or direct communications between radio devices, e.g., device-to-device (D2D) communications or sidelink (SL) communications.
- UL uplink
- DL downlink
- D2D device-to-device
- SL sidelink
- Each of the device 100 and the device 200 may be a radio device (e.g., a UE) and/or a base station (e.g., respectively).
- a radio device e.g., a UE
- a base station e.g., respectively
- the device 100 may be embodied by the UE and the device 200 may be embodied by a further UE.
- any UE may be a mobile or portable station and/or any radio device wirelessly connectable to a base station or RAN, or to another radio device.
- a UE may be a radio device for machine-type communication (MTC) or a radio device for (e.g., narrowband) Internet of Things (loT).
- MTC machine-type communication
- LoT Internet of Things
- Two or more radio devices may be configured to wirelessly connect to each other, e.g., in an ad hoc radio network or via a 3GPP SL connection.
- any base station may be a station providing radio access, may be part of a radio access network (RAN) and/or may be a node connected to the RAN for controlling radio access.
- RAN radio access network
- a base station may be an access point, for example a Wi-Fi access point.
- a low-power receiver may generally comprise a radio frequency (RF) receiver (e.g., a low-power font end) capable of receiving a narrow bandwidth signal and a signal detector, which may include a time-domain correlator.
- RF radio frequency
- the time-domain correlator may perform the step of comparing.
- the low-power receiver may be configured for low- power frequency-domain processing, e.g., comprising a fast Fourier transform (FFT) and/or a downlink control information ( DCI ) decoder.
- FFT fast Fourier transform
- DCI downlink control information
- the frequency-domain processing of the -power receiver may be reduced compared to the high-power receiver.
- the low-power receiver may be implemented with a different RF receiver and a different ADC, which may be collectively referred to as low-power front end.
- a linearity of the RF and/or the ADC of the low-power receiver may be inferior compared to the RF and/or the ADC of the high-power receiver.
- a noise power e.g., a of quantum noise
- the RF and/or the ADC of the low-power receiver may be greater than a noise power of the RF and/or the ADC of the high-power receiver.
- the low-power receiver may be sufficient to collect, e.g., in-phase and quadraturephase (l/Q.) samples for time-domain correlation processing.
- a predetermined first or second channel quality threshold e.g., in decent or good reception conditions (e.g. high SINR)
- the low-power receiver may be sufficient to collect, e.g., in-phase and quadraturephase (l/Q.) samples for time-domain correlation processing.
- the UE can determine, and thus it can employ the low-power receiver at least 80% of the time.
- Fig. 5 shows an example of a time-frequency (T/F) grid 500 comprising a time domain 502 and a frequency domain 504.
- a part 506 of the time domain 502 may be allocated to the common PDCCH, e.g., comprising DCI and/or paging (e.g., the part 506 of the T/F grid 500 may comprise the POs in a resource block, RB, and/or resource element, RE, for a UE at reference sign 510).
- the data channel e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH
- the low-power receiver may comprise at least two processing modes, examples of which are indicated in Fig. 6.
- the low-power receiver 106 may comprise a time-domain correlator at reference sign 608.
- the low-power receiver may operate in T-domain only, performing l/Q sampling, synchronization signal block (SSB)-based T/F synchronization, and sample collection and recoding in the PO location followed by PDCCH signal hypothesis testing with respect to possible paging PDCCH contents.
- the low-power receiver 106 may comprise a frequencydomain correlator at reference sign 612, e.g., in addition to the time-domain correlator 608.
- a network node can generate a (in particular common) PDCCH signal (e.g., for paging) within a limited set of hypotheses, the power consumption of PDCCH BD can be dramatically reduced and the BD can be performed by a low-power receiver.
- a PDCCH signal e.g., for paging
- the low-power receiver in UE may enable its digital processing functions (e.g., FFT and PDCCH BD) at a PO for paging detection. After paging detection, these digital processing functions may be disabled for power saving (e.g., for the remainder of the RRCJDLE, RRCJNACTIVE and/or DRX cycle).
- digital processing functions e.g., FFT and PDCCH BD
- constraints and/or criteria for enabling the low-power receiver 106 (e.g., for paging) may not or need not apply if F-domain processing (at reference 612) and/or an additional optional explicit PDCCH decoding at reference sign 616 in Fig. 6 is enabled.
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis set may not or need not be formally limited. In the example embodiment of Fig. 6, operating the low-power receiver 106 for PDCCH signal reception may still save power compared to operating the high-power receiver 606 for PDCCH signal reception, if the channel quality is sufficiently good. In the following, exemplary low-power receiver processing prerequisites will be discussed.
- the following numbers may determine a cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (e.g., the total number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses).
- the number of PDCCH allocation options may be limited to a small number, K, so that the low-power receiver only needs to perform a small number of PDCCH signal hypothesis comparisons with the received radio signal (which may also be denoted as "search in BD").
- a T/F resource allocation may follow a specific pattern.
- the network e.g., a network node serving the UE, may indicate the PDCCH allocation options explicitly, e.g., using higher layer signaling such as SI, LI based signaling and/or RRC signaling.
- a limited number of PDCCH signal allocations and/or PDCCH signal hypotheses may be inferred from a search space (SS) and/or control resource set (CORESET) definition provided by the network, e.g. a network node serving the UE.
- the network may configure the UE (and/or all UEs in a cell served by a network node) such that the PDCCH allocation options are limited, e.g., the paging DCI configuration may only include one AL, e.g., AL 8, and only one or a few possible locations in the T/F grid.
- the contents of the control information of the PDCCH may be predetermined.
- the network and/or a serving network node may always schedules the (e.g., paging and/or paged for) PDSCH in one or a few of a number, L, of fixed locations.
- the PDSCH message size may be fixed. In a conventional and/or default network behavior, most of these elements (e.g., the content of the control information and/or the PDSCH message size) may be fixed.
- the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (e.g., a total number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses) may in practice be reduced significantly, e.g., compared to a theoretical set of allowed combinations of PDCCH allocations and control information.
- the UE needs to only distinguish between three PDCCH signal hypotheses (e.g., related to a short message indicator).
- the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (or combinations of PDCCH allocations and control information) may be communicated by the network, e.g.
- the network may indicate to the one or more UEs that a specific TB scaling and/or MCS index is used.
- the network e.g., the serving network node, may indicate to the one or more UEs that a data channel (e.g., PDSCH) T/F allocation is fixed.
- a data channel e.g., PDSCH
- the one or more UEs may monitor for determining and/or learning, based on past (also: "historical") network behavior and PDCCH signal control information, (e.g., paging DCI) content that one or more of the elements (e.g., the content of the control information and/or the PDSCH message size) are fixed or constrained to the set.
- PDCCH signal control information e.g., paging DCI
- the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set e.g., the total number of PDCCH signal hypotheses
- the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set may be reduced.
- the content of the control information for paging, SI and/or RAR may be based on or reduced to a proper subset of items listed in the 3GPP document TS 38.212 version 16.3.0, section 7.3.1.2.1 or listed below.
- the following information is transmitted by means of the DCI format 1 0 with CRC scrambled by P-RNTI :
- BWP is the size of CORESET 0
- BWP is the size of CORESET 0.
- BWP is the size of CORESET 0 if CORESET 0 is configured for the cell and /V ⁇ ' BWP is the si ze of initial DL bandwidth part if CORESET 0 is not configured for the cell.
- the PDCCH decoding becomes a detection task and/or a comparison task on a known radio signal with a limited set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the low-power receiver operation comprises a T-domain operation mode 608 and an F-domain operation mode 612
- the cardinality threshold value comprises a first cardinality threshold value N below which the low-power receiver 106 is switched on, and a second cardinality threshold value N 2 , below which the low-power receiver 106 operates in the T-domain operation mode 608.
- the low-power receiver 106 may operate in the F-domain operation mode 612. If the number of hypotheses KxL at reference sign 602 exceeds the first cardinality threshold value Ni, the UE performs conventional decoding of the encoded control information received in the radio signal on the PDCCH, as generally displayed at reference sign 618 in Fig. 6.
- the values of N x and N 2 may generically be implementationdependent.
- the second cardinality threshold value N 2 may be in the range of up to 8, e.g., may be set to 3
- the first cardinality threshold value may be in the range of up to 32, e.g., may be set to 12.
- the UE may determine and/or learn the PDCCH signal hypotheses by following the (e.g., paging) PDCCH allocation history.
- the UE 100 may notice that the network, e.g., its serving network node, always transmits a paging DCI with AL8, and/or in a specific T/F allocation, and/or with a specific MCS index, e.g., MCSO, and/or with a specific TB scaling.
- the UE 100 may acquire this knowledge by explicit indication from the network, e.g. by receiving a message from its serving network node, and/or implicitly.
- An implicit knowledge acquisition may comprise an implicit indication by the network (e.g. a specific configuration of the paging DCI).
- an implicit knowledge may be acquired based on history of the network (e.g., the serving network node's) behavior with regard to (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission.
- the UE may notice that different PDCCH signal hypotheses can be categorized further within a cell, within a RAN notification area (RNA), and/or within different cells.
- the UE only considers the number of PDCCH signal hypotheses within one cell, if the UE is currently not mobile.
- the number of PDCCH signal hypotheses is determined by the number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses in an RNA (particularly if the UE is in RRCJNACTIVE state and not RRCJDLE).
- the UE may consider a maximum number of potential PDCCH signal hypotheses that the network (e.g., any network node) may transmit within different cells.
- a front end quality (FE quality) of the low-power receiver may be relaxed (i.e., reduced), e.g., not meeting the same reception performance criteria that are fulfilled by the high-power receiver, e.g., regarding a channel quality at reference sign 604 in Fig. 6.
- FE quality front end quality
- a detection rate at a given SINR may be greater when using the high-power receiver compared to using the low-power receiver.
- the high-power receiver may achieve a detection rate at a SINR that is less than the SINR required for the low- power receiver to achieve the detection rate.
- the low-power receiver 106 reception performance may not be sufficient for cell-edge operation.
- the UE 100 may determine the current link quality and/or channel quality 604 and may only activate the low-power receiver mode (e.g., the T-domain mode 608 and/or the F-domain mode 612) if the link quality and/or channel quality 604 (e.g., S criterion, RSRP, RSRQ.
- SINR SINR
- the UE may note that by using low-power receiver 106, the requirements on (e.g., paging) PDCCH detection are satisfied. The UE may thus apply the low-power receiver 106.
- the SINR falls below a second channel quality threshold value (e.g., SINR value S 2 at reference sign 626 in Fig. 6)
- the UE may switch to conventional PDCCH reception by the high-power receiver 606.
- the second channel quality threshold value may, e.g., be in the range between -2 dB and 0 dB.
- the first channel quality threshold value Si and the second channel quality threshold S 2 may be equal and/or identical.
- the UE additionally considers the AL of the (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal hypothesis.
- the AL is 8 (which the UE 100 may know by explicit indication from the network, and/or have determined based on a network configuration of control information comprised in the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) and/or based on a past network behavior)
- the UE may consider a lower SINR (e.g., Si in Fig. 6) for enabling low-power receiver than if the AL is 2, for which a higher SINR(e.g., Si in Fig. 6) level may be considered to enable the low-power receiver 106.
- a SINR e.g., S of 0 dB may be sufficient and/or in case of the AL being 2, a SINR (e.g., Si) of 5 dB may be required to activate the low-power receiver 106 for radio signal reception on the PDCCH.
- the UE may consider a channel quality (e.g., SINR) margin and/or a decoding margin, to add on top of the lowest signal quality and/or channel quality that can be handled by the low-power receiver 106 in case the channel conditions and/or channel quality has changed.
- the network e.g., a serving network node
- the control information on the PDCCH e.g., paging DCI
- an unexpected (e.g., atypical and/or uncommon) parameter e.g., a lower AL, or a higher MCS index.
- a lower AL e.g., for paging an AL of 2 or 4 is atypical.
- exemplary low-power receiver activation criteria and mechanisms are further described.
- the step of determining and/or assembling the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be performed locally (also: “autonomously") at the UE 100.
- the UE may monitor and/or observe that the network, e.g. a serving network node, applies a limited set of PDCCH allocations (e.g., in terms of a location in a time-frequency grid and/or an AL) with a limited range of control information contained in a (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission.
- the UE may determine the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses by assembling all monitored and/or observed combinations. The UE may then activate the low-power receiver for performing the method 300, e.g. for paging PDCCH reception. The activation of the low-power receiver may be performed in this class of embodiments by the UE autonomously, e.g. without receiving instructions from the network.
- the UE 100 may learn from a radio signal reception by the high-power receiver that the (e.g., paging) PDCCH configuration of the network, e.g. a serving network node (e.g., gNB), is consistent with the (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal hypothesis set stored locally at the UE.
- the network e.g. a serving network node (e.g., gNB)
- gNB serving network node
- the UE may obtain knowledge concerning PDDCH configurations from the network, e.g., the serving network node.
- the network e.g., the serving network node
- the network may explicitly provide its PDCCH configurations by transmitting a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
- the set indicated in the message may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined by the UE.
- the network e.g., the serving network node
- the UE may switch off its high-power receiver responsive to the explicit and/or implicit provision of the PDCCH configurations by the network.
- the UE may record, e.g., a PO waveform and detect the coming paging PDCCH using its low-power receiver by applying time-domain correlation, as exemplified at reference sign 608 in Fig. 6.
- the UE may activate the low-power receiver mode only if the number 602 of PDCCH signal hypotheses KxL is below a threshold (e.g., the value N 2 or Ni at reference sign 610 or 614, respectively) and the UE link quality (e.g., the channel quality 604) is above a threshold (e.g., the SINR value Si at reference sign 624) required for low-power receiver detection.
- the number 602 of PDCCH signal hypotheses and/or the channel quality 604 threshold may be further determined based on the fact that the UE is expected to be paged in one cell (e.g., by the serving network node), in the whole RNA, or even enlarged further in other cells.
- the UE may choose between T-domain and F-domain low-power receiver 106 processing (as exemplified at reference signs 608 and 612, respectively) based on the number 602 of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses. If the number 602 of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses is high (e.g., above N 2 at reference sign 610), and/or if no clear patterns and/or constraints can be identified by the UE (e.g., based on received radio signals), F-domain processing 612 may be invoked.
- Fig. 6 shows an exemplary relation 600 between the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and channel quality 604 and switching between low-power receiver 106 modes in the T-domain 608 and F-domain 612 (and optionally a further conventional decoding mode 616) and/or the conventional decoding mode 618 of the high-power receiver 606.
- the high-power receiver may also switch to a T-domain and/or F-domain mode 622 of comparing received signals with a PDCCH signal hypothesis set.
- the UE may be opportunistic and accept an occasional lack of detection of, e.g., the first paging PDCCH instance.
- the UE may use its high-power receiver 606 to detect paging PDCCH and compare the result with the detection result by its low-power receiver 106.
- a concurrent PDCCH signal detection by the high-power receiver 606 and/or comparison with the PDCCH signal obtained by the low-power receiver 106 may periodically be employed, if the UE is in RRC_IDLE mode and/or RRC_IN ACTIVE mode, e.g.
- N may be a positive number greater than 1, e.g. N may be 10. If low-power receiver 106 misses paging PDCCH detection (e.g., detected by the periodic comparison with the detection by the high-power receiver 606), the high-power receiver 606 may be activated and/or take over the paging PDCCH detection (e.g., in all or a large fraction of the POs).
- the UE may, e.g., ensure that the PDCCH decoding BLER does not go beyond a specific requirement set for the UE, e.g., 1% BLER.
- the UE may (e.g., tentatively) expand the PDCCH signal hypothesis set.
- the transmitted encoded control information e.g., a transmission format and/or a resource allocation of the data channel, e.g., PDSCH
- Expanding the PDCCH signal hypothesis set may, e.g., comprise including all resource allocation options and/or all transmission format options allowed in or by the search space (SS) and observing whether the rate of detected paging PDCCH signal receptions increases, e.g., when the low-power receiver employs the extended PDCCH signal hypothesis set for comparing with received radio signals. If the rate of detected paging PDCCH signal receptions increases, the UE may revise its PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or revert to conventional paging PDCCH monitoring using the high-power receiver.
- SS search space
- the UE may periodically perform paging PDCCH reception with the high-power receiver for the purposes of verifying the continued validity of the limited PDCCH signal hypothesis set used for low-power receiver detection. If the previously assumed limitation of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set is seen not to hold, e.g., by the high-power receiver performing conventional decoding, the UE may return to the high-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception, e.g., for all or at least a significant fraction of the POs.
- the UE may perform paging PDCCH monitoring for the purpose of identifying paging PDCCH transmission patterns (e.g., in terms of the allocation of the PDCCH and/or the encoded control information) in RRC_CONNECTED mode.
- the PDCCH monitoring may be performed in the RRC connected state, e.g., by the high-power receiver.
- the PDCCH monitoring in the RRC connected state may be performed in addition to comparing the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver detection performance, e.g. in RRCJDLE and/or RRCJN ACTIVE mode.
- the UE may decide to employ or not to employ the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH (e.g., comprising DCI) reception, depending on if there is sufficient time for the high-power receiver to wake up and decode PDSCH.
- the low-power receiver may independently sample and/or buffer PDSCH to be decoded by the high-power receiver.
- the UE may decide to use the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH decoding, if the UE latency tolerance is within the time that the UE (e.g., the high-power receiver) needs to wake up, decode PDSCH, and/or move to the (e.g., RRC) connected mode if it is being paged.
- the UE may use the high-power receiver.
- the UE may applies the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH decoding (e.g., by comparing with the PDCCH signal hypothesis set) based on an average paging rate.
- the UE may apply low-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception, but if it is paged more than the predetermined percentage of the POs, it may activate the high-power receiver for PDCCH paging reception.
- the predetermined percentage of the POs, in which the UE is being paged may be below 10%, e.g. 2%.
- the percentage of the POs, in which the UE is being paged should be small enough to ensure that monitoring for paging in (e.g., RRC) idle mode is not dominated by one or more other (e.g., different from monitoring for paging) activities.
- the UE may employ the low-power receiver for (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception by default. If paged, the UE may activate the high-power receiver to read the paging message in the next PO. To decide to use the option of reading the paging message in the next PO by means of the high-power receiver, the UE may consider a criterion, e.g., based on an average paging rate, a channel quality, a required BLER, and/or a latency requirement.
- a criterion e.g., based on an average paging rate, a channel quality, a required BLER, and/or a latency requirement.
- the UE may apply low-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception.
- the UE may decide to apply the low-power receiver based on an indication by the network (e.g., a serving network node) of one or more of the paging elements (e.g., the PDCCH allocation and/or content of the control information comprising a transmission format and/or resource allocation for the data channel, e.g., PDSCH).
- the network e.g., the serving network node
- the UE may apply the low-power receiver.
- the UE does not or may not apply the low-power receiver.
- the UE may decide to apply the low-power receiver if one or more elements of the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) is fixed and/or remains constant over an extended time duration, e.g., if the TB scaling is preserved, e.g., over multiple frames. If the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) elements are changing frequently, the UE does not or may not apply the low-power receiver.
- the PDCCH signal e.g., paging DCI
- an at least partially determining of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or activation of the low-power receiver may be controlled by the network (e.g., by a serving network node) and/or may be cell-specific.
- the network may provide (e.g., paging) scheduling constraint information (e.g., for both PDCCH and PDSCH resource allocation) in broadcasted SI for a cell.
- the scheduling constraint information may comprise, e.g., a fixed AL, fixed MCS, a fixed TB scaling, a fixed VRB to PRB mapping, a fixed time and frequency resource allocation (for the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH).
- the UE may extract the scheduling constraint information from the SI in its serving (also: "camping") cell.
- the UE may configure and/or generate a limited PDCCH signal hypothesis set comprising, e.g., PDCCH contents and/or corresponding sample sequences.
- the low-power receiver may receive the (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal, use the PDCCH signal hypothesis set as reference and perform match filtering to detect the scheduled signal and/or message (e.g., paging).
- the UE may use the cardinality of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or low-power receiver performance criteria in choosing whether to invoke the low- power receiver mode.
- the low-power receiver may switch from T-domain operation mode to F-domain operation mode if a time synchronization error and/or a time synchronization uncertainty is equal to or less than a time threshold T1 at reference sign 628 in Fig. 6.
- the time threshold T1 may, e.g., be selected as not exceeding a predetermined fraction of a cyclic prefix length of a symbol (e.g., according to the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, numerology), e.g. T1 may be in the range of 10% to 20% of the cyclic prefix length.
- the UE may need to perform multiple FFTs, one at each time instant t est + Tl. Performing multiple FFTs may require more resources in the F-domain operation mode than in the T-domain operation mode.
- the network may provide a (e.g., paging) scheduling constraint as part of the (e.g., paging) PDCCH configuration.
- the network may configure few ALs for a paging DCI, e.g., only AL8, or both AL8 and AL16.
- an at least partially determining of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or activation of the low-power receiver may be controlled by the network (e.g., by a serving network node) and/or may be UE-specific.
- the network may receive a UE capability information during an RRC_CONNECTED session indicating that the UE supports low-power receiver (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception.
- the network e.g., the serving network node
- the network e.g., the serving network node
- the network may apply the PDCCH signal constraints only while paging the UE in its last serving, in the last paging and/or tracking area, and/or in the entire network.
- the one or more conditions and/or instances of applying the PDCCH signal constraints may be indicated in the release command, e.g., by the serving network node, and/or in broadcasted SI.
- the low-power receiver-based (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception may be combined with low-power receiver-based RRM measurements in (e.g., RRC) idle mode and/or (e.g., RRC) inactive mode, e.g., relieving the high-power receiver further and/or completely.
- RRC low-power receiver-based
- An embodiment of the method 300, and/or an extension thereof, may be employed for paging reception in a UE as follows.
- the UE determines a subset of PDCCH resource allocation options, e.g. received in a paging search space (briefly: paging-SS), to be used for paging PDCCH transmission by the network (e.g., a serving network node).
- the UE may acquire samples of a PO according to the subset of PDCCH resource allocation options using the low-power receiver.
- the UE may further perform a simplified processing (e.g., compared to conventional processing using the high-power receiver) of the samples in the low- power receiver to detect a paging PDCCH.
- the UE may collect PDSCH samples (using the low-power receiver and/or the high-power receiver) and process data received on the data channel, e.g. PDSCH (using the high- power receiver and/or optionally the low-power receiver).
- the embodiment of the method 300 may further comprise determining a set of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses as to its encoded control information (which may also be denoted as "content" of the PDCCH).
- the simplified processing may be performed as time-domain correlation detection.
- the embodiment of the method 300 may comprise at least a sub-set and/or at least a part of the encoded control information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set being determined by the UE based on past observations of (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmissions.
- the embodiment of the method 300 may comprise at least a sub-set and/or at least a part of the encoded control information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set being determined based on signaling (e.g., SI and/or a content of a release message) from the network, e.g. a serving network node.
- signaling e.g., SI and/or a content of a release message
- An embodiment of the method 400, and/or an extension thereof, may be employed for paging transmission by the network, e.g. by a serving network node.
- the network may provide information to a UE about a subset of PDCCH signal hypotheses, e.g. as to resource allocation options (e.g., in the time-frequency domain and/or one or more ALs) to be used for paging PDCCH and a set of possible encoded control information comprised in the PDCCH.
- the information about the subset of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be provided via SI and/or in a release message to the UE, e.g. in the step 402.
- a directional radio communication may be beneficial.
- a directional reception at the device 100 may improve the signal and/or data transmission from the device 200.
- a directional transmission from the device 200 may improve the signal and/or data transmission.
- a directional transmission from the device 200 may reduce the interference at other radio devices that are not target radio devices of the data transmission, e.g., if the device 100 is not the target radio device.
- a directional reception at the device 100 may reduce the interference caused by other transmissions not targeting the device 100, e.g., transmissions not originating from the device 200.
- the directional transmission may be implemented using an antenna array or any other multi-antenna configuration at the device 200.
- the directional reception may be implemented using an antenna array or any other multi-antenna configuration at the device 100.
- Fig. 7 shows a schematic block diagram for an embodiment of the device 100.
- the device 100 comprises one or more processors 704 for performing the method 300 and memory 706 coupled to the processors 704.
- the memory 706 may be encoded with instructions that implement at least one of the modules 102, 104 and 106.
- the one or more processors 704 may be a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, microcode and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other components of the device 100, such as the memory 706, UE functionality.
- the one or more processors 704 may execute instructions stored in the memory 706.
- Such functionality may include providing various features and steps discussed herein, including any of the benefits disclosed herein.
- the expression "the device being operative to perform an action” may denote the device 100 being configured to perform the action.
- the device 100 may be embodied by a UE 700, e.g., functioning as a data receiver.
- the UE 700 comprises a radio interface 702 coupled to the device 100 for radio communication with one or more network nodes, e.g., functioning as the RAN.
- the radio interface 702 may comprise the low-power receiver 106 or at least the low- power front end 106.
- the comparing step may be implemented in the processor 704 (e.g., a baseband processor).
- the radio interface 702 may further comprise the high-power receiver 606 or at least the high-power front end 606.
- the decoding may be implemented in the same processor 704 (e.g., the baseband processor).
- Fig. 8 shows a schematic block diagram for an embodiment of the device 200.
- the device 200 comprises one or more processors 804 for performing the method 400 and memory 806 coupled to the processors 804.
- the memory 806 may be encoded with instructions that implement at least one of the modules 202 and 204.
- the one or more processors 804 may be a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, microcode and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other components of the device 200, such as the memory 806, network node functionality.
- the one or more processors 804 may execute instructions stored in the memory 806.
- Such functionality may include providing various features and steps discussed herein, including any of the benefits disclosed herein.
- the expression "the device being operative to perform an action” may denote the device 200 being configured to perform the action. As schematically illustrated in Fig.
- the device 200 may be embodied by a network node 800, e.g., functioning as a network node or base station.
- the network node 800 comprises a radio interface 802 coupled to the device 200 for radio communication with one or more radio device, e.g., functioning as UE.
- a communication system 900 includes a telecommunication network 910, such as a 3GPP-type cellular network, which comprises an access network 911, such as a radio access network, and a core network 914.
- the access network 911 comprises a plurality of base stations 912a, 912b, 912c, such as NBs, eNBs, gNBs or other types of wireless access points, each defining a corresponding coverage area 913a, 913b, 913c.
- Each base station 912a, 912b, 912c is connectable to the core network 914 over a wired or wireless connection 915.
- a first user equipment (UE) 991 located in coverage area 913c is configured to wirelessly connect to, or be paged by, the corresponding base station 912c.
- a second UE 992 in coverage area 913a is wirelessly connectable to the corresponding base station 912a. While a plurality of UEs 991, 992 are illustrated in this example, the disclosed embodiments are equally applicable to a situation where a sole UE is in the coverage area or where a sole UE is connecting to the corresponding base station 912.
- One or each of the plurality of UEs 991, 992 may comprise a low-power receiver according to the embodiment in Fig. 7.
- the telecommunication network 910 is itself connected to a host computer 930, which may be embodied in the hardware and/or software of a standalone server, a cloud-implemented server, a distributed server or as processing resources in a server farm.
- the host computer 930 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider, or may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider.
- the connections 921, 922 between the telecommunication network 910 and the host computer 930 may extend directly from the core network 914 to the host computer 930 or may go via an optional intermediate network 920.
- the intermediate network 920 may be one of, or a combination of more than one of, a public, private or hosted network; the intermediate network 920, if any, may be a backbone network or the Internet; in particular, the intermediate network 920 may comprise two or more sub-networks (not shown).
- the communication system 900 of Fig. 9 as a whole enables connectivity between one of the connected UEs 991, 992 and the host computer 930.
- the connectivity may be described as an over-the-top (OTT) connection 950.
- the host computer 930 and the connected UEs 991, 992 are configured to communicate data and/or signaling via the OTT connection 950, using the access network 911, the core network 914, any intermediate network 920 and possible further infrastructure (not shown) as intermediaries.
- the OTT connection 950 may be transparent in the sense that the participating communication devices through which the OTT connection 950 passes are unaware of routing of uplink and downlink communications.
- a base station 912 may not or need not be informed about the past routing of an incoming downlink communication with data originating from a host computer 930 to be forwarded (e.g., handed over) to a connected UE 991. Similarly, the base station 912 need not be aware of the future routing of an outgoing uplink communication originating from the UE 991 towards the host computer 930.
- the performance of the OTT connection 950 can be improved, e.g., in terms of increased throughput and/or reduced latency.
- embodiments of the technique allow for reducing a UE power consumption for PDCCH signal detection, in particular for paging detection, especially when the UE is in RRC_IDLE mode, RRC_IN ACTIVE mode and/or DRX mode.
- a UE comprising a low-power receiver (which may be simplified, e.g., with respect to a conventional high-power receiver for data reception on a data channel, e.g. PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may have and/or may be implemented for low power consumption, e.g., for PDCCH signal detection.
- the UE may keep its (e.g., conventional) high-power receiver in deep sleep mode and use the low-power receiver for PDCCH signal (e.g., paging) reception during RRC_IDLE mode, RRCJNACTIVE and/or DRX mode.
- the UE may detect a (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission (e.g., in its PO) using the low-power receiver. Once a matching PDCCH signal hypothesis is detected in the comparing step, the UE may activate its high-power receiver for PDSCH processing. Alternatively or in addition, if the high-power receiver wake-up time it not fast enough for PDSCH sample collection (e.g., comprising PDSCH transmitted in the same frame as the matched PDCCH signal hypothesis to received radio signal on the PDCCH), the low-power receiver may record and store PDSCH samples for use by the high-power receiver (e.g., as soon as it is awake and/or after the expiry of the wake-up time).
- a PDCCH signal hypothesis e.g., in its PO
- the UE may activate its high-power receiver for PDSCH processing.
- the low-power receiver may record and store PDSCH samples for use by the high-power receiver (e.g., as soon as it is awake and/or
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Abstract
A technique for selectively activating a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, is provided. As to a method aspect, a method (300) comprises or initiates a step of determining a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel. The method (300) further comprises a step of receiving a radio signal, using the low-power receiver (106), on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The method (300) further comprises a step of selectively activating the high-power receiver (606) depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
Description
TECHNIQUE FOR PDCCH RADIO SIGNAL RECEPTION
Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a technique for receiving a radio signal on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). More specifically, and without limitation, methods and devices are provided for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment for receiving the PDCCH and for triggering such a selective activation.
Background
When a user equipment (U E) is in radio resource control (RRC) idle or inactive mode (abbreviated by "RRCJDLE" and/or "RRCJNACTIVE"), e.g., as described in section 4.1 of the document TS 36.304, version 16.2.0, issued by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the UE regularly wakes up from sleep for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) signal reception and decoding, e.g., as specified in section 7.1 of the document TS 36.304. Such a discontinuous reception (DRX) is also specified for an RRC connected mode in section 5.7 of the 3GPP document TS 36.321, version 16.2.0. The PDCCH signal may be comprise paging information, system information (SI) or a random access response (RAR).
The regular wake-up is the major contribution to U E power consumption (i.e., consumption of energy per time by the UE) in the idle mode and in the inactive mode. To extend a battery time of the UE, it is important to reduce the UE power consumption in the idle mode and the inactive mode.
Summary
Accordingly, there is a need for a technique that reduces power consumption of a user equipment (UE), in particular if the UE is in (e.g., radio resource control, RRC) idle, inactive and/or discontinuous reception (DRX) mode. Alternatively or in addition, there is a need for a technique that reduces a U E power consumption for paging detection, reception of system information (SI) and/or reception of a random access response (RAR).
As to a first method aspect, a method of selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The method comprises or initiates a step of determining a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel. The method further comprises or initiates a step of receiving a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The method further comprises or initiates a step of selectively activating the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may be indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain in combination with the control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel. For example, each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise a candidate for the radio signal comprising the encoded control information at the time domain and/or at the frequency domain according to the allocation of the PDCCH.
The technique may be implemented for low-power reception of the PDCCH. The reception using the low-power receiver may be a discontinuous reception (DRX), e.g., in at least one of a connected mode, an idle mode and an inactive mode. The reception using the low-power receiver may be allow for paging the UE in a radio resource control (RRC) idle mode or inactive mode.
The PDCCH may comprise a common control channel (e.g., for paging). Alternatively or in addition, the data channel may comprise a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and/or a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver may be configured to (e.g., exclusively) receive radio signals on the PDCCH.
The high-power receiver may be a default receiver (e.g., of the data channel and a control channel, e.g., comprising the PDCCH). The high-power receiver may function as a full-power receiver or a non-reduced power receiver. Alternatively or in addition,
the high-power receiver may be configured to (e.g., exclusively) receive data on the data channel, e.g. the PDSCH. Alternatively or in addition, the high-power receiver may be configured as a transceiver comprising a transmitter and a receiver. The transceiver may be configured to transmit data on the data channel, e.g. the PUSCH.
The low-power receiver may be configured to receive a control signal as the radio signal on the PDCCH (briefly: "PDCCH signal"). The PDCCH signal may be or may comprise a PDCCH paging signal. Alternatively or in addition the PDCCH signal may comprise system information (SI) and/or a random access response (RAR).
The UE may comprise two different front ends connected to a radio antenna, e.g., coupled to the same radio antenna. The low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be embodied by the two different front ends, namely by a low-power front end and a high-power front end, respectively. For example, the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be a low-power front end (FE) and a high- power FE of the UE, respectively. Each of the FEs may comprise at least one of an antenna; an amplifier (e.g., a low noise amplifier, LNA); and/or an analogue to digital converter (ADC).
The method may comprise a step of the comparing of the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The step of comparing may be performed by the low-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, using the low-power receiver, at least some embodiments of the UE can save power by comparing each PDCCH signal hypothesis with the received radio signal.
A result of the comparison indicating matching (i.e., identity or equality) of one of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis and the received radio signal may replace and/or correspond to decoding the received radio signal. Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver may save power by not explicitly decoding (e.g., by not performing a step of decoding) the received radio signal. In other words, the comparison may be a comparison at a level of encoded control information, i.e., by comparing the encoded information as received in the received radio signal with the encoded information comprised in each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
Comparing the received radio signal with each of the PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing a time domain and/or a frequency domain in which the radio signal was received with the time domain and/or the frequency domain of the allocation of the PDCCH of each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
Alternatively or in addition, comparing the received radio signal with each of the PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing a resource allocation and a transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the control information. Comparing the resource allocation and transmission format of the data channel comprised in the control information may comprise performing a convolution of the received radio signal with at least part of the PDCCH signal hypothesis (e.g., a time domain representation of the encoded control information), optionally if the low-power receiver operates in a time-domain mode (also: "T-domain mode" or briefly "T-domain"). Alternatively or in addition, comparing the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel comprised in the control information may comprise performing a scalar multiplication (i.e., computing a scalar product) of the received radio signal with at least part of the PDCCH signal hypothesis (e.g., a frequency domain representation of the encoded control information), optionally if the low-power receiver operates in a frequencydomain mode (also: "F-domain mode" or briefly "F-domain").
The high-power receiver may be activated if the result of the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set indicates a scheduling assignment, e.g. on the PDSCH, and/or a scheduling grant, e.g. on the PUSCH, for the UE (e.g., for the high-power receiver, optionally being configured as a transceiver).
Alternatively or in addition, the high-power receiver may be activated if the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set indicates an inequality, e.g., if the received radio signal does not match the resource allocation and/or the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) of any one of the PDCCH signal hypotheses within the set. A lack of equality and/or no match may be indicative of the low-power receiver being unable to read and/or decode the received radio signal.
The PDCCH and the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may be channels of a radio access network (RAN), e.g., a radio channel between the UE and a base station of the RAN.
Determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise encoding the respective control information into the respective one of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Alternatively or in addition, the PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise redundant bits, e.g., a bit field for a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The
redundant bits (e.g., the bit field for the CRC) may be scrambled with a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI), e.g., an RNTI of the RAN or a cell (e.g., a cell of the RAN and/or a cell serving the UE) or a fixed value of the RNTI.
For example, the PDCCH may comprise scheduling information for system information (SI) and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a system information RNTI (SI-RNTI, e.g., a value fixed to 65535, i.e., OxFFFF) and/or the data channel may comprise the SI. Alternatively or in addition, the PDCCH may comprise paging information and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a paging RNTI (P-RNTI, e.g., a value fixed to 65534, i.e., OxFFFE) and/or the data channel may comprise a paging massage for the UE. Alternatively or in addition, the PDCCH may comprise random access (RA) information and/or the CRC may be scrambled with a RA-RNTI and/or the data channel may comprise a RA response (RAR) in response to a RA preamble transmitted by the UE. The RAR may be multicasted to multiple UEs including the UE, e.g., to all UEs in a cell comprising the UE.
The set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may represent a proper subset of a paging search space and/or a common search space (e.g., for broadcasted SI and/or RAR). The control information may be a paging control information and/or a common control information. The control information may be monitored by all UEs in a cell comprising the UE. The paging search space and/or the common control space may be used to carry important initial information including at least one of paging information, system information and information of the random access procedures (e.g., a Timing Alignment, TA; an initial UL grant; and/or an assignment of a cell radio network temporary identity, C-RNTI) to the UE.
The step of selectively activating the high-power receiver may comprise transmitting on the PUSCH and/or receiving on the PDSCH according to the control information, e.g., according to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel.
Alternatively or in addition, baseband processing at the UE may comprise the step of comparing PDCCH signal hypotheses with a received radio signal. The comparing step may be implemented using a baseband processor.
The set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise at least two different PDCCH signal hypotheses.
The high-power receiver may be activated for receiving data on the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) according to the resource allocation and the transmission format comprised in the encoded control information of the PDCCH signal hypothesis that matches the received radio signal in the comparison.
The result of the comparison may comprise a similarity measure (e.g., the convolution or the scalar product). The PDCCH signal hypothesis, for which the similarity measure exceeds a predetermined threshold, may be the PDCCH signal hypothesis that matches the received radio signal in the comparison. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise a signal representation (e.g., one or more vectors of complex values representing one or more symbols of the respective PDCCH signal hypothesis) in which the control information is encoded.
The step of determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise monitoring, during a predetermined time period, at least one of
- the allocation of the PDCCH in the time domain and/or the frequency domain; and
- the control information on the PDCCH as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
The monitoring may be performed by the high-power receiver.
The set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be determined based on the monitored allocation of the PDCCH and/or the monitored control information on the PDCCH. For example, the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be determined based on a set of monitored combinations of the allocation of the PDCCH and the control information on the PDCCH.
The step of determining the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may comprise a step of receiving, from a network node (e.g., a base station) and/or the RAN, a message indicative of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses or a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The network node may be a network node (e.g., a base station) of the RAN.
The message may be broadcasted, e.g., comprised in SI. Alternatively or in addition, the message may be transmitted via dedicated signaling, e.g., in an RRC connected mode (also "RRC connected state" or abbreviated by "RRC_CONNECTED"). Alternatively or in addition, the message may be received by the high-power receiver.
The step of receiving the message from the network node may trigger an activation of the low-power receiver. For example, after reception of the message, the low- power receiver may monitor the PDCCH according to the PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message, and the high-power receiver may be switched to and/or may remain in RRC idle mode and/or RRC inactive mode.
The comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing the time domain and/or the frequency domain in which the radio signal was received with the time domain and/or the frequency domain comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
The comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise comparing the received radio signal with the encoded control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
The comparing of the received radio signal with the control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis may be performed if the result of comparing the time domain and/or the frequency domain, in which the signal was received, with the time domain and/or the frequency domain comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis is indicative of a match (i.e., an identity or equality).
The data channel may comprise a PDSCH and/or a PUSCH.
The radio signal may be received by the low-power receiver of the UE in at least one of a RRC inactive mode; an RRC idle mode; and a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode.
The radio signal may be received by the low-power receiver of the UE in an ON-time (e.g., a paging time window) of a DRX cycle. The RRC inactive mode, the RRC idle mode and the DRX mode may also be denoted as RRC inactive state, RRC idle state and DRX state, respectively.
The received radio signal may be broadcasted on the PDCCH. Alternatively or in addition, the received radio signal may comprise at least one of a paging PDCCH signal, SI, and a RAR.
The resource allocation of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may comprise a time domain and/or a frequency domain.
The transmission format of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may comprise at least one of a modulation and coding scheme (MCS); a transport block scaling (TB) scaling; and a virtual resource block (VRB) to physical resource block (PRB) mapping.
The method may further comprise a step of receiving, using the high-power receiver, data on the data channel (e.g., PDSCH) according to the result of the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. Alternatively or in addition, the method may further comprise a step of transmitting data on the data channel (e.g., PUSCH) according to the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis.
The low-power receiver may be configured to receive narrow-bandwidth signals. A bandwidth of the high-power receiver may be greater than, e.g., multiple times greater than, a bandwidth of the low-power receiver.
The selectively activating step may comprise that the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver and/or by decoding the received radio signal to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, e.g., if a channel quality of the PDCCH is greater than a predetermined first channel quality threshold.
The selectively activating step may comprise that the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver and/or by decoding the received radio signal, e.g., if the channel quality of the PDCCH is less than the predetermined first channel quality threshold or a predetermined second channel quality threshold.
Each of the first channel quality threshold and the second channel quality threshold may comprise a margin, e.g., within which variations of the channel quality over a predetermined time period are tolerated and/or not taken into account. Alternatively or in addition, the second channel quality threshold may be less than the first channel quality threshold.
The channel quality may be indicated by a value of, or may comprise, at least one of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR), a reference signal received power (RSRP), a reference signal received quality (RSRQ), a block error rate (BLER), and/or a cell selection criterion.
For example, the UE may receive the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses if the cell selection criterion is fulfilled. The cell selection criterion may also be referred to as an S-criterion. The cell selection criterion may be defined according to section 5.2.3.2 or 5.2.3.2a of the 3GPP document TS 36.304, version 16.2.0.
The radio signal on the PDCCH may be further received, using the high-power receiver periodically and/or occasionally, in the time domain and/or the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. A periodicity of activating the high-power receiver may comprise a predefined number (e.g., an integer multiple) of paging occasions (POs), e.g., greater than 1. For example, the high-power receiver may be activated every A/-th PO, wherein N>1 is the predefined number. A predefined fraction (e.g., 10% or less) of the POs may be received using the high-power receiver.
The channel quality may be determined based on a comparison of the radio signal received using the high-power receiver and the radio signal received using the low- power receiver (e.g., simultaneously with the reception using the high-power receiver).
The high-power receiver may be activated periodically to verify or assess a robustness and/or an accurateness of the low-power receiver, e.g., by comparing the radio signal further received using the high-power receiver with the radio signal received using the low-power receiver.
If the result of comparing the radio signal received using the low-power receiver with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises a match, the high-power receiver may be activated according to the selective activating step for receiving or transmitting on the data channel according to the control information of the match.
Alternatively or in addition, if the result of comparing the radio signal received using the low-power receiver with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises no match, the high-power receiver may be activated for the PDCCH using the high- power receiver instead of the low-power receiver. For example, the high-power receiver may be activated, if the result of comparing the radio signal received using the low-power receiver with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises no match. Alternatively or in addition, the high-power receiver may be activated, if the received radio signal comprises a paging signal and if the UE is being paged at an average paging rate, which is greater or less than a predetermined paging rate threshold.
The method may comprise a step of measuring a strength and/or a quality of the received radio signal. The method may further comprise a step of transmitting a measurement report indicative of the measured strength and/or the measured quality of the received radio signal, e.g., to the RAN and/or the base station.
The measurement report may be related to and/or may be triggered by a radio resource management (RRM). Alternatively or in addition, based on the measurement report, a network node may initiate a handover procedure to a neighboring network node. The measurement report may be transmitted to the network node.
The method (or at least the steps of receiving the radio signal using the low-power receiver and selectively activating the high-power receiver) may be executed if a cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less or equal to a predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
The cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be a product K times L (KxL). K may denote or represent the number of different allocations of the time domain and/or the frequency domain of the PDCCH. L may denote or represent the number of different resource allocations and/or transmission formats of the data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH), e.g. comprised in the encoded control information of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis.
If the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses exceeds the predetermined first cardinality threshold value, the radio signal may be received using (e.g., exclusively) the high-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, the radio signal
need not be received using the low-power receiver, if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses exceeds the predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
The low-power receiver may comprise, or may be used in, a time-domain mode. The comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise a convolution in the time-domain mode.
Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver may comprise, or may be used in, a frequency-domain mode. The comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set may comprise a scalar multiplication in the frequency-domain mode.
Herein, activating any of the receivers or any of the receivers being activated may encompass operating and/or using the respective one of the receivers.
The low-power receiver may be activated in the time-domain mode if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less than or equal to a predetermined second cardinality threshold value. The low-power receiver may be activated in the frequency-domain mode if the cardinality of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is greater than the predetermined second cardinality threshold value.
Usage of the predetermined first cardinality threshold value may not need or imply the usage of the predetermined first cardinality threshold value.
The second cardinality threshold value may be less than the first cardinality threshold value.
The second cardinality threshold value may be in the range of three to several tens (e.g., 20 or 30) of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprised in the set. Alternatively or in addition, the first cardinality threshold value may, e.g., be in the range of one hundred to several hundreds of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprised in the set.
The first method aspect may be performed by a radio device. The radio device may embody the UE and/or may be comprised in the UE.
As to a second method aspect, a method of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The method comprises or
initiates a step of transmitting, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel. The method further comprises or initiates a step of transmitting, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may trigger the UE to use the low-power receiver to receive the radio signal in the PDCCH. Alternatively or in addition, the message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may trigger the UE to use the set indicated by the message for comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may further trigger the UE to the selectively activating of the high-power receiver depending on a result of the comparison.
The second method aspect may further comprise any feature, or may comprise or initiate any step, disclosed in the context of the first method aspect or may comprise a feature or step corresponding thereto. For example, the transmitted radio signal according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis may comprise encoded control information as to a resource allocation in terms of a time allocation and/or a frequency allocation of the data channel. Alternatively or in addition, the data channel may comprise a PDSCH and/or a PUSCH. Further alternatively or in addition, the transmission format of the data channel may comprise an MCS, a TB scaling, and/or a VRB-to-PRB mapping. Still further alternatively or in addition, the second method aspect may comprise a step of transmitting and/or receiving data on the data channel (e.g., by a network node on PDSCH and/or PUSCH, respectively) according to the control information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
The second method aspect may be performed by a network node (e.g., a base station) and/or the RAN.
Moreover, the first method aspect may be performed at or by a receiving station (briefly: receiver), e.g., the UE for a downlink connection. Alternatively, or in combination, the second method aspect may be performed at or by a transmitting station (briefly: transmitter), e.g., the network node or the RAN.
The PDCCH and/or the data channel (e.g., used for the data transmission and the radio reception), i.e., any of the channels between the transmitter and the receiver, may comprise multiple subcarriers as the frequency domain. Alternatively, or in addition, the PDCCH and/or the data channel may comprise one or more slots for a plurality of modulation symbols as the time domain. Alternatively, or in addition, the PDCCH and/or the data channel may comprise a directional transmission (also: beamformed transmission) at the transmitter, a directional reception (also: beamformed reception) at the receiver or a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel with two or more spatial streams (e.g., as a spatial domain).
The transmitter and the receiver may be spaced apart. The transmitter and the receiver may be in communication of the radio signal and/or the data exclusively by means of the radio communication.
In any aspect, the transmitter and the receiver may form, or may be part of, a radio network, e.g., according to the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) or according to the standard family IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi). The radio network may be a radio access network (RAN) comprising one or more base stations. Alternatively, or in addition, the radio network may be a vehicular, ad hoc and/or mesh network. The first method aspect may be performed by one or more embodiments of the receiver in the radio network. The second method aspect may be performed by one or more embodiments of the transmitter in the radio network.
The UE may be a radio device, e.g., a mobile or wireless device, e.g., a 3GPP user equipment or a Wi-Fi station (STA). The UE may be a mobile or portable station, a device for machine-type communication (MTC), a device for narrowband Internet of Things (NB-loT) or a combination thereof. Examples for the UE include a mobile phone, a tablet computer and a self-driving vehicle. Examples for the portable station include a laptop computer and a television set. Examples for the MTC device or the NB-loT device include robots, sensors and/or actuators, e.g., in manufacturing, automotive communication and home automation. The MTC device or the NB-loT device may be implemented in a manufacturing plant, household appliances and consumer electronics.
Any of the UEs (e.g., radio devices) may be wirelessly connected or connectable (e.g., according to a radio resource control, RRC, state or active mode) with any of the network nodes (e.g., base stations). Herein, the base station may encompass any
station that is configured to provide radio access to any of the radio devices. The base stations may also be referred to as transmission and reception point (TRP), radio access node or access point (AP). The base station or one of the radio devices functioning as a gateway (e.g., between the radio network and the RAN and/or the Internet) may provide a data link to a host computer providing the data. Examples for the base stations may include a 3G base station or Node B, 4G base station or eNodeB, a 5G base station or gNodeB, a Wi-Fi AP and a network controller (e.g., according to Bluetooth, ZigBee or Z-Wave).
The RAN may be implemented according to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and/or 3GPP New Radio (NR).
Any aspect of the technique may be implemented on a Physical Layer (PHY), a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer and/or a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer of a protocol stack for the radio communication.
As to another aspect, a computer program product is provided. The computer program product comprises program code portions for performing any one of the steps of the method aspects disclosed herein when the computer program product is executed by one or more computing devices. The computer program product may be stored on a computer-readable recording medium. The computer program product may also be provided for download, e.g., via the radio network, the RAN, the Internet and/or the host computer. Alternatively, or in addition, the method may be encoded in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and/or an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), or the functionality may be provided for download by means of a hardware description language.
As to a first device aspect, a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The device may be configured to perform any one of the steps of the first method aspect. Alternatively, or in addition, the device may comprise a PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit configured to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and
a transmission format of a data channel. The device may further comprise a radio signal receiving unit configured to receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain and the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The device may further comprise a high-power receiver selectively activating unit that is configured to selectively activate the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
As to a second device aspect, a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The device may be configured to perform any one of the steps of the second method aspect. Alternatively, or in addition, the device may comprise a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmitting unit configured to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel. The device may further comprise a radio signal transmitting unit configured to transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
As to a further first device aspect, a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The device comprises processing circuitry (e.g., at least one processor) and memory. Said memory may comprise (e.g., may be operable to store) instructions executable by said processing circuitry whereby the device is operative to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain and the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and selectively activate the high-power
receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The device may be further operative to perform any of the steps of the first method aspect.
As to a further second device aspect, a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE) for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) is provided. The device comprises processing circuitry (e.g., at least one processor) and memory. Said memory may comprise (e.g., may be operable to store) instructions executable by said processing circuitry whereby the device is operative to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain and a frequency domain, and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; and transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. The device may be further operative to perform any of the steps of the second method aspect.
Each of the (e.g., first) devices may comprise a radio device (e.g., the UE). Alternatively or in addition, each of the (e.g., second) devices may comprise a network node.
As to a still further aspect a communication system comprising a user equipment (UE) is provided. The UE comprises a radio interface and processing circuitry, the processing circuitry of the UE being configured to execute any one of the steps of the first method aspect.
The communication system may further comprise one or more base stations (e.g., network nodes) configured to communicate with the UE. Any one or each of the one or more base stations may be configured to execute any one of the steps of the second method aspect.
Any one of the devices, the UE, the base station, the system or any node or station for embodying the technique may further include any feature disclosed in the context of the method aspects, and vice versa. Particularly, any one of the units and modules,
or a dedicated unit or module, may be configured to perform or initiate one or more of the steps of the method aspect.
Brief Description of the Drawings
Further details of embodiments of the technique are described with reference to the enclosed drawings, wherein:
Fig. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH;
Fig. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH;
Fig. 3 shows a flowchart for an embodiment of method of selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH, which method may be implementable by the device of Fig. 1;
Fig. 4 shows a flowchart for an embodiment of method of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH, which method may be implementable by the device of Fig- 2;
Fig. 5 schematic illustrates radio resource elements in a time domain and a frequency domain for the PDCCH or the data channel in a time-frequency grid;
Fig. 6 schematically illustrates examples of decision criteria for selectively activating the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver depending on a channel quality and/or a cardinality of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, wherein the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver may be implementable by the device of Fig. 1;
Fig. 7 shows an example schematic block diagram of a UE embodying the device of Fig. 1;
Fig. 8 shows an example schematic block diagram of a network node embodying the device of Fig. 2; and
Fig. 9 schematically illustrates an example telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer, wherein the network may comprise one or more UEs as exemplified in Fig. 7 and one or more network nodes as exemplified in Fig. 8.
Detailed Description
In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth, such as a specific network environment in order to provide a thorough understanding of the technique disclosed herein. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the technique may be practiced in other embodiments that depart from these specific details. Moreover, while the following embodiments are primarily described for a New Radio (NR) or 5G implementation, it is readily apparent that the technique described herein may also be implemented for any other radio communication technique, including 3GPP LTE (e.g., LTE-Advanced or a related radio access technique such as MulteFire), in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) according to the standard family IEEE 802.11, for Bluetooth according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), particularly Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Mesh Networking and Bluetooth broadcasting, for Z-Wave according to the Z-Wave Alliance or for ZigBee based on IEEE 802.15.4.
Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the functions, steps, units and modules explained herein may be implemented using software functioning in conjunction with a programmed microprocessor, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) or a general purpose computer, e.g., including an Advanced RISC Machine (ARM). It will also be appreciated that, while the following embodiments are primarily described in context with methods and devices, the invention may also be embodied in a computer program product as well as in a system comprising at least one computer processor and memory coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the memory is encoded with one or more programs that may perform the functions and steps or implement the units and modules disclosed herein.
Fig. 1 schematically illustrates an example block diagram of a device for selectively activating a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a user equipment (UE)
for receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The device is generically referred to by reference sign 100.
The device 100 comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit 104 that is configured to determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
The device 100 further comprises a radio signal receiving unit 106 that is configured to receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or in the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The low-power receiver may embody at least one of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set determining unit 104 and the radio signal receiving unit 106.
The device 100 further comprises a high-power receiver selectively activating unit 108 that is configured to selectively activate the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The high-power receiver may embody the high-power receiver selectively activating unit 108.
The device 100 optionally further comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message receiving unit 102 that is configured to receive, from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
Any of the units of the receiving device 100 may be implemented by modules configured to provide the corresponding functionality.
The device 100 may also be referred to as, or may be embodied by, the UE. The UE 100 and the network node are in a radio communication at least for the reception of the radio signal at the UE 100.
Fig. 2 schematically illustrates an example block diagram of a device for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH. The device is generically referred to by reference sign 200.
The device 200 comprises a PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmitting unit 202 that is configured to transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
The device 200 further comprises a radio signal transmitting unit 204 configured to transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
Any of the units of the device 200 may be implemented by modules configured to provide the corresponding functionality.
The device 200 may also be referred to as, or may be embodied by, a network node. The network node 200 and the UE receiving the PDCCH signal hypothesis set message are in a radio communication at least for the PDCCH signal hypothesis set message transmission at the network node 200.
The PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message by the network node 200 and received by the UE 100 may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the (e.g., full and/or extended) PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined at the UE 100.
Fig. 3 shows an example flowchart for a method 300 of selectively activating a low- power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH. The method 300 comprises or initiates a step 304 of determining a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
The method 300 further comprises or initiates a step 306 of receiving a radio signal, using the low-power receiver, on the PDCCH in the time domain and/or in the frequency domain according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The method 300 further comprises or initiates a step 308 of selectively activating the high-power receiver depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The method 300 optionally further comprises or initiates a step 302 of receiving, from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
The method 300 may be performed by the device 100 (e.g., the UE). For example, the units 102, 104, 106 and 108 may perform the steps 302, 304, 306 and 308, respectively.
Fig. 4 shows an example flowchart for a method 400 of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver and a high-power receiver in a UE for receiving a PDCCH. The method 400 comprises or initiates a step 402 of transmitting, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set comprises at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in a time domain and/or in a frequency domain. Each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH).
The method 400 further comprises or initiates a step 404 of transmitting, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
The method 400 may be performed by the device 200 (e.g., the network node). For example, the units 202 and 204 may perform the steps 402 and 404, respectively.
The PDCCH signal hypothesis set indicated in the message and transmitted in the step 402 and received in the step 302 may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the (e.g., full and/or extended) PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined in the step 304.
The UE 100 may be equipped with the low-power receiver (e.g., as a simplified receiver), which is implemented with a power consumption lower than the high- power receiver (e.g., as a default receiver, i.e., a main receiver). By the low-power receiver, the UE 100 may keep its high-power receiver in deep sleep mode and use the low-power receiver for the reception of common PDCCH signaling (e.g., comprising paging, SI or RAR) during the RRCJDLE mode and/or the RRC_IN ACTIVE mode.
The UE 100 may detect a common (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission in the allocated time domain (e.g., the PO) using the low-power receiver. Once a matching of a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is observed (e.g., in terms of a timefrequency domain of the PDCCH signal in combination with the encoded control information), the UE 100 may activate its high-power receiver for data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) processing. If the high-power receiver wake-up time it not fast enough for PDSCH sample collection, the low-power receiver may record and/or store PDSCH samples for use by the high-power receiver.
The technique may be applied to uplink (UL), downlink (DL) or direct communications between radio devices, e.g., device-to-device (D2D) communications or sidelink (SL) communications.
Each of the device 100 and the device 200 may be a radio device (e.g., a UE) and/or a base station (e.g., respectively). For SL communications, the device 100 may be embodied by the UE and the device 200 may be embodied by a further UE.
Herein, any UE may be a mobile or portable station and/or any radio device wirelessly connectable to a base station or RAN, or to another radio device. A UE may be a radio device for machine-type communication (MTC) or a radio device for (e.g., narrowband) Internet of Things (loT). Two or more radio devices may be configured to wirelessly connect to each other, e.g., in an ad hoc radio network or via a 3GPP SL connection. Furthermore, any base station may be a station providing radio access, may be part of a radio access network (RAN) and/or may be a node connected to the RAN for controlling radio access. Further a base station may be an access point, for example a Wi-Fi access point.
Further details on operating the low-power receiver and/or selectively activating the high-power receiver are described with reference to Figs. 5 and 6.
A low-power receiver may generally comprise a radio frequency (RF) receiver (e.g., a low-power font end) capable of receiving a narrow bandwidth signal and a signal detector, which may include a time-domain correlator. The time-domain correlator may perform the step of comparing.
Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver may be configured for low- power frequency-domain processing, e.g., comprising a fast Fourier transform (FFT) and/or a downlink control information ( DCI ) decoder. The frequency-domain processing of the -power receiver may be reduced compared to the high-power receiver.
Compared with the high-power receiver of the UE 100, the low-power receiver may be implemented with a different RF receiver and a different ADC, which may be collectively referred to as low-power front end. A linearity of the RF and/or the ADC of the low-power receiver may be inferior compared to the RF and/or the ADC of the high-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, a noise power (e.g., a of quantum noise) of the RF and/or the ADC of the low-power receiver may be greater than a noise power of the RF and/or the ADC of the high-power receiver.
If the channel quality is greater than a predetermined first or second channel quality threshold, e.g., in decent or good reception conditions (e.g. high SINR), the low-power receiver may be sufficient to collect, e.g., in-phase and quadraturephase (l/Q.) samples for time-domain correlation processing.
Typically, around 80% to 90% of the cell coverage area has at least decent link conditions, which the UE can determine, and thus it can employ the low-power receiver at least 80% of the time.
Fig. 5 shows an example of a time-frequency (T/F) grid 500 comprising a time domain 502 and a frequency domain 504. A part 506 of the time domain 502 may be allocated to the common PDCCH, e.g., comprising DCI and/or paging (e.g., the part 506 of the T/F grid 500 may comprise the POs in a resource block, RB, and/or resource element, RE, for a UE at reference sign 510). The data channel (e.g., PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may be allocated to a part 508 of the time domain 502, e.g. comprising RBs and/or REs at reference sign 512.
The low-power receiver may comprise at least two processing modes, examples of which are indicated in Fig. 6.
The low-power receiver 106 may comprise a time-domain correlator at reference sign 608.
In one embodiment, the low-power receiver may operate in T-domain only, performing l/Q sampling, synchronization signal block (SSB)-based T/F synchronization, and sample collection and recoding in the PO location followed by PDCCH signal hypothesis testing with respect to possible paging PDCCH contents. Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver 106 may comprise a frequencydomain correlator at reference sign 612, e.g., in addition to the time-domain correlator 608.
An analysis of UE power consumption for (in particular common) PDCCH signaling (e.g., paging) shows that the power cost for FFT is not significant when the (in particular common, e.g., paging) PDCCH signal (as an example of the radio signal received in the step 306 and/or transmitted in the step 404) has narrow bandwidth and is limited in FFT size. Conventional PDCCH blind decoding (BD) is more power hungry than FFT. Therefore, it is advantageous to the reduce number of BD candidates. When the network, e.g. a network node, can generate a (in particular common) PDCCH signal (e.g., for paging) within a limited set of hypotheses, the power consumption of PDCCH BD can be dramatically reduced and the BD can be performed by a low-power receiver.
During a RRCJDLE, RRC_IN ACTIVE and/or DRX cycle, the low-power receiver in UE may enable its digital processing functions (e.g., FFT and PDCCH BD) at a PO for paging detection. After paging detection, these digital processing functions may be disabled for power saving (e.g., for the remainder of the RRCJDLE, RRCJNACTIVE and/or DRX cycle).
Some of the constraints and/or criteria (e.g. comprising a maximal size and/or maximal number of RBs comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set) for enabling the low-power receiver 106 (e.g., for paging) may not or need not apply if F-domain processing (at reference 612) and/or an additional optional explicit PDCCH decoding at reference sign 616 in Fig. 6 is enabled. Alternatively or in addition, the PDCCH signal hypothesis set may not or need not be formally limited. In the example embodiment of Fig. 6, operating the low-power receiver 106 for PDCCH signal reception may still save power compared to operating the high-power receiver 606 for PDCCH signal reception, if the channel quality is sufficiently good.
In the following, exemplary low-power receiver processing prerequisites will be discussed.
In terms of a detection complexity, in order for the low-power receiver to perform, e.g., paging, reception and decoding advantageously, the following numbers may determine a cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (e.g., the total number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses).
The number of PDCCH allocation options (e.g., possible PRB locations in the T/F grid and/or aggregation levels, ALs, for PDCCH) may be limited to a small number, K, so that the low-power receiver only needs to perform a small number of PDCCH signal hypothesis comparisons with the received radio signal (which may also be denoted as "search in BD"). Alternatively or in addition, a T/F resource allocation may follow a specific pattern. According to an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the network, e.g., a network node serving the UE, may indicate the PDCCH allocation options explicitly, e.g., using higher layer signaling such as SI, LI based signaling and/or RRC signaling. Alternatively or in addition, a limited number of PDCCH signal allocations and/or PDCCH signal hypotheses may be inferred from a search space (SS) and/or control resource set (CORESET) definition provided by the network, e.g. a network node serving the UE. E.g. the network may configure the UE (and/or all UEs in a cell served by a network node) such that the PDCCH allocation options are limited, e.g., the paging DCI configuration may only include one AL, e.g., AL 8, and only one or a few possible locations in the T/F grid.
The contents of the control information of the PDCCH, e.g. comprising DCI (including, e.g., PDSCH T/F allocation, VRB-to-PRB mapping, MCS index, and/or TB scaling) may be predetermined. E.g., the network and/or a serving network node may always schedules the (e.g., paging and/or paged for) PDSCH in one or a few of a number, L, of fixed locations. Alternatively or in addition, the PDSCH message size may be fixed. In a conventional and/or default network behavior, most of these elements (e.g., the content of the control information and/or the PDSCH message size) may be fixed. The cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (e.g., a total number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses) may in practice be reduced significantly, e.g., compared to a theoretical set of allowed combinations of PDCCH allocations and control information.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE needs to only distinguish between three PDCCH signal hypotheses (e.g., related to a short message indicator). In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (or combinations of PDCCH allocations and control information) may be communicated by the network, e.g. by a serving network node, to the one or more UEs, e.g., by higher layer signaling such as SI, LI based or RRC signaling. In one example, the network, e.g., the serving network node, may indicate to the one or more UEs that a specific TB scaling and/or MCS index is used. Alternatively or in addition, the network, e.g., the serving network node, may indicate to the one or more UEs that a data channel (e.g., PDSCH) T/F allocation is fixed.
Alternatively or in addition, the one or more UEs may monitor for determining and/or learning, based on past (also: "historical") network behavior and PDCCH signal control information, (e.g., paging DCI) content that one or more of the elements (e.g., the content of the control information and/or the PDSCH message size) are fixed or constrained to the set. By the knowledge of the past PDCCH signal allocation and/or comprised control information, the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set (e.g., the total number of PDCCH signal hypotheses) may be reduced.
According to the set, the content of the control information for paging, SI and/or RAR may be based on or reduced to a proper subset of items listed in the 3GPP document TS 38.212 version 16.3.0, section 7.3.1.2.1 or listed below.
The following information is transmitted by means of the DCI format 1 0 with CRC scrambled by P-RNTI :
- Short Messages Indicator - 2 bits according to Table 7 . 3 . 1 . 2 . 1- 1 .
- Short Messages - 8 bits , according to Clause 6 . 5 of [ 9 , TS38 . 331 ] . If only the scheduling information for Paging is carried, this bit field is reserved .
- Frequency domain resource assignment - |"log2(/V^'^WP(/V^'^WP +1)/2)"| bits . If only the short message is carried, this bit field is reserved .
- N^’BWP is the size of CORESET 0
- Time domain resource assignment - 4 bits as defined in Clause
5 . 1 . 2 . 1 of 3GPP document TS 38 . 214 . If only the short message is carried, this bit field is reserved .
- VRB-to-PRB mapping - 1 bit according to Table 7.3.1.2.2-5. If only the short message is carried, this bit field is reserved.
- Modulation and coding scheme - 5 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.3 of 3GPP document TS 38.214, using Table 5.1.3.1-1. If only the short message is carried, this bit field is reserved.
- TB scaling - 2 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.3.2 of 3GPP document TS 38.214. If only the short message is carried, this bit field is reserved.
- Reserved bits - 8 bits for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access; otherwise 6 bits
The following information is transmitted by means of the DCI format
1 0 with CRC scrambled by SI-RNTI:
- Frequency domain resource assignment - |"log2(/V^'’BWP(/V^''BWP +1)/2)"| bits .
- N^’BWP is the size of CORESET 0.
- Time domain resource assignment - 4 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.2.1 of 3GPP document TS 38.214
- VRB-to-PRB mapping - 1 bit according to Table 7.3.1.2.2-5.
- Modulation and coding scheme - 5 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.3 of 3GPP document TS 38.214, using Table 5.1.3.1-1.
- Redundancy version - 2 bits as defined in Table 7.3.1.1.1-2.
- System information indicator - 1 bit as defined in Table 7.3.1.2.1-2.
- Reserved bits - 17 bits for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access; otherwise 15 bits.
The following information is transmitted by means of the DCI format
1 0 with CRC scrambled by RA-RNTI or MsgB-RNTI:
- N^’BWP is the size of CORESET 0 if CORESET 0 is configured for the cell and /V^'BWP is the si ze of initial DL bandwidth part if CORESET 0 is not configured for the cell.
- Time domain resource assignment - 4 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.2.1 of 3GPP document TS 38.214.
- VRB-to-PRB mapping - 1 bit according to Table 7.3.1.2.2-5.
- Modulation and coding scheme - 5 bits as defined in Clause 5.1.3 of 3GPP document TS 38.214, using Table 5.1.3.1-1.
- TB scaling - 2 bits as defined in Clause 5 . 1 . 3 . 2 of 3GPP document TS 38 . 214 .
- LSBs of SFN - 2 bits for the DCI format 1 0 with CRC scrambled by MsgB-RNTI as defined in Clause 8 . 2A of 3GPP document TS 38 . 213 if msgB-responseWindow-rl 6 is configured to be larger than 10 ms ; or 2 bits for the DCI format 1 0 with CRC scrambled by RA-RNTI as defined in Clause 8 . 2 of 3GPP document TS 38 . 213 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access if ra -ResponseWindow or ra-ResponseWindow-vl 610 is configured to be larger than 10 ms ; 0 bit otherwise .
- Reserved bits - ( 16 - A) bits for operation in a cell without shared spectrum access , ( 18 - A) for operation in a cell with shared spectrum access , where the value of A is the number of bits for the field of 'LSBs of SFN' as defined above .
( End of citation of 3GPP document TS 38 . 212 version 16 . 3 . 0 , Sec .
7 . 3 . 1 . 2 . 1 )
As the complexity of the correlation-based paging detection is proportional to the product of the above two items comprising the number K of PDCCH allocation options and the number L of PDCCH control information content at reference sign 602 in Fig. 6, the PDCCH decoding becomes a detection task and/or a comparison task on a known radio signal with a limited set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
In one embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, if the number of hypotheses KxL at reference sign 602 is below a cardinality threshold value, low-power receiver operation with allowing lower power consumption may be enabled in the UE. In a sub-embodiment, the low-power receiver operation comprises a T-domain operation mode 608 and an F-domain operation mode 612, and the cardinality threshold value comprises a first cardinality threshold value N below which the low-power receiver 106 is switched on, and a second cardinality threshold value N2, below which the low-power receiver 106 operates in the T-domain operation mode 608. As exemplified in Fig. 6, in the range between N2 (which may be less than N and Nx, the low-power receiver 106 may operate in the F-domain operation mode 612. If the number of hypotheses KxL at reference sign 602 exceeds the first cardinality threshold value Ni, the UE performs conventional decoding of the encoded control information received in the radio signal on the PDCCH, as generally displayed at reference sign 618 in Fig. 6. The values of Nx and N2 may generically be implementationdependent. Merely as numerical examples, the second cardinality threshold value N2 may be in the range of up to 8, e.g., may be set to 3, and the first cardinality threshold value may be in the range of up to 32, e.g., may be set to 12.
The UE may determine and/or learn the PDCCH signal hypotheses by following the (e.g., paging) PDCCH allocation history. E.g., the UE 100 may notice that the network, e.g., its serving network node, always transmits a paging DCI with AL8, and/or in a specific T/F allocation, and/or with a specific MCS index, e.g., MCSO, and/or with a specific TB scaling. The UE 100 may acquire this knowledge by explicit indication from the network, e.g. by receiving a message from its serving network node, and/or implicitly. An implicit knowledge acquisition may comprise an implicit indication by the network (e.g. a specific configuration of the paging DCI). Alternatively or in addition, an implicit knowledge may be acquired based on history of the network (e.g., the serving network node's) behavior with regard to (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission.
Alternatively or in addition, the UE may notice that different PDCCH signal hypotheses can be categorized further within a cell, within a RAN notification area (RNA), and/or within different cells. In an embodiment, which is combinable with any embodiment disclosed herein, the UE only considers the number of PDCCH signal hypotheses within one cell, if the UE is currently not mobile. Alternatively or in addition, if the UE is mobile but with a velocity lower than a predetermined velocity threshold, the number of PDCCH signal hypotheses is determined by the number of different PDCCH signal hypotheses in an RNA (particularly if the UE is in RRCJNACTIVE state and not RRCJDLE). In a further embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may consider a maximum number of potential PDCCH signal hypotheses that the network (e.g., any network node) may transmit within different cells.
In the following, an exemplary detection performance is further described.
In order to reduce the power consumption of the low-power receiver (i.e., a low- power operation) as compared to the power consumption of the high-power receiver (i.e., a high-power operation), a front end quality (FE quality) of the low-power receiver may be relaxed (i.e., reduced), e.g., not meeting the same reception performance criteria that are fulfilled by the high-power receiver, e.g., regarding a channel quality at reference sign 604 in Fig. 6. For example, a detection rate at a given SINR may be greater when using the high-power receiver compared to using the low-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, the high-power receiver may achieve a detection rate at a SINR that is less than the SINR required for the low- power receiver to achieve the detection rate.
In one embodiment, if the low-power receiver 106 reception performance is limited compared to the high-power receiver 606, the low-power receiver 106 reception performance may not be sufficient for cell-edge operation. The UE 100 may determine the current link quality and/or channel quality 604 and may only activate the low-power receiver mode (e.g., the T-domain mode 608 and/or the F-domain mode 612) if the link quality and/or channel quality 604 (e.g., S criterion, RSRP, RSRQ. or SINR) exceeds a threshold, e.g., if the SINR is more than 0 dB (e.g., as the first channel quality threshold value Si at reference sign 624 in Fig. 6), the UE may note that by using low-power receiver 106, the requirements on (e.g., paging) PDCCH detection are satisfied. The UE may thus apply the low-power receiver 106. Alternatively or in addition, if the SINR falls below a second channel quality threshold value (e.g., SINR value S2 at reference sign 626 in Fig. 6), the UE may switch to conventional PDCCH reception by the high-power receiver 606. The second channel quality threshold value may, e.g., be in the range between -2 dB and 0 dB. Alternatively or in addition, the first channel quality threshold value Si and the second channel quality threshold S2 may be equal and/or identical.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE additionally considers the AL of the (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal hypothesis. E.g., if the AL is 8 (which the UE 100 may know by explicit indication from the network, and/or have determined based on a network configuration of control information comprised in the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) and/or based on a past network behavior), the UE may consider a lower SINR (e.g., Si in Fig. 6) for enabling low-power receiver than if the AL is 2, for which a higher SINR(e.g., Si in Fig. 6) level may be considered to enable the low-power receiver 106. E.g., in case of the AL being 8, a SINR (e.g., S of 0 dB may be sufficient and/or in case of the AL being 2, a SINR (e.g., Si) of 5 dB may be required to activate the low-power receiver 106 for radio signal reception on the PDCCH.
Alternatively or in addition, to achieve robustness, the UE may consider a channel quality (e.g., SINR) margin and/or a decoding margin, to add on top of the lowest signal quality and/or channel quality that can be handled by the low-power receiver 106 in case the channel conditions and/or channel quality has changed. Alternatively or in addition, the network (e.g., a serving network node) may configure the control information on the PDCCH (e.g., paging DCI) with an unexpected (e.g., atypical and/or uncommon) parameter, e.g., a lower AL, or a higher MCS index. E.g., for paging an AL of 2 or 4 is atypical.
In the following, exemplary low-power receiver activation criteria and mechanisms are further described.
In one class of embodiments, which is combinable with any other embodiment and/or any other class of embodiments disclosed herewith, the step of determining and/or assembling the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be performed locally (also: "autonomously") at the UE 100. The UE may monitor and/or observe that the network, e.g. a serving network node, applies a limited set of PDCCH allocations (e.g., in terms of a location in a time-frequency grid and/or an AL) with a limited range of control information contained in a (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission. Based on the monitoring and/or observing of the limited combination of PDCCH allocations and range of control information, the UE may determine the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses by assembling all monitored and/or observed combinations. The UE may then activate the low-power receiver for performing the method 300, e.g. for paging PDCCH reception. The activation of the low-power receiver may be performed in this class of embodiments by the UE autonomously, e.g. without receiving instructions from the network.
The UE 100 may learn from a radio signal reception by the high-power receiver that the (e.g., paging) PDCCH configuration of the network, e.g. a serving network node (e.g., gNB), is consistent with the (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal hypothesis set stored locally at the UE.
Alternatively or in addition, in a further class of embodiments, the UE may obtain knowledge concerning PDDCH configurations from the network, e.g., the serving network node. In one embodiment, the network (e.g., the serving network node) may explicitly provide its PDCCH configurations by transmitting a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses. The set indicated in the message may be a (e.g., proper) subset of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set determined by the UE. In another embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment and/or any other class of embodiments disclosed herein, the network (e.g., the serving network node) may implicitly provide its PDCCH configurations, e.g., by means of a DCI format. The UE may switch off its high-power receiver responsive to the explicit and/or implicit provision of the PDCCH configurations by the network.
The UE may record, e.g., a PO waveform and detect the coming paging PDCCH using its low-power receiver by applying time-domain correlation, as exemplified at reference sign 608 in Fig. 6.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment, the UE may activate the low-power receiver mode only if the number 602 of PDCCH signal hypotheses KxL is below a threshold (e.g., the value N2 or Ni at reference sign 610 or 614, respectively) and the UE link quality (e.g., the channel quality 604) is above a threshold (e.g., the SINR value Si at reference sign 624) required for low-power receiver detection. The number 602 of PDCCH signal hypotheses and/or the channel quality 604 threshold may be further determined based on the fact that the UE is expected to be paged in one cell (e.g., by the serving network node), in the whole RNA, or even enlarged further in other cells.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment, the UE may choose between T-domain and F-domain low-power receiver 106 processing (as exemplified at reference signs 608 and 612, respectively) based on the number 602 of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses. If the number 602 of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses is high (e.g., above N2 at reference sign 610), and/or if no clear patterns and/or constraints can be identified by the UE (e.g., based on received radio signals), F-domain processing 612 may be invoked.
Fig. 6 shows an exemplary relation 600 between the cardinality 602 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and channel quality 604 and switching between low-power receiver 106 modes in the T-domain 608 and F-domain 612 (and optionally a further conventional decoding mode 616) and/or the conventional decoding mode 618 of the high-power receiver 606. In an exemplary sub-embodiment, depending on the channel quality 604 and/or cardinality 620 of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set as indicated by the arrow at reference sign 620, the high-power receiver may also switch to a T-domain and/or F-domain mode 622 of comparing received signals with a PDCCH signal hypothesis set.
According to an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may be opportunistic and accept an occasional lack of detection of, e.g., the first paging PDCCH instance. To verify a robustness of the low- power receiver 106, the UE may use its high-power receiver 606 to detect paging PDCCH and compare the result with the detection result by its low-power receiver 106. A concurrent PDCCH signal detection by the high-power receiver 606 and/or
comparison with the PDCCH signal obtained by the low-power receiver 106 may periodically be employed, if the UE is in RRC_IDLE mode and/or RRC_IN ACTIVE mode, e.g. every Nth DRX cycle and/or every Nth group of cycles, wherein N may be a positive number greater than 1, e.g. N may be 10. If low-power receiver 106 misses paging PDCCH detection (e.g., detected by the periodic comparison with the detection by the high-power receiver 606), the high-power receiver 606 may be activated and/or take over the paging PDCCH detection (e.g., in all or a large fraction of the POs).
To determine the level of its leverage to miss some paging PDCCH instances due to unsuccessful decoding (e.g., in terms of comparing the encoded control information of each PDCCH signal hypothesis with the received radio signal) and/or detection of transmission formats and/or resource allocations resources comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis, and/or allocation of the PDCCH, which may or may not be comprised in the PDCCH hypothesis set, the UE may, e.g., ensure that the PDCCH decoding BLER does not go beyond a specific requirement set for the UE, e.g., 1% BLER.
According to an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, to reduce the probability that some paging PDCCH instances are missed due to at least part of the transmitted encoded control information (e.g., a transmission format and/or a resource allocation of the data channel, e.g., PDSCH) not being comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set, the UE may (e.g., tentatively) expand the PDCCH signal hypothesis set. Expanding the PDCCH signal hypothesis set may, e.g., comprise including all resource allocation options and/or all transmission format options allowed in or by the search space (SS) and observing whether the rate of detected paging PDCCH signal receptions increases, e.g., when the low-power receiver employs the extended PDCCH signal hypothesis set for comparing with received radio signals. If the rate of detected paging PDCCH signal receptions increases, the UE may revise its PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or revert to conventional paging PDCCH monitoring using the high-power receiver.
The UE may periodically perform paging PDCCH reception with the high-power receiver for the purposes of verifying the continued validity of the limited PDCCH signal hypothesis set used for low-power receiver detection. If the previously assumed limitation of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set is seen not to hold, e.g., by the high-power receiver performing conventional decoding, the UE may return to
the high-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception, e.g., for all or at least a significant fraction of the POs.
Alternatively or in addition, the UE may perform paging PDCCH monitoring for the purpose of identifying paging PDCCH transmission patterns (e.g., in terms of the allocation of the PDCCH and/or the encoded control information) in RRC_CONNECTED mode. The PDCCH monitoring may be performed in the RRC connected state, e.g., by the high-power receiver. The PDCCH monitoring in the RRC connected state may be performed in addition to comparing the low-power receiver and the high-power receiver detection performance, e.g. in RRCJDLE and/or RRCJN ACTIVE mode.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may decide to employ or not to employ the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH (e.g., comprising DCI) reception, depending on if there is sufficient time for the high-power receiver to wake up and decode PDSCH. Alternatively or in addition, the low-power receiver may independently sample and/or buffer PDSCH to be decoded by the high-power receiver. According to a sub-embodiment, the UE may decide to use the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH decoding, if the UE latency tolerance is within the time that the UE (e.g., the high-power receiver) needs to wake up, decode PDSCH, and/or move to the (e.g., RRC) connected mode if it is being paged. Alternatively or in addition, if the latency requirements are rigid, the UE may use the high-power receiver.
In an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may applies the low-power receiver for paging PDCCH decoding (e.g., by comparing with the PDCCH signal hypothesis set) based on an average paging rate. E.g., if the UE is being paged less than a predetermined percentage of the POs, the UE may apply low-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception, but if it is paged more than the predetermined percentage of the POs, it may activate the high-power receiver for PDCCH paging reception. The predetermined percentage of the POs, in which the UE is being paged, may be below 10%, e.g. 2%. Alternatively or in addition, the percentage of the POs, in which the UE is being paged, should be small enough to ensure that monitoring for paging in (e.g., RRC) idle mode is not dominated by one or more other (e.g., different from monitoring for paging) activities.
In a further embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may employ the low-power receiver for (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception
by default. If paged, the UE may activate the high-power receiver to read the paging message in the next PO. To decide to use the option of reading the paging message in the next PO by means of the high-power receiver, the UE may consider a criterion, e.g., based on an average paging rate, a channel quality, a required BLER, and/or a latency requirement. E.g., if the UE average paging rate is less than 10%, the SINR is more than 5dB, and/or the UE can tolerate a latency of at least one DRX cycle duration, then the UE may apply low-power receiver for paging PDCCH reception.
In another embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment disclosed herein, the UE may decide to apply the low-power receiver based on an indication by the network (e.g., a serving network node) of one or more of the paging elements (e.g., the PDCCH allocation and/or content of the control information comprising a transmission format and/or resource allocation for the data channel, e.g., PDSCH). E.g., if the network (e.g., the serving network node) configures the paging DCI with AL8 or more, the UE may apply the low-power receiver. If the network (e.g., the serving network node) configures the paging DCI for AL4 or less, the UE does not or may not apply the low-power receiver. Alternatively or in addition, the UE may decide to apply the low-power receiver if one or more elements of the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) is fixed and/or remains constant over an extended time duration, e.g., if the TB scaling is preserved, e.g., over multiple frames. If the PDCCH signal (e.g., paging DCI) elements are changing frequently, the UE does not or may not apply the low-power receiver.
In the following an at least partially determining of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or activation of the low-power receiver may be controlled by the network (e.g., by a serving network node) and/or may be cell-specific.
In another class of embodiments, which is combinable with any other embodiment and/or any other class of embodiments, the network (e.g., a serving network node) may provide (e.g., paging) scheduling constraint information (e.g., for both PDCCH and PDSCH resource allocation) in broadcasted SI for a cell. The scheduling constraint information may comprise, e.g., a fixed AL, fixed MCS, a fixed TB scaling, a fixed VRB to PRB mapping, a fixed time and frequency resource allocation (for the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH). The UE may extract the scheduling constraint information from the SI in its serving (also: "camping") cell. Based on the extracted scheduling constraint information, the UE may configure and/or generate a limited PDCCH signal hypothesis set comprising, e.g., PDCCH contents and/or corresponding sample sequences. The low-power receiver may receive the (e.g.,
paging) PDCCH signal, use the PDCCH signal hypothesis set as reference and perform match filtering to detect the scheduled signal and/or message (e.g., paging). The UE may use the cardinality of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or low-power receiver performance criteria in choosing whether to invoke the low- power receiver mode.
As a further example performance criterion, the low-power receiver may switch from T-domain operation mode to F-domain operation mode if a time synchronization error and/or a time synchronization uncertainty is equal to or less than a time threshold T1 at reference sign 628 in Fig. 6. The time threshold T1 may, e.g., be selected as not exceeding a predetermined fraction of a cyclic prefix length of a symbol (e.g., according to the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, numerology), e.g. T1 may be in the range of 10% to 20% of the cyclic prefix length. If the time synchronization error and/or time synchronization uncertainty exceeds the time threshold value Tl, the UE may need to perform multiple FFTs, one at each time instant test + Tl. Performing multiple FFTs may require more resources in the F-domain operation mode than in the T-domain operation mode.
Alternatively or in addition, the network (e.g., a serving network node) may provide a (e.g., paging) scheduling constraint as part of the (e.g., paging) PDCCH configuration. E.g., the network may configure few ALs for a paging DCI, e.g., only AL8, or both AL8 and AL16.
In the following an at least partially determining of the PDCCH signal hypothesis set and/or activation of the low-power receiver may be controlled by the network (e.g., by a serving network node) and/or may be UE-specific.
In yet another class of embodiments, which is combinable with any other embodiment and/or any other class of embodiments disclosed herein, the network (e.g., a serving network node) may receive a UE capability information during an RRC_CONNECTED session indicating that the UE supports low-power receiver (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception. The network (e.g., the serving network node) may decide to configure one or more future (e.g., paging) PDCCH signal for the UE by considering the above factors (e.g., the received UE capability information indicating that the UE supports low-power receiver PDCCH reception and/or scheduling information constraints), and signal the low-power receiver-compatible (e.g. paging) PDCCH mode to the UE when the UE is released to the RRCJDLE state and/or the RRC_IN ACTIVE state. The network (e.g., the serving network node) may
apply the PDCCH signal constraints only while paging the UE in its last serving, in the last paging and/or tracking area, and/or in the entire network. The one or more conditions and/or instances of applying the PDCCH signal constraints may be indicated in the release command, e.g., by the serving network node, and/or in broadcasted SI.
As an extension to the low-power receiver PDCCH reception, in an embodiment, which is combinable with any other embodiment and/or class of embodiments disclosed herein, the low-power receiver-based (e.g., paging) PDCCH reception may be combined with low-power receiver-based RRM measurements in (e.g., RRC) idle mode and/or (e.g., RRC) inactive mode, e.g., relieving the high-power receiver further and/or completely.
An embodiment of the method 300, and/or an extension thereof, may be employed for paging reception in a UE as follows. According to the step 304, the UE determines a subset of PDCCH resource allocation options, e.g. received in a paging search space (briefly: paging-SS), to be used for paging PDCCH transmission by the network (e.g., a serving network node). The UE may acquire samples of a PO according to the subset of PDCCH resource allocation options using the low-power receiver. The UE may further perform a simplified processing (e.g., compared to conventional processing using the high-power receiver) of the samples in the low- power receiver to detect a paging PDCCH. If paging PDCCH detected, the UE may collect PDSCH samples (using the low-power receiver and/or the high-power receiver) and process data received on the data channel, e.g. PDSCH (using the high- power receiver and/or optionally the low-power receiver).
The embodiment of the method 300 may further comprise determining a set of possible PDCCH signal hypotheses as to its encoded control information (which may also be denoted as "content" of the PDCCH). Alternatively or in addition, the simplified processing may be performed as time-domain correlation detection.
Alternatively or in addition, the embodiment of the method 300 may comprise at least a sub-set and/or at least a part of the encoded control information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set being determined by the UE based on past observations of (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmissions.
Further alternatively or in addition, the embodiment of the method 300 may comprise at least a sub-set and/or at least a part of the encoded control
information comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis set being determined based on signaling (e.g., SI and/or a content of a release message) from the network, e.g. a serving network node.
An embodiment of the method 400, and/or an extension thereof, may be employed for paging transmission by the network, e.g. by a serving network node. The network may provide information to a UE about a subset of PDCCH signal hypotheses, e.g. as to resource allocation options (e.g., in the time-frequency domain and/or one or more ALs) to be used for paging PDCCH and a set of possible encoded control information comprised in the PDCCH. The information about the subset of PDCCH signal hypotheses may be provided via SI and/or in a release message to the UE, e.g. in the step 402.
For unicast and multicast transmissions of the data, a directional radio communication may be beneficial. For example, a directional reception at the device 100 may improve the signal and/or data transmission from the device 200.
Furthermore, a directional transmission from the device 200 may improve the signal and/or data transmission. Alternatively, or in addition, a directional transmission from the device 200 may reduce the interference at other radio devices that are not target radio devices of the data transmission, e.g., if the device 100 is not the target radio device. Furthermore, a directional reception at the device 100 may reduce the interference caused by other transmissions not targeting the device 100, e.g., transmissions not originating from the device 200. The directional transmission may be implemented using an antenna array or any other multi-antenna configuration at the device 200. The directional reception may be implemented using an antenna array or any other multi-antenna configuration at the device 100.
Fig. 7 shows a schematic block diagram for an embodiment of the device 100. The device 100 comprises one or more processors 704 for performing the method 300 and memory 706 coupled to the processors 704. For example, the memory 706 may be encoded with instructions that implement at least one of the modules 102, 104 and 106.
The one or more processors 704 may be a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, microcode and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction
with other components of the device 100, such as the memory 706, UE functionality. For example, the one or more processors 704 may execute instructions stored in the memory 706. Such functionality may include providing various features and steps discussed herein, including any of the benefits disclosed herein. The expression "the device being operative to perform an action" may denote the device 100 being configured to perform the action.
As schematically illustrated in Fig. 7, the device 100 may be embodied by a UE 700, e.g., functioning as a data receiver. The UE 700 comprises a radio interface 702 coupled to the device 100 for radio communication with one or more network nodes, e.g., functioning as the RAN.
The radio interface 702 may comprise the low-power receiver 106 or at least the low- power front end 106. For example, the comparing step may be implemented in the processor 704 (e.g., a baseband processor). The radio interface 702 may further comprise the high-power receiver 606 or at least the high-power front end 606. For example, the decoding may be implemented in the same processor 704 (e.g., the baseband processor).
Fig. 8 shows a schematic block diagram for an embodiment of the device 200. The device 200 comprises one or more processors 804 for performing the method 400 and memory 806 coupled to the processors 804. For example, the memory 806 may be encoded with instructions that implement at least one of the modules 202 and 204.
The one or more processors 804 may be a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, microcode and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other components of the device 200, such as the memory 806, network node functionality. For example, the one or more processors 804 may execute instructions stored in the memory 806. Such functionality may include providing various features and steps discussed herein, including any of the benefits disclosed herein. The expression "the device being operative to perform an action" may denote the device 200 being configured to perform the action.
As schematically illustrated in Fig. 8, the device 200 may be embodied by a network node 800, e.g., functioning as a network node or base station. The network node 800 comprises a radio interface 802 coupled to the device 200 for radio communication with one or more radio device, e.g., functioning as UE.
With reference to Fig. 9, in accordance with an embodiment, a communication system 900 includes a telecommunication network 910, such as a 3GPP-type cellular network, which comprises an access network 911, such as a radio access network, and a core network 914. The access network 911 comprises a plurality of base stations 912a, 912b, 912c, such as NBs, eNBs, gNBs or other types of wireless access points, each defining a corresponding coverage area 913a, 913b, 913c. Each base station 912a, 912b, 912c is connectable to the core network 914 over a wired or wireless connection 915. A first user equipment (UE) 991 located in coverage area 913c is configured to wirelessly connect to, or be paged by, the corresponding base station 912c. A second UE 992 in coverage area 913a is wirelessly connectable to the corresponding base station 912a. While a plurality of UEs 991, 992 are illustrated in this example, the disclosed embodiments are equally applicable to a situation where a sole UE is in the coverage area or where a sole UE is connecting to the corresponding base station 912. One or each of the plurality of UEs 991, 992 may comprise a low-power receiver according to the embodiment in Fig. 7.
The telecommunication network 910 is itself connected to a host computer 930, which may be embodied in the hardware and/or software of a standalone server, a cloud-implemented server, a distributed server or as processing resources in a server farm. The host computer 930 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider, or may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider. The connections 921, 922 between the telecommunication network 910 and the host computer 930 may extend directly from the core network 914 to the host computer 930 or may go via an optional intermediate network 920. The intermediate network 920 may be one of, or a combination of more than one of, a public, private or hosted network; the intermediate network 920, if any, may be a backbone network or the Internet; in particular, the intermediate network 920 may comprise two or more sub-networks (not shown).
The communication system 900 of Fig. 9 as a whole enables connectivity between one of the connected UEs 991, 992 and the host computer 930. The connectivity may be described as an over-the-top (OTT) connection 950. The host computer 930 and the connected UEs 991, 992 are configured to communicate data and/or signaling via
the OTT connection 950, using the access network 911, the core network 914, any intermediate network 920 and possible further infrastructure (not shown) as intermediaries. The OTT connection 950 may be transparent in the sense that the participating communication devices through which the OTT connection 950 passes are unaware of routing of uplink and downlink communications. For example, a base station 912 may not or need not be informed about the past routing of an incoming downlink communication with data originating from a host computer 930 to be forwarded (e.g., handed over) to a connected UE 991. Similarly, the base station 912 need not be aware of the future routing of an outgoing uplink communication originating from the UE 991 towards the host computer 930.
By virtue of the method 300 and 400 being performed by any one of the UEs 991 or 992 and/or any one of the base stations 912, the performance of the OTT connection 950 can be improved, e.g., in terms of increased throughput and/or reduced latency.
As has become apparent from above description, embodiments of the technique allow for reducing a UE power consumption for PDCCH signal detection, in particular for paging detection, especially when the UE is in RRC_IDLE mode, RRC_IN ACTIVE mode and/or DRX mode.
A UE comprising a low-power receiver (which may be simplified, e.g., with respect to a conventional high-power receiver for data reception on a data channel, e.g. PDSCH and/or PUSCH) may have and/or may be implemented for low power consumption, e.g., for PDCCH signal detection. The UE may keep its (e.g., conventional) high-power receiver in deep sleep mode and use the low-power receiver for PDCCH signal (e.g., paging) reception during RRC_IDLE mode, RRCJNACTIVE and/or DRX mode.
The UE may detect a (e.g., paging) PDCCH transmission (e.g., in its PO) using the low-power receiver. Once a matching PDCCH signal hypothesis is detected in the comparing step, the UE may activate its high-power receiver for PDSCH processing. Alternatively or in addition, if the high-power receiver wake-up time it not fast enough for PDSCH sample collection (e.g., comprising PDSCH transmitted in the same frame as the matched PDCCH signal hypothesis to received radio signal on the PDCCH), the low-power receiver may record and store PDSCH samples for use by the high-power receiver (e.g., as soon as it is awake and/or after the expiry of the wake-up time).
Many advantages of the present invention will be fully understood from the foregoing description, and it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the units and devices without departing from the scope of the invention and/or without sacrificing all of its advantages. Since the invention can be varied in many ways, it will be recognized that the invention should be limited only by the scope of the following claims.
Claims
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Claims
1. A method (300) of selectively activating a low-power receiver (106) and a high- power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the method (300) comprising or initiating the steps of: determining (304) a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; receiving (306) a radio signal, using the low-power receiver (106), on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and selectively activating (308) the high-power receiver (606) depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
2. The method (300) of claim 1, wherein the high-power receiver (606) is activated (306) for receiving data on the data channel according to the resource allocation and the transmission format comprised in the encoded control information of the PDCCH signal hypothesis that matches the received radio signal in the comparison.
3. The method (300) of claim 1 or 2, wherein the step of determining (304) the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprises monitoring, during a predetermined time period, at least one of: the allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504); and the control information on the PDCCH as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel, optionally wherein the monitoring is performed by the high-power receiver (606).
4. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the step of determining (304) the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses comprises the step of: receiving (302), from a network node, a message indicative of at least a subset of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses.
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5. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises comparing the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) in which the radio signal was received with the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
6. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises comparing the received radio signal with the encoded control information as to the resource allocation and the transmission format of the data channel comprised in the PDCCH signal hypothesis.
7. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the data channel comprises at least one of a physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH, and a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.
8. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the radio signal is received (306) by the low-power receiver (106) of the UE in at least one of a radio resource control, RRC, inactive mode; an RRC idle mode; and a discontinuous reception, DRX, mode.
9. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein the received (306) radio signal is broadcast on the PDCCH and/or wherein the received (306) radio signal comprises at least one of a paging PDCCH signal; system information, SI; and a random access response, RAR.
10. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the resource allocation of the data channel comprises at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504).
11. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the transmission format of the data channel comprises at least one of a modulation and coding scheme, MCS; a transport block scaling, TB scaling; and a virtual resource block, VRB, to physical resource block, PRB, mapping.
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12. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 11, further comprising at least one of the steps of: receiving, using the high-power receiver (606), data on the data channel according to the result of the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and transmitting data on the data channel according to the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis.
13. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 12, wherein the low-power receiver (106) is configured to receive narrow-bandwidth signals.
14. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver (606) and/or by decoding the received radio signal to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver (106) and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses if a channel quality (604) of the PDCCH is greater than a predetermined first channel quality threshold (624).
15. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the UE switches from receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the low-power receiver (106) and/or by comparing the received radio signal with the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses to receiving the radio signal on the PDCCH using the high-power receiver (606) and/or by decoding the received radio signal if the channel quality (604) of the PDCCH is less than a predetermined second channel quality threshold (626).
16. The method (300) of claims 14 and 15, wherein the second channel quality threshold (626) is less than the first channel quality threshold (624).
17. The method (300) of any one of claims 14 to 16, wherein the channel quality (604) is indicated by a value of or comprises at least one of a signal-to-noise ratio, SNR; a signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio, SINR; a reference signal received power, RSRP; a reference signal received quality, RSRQ; a block error rate, BLER; and a cell selection criterion.
18. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein a radio signal on the PDCCH is further received in the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set using the high-power receiver (606) periodically, a periodicity of activating (308) the high-power receiver (606) optionally comprising a predefined number of paging occasions, POs.
19. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 18, wherein the high-power receiver (606) is activated (308) at least one of: if the result of comparing the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises no match; and if the received (306) radio signal comprises a paging signal and if the UE is being paged at an average paging rate, which is higher than a predetermined paging rate threshold.
20. The method (300) of any one of clams 1 to 19, further comprising the steps of: measuring a strength and/or quality of the received (306) radio signal; and transmitting a measurement report indicative of the measured strength and/or quality of the received radio signal.
21. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 20, wherein at least the steps of receiving (306) the radio signal using the low-power receiver (106) and of selectively activating (308) the high-power receiver (606) are executed if a cardinality (602) of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less or equal to a predetermined first cardinality threshold value (610; 614).
22. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 21, wherein the low-power receiver (106) comprises a time-domain mode (608), and wherein the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises a convolution in the time-domain mode (608).
23. The method (300) of any one of claims 1 to 22, wherein the low-power receiver (106) comprises a frequency-domain mode (612), and wherein the comparing of the received radio signal with each PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises a scalar multiplication in the frequency-domain mode (612).
24. The method (300) of claims 22 and 23, wherein the low-power receiver (106) operates in the time-domain mode (608) if a cardinality (602) of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is less or equal to a predetermined second cardinality threshold value (610), and wherein the low-power receiver (106) operates in the frequencydomain mode (612) if the cardinality (602) of the set of PDCCH signal hypotheses is greater than the predetermined second cardinality threshold (610).
25. The method (300) of claims 21 and 24, wherein the second cardinality threshold value (610) is less than the first cardinality threshold value (614).
26. A method (400) of triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the method (400) comprising the steps of: transmitting (402), to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; and transmitting (404), to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set. 1. The method of claim 26, further comprising or initiating the steps and/or comprising the features of any one of claims 2 to 25, or steps and/or features corresponding thereto.
28. A computer program product comprising program code portions for performing the steps of any one of the claims 1 to 25 and/or 26 to 27 when the computer program product is executed on one or more computing devices (704; 804), optionally stored on a computer-readable recording medium (706; 806).
29. A device (100; 700) for selectively activating a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the device (100; 700) configured to:
48 determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver (106), on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and selectively activate the high-power receiver (606) depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
30. The device (100; 700) of claim 29, further to perform the steps and/or comprising the features of any one of claims 2 to 25, or steps and/or features corresponding thereto.
31. A device (200; 800) for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the device (200; 800) configured to: transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; and transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
32. The device (200) of claim 31, further configured to perform the steps and/or comprising the features of claim 27.
33. A device (100; 700) for selectively activating a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the device (100; 700) comprising memory (706) operable to store instructions and processing circuitry (704) operable to execute the instructions, whereby the device (100; 700) is operative to:
49 determine a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; receive a radio signal, using the low-power receiver (106), on the PDCCH in the at least one of the time domain (502) and the frequency domain (504) according to each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set; and selectively activate the high-power receiver (606) depending on a result of comparing the received radio signal with each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
34. The device (100; 700) of claim 31, further operative to perform the steps and/or comprising the features of any one of claims 2 to 25, or steps and/or features corresponding thereto.
35. A device (200; 800) for triggering the selectively activating of a low-power receiver (106) and a high-power receiver (606) in a user equipment, UE, for receiving a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, the device (200; 800) comprising memory (806) operable to store instructions and processing circuitry (804) operable to execute the instructions, whereby the device (200; 800) is operative to: transmit, to the UE, a message indicative of a set of PDCCH signal hypotheses, the set comprising at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis, wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set is indicative of an allocation of the PDCCH in at least one of a time domain (502) and a frequency domain (504), and wherein each of the at least one PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set comprises encoded control information as to a resource allocation and a transmission format of a data channel; and transmit, to the UE, a radio signal on the PDCCH according to a PDCCH signal hypothesis within the set.
36. The device (200; 800) of claim 35, further operative to perform the steps and/or comprising the features of claim 1.
50
37. A user equipment, UE (100; 700; 991; 992), configured to communicate with a base station (200; 800; 912a; 912b; 912c) or radio device functioning as a gateway, the UE (100; 700; 991; 992) comprising a radio interface (106; 606; 702; 1037) and processing circuitry (704; 1038) configured to execute the steps of any one of claims I to 25.
38. A base station (200; 800; 912a; 912b; 912c; 1020) configured to communicate with a user equipment, UE (100; 700; 991; 992; 1030), the base station (200; 800; 912a; 912b; 912c) comprising a radio interface (802; 1027) and processing circuitry (804; 1028) configured to execute the steps of any one of claims 26 to 1.
39. A communication system (900) comprising: a user equipment, UE (100; 700; 991; 992), wherein the UE (100; 700; 991; 992) comprises a radio interface (106; 606; 702) and processing circuitry (704), the processing circuitry (704) of the UE (100; 700; 991; 992) being configured to execute the steps of any one of claims 1 to 25; and a base station (200; 800; 912a; 912b; 912c) configured to communicate with the UE (100; 700; 991; 992), optionally wherein the base station (200; 800; 912a; 912b; 912c) is configured to execute the steps of any one of claims 26 to 27.
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