WO2018106911A2

WO2018106911A2 - Multefire user equipment for grantless uplink transmission

Info

Publication number: WO2018106911A2
Application number: PCT/US2017/065102
Authority: WO
Inventors: Wenting CHANG; Huaning Niu; Qiaoyang Ye; Jeongho Jeon
Original assignee: Intel IP Corporation
Priority date: 2016-12-07
Filing date: 2017-12-07
Publication date: 2018-06-14
Also published as: WO2018106911A3

Abstract

Embodiments of autonomous uplink transmissions, such as grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions, are described. In some embodiments, a user equipment (UE) may be configured as a Multefire (MF UE) and includes processing circuitry configured to configure the MF UE for GUL transmissions on a MF cell, such as grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI). The MF UE may be configured to receive downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission. In some embodiments, the MF UE may transmit the GUL transmission (GUL-UCI) in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a short physical uplink control channel (sPUCCH), and/or an extended PUCCH (ePUCCH). In some embodiments, the MF UE may be configured to transmit a GUL transmission during a gap duration between downlink signaling and uplink signaling.

Description

MULTEFIRE USER EQUIPMENT FOR GRANTLESS UPLINK

TRANSMISSION

PRIORITY CLAIM

[0001] This application claims priority to United States Provisional

Patent Application Serial No. 62/431,296 filed December 7, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] Embodiments pertain to wireless networks and wireless communications. Some embodiments relate to 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks including LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks. Some embodiments relate to 5G networks. Some embodiments relate to networks using unlicensed spectrum, including Multefire networks. Some embodiments relate to methods, computer readable media, and apparatus for grantless uplink transmissions.

BACKGROUND

Growth in wireless traffic has led to an urgent need of rate improvement causing an increasing interest in LTE systems using unlicensed spectrum One major enhancement for LTE in 3GPP Release 13 has been to enable LTE operation in the unlicensed spectrum via Licensed- Assisted Access (LAA), which may expand system bandwidth by using the flexible carrier aggregation (CA) framework introduced by the LTE-Advanced system.

Enhanced operation of LTE systems in unlicensed spectrum is expected in future releases and 5G systems. Potential LTE operation in unlicensed spectrum may include LTE operation in the unlicensed spectrum via dual connectivity (DC) (e.g., DC-based LAA) and MulteFire (MF), a standalone LTE system in the unlicensed spectrum, where LTE-based technology operates in the unlicensed spectrum without an "anchor" in licensed spectrum MF combines the performance benefits of licensed spectrum technologies (e.g., LTE) with the simplicity of unlicensed spectrum deployments and is a technology component to meet the ever-increasing demand in wireless traffic.

The main incumbent system in the S GHz band, the unlicensed frequency band of current interest, is Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), specifically those based on the IEEE 802.11 a/n/ac technologies. Because WLAN systems are widely deployed both by individuals and operators for carrier grade access service and data offloading, sufficient care should be taken before the deployment. For example, Listen Before-Talk (LBT) is a feature of Rel-13 LAA systems for fair coexistence with the incumbent system.

In some instances, uplink (UL) performance in the unlicensed spectrum is significantly degraded because of double LBT requirements at both Evolved Node-B (eNB) when sending the UL grant and at the scheduled user equipment (UE) before transmission. This can be a generic problem when a scheduled system (e.g., LTE) coexists with a non-scheduled autonomous system, (e.g., Wi- Fi™). Further, a limitation imposed on LTE systems is the 4-subframe processing delay, which can restrict the initial 4 subframes in a transmission burst from being configured for UL as the UL grants are unavailable for those subframes within the same transmission burst.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0003] FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system architecture of a wireless network in accordance with some embodiments;

[0004] FIG. 2 illustrates example components of a device in accordance with some embodiments;

[0005] FIG. 3 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments;

[0006] FIG. 4 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments;

[0007] FIG 5 is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments; [0008] FIG. 6 illustrates components of a core network in accordance with some embodiments;

[0009] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, of a system to support Network Functions Virtualization (NFV);

[0010] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium;

[0011] FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary operation involving a shared

Maximum Channel Occupancy Time (MCOT) in accordance with some embodiments;

[0012] FIG. 10A illustrates an exemplar}' gap configuration, in accordance with some embodiments;

[0013] FIG 10B illustrates an exemplary gap configuration, in accordance with some embodiments;

[0014] FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary short physical uplink control channel (sPUCCH) for grant! ess uplink control information (GUL-UCI) transmission, in accordance with some embodiments;

[0015] FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary extended physical uplink control channel (ePUCCH) for GUL-UCI transmission, in accordance with some embodiments;

[0016] FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram of an example machine upon which any one or more of the techniques (e.g., methodologies) discussed herein may perform.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0017] FIG. 1 illustrates an architecture of a system 100 of a network in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the system 100 may be configured for LTE operation in unlicensed spectrum, for example, as part of a Multefire (MF) system, and may be configured for autonomous (e.g., grantless) uplink transmissions. In some embodiments, a grantless uplink transmission may include control information (e.g., uplink control information (UCI) or grantless UCI (GUL-UCI)) and/or data information. Such grantless transmissions may be transmitted (e.g., from a user equipment configured as a MF UE) within a gap period, as will be further explained below, and/or within an uplink channel (e.g., physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)). In some embodiments, during an autonomous uplink transmission, a MF UE may transmit signaling on a MF cell without an uplink grant (e.g., without an uplink grant from an eNB).

[0018] The system 100 is shown to include a user equipment (UE) 101 and a UE 102, for example a UE configured as a MF UE. The UEs 101 and 102 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

[0019] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 101 and 102 can comprise an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity-Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

[0020] The UEs 101 and 102 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with a radio access network (RAN) 110— the RAN 110 may be, for example, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), aNextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UEs 101 and 102 utilize connections 103 and 104, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to- Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR.) protocol, and the like.

[0021] In this embodiment, the UEs 101 and 102 may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 105. The ProSe interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH). The UE 102 is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) 106 via connection 107. The connection 107 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 106 would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

[0022] The RAN 110 can include one or more access nodes that enable the connections 103 and 104. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), next Generation NodeBs (gNB), RAN nodes, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). The RAN 110 may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RAN node 111, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e.g., cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power (LP) RAN node 112. Any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 101 and 102. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 110 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0023] In accordance with some embodiments, the UEs 101 and 102 can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division

Multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 111 and 1 12 over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

[0024] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 to the UEs 101 and 102, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time- frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resources mat currently can be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels mat are conveyed using such resource blocks.

[0025] The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 101 and 102. The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport format and resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other tilings. It may also inform the UEs 101 and 102 about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE 102 within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 101 and 102. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 101 and 102.

[0026] The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=l, 2, 4, or 8).

[0027] Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for control channel information that are an extension of the above-described concepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhanced the control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as an enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

[0028] The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 120— via an S 1 interface 1 13. In embodiments, the CN 120 may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, aNextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN. In this embodiment the SI interface 113 is split into two parts: the Sl-U interface 114, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes 111 and 112 and the serving gateway (S-GW) 122, and the SI- mobility management entity- (MME) interface 1 IS, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 1 1 1 and 112 and MMEs 121.

[0029] In this embodiment, the CN 120 comprises the MMEs 121, the S-

GW 122, the Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 123, and a home subscriber server (HSS) 124. The MMEs 121 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs 121 may manage mobility embodiments in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 124 may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities ' handling of communication sessions. The CN 120 may comprise one or several HSSs 124, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 124 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc.

[0030] The S-GW 122 may terminate the S 1 interface 113 towards the

RAN 110, and routes data packets between the RAN 110 and the CN 120. In addition, the S-GW 122 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[0031] The P-GW 123 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN.

The P-GW 123 may route data packets between the EPC network 123 and e2ernal networks such as a network including the application server 130 (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface 125. Generally, the application server 130 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this embodiment, the P-GW 123 is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server 130 via an IP communications interface 125. The application server 130 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs 101 and 102 via the CN 120. [0032] The P-GW 123 may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF) 126 is the policy and charging control element of the CN 120. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access

Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE's IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within a HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 126 may be

communicatively coupled to the application server 130 via the P-GW 123. The application server 130 may signal the PCRF 126 to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF 126 may provision this rule into a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) with the appropriate traffic flow template (TFT) and QoS class of identifier (QCI), which commences the QoS and charging as specified by the application server 130.

[0033] FIG. 2 illustrates example components of a device 200 in accordance with some embodiments. For example, the device 200 may be a UE configured to perform autonomous (e.g., grantless) uplink transmissions and may be configured as a MF UE to operate within a MF cell. In some embodiments, the device 200 may include application circuitry 202, baseband circuitry 204, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 206, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 208, one or more antennas 210, and power management circuitry (PMC) 212 coupled together at least as shown. The components of the illustrated device 200 may be included in a UE or a RAN node. In some embodiments, the device 200 may include less elements (e.g., a RAN node may not utilize application circuitry 202, and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device 200 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations). [0034] The application circuitry 202 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 202 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with or may include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the device 200. In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry 202 may process IP data packets received from an EPC.

[0035] The baseband circuitry 204 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 204 may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 206 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 206. Baseband processing circuity 204 may interface with the application circuitry 202 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 206. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor 204A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 204B, a fifth generation (SG) baseband processor 204C, or other baseband processors ) 204D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation (2G), si2h generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 204 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 204A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 206. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 204 A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 204G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 204E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 204 may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 204 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of

modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other

embodiments.

[0036] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 204F. The audio DSP(s) 204F may be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 204 and the application circuitry 202 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0037] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN).

Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 204 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi- mode baseband circuitry.

[0038] RF circuitry 206 may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 206 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 206 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 208 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 204. RF circuitry 206 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 204 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 208 for transmission. [0039] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry

206 may include mixer circuitry 206A, amplifier circuitry 206B and filter circuitry 206C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 206 may include filter circuitry 206C and mixer circuitry 206A. RF circuitry 206 may also include synthesizer circuitry 206D for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 208 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 206D. The amplifier circuitry 206B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 206C may be a low- pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 204 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 206 A of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0040] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 206D to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 208. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 204 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 206C.

[0041] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 206A may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 206 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 206A of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation.

[0042] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 206 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry- 204 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 206.

[0043] In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0044] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 206D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 206D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0045] The synthesizer circuitry' 206D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 206A of the RF circuitry 206 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 206D may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

[0046] In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 204 or the applications processor 202 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 202.

[0047] Synthesizer circuitry 206D of the RF circuitry 206 may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DP A). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+l (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0048] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 206D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 206 may include an IQ/polar converter.

[0049] FEM circuitry 208 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 210, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 206 for further processing. FEM circuitry 208 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF rircuitry 206 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 210. In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry 206, solely in the FEM 208, or in both the RF circuitry 206 and the FEM 208.

[0050] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 208 may include a

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

[0051] In some embodiments, the PMC 212 may manage power provided to the baseband circuitry 204. In particular, the PMC 212 may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC 212 may often be included when the device 200 is capable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device is included in a UE. The PMC 212 may increase the power conversion efficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics.

[0052] While FIG. 2 shows the PMC 212 coupled only with the baseband circuitry 204. However, in other embodiments, the PMC 2 12 may be additionally or alternatively coupled with, and perform similar power management operations for, other components such as, but not limited to, application circuitry 202, RF circuitry 206, or FEM 208.

[0053] In some embodiments, the PMC 212 may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the device 200. For example, if the device 200 is in an RRC Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device 200 may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power.

[0054] If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the device 200 may transition off to an RRC_Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device 200 goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device 200 may not receive data in this state, in order to receive data, it transitions back to RRC Connected state.

[0055] An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable. [0056] Processors of the application circuitry 202 and processors of the baseband circuitry 204 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry 204, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the application circuitry 204 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a radio resource control (RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

[0057] FIG. 3 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry 204 of FIG. 2 may comprise processors 204A-204E and a memory 204G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors 204A-204E may include a memory interface, 304A-304E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory 204G.

[0058] The baseband circuitry 204 may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface 312 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory e2ernal to the baseband circuitry 204), an application circuitry interface 314 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry 202 of FIG. 2), an RF circuitry interface 316 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 206 of FIG. 2), a wireless hardware connectivity interface 318 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface 320 (e.g., an interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMC 212).

[0059] FIG. 4 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a control plane 400 is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE 101 (or alternatively, the UE 102), the RAN node 111 (or alternatively, the RAN node 112), and the MME 121.

[0060] The PHY layer 401 may transmit or receive information used by the MAC layer 402 over one or more air interfaces. The PHY layer 401 may further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC layer 405. The PHY layer 401 may still further perform error detection on the transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding/decoding of the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels, and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna processing.

[0061] The MAC layer 402 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MAC service data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TB) to be delivered to PHY via transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels from transport blocks (TB) delivered from the PHY via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization.

[0062] The RLC layer 403 may operate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC layer 403 may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers, and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers. The RLC layer 403 may also execute re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AM data transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment.

[0063] The PDCP layer 404 may execute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs at re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layer SDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based discard of data, and perform security' operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity' protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[0064] The main services and functions of the RRC layer 405 may include broadcast of system information (e.g., included in Master Information Blocks (MIBs) or System Information Blocks (SIBs) related to the non-access stratum (NAS)), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE and E-UTRAN (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point to point Radio Bearers, security functions including key management, inter radio access technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration for UE

measurement reporting. Said MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more information elements (IEs), which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures.

[0065] The UE 101 and the RAN node 111 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer 401, the MAC layer 402, the RLC layer 403, the PDCP layer 404, and the RRC layer 405.

[0066] The non-access stratum (NAS) protocols 406 form the highest stratum of the control plane between the UE 101 and the MME 121. The NAS protocols 406 support the mobility of the UE 101 and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 101 and the P-GW 123.

[0067] The SI Application Protocol (Sl-AP) layer 415 may support the functions of the SI interface and comprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An EP is a unit of interaction between the RAN node 111 and the CN 120. The S 1 -AP layer services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services and non UE- associated services. These services perform functions including, but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

[0068] The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer

(alternatively referred to as the SCTP/1P layer) 414 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 111 and the MME 121 based, in part, on the IP protocol, supported by the IP layer 413. The L2 layer 412 and the LI layer 411 may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN node and the MME to exchange information.

[0069] The RAN node 111 and the MME 121 may utilize an Sl-MME interface to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 411, the L2 layer 412, the IP layer 413, the SCTP layer 414, and the Sl-AP layer 415.

[0070] FIG. 5 is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a user plane 500 is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE 101 (or alternatively, the UE 102), the RAN node 111 (or alternatively, the RAN node 112), the S-GW 122, and the P-GW 123. The user plane 500 may utilize at least some of the same protocol layers as the control plane 400. For example, the UE 101 and the RAN node 111 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer 401, the MAC layer 402, the RLC layer 403, the PDCP layer 404.

[0071] The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) layer 504 may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. The user data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example. The UDP and IP security (UDP/IP) layer 503 may provide checksums for data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected data flows. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW 122 may utilize an Sl-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 411, the L2 layer 412, the UDP/IP layer 503, and the GTP-U layer 504. The S-GW 122 and the P-GW 123 may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 411, the L2 layer 412, the UDP/EP layer 503, and the GTP-U layer 504. As discussed above with respect to FIG. 4, NAS protocols support the mobility of the UE 101 and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 101 and the P-GW 123.

[0072] FIG. 6 illustrates components of a core network in accordance with some embodiments. The components of the CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes including components to read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., anon-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some

embodiments, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is utilized to virtualize any or all of the above described network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer readable storage mediums

(described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network slice 601. A logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 602 (e.g., the network sub-slice 602 is shown to include the PGW 123 and the PCRF 126).

[0073] NFV architectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used to execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPC components/functions.

[0074] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, of a system 700 to support NFV. The system 700 is illustrated as including a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) 702, a network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) 704, a VNF manager (VNFM) 706, virtualized network functions (VNFs) 708, an element manager (EM) 710, an NFV Orchestrator (NFVO) 712, and a network manager (NM) 714.

[0075] The VIM 702 manages the resources of the NFVI 704. The NFVI 704 can include physical or virtual resources and applications (including hypervisors) used to execute the system 700. The VIM 702 may manage the life cycle of virtual resources with the NFVI 704 (e.g., creation, maintenance, and tear down of virtual machines (VMs) associated with one or more physical resources), track VM instances, track performance, fault and security of VM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instances and associated physical resources to other management systems.

[0076] The VNFM 706 may manage the VNFs 708. The VNFs 708 may be used to execute EPC components/functions. The VNFM 706 may manage the life cycle of the VNFs 708 and track performance, fault and security of the virtual embodiments of VNFs 708. The EM 710 may track the performance, fault and security of the functional embodiments of VNFs 708. The tracking data from the VNFM 706 and the EM 710 may comprise, for example, performance measurement (PM) data used by the VIM 702 or the NFVI 704. Both the VNFM 706 and the EM 710 can scale up/down the quantity of VNFs of the system 700.

[0077] The NFVO 712 may coordinate, authorize, release and engage resources of the NFVI 704 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., to execute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 714 may provide a package of end-user functions with the responsibility for the management of a network, which may include network elements with VNFs, non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs may occur via the EM 710).

[0078] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 8 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 800 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 810, one or more memory/storage devices 820, and one or more communication resources 830, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 840. For

embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 802 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 800

[0079] The processors 810 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 812 and a processor 814.

[0080] The memory/storage devices 820 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 820 may include, but are not limited to any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0081] The communication resources 830 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 804 or one or more databases 806 via a network 808. For example, the communication resources 830 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

[0082] Instructions 850 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 810 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 850 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 810 (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 820, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 850 may be transferred to the hardware resources 800 from any combination of the peripheral devices 804 or the databases 806. Accordingly, the memory of processors 810, the

memory/storage devices 820, the peripheral devices 804, and the databases 806 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0083] Embodiments described herein relate to autonomous uplink transmissions and/or grantless uplink transmissions (e.g., from a MF UE), physical channels for the grantless uplink transmissions, and parameters related to such grantless uplink transmissions. In a related disclosure (Patent

Application Serial No. 62/431,296), an autonomous uplink transmission is disclosed for improving the performance of uplink transmission. [0084] In some embodiments, a base station, such as an Evolved Node-B

(e.g., eNB), may operate a MF cell and may perform channel access procedures for accessing channels for MF cell transmissions. In some embodiments, a MF UE may be configured to perform grantless uplink transmissions on a MF cell and receive downlink transmissions (e.g., PDCCH including DCI) on the MF cell. Related parameters may include contained entries within uplink control information (UCI) or grantless UCI (GUL-UC1). For example, embodiments may include, one or more physical UCI (e.g., GUL-UCI) channels, GAP indications, and configurations of contained GUL-UCI entries, although the scope of such embodiments is not limited in these respects.

[0085] FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary operation involving a shared

Maximum Channel Occupancy Time (MCOT) 900 in accordance with some embodiments. Embodiments may include a Channel Occupancy Time (COT). In some embodiments, a MCOT or COT may be initiated 906 by an initiating device (e.g., one of an eNB or a UE), and the MCOT or COT may be shared 908 by a responding device (e.g., one of the eNB or UE). In some embodiments, downlink control information (DCI) for an uplink grant may be configured within a downlink subframe 904 (e.g., first downlink subframe) to configure a UE (e.g., UE configured as a MF UE) for an uplink transmission (e.g., 910), for example, to indicate to the MF UE a subframe in which the MF UE may transmit uplink signaling (e.g., grantless uplink transmissions). In an LTE system, for example, a gap of processing time 912 (e.g., 4 subframes) may be assumed between an uplink grant DCI and a corresponding Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmission such that a MF UE may decode the uplink grant DCI and prepare data for a scheduled PUSCH transmission. However, in some instances, the gap of processing time 912 (e.g., 4 subframes) may be left unused. Therefore, it may be advantageous for a MF UE to use gap 912 for improving uplink system capacity, for example, by performing grantless uplink

transmissions during gap 912 of processing time.

[0086] In some embodiments, a network element such as an eNB may transmit one or more parameters in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (e.g., common PDCCH (cPDCCH)) to configure a gap (e.g., length/duration and/or offset) between the PDCCH and a subsequent PUSCH, and such parameters may be included in a downlink control information (DCI) in the PDCCH. The PDCCH (e.g., DCI) may indicate, for example, a length or (e.g., duration) and an offset in which a MF UE may transmit (e.g., a MF UE may perform grantless uplink transmissions). In some embodiments, a MF UE may perform a Listen Before Talk (LBT) technique and one or more grantless uplink transmissions (e.g., including GUL-UCI for the grantless uplink transmission) during the gap 912 (e.g., as indicated in the DCI), for example, on a physical channel designated for the grantless uplink transmissions. A physical channel designated for grantless uplink transmissions may include a short PUCCH (e.g., sPUCCH, MF-sPUCCH), an extended PUCCH (ePUCCH, MF- ePUCCH), or a PUSCH according to some embodiments, which are further described below. In some embodiments, a MF UE may perform LBT and autonomous PUSCH (e.g., grantless uplink) transmissions to improve power consumption and/or to compensate for a hidden node problem (e.g., between scheduled UEs and an autonomous uplink transmission), although embodiments are not so limited.

[0087] FIG. 10A and FIG. 10B illustrate an exemplary gap configuration

(1000, 1001), in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, parameters to configure a gap (e.g., 1008, 1010), for example, a length/duration and offset between a PDCCH and a subsequent PUSCH, may be configured within one subframe of the PDCCH (e.g., cPDCCH) or may be configured within multiple subframes (e.g., included in DCI of one subframe 1006 or multiple subframes 1002, 1004). Such parameters may include, for example, a gap length and/or gap offset, an uplink (UL) duration field, and/or an UL offset field. Further, in some embodiments, such parameters may be configured within each subframe (e.g., within 1002 and 1004), according to an exemplar}' PDCCH shown in FIG. 10A.

[0088] In other embodiments, the parameters may be configured within one subframe (e.g., 1006). For example, according to an exemplary downlink signaling (e.g., PDCCH) shown in FIG. 10B, the parameters may be configured within a particular subframe (e.g., 1006) that may be adjacent to and one subframe ahead of a gap (e.g., 1010). In some embodiments, for a MF UE that detects PDCCH with DCI (e.g., DCI CRC scrambled by CC-RNTI in a subframe n), the MF UE may be configured with a duration and an offset in which a MF UE may transmit grantless uplink transmissions (e.g., an UL duration and UL offset for subframe n according to an UL duration and UL offset field in the detected DCI)- For example, the duration and offset in which the MF UE may transmit grantless uplink transmissions may correspond to a gap between the PDCCH and a subsequent PUSCH. In certain embodiments, if the UL duration and UL offset fields configure an UL offset (e.g., 1) and an UL duration (e.g., d) for a subframe (e.g., subframe n), the MF UE may not be required to receive downlink physical channels and/or physical signals in one or more additional subframes (e.g., subframe(s) n + 1 + i with i = 0, 1, ... , d -1). In some instances, the MF UE may be configured to transmit grantless uplink transmissions during the subframe (e.g., subframe n) and/or the one or more of the additional subframes (e.g., subframe(s) n + 1 + i with i = 0, 1, ... , d -1). Embodiments are not so limited, however, and gap information may be configured within one or more subframes having various positions with respect to the gap.

[0089] In some embodiments, GUL-UCI may include information with respect to an autonomous (e.g., grantless) uplink transmission. For example, GUL-UCI may contain entries indicating one or more of a modulation and coding scheme (MCS), a new data indicator, resource assignment, including the occupied interface number and the bandwidth within one interface, hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) ID (e.g., HARQ process number),

demodulation reference signal (DMRS) configuration, redundancy version (RV), UE identity or UE Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI), and duration of uplink transmission with respect to an autonomous uplink transmission.

[0090] In some embodiments, such parameters may be configured by an evolved node-B (eNB) (e.g., through higher layer signaling), and when a UE

(e.g., MF UE) occupies a channel, for example, for LBT (e.g., category 4 or one- shot LBT), the MF UE may transmit data using default parameters configured by the eNB. In other embodiments, partial parameters may be configured by an eNB (e.g., through higher layer signaling) and a MF UE may determine partial parameters. For instance, an eNB may configure an HARQ ID and a DMRS configuration (e.g., cyclic shift, OCC), and the MF UE may convey (e.g., through GUL-UCI) resource assignment, for example, interlace number and covered resource blocks within an interface, for an autonomous uplink transmission. In some embodiments, a MF UE may determine such configurations autonomously and may indicate the configurations to an eNB by transmitting indications of the configurations (e.g., through GUL-UCI). In some embodiments, LBT and uplink autonomous transmission may be constrained within one subframe boundary in a physical channel (e.g., physical UCI channel). For example, a first OFDM symbol may be reserved for LBT so that LBT and the uplink autonomous transmission (e.g., GUL-UCI for autonomous uplink transmission) are constrained within a subframe, although embodiments are not so limited.

[0091] In some embodiments, GUL-UCI for autonomous (e.g., grantless) uplink transmission may be transmitted within a sPUCCH (e.g. , MF-sPUCCH), for example, within a partial subframe, and may be followed by a corresponding PUSCH transmission. In some embodiments, a UE (e.g., MF UE) may perform LBT (e.g., category 4 or one-shot LBT) prior to transmission of GUL-UCI within the sPUCCH. The GUL-UCI, can include one or more indications of a MCS, a new data indicator, resource assignment (e.g., including the occupied interlace number and the bandwidth within one interlace), HARQ process ID, DMRS configuration, RV, UE identity or UE C-RNTL and duration of uplink transmission with respect to an autonomous uplink transmission.

[0092] FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary short physical uplink control channel (sPUCCH) for grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI) transmission 1100, in accordance with some embodiments. As shown in FIG. 11, in one embodiment, a UE (e.g., MF UE) may transmit, within sPUCCH 1102, GUL-UCI such as C-RNTI and/or other parameters. An eNB may then perform autonomous uplink transmission detection based on the preamble sequence of the sPUCCH, or may blindly detect the sPUCCH, and may acquire parameters for the corresponding PUSCH (e.g., 1104) demodulation. In some embodiments, a block of bits of the GUL-UCI (e.g., a block of bits transmitted in one subframe) may be scrambled by a cell ID, for example, instead of the UE specific RNTI. In other embodiments, a new RNTI for autonomous uplink transmission may be introduced (e.g., to avoid complexity that may be associated with blind detection of C-RNTI).

[0093] One or more parameters of sPUCCH for an autonomous uplink transmission (e.g., GUL-UCI transmission) may be predefined or configured (e.g., by an eNB) in some embodiments. Such parameters may include, for example, any one or more of an intra symbol orthogonal cover code (OCC) or intra symbol OCC, cyclic shift, length of sPUCCH

interlace number, or starting resource block index. In some embodiments, the MF-sPUCCH formats 1/2/3 may be adopted for GUL-UCI transmission and may be predefined or configured by an eNB.

[0094] In some embodiments, a GUL-UCI for autonomous (e.g., grantless) transmission may be transmitted within an ePUCCH (e.g., MF- ePUCCH). FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary extended physical uplink control channel (ePUCCH) 1200 for GUL-UCI transmission, in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, as illustrated in FIG. 12, an ePUCCH (e.g., including UCI for autonomous transmission) may be frequency division multiplexed with a corresponding PUSCH, for example short PUSCH

(sPUSCH). In some embodiments, a UE (e.g., MF UE) may transmit UCI (e.g., GUL-UCI) within ePUCCH and GUL-UCI may include one or more parameters such as C-RNTI (e.g., UE C-RNTI, UE identity), a new data indicator, resource assignment, HARQ ID (e.g., HARQ process number), DMRS configuration, RV, MCS, and/or other parameters.

[0095] In some embodiments, an eNB may perform the autonomous uplink transmission detection and acquire the parameters for the corresponding PUSCH transmission. For example, an eNB may perform the autonomous uplink transmission detection based on a DMRS sequence of ePUCCH, or may blindly detect ePUCCH. In some embodiments, a block of bits of the GUL-UCI may be scrambled by a cell ID, for example, instead of the UE specific RNTI. In other embodiments, a new RNTI for autonomous uplink transmission may be introduced (e.g., to avoid complexity that may be associated with blind detection of C-RNTI). One or more parameters of ePUCCH for an autonomous uplink transmission (e.g., UCI transmission) may be predefined or configured (e.g., by an eNB) in some embodiments. Such parameters may include, for example, any one or more of an intra symbol OCC or intra symbol OCC, cyclic shift, length of ePUCCH interlace number, or starting resource block-

index.

[0096] In some embodiments, a GUL-UCI for autonomous (e.g., grantless) transmission may be transmitted within PUSCH. In some

embodiments, control bits (e.g., including CQI/RI/ACK) and data bits (e.g., blocks of control bits and data bits) may be scrambled separately, and may have the same corresponding scrambling sequence or different corresponding scrambling sequences. In one embodiment, control information bits for a grantless transmission (e.g., GUL-UCI for autonomous transmission) may be transmitted within PUSCH (e.g., within one subframe of PUSCH), and a scrambling sequence may be a cell-specific scrambling sequence. In some embodiments, an initial scrambling sequence, c_init, may be generated based on a

defined scrambling sequence

or a RNTI sequence configured by eNB through higher layer signaling

where

[0097] In another embodiment, data bits for a grantless transmission, other than GUL-UCI, may be transmitted within PUSCH (e.g., a block of bits transmitted in one subframe), and a scrambling sequence may be a UE-specific scrambling sequence. In some embodiments, a scrambling sequence for PUSCH can be generated based on a UE C-RNTI

where n is a UE specific RNTI), a cell ID, a newly

introduced RNTI (e.g., MF-RNTI), a pre-defined scrambling sequence (e.g., cintt = 510), or a RNTI sequence configured by eNB through higher layer signaling.

[0098] In some embodiments, different scrambling sequences may be used for different subframes, for example, a first subframe of PUSCH may be scrambled by a cell ID or a newly introduced RNTI, while a following subframe may be scrambled by the cell ID, a newly introduced RNTI, or C-RNTI. Then an eNB, in certain embodiments, may perform an autonomous uplink transmission detection based on the DMRS sequence of PUSCH and acquire the parameters for the corresponding PUSCH demodulation. In some embodiments, a mapping from the DMRS sequence to RNTI (e.g., a newly introduced RNTI such as MF-RNTI, C-RNTI, or a pre-defined RNTI) or cell ID may be introduced. In some embodiments, PUSCH may use the same RNTI as DMRS and the eNB may perform blind detection on DMRS. Based on the detected DMRS sequence, the eNB may infer the RNTI used for scrambling of the data [0099] In one embodiment, the cyclic shift, OCC, and group hopping for

DMRS may be pre-defined (e.g., UE ID used to determine group hopping may be 510, cyclic shift may be 0, and OCC may be [1 1]), configured by eNB through higher layer signaling, or derived based on RNTI (e.g., a newly introduced RNTI such as MF-RNTI, C-RNTI, or a pre-defined RNTI) or cell ID. For example, where the DMRS is based on

the cyclic shift can be calculated based on mod 12 where n'_RNTI may

be configured by eNB through higher layer signaling, a pre-defined value, or cell ID, and OCC index may be obtained from n'_RNTI mod 2.

[00100] In some embodiments, a UE (e.g., MF UE) may select the configuration of DMRS (e.g., including cyclic shifts and/or OCC) autonomously and the eNB may perform blind detection on all possible DMRS sequences. In certain embodiments, one or more parameters of PUSCH for an autonomous uplink transmission (e.g., GUL-UCI transmission), including time and frequency resources for GUL-UCI within PUSCH, may be pre-defined or configured by an eNB (e.g., through higher layer signaling). For example, an eNB may indicate resource allocation for a grantless PUSCH transmission, including for a GUL- UCI transmission (e.g., for an autonomous uplink transmission), by including one or more parameters within DCI (e.g., including uplink grant information) in PDCCH.

[00101] In one example, GUL-UCI bids denoted as q₀, <7i, ... , IQ_UC1-I may be written into the columns indicated by J, where J may be pre-defined, and by sets of (.Q_mN_L) rows starting from the last row or first row and moving upward or downward according to the same role as ACK/ ACK multiplexing within PUSCH. For resource element (RE) mapping, the following methods may be adopted. In one embodiment, the GUL-UCI and PUSCH can be jointly encoded and jointly encoded bits may be mapped to REs following legacy PUSCH RE mapping. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the GUL-UCI and PUSCH may be separately encoded (e.g., legacy LTE). In another embodiment, the RE mapping of GUL-UCI may be time first mapping and the mapping may follow GUL-UCI on PUSCH.

[00102] In some embodiments, a procedure may be added to indicate the length or duration of an autonomous transmission, for example, to enable an eNB to acquire the length of an autonomous transmission as efficiently as possible so that the eNB may prepare the scheduling information for PUSCH and/or PDSCH. In some embodiments, a sequence may be transmitted prior to the PUSCH autonomous transmission and the sequence may be used to reserve the channel, assist the eNB in detecting the existence of an autonomous transmission, and/or indicate the length or duration of an autonomous transmission (e.g., a first sequence having a duration of 1 ms, and a second sequence having a duration of greater than 1 ms). For example, UCI (e.g., GUL- UCI transmitted by a MF UE) for grantless uplink transmission may include channel occupancy time information (e.g., COT information) or MCOT information. COT (e.g., MCOT) information may indicate a length or duration of a grantless transmission (e.g., a first sequence having a duration of 1 ms, and a second sequence having a duration of greater man 1 ms). In some

embodiments, an eNB may acquire the COT information (e.g., MCOT information) and may indicate the COT information in the PDCCH. In a COT duration, a GUL transmission may co-exist with a scheduled uplink transmission (e.g., PUSCH).

[00103] In some embodiments, a RI field in the PUSCH may be used for length indication. An eNB may detect and RI field prior to receiving a whole subframe, for example, given that the RI bits are separately encoded and span four specific OFDM symbols. In other embodiments, the fields may be reserved to indicate the length or duration of an autonomous transmission, for example 2 bit fields may be reserved (e.g., "0 0" for 1 ms, 'Ό 1" for 2 ms, "1 0" for 4 ms, and "l 1" for > 4 ms).

[00104] FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram of an example machine 1300 upon which any one or more of the techniques (e.g., methodologies) discussed herein may perform. Examples, as described herein, may include, or may operate by, logic or a number of components, or mechanisms in the machine 1300. Circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry) is a collection of circuits implemented in tangible entities of the machine 1300 that include hardware (e.g., simple circuits, gates, logic, etc.). Circuitry membership may be flexible over time. Circuitries include members that may, alone or in combination, perform specified operations when operating. In an example, hardware of the circuitry may be immutably designed to carry out a specific operation (e.g., hardwired). In an example, the hardware of the circuitry may include variably connected physical components (e.g., execution units, transistors, simple circuits, etc.) including a machine readable medium physically modified (e.g., magnetically, electrically, moveable placement of invariant massed particles, etc.) to encode instructions of the specific operation. In connecting the physical components, the underlying electrical properties of a hardware constituent are changed, for example, from an insulator to a conductor or vice versa The instructions enable embedded hardware (e.g., the execution units or a loading mechanism) to create members of the circuitry in hardware via the variable connections to carry out portions of the specific operation when in operation. Accordingly, in an example, the machine readable medium elements are part of the circuitry or are

communicatively coupled to the other components of the circuitry when the device is operating. In an example, any of the physical components may be used in more than one member of more than one circuitry. For example, under operation, execution units may be used in a first circuit of a first circuitry at one point in time and reused by a second circuit in the first circuitry, or by a third circuit in a second circuitry at a different time. Additional examples of these components with respect to the machine 1300 follow.

[00105] In alternative embodiments, the machine 1300 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine 1300 may operate in the capacity of a server machine, a client machine, or both in server-client network environments. In an example, the machine 1300 may act as a peer machine in peer-to-peer (P2P) (or other distributed) network environment. The machine 1300 may be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term "machine" shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), other computer cluster configurations. [00106] The machine (e.g., computer system) 1300 may include a hardware processor 1302 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 1304, a static memory (e.g., memory or storage for firmware, microcode, a basic-input-output (BIOS), unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), etc.) 1306, and mass storage 1308 (e.g., hard drive, tape drive, flash storage, or other block devices) some or all of which may communicate with each other via an interlink (e.g., bus) 1330. The machine 1300 may further include a display unit 1310, an alphanumeric input device 1312 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 1314 (e.g., a mouse). In an example, the display unit 1310, input device 1312 and UI navigation device 1314 may be a touch screen display. The machine 1300 may additionally include a storage device (e.g., drive unit) 1308, a signal generation device 1318 (e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 1320, and one or more sensors 1316, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, compass, accelerometer, or other sensor. The machine 1300 may include an output controller 1328, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc.) connection to communicate or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, card reader, etc.).

[00107] Registers of the processor 1302, the main memory 1304, the static memory 1306, or the mass storage 1308 may be, or include, a machine readable medium 1322 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures or instructions 1324 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. The instructions 1324 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within any of registers of the processor 1302, the main memory 1304, the static memory 1306, or the mass storage 1308 during execution thereof by the machine 1300. In an example, one or any combination of the hardware processor 1302, the main memory 1304, the static memory 1306, or the mass storage 1308 may constitute the machine readable media 1322. While the machine readable medium 1322 is illustrated as a single medium, the term "machine readable medium" may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) configured to store the one or more instructions 1324. [00108] The term "machine readable medium" may include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 1300 and that cause the machine 1300 to perform any one or more of the techniques of the present disclosure, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non- limiting machine readable medium examples may include solid-state memories, optical media, magnetic media, and signals (e.g., radio frequency signals, other photon based signals, sound signals, etc.). In an example, a non-transitory machine readable medium comprises a machine readable medium with a plurality of particles having invariant (e.g., rest) mass, and thus are compositions of matter. Accordingly, non-transitory machine-readable media are machine readable media mat do not include transitory propagating signals. Specific examples of non-transitory machine readable media may include: non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Electrically

Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable

Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto- optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.

[00109] The instructions 1324 may be further transmitted or received over a communications network 1326 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 1320 utilizing any one of a number of transfer protocols (e.g., frame relay, internet protocol (IP), transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), etc.). Example communication networks may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (W AN), a packet data network (e. g., the Internet), mobile telephone networks (e.g., cellular networks), Plain Old Telephone (POTS) networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of standards known as Wi-Fi®, IEEE 802.16 family of standards known as WiMax®), IEEE 802.15.4 family of standards, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, among others. In an example, the network interface device 1320 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phone jacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 1326. In an example, the network interface device 1320 may include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of single-input multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), or multiple-input single-output (MISO) techniques. The term "transmission medium" shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 1300, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software. A transmission medium is a machine readable medium.

[00110] Examples

[00111] Although an aspect has been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. The accompanying drawings that form a part hereof show, by way of illustration, and not of limitation, specific embodiments in which the subject matter may be practiced. The embodiments illustrated are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed herein. Other embodiments may be utilized and derived therefrom, such that structural and logical substitutions and changes may be made without departing from the scope of this disclosure. This Detailed Description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of various embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

[00112] Such embodiments of the inventive subject matter may be referred to herein, individually and/or collectively, by the term "aspect" merely for convenience and without intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application to any single aspect or inventive concept if more than one is in fact disclosed. Thus, although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it should be appreciated that any arrangement calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or variations of various embodiments. Combinations of the above embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein, will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. [00113] In this document, the terms "a" or "an" are used, as is common in patent documents, to include one or more than one, independent of any other instances or usages of "at least one" or "one or more." In this document, the term "or" is used to refer to a nonexclusive or, such that "A or B" includes "A but not B," "B but not A," and "A and B," unless otherwise indicated. In this document, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising" and "wherein." Also, in the following claims, the terms "including" and "comprising" are open-ended, that is, a system, UE, article, composition, formulation, or process that includes elements in addition to those listed after such a term in a claim are still deemed to fall within the scope of that claim Moreover, in the following claims, the terms "first," "second," and "third," etc. are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

[00114] The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single aspect for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed aspect. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate aspect.

[00115] The following describes various examples of methods, machine- readable media, and systems (e.g., machines, devices, or other apparatus) discussed herein.

[00116] Example 1 is an apparatus of a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), the MF UE comprising: memory; and processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to configure the MF UE for grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions on a MF cell, and wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the MF UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe;

scramble the block of bits with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence; and sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting the GUL transmission, and wherein the memory is configured to store the DCI.

[00117] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 includes, wherein during one or more additional subframes, the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

[00118] In Example 3, the subject matter of Examples 1-2 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to encode grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI), for transmission along with the PUSCH, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

[00119] In Example 4, the subject matter of Examples 1-3 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the EU to transmit one or more GUL transmissions outside of the uplink duration of the subframe.

[00120] In Example 5, the subject matter of Examples 1-4 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the UE to transmit one or more GUL transmissions during the one or more additional subframes.

[00121] In Example 6, the subject matter of Examples 1-5 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: scramble the block of bits with a cell-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises GUL control information (GUL-UCI) bits; and scramble the block of bits with a UE- specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises data bits.

[00122] In Example 7, the subject matter of Examples 1-6 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a second subframe, wherein the block of bits of the second subframe is scrambled with a different scrabbling sequence from the block of bits of the first subframe.

[00123] In Example 8, the subject matter of Examples 3-7 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure one or more of the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTI.

[00124] In Example 9, the subject matter of Examples 3-8 includes, wherein the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTI are configured by the eNB.

[00125] In Example 10, the subject matter of Examples 3-9 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the MF UE with a resource assignment for one or more GUL transmissions, and wherein the HARQ process number and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) configuration are configured by the eNB.

[00126] Example 11 is an apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB) configured to operate a Multefire (MF) cell and receive grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions, the apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the MF UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, wherein the block of bits is scrambled with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence.

[00127] In Example 12, the subject matter of Example 11 includes, wherein during one or more additional subframes the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

[00128] In Example 13, the subject matter of Examples 11-12 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI) along with the PUSCH from the MF UE, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNT1).

[00129] In Example 14, the subject matter of Examples 11-13 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive one or more GUL transmissions outside of the uplink duration of the subframe.

[00130] In Example 15, the subject matter of Examples 11-14 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive one or more GUL transmissions during the one or more additional subframes.

[00131] In Example 16, the subject matter of Examples 11-15 includes, wherein the block of bits received from the MF UE are scrambled with a cell-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises GUL control information (GUL-UCI) bits, and are scrambled with a UE-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises data bits.

[00132] In Example 17, the subj ect matter of Examples 11-16 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive in the PUSCH, from the MF UE, a block of bits of a second subframe, wherein the block of bits of the second subframe is scrambled with a different scrabbling sequence from the block of bits of the first subframe.

[00133] In Example 18, the subject matter of Examples 13-17 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure one or more of the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTI.

[00134] Example 19 is a computer-readable hardware storage device that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a User Equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), the instructions to configure the one or more processors to: configure the MF UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (OCT) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DC1 including uplink grant information, wherein the DO is to configure the MF UE for a grantless uplink (GUL) transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to scramble the block of bits with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence, and wherein the MF UE is configured to sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting GUL transmission.

[00135] In Example 20, the subject matter of Example 19 includes, wherein during one or more additional subframes the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

[0012(6] In Example 21 , the subj ect matter of Examples 19-20 includes, wherein the instructions are further to configure the one or more processors to encode grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI), for transmission along with the PUSCH, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, anew data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTT).

[00137] Example 22 is a computer-readable hardware storage device that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of evolved node B (eNB) configured to operate a Multefire (MF) cell and receive grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions, the instructions to configure the one or more processors to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the MF UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, wherein the block of bits is scrambled with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence. [00138] In Example 23, the subject matter of Example 22 includes, wherein the instructions are further to configure the one or more processors to: configure the eNB to receive grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI) along with the PUSCH from the MF UE, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a HARQ process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

[00139] Example 24 is an apparatus of a user equipment (UE) comprising processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the UE for an uplink transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, information to configure the UE for transmission of a subframe; and encode, for an uplink transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe, wherein the UE is configured to sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting GUL transmission.

[00140] Example 25 is an apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB), the apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the UE for an uplink transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes, information to configure the UE for transmission of a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for an uplink transmission in the PUSCH.

[00141] Example 26 is an apparatus of a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), the MF UE comprising: memory; and processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to configure the MF UE for autonomous uplink transmission, wherein during an autonomous uplink transmission, the MF UE is configured to transmit signaling on a MF cell without an uplink grant, and wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the MF UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DC I) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for an autonomous uplink transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and encode, for an autonomous uplink transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe; scramble the block of bits with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence; and sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting the autonomous uplink transmission, and wherein the memory is configured to store the DCI.

[00142] Example 27 is at least one machine-readable medium including instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations to implement of any of Examples 1- 26.

[00143] Example 28 is an apparatus comprising means to implement of any of Examples 1-26.

[00144] Example 29 is a system to implement of any of Examples 1- 26.

[00145] Example 30 is a method to implement of any of Examples 1-

26.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), the MF UE comprising: memory; and processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is to configure the MF UE for grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions on a MF cell, and wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the MF UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe; scramble the block of bits with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence; and sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting the GUL transmission, and wherein the memory is configured to store the DCI.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein during one or more additional subframes, the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

3. The apparatus of any of claims 1 -2, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to encode grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI), for transmission along with the PUSCH, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

4. The apparatus of any of claims 1 -2, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the EU to transmit one or more GUL transmissions outside of the uplink duration of the subframe.

5. The apparatus of any of claims 1-2, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the UE to transmit one or more GUL transmissions during the one or more additional subframes.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: scramble the block of bits with a cell-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises GUL control information (GUL-UCI) bits; and scramble the block of bits with a UE-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises data bits.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a second subframe, wherein the block of bits of the second subframe is scrambled with a different scrabbling sequence from the block of bits of the first subframe.

8. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure one or more of the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTL

9. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTI are configured by the eNB.

10. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the MF UE with a resource assignment for one or more GUL transmissions, and wherein the HARQ process number and a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) configuration are configured by the eNB.

11. An apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB) configured to operate a Multefire (MF) cell and receive grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions, the apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the MF UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, wherein the block of bits is scrambled with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein during one or more additional subframes the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

13. The apparatus of any of claims 11-12, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI) along with the PUSCH from the MF UE, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

14. The apparatus of any of claims 11-12, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive one or more GUL transmissions outside of the uplink duration of the subframe.

15. The apparatus of any of claims 11-12, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive one or more GUL transmissions during the one or more additional subframes.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the block of bits received from the MF UE are scrambled with a cell-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises GUL control information (GUL-UCI) bits, and are scrambled with a UE-specific scrambling sequence when the block of bits comprises data bits.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure the eNB to receive in the PUSCH, from the MF UE, a block of bits of a second subframe, wherein the block of bits of the second subframe is scrambled with a different scrabbling sequence from the block of bits of the first subframe.

18. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to configure one or more of the HARQ process number, the new data indicator, the RV, the COT information, and the C-RNTI.

19. A computer-readable hardware storage device that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a User Equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), the instructions to configure the one or more processors to: configure the MF UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DC I) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a grantless uplink (GUL) transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and encode, for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to scramble the block of bits with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence, and wherein the MF UE is configured to sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting GUL transmission.

20. The computer-readable hardware storage device of claim 19, wherein during one or more additional subframes the MF UE is not required to receive downlink signaling according to the DCI.

21. The computer-readable hardware storage device of any of claims 19-20, wherein the instructions are further to configure the one or more processors to encode grantless uplink control information (GUL-UCI), for transmission along with the PUSCH, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

22. A computer-readable hardware storage device that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of evolved node B (eNB) configured to operate a Multefire (MF) cell and receive grantless uplink (GUL) transmissions, the instructions to configure the one or more processors to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE) configured as a Multefire (MF UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on the MF cell, the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the MF UE for a GUL transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes an uplink duration and offset field to configure the MF UE with an uplink duration and an uplink offset for a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the MF UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for a GUL transmission in the PUSCH, wherein the block of bits is scrambled with one of a cell-specific scrambling sequence or a UE-specific scrambling sequence.

23. The computer-readable hardware storage device of claim 22, wherein the instructions are further to configure the one or more processors to: configure the eNB to receive grantless uplink control information (GUL- UCI) along with the PUSCH from the MF UE, wherein the GUL-UCI includes one or more fields to indicate at least one of a HARQ process number, a new data indicator, a redundancy version (RV), channel occupancy' time (COT) information, or a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI).

24. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) comprising processing circuitry, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to: configure the UE to receive, from an evolved node B (eNB), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the UE for an uplink transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes information to configure the UE for transmission of a subframe; and encode, for an uplink transmission in the PUSCH, a block of bits of a first subframe, wherein the UE is configured to sense the PUSCH to be idle during a time duration before transmitting GUL transmission.

25. An apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB), the apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: encode, for transmission to a user equipment (UE), downlink control information (DCI) in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DC1 including uplink grant information, wherein the DCI is to configure the UE for an uplink transmission in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), wherein the uplink grant information includes information to configure the UE for transmission of a subframe; and configure the eNB to receive, from the UE after the PUSCH is determined to be idle during a time duration, a block of bits of a first subframe for an uplink transmission in the PUSCH.