CN109804595B - Apparatus of user equipment and apparatus of base station - Google Patents

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed that use carrier aggregation to provide measurement gaps for UEs to account for switching times for transmitting sounding reference signals. The UE sends a UE-EUTRA-Capability IE to the eNB in RRC signaling indicating UL and DL outage times within the band pair during RF retuning for switching between band pairs to send SRS. The interruption time is represented in OFDM symbols. When the UE is configured to use autonomous gaps for neighbor cell measurements and there is a collision between the autonomous gap measurements and SRS transmissions, the SRS transmissions are skipped when the autonomous gap measurements have priority, and some or all of the autonomous gap measurements are skipped when the SRS transmissions have priority.

Description

Apparatus of user equipment and apparatus of base station

Priority claim

Priority is claimed in U.S. provisional patent application No. 62/415,087 entitled "UE bearing dust SRS SWITCHING active TDD COMPONENT CARRIERS" filed on 31/10/2016, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

Embodiments relate to wireless access networks. Some embodiments relate to handover in cellular and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) networks, including third generation partnership project long term evolution (3GPP LTE) networks and LTE-advanced (LTE-a) networks, and fourth generation (4G) networks and fifth generation (5G) networks.

Background

The use of 3GPP LTE systems, including LTE and LTE-a systems, has increased due to the increase in both the types of User Equipment (UEs) that use network resources and the amount of data and bandwidth being used by various applications operating on these UEs, such as video streaming. The latest generation (5G-also referred to as new radio or NR) systems may continue to use various reference signals to provide feedback between the UE and the network. For example, among the reference signals, a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) may be used to indicate uplink channel quality. The SRS may be periodically transmitted regardless of whether the UE has uplink data to transmit. In a Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, a UE may spend a limited time switching between downlink and uplink transmissions. This can be exacerbated when carrier aggregation is used, due to the possibility of the transceiver chain switching frequencies and the timing related differences inherent between the use of different cells.

Disclosure of Invention

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus of a user equipment, UE, the apparatus comprising: an interface through which the UE is configured to communicate with a base station, the UE being configured for time domain duplex TDD secondary cell Scell operation without a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH; and processing circuitry arranged to: for transmissions to the base station over the interface, encoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling indicating radio frequency, RF, tuning times for: switching between pairs of component carriers CC for transmitting sounding reference signals SRS, the SRS being encoded for transmission to the base station via the interface after transmitting the RRC signaling, wherein the RRC signaling indicates the RF tuning time selected from a plurality of values comprising a respective number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbols, wherein one of the plurality of values is one OFDM symbol.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is also provided an apparatus of a base station, the apparatus including: an interface through which the base station is configured to communicate with a user equipment, UE; and processing circuitry arranged to: decoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling received from the UE over the interface, the RRC signaling indicating a radio frequency, RF, retuning time for sounding reference signal, SRS, switching between pairs of component carriers, CC, to transmit SRS, wherein the RRC signaling indicates the RF retuning time selected from a plurality of values comprising a respective number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbols, wherein one of the plurality of values is one OFDM symbol; for transmissions to the UE over the interface, encoding a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, formed according to a Downlink control information, DCI, format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and decoding the SRS transmission from the UE after transmitting the PDCCH.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is also provided an apparatus of a user equipment, UE, the apparatus including: an interface through which the UE is configured to communicate with a base station, the UE being configured for time domain duplex TDD secondary cell Scell operation without a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH; and processing circuitry arranged to: for transmissions to the base station over the interface, encoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling comprising a UE-EUTRA-capability information element, IE, indicating at least one of: an interruption time on downlink, DL, reception within a band pair of a TDD component carrier, CC, of the SCell during radio frequency, RF, retuning for switching between the band pair, which transmits sounding reference signals, SRS, on the SCell without PUSCH, the band pair including the TDD component carrier, CC, of the SCell, and an interruption time on uplink, UL, reception within the band pair during RF retuning for switching between the band pair, which transmits the SRS on the SCell without PUSCH; and encoding the SRS for transmission to the base station via the interface after transmitting the RRC signaling, wherein the RRC signaling indicates an interruption time on DL reception and an interruption time on UL reception at a granularity of half of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbol.

Drawings

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

Fig. 1 illustrates an architecture of a system of networks according to some embodiments.

Fig. 2 illustrates exemplary components of a device according to some embodiments.

Fig. 3 illustrates an exemplary interface of a baseband circuit according to some embodiments.

Figure 4 is a diagram of a control plane protocol stack according to some embodiments.

Figure 5 is a diagram of a user plane protocol stack according to some embodiments.

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

Fig. 7 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between Carrier Components (CCs) in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 8 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 9 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 10 shows a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 11 shows a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments.

Fig. 12 illustrates a flow diagram associated with SRS transmission, in accordance with some embodiments.

Detailed Description

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

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

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

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

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

UE 102 is shown configured to access an Access Point (AP)106 via a connection 107. Connection 107 may comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection conforming to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where AP 106 would include wireless fidelity

A router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown as being connected to the internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

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

Either of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 may terminate the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for UEs 101 and 102. In some embodiments, any of RAN nodes 111 and 112 may fulfill various logical functions, where RAN 110 includes, but is 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.

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

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

The Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher layer signaling to UEs 101 and 102. The Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) may carry, among other things, information about the transport format and resource allocation associated with the PDSCH channel. It may also inform UEs 101 and 102 of transport format, resource allocation and H-ARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) information related to the uplink shared channel. In general, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 102 within a cell) may be performed at any one of RAN nodes 111 and 112 based on channel quality information fed back from any one of UEs 101 and 102. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on a PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of UEs 101 and 102.

The PDCCH may transmit control information using Control Channel Elements (CCEs). The PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets before being mapped to resource elements, 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 called Resource Element Groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of Downlink Control Information (DCI) and channel conditions, the PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more CCEs. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE, with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L ═ 1, 2, 4, or 8).

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

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

In this embodiment, CN 120 includes MME 121, S-GW 122, Packet Data Network (PDN) gateway (P-GW)123, and Home Subscriber Server (HSS) 124. MME 121 may be similar in function to the control plane of a conventional serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) support node (SGSN). MME 121 may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. HSS 124 may include a database of network users including subscription-related information for supporting network entities in handling communication sessions. The CN 120 may include one or several HSS 124 depending on the number of mobile subscribers, the capacity of the devices, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 124 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing solutions, location dependencies, and the like.

The S-GW 122 may terminate S1 interface 113 towards RAN 110 and route data packets between RAN 110 and CN 120. In addition, S-GW 122 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and some policy enforcement.

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

P-GW 123 may also be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and charging enforcement function device (PCRF)126 is a policy and charging control element of CN 120. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in a Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with an internet protocol connected access network (IP-CAN) session of the UE. In a roaming scenario with local traffic distribution, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of the UE: a home PCRF (H-PCRF) within the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). PCRF 126 may be communicatively coupled to application server 130 via P-GW 123. Application server 130 may signal PCRF 126 to indicate the new service flow and select the appropriate quality of service (QoS) and charging parameters. PCRF 126 may provide the rules to a policy and charging enforcement function device (PCEF) (not shown) having appropriate Traffic Flow Templates (TFTs) and QoS Class Identifiers (QCIs), which initiates QoS and charging specified by application server 130.

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

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

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

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

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may provide communications compatible with one or more wireless technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 204 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) or other Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), or 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Synthesizer circuit 206D of RF circuit 206 may include dividers, Delay Locked Loops (DLLs), multiplexers, and phase accumulators. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual-mode divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a Digital Phase Accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N +1 (e.g., based on a carry) 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 decompose the VCO period into Nd equal phase groups, 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.

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

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

In some embodiments, 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 the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal 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 an input RF signal (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).

In some embodiments, PMC 212 may manage power provided to baseband circuitry 204. Specifically, PMC 212 may control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion. The PMC 212 may typically be included when the device 200 is capable of being battery powered, for example, when the device is included in a UE. The PMC 212 may improve power conversion efficiency while providing desired implementation scale and heat dissipation characteristics.

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

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

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

Additional power-save modes may allow the device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than the paging interval (ranging from seconds to hours). During this time, the device is completely unable to access the network and may be completely powered down. Any data transmitted during this period will incur a significant delay and the delay is assumed to be acceptable.

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

Fig. 3 illustrates an exemplary interface of a baseband circuit according to some embodiments. As described above, the baseband circuitry 204 of FIG. 2 may include processors 204A-204E and memory 204G used by the processors. Each of the processors 204A-204E may include a memory interface 304A-304E, respectively, to send data to/receive data from the memory 204G.

Baseband circuitry 204 may also include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitry/devices, such as memory interface 312 (e.g., an interface to transmit/receive data to/from memory external to baseband circuitry 204), application circuitry interface 314 (e.g., an interface to transmit/receive data to/from application circuitry 202 of fig. 2), RF circuitry interface 316 (e.g., to/from RF circuitry 206 of fig. 2)206 to receive data), a wireless hardware connection interface 318 (e.g., to a Near Field Communication (NFC) component,

Components (e.g. low power consumption)

)、

Components and other communicating components to transmit/receive data from) and a power management interface 320 (e.g., an interface to transmit/receive power or control signals to/from the PMC 212).

Figure 4 is a diagram of a control plane protocol stack according to some embodiments. In this embodiment, control plane 400 is shown as a communication protocol stack between UE 101 (or alternatively UE 102), RAN node 111 (or alternatively RAN node 112), and MME 121.

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

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

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

The PDCP layer 404 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of upper layer PDUs when lower layers are re-established, eliminate duplicate lower layer SDUs when lower layers are re-established for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, ciphering and deciphering control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

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

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

Non-access stratum (NAS) protocol 406 forms the highest layer of the control plane between UE 101 and MME 121. NAS protocol 406 supports mobility and session management procedures for UE 101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 101 and P-GW 123.

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

Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer (alternatively referred to as SCTP/IP layer) 414 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between RAN node 111 and MME 121 based in part on IP protocols supported by IP layer 413. The L2 layer 412 and the L1 layer 411 may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN nodes and MME to exchange information.

RAN node 111 and MME 121 may utilize the S1-MME interface to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack including L1 layer 411, L2 layer 412, IP layer 413, SCTP layer 414, and S1-AP layer 415.

Figure 5 is a diagram of a user plane protocol stack according to some embodiments. In this embodiment, user plane 500 is shown as a communication protocol stack between UE 101 (or alternatively UE 102), RAN node 111 (or alternatively RAN node 112), S-GW 122 and 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 RAN node 111 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., LTE-Uu interface) to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including PHY layer 401, MAC layer 402, RLC layer 403, PDCP layer 404.

A General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) layer 504 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the transmitted user data may be any one of IPv4, IPv6, and PPP formats. UDP and IP security (UDP/IP) layer 503 may provide a checksum of data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data streams. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW 122 may utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including the L1 layer 411, the L2 layer 412, the UDP/IP layer 503, and the GTP-U layer 504. The S-GW 122 and P-GW 123 may utilize the S5/S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack that includes L1 layer 411, L2 layer 412, UDP/IP layer 503, and GTP-U layer 504. As discussed above with respect to FIG. 4, the NAS protocol supports mobility and session management procedures for the UE 101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between the UE 101 and the P-GW 123.

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

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

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

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

Components (e.g. low power consumption)

)、

Components and other communication components.

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

Carrier Aggregation (CA) is introduced in LTE-advanced (LTE-a) to increase the bandwidth of communication between an eNB and a UE, thereby increasing the bit rate. Each Component Carrier (CC) was originally designed in Release8/9, with a bandwidth of up to 20MHz and a maximum of five CC aggregations, which increased to 32 CCs in Release 13. In some TDD embodiments, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC may be the same for Downlink (DL) and Uplink (UL). In other TDD embodiments, the number of DL CCs may be more than uplink CCs due to heavier downlink traffic load. The DL and UL CCs may be different and may or may not be contiguous.

As described above, the SRS is introduced to enable the eNB to determine the channel quality by using the reference signal transmitted by the UE. SRS switching may be used in different uplink carriers to obtain a desired amount of channel reciprocity gain from all uplink measurements. However, during SRS switching, the RF chain may switch between different frequencies. This may cause the UL/DL communication of the UE to be interrupted and the current communication procedure between the UE and the eNB may be changed accordingly.

To eliminate the problem caused by the interruption caused by SRS switching, the SRS guard period is increased. Due to the timing involved in SRS switching, the subframes designed for the guard period may vary as the RF tuning time may reach about 500 μ β. This may depend on the configuration in each CC (e.g., FDD or TDD and frame structure), for example. The interruption to network communication may be indicated by the UE. The interruption may include a time related to a time advance in addition to a tuning time associated with the re-tuning of the RF chain. The time related to the time advance may indicate both a timing offset (Nta) between uplink and downlink radio frames at the UE and a fixed timing advance offset (Nta _ offset), both defined in clause 3.1 of the 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 36.211.

Fig. 7 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between Carrier Components (CCs) in accordance with some embodiments. The UE and eNB may be one of the elements described in fig. 1-6. For convenience, only a few relevant Subframes (SFs) for each of a pair of CCs are shown. The TDD (and FDD) UL/DL configuration in fig. 7 is defined in 3GPP TS 36.211 as in the other figures. Fig. 7 shows a UE and UL and DL SFs at an eNB to which the UE is connected. CC 1710 and CC 2720 are provided by the same eNB. The SF shown may be, for example, SF #5-8 of the frame.

In fig. 7, the UE transmission (Tx) timing difference between CC 1710 and CC 2720 is not reflected. As shown, if the RF tuning time is 500 μ s and the UE intends to send SRS at UL SF # n +1 on CC 2720, the transmission interrupts a portion of the subsequent downlink pilot slot (DwPts)724 and uplink pilot slot (UpPts)726 on CC 2720 and DL SF # n on both CC 1710 and CC 2720. This occurs when the switching period 722 is greater than DwPts 724 and UpPts 726. In this case, the network (eNB and other network elements) may be aware of the switching period 722 and therefore cannot use DL SF # n +1 on CC 1710 and cannot receive UpPts on CC 2720. Similarly, the UE may know DL SF # n +1 on CC 1710 and may not be able to receive DwPts 724 and a portion of DL SF # n on CC 2720, and may not be able to send UpPts 726 on CC 2720. Even though the network may attempt to minimize the outage impact, the network and the UE may still coordinate the performance to avoid erroneous scheduling or resource/power waste in transmission attempts. Therefore, it may be desirable for the network to know the exact RF tuning time (switching period) of the UE.

Fig. 8 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments. As described above, each of the UE and the eNB may be one of the elements described in fig. 1 to 6. Fig. 8 shows a UE and UL and DL SFs of CC 1810 and CC 2820 at the eNB to which the UE is connected.

As described above, the eNB and the UE may know the RF tuning time, which may include the switching period 812 and Nta + Nta _ offset 814. This may allow the UE and eNB to determine the number of SFs that the switching period 812 overlaps. In fig. 8, the switching period 812+ Nta _ offset 814 is greater than 1 ms. In this case, the UE may not be able to receive DL SF # n +1 on CC 1810 and the end portion (e.g., the last one or two symbols) of DL SF # n on CC 1810. The behavior of the UE and eNB may change depending on whether the switching period 812 and Nta + Nta _ offset 814 are greater or less than 1 ms.

Fig. 9 illustrates a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments. As described above, each of the UE and the eNB may be one of the elements described in fig. 1 to 6. Fig. 9 shows UE and UL and DL SFs of CC 1910 and CC 2920 at eNB to which the UE is connected. Unlike the timing diagrams of fig. 8 and 9, in fig. 9, CC 1910 and CC 2920 may operate using different communication schemes; in particular, CC 1910 may operate using an FDD communication scheme and CC 2920 may operate using a TDD communication scheme.

As shown in fig. 9, the UE may tune the RF chain from CC 2920 to another TDD CC, and the retuning may affect the UE's FDD CC 910. If Nta + Nta _ offset 912 is greater than the switching period 922, only a portion of DL SF # n on CC 1910 may overlap the switching period 922; otherwise, the end portion of the DL SF # n and the initial portion of the DL SF # n +1 may overlap the switching period 922. As described above, to determine the impact of SRS transmission, and thus the corresponding timing behavior of both the eNB and the UE, both the eNB and the UE may determine whether (Nta + Nta _ offset)912 is greater or less than the switching period 922.

In each of the embodiments shown in fig. 7-9, the UE may determine the timing difference between CCs before communication occurs. This information may be provided from the UE to the eNB in control information (such as RRC messaging). This may allow the UE and eNB to use the timing difference to determine the way the UE and eNB will behave. Based on the examples in the above figures, one or two subframes immediately preceding the UL subframe of the CC to which the UE is handed over may overlap with the RF tuning time, or one or two subframes immediately following the UL or DL subframe of the CC from which the UE is handed over may overlap with the RF tuning time. An SRS guard period or interruption at the UE may be defined to align UE and eNB performance. In various embodiments, depending on the RF tuning time, the UE may ignore the DL subframe or a portion of the DL subframe to guarantee the entire UL SF transmission on the target carrier.

Various options may be used to indicate the outage time of the network. The UE may signal one or more different values to the eNB. For example, the UE may signal the exact value of the RF tuning time to the eNB with some minimum granularity. The minimum granularity may be, for example, an OFDM symbol or a partial OFDM symbol (e.g., 0.5 OFDM symbols). Alternatively or additionally, the UE may signal whether the amount (RF tuning time + Nta _ offset) is greater than (or the amount is less than) the SF duration. In some embodiments, the SF duration may be 1 ms. Alternatively or additionally, the UE may signal whether the RF tuning time is greater than (or whether the RF tuning time is less than) Nta + Nta _ offset. Reporting may be accomplished by using RRC signaling or in-band signaling, such as using MAC Control Elements (CEs) or PDCP Packet Data Units (PDUs), etc. In the former case, the UE may transmit the RF tuning time during initial registration with the eNB, e.g., via a UE-EUTRA-Capability Information Element (IE).

In some embodiments, the eNB may send a pre-scheduling request to the UE. The pre-scheduling request may be transmitted one or more SFs prior to SRS transmission. In response, the UE may transmit an indication of the number of subframes affected by the SRS transmission. The eNB may then decide to eventually schedule to configure which subframe will be used for transmitting SRS on the target CC. The pre-scheduling request may indicate on which UL SF the SRS is to be transmitted. The eNB may transmit the pre-scheduling request using dedicated signaling, such as RRC signaling, or may use broadcast signaling, such as System Information Blocks (SIBs).

In some embodiments, SRS may be limited to being set in the UL subframe and the last symbol of UpPts. Fig. 10 shows a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments. As described above, each of the UE and the eNB may be one of the elements described in fig. 1 to 6. Fig. 10 shows the UE and the UL and DL SFs of CC 11010 and CC 21020 at the eNB to which the UE is connected.

As shown in fig. 10, the switching period 1022 in the CC 21020 may overlap with the end portion of DL SF # n, DwPts, and the initial portion of UpPts. SRS symbol 1024 is sent in the last symbol of UpPts for CC 21020. Note that the UE Tx timing difference between CC1 and CC2 is not reflected. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 10, the RF tuning time is 500 μ s. Thus, the RF tuning time 1022 may interrupt a portion of the subsequent DwPts on CC2 and DL SF # n on both CC1 and CC 2.

Thus, an eNB that has been notified of the RF tuning time by the UE in the RRCConnectionRequest message (for example) may determine that DL SF # n +1 on CC1 is not available to transmit DL data to the UE. The UE may similarly determine that the UE is unable to receive DL SF # n +1 on CC1 and unable to receive DwPts and a portion of DL SF # n on CC2 and unable to send UpPts on CC 2. Even if the eNB deliberately tries to minimize the interruption impact, it may need to know the eNB and UE behavior to avoid wrong scheduling and resource/power waste; thus, the eNB may be provided with the exact RF tuning time (switching period) of the UE.

Fig. 11 shows a timing diagram for UE retuning between CCs in accordance with some embodiments. As described above, each of the UE and the eNB may be one of the elements described in fig. 1 to 6. Fig. 11 shows the UE and the UL and DL SFs of the CC 11110 and the CC 21120 at the eNB to which the UE is connected.

In fig. 11, a UE may be configured to transmit SRS symbol 1122 in UL SF # n +2 on CC 21120. The UE may complete RF tuning before the last symbol of UL SF # n +2 on CC 21120. Here, the total time may be defined as RF tuning time 1122+ (Nta + Nta _ offset)1124+ normal OFDM symbol length (of the last OFDM symbol of UL SF # n +2) 1126. If the total time is greater than the subframe duration (e.g., 1ms), then DL SF # n +1 on CC 11110 and DL SF # n +2 on CC 21120 may overlap the total time; otherwise only DL SF # n +2 on CC1 may overlap. Thus, the eNB and UE may determine which SFs are affected by SRS transmission based on the length of the total time (compared to the SF duration).

Based on the typical examples in fig. 10 and 11, one or two SFs immediately before the SRS symbol of the handed-to CC (UE-handed-to CC) may overlap with the RF tuning time, or one or two subframes immediately after the UL or DL SF of the handed-to CC (UE-handed-to CC) may overlap with the RF tuning time. To this end, an SRS guard period or interruption at the UE may be defined to align UE and eNB performance. The SF for setting the SRS guard period may be different according to the total time. As described above, the eNB may transmit a pre-scheduling request prior to transmitting SRS symbols.

As described above, a guard period for SRS switching between TDD component carriers may be created by the UE to mitigate the potential overlap problem described above. To create the guard period, in the first embodiment, the UE may refrain from receiving a DL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately preceding a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) on a CC handed off from the same UE. This may occur on all configured CCs. Similarly, the UE may avoid sending a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately preceding the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. In addition, the UE may avoid receiving a DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL or DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. Also, the UE may avoid transmitting a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL or DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

To create another guard period, in a second embodiment, the UE may refrain from receiving a DL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately preceding a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. The UE may also avoid receiving a last portion of a DL SF (e.g., SF # n-2) immediately before a SF (e.g., SF # n-1) before a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. In addition, the UE may avoid transmitting a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately before a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, in addition to avoiding transmitting a last part of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-2) immediately before a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. In addition to avoiding receiving on all configured CCs a first portion of a DL SF (e.g., SF # n +2) immediately following an SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE, the UE may similarly avoid receiving on all configured CCs a DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE. Further, in this embodiment, the UE may avoid transmitting on all activated CCs a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE, and also avoid transmitting on all activated CCs a first portion of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +2) immediately after a SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE. The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

To create another guard period, in a third embodiment, the UE may avoid receiving the last part of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately preceding the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs and/or may avoid receiving the first part of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. In addition, the UE may avoid transmitting a last part of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately before a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs and/or may avoid transmitting a first part of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

To create another guard period, in a fourth embodiment, the UE may avoid receiving a portion of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately preceding the SRS symbol of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs and/or may avoid receiving the DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. In addition, the UE may avoid transmitting a portion of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately preceding the SRS symbol of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, and/or may avoid transmitting the UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

To create another guard period, in the fifth embodiment, the UE may refrain from receiving a portion of DL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately preceding the SRS symbol of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs, may refrain from receiving a last portion of DL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately preceding the SRS SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs, may refrain from receiving a DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs, and/or may refrain from receiving an SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs, SF # n +1) followed by the first part of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n + 2). In addition, the UE may avoid transmitting a portion of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately before an SRS symbol of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, may avoid transmitting a last portion of a UL SF (e.g., SF # n-1) immediately before an SRS SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, may avoid transmitting a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, and/or may avoid transmitting a UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately after a UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of a CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, SF # n + 2). The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

To create another guard period, in a fifth embodiment, the UE may avoid receiving a portion of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately preceding the SRS symbol of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs and/or may avoid receiving a first portion of the DL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all configured CCs. In addition, the UE may avoid transmitting a portion of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) immediately preceding the SRS symbol of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs, and/or may avoid transmitting a first portion of the UL SF (e.g., SF # n +1) immediately following the UL/DL SF (e.g., SF # n) of the CC handed over from the same UE on all activated CCs. The UE may create the guard period by avoiding some or all of the operations described above.

During the active time of PDCCH monitoring, the UE may or may not monitor the PDCCH if the SF is or is part of an SRS handover protected subframe as indicated in one of the embodiments above.

Fig. 12 illustrates a flow diagram associated with SRS transmission, in accordance with some embodiments. The operations of flowchart 1200 may involve both the UE and the eNB described in fig. 1-6. Some operations may not be used in some embodiments, while other operations not shown may be present in other embodiments. A transmitting entity (UE or eNB) is configured to encode various signals for transmission over an interface over which the transmitting entity is configured to communicate with a receiving entity (eNB or UE), while the receiving entity is configured to decode the signals before further processing occurs.

In operation 1202, handover information may be reported from a UE to a network (eNB or another network entity). The switching information may include a value of the RF tuning time with a minimum granularity x, where the unit of x may be Ts (e.g., 2048Ts) or 66.7 μ s or OFDM normal symbol length. Alternatively or additionally, the UE may report whether the sum of (RF tuning time + Nta _ offset) is greater than the SF duration (e.g., 1ms) using a single bit indicator. Alternatively or additionally, the UE may report whether the RF tuning time is greater than (Nta + Nta _ offset) using a single bit indicator. Alternatively or additionally, the UE may report whether the sum of (RF tuning time + Nta _ offset + OFDM symbol length for SRS transmission) is greater than SF duration (e.g., 1ms) using a single bit indicator. The UE may report some or all of the above information using RRC signaling or in-band signaling such as MAC CE or PDCP PDU. In some embodiments of the present invention, the,

in operation 1204, the UE may receive a pre-scheduling request from the eNB. The pre-scheduling request may be received one or more subframes prior to SRS transmission. The pre-scheduling request may also indicate on which UL SF the SRS is to be transmitted. The eNB may use dedicated signaling for the UE, such as RRC signaling, or may use broadcast signaling (such as SIBs) to send the pre-scheduling request.

In operation 1206, the UE may indicate in the SF impact information the number of subframes impacted by SRS transmission before the UL SF for SRS transmission. The NB may then decide, based on the information provided by the UE, a final scheduling that configures the UE on the subframes on the target CC where SRS will be transmitted. The final schedule may be received and decoded at the UE.

In operation 1208, the UE may determine whether measurements will be made during the autonomous gaps. The UE may indicate support for autonomous gaps in the UE capability information IE to the eNB. During the autonomous gap, the UE stops communication of the serving cell to perform measurement or read MIB/SIB of the neighbor cell. The autonomous gaps may be used to read Cell Global Identity (CGI) information of the cell. The UE may in turn receive an indication from the eNB whether autonomous gaps are to be used.

If the eNB is not used, the UE may simply perform SRS transmission in operation 1218. SRS transmission may occur based on the gap period described above.

When there is a collision in the timing between the two procedures, the UE behavior using autonomous gap measurements and SRS transmission during SRS carrier based handover may be different depending on the network rules. In operation 1210, the UE may determine whether a collision occurs between the autonomous gap measurement and the SRS transmission (when the autonomous gap is used).

When a collision occurs, the UE performance may depend on the priority between autonomous gap measurements and SRS transmission. Accordingly, in operation 1212, the UE may determine which has priority. As described above, this information may be provided via UE-specific signaling (such as RRC signaling) or cell or eNB-specific signaling (such as SIBs).

In operation 1214, the UE may prioritize the autonomous gap-based measurements. The UE may perform autonomous gap-based measurements, and if the SRS transmission collides in the time domain with the autonomous gap-based measurements, the UE may skip SRS carrier switching and SRS transmission. The autonomous gap based measurements may be, for example, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the identified neighboring cells.

If the UE prioritizes SRS transmission in operation 1212, the UE performs SRS transmission in operation 1218. The UE may skip part or all of the autonomous gap-based measurement if the SRS transmission collides with the autonomous gap-based measurement in a time domain. Thus, for example, if the SRS transmission completely overlaps with the autonomous gap-based measurement, the UE may completely skip the autonomous gap-based measurement, and if the SRS transmission only partially overlaps with the autonomous gap-based measurement, the UE may skip only an overlapping portion of the autonomous gap-based measurement and perform the autonomous gap-based measurement for the remaining time. The partial measurements may include only one of RSRP and RSRQ measurements, restricting the measurements to a specific channel of a neighbor cell, or reading only the MIB (or SIB) of a neighbor cell, or restricting the measurements to a smaller predetermined set of neighbor cells than the set measured in the entire autonomous gap-based measurement. The UE operation for autonomous gap based measurements may be changed to:

T _{identify_CGI} ＝T _{basic_identiiy_CGI} +T _margin

for intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements. The value T is if the UE is configured to switch SRS carriers or SRS transmissions on some TDD carriers during the new CGI to identify E-UTRA cells with autonomous gaps _margin Is the time delay caused by the SRS carrier based handover.

For intra-frequency measurements, the UE may not be provided with an explicit neighbor list for identifying the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell, since neighboring cells use the same frequency. Instead, the UE may identify and report the CGI as indicated by the reportCGI IE from the eNB at the time of the network request. According to clause 5.5.3.1 of TS 36.331, a UE may establish autonomous gaps in DL reception and UL transmission for receiving MIB and SIB1 messages. Note that if the si-RequestForHO IE from the eNB is set to false, the UE may avoid using autonomous gaps.

If autonomous gaps are used for measurements, the UE is able to identify the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell, whether Discontinuous Reception (DRX) or eDRX CONN is used, or whether SCell is configured, within the following equation:

T _{identify_CGI,intra} ＝T _{basic_identify_CGI,intra} +T _{margin_intra}

wherein, T _{basic_identify_CGi,intra} 150 ms. This time period is used in the above equation, where the maximum allowed time for the UE to identify the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell is defined, provided that the E-UTRA cell has been identified by the UE. T is _{margin_intra} X ms, where x is a non-negative number, e.g., 10 or 20 or 40 or 50 or other number. Time delays caused by SRS carrier based switching and/or SRS transmission on a secondary cell (SCell) on SRS-only TDD component carrier without PUSCH if the UE is configured to transmit SRS on SRS-only component carrier without PUSCH. The UE may transmit on a primary cell (PCell) on a TDD CC with PUSCH or may transmit on a PCell on a TDD CC without PUSCH. Otherwise, if there is no SRS-only partition of PUSCHIf SRS transmission is not configured on the subcarrier, T _{margin_intra} ＝0ms。

Similarly, for inter-frequency measurements, the UE may not be provided with an explicit neighbor list for identifying the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell, since neighboring cells use the same frequency. Instead, the UE may identify and report the CGI as indicated by the reportCGI IE from the eNB upon network request. According to clause 5.5.3.1 of TS 36.331, the UE may establish autonomous gaps in DL reception and UL transmission for receiving MIB and SIB1 messages. Note that if the si-RequestForHO IE from the eNB is set to false, the UE may avoid using autonomous gaps.

If autonomous gaps are used for measurements, the UE is able to identify the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell, whether Discontinuous Reception (DRX) or eDRX CONN is used, or whether SCell is configured, within the following equation:

T _{identify_CGI,inter} ＝T _{basic_identify_CGI,inter} +T _{margin_inter}

wherein, T _{basic_identify_CGi,inter} 150 ms. This time period is used in the above equation, where the maximum allowed time for the UE to identify the new CGI of the E-UTRA cell is defined, provided that the E-UTRA cell has been identified by the UE. T is a unit of _{margin_inter} X ms, where x is a non-negative value, e.g., 10 or 20 or 40 or 50 or other value. Time delays caused by switching based on SRS carrier and/or SRS transmission on SRS component carrier only without PUSCH if the UE is configured to transmit SRS on SRS component carrier only without PUSCH. Otherwise, if no SRS transmission is configured on the SRS-only component carrier without PUSCH, T _{margin_inter} ＝0ms。

Thus, both intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements may have the same characteristics, such as timing. In other embodiments, the recognition time, etc. may be different.

In some cases, autonomous gaps are used, but there may be no collision between autonomous gaps and SRS transmissions. In this case, autonomous gap measurement may be performed by the UE in operation 1216. The SRS transmission may then proceed in operation 1218.

Thus, in TDD embodiments where the number of DL CCs may be greater than the uplink CCs, the TDD CCs may operate in the downlink without PUCCH/PUSCH. The UE may be configured with SRS switching between CCs such that SRS may be transmitted on TDD CCs without PUCCH/PUSCH. When such SRS is transmitted on a TDD CC without PUCCH/PUSCH, the UE may transmit the SRS on the TDD CC or skip SRS transmission on the TDD CC according to a priority order of operation of SRS switching between CCs.

Examples of the invention

Example 1 is an apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: an interface over which a UE configured for Time Domain Duplex (TDD) secondary cell (Scell) operation without a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) communicates with an evolved NodeB (eNB); and processing circuitry arranged to: for transmission to the eNB over the interface, encoding Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling comprising a UE-EUTRA-capability Information Element (IE) indicating at least one of: an interruption time on Downlink (DL) reception within a band pair during Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for switching between a band pair of a TDD Component Carrier (CC) of the SCell to transmit Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) on the SCell without PUSCH, and an interruption time on Uplink (UL) reception within the band pair during RF retuning for switching between the band pair to transmit SRS on the SCell without PUSCH; and after transmitting the RRC signaling, encoding the SRS for transmission to the eNB via the interface.

In example 2, the subject matter of example 1 includes, wherein: RRC signaling indicates the interruption time on DL reception and the interruption time on UL reception in terms of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols.

In example 3, the subject matter of examples 1-2 includes, wherein: RRC signaling indicates the interruption time on DL reception.

In example 4, the subject matter of examples 1-3 includes, wherein: RRC signaling indicates the interruption time on UL reception.

In example 5, the subject matter of examples 1-4 includes wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: aggregating more downlink CCs than uplink CCs in TDD operation, at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and PUSCH, and configuring SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

In example 6, the subject matter of example 5 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: configuring or skipping SRS transmission on at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

In example 7, the subject matter of examples 1-6 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: decoding, from the eNB, a final scheduling of SRS transmissions by the UE; and, for transmission to the eNB, encode the SRS transmission as indicated by the final scheduling.

In example 8, the subject matter of example 7 includes, wherein: the processing circuitry is further arranged to: decoding, from the eNB, a pre-scheduling request after transmitting the RRC signaling, the pre-scheduling request indicating on which UL subframe to transmit the SRS; and, in response to the pre-scheduling request, for transmission to the eNB, encoding impact information including a number of subframes impacted by the SRS transmission before a UL subframe for the SRS transmission, the final scheduling being based on the impact information.

In example 9, the subject matter of examples 1-8 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: encoding support for autonomous gaps in RRC signaling; decoding, from the eNB, an indication from the eNB to use the autonomous gap in response to the indication of support for the autonomous gap, the indication from the eNB to use the autonomous gap comprising a si-RequestForHO information element; and in response to the indication to use the autonomous gap, ceasing communication with the serving cell and using the autonomous gap by performing one of measuring on the neighbor cell and reading system information of the neighbor cell during the autonomous gap.

In example 10, the subject matter of example 9 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: determining that a conflict exists between the use of autonomous gaps; determining that use of autonomous gaps is prioritized over SRS transmission; and skipping SRS carrier switching and SRS transmission in response to determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over SRS transmission.

In example 11, the subject matter of examples 9-10 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: determining that a conflict exists between the use of autonomous gaps; determining that SRS transmission is prioritized over use of autonomous gaps; and skipping at least a portion of the use of autonomous gaps in response to determining that SRS transmission has priority over the use of autonomous gaps.

In example 12, the subject matter of examples 1-11 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: for intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements, use is made of: tibatify _ CGI + tmax, where tmax is a time delay caused by switching based on the SRS carrier if the UE is configured to switch the SRS carrier or SRS transmission on the TDD carrier during a new Cell Global Identity (CGI) identifying a cell with autonomous gaps, and Tbasic _ identity _ CGI-a first predetermined period of time.

In example 13, the subject matter of examples 1-12 includes, wherein: the processing circuitry includes a baseband processor configured to encode transmissions to the eNB and decode transmissions from the eNB.

Example 14 is an apparatus of an evolved nodeb (enb), the apparatus comprising: an interface through which an eNB is configured to communicate with a User Equipment (UE); and processing circuitry arranged to: decoding Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling received from a UE over an interface, the RRC signaling indicating at least one of an outage time on an Uplink (UL) and an outage time on a Downlink (DL) within a pair of frequency bands during a Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) switching between the pair of frequency bands of a Time Domain Duplex (TDD) Component Carrier (CC) to transmit the SRS; for transmissions to the UE over the interface, encoding a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) formed according to a Downlink Control Information (DCI) format, the DCI format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and decoding the SRS transmission from the UE after transmitting the PDCCH, wherein more downlink CCs are aggregated in TDD operation of the UE than uplink CCs, and wherein at least one of the CCs of the band pair is configured to operate without at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH).

In example 15, the subject matter of example 14 includes, wherein: the RRC signaling indicates at least one of UL and DL interruption times in terms of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols.

In example 16, the subject matter of examples 14-15 includes, wherein: at least one of the UL and DL outage times is used to transmit SRS on a secondary cell (SCell) without Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH).

In example 17, the subject matter of examples 14-16 includes, wherein: at least one of the UL and DL outage times is indicated by a UE-EUTRA-Capability Information Element (IE) of RRC signaling.

In example 18, the subject matter of examples 14-17 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: configuring or skipping SRS transmission on at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

In example 19, the subject matter of examples 14-18 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: decoding, from the eNB, a final scheduling of SRS transmissions by the UE; and, for transmission to the eNB, encode the SRS transmission as indicated by the final scheduling.

In example 20, the subject matter of example 19 includes, wherein: the processing circuitry is further arranged to: decoding, from the eNB, a pre-scheduling request after transmitting the RRC signaling, the pre-scheduling request indicating on which UL subframe to transmit the SRS; and, in response to the pre-scheduling request, for transmission to the eNB, encoding impact information including a number of subframes impacted by the SRS transmission before a UL subframe for the SRS transmission, the final scheduling being based on the impact information.

In example 21, the subject matter of examples 14-20 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: encoding support for autonomous gaps in RRC signaling; decoding, from the eNB, an indication from the eNB to use the autonomous gap in response to the indication of support for the autonomous gap, the indication from the eNB to use the autonomous gap comprising a si-RequestForHO information element; and in response to the indication to use the autonomous gap, ceasing communication with the serving cell and using the autonomous gap by performing one of measuring on the neighbor cell and reading system information of the neighbor cell during the autonomous gap.

In example 22, the subject matter of example 21 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: determining that a conflict exists between the use of autonomous gaps; determining that use of an autonomous gap is prioritized over SRS transmission; and skipping SRS carrier switching and SRS transmission in response to determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over SRS transmission.

In example 23, the subject matter of examples 21-22 includes, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to: determining that a conflict exists between the use of autonomous gaps; determining that SRS transmission is prioritized over use of autonomous gaps; and skipping at least a portion of the use of autonomous gaps in response to determining that SRS transmission is prioritized over the use of autonomous gaps.

Example 24 is a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for execution by one or more processors of a User Equipment (UE), the one or more processors to, when executing the instructions, configure the UE to: transmitting Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling to an evolved NodeB (eNB), the RRC signaling indicating at least one of an Uplink (UL) and a Downlink (DL) outage time within a band pair during a Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for switching between the band pair to transmit a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS); receiving a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) formed according to a Downlink Control Information (DCI) format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and transmitting, from the UE, the SRS transmission after receiving the PDCCH.

In example 25, the subject matter of example 24 includes wherein the instructions further configure the one or more processors to configure the UE to: aggregating more downlink Component Carriers (CCs) than uplink CCs in Time Domain Duplex (TDD) operation, at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and configured for SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

In example 26, the subject matter of example 25 includes wherein the instructions further configure the one or more processors to configure the UE to: configuring or skipping SRS transmission on at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

Example 27 is a method for providing a guard period in a User Equipment (UE), the method comprising: transmitting Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling to an evolved NodeB (eNB), the RRC signaling indicating at least one of an Uplink (UL) and a Downlink (DL) outage time within a band pair during a Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for switching between the band pair to transmit a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS); receiving a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) formed according to a Downlink Control Information (DCI) format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and transmitting, from the UE, an SRS transmission after receiving the PDCCH.

In example 28, the subject matter of example 27 includes aggregating more downlink Component Carriers (CCs) than uplink CCs in Time Domain Duplex (TDD) operation, at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and configuring SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

In example 29, the subject matter of example 28 includes configuring SRS transmission or skipping SRS transmission on at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

Example 30 is an apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: means for transmitting Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling to an evolved NodeB (eNB), the RRC signaling indicating at least one of an Uplink (UL) and a Downlink (DL) outage time within a band pair during a Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for switching between the band pair to transmit a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS); means for receiving a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) formed according to a Downlink Control Information (DCI) format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and means for transmitting, from the UE, an SRS transmission after receiving the PDCCH.

In example 31, the subject matter of example 30 includes means for aggregating more downlink Component Carriers (CCs) than uplink CCs in Time Domain Duplex (TDD) operation, the at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and means for configuring SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

In example 32, the subject matter of example 31 includes means for configuring SRS transmission or skipping SRS transmission on at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

Example 33 is at least one machine readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations for implementing any of examples 1-32.

Example 34 is an apparatus comprising means to implement any of examples 1-32.

Example 35 is a system to implement any of examples 1-32.

Example 36 is a method of implementing any of examples 1-32.

Although embodiments have been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader scope of the disclosure. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. The accompanying drawings that form a part hereof show, by way of illustration and not of limitation, specific embodiments in which the subject matter may be practiced. The embodiments 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.

The subject matter herein may be referred to, individually and/or collectively, by the term "embodiment" merely for convenience and without intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application to any single 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.

In this document, the use of the words "a" or "an" as is conventional in patent documents is intended to include one or more, independent of any other instances or usages of "at least one" or "one or more". Unless otherwise indicated, the word "or" is used herein to mean nonexclusive, or such that "a or B" includes "a, but not B," B, but not a, "and" a and B. In this document, the words "include" and "wherein" are used as equivalents of the respective words "comprising" and "wherein". Furthermore, in the appended claims, the words "include" and "comprising" are open-ended; that is, a system, UE, article, composition, formula, or process that includes elements in addition to those listed after such a word in a claim is still considered to fall within the scope of that claim. Furthermore, 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.

The abstract of the present disclosure is provided to comply with the abstract required in 37c.f.r. § 1.72(b), to enable 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 embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the claims appended hereto are included in the detailed description, where each claim may stand on its own as a separate embodiment.

Claims (23)

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

an interface through which the UE is configured to communicate with a base station, the UE being configured for time domain duplex TDD secondary cell Scell operation without a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH; and

processing circuitry arranged to:

for transmissions to the base station over the interface, encoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling indicating radio frequency, RF, tuning times for:

switching between pairs of component carriers CC for transmitting sounding reference signals SRS,

encode the SRS for transmissions to the base station via the interface after transmitting the RRC signaling,

wherein the RRC signaling indicates the RF tuning time selected from a corresponding number of a plurality of values comprising an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbol, wherein one of the plurality of values is one OFDM symbol.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the RRC signaling indicates an interruption time on DL reception.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the RRC signaling indicates the interruption time on UL communication.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

aggregating more downlink CCs than uplink CCs in TDD operation, at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of physical uplink control channels, PUCCH and PUSCH, and

configuring SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

configuring the SRS transmission or skipping the SRS transmission on the at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

decoding, from the base station, a final schedule of SRS transmissions by the UE; and is provided with

Encoding, for transmission to the base station, the SRS transmission as indicated by the final scheduling.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein:

the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

decoding, from the base station, a pre-scheduling request after transmitting the RRC signaling, the pre-scheduling request indicating on which UL subframe the SRS is to be transmitted; and is

In response to the pre-scheduling request, for a transmission to the base station, encoding impact information including a number of subframes impacted by the SRS transmission before a UL subframe for the SRS transmission, and

the final schedule is based on the impact information.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

encoding support for autonomous gaps in the RRC signaling;

decoding, from the base station, an indication from the base station to use the autonomous gap in response to the indication of support for the autonomous gap, the indication from the base station to use the autonomous gap comprising a si-requestForHO information element; and is

In response to an indication to use the autonomous gap, ceasing communication with a serving cell and using the autonomous gap by one of performing measurements on neighboring cells during the autonomous gap and reading system information of the neighboring cells.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

determining that a conflict exists between the use of the autonomous gaps;

determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over the SRS transmission; and

skipping SRS carrier switching and the SRS transmission in response to determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over the SRS transmission.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

determining that a conflict exists between the use of the autonomous gaps;

determining a priority for the SRS transmission over use of the autonomous gap; and

skipping at least a portion of the use of the autonomous gap in response to determining that the SRS transmission is prioritized over the use of the autonomous gap.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

for intra-frequency and inter-frequency measurements, use is made of:

Tidentify_CGI＝Tbasic_identify_CGI+Tmargin

wherein Tmargin is a time delay caused by switching based on an SRS carrier if the UE is configured to switch the SRS carrier or SRS transmission on a TDD carrier during a new Cell Global Identity (CGI) identifying a cell with autonomous gaps, and

tbasic _ identity _ CGI is a first predetermined period.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the processing circuitry includes a baseband processor configured to encode transmissions to the base station and decode transmissions from the base station.

13. An apparatus of a base station, the apparatus comprising:

an interface through which the base station is configured to communicate with a user equipment, UE; and

processing circuitry arranged to:

decoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling received from the UE over the interface, the RRC signaling indicating a radio frequency, RF, retuning time for sounding reference signal, SRS, switching between pairs of component carriers, CC, to transmit SRS, wherein the RRC signaling indicates the RF retuning time selected from a plurality of values comprising a respective number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbols, wherein one of the plurality of values is one OFDM symbol;

for transmissions to the UE over the interface, encoding a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, formed according to a Downlink control information, DCI, format indicating a request for SRS transmission; and

decoding the SRS transmission from the UE after transmitting the PDCCH.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein:

the RF retuning time is used for transmitting the SRS on a secondary cell, SCell, without a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein:

the RF retuning time is indicated by a UE-EUTRA-Capability information element IE of the RRC signaling.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

configuring the SRS transmission or skipping the SRS transmission on the at least one CC according to a priority order of operations of SRS switching between CCs.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

decoding, from the base station, a final schedule of SRS transmissions by the UE; and is

Encoding, for transmission to the base station, the SRS transmission as indicated by the final scheduling.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

decoding, from the base station, a pre-scheduling request after transmitting the RRC signaling, the pre-scheduling request indicating on which uplink, UL, subframe the SRS is to be transmitted; and are

And is

In response to the pre-scheduling request, for a transmission to the base station, encoding impact information including a number of subframes impacted by the SRS transmission before a UL subframe for the SRS transmission, and

the final schedule is based on the impact information.

19. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

encoding support for autonomous gaps in the RRC signaling;

decoding, from the base station, an indication from the base station to use the autonomous gap in response to the indication of support for the autonomous gap, the indication from the base station to use the autonomous gap comprising a si-requestForHO information element; and is

In response to an indication to use the autonomous gap, ceasing communication with a serving cell and using the autonomous gap by one of performing measurements on neighboring cells during the autonomous gap and reading system information of the neighboring cells.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

determining that a conflict exists between the use of the autonomous gaps;

determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over the SRS transmission; and

skipping SRS carrier switching and the SRS transmission in response to determining that use of the autonomous gap is prioritized over the SRS transmission.

21. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

determining that a conflict exists between the use of the autonomous gaps;

determining that the SRS transmission is prioritized over use of the autonomous gap; and

skipping at least a portion of the use of the autonomous gap in response to determining that the SRS transmission is prioritized over the use of the autonomous gap.

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

an interface through which the UE is configured to communicate with a base station, the UE being configured for time domain duplex TDD secondary cell Scell operation without a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH; and

processing circuitry arranged to:

for transmission to the base station over the interface, encoding radio resource control, RRC, signaling comprising a UE-EUTRA-capability information element, IE, indicating at least one of:

an interruption time on downlink DL reception within a band pair of TDD component carrier CCs of the SCell during Radio Frequency (RF) retuning for switching between the band pair, the switching between the band pair transmitting Sounding Reference Signals (SRS) on the SCell without PUSCH, the band pair including the TDD component carrier CC of the SCell, and

an interruption time on Uplink (UL) reception within the band pair during RF retuning for switching between the band pair that transmits the SRS on the PUSCH-free SCell; and is provided with

Encode the SRS for transmissions to the base station via the interface after transmitting the RRC signaling,

wherein the RRC signaling indicates the outage time on DL reception and the outage time on UL reception at a granularity of one orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM, symbol.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the processing circuitry is further arranged to:

aggregating more downlink CCs than uplink CCs in TDD operation, at least one CC configured to operate in downlink without at least one of physical uplink control channels, PUCCH and PUSCH, and

configuring SRS switching between CCs for SRS transmission on the at least one CC.

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