CN111226483A - Method and apparatus for supporting new radio unlicensed transmission - Google Patents

Abstract

The application discloses a method of enabling a wireless communication device to access a service provided by a radio access network, the method comprising: identifying a transmission of a first wireless communication device that sends an unlicensed transmission to a second wireless communication device, the unlicensed transmission including parameters identifying at least one of the first wireless communication devices and one or more transmission formats.

Description

Method and apparatus for supporting new radio unlicensed transmission

Technical Field

The present application relates generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for enabling a wireless communication device, such as a user equipment or a mobile device, to Access a Radio Access Technology (RAT) or a Radio Access Network (RAN), and more particularly to a method and apparatus for supporting Radio Uplink (UL) unlicensed transmission.

Background

Wireless communication systems, such as Third Generation (3G) mobile telephone standards and technologies are well known, and such 3G standards and technologies have been developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP). The third generation of wireless communications has generally supported macrocell mobile telephone communications and communication systems and networks have evolved towards broadband and mobile systems.

The third generation partnership project has developed a so-called Long Term Evolution system (LTE), an Evolved universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), for a mobile Access Network of one or more macro cells supported by base stations called enodebs or enbs (Evolved nodebs). Recently, LTE is further evolving towards so-called 5G or NR (new radio) systems, in which a base station called a gNB supports one or more macro cells.

Typically, uplink transmissions are scheduled by the base station, which uses an uplink grant message to indicate to the terminal which resources are available for the next uplink transmission, an option known as grant-based uplink transmission. There is another option that has no scheduling step before the uplink transmission, which is called grant-free uplink transmission or grant-free transmission of the uplink (both meaning the same). For grant-free transmission on the uplink, a set of resources is pre-allocated to the terminal for a period of time, and the user equipment may start transmitting without waiting for a downlink scheduling message. Fig. 1 depicts the transmission of these two scenarios (left: grant based; right: grant exempt).

For grant-based uplink transmissions, there is at least one Round Trip Time (RTT) delay before the initial transmission, and if the amount of data transmitted is very small, the control signaling overhead can be large. For unlicensed uplink transmissions, the delay for initial transmission may be very short if pre-allocated resources are frequently obtained, but some resources will be wasted if there is not enough data to occupy all pre-allocated resources. Table 1 below summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of these two options.

Table 1:

for Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) or Machine Type Communications (MTC), the number of connections may be large and the amount of data per transmission may be small. In this case, Scheduling Request (SR) and uplink grant together cause a huge signaling overhead, and both types of services require a short delay and cannot accept an extra RTT delay. For these two reasons, URLLC and MTC services typically choose an unlicensed uplink transmission.

As mentioned above, the unlicensed transmission must have some periodic pre-allocation, as well as resources for sporadic service, resulting in some waste of resources. A similar scheme is employed in LTE, which is referred to as Semi-persistent scheduling (SPS). It is introduced to support a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) type service in which data packets arrive at an almost fixed period and the data packet sizes are very similar, thereby less causing problems related to resource waste. In a factory (factory control) where packets arrive infrequently or infrequently, URLLC is very useful for remote control machines, which may result in a large amount of pre-allocated resources being wasted. To improve efficiency, multiple user devices may be supported to share the same resources, including only unlicensed user devices, or both unlicensed and grant-based user devices. If multiple user equipments share the same resource, each unlicensed user equipment should be identified independently and the current Demodulation Reference Symbol (DMRS) is considered by the 3GPP RAN1 or user equipment identity (UE ID).

In addition to the user equipment identity, several other parameters need to be indicated to the gNB for correct reception. Unlicensed transmission has allowed the support of multiple Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) processes. Thus, for each transmission, if multiple HARQ processes are configured, the HARQ process identity needs to be indicated to the gNB. The gNB uses this information to put the received packets into the correct buffer or, if HARQ soft combining is required, the gNB uses this information to combine the correct soft information to improve reception performance.

The grant-free transmission also allows for support of transmission repetition, which means that the user equipment may repeat the transmission several times as configured by the gNB. Each transmission may or may not use a different Redundancy Version (RV). Thus, if a different RV is configured, the RV is another parameter that needs to be indicated for unlicensed transmissions.

The unlicensed transmission also allows for support of K repetitions, where the repetitions include initial transmission of the same transport block (with the same or different RV and still open for different MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme) decisions) (K ═ 1). K is the number of repetitions.

Thus, the user equipment identity HARQ process identity (hereinafter HARQ-PID) and RV needs to be indicated together with the uplink grant-free transmission. Parameters like time/frequency allocation, repetition number K, MCS and DMRS sequence can be (re) configured by the gNB and, according to current protocols, the gNB will have more flexible options for modifying parameters or activating/deactivating the unlicensed connection than SPS in LTE.

The signaling aspects of the unlicensed uplink transmission are not fully agreed upon. Two types have been achieved, one is to perform all (re) configuration and activation/deactivation through Radio Resource Control (RRC), and the other is to perform reconfiguration and activation/deactivation through Downlink Control Information (DCI). The second type of mode of operation is similar to the existing SPS procedure in LTE. But whatever the difference they are in the downlink direction and do not address all signaling issues.

According to the above discussion, three different parts need to be transmitted to achieve the license-free transmission. These three parts are DMRS for channel estimation (and possibly user equipment identification), control signaling as described above, and URLLC data.

Two requirements of URLLC service are determined: for URLLC, the user plane delay target for uplink should be 0.5ms, and the user plane delay target for downlink should be 0.5 ms; for a user plane delay of 1ms, the URLLC reliability requirement is that a single transmission of a single packet is 1x10^-532 bytes. The design of the three parts DMRS, control signaling and data remains open. The URLLC requirement for each part can be supported independently, and DMRS patterns and densities can be designed to optimize the overall link performance. Since the control signaling has no HARQ protection, it must be the most reliable part and its one-time detection reliability must not be less than 1x10^-5. It is noted that the user equipment identity, HARQ-PID and RV may have different reliability requirements. Because the data part has HARQ protection, the one-time detection reliability of the data part is reduced, and the HARQ retransmission can reach 1x10^-5The final reliability of (2).

To enable unlicensed downlink transmission, a variety of signaling options have been proposed, which are described below.

In a first option, DMRS is used to indicate user equipment identity, dedicated DMRS sequences may be configured to the user equipment, and the gNB may identify the user equipment by detecting the corresponding DMRS sequences. This option may be extended to make DMRS further support HARQ PID and/or RV. In this case, a single user equipment may need to configure multiple DMRS sequences. This option may present detection reliability issues, especially when resources are multiplexed with enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) user equipment. Due to the power control of the multiplexed eMBB user equipments, the interference at the gNB may be quite different and the gNB may need to select a threshold for the worst case detection, which in turn will reduce the DMRS detection reliability. The eMBB modulation symbols may be related to URLLC DMRS symbols, which may result in false alarms. Due to these drawbacks, indicating HARQ PID and/or RV by DRMS may be more difficult.

In a second option, it is proposed that different HARQ processes may be mapped to different time/frequency resources. A plurality of resources may be pre-allocated to the user equipment and the user equipment selects a resource with a HARQ process identity for transmission.

Likewise, this option can be extended to have different resources indicate RV. This option requires that multiple resources be pre-allocated. Since URLLC services usually require broadband, on the one hand this may further reduce the resource usage efficiency, on the other hand it may not support multiple HARQ processes in the frequency domain. When multiple resources are allocated in the time domain, it may further increase the delay, as described in the following embodiment given with reference to fig. 2.

Assume that three HARQ processes are mapped to three sets of mini-slots, namely mini-slot # 0, 3, 6 … for HARQ PID #0, mini-slot # 1, 4, 7 … for HARQ PID #1, and mini-slot # 2, 5, 8 … for HARQ PID # 2. When a packet arrives in buffer #0 (it must be transmitted using HARQ PID # 0), the user equipment cannot transmit it in the first available mini-slot (in this example, #4), and must skip two mini-slots until mini-slot #6, which can result in an additional delay of two mini-slots.

In a third option, it is proposed to introduce a HARQ PID in Uplink Control Information (UCI), which can be transmitted together with uplink data. This option can be extended to include the RV. This option requires the introduction of a new type of UCI. This new UCI has different reliability requirements from other types and requires more standardization effort. Currently, in LTE, uplink UCI only includes signaling for Downlink (DL) transmission. RV and HARQPID are two downlink related parameters. Since a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) -Scalable Orthogonal frequency Division Multiplexing (S-OFDM) waveform is supported only in the LTE uplink, UCI is multiplexed with PUSCH in the time domain if it relies on a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH). Therefore, a new UCI carrying RV and HARQ-PID and supporting Cyclic Prefix (CP) OFDM waveform needs to be multiplexed in the frequency domain.

If UCI is carried by the Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), there may also be additional intermodulation problems with out-of-band emissions when it is transmitted simultaneously with PUSCH but with non-continuous resource allocation, and therefore power compensation is needed, which will ultimately compromise the reliability of the Uplink transmission.

The above options support HARQ PID, and similar options are available for RV.

In the RAN4 to RAN1 cooperation, Sub-Carrier Spacing (SCS) of 15kHz, 30kHz and 60kHz for supporting the frequency bands below 6GHz has been set forth. Since URLLC requires extremely high reliability, it should also support the sub-6 GHz band, so it can be concluded that URLLC service will support SCS for 15KHz, 30KHz and 60 KHz. As shown in fig. 3, there may be 3 cases, that is, a mini-slot (2 symbols) for 15KHz SCS, a mini-slot (4 symbols) for 30KHz SCS, and a slot of 7 symbols for 60KHz SCS, whose design and evaluation are similar, and in the present invention, the design and corresponding evaluation results are shown by taking a mini-slot of 2 symbols for 15KHz SCS as an example.

The present invention is directed to addressing at least some of the prominent problems in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

This disclosure presents some concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This disclosure is not intended to highlight essential or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of enabling a wireless communications device to access a service provided by a radio access network, the method comprising: identifying a transmission of a first wireless communication device that sends an unlicensed transmission to a second wireless communication device, the unlicensed transmission including parameters identifying at least one of the first wireless communication devices and one or more transmission formats.

Preferably, the identifying operation comprises detecting a user equipment specific reference sequence and a secondary user equipment identity received in the transmission.

Preferably, the user equipment-specific reference sequence is carried by one of demodulation reference symbols, pilot symbols and preamble symbols.

Preferably, the secondary user equipment identity is related to one or part of a full user identity.

Preferably, the secondary user equipment identification bit is indicated by the second wireless communication device.

Preferably, the secondary user equipment identification bit is obtained by the first wireless communication device from one or more parameters according to a predefined method.

Preferably, the number of secondary user equipment identification bits is selected according to the size of the interval between the actual false alarm rate and the predefined target false alarm rate.

Preferably, the uplink control information signaling comprises said secondary user equipment identity, and/or jointly coded hybrid automatic repeat request processing identity and redundancy version.

Preferably, the user class identifier is mapped onto the physical resource by at least one of puncturing the data portion and rate matching.

Preferably, the one or more transport formats are indicated by at least one of a hybrid automatic repeat request process identity and a redundancy version.

Preferably, the hybrid automatic repeat request process identification and the redundancy version are jointly encoded.

Preferably, all possible hybrid automatic repeat request process identification values and all possible redundancy version values are combined.

Preferably, the radio access network is a new radio or 5G network.

According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a base station adapted to perform the method steps of the further aspect of the invention.

According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a user equipment adapted to perform the method steps of the further aspect of the present invention.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions for a processor to perform the method steps of the further aspect of the invention.

The non-transitory computer readable medium may include: at least one of a hard disk, a compact disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a Read-Only Memory, a Programmable Read-Only Memory, an erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, an Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), an Electrically erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, and a flash Memory.

Drawings

Further details, aspects and embodiments of the present application are described below, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings. Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For ease of understanding, each figure includes a reference numeral.

Fig. 1 is a diagram of grant-based and grant-free uplink transmission in the prior art.

Fig. 2 is a diagram of the additional delay of two mini-slots in the prior art.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of three possible options for signaling in the prior art.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of UCI carrying HARQ PID and RV in the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a modulation order of data symbols in the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of part or all of the ue identities included in the UCI in the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 shows a schematic diagram of URLLC performance comparing multiple DMRS patterns in the embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram showing a processing flow in the embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

Those skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate that the example details described herein are merely illustrative of some embodiments and that the inventive concepts set forth in the present application are applicable in a variety of alternative contexts.

The application discloses a method for supporting uplink grant-free transmission, and more particularly, how to indicate a set of parameters to support gNB processing of uplink transmission.

Broadly speaking, the present application includes three main attributes, and by jointly encoding RV and HARQ-PID, the overall size of uplink signaling can be minimized, thereby reducing the consumption of uplink resources and improving the reliability of uplink data transmission. By having the PUSCH carry UCI, resource allocation for uplink unlicensed transmission can be simplified and no dedicated resources need be allocated for signaling. Such a bearer also facilitates reducing out-of-band emissions by supporting continuous resource usage. By adding the secondary user equipment identifier, the false alarm rate of DMRS detection can be reduced, and the identification reliability of the user equipment transmitted by the URLLC can be improved.

The number of RV and HARQ processes required for URLLC and eMBB is available for discussion, but to achieve high throughput, 8 HARQ processes may be included. The number of RVs may be the same as in LTE, i.e. 4 RVs.

There may be multiple URLLC services, and different numbers of HARQ processes and RVs may be configured for a particular URLLC connection, depending on throughput and reliability requirements. Joint coding will reduce the overall signaling length, e.g., when three RVs and five HARQ processes are configured for one user equipment, a total of five bits are required, but joint coding can reduce it to four bits. Therefore, at smaller signaling lengths, the data can use more resources to achieve better reliability, as shown in table 2.

TABLE 2

The joint coded bits may be carried by a combination of any two or all of the above three (first, second and third) options. An example of combining all three options together is given below.

For the 4 coding bits shown in table 2 above, the first bit may be carried by any of the used resources. The two sets of resources are configured to the user equipment, e.g., two 10MHz sub-bands of a 20MHz band. The value of the bit is indicated by any set of resources used by the transmission. The second bit, carried by the DMRS sequence used, and the user equipment is configured with two sequences so that both sequences can be used to identify this user equipment. Also, the value of the bit can be indicated by selecting the corresponding sequence. The remaining two bits (the third bit and the fourth bit) are carried by the UCI. UCI for unlicensed transmission may be performed in a manner similar to LTE. One is to carry PUSCH, and the other is to carry PUCCH. The following describes the PUSCH-mounting option in detail, and forms a part of the present invention.

Assuming that all the above configurations are indicated to the user equipment through RRC or DCI signaling, one example is to allocate a plurality of different resource sets, a plurality of DMRS sequences, and a plurality of UCI bits through the gNB. The joint encoded bits are carried using different resources in a predefined order. Meanwhile, the number of RVs and the number of HARQ processes are also indicated through RRC and/or L1 signaling.

Referring to fig. 4, fig. 4 shows a scheme in which HARQ-PID and RV carried by UCI are piggybacked by puncturing or rate matching PUSCH.

This scheme may use a similar design as used in LTE. For a two symbol mini-slot, the modulated DMRS symbols are first mapped to predefined Resource Block (RB) locations. The coded and modulated UCI symbols are mapped to specific resource block locations to ensure better link performance. The best positions for UCI are positions around DMRS, and coded and modulated UCI symbols mapped to these positions have better results. The coded and modulated data symbols are mapped to all remaining resource block locations. Where each resource block location includes 12 frequency domain subcarriers and 1 time domain symbol. The above example does not exclude that different resource block sizes may be defined, e.g. a resource block of 12 sub-carriers consisting of 2 symbols or sub-carriers of a resource block may be multiplexed between DMRS, UCI and data, e.g. 6 sub-carriers for UCI and the remaining 6 sub-carriers for data, even if the same resource block size is used. For a specific example, refer to the symbol scheme of fig. 5.

For UCI, there may be no rate matching, such as Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), since UCI may have a fixed payload size and the modulation order may also be fixed. Rate matching is typically used when the amount of physical resources is not fixed, or where the physical resources are fixed but the payload size is not fixed. For UCI, its payload size may be fixed and it is mapped to physical resources with higher priority, so no rate matching is required. The modulation order of the data symbols may be indicated by downlink control signaling (RRC or DCI). Note that it is assumed that a CP-OFDM waveform is used in the scheme of fig. 4, and if a DFT-S-OFDM waveform is used, all of the 3 parts (DMRS, UCI, and data) may be mapped to a physical layer in a time domain.

In an alternative, the UCI includes part or all of the user equipment identities to improve DMRS detection reliability.

As shown in fig. 6, the uplink transmission of a 2-symbol mini-slot is first modeled with a plurality of different DMRS patterns (corresponding to different DMRS densities). Fig. 6 evaluates the following five modes. Mode #0 has 1 OFDM symbol fully used for DMRS, and thus DMRS density is equal to 1/2. In pattern #1, one resource block out of every two resource blocks of the first OFDM symbol is used for DMRS, and all resource blocks in the second symbol are used for data, so the DMRS density is equal to 1/4. In pattern #2, one resource block in every 3 resource blocks of the first symbol is used for DMRS. In pattern 3 and pattern 4, one resource block is used for DMRS in every 4 and 5 resource blocks, and the corresponding DMRS densities are 1/8 and 1/10, respectively.

Without considering UCI, a 32-byte payload (including 2-byte CRC) is encoded using Tail-biting Convolutional Codes (TBCC), using lte pucch type rate matching, using QPSK modulation, and then mapped to the remaining resource blocks of 10MHz bandwidth, but excluding the resource blocks for DMRS. Rate matching is applied to each DMRS pattern accordingly, meaning a lower coding rate with a lower DMRS density and a higher coding rate with a higher DMRS density. The DMRS has higher density, can obtain better channel estimation results, but has less data resources and less accumulated power of data symbols. There is a need to trade off the choice of DMRS density between channel estimation and data resources. The optimal DMRS density may be different from 15KHz, 30KHz and 60KHz SCS, which may be evaluated separately.

As mentioned above, referring to fig. 7, URLLC data has HARQ protection and 1-10 if one retransmission can be achieved within a given delay range^-3Is acceptable. In doing so, the required signal-to-noise Ratio (SNR) is about 9 dB. The detection rate of DMRS is evaluated by SNR of 9 dB. Note that 9dB is only valid under the assumption used in this example, and that different SNRs may be used when conditions change.

DMRS detection is based on a threshold that is chosen as a trade-off between False Alarm Rate (FAR) and detection Rate. The false alarm rate is the probability of detecting that the user equipment is not actually sending anything, which would result in a waste of resources for the downlink control channel and the uplink data channel, and the 1% threshold may be an acceptable value.

As can be seen from the figure, the DMRS density of 1/6 has the best link performance. Table 3 gives the detection rates for the three DMRS patterns.

TABLE 3

To accommodate variations in received power, the cross-correlation values are normalized according to the power of the second symbol, and no significant difference in detection performance is observed for the different DMRS patterns.

As shown in Table 3 above, by reducing the detection threshold, the detection rate is increased from 99.97 x% to 99.999% and the false alarm rate is increased from 1% to 1.7 x%. Based on this set of conclusions, UCI may include 1 bit of secondary user equipment identity to verify the user equipment identity obtained from DMRS detection, and using this additional bit, the final false alarm rate may be halved (0.9% ═ 1.80%/2). The secondary user equipment Identity may be part of a normal user equipment Identity, such as a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identity (C-RNTI), or an entirely different Identity used to verify the validity of the Identity detected from the DMRS sequence.

Based on the difference between the actual FAR and the target FAR, the UCI may include a plurality of secondary ue identity bits, e.g., 1.7% actual FAR and less than twice 1% target FAR, so that a single bit ue identity may help to eliminate the difference. In short, the number of secondary user equipment identification bits included in the UCI is selected according to the requirement of reducing FAR, and the actual FAR detected by the DMRS is related to DMRS density and vendor specific algorithm, so the number of secondary user equipment identification bits included in the UCI needs to be consistent between the gNB and the user equipment.

The actual secondary user equipment identification bits may be obtained from a number of different processes. For example, explicit signaling from the gNB, wherein the gNB may indicate the number of secondary user equipment identity bits and corresponding values in RRC, or implicitly from other configuration parameters, such as the last few bits of C-RNTI allocated by the gNB, or a set of bits predetermined for the allocated DMRS sequence. In another example, the number of secondary user equipment identification bits may be indicated by the gNB, but their values are implicitly obtained, which may be summarized as the following three options: both size and value are indicated by the gNB, both size and value are implicitly obtained from other configuration parameters, size is indicated by the gNB, and actual value is obtained from other configuration parameters.

Some examples are given below, and the following assumptions are made: four user equipments (user equipment #0, user equipment #1, user equipment #2, and user equipment #3) are allocated to the same resource, and each user equipment can be regarded as specified. In the first scheme, the user equipment # i uses the DMRS sequence # i, the UCI includes a 2-bit secondary user equipment identity to reduce FAR, and the user equipment can be identified by the DMRS sequence # i + dedicated value of the partial user equipment identity. In the second scheme, the user equipment # i uses the DMRS sequence # i, the UCI includes a 1-bit secondary user equipment identity therein to reduce the FAR (every two user equipments have the same partial user equipment identity), and each user equipment can be identified by a dedicated value of the DMRS sequence # i + partial user equipment identity. In the third scheme, all user equipments use the same DMRS sequence, and each user equipment is identified by a dedicated value of only a part of the user equipment identities. In a fourth scheme, some user equipments may share the same DMRS sequence, and each user equipment may be identified by a DMRS sequence index + dedicated value for partial user equipment identification.

For all of the above examples, the secondary user equipment identity may be indicated by the gNB via RRC and/or L1 signaling, or, where possible, obtained from a predefined mapping with the DMRS sequence, e.g., in example #1, the secondary user equipment identity is the last two bits of the DMRS sequence index. The various combinations are shown in table 4.

TABLE 4

Note that the simulation does not take into account multiple DMRS sequences, and when multiple cross-correlator peaks from any correlator have only noise or interference input, a false alarm will be triggered, and thus the false alarm rate will increase. It is expected that the false alarm rate will be N times higher with N correlators.

As the number of false alarms increases, the number of (part of) user equipment identification bits will also increase.

The user equipment may transmit the DMRS, UCI, and data without authorization. The DMRS sequence may be preconfigured by the gNB, and the UCI may include the number of secondary user equipment identification bits, RV, and/or HARQ PID. The data portion may be encoded and modulated with an MCS that is also preconfigured by the gNB. These options are examples and may be varied in other ways as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Fig. 8 shows an example processing procedure on the gbb side. The gNB first identifies the user equipment by detecting the corresponding DMRS sequence, and then selects a peak value output by a plurality of cross-correlators and compares it with a threshold value. If the peak is above the threshold, the user equipment is considered to be a temporary identification and after the UCI is decoded, the temporary user equipment identification is verified by one or more secondary user equipment identification bits from the UCI. If both match, the gNB will consider a true transmission detected, otherwise it will consider no uplink transmission. If the detected ue identity and the secondary ue identity bits match, the receiver may further use the modulated UCI symbols to improve channel estimation, which may further improve the link performance of the data portion.

The present application is described with reference to uplink transmissions in certain circumstances, it being understood that the present application is equally applicable to other types of transmissions in other circumstances. For example: device-to-device communication, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and machine-to-machine communication when a device (vehicle or machine) is identified jointly by a pilot (preamble or reference symbol) and an individually coded user equipment identification.

Although not shown in detail, any device or apparatus forming part of a network may comprise at least a processor, a memory unit, and a communication interface, wherein the processor unit, the memory unit, and the communication interface are configured to perform the methods of any aspect of the present invention. Further options and choices are described below.

Although not shown in detail, any device or apparatus forming part of a network may comprise at least a processor, a memory unit, and a communication interface configured to perform any of the methods mentioned in the present disclosure. Various aspects and concepts are further described below.

The signaling processing functions in the embodiments of the present application, in particular the signaling processing functions of the gNB and the user equipment, may be implemented using computer systems or architectures well known to those skilled in the art. For a given application or environment, a computer system, such as a desktop, laptop or notebook computer, handheld computing device (PDA, cell phone, palmtop, etc.), mainframe, server, client, or any other type of special or general purpose computing device may be used. The computer system may include one or more processors, which may be implemented using a general-purpose or special-purpose processing engine such as, for example, a microprocessor, microcontroller or other control module.

The computer system may also include a main memory, such as a Random Access Memory (RAM) or other dynamic memory, for storing information and instructions to be executed by the processor. Such main memory may also be used for storing temporary variables or other intermediate information during execution of instructions to be executed by the processor. Likewise, the computer system may include a Read Only Memory (ROM) or other static storage device for storing static information and instructions for the processor.

The computer system may also include an information storage system that may include, for example, a media drive and a removable storage interface. The media drive may include a drive or other structure to support fixed or removable storage media, such as a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a magnetic tape drive, an optical disk drive, a Compact Disk (CD), a Digital Video Drive (DVD) read-write drive (R or RW), or other removable or fixed media drive. The storage media may include, for example, a hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic tape, optical disk, CD, DVD, or other fixed or removable medium that is read by and written to by a media drive. The storage media may include a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon particular computer software or data.

In alternative embodiments, the information storage system may include other similar components for allowing computer programs or other instructions or data to be loaded into the computer system. These components may include, for example, removable storage units and interfaces, such as program cartridges and cartridge interfaces, removable memory (e.g., flash memory or other removable memory modules) and memory slots, and other removable storage units and interfaces that allow software and data to be transferred from the removable storage unit to the computer system.

The computer system may also include a communications interface operable to allow software and data to be transferred between the computer system and external devices. The communication interface may include a modem, a network interface (e.g., an ethernet or other NIC network card), a communication port (e.g., a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port), a PCMCIA (Personal Computer memory card International Association) slot and card, etc. Software and data are transferred via the communication interface in the form of signaling, which may be electronic, electromagnetic, optical or other signaling capable of being received by the communication interface medium.

In this application, the terms "computer program product," "computer-readable medium," and the like may be used generally to refer to tangible media, such as memory, storage devices, or storage units. These and other forms of computer-readable media may store one or more instructions for use by a processor, including a computer system, to cause the processor to perform specified operations. Such instructions, generally referred to as "computer program code" (which may be grouped in the form of computer programs or other groupings), may be executed to enable the computer system to perform functions of embodiments of the present application. It is noted that the code may directly cause the processor to perform specified operations, may be compiled to perform the specified operations, and/or may be combined with other software, hardware, and/or firmware elements (e.g., libraries of functions that perform standard functions) to perform the specified operations.

The non-transitory computer readable medium may include: at least one of a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a Read-Only Memory, a Programmable Read-Only Memory, an Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), an electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, and a flash Memory.

In embodiments where the elements are implemented using software, the software may be stored in a computer-readable medium and loaded into the computer system using, for example, a removable storage drive. When a processor in the computer system executes the control module (in this embodiment, software instructions or executable computer program code), the processor performs the functions of the present application as described herein.

Furthermore, the present concepts may be applied to any circuit that performs signaling processing functions with a network element. Further, for example, a semiconductor manufacturer may employ the inventive concept in the design of a stand-alone device, such as a microcontroller of a Digital Signal Processing (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), and/or any other subsystem element.

It will be appreciated that for clarity the above description has described embodiments of the application with reference to a single processing logic, but that the concepts of the application may equally well be implemented by a plurality of different functional units and processors providing the signalling processing functions, and that references to specific functional units are therefore only to be seen as references to suitable ways of providing the described functionality, rather than indications of strict logical or physical structure or organization.

Aspects of the present application may be implemented in any suitable form including hardware, software, firmware or any combination of these. The present application may optionally be implemented, at least in part, as computer software or configurable modular components, such as FPGA devices, running on one or more data processors and/or digital signaling processors. Thus, the elements and components of an embodiment of the application may be physically, functionally and logically implemented in any suitable way. Indeed the functionality may be implemented in a single unit, in a plurality of units or as part of other functional units.

While the present application has been described in connection with certain embodiments, it is not intended to be limited to the specific form set forth herein, but on the contrary, it is intended to be limited only by the appended claims. Furthermore, although a particular described feature may appear to relate to particular embodiments, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that various features described in the embodiments may be combined in accordance with the application. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of other elements or steps.

Furthermore, although individually listed, a plurality of means, elements or method steps may be implemented by e.g. a single unit or processor. Furthermore, although individual features may be included in different claims, these may possibly advantageously be combined, and the inclusion in different claims does not imply that a combination of features is not feasible and/or advantageous. Likewise, the inclusion of a feature in a single claim does not imply a limitation to the claim, but rather indicates that the feature is equally applicable to other claims as appropriate.

Furthermore, the order of features in the claims does not imply any specific order in which the features must be performed, in particular the order of individual steps in a method claim does not imply that the steps must be performed in this order, but rather the steps may be performed in any suitable order. Furthermore, singular references do not exclude a plurality, and thus, references to "a", "an", "second", etc. do not exclude a plurality.

While the present application has been described in connection with certain embodiments, it is not intended to be limited to the specific form set forth herein, but on the contrary, it is intended to be limited only by the appended claims. Furthermore, although a particular described feature may appear to relate to particular embodiments, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that various features described in the embodiments may be combined in accordance with the application. In the claims, the word "comprising" or "comprises" does not exclude the presence of other elements.

Claims (16)

1. A method for enabling a wireless communication device to access a service provided by a radio access network, the method comprising: identifying a transmission of a first wireless communication device that sends an unlicensed transmission to a second wireless communication device, the unlicensed transmission including parameters identifying at least one of the first wireless communication devices and one or more transmission formats.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises detecting a user equipment specific reference sequence and a secondary user equipment identity received in a transmission.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the user equipment specific reference sequence is carried by one of demodulation reference symbols, pilot symbols, and preamble symbols.

4. A method according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the secondary user equipment identity is related to one or part of a full user identity.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the secondary UE identity bit is indicated by the second wireless communication device.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the secondary user equipment identity bits are obtained by the first wireless communication device from one or more parameters according to a predefined method.

7. The method according to claim 5 or 6, wherein the number of secondary user equipment identification bits is selected according to the size of the interval between the actual false alarm rate and the predefined target false alarm rate.

8. The method according to any of claims 4 to 7, wherein uplink control information signaling comprises said secondary user equipment identity, and/or jointly coded hybrid automatic repeat request processing identity and redundancy version.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the user class identifier is mapped to the physical resource by at least one of puncturing the data portion and rate matching.

10. The method according to any of claims 1-9, wherein said one or more transport formats are indicated by at least one of a hybrid automatic repeat request process identity and a redundancy version.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the HARQ process identifier and the redundancy version are jointly encoded.

12. The method according to claim 10 or 11, characterized in that a combination of all possible hybrid automatic repeat request process identification values and all possible redundancy version values is encoded.

13. The method according to any of claims 1-12, characterised in that the radio access network is a new radio or a 5G network.

14. A user equipment comprising a processor, a memory unit and a communication interface, characterized in that the processor, the memory unit and the communication interface are configured to perform the method of any of claims 1-13.

15. A base station device comprising a processor, a memory unit and a communication interface, characterized in that the processor, the memory unit and the communication interface are configured to perform the method of any of claims 1-13.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon for execution by a processor of the method of any one of claims 1-13.

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