CN113767581A

CN113767581A - Controlling data transmission in wireless communications

Info

Publication number: CN113767581A
Application number: CN201980096019.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 朱凯; 陈宇
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Current assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Priority date: 2019-05-02
Filing date: 2019-08-28
Publication date: 2021-12-07
Anticipated expiration: 2039-08-28
Also published as: WO2020221963A1; CN113767581B; WO2020220537A1

Abstract

The present invention proposes methods and apparatus for improving the transmission of data, such as Transport Blocks (TBs). The transmitting device may combine a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns to obtain a set of combined transport blocks, and transmit the set of combined transport blocks to the receiving device. The combined pattern indicates one or more of the plurality of component transport blocks and an associated redundancy version for each of the component transport blocks to be used to obtain each combined transport block of the set of combined transport blocks. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

Description

Controlling data transmission in wireless communications

This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application serial No. 62/841962, filed on 2/5/2019, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

The teachings in accordance with the exemplary embodiments of this disclosure relate generally to wireless communications and, more particularly, relate to improving transmission of transport blocks for situations such as feedback-free transmission.

Background

This section is intended to provide a context or context for exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Thus, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.

Certain abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or in the drawings are defined herein as follows:

ACK/NACK-acknowledgement

BG-base diagram

gNB-5G segment B/base station

HARQ-hybrid automatic repeat request

LDPC-Low Density parity check

LEO-Low Earth orbit

LTE-Long term evolution

MCS-modulation and coding scheme

NR-New radio (5G)

NTN-non-terrestrial network

Rel-release version

RV-redundancy version

SI-research project

TB-transport block

UB user equipment

A new research project (SI) of the third generation partnership project (3GPP) entitled "Solutions for NR to support Non-Terrestrial networks" was licensed in the Radio Access Network (RAN) #80 conference, details of which may be found in the 3GPP contribution RP-181370. One important deployment feature that distinguishes NTN from terrestrial networks (e.g., LTE, Rel15 NR) is that NTN base station nodes are typically satellites located in earth orbits with an orbital height of 600-. This results in large propagation delays in the NTN.

A communication environment like that in the NTN may present challenges to communication performance.

Disclosure of Invention

The scope of protection sought for the various embodiments of the present disclosure is defined by the independent claims. Embodiments and features (if any) described in this specification that do not fall within the scope of the independent claims should be construed as examples useful for understanding the various embodiments of the disclosure.

According to a first aspect, various embodiments provide a method for wireless communication at a transmitting device. The method comprises the following steps: combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and transmitting the combined transport block set to a receiving device. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a second aspect, various embodiments provide a method for wireless communication at a receiving device. The method comprises the following steps: receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and detecting a plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a third aspect, various embodiments provide a transmitting device for wireless communication. The transmission apparatus includes: means for combining a plurality of constituent transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and means for transmitting the set of combined transport blocks to a receiving device. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a fourth aspect, various embodiments provide a receiving device for wireless communication. The receiving apparatus includes: means for receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and means for detecting a plurality of component transport blocks from a set of combined transport blocks based on a combination pattern in a set of predefined combination patterns. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a fifth aspect, various embodiments provide a system for wireless communication. The system comprises a transmitting device and a receiving device. The transmission apparatus includes: means for combining a plurality of constituent transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and means for transmitting the set of combined transport blocks to a receiving device. The receiving apparatus includes: means for receiving the combined transport block set from a transmitting device; and means for detecting the plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on the combination pattern. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a sixth aspect, various embodiments provide a transmitting device for wireless communication. The transmitting device includes at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code. The at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the sending device to perform at least the following: combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and transmitting the combined transport block set to a receiving device. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a seventh aspect, various embodiments provide a receiving device for wireless communication. The receiving device includes at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code. The at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the receiving device to perform at least the following: receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and detecting a plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to an eighth aspect, various embodiments provide a system for wireless communication. The system comprises a transmitting device and a receiving device. The transmitting device comprises at least one first processor and at least one first memory including first computer program code. The receiving device comprises at least one second processor and at least one second memory including second computer program code. The at least one first memory and the first computer program code configured to, with the at least one first processor, cause the sending device to perform at least the following: combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and transmitting the combined transport block set to the receiving device. The at least one second memory and the second computer program code configured to, with the at least one second processor, cause the receiving device to perform at least the following: receiving the combined transport block set from the transmitting device; and detecting the plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on the combination pattern. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a ninth aspect, various embodiments provide a non-transitory computer readable medium. The non-transitory computer readable medium includes program instructions for causing a transmitting device to at least: combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns, thereby obtaining a set of combined transport blocks; and transmitting the combined transport block set to a receiving device. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to a tenth aspect, various embodiments provide a non-transitory computer readable medium. The non-transitory computer readable medium includes program instructions for causing a receiving device to at least: receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and detecting a plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on a combination pattern of a set of predefined combination patterns. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

According to some embodiments, the combined pattern indicates one or more of the plurality of component transport blocks and an associated redundancy version for each of the component transport blocks to be used to obtain each combined transport block of the combined set of transport blocks.

According to some embodiments, the plurality of combining patterns associated with the same redundancy rate include a first combining pattern and a second combining pattern. In some embodiments, the first combination pattern indicates a first set of constituent transport blocks associated with a first set of redundancy versions to be used for said combining, and the second combination pattern indicates a first set of constituent transport blocks associated with a different second set of redundancy versions to be used for said combining. In other embodiments, the first combination pattern indicates a first set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining, and the second combination pattern indicates a different second set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining. In other embodiments, a given redundancy version for a component transport block is used more frequently for a combination in the first combination pattern than for a combination in the second combination pattern.

According to some embodiments, the set of predefined combining patterns comprises one or more subsets of combining patterns, each subset comprising a plurality of combining patterns for one or more redundancy rates.

According to some embodiments, each subset of combination patterns corresponds to a different range of supported coding rates.

According to some embodiments, the combination pattern is selected by selecting a subset from the one or more subsets of combination patterns and selecting a combination pattern from the selected subset.

According to some embodiments, the subset selection is based at least on a link direction and/or channel conditions between the transmitting device and the receiving device.

According to some embodiments, the combination pattern is selected based on self-decodability of the component transport blocks.

According to some embodiments, the combination pattern is selected based on coding parameters for channel coding applied to generate the component transport blocks. In some embodiments, the coding parameters include a code block size employed by the component transport block, and/or a base pattern used for LDPC channel coding, and/or a maximum coding rate supported by the component transport block.

According to some embodiments, the combined mode is selected based on a detection performance of the combined transport block at a receiving device. In some embodiments, the detection performance includes at least an indication of a number of component transport blocks recovered from a previous detection process at the receiving device.

According to some embodiments, the operation of obtaining a combined TB set comprises obtaining one combined transport block of the combined transport block set from one of the plurality of component transport blocks.

According to some embodiments, the operation of obtaining the combined TB set comprises obtaining one combined transport block of the combined transport block set by an XOR (exclusive or) operation of at least two of the plurality of component transport blocks.

Drawings

The foregoing and other aspects, features and advantages of various embodiments of the present disclosure will become more apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to designate like or equivalent elements. The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of embodiments of the disclosure, are not necessarily drawn to scale and:

fig. 1 shows an example of a schematic structure of NTN;

FIG. 2 depicts a high-level block diagram of various devices used to implement some illustrative embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates one example of a simplified flow diagram in a process for TB combination between original TB0 and TB1, according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates one example of a simplified schematic diagram for erasure coding and decoding, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

fig. 5a illustrates a method that may be implemented by an apparatus according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure;

fig. 5b and 5c illustrate examples of methods that may be implemented by a transmitting device and a receiving device, respectively, according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure; and

fig. 6 shows an example of a (quasi-) HARQ feedback-less call flow for the Downlink (DL) according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

The principles of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to a few exemplary embodiments. It is to be understood that these exemplary embodiments are described merely for purposes of illustration and to aid those of ordinary skill in the art in understanding and practicing the present disclosure, and are not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of the present disclosure. The embodiments described herein may be implemented by various ways not limited to the ones described later.

In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

The term "terminal device" or "user equipment" (UE) as used herein refers to any terminal device capable of wireless communication with each other or with a base station. Communication may involve the transmission and/or reception of wireless signals using electromagnetic signals, radio waves, infrared signals, and/or other types of signals suitable for the communication of information over the air. In some example embodiments, the UE may be configured to send and/or receive information without direct human interaction. For example, the UE may send information to the network device on a predetermined schedule, triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to a request from the network side.

Examples of UEs include, but are not limited to, User Equipments (UEs) such as: a smart phone, a wireless enabled tablet computer, a Laptop Embedded Equipment (LEE), a laptop installed equipment (LME), a wireless Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), a sensor, a metering device, a personal wearable device such as a watch, and/or a vehicle capable of communication. For purposes of discussion, some example embodiments will be described with reference to a UE as an example of a terminal device, and in the context of this disclosure, the terms "terminal device" and "user equipment" (UE) may be used interchangeably.

The term "network device" as used herein refers to a device through which services may be provided for a terminal device in a communication network. The network devices may include access network devices and core network devices. The access network device may comprise any suitable device through which the terminal device or UE may access the communication network. Examples of access network equipment include repeaters, Access Points (APs), transmission points (TRPs), node bs (NodeB or NB), evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), New Radio (NR) NodeB (gnb), remote radio modules (RRUs), Radio Heads (RH), Remote Radio Heads (RRHs), low power nodes such as femtos, pico nodes, and so forth.

Communication systems and associated devices (e.g., UEs and network devices) typically operate in accordance with a given standard or specification which sets out what the various entities associated with the system are permitted to do and how that should be achieved. Communication protocols and/or parameters that should be used for the connection are also typically defined. One example of a communication system is the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) radio access technology and the so-called 5G or New Radio (NR) networks.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an NTN network in which some embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented. It should be appreciated that embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to application in such NTN networks, but may be more broadly used in wireless communication networks.

As shown in fig. 1, LEO satellite 101, having an altitude of 600km, provides a coverage area of NR cell 107. GEO satellites 102 with much higher altitudes of 35786km provide wider coverage on earth. LEO satellite 101 may communicate with gNB 103 on earth through feeder link 105 and may communicate with UEs on vessel 104 through access/service link 106.

The travel time of an electromagnetic wave traveling such a distance is measured and shown in table 1, such as the distance from LEO satellite 101 to the UE and the distance from GEO satellite 102 to the UE in fig. 1. It is clear that the propagation delay of NTN is much higher than what the Rel15 NR physical layer specification can tolerate, the latter being limited to a maximum propagation distance of 300 km.

Table 1: platform height and one-way propagation delay

Platform	Typical height	Propagation delay
			Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite	600km	～12.9ms
Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite	35786km	～270ms

In some example embodiments, methods and apparatus for improving the transmission of data, such as Transport Blocks (TBs), are presented. In some embodiments, a combined TB (also referred to as TB combination) is transmitted. The combined TB may be generated, for example, but not necessarily, using a principle similar to erasure coding. Some embodiments may reduce communication latency that may be problematic for situations such as NTN with large propagation delay.

Before describing in detail exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, reference is made to fig. 2 for illustrating a simplified block diagram of various electronic devices that are suitable for practicing some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 2 illustrates a block diagram of one possible and non-limiting exemplary system in which some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced. In fig. 2, a UE10 is in wireless communication with a wireless network 1. The UE is wireless, typically a mobile device that can access a wireless network. The UE10 may include one or more processors DP 10A, one or more memories MEM 10B, and one or more transceivers TRANS10D interconnected, for example, by one or more buses. Each of the one or more transceiver TRANS10D may include a receiver and a transmitter. The one or more buses may be address, data, or control buses, and may include any interconnection mechanism, such as a series of lines on a motherboard or integrated circuit, an optical fiber or other optical communication device, and so forth. The one or more transceivers TRANS10D may be connected to one or more antennas for

communication

21 and 22 to the NN 12 and NN 13, respectively. The one or more memories MEM 10B comprise computer program code PROG 10C. The UE10 may communicate with the NN 12 and/or NN 13 via a wireless link.

The NN 12 (which may be an NR/5G node B, evolved NB, or LTE device) is a network device, such as a master or slave node base station (e.g., for NR or LTE), in communication with devices, such as the NN 13 and/or the UE10 of fig. 2. The NN 12 may provide access to a wireless network 1 for wireless devices, such as the UE 10. The NN 12 may include, for example, one or more processors DP12A, one or more memories MEM 12C, and one or more transceivers TRANS 12D interconnected by one or more buses. According to some example embodiments, these TRANS 12D may include an X2 and/or Xn interface for implementing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. Each of the one or more transceiver TRANS 12D may include a receiver and a transmitter. The one or more transceivers TRANS 12D may be connected to, for example, one or more antennas for communicating with the UE10 over at least the link 21. The one or more memories MEM 12B and the computer program code PROG 12C may be configured to, with the one or more processors DP12A, cause the NN 12 to implement one or more operations described herein. The NN 12 may communicate with another network device (e.g., a gNB or eNB) or a device such as the NN 13. Further, the link 21 and/or any other link may be a wired or wireless link or both, and may implement, for example, an X2 or Xn interface. In addition, link 21 may pass through other network devices, such as but not limited to NCE/MME/SGW devices, such as NCE 14 of FIG. 2.

In some embodiments, the NN 13 may comprise a mobile functionality device such as an AMF or an SMF. In some embodiments, the NN 13 may comprise an NR/5G node B (also referred to as a gNB) or possibly an evolved nb (enb), which may be a master or slave node base station (e.g., for NR or LTE) in communication with devices such as the NN 12 and/or the UE10 and/or the wireless network 1. The NN 13 may include, for example, one or more processors DP13A, one or more memories MEM 13B, one or more network interfaces, and one or more transceivers TRANS 12D interconnected by one or more buses. According to some example embodiments, the network interfaces of the NN 13 may include X2 and/or Xn interfaces for implementing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. Each of the one or more transceiver TRANS 13D may include a receiver and a transmitter connected to one or more antennas. The one or more memories MEM 13B may comprise computer program code PROG 13C. For example, the one or more memories MEM 13B and the computer program code PROG 13C may be configured to, with the one or more processors DP13A, cause the NN 13 to perform one or more operations described herein. The NN 13 may communicate with another mobile capable device and/or a gNB (such as the NN 12) using, for example, the link 32, and may communicate with the UE10 or any other device using, for example, the link 22 or another link. These links may be wired or wireless links or both, and may implement, for example, an X2 or Xn interface. In addition, link 22 may pass through other network devices, such as but not limited to NCE/MME/SGW devices, such as NCE 14 of FIG. 2.

The one or more buses of the device of fig. 2 may be address, data or control buses, and may include any interconnection mechanism, such as a series of wires on a motherboard or integrated circuit, an optical fiber or other optical communication device, a wireless channel, etc. For example, the one or more transceivers TRANS 12D, TRANS 13D and/or TRANS10D may be implemented as Remote Radio Heads (RRHs), the other elements of the NN 12 being physically located at a different location than the RRHs, and the one or more buses may be implemented in part as fiber optic cables to connect the other elements of the NN 12 to the RRHs.

It should be noted that although fig. 2 shows network devices such as NN 12 and NN 13, any of these nodes may be merged or incorporated into an eNB or a gNB and will still be configurable to implement exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

It should also be noted that the description herein indicates that "cellular" implements some functionality, but it should be clear that in some cases the functionality is implemented by a network device providing cellular (e.g., eNB or gNB) at the facilitation of user equipment and/or mobility management functionality devices. Further, the cells form part of a gNB, and each gNB may have multiple cells.

The wireless network 1 may include a Network Control Element (NCE)14, and the NCE 14 may include MME (mobile management entity)/SGW (serving gateway) functionality and provide connectivity to another network, such as a telephone network and/or a data communications network (e.g., the internet). The NNs 12 and NNs 13 may be coupled to the NCE 14 via links 31 and/or links 32. Further, it should be noted that operations performed by the NN 13 according to some example embodiments may also be performed at the NCE 14.

NCE 14 may include one or more processors DP14A, one or more memories MEM14B, and one or more network interfaces (N/W I/F) interconnected by one or more buses coupled to link 13 and/or link 14. According to some example embodiments, these network interfaces may include X2 and/or Xn interfaces for implementing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The one or more memories MEM14B may include computer program code PROG 14C. The one or more memories MEM14B and the computer program code PROG14C may be configured to, with the one or more processors DP14A, cause the NCE 14 to perform one or more operations as may be required to support operations according to some example embodiments of this disclosure.

The wireless network 1 may implement network virtualization, which is a process that combines hardware and software network resources and network functions into a single software-based management entity (i.e., a virtual network). Network virtualization involves platform virtualization often combined with resource virtualization. Network virtualization is classified as external virtualization, i.e., combining many networks or parts of networks into one virtual unit, or internal virtualization, i.e., providing network-like functionality to software containers on a single system. It should be noted that the virtualized entities resulting from the network virtualization may still to some extent be implemented using hardware, such as the processors DP10, DP12A, DP13A and/or DP14A and the memories MEM 10B, MEM 12B, MEM 13B and/or MEM14B, and that such virtualized entities also produce technical effects.

The computer-readable memories MEM 12B, MEM 13B and MEM14B may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment and may be implemented using any suitable data storage technology, such as semiconductor-based memory devices, flash memory, magnetic memory devices and systems, optical memory devices and systems, fixed memory and removable memory. The computer-readable memories MEM 12B, MEM 13B and MEM14B may be means for implementing memory functions. The processors DP10, DP12A, DP13A and DP14A may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment, and may include one or more of the following, as non-limiting examples: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and processors based on a multi-core processor architecture. The processors DP10, DP12A, DP13A, and DP14A may be means for implementing functions, such as controlling the UEs 10, NN 12, NN 13, and other functions described herein.

In some embodiments, a set of TB combinations may be generated from multiple TBs, for example, using principles similar to erasure coding, which may be transmitted between a transmitting device and a receiving device in a wireless network. The transmission may be implemented between the UE and the gNB in a terrestrial network or NTN, for example. The transmitting device and the receiving device are a pair of opposing devices. For Uplink (UL) transmission, the UE is the transmitting device and the gNB is the receiving device. For Downlink (DL) transmission, the gNB may be a transmitting device and the UE a receiving device. As an example, a pair of communication devices may be the UE10 and NN 12 in fig. 2, or two network devices, such as NN 12 and NN 13 in fig. 2, that transmit to each other.

Fig. 3 and 4 illustrate an exemplary procedure for TB combination and elimination according to one exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

To facilitate the description later in this specification, definitions of some terms used herein are provided.

The original TB indicates a TB containing original information. TB definition in the current 3GPP specifications may correspond to a MAC PDU or a part of a MAC PDU. The original TBs may be processed (e.g., by parity check, channel coding, and rate matching), and the processed TBs may serve as component TBs for TB combining.

The component TB indicates TBs that are ready for TB combination to generate one or more combined TBs, and/or TBs that are used in a set of combined TBs.

The combined TB set indicates the results of TB combination of multiple component TBs according to the TB combination pattern. It comprises a plurality of TB combinations generated from a plurality of component TBs. One of the combined TB sets is also referred to as a TB combination.

The TB combination pattern indicates which one or more component TBs and the associated RVs for each of the one or more component TBs are to be used to obtain each combined TB in the set of combined TBs.

The degree of combination indicates the number of component TBs used to generate a TB combination.

In one exemplary embodiment shown in fig. 3, the operations of parity checking 301, channel coding 303, and rate matching/RV association 305 may be implemented on the original TB 0331 in order to generate the component TB 0341 for combining. Likewise, to generate component TB 1342 for combining, the operations of parity checking 302, channel coding 304, and rate matching/RV associating 306 may be performed on the original TB 1332. In the operation of RV association 305, TB0 is associated with a particular RV (e.g., RV0) in a set of RFs (e.g., { RV0, RV1, RV2, RV3}) on an as-needed basis. In the operation of RV association 306, TB1 is associated with a particular RV (e.g., RV1) in the RV set. Subsequently in the operation of TB combination 310, component TB 0341 associated with a particular RV and component TB 1342 associated with the particular RV may be selected for combination, thereby generating a combined TB set 350.

It should be appreciated that in some embodiments, the operation of generating a component TB from an original TB as shown in fig. 3 may not be necessary, and the embodiments are not limited to any particular manner of obtaining a component TB.

In some example embodiments, the component TBs are combined according to a combining pattern to generate a set of combined TBs and then transmitted. In one example shown in fig. 4, TB0 (designated S0) and TB1 (designated S1) are combined to obtain the combined TB set, i.e., TB0, TB0+ TB1, and TB 1. The resulting TB0 and TB1 were both 1 degree combinations, TB0+ TB1 were 2 degree combinations. The combination pattern may be obtained by a code construction of an erasure code such as a Lux Transform (LT) code, for example.

As shown in fig. 4, TB combining and elimination processing is summarized in one example, in which a transmitting device transmits two component TBs (e.g., TB0, TB1) by generating and transmitting three TB combinations (e.g., TB0, TB0+ TB1, TB 1). At input 401, component TB0, labeled S1, and component TB2, labeled S2, serve as the two inputs to be encoded in encoder 402. In this example, an XOR operation is performed to combine the components TB, and S0, S1, and S0+ S1 are obtained at the encoder 402 (where + represents an XOR operation). In this example, the redundancy rate of the combination is 3/2. The resulting three TB combinations are sent to the receiver 403. As an example, assuming the receiver misses S0, the other two S1, S0+ S1 are successfully received, then at the cancellation stage (I)404, it is assumed that only TB combinations comprising one validly received component TB (S1) will be decoded and become "rippled". In the next cancellation phase (II)405, the "ripple" may be used to perform TB cancellation (by another XOR) in combination with another successfully received TB (i.e., S0+ S1). The missing component TB0 was then recovered (S0). If more TB combinations are transmitted and received, TB elimination can continue until all component TBs are recovered, or until all component TBs in the ripple are eliminated from other component TBs.

In some embodiments, with TB combining and cancellation processing, the conventional ACK/NACK signaling may be saved by combining consecutive transmissions of a TB set. For example, the current transmission may be independent of the results of the previous transmission. In other words, the transmitting side can transmit successive TB combinations (which can be erasure-coded based on the combination pattern) without being informed of the success or failure of the previous transmission. Thus, such feedback-free transmission may reduce the overall end-to-end latency and signaling overhead. Embodiments are not limited to use in networks configured for feedback-free transmission.

In some embodiments, the TB combining and cancellation process described above may be further improved, particularly when the characteristics of channel coding and erasure coding are taken into account.

For purposes of illustration and not limitation, it is assumed that the payload size of the TB (plus CRC bits) is small and LDPC BG2 is used to perform channel coding on the TB. It is further assumed that the coding rate of the channel coding is determined to be 0.5 based on the previous estimation of the channel quality. Further, as an example, a redundancy rate of 8/4 may be selected for the combining operation, and an exemplary TB combination pattern is shown in table 2 below. Here, the redundancy rate indicates a ratio of the number of transmissions of the TB combination to the number of component TBs involved in the TB combination and intended to be delivered to the receiving side. Taking table 2 below as an example, 4 component TBs (i.e., TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3) will be used to combine the 8 resulting TB combinations for transmission, so the redundancy rate is 8/4.

Table 2: TB combined mode for redundancy rate of 8/4

Send case #	TB combinations
			1	TB0(RV0)
2	TB1(RV0)
		3	TB2(RV0)+TB0(RV1)
4	TB3(RV0)+TB1(RV1)+TB0(RV2)
		5	TB3(RV1)+TB2(RV1)
6	TB2(RV2)
		7	TB3(RV2)
8	TB1(RV2)+TB2(RV3)

With the exemplary combination pattern shown in fig. 2, in the event of a transmission failure at transmission instance #4, it may still be useless to perform further decoding (e.g., LDPC decoding) on TB3 even if TB3 (either TB3(RV1) from #5 or TB3(RV2) from # 7) is successfully recovered. This is because under such a transmission configuration, the self-decodability of the LDPC-coded TB requires RV0 or RV 3. RV1 and RV2 of TB3 are not self-decodable because the maximum coding rate supported by these two RVs is below 0.5. Here, self-decodability refers to a property that a channel decoder on a receiving side can decode original information from a TB based on a single transmission, that is, soft-combine other TB(s) not associated with other RV(s) received from another transmission or transmissions. For example, TB3(RV0) is self-decodable, and TB3(RV1) and TB3(RV2) need to be soft combined together to decode the original information included in TB 3. As an example, table 3 summarizes the maximum coding rates that support self-decodability of TBs encoded with Rel15 LDPC (transmitted on the data channel). It can be seen that different maximum coding rates allow unique self-decodability for different LDPC RVs.

Table 3: maximum Rel15 LDPC coding rate supporting self-decodability

	Base diagram #1	Base graph #2
			RV0	0.97	0.95
RV1	0.43	0.26
			RV2	0.55	0.39
RV3	0.91	0.71

It should be noted that in some embodiments TB cancellation may be used at the receiving device in order to recover the component TBs from the received combined TB. TB elimination may work in a sequential manner, as a result, elimination processing may not continue further until a particular TB (e.g., TB3) is restored. That is, failure to detect one TB may block the entire detection process. Such undesirable cancellation behavior may result in failure of the feedback-free transmission. The no feedback transmission should provide a technical effect similar to HARQ. Since there are no HARQ retransmissions in the NTN system, a failed feedback-free transmission may lead to catastrophic consequences. The recovery of this portion of missing data can only be handled by higher layers, implying a significant increase in latency and a poor user experience. For delay sensitive services this is not acceptable.

According to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, a set of combination patterns is proposed. The set of combining patterns includes combining patterns for different redundancy rates, and includes a plurality of combining patterns for each redundancy rate. An appropriate combination pattern may be selected on demand, for example to ensure self-decodability of each component TB in the combination pattern.

Here, the combination mode defines the manner in which the component TBs are combined to obtain one set of combined TBs. That is, the combination pattern indicates which component TB(s) of which RV(s) should be used to generate each combined TB of the set of combined TBs. Each combined TB of the set of combined TBs generated based on the combination pattern is a combination of one or more component TBs (i.e., a TB combination), where each component TB is associated with one RV.

Each combination pattern corresponds to one redundancy rate, and multiple combination patterns may correspond to the same redundancy rate. For example, a given redundancy rate may be associated with multiple combining patterns, including a first combining pattern and a second combining pattern. In some embodiments, the first and second combination modes meet one of the following requirements:

the requirement i, a first combination pattern indicates a first set of combined TBs associated with a first set of RVs to be used for said combination, and a second combination pattern indicates a first set of combined TBs associated with a different second set of RVs to be used for said combination.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the first combination pattern may be the same as shown in table 2 above for a redundancy rate of 8/4. The second combination mode may involve the same set of combination TBs as in the first combination mode, but the RVs associated with these combination TBs may be different. Table 4 below shows an example of the second combination pattern.

Table 4: one example of a second TB combined mode for the redundancy rate of 8/4

Send case #	TB combinations
			1	TB0(RV0)
2	TB1(RV0)
		3	TB2(RV0)+TB0(RV3)
4	TB3(RV0)+TB1(RV3)+TB0(RV2)
		5	TB3(RV3)+TB2(RV2)
6	TB2(RV3)
		7	TB3(RV3)
8	TB1(RV2)+TB2(RV2)

Comparing the first combination pattern in table 2 with the second combination pattern in table 4, it can be observed that the component TB(s) in each TB combination are the same, while the RVs associated with the same component TB may be different. For example, in transmission case #4, the same component TB of TB3, TB1, and TB0 was used to obtain a TB combination; TB1 is associated with RV1 in table 2 and RV3 in table 4.

For a TB combination comprising only one component TB, the RV associated with that TB may also be different in the first and second combination modes.

Requiring ii, a first combination pattern indicating a first set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining, a second combination pattern indicating a different second set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the foregoing table 2 is still used as an illustration of the first combination pattern for the redundancy rate of 8/4. The second combination mode may involve a different set of combination TBs than in the first combination mode. Table 5 below shows an example of such a second combination pattern.

Table 5: another example of a second TB combined mode for the redundancy rate of 8/4

Send case #	TB combinations
			1	TB0(RV0)+TB1(RV3)
2	TB2(RV0)
		3	TB1(RV0)+TB2(RV3)
4	TB3(RV0)
		5	TB2(RV2)+TB3(RV3)
6	TB0(RV3)+TB1(RV2)+TB3(RV3)
		7	TB1(RV0)+TB3(RV2)
8	TB0(RV1)+TB1(RV1)+TB2(RV1)+TB3(RV1)

It can be seen that in transmission case #3, a TB combination is generated by combining TB2 and TB0 in table 2, but a corresponding TB combination is generated by combining TB1 and TB2 in table 5.

Iii, a given RV for component TB is required to be used more frequently for the combination in the first combination mode than in the second combination mode.

The probability of occurrence of RV alone for some component TBs may be different in each combination pattern. In one exemplary embodiment, the first combination pattern may relate to frequent use of TB1 associated with RV0 and the second combination pattern may relate to more frequent use of TB1 associated with RV 3.

In one exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the set of combining patterns may include one or more subsets of combining patterns, and each of the one or more subsets may include a plurality of combining patterns for one or more redundancy rates.

The subsets may be classified based on different policies.

In one exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, the subset may be classified by the link direction and/or channel condition between the transmitting device and the receiving device. For example, there may be two combined pattern subsets, one for the UL and the other for the DL.

In one exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, the subset may be classified by different ranges for the coding rate supported by the channel coding. The self-decodability of component TB may then be maximized within each subset. For example, two combined mode subsets may be provided, one for low-to-medium coding rates (e.g., 0.1-0.4) and the other for medium-to-high coding rates (0.5-0.9).

As described earlier, if transmission instance #4 in table 2 fails, TB3 will not be decoded by itself. Table 2 can be seen as an example of a low-to-medium code rate combination pattern that ensures self-decodability of the group TBs having a low code rate.

Some modifications may be made to table 2 to obtain the medium-to-high code rate combination pattern shown in table 4. The medium-high combination of table 4 is only an example, and some general rules to generate such TB combination patterns may be as follows:

i. RV1 and RV2 alone were avoided in the 1 degree TB combination. For example, the RV in cases #6 and #7 may be changed to RV0 or RV 3. In view of RV0 using TB2/TB3 in case #3/#4, RV3 would be a better choice to maximize the combined gain.

ii. An RV with high self-decodability is preceded, that is, the occurrence of an RV with low self-decodability is delayed. Therefore, RV3 may be suitable for use in TB0 in case # 3. TB0 in case #4 may be set to RV2 because there are two copies of TB0 from earlier with high self-decodability.

Different combining patterns for the same redundancy rate make it possible for the transmitting device to select an appropriate combining pattern on an as-needed basis, thereby helping to improve communication performance. For example, the transmitting device may determine the combination pattern based on the required self-decodability.

Reference is now made to fig. 5a-5c, which illustrate examples of methods for combining the transmission and reception of TBs, according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. Fig. 5a illustrates the interaction between a transmitting device (e.g., a UE or a gNB) and a receiving device (e.g., a gNB or a UE), and fig. 5b and 5c illustrate the operations performed at the transmitting device and the receiving device, respectively.

At step 501, the transmitting device combines a plurality of component TBs to be transmitted to the receiving device based on a combination pattern to obtain a combined transport block set. The combination pattern is a combination pattern from a set of predefined combination patterns. The set of predefined combination patterns includes a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

In some embodiments, the operation of obtaining the combined TB set may comprise obtaining one combined TB of the combined TB set from only one of the plurality of component transport blocks. That is, a TB combination of 1 degree includes only one component TB.

In some embodiments, the transmitting device may obtain one combined TB of the combined TB set by an XOR (exclusive or) operation of at least two of the plurality of component transport blocks. Such a combined TB is a TB combination having a height of two degrees or more, which includes 2 or more component TBs combined by an XOR (exclusive or) operation.

Taking the combined mode shown in fig. 2 as an example, a redundancy rate of 8/4 is chosen, which means that a total of 4 component TBs will be sent for every 8 transmissions over the physical interface. The component TBs to be transmitted are TB0, TB1, TB2 and TB 3. The combined TB set includes 8 TB combinations, such as transmission case # 1-8.

In some embodiments, to determine the redundancy rate and the combination pattern, the transmitting device may communicate with the receiving device. In one exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, the transmitting device is a UE and the receiving device is a gNB. The gNB determines a redundancy rate for the UE, selects a respective combination pattern for the redundancy rate, and informs the UE of the selection by an index indication from a predefined set of combination patterns.

In some embodiments, the combination pattern may be selected from the set of predefined combination patterns based on the self-decodability of component TB.

In some embodiments, the recovered TBs in a single transmission need to be associated with RVs that support the code rate of the TB. For example, a TB with a coding rate of 0.8 needs to be associated with RV0 or RV3 to ensure self-decodability upon recovery at the receiving side.

In some embodiments, the combination pattern may alternatively or additionally be selected based on coding parameters for channel coding of the component TBs. As an example, the encoding parameters may include a code block size employed by the component TB, a base map used for LDPC channel coding, and/or a maximum coding rate supported by the component TB.

In some embodiments, the combined mode may alternatively or additionally be selected based on a detection performance of the combined TB at the receiving device, the detection performance including at least an indication of a number of component TBs recovered from a previous detection process at the receiving device. For example, the indication may be a number or a ratio indicating the number of component TBs recovered from a previous detection process.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, for selection of a combination pattern, one subset of combination patterns (e.g., a subset for DL) may be selected from the plurality of subsets, and then the combination pattern may be selected from the selected subset.

At step 502, the transmitting device transmits the combined set of TBs to the receiving device.

The receiving device then receives the combined TB set from the transmitting device at step 503.

At step 504, the receiving device detects a plurality of component TBs from the set of combined TBs based on the combined pattern.

In some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, the receiving device reverses the combining to recover the component TBs from the combined TB set. In some embodiments, the receiving device eliminates a currently received TB combination from one or more previously received TB combinations based on the combination pattern to recover a plurality of component TBs. In this example, the cancellation operation may be an XOR, that is, the receiving device may perform an XOR operation between the received TB combinations until all component TBs in the combined pattern are recovered. It will be appreciated that in some embodiments, in order to implement TB combining at the transmitting side, other operations than XOR (exclusive or) operations may be used, in such embodiments the receiving side needs to implement the corresponding inverse operation accordingly.

It should be noted that for feedback-less transmission incorporating N/M redundancy rates, the total number of TB combinations transmitted may be less than N when M component TBs have been successfully recovered.

On the receiving side, the TB cancellation procedure reverses the operations implemented on the transmitting device side, an example of which is shown in fig. 4. One important reminder that should not be overlooked in the system design process is that feedback-free transmission scheme-related parameters including TB combination redundancy rate, degree of combination, TB combination pattern, etc. should be carefully selected to ensure that the recovered TBs obtained from TB cancellation are self-decodable for a given coding parameter of the channel coding (e.g., BG and/or coding rate for NR LDPC).

In some embodiments, when channel condition degradation is detected from UE measurements, modulation order and coding rate (e.g., MCS) may be adapted in order to maintain consistent reception quality. By introducing TB combining and cancellation, in order to ensure feedback-free transmission that operates as intended, TB combination redundancy rate, degree of combining, etc. may also be considered in determining the combination pattern to prevent self-decodability of the recovered TBs from exceeding the range that can be supported by certain channel conditions. Such adaptive design features would also be beneficial for the receiver to achieve better soft combining gain.

Reference is now made to fig. 6, which illustrates operations between a UE10 and a gNB 12, such as the UE10 and the gNB 12 of fig. 2, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure. In this example, the transmission process between the UE10 and the gNB 12 changes the usage of HARQ retransmissions.

The gNB 12 communicates with the UE10 to obtain information about the capabilities of the UE10 for (quasi-) feedback-less HARQ capabilities, as shown in step 605.

In this step 605 there is an exchange of UE capabilities that may occur in the initial connection setup. The reported capabilities may include capabilities for the proposed (quasi-) feedback-free HARQ UE, including (but not limited to):

i. the ability to combine and eliminate TB; and

ii. The number of processes available for (quasi-) feedback-free HARQ.

As shown in fig. 6, steps 610, 615, 620 and 625, described below, are part of the setup phase 607. In step 610, the gNB 12 communicates with the UE10 to activate the (quasi-) feedback-free HARQ feature. In this subsequent step 610, the gNB 12 signals to the UE10 that the feature has to be activated (HARQ buffer has to be repurposed). The signaling may be a unicast RRC message or broadcast to several NTN users.

In step 615, a redundancy rate is set. With respect to this step 615, the gNB 12 scheduler assigns a redundancy rate to be used. The selection of the physical channel redundancy rate may be, for example:

i. pre-assigned based on QoS information, UE category, or other factors;

ii. Depending on UE channel quality estimates or other radio channel measurements;

iii, depending on the past ACK/NACK ratio; and/or

iv, based on the current MCS and UE transmit power.

In step 620, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a TB combination sequence is set. With respect to this step 620 of fig. 6, the gNB 12 combines the sequences with respect to the TBs to be used to the UE10 based on the combination pattern for the redundancy rate. That is, a combined TB set is determined.

In step 625, the RV sequence for component TB is set. With respect to this step 625, the gNB 12 informs the UE10 of the RV sequence associated with each component TB in each TB combination based on the combination pattern.

Alternatively, in one embodiment, steps 615, 620 and 625 of fig. 6 may be condensed by the gNB 12 and sent through an index to a table indicating the combination pattern in order to minimize the overhead of signaling messages. Such tables may be predefined in the specification.

In some embodiments, TB combination sequences for component TBs and their corresponding RV sequences are determined by the gNB based on a combination pattern selected from a predefined set of combination patterns. The set of predefined combining patterns may include a plurality of combining patterns for a given redundancy rate.

The TB combination operation is performed by the gNB 12 based on the combination pattern, as shown in step 627. With respect to step 627, the transmitting end implements the combination of component TBs. In some embodiments, after the UE and the gNB agree on a combined TB set (TB combined sequence) to be transmitted, an XOR (exclusive or) operation is performed on the component TBs to obtain a TB combination before transmission.

A first DL transmission with a first TB combination is communicated between the gNB 12 and the UE10 as shown in step 630. The UE10 then performs reception and cancellation of TB combinations for this first DL transmission as shown in step 640.

In step 645, there is a second DL transmission with a second TB combination transmitted between the gNB 12 and the UE 10. The UE 12 then performs reception and cancellation of TB combinations for this second DL transmission in step 650.

In step 655, there is a kth DL transmission with a kth TB combination transmitted between the gNB 12 and the UE 10. Then in step 660, the UE 12 performs reception and cancellation of TB combinations for this kth DL transmission, where k is an integer.

As shown in step 665, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there is a soft combination of error recovered TBs. In step 670, there is optionally HARQ feedback transmitted between the UE10 and the gNB 12. In steps 675 and 677, the UE10 and the gNB 12, respectively, may flush their buffers, such as the buffer in which signaling associated with the HARQ process is stored. Subsequently at step 680, at least some of the processes as previously described in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may be restarted.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there may be size matching in TB combining (transmission side). For example, in case the size of two component TBs to be combined is different (due to difference in MAC PDU size or other reasons), the smaller component TB may be "padded" with extra bits to match the size of the larger component TB. According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a resource allocation for a TB combination is determined based on the size of the maximum component TB.

For illustrative purposes, additional examples of TB size matching are provided below. In some exemplary embodiments, the smaller TB needs to be extended to match the size of the largest TB. The spreading sequence may be one of:

i. dummy bits (e.g., a sequence of "0" or a sequence of "1");

ii. A known specific sequence;

iii, repetition of the original part of the smaller TB version (adding more redundancy); and

iv, some part of the RV sequence to be used in the next round of transmission (adding more redundancy to the information).

The "size matching" sequence can be used to improve the reception capability (duplicate information), for example, by using soft combining of duplicate versions of the information.

The receiving end reverses the operations performed by the transmitting end.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, each received TB combination is stored into a buffer previously assigned to a different HARQ process. Processing according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure may include:

i. the first TB combination received is stored in the buffer corresponding to HARQ process ID 0, the second in the buffer corresponding to HARQ process ID 1, and so on;

ii. The 1 degree TB combination is decoded as in conventional processing; and

iii, the recovered TB after decoding passes parity, which can be "eliminated" by an XOR (exclusive OR) operation for each other TB combination received or to be received.

To describe the steps at the receiving end, in this example, it may be assumed that the first four transmissions were received, as depicted in fig. 6. All the first four transmissions are 1 degree TB combinations. These TB combinations can be decoded and parity checked directly.

Regardless of the result of the CRC check, all received TB combinations must be moved to the buffer location.

The TB combination can be decoded only if its degree is decomposed to 1 degree.

Soft combining is performed on the erroneous version of the recovered TB. According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a recovered TB that fails parity and corresponds to the same original TB may be recombined to add more redundancy before submitting it again to the decoder.

In case that the component TB is repeated more than once according to the TB combination pattern due to the TB size matching characteristic, the receiving side may attempt to implement soft combining (implementation) of the received information.

The soft combining operation may be performed at any time, provided that the condition is satisfied. It need not be implemented at the end of the kth transmission as depicted in fig. 6.

In general, the various embodiments may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. For example, some aspects may be implemented in hardware, other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device, although the disclosure is not limited thereto. While various aspects of the disclosure may be illustrated and described as block diagrams, flow charts, or using some other pictorial representation, it is well understood that these blocks, apparatus, systems, techniques or methods described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

For example, embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced in various components such as integrated circuit modules. The design of integrated circuits is in general a highly automated process. Complex and powerful software tools are available for converting a logic level design into a semiconductor circuit design ready to be etched and formed on a semiconductor substrate.

The term "circuitry" as used in this disclosure may refer to one or more or all of the following:

(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (e.g., implementations using only analog and/or digital circuitry); and

(b) a combination of hardware circuitry and software, such as (where applicable):

(i) a combination of analog and/or digital circuit(s) and software/firmware; and

(ii) any portion of the hardware processor(s) in combination with software (including digital signal processor(s), software, and memory(s) that work together to cause a device such as a mobile phone or server to perform various functions); and

(c) hardware circuit(s) and/or processor(s), such as microprocessor(s) or a portion of microprocessor(s) that require software (e.g., firmware) to operate, but software may not be present when software is not required to operate.

This definition of "circuitry" applies to all uses of that term in this disclosure, including the use in any claims. As another example, the term "circuitry" as used in this disclosure also encompasses implementations having only hardware circuitry or a processor (or multiple processors) or portions of hardware circuitry or a processor and its accompanying software and/or firmware. The term "circuitry" also encompasses (by way of example and if applicable to the particular claim element) a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile phone or a similar integrated circuit in a server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

The word "exemplary" is used herein to mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any embodiment described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. All of the embodiments described in this detailed description section are provided to enable persons skilled in the art to make or use the exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and not to limit the scope of the disclosure, which is defined by the claims.

The foregoing description has provided by way of exemplary and non-limiting examples a full and informative description of the best method and apparatus presently contemplated by the inventors for carrying out the disclosure. Various modifications and adaptations may become apparent to those skilled in the relevant arts in view of the foregoing description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims. All such and similar modifications of the teachings of this disclosure will still fall within the scope of this disclosure.

It should be noted that the terms "connected," "coupled," or any variant thereof, mean any direct or indirect connection or coupling between two or more elements, and may encompass the presence of one or more intermediate elements between two elements that are "connected" or "coupled" together. The coupling or connection between the units may be physical, logical, or a combination thereof. As employed herein, two units may be considered to be "connected" or "coupled" together by the use of one or more wires, cables, and/or printed electrical connections, as well as by the use of electromagnetic energy, such as electromagnetic energy having wavelengths in the radio frequency region, the microwave region, and the optical (visible and invisible) region, as a few non-limiting and non-exhaustive examples.

Furthermore, some of the features of some of the example embodiments of this disclosure may be used to advantage without the corresponding use of other features. Accordingly, the foregoing description should be considered as merely illustrative of the principles of the present disclosure, and not in limitation thereof.

Claims

1. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

combining, by a transmitting device, a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted to a receiving device based on a combination pattern to obtain a set of combined transport blocks, the combination pattern indicating one or more of the plurality of component transport blocks and an associated redundancy version for each of the one or more component transport blocks to be used to obtain each combined transport block of the set of combined transport blocks; and

transmitting the combined set of transport blocks to a receiving device;

wherein the combination pattern is from a set of predefined combination patterns comprising a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of combining patterns associated with the same redundancy rate comprise a first combining pattern and a second combining pattern, and the first combining pattern and the second combining pattern satisfy one of the following conditions:

-a first combination pattern indicating a first set of component transport blocks associated with a first set of redundancy versions to be used for said combining, a second combination pattern indicating a first set of component transport blocks associated with a different second set of redundancy versions to be used for said combining,

-a first combination pattern indicating a first set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining, a second combination pattern indicating a different second set of component transport blocks to be used for said combining, and

-using the given redundancy version for the component transport blocks more frequently for the combinations in the first combination pattern than for the combinations in the second combination pattern.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of predefined combining patterns comprises one or more subsets of combining patterns, each of the one or more subsets comprising a plurality of combining patterns for one or more redundancy rates.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein each of the one or more subsets corresponds to a different range of supported coding rates.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the combination pattern is selected based on at least one of:

the self-decodability of the component transport block,

coding parameters for channel coding applied to generate the component transport blocks, an

Performance of detection of the combined transport block at a receiving device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the encoding parameters comprise one or more of:

the code block size employed by the constituent transport blocks,

a base pattern for low density parity check channel coding, an

The maximum coding rate supported by the component transport block.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the detection performance comprises at least an indication of a number of component transport blocks recovered from a previous detection process at a receiving device.

8. The method according to any of claims 1-7, wherein the combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be sent to a receiving device to obtain one combined transport block set comprises at least one of:

-obtaining one combined transport block of the combined set of transport blocks from one of the plurality of component transport blocks; and

-obtaining one combined transport block of the set of combined transport blocks by an XOR operation of at least two of the plurality of component transport blocks.

9. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

receiving, by a receiving device, a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and

a plurality of component transport blocks is detected from a set of predefined combination patterns based on the combination patterns in the set of predefined combination patterns, the set of predefined combination patterns comprising a plurality of combination patterns associated with the same combined redundancy rate.

10. A transmitting device for wireless communication, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the sending device to perform at least the following:

combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted to a receiving device based on a combination pattern to obtain a set of combined transport blocks, the combination pattern indicating one or more of the plurality of component transport blocks and an associated redundancy version for each of the one or more component transport blocks to be used to obtain each combined transport block of the set of combined transport blocks; and

transmitting the combined set of transport blocks to a receiving device;

11. The transmission apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the plurality of combination patterns associated with the same redundancy rate include a first combination pattern and a second combination pattern, and the first combination pattern and the second combination pattern satisfy one of the following conditions:

12. The transmitting device of claim 10, wherein the set of predefined combining patterns comprises one or more subsets of combining patterns, each of the one or more subsets comprising a plurality of combining patterns for one or more redundancy rates.

13. The transmitting device of claim 12, wherein each of the one or more subsets corresponds to a different range of supported coding rates.

14. The transmitting device of claim 10, wherein the combination pattern is selected based on at least one of:

the self-decodability of the component transport block,

Performance of detection of the combined transport block at a receiving device.

15. The transmitting device of claim 14, wherein the encoding parameters comprise one or more of:

the code block size employed by the constituent transport blocks,

a base pattern for low density parity check channel coding, an

The maximum coding rate supported by the component transport block.

16. The transmitting device of claim 14, wherein the detection performance includes at least an indication of a number of component transport blocks recovered from a previous detection process at a receiving device.

17. The transmitting device according to any of claims 10-16, wherein said combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted to a receiving device to obtain one combined transport block set comprises at least one of:

18. A receiving device for wireless communication, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the receiving device to perform at least the following:

receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and

19. A system for wireless communication, comprising a transmitting device and a receiving device,

wherein the transmission apparatus includes:

at least one first processor; and

at least one first memory including first computer program code;

the at least one first memory and the first computer program code configured to, with the at least one first processor, cause the sending device to perform at least the following:

transmitting the combined set of transport blocks to a receiving device;

wherein the reception apparatus includes:

at least one second processor; and

at least one second memory including second computer program code;

the at least one second memory and the second computer program code configured to, with the at least one second processor, cause the receiving device to perform at least the following:

receiving the combined transport block set from the transmitting device; and

detecting the plurality of component transport blocks from the set of combined transport blocks based on the combination pattern,

20. A transmitting device for wireless communication, comprising:

means for combining a plurality of component transport blocks to be transmitted to a receiving device based on a combination pattern to obtain a set of combined transport blocks, the combination pattern indicating one or more of the plurality of component transport blocks and an associated redundancy version for each of the one or more component transport blocks to be used to obtain each of the set of combined transport blocks; and

means for transmitting the set of combined transport blocks to a receiving device;

21. A receiving device for wireless communication, comprising:

means for receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and

means for detecting a plurality of component transport blocks from a set of predefined combining patterns based on combining patterns in the set of predefined combining patterns, the set of predefined combining patterns comprising a plurality of combining patterns associated with a same combined redundancy rate.

22. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing a transmitting device to at least:

transmitting the combined set of transport blocks to a receiving device;

23. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing a receiving device to at least:

receiving a set of combined transport blocks from a transmitting device; and