CN116248239A

CN116248239A - Method and device for data transmission

Info

Publication number: CN116248239A
Application number: CN202210017417.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张彦清; 李雪茹
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-12-03
Filing date: 2022-01-08
Publication date: 2023-06-09

Abstract

The embodiment of the application provides a data transmission method and device. The method may include: the first communication device receives N pieces of first control information, wherein the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating M transmission blocks to be used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network coding, N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N; the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information. According to the method and the device, the requirement of the service on time delay can be met as much as possible by adopting a network coding mode, and the connection between the transmission blocks and the data blocks can be established, so that the transmission blocks corresponding to the data blocks can be known, the condition of network coding and decoding based on the data blocks can be realized, and the feedback information of a plurality of transmission blocks corresponding to the data blocks can be determined.

Description

Method and device for data transmission

The present application claims priority from the chinese patent office, application number 202111466465.2, application name "an indication method of XR service", filed on month 03 of 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

Embodiments of the present application relate to the field of communications, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for data transmission.

Background

In the air interface transmission process, transmission bit errors or packet loss may occur, and the robustness of the air interface transmission can be improved through a hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ) mechanism. For example, after the transmitting end transmits a Transport Block (TB), it stops waiting for acknowledgement; the receiving end may use 1 bit of information to Acknowledge (ACK) or not acknowledge (negative acknowledgement, NACK) the transport block; the receiving end sends the next TB after receiving the ACK.

Certain services, such as extended reality (XR) services, have high requirements for bandwidth and latency. Therefore, the network coding mode can be adopted to meet the requirements of XR service on bandwidth and time delay as far as possible. How to effectively combine the network coding scheme with the HARQ mechanism is a problem to be solved.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a data transmission method and device, which are used for effectively combining a network coding mode with an HARQ mechanism, improving the reliability of transmission, reducing the transmission delay and improving the user experience.

In a first aspect, a method for transmitting data is provided, which may be performed by a communication device, or may also be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) of the communication device, which is not limited, and for convenience of description, will be described below with reference to the case of being performed by the first communication device.

The method may include: the first communication device receives N pieces of first control information, wherein the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating M transmission blocks, the N pieces of first control information are also used for indicating one or more sub-blocks of the M transmission blocks after the first data blocks pass through a network code NC, N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N; the first communication device receives M transport blocks based on the N first control information.

Based on the above technical solution, the first communication device obtains, according to the N pieces of first control information, M transport blocks indicated by the N pieces of first control information, where the M transport blocks are used to transport one or more sub-blocks of the same data block (i.e., the first data block) after network coding. In this way, by adopting the network coding mode for the first data block, in some scenarios, for example, in scenarios where some transport blocks in the M transport blocks are not correctly decoded by the channel, the first communication device may also successfully decode the first data block based on the transport block with the correct channel decoding, so that retransmission of the transport block with the correct channel decoding is not required, time delay caused by retransmission is reduced, and requirements of services on time delay can be met as far as possible. In addition, by establishing the connection between the transport blocks and the first data block, it is possible to obtain which transport blocks correspond to the first data block, and further determine feedback information of a plurality of transport blocks corresponding to the first data block based on NC decoding of the first data block. For example, if the first data block is successfully decoded after NC decoding, even if some of the M transport blocks are not correctly decoded, the first communication device may not need to re-receive the transport blocks that are not correctly decoded by retransmission, and thus, after the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device may set all HARQ process numbers of the M transport blocks to ACK, so that retransmission is not required. Therefore, unnecessary retransmission is reduced, data transmission delay is reduced, and user experience is improved.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, where the one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

In an example, each of the N first control information includes first information, and the N first information included in the N first control information is used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC. For example, when the N pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition (for example, the values of the N pieces of first information satisfy a certain rule, or the values are values within a preset value range, or the values are the same), the M transmission blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC.

In yet another example, part of the first control information in the N pieces of first control information includes first information, and part of the first information included in the N pieces of first control information is used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks after the first data block passes through the NC. For example, when the first control information in the N first control information includes first information and the last first control information includes first information, and the first information in the first control information and the last first control information satisfies a preset condition (for example, the values of the two first information satisfy a certain rule, or the values are values in a preset value range, or the values are the same), the M transport blocks are used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the NC.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, where N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

Based on the implementation manner, each first control information comprises first information, and if the values of the first information in different first control information are the same, the transmission blocks indicated by the different first control information are considered to be used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after passing through the NC; if the values of the first information in the different first control information are different, the one or more sub-blocks transmitted by the transmission block indicated by the different first control information after passing through the NC are not considered to belong to the same data block.

Based on the above technical solution, the first communication device may determine, through the first control information, whether the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after passing through the NC, i.e., may determine, through the first control information, whether one or more sub-blocks of the M transport blocks transmitted after passing through the NC belong to the same data block. Or after receiving the plurality of first control information, the first communication device can determine which transport blocks transmit the plurality of sub-blocks after NC, which belong to the same data block, according to the plurality of first control information.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, after the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further includes: the lower layer of the first communication equipment sends K sub-blocks to the upper layer of the first communication equipment, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer; and the upper layer of the first communication equipment performs NC decoding on the K sub-blocks, and sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication equipment according to the NC decoding result, wherein the second information is used for indicating whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are subjected to NC decoding.

Optionally, when K is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, the first data block after NC decoding of the K sub-blocks can be successfully decoded.

Based on the above technical solution, the lower layer of the first communication device sends, to the upper layer, a transport block with correct channel decoding to transmit K sub-blocks, and if the upper layer of the first communication device can successfully decode the first data block through the K sub-blocks, the upper layer of the first communication device can notify the lower layer, and then the lower layer can learn, according to the notification, that the operation related to the first data block does not need to be performed, for example, that the transport block in the M transport blocks does not need to be retransmitted, and further, for example, that the transport block for transmitting the first data block does not need to be received and/or decoded again, and so on. Or if the higher layer of the first communication device does not successfully decode the first data block through the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may notify the lower layer, and the lower layer may learn that the first data block is not successfully decoded through the K sub-blocks according to the notification. By the method, waste of air interface resources can be reduced, and power consumption overhead is reduced.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, and the method further includes: and under the condition that at least one transport block in the M transport blocks is not correctly decoded in a channel, determining that the response information of all the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes of the M transport blocks is Acknowledgement (ACK) by the lower layer of the first communication device according to the second information.

Based on the above technical solution, after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, if the second information is used to indicate that the first data block has been successfully decoded, it may be determined that the acknowledgement information of all the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is an acknowledgement ACK.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is decoded successfully, the second information includes an identification of at least one transport block of M1 transport blocks used for transmitting the K sub-blocks, the M1 transport blocks are transport blocks in which channel decoding is correct in the M transport blocks, and M1 is a positive integer.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device determines the identity of the M transport blocks according to the identity of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

Based on the above technical solution, the second information may include an identifier of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks, so that a lower layer of the first communication device may determine the identifier of the M transport blocks according to the identifier of the at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, before the higher layer of the first communication device sends the second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the method further includes: the lower layer of the first communication device transmits third information to the higher layer of the first communication device, the third information indicating an identification of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

Based on the above technical scheme, the lower layer of the first communication device may report the identifier of at least one transport block in the M1 transport blocks to the higher layer of the first communication device, and then the higher layer may learn the identifier of at least one transport block in the M1 transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, and the method further includes: the first communication device determines the identifications of M transmission blocks according to a preset identification and a logic channel and/or a wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block, wherein the logic channel and/or the wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block is used for transmitting the transmission block corresponding to the preset identification, and the preset identification comprises the identifications of the M transmission blocks.

Optionally, the N first control information is used to indicate identifiers of M transport blocks, where the identifiers of the M transport blocks belong to preset identifiers.

Based on the technical scheme, the relation between the transmission block identifier and the first data block can be established by editing the channel and/or binding the preset identifier by the wireless data carrier. In this way, the first communication device determines the identifiers of the M transport blocks according to the preset identifier and the logical channel and/or the radio data bearer corresponding to the first data block.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device obtains information of a preset identifier, wherein the information of the preset identifier comprises: start identifier, end identifier, number of identifiers.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the identification of the transport block is a HARQ process number of the transport block or an index of the transport block.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, in a case of successfully decoding the first data block, the method further includes: the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or the first communication device stops receiving or stopping monitoring the second control information, wherein the second control information is used for indicating retransmission of at least one transport block in the M transport blocks.

Based on the above technical solution, in case of successfully decoding the first data block, the first communication device may stop receiving and/or stop decoding the transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or the first communication device may cease receiving or ceasing to monitor the second control information, thereby saving overhead.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives X pieces of third control information, wherein the X pieces of third control information are used for indicating L transmission blocks, X, L is a positive integer, and L is greater than or equal to X; the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block, comprising: if the L transport blocks and the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after passing through the NC, the first communications device stops receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks, where the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used to instruct the physical control channel to indicate a new transmitted duration for the medium access control MAC entity, and/or the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks include drx-incavitytimer. For example, the first communication device monitors the control information during the duration (for example, the first communication device monitors the third control information during the duration), and if the first communication device monitors the control information during the duration, the first communication device restarts the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks, where the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used to indicate a duration of starting discontinuous reception DRX, and/or the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are DRX-onduration timer. For example, the first communication device monitors the control information during the duration, and if the first communication device monitors the control information during the duration (for example, the first communication device monitors the third control information during the duration), the first communication device restarts the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode the L transport blocks includes: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is used to indicate a maximum duration of waiting for retransmission corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is drx-retransmission timer. For example, the first communication device monitors control information indicating (or scheduling) retransmissions corresponding to HARQ processes of M transport blocks for the above-described maximum duration (e.g., the first communication device monitors second control information for the above-described maximum duration).

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first communication device receives second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure a Timer corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is used to indicate a minimum duration for which the MAC entity expects to receive HARQ retransmission allocation, and/or the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, the first communication device stops receiving or stops monitoring the second control information, and the method further includes: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: and under the condition that the first data block is not successfully decoded, the first communication equipment starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of a retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks, including: and starting a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks by the first communication equipment in a next adjacent time unit after the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks is overtime.

Based on the technical scheme, the first communication device starts a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the transport block retransmitted in the M transport blocks according to the timeout of the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the transport block retransmitted in the M transport blocks; the first time unit of the start time of the drx-retransmission Timer is later than the second time unit of the timeout of the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer, and the first time unit is adjacent to the second time unit.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, after the first communication device receives M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further includes: the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device whether to continue sending sub-blocks of the first data block.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, in a case where the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, where the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device to stop sending the sub-block of the first data block.

Based on the technical scheme, under the condition that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are decoded by the NC, if the second communication device continues to send the data of the first data block, the decoding of the first communication device is not facilitated, and the air interface resource is occupied, so that the waste of the air interface resource is caused. Therefore, in the case that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded (for example, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, and the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded), the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, which is used to notify that the data of the first data block is stopped to be sent, so that the air interface resource is saved.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks that are also required for decoding the first data block. For example: when the fourth information indicates that the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks that are also needed for decoding the first data block is 0, it indicates that the data of the first data block is no longer needed, i.e. the second communication device may stop transmitting the data of the first data block.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, after the first communication device receives M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further includes: the lower layer of the first communication equipment sends K sub-blocks to the upper layer of the first communication equipment, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer; the higher layer of the first communication device determines a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, wherein the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block except the K sub-blocks; the first communication device transmits fifth information to the second communication device, the fifth information being used to indicate the value Q.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, a higher layer of the first communication device is a radio link control RLC layer, a packet data convergence protocol PDCP layer, a media access control MAC layer, or an NC layer; and/or the lower layer of the first communication device is a physical PHY layer.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

In a second aspect, a method for transmitting data is provided, which may be performed by a communication device, or may also be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) of the communication device, which is not limited, and is described below as being performed by a first communication device for convenience of description.

The method may include: the method comprises the steps that a first communication device receives M transmission blocks from a second communication device, wherein the M transmission blocks are used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of a first data block after network coding NC, and M is a positive integer; the lower layer of the first communication equipment sends K sub-blocks to the upper layer of the first communication equipment, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer; and the upper layer of the first communication equipment carries out NC decoding on the K sub-blocks, and sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication equipment based on the result of NC decoding, wherein the second information is used for indicating whether the first data block is successfully decoded.

Based on the above technical solution, a lower layer (e.g., a physical layer) of the first communication device receives M transport blocks from the second communication device, where the M transport blocks transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network coding; if the lower layer of the first communication device decodes the M1 transport block channels in the M transport blocks correctly, the lower layer of the first communication device sends K sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 transport blocks to the upper layer; if the higher layer of the first communication device can successfully decode the first data block through the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may send notification information to the lower layer, and the lower layer may learn, according to the notification information, that no operation related to the first data block needs to be performed, e.g., no retransmission of a transport block other than the M1 transport blocks from the M transport blocks needs to be requested, no further reception and/or no further decoding of a transport block for transmitting the first data block needs to be performed, and so on. In this way, the waste of air interface resources can be reduced, the power consumption overhead is reduced, in addition, if the higher layer of the first communication device does not successfully decode the first data block after receiving the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device can also send notification information to the lower layer, and the lower layer can learn that the first data block is not successfully decoded or can learn that the first data block is not successfully decoded through the K sub-blocks according to the notification information, so that the first communication device can continuously request the second communication device to transmit the sub-blocks of the first data block, or can execute normal retransmission and other operations.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, and the method further includes: the first communication device sends feedback information to the second communication device, wherein the feedback information is used for representing that the transmission of M transmission blocks is successful, or the feedback information is used for representing that the transmission of the first data block is successful.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives N pieces of first control information, where the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, where the one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport the first data block through one or more sub-blocks after NC, and the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, where N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, and the method further includes: and under the condition that at least one transport block in the M transport blocks is not correctly decoded, determining the response information of all HARQ processes of the M transport blocks as ACK by the lower layer of the first communication equipment according to the second information.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is decoded successfully, the second information includes an identification of at least one transport block of M1 transport blocks used for transmitting the K sub-blocks, the M1 transport blocks are transport blocks in which channel decoding is correct in the M transport blocks, and M1 is a positive integer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device determines the identity of the M transport blocks according to the identity of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, before the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the higher layer of the first communication device, the method further includes: the lower layer of the first communication device transmits third information to the higher layer of the first communication device, the third information indicating an identification of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, and the method further includes: the first communication device determines the identifications of M transmission blocks according to a preset identification and a logic channel and/or a wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block, wherein the logic channel and/or the wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block is used for transmitting the transmission block corresponding to the preset identification, and the preset identification comprises the identifications of the M transmission blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device obtains information of a preset identifier, wherein the information of the preset identifier comprises: start identifier, end identifier, number of identifiers.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the HARQ process number identified as the transport block or the index of the transport block.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, in case of successful decoding of the first data block, the method further includes: the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or the first communication device stops receiving or stopping monitoring the second control information, wherein the second control information is used for indicating retransmission of at least one transport block in the M transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives X pieces of third control information, wherein the X pieces of third control information are used for indicating L transmission blocks, X, L is a positive integer, and L is greater than or equal to X; the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block, comprising: if the L transport blocks and the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, the first communications device stops receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks, the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used to indicate that the physical control channel indicates a new transmitted duration for the medium access control MAC entity, and/or the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are drx-incavitytimer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of the L transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is used to indicate a duration of starting discontinuous reception DRX, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is DRX-onduration timer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first communication device stops receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks, including: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is used to indicate a maximum duration of waiting for retransmission corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks includes drx-retransmission timer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives second configuration information, the second configuration information is used for configuring a Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks, the Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is used for indicating that the MAC entity expects to receive the minimum duration time allocated by the HARQ retransmission, and/or the Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks includes drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first communication device stops receiving or stopping monitoring the second control information, including: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: if the first data block is not successfully decoded, the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of a retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks, including: and starting a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks by the first communication equipment in a next adjacent time unit after the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks is overtime.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device whether to continue sending sub-blocks of the first data block.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the higher layer of the first communication device determines a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, wherein the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block except the K sub-blocks; the first communication device transmits fifth information to the second communication device, the fifth information being used to indicate the value Q.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, a higher layer of the first communication device is a radio link control RLC layer, a packet data convergence protocol PDCP layer, a media access control MAC layer, or an NC layer; and/or the lower layer of the first communication device is a physical PHY layer.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

The second aspect and the advantageous effects of each possible design may refer to the description related to the first aspect, and are not repeated here.

In a third aspect, a method for transmitting data is provided, which may be performed by a communication device, or may also be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) of the communication device, which is not limited, and for convenience of description, will be described below with reference to the case of being performed by the first communication device.

The method may include: the method comprises the steps that a first communication device receives M transmission blocks from a second communication device, wherein the M transmission blocks are used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of a first data block after network coding NC, and M is a positive integer; the first communication equipment determines that M1 transport blocks in M transport blocks are correctly decoded in channels, and the first data block is successfully decoded after K sub-blocks are NC decoded, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 transport blocks, M1 is an integer which is more than 1 or equal to 1 and less than M, and K is a positive integer; the first communication device determines that the response information of all HARQ processes of the M transmission blocks is ACK, or the first communication device sends feedback information to the second communication device; the feedback information is used for representing that the transmission of the M transmission blocks is successful, or the feedback information is used for representing that the transmission of the first data block is successful.

Based on the technical scheme, the first communication device receives M transmission blocks from the second communication device, and the M transmission blocks transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network coding; if the channel decoding of M1 transport blocks in the M transport blocks is correct and the K sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 transport blocks can successfully decode the first data block, the first communication device determines that the acknowledgement information of all HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is ACK, and even if the channel decoding of transport blocks except for the M1 transport blocks in the M transport blocks is incorrect, the acknowledgement is performed in the same way, and further, retransmission of transport blocks except for the M1 transport blocks in the M transport blocks is not required to be requested. By the method, waste of air interface resources can be reduced, and power consumption overhead is reduced.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives N first control information, where the N first control information is used to indicate M transport blocks, and the N first control information is used to indicate M transport blocks to transmit one or more sub-blocks after the first data block passes through the NC.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, where the one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, where N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, the first communication device determines acknowledgement information of all HARQ processes of the M transport blocks as an ACK, including: and the first communication equipment determines that the response information of all HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is ACK according to the second information.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or the first communication device stops receiving or stopping monitoring second control information, wherein the second control information is used for indicating retransmission of at least one transport block in the M transport blocks; the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives X pieces of third control information, wherein the X pieces of third control information are used for indicating L transmission blocks, X, L is a positive integer, and L is greater than or equal to X; the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block, comprising: if the L transport blocks and the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, the first communications device stops receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks, the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used to indicate that the physical control channel indicates a new transmitted duration for the medium access control MAC entity, and/or the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are drx-incavitytimer.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of the L transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is used to indicate a duration of starting discontinuous reception DRX, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is DRX-onduration timer.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first communication device stops receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks, including: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is used to indicate a maximum duration of waiting for retransmission corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks includes drx-retransmission timer.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device receives second configuration information, the second configuration information is used for configuring a Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks, the Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is used for indicating that the MAC entity expects to receive the minimum duration time allocated by the HARQ retransmission, and/or the Timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks includes drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first communication device stops receiving or stopping monitoring the second control information, including: the first communication device stops or closes the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transport blocks.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: and under the condition that the first data block is not successfully decoded, the first communication equipment starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of a retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks, including: and starting a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks by the first communication equipment in a next adjacent time unit after the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks is overtime.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the method further includes: the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device whether to continue sending sub-blocks of the first data block.

With reference to the third aspect, in some implementations of the third aspect, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, after the first communication device receives M transport blocks, the method further includes: the lower layer of the first communication equipment sends K sub-blocks to the upper layer of the first communication equipment, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer; the higher layer of the first communication device determines a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, wherein the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block except the K sub-blocks; the first communication device transmits fifth information to the second communication device, the fifth information being used to indicate the value Q.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

The advantages of the third aspect and the various possible designs may be referred to in the description related to the first aspect, and are not repeated here.

In a fourth aspect, a method for transmitting data is provided, which may be performed by a communication device, or may also be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) of the communication device, which is not limited, and is described below as being performed by a second communication device for convenience of description.

The method may include: the second communication device sends N pieces of first control information to the first communication device, wherein the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating M transmission blocks, the N pieces of first control information are also used for indicating one or more sub-blocks of the M transmission blocks after the first data blocks pass through the network coding NC, N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N; the second communication device transmits M transport blocks to the first communication device.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, where the first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information is used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the NC, where the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, where N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the method further includes: the second communication device receives fourth information from the first communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device whether to continue transmitting sub-blocks of the first data block.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, after the second communication device sends M transport blocks to the first communication device, the method further includes: the second communication device receives fifth information from the first communication device, wherein the fifth information is used for indicating a value Q, the value Q is a transmission block and/or the number of sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block except for K sub-blocks, the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and the K is a positive integer.

In a fifth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for data transmission for performing the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects. In particular, the apparatus may comprise means and/or modules, such as a processing unit and/or a communication unit, for performing the method in any of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects.

In one implementation, the apparatus is a communication device (e.g., a first communication device, as well as a second communication device). When the apparatus is a communication device, the communication unit may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface; the processing unit may be at least one processor. Alternatively, the transceiver may be a transceiver circuit. Alternatively, the input/output interface may be an input/output circuit.

In another implementation, the apparatus is a chip, a system-on-chip, or a circuit for a communication device (e.g., a first communication device, and also e.g., a second communication device). When the apparatus is a chip, a system-on-chip or a circuit for a communication device, the communication unit may be an input/output interface, an interface circuit, an output circuit, an input circuit, a pin, or a related circuit, etc. on the chip, the system-on-chip or the circuit; the processing unit may be at least one processor, processing circuit or logic circuit, etc.

In a sixth aspect, there is provided an apparatus for data transmission, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor configured to execute a computer program or instructions stored in a memory to perform a method according to any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a memory for storing a computer program or instructions. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a communication interface through which the processor reads the computer program or instructions stored in the memory.

In one implementation, the apparatus is a communication device (e.g., a first communication device, as well as a second communication device).

In another implementation, the apparatus is a chip, a system-on-chip, or a circuit for a communication device (e.g., a first communication device, and also e.g., a second communication device).

In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a processor for performing the method provided in the first to fourth aspects above.

The operations such as transmitting and acquiring/receiving, etc. related to the processor may be understood as operations such as outputting and receiving, inputting, etc. by the processor, or may be understood as operations such as transmitting and receiving by the radio frequency circuit and the antenna, if not specifically stated, or if not contradicted by actual function or inherent logic in the related description, which is not limited in this application.

In an eighth aspect, a computer readable storage medium is provided, the computer readable storage medium storing program code for execution by a device, the program code comprising instructions for performing the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to fourth aspects.

In a tenth aspect, a communication system is provided, comprising the first communication device and the second communication device described above.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 100 suitable for use in embodiments of the present application.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 200 suitable for use in embodiments of the present application.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a slot allocation of an 8D 2U.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a HARQ process under an incremental redundancy scheme.

Fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

Fig. 6 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

Fig. 7 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

Fig. 8 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

Fig. 9 shows a schematic diagram of a network coding scheme.

Fig. 10 shows a schematic diagram of the network coding function.

Fig. 11 shows a schematic diagram of network encoded data transmission.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a method 1200 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of a method 1300 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of RLC layer-based network coding feedback provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 15 is a schematic diagram of fourth information provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of a method 1600 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 17 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 18 is a schematic block diagram of another apparatus for data transmission provided by an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 19 is a schematic block diagram of yet another apparatus for data transmission provided by an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical scheme provided by the application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: fifth generation (5th generation,5G) or New Radio (NR) systems, long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) systems, LTE frequency division duplex (frequency division duplex, FDD) systems, LTE time division duplex (time division duplex, TDD) systems, and the like. The technical scheme provided by the application can also be applied to future communication systems, such as a sixth generation (6th generation,6G) mobile communication system. The technical solutions provided herein may also be applied to device-to-device (D2D) communication, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, machine-to-machine (machine to machine, M2M) communication, machine type communication (machine type communication, MTC), and internet of things (internet of things, ioT) communication systems or other communication systems.

The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a communication device, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment.

The terminal device may be a device that provides voice/data to a user, e.g., a handheld device with wireless connection, an in-vehicle device, etc. Currently, some examples of terminals are: a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop, a palmtop, a mobile internet device (mobile internet device, MID), a wearable device, a Virtual Reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) device, a Mixed Reality (MR) device, a wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal in unmanned or smart driving, a wireless terminal in teleoperation (remote medical surgery), a wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in transportation security (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), a cellular telephone, a cordless telephone, a session initiation protocol (session initiation protocol, SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) station, a personal digital assistant (personal digital assistant, PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication functions, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a wireless terminal in wearable device, a future evolution of terminal in smart grid (smart home) or future evolution of terminal (PLMN), a mobile application for communication network (public land mobile network, etc. the mobile application is not defined.

By way of example, and not limitation, in embodiments of the present application, the terminal device may also be a wearable device. The wearable device can also be called as a wearable intelligent device, and is a generic name for intelligently designing daily wear by applying wearable technology and developing wearable devices, such as glasses, gloves, watches, clothes, shoes and the like. The wearable device is a portable device that is worn directly on the body or integrated into the clothing or accessories of the user. The wearable device is not only a hardware device, but also can realize a powerful function through software support, data interaction and cloud interaction. The generalized wearable intelligent device includes full functionality, large size, and may not rely on the smart phone to implement complete or partial functionality, such as: smart watches or smart glasses, etc., and focus on only certain types of application functions, and need to be used in combination with other devices, such as smart phones, for example, various smart bracelets, smart jewelry, etc. for physical sign monitoring.

In the embodiment of the present application, the device for implementing the function of the terminal device may be the terminal device, or may be a device capable of supporting the terminal device to implement the function, for example, a chip system or a chip, and the device may be installed in the terminal device. In the embodiment of the application, the chip system may be formed by a chip, and may also include a chip and other discrete devices.

The network device in the embodiments of the present application may be a device for communicating with a terminal device, which may also be referred to as an access network device or a radio access network device, e.g. the network device may be a base station. The network device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a radio access network (radio access network, RAN) node (or device) that accesses the terminal device to the wireless network. The base station may broadly cover or replace various names in the following, such as: a node B (NodeB), an evolved NodeB (eNB), a next generation NodeB (gNB), a relay station, an access point, a transmission point (transmitting and receiving point, TRP), a transmission point (transmitting point, TP), a master station, a secondary station, a multi-mode radio (motor slide retainer, MSR) node, a home base station, a network controller, an access node, a radio node, an Access Point (AP), a transmission node, a transceiver node, a baseband unit (BBU), a remote radio unit (remote radio unit, RRU), an active antenna unit (active antenna unit, AAU), a radio head (remote radio head, RRH), a Central Unit (CU), a Distributed Unit (DU), a positioning node, and the like. The base station may be a macro base station, a micro base station, a relay node, a donor node, or the like, or a combination thereof. A base station may also refer to a communication module, modem, or chip for placement within the aforementioned device or apparatus. The base station may be a mobile switching center, a device that performs a base station function in D2D, V2X, M M communication, a network side device in a 6G network, a device that performs a base station function in a future communication system, or the like. The base stations may support networks of the same or different access technologies. The embodiment of the application does not limit the specific technology and the specific device form adopted by the network device.

The base station may be fixed or mobile. For example, a helicopter or drone may be configured to act as a mobile base station, and one or more cells may move according to the location of the mobile base station. In other examples, a helicopter or drone may be configured to function as a device to communicate with another base station.

In some deployments, the network device mentioned in the embodiments of the present application may be a device including a CU, or a DU, or a device including a CU and a DU, or a device of a control plane CU node (central unit-control plane, CU-CP) and a user plane CU node (central unit-user plane, CU-UP) of a user plane, and a DU node.

Network devices and terminal devices may be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, hand-held or vehicle-mounted; the device can be deployed on the water surface; but also on aerial planes, balloons and satellites. In the embodiment of the application, the scene where the network device and the terminal device are located is not limited.

A network architecture suitable for the present application will first be briefly described in connection with fig. 1 and 2, as follows.

Fig. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 100 suitable for use in embodiments of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the wireless communication system 100 may include at least one network device, such as the network device 110 shown in fig. 1, and the wireless communication system 100 may further include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 120 shown in fig. 1. The network device and the terminal device may each be configured with multiple antennas, and the network device and the terminal device may communicate using multiple antenna technology.

When the network device and the terminal device communicate, the network device can manage one or more cells, and an integral number of terminal devices can be arranged in one cell. Alternatively, the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 constitute a single-cell communication system, and the cell is denoted as cell #1 without loss of generality. Network device 110 may be a network device in cell #1 or network device 110 may serve a terminal device (e.g., terminal device 120) in cell #1.

A cell is understood to be an area within the coverage of a radio signal of a network device.

Fig. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 200 suitable for use in embodiments of the present application. As shown in fig. 2, the wireless communication system 200 includes a plurality of terminal devices, such as terminal device 121 and terminal device 123 in fig. 2. The terminal device 121 can directly communicate with the terminal device 123. For example, terminal device 121 and terminal device 122 may send data to terminal device 123 separately or simultaneously.

It should be appreciated that fig. 1 and 2 are simplified schematic diagrams that are merely examples for ease of understanding, and that other network devices may be included in the wireless communication system 100 or the wireless communication system 200 or other terminal devices may be included, which are not shown in fig. 1 or 2. The embodiment of the application can be applied to any communication scene of communication between the sending end equipment and the receiving end equipment.

The data or information may be carried by time-frequency resources, which may include one or more time-domain units (or may also be referred to as time units) in the time domain. A time domain unit may be a symbol, or a mini-slot, or a subframe, etc.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a slot allocation of an 8D 2U. The schematic diagram of the timeslot proportioning can be used in a scenario employing time division duplexing (time division duplex, TDD) in a cellular network, for example. As an example, the slot ratio shown in fig. 3 may be a slot ratio at a subcarrier spacing (SCS) of 30 kHz.

In the embodiment of the present application, D represents a downlink timeslot, where the downlink timeslot is used for downlink transmission; the uplink time slot is denoted by U, and is used for uplink transmission. The time slot ratio of 8D2U indicates that 10 time slots are taken as a period, and the period includes 8 downlink time slots and 2 uplink time slots.

When the terminal equipment sends feedback information to the network equipment, the feedback information is transmitted in an uplink time slot. As shown in fig. 2, feedback information of the terminal device may be transmitted in the following slots: u00 slot, U01 slot, U10 slot, U11 slot. For example, the network device sends data to the terminal device, and if the data transmission in the D05 slot fails, the feedback information of the data may be reported to the network device through the U00 slot or the U01 slot; if the data transmission in the D11 time slot fails, the feedback information of the data may be reported to the network device through the U10 time slot or the U11 time slot.

Assume that the air interface delay requirement is 10ms. The data transmitted in the D05 slot may have an opportunity for a retransmission schedule, i.e., the network device may schedule a retransmission of the data in the D10-D17 slot. The data transmitted in the D11 slot has no opportunity for retransmission scheduling, i.e. the network device schedules the retransmission data of D11 to exceed the air interface delay requirement (e.g. 10 ms).

For some services, such as XR service, there is a requirement for transmission delay, and after data transmission fails in some time slots, the network device may not schedule retransmission data for the data in time, which will affect the user experience. According to the scheme provided by the embodiment of the application, the time delay can be reduced, and the user experience is met.

It will be appreciated that fig. 3 described above is an exemplary illustration, and embodiments of the application are not limited thereto. For example, for a sidelink (sidelink) scenario, data may be transmitted on a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), feedback information may be transmitted on a physical sidelink feedback channel (physical sidelink feedback channel, PSFCH), and the PSFCH may share a time slot with the PSSCH. For example, the PSFCH may be transmitted periodically. For example, if the period of the PSFCH is 0, no feedback is indicated; if the period is P (P is an integer greater than or equal to 1), it may indicate that one PSFCH occurs every P slots. For a specific scheme of time domain resources occupied by data and feedback information in the side uplink scenario, reference may be made to the prior art, which does not limit the protection of the embodiments of the present application.

To facilitate an understanding of the embodiments of the present application, the terms referred to in this application are briefly described.

1. Hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ)

In the air interface transmission process, transmission bit errors or packet loss can occur, and the robustness of the air interface transmission can be improved through an HARQ mechanism. HARQ is a retransmission mechanism combining forward error correction codes (forward error correction, FEC) and automatic retransmission requests (automatic repeat request, ARQ).

FEC: the error control mode is that before the signal is sent into a transmission channel, a transmitting end carries out coding processing in advance according to an algorithm and adds redundancy codes with the characteristics of the signal; the receiving end decodes the received signal according to the corresponding algorithm, thereby finding out the error code generated in the transmission process and correcting the error code.

ARQ: the receiving end judges whether the received data is correct or not through cyclic redundancy check (cyclic redundancy check, CRC) check information, and feeds back the judging result to the sending end; if the receiving end receives the feedback information, the sending end retransmits the data until the receiving end receives the feedback information correctly.

The HARQ mechanism encodes the channel using an FEC algorithm, i.e. adds an FEC code with error detection and correction capabilities, which may be referred to as redundant information, to the transmitted information. The receiving end decodes the received information according to the corresponding algorithm, and corrects the error code if the error code is generated in the transmission process. If the correction is possible, the receiving end correctly receives (namely, the data transmission is successful); if the data cannot be corrected, the ARQ mechanism is utilized to request the transmitting end to retransmit the data; if the data is retransmitted, or if the data is received in error, the retransmission is requested again until the data is received correctly.

The HARQ mechanism can recover damaged data without retransmitting the data by using the FEC technology, but if the FEC technology is adopted only, the calculation cost and the complexity of the coding and decoding process can be greatly increased, so that the FEC technology and the ARQ technology are combined to complement each other, and the transmission efficiency can be better improved. Therefore, the complexity and computational overhead of the codec process can be reduced compared to using the HARQ mechanism alone.

In the ARQ mechanism, if the receiving end receives the error data, it requests retransmission and discards the error information. Although these erroneous packets cannot be decoded correctly independently, they still contain some useful information and therefore soft combining is proposed in the HARQ scheme. Soft combining means: the receiving end stores the received error data packet in a HARQ buffer, combines the received error data packet with the subsequently received retransmission data packet, decodes the combined data packet, requests retransmission if decoding fails, and combines the data packets to obtain a data packet which is more reliable than independent decoding. Two gains can be obtained by soft combining: 1) Signal energy gain obtained when retransmitting the same coded bits, 2) coding gain obtained by transmitting additional parity bits when retransmitting. According to whether the retransmitted bit information is identical to the initially transmitted bit information, soft combining can be further divided into Chase Combining (CC) and incremental redundancy (incremental redundancy, IR), wherein the retransmitted bit information in the chase combining is identical to the initially transmitted bit information, and the retransmitted bit information in the incremental redundancy is not required to be identical to the initially transmitted bit information.

In chase combining, the transmitting end generates a set of coded bits by encoding after adding the CRC to the original information bits, and transmits the set of coded bits either as a primary transmission or as a retransmission. The bit information retransmitted each time is the same as the bit information retransmitted initially, so that the signal to noise ratio can be improved.

In incremental redundancy, the bit information for each retransmission may be different from the bit information for the initial transmission. The transmitting end may generate multiple sets of coded bits, each carrying the same information. Each time retransmission is required, a different set of coded bits is typically transmitted than before, and the receiving end combines the retransmitted data with the previously transmitted data. The set of coded bits per retransmission may be referred to as one redundancy version (redundancy version, RV). In incremental redundancy, the transmitting end transmits additional redundant information through retransmission, and the redundant information is continuously accumulated along with the increase of retransmission times, so that a better decoding effect is obtained.

As an example, the HARQ process may employ stop-and-wait protocol (stop-and-wait protocol) to transmit data. Stopping the waiting protocol, which means that after a transmitting end transmits a Transport Block (TB), waiting for acknowledgement information; the receiving end may use 1 bit of information to Acknowledge (ACK) or not acknowledge (negative acknowledgement, NACK) the transport block; the receiving end sends the next TB after receiving the ACK. Wherein the ACK may indicate that the TB was successfully received and the TB was successfully decoded; a NACK may indicate that the TB was not successfully received, or that the TB was not successfully decoded. An exemplary illustration is provided below in connection with fig. 4.

As shown in fig. 4, the transmitting end sends { TB0, RV0} to the receiving end, where { TB0, RV0} indicates that the transport block transmitted is TB0, and the redundancy version is RV0; the receiving end decodes { TB0, RV0}; the receiving end determines that the feedback information of the TB0 is ACK or NACK according to the receiving condition of the TB 0. For example, if the receiving end successfully receives and decodes TB0, an ACK is sent to the sending end, and after receiving the ACK from the receiving end, the sending end sends { TB1, RV0}; if the receiving end does not successfully receive or does not successfully decode TB0, NACK is sent to the sending end, and after receiving NACK from the receiving end, the sending end sends { TB0, RV1}, to the receiving end.

Fig. 4 is an illustration of an example of a scheme of incremental redundancy. In the chase combining scheme, there is no concept of RV, so each retransmission is the primary data. For example, the transmitting end sends TB0 to the receiving end, if the receiving end fails to receive or decode, NACK is returned to the transmitting end, and after receiving the NACK, the transmitting end sends TB0 to the receiving end again, where the TB0 is consistent with the primary TB 0.

Typically, the terminal device sends feedback information at a time indicated by the network device. As an example, the network device may control the time to transmit HARQ feedback information through a HARQ feedback timing field (e.g., denoted as k 1) of downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI), where k1 may identify a slot offset value between physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink share channel, PDSCH) data and the terminal device transmitting HARQ feedback information. For example, if the terminal device receives PDSCH data in n slots, the terminal device transmits HARQ feedback information of the PDSCH in (n+k1) slots. As an example, the HARQ feedback information may be carried on a physical uplink control channel (physical uplink control channel, PUCCH) or a physical uplink shared channel (physical uplink share channel, PUSCH).

2. HARQ process number

The HARQ process number may also be referred to as HARQ process Identification (ID). One HARQ process number may be used to uniquely designate one HARQ process. After performing channel coding on the TB, the terminal device may store the data obtained by the channel coding in the HARQ buffer to wait for transmission. The TBs in the HARQ buffer may have a one-to-one correspondence with the HARQ processes, and each TB may correspond to one HARQ process.

In the following embodiments, reference is made to HARQ processes of a TB or HARQ processes of data multiple times, which represent the same meaning, which are all used to represent HARQ processes corresponding to a TB. The HARQ processes of the multiple TBs mentioned in the following embodiments represent HARQ processes corresponding to each of the multiple TBs, that is, multiple HARQ processes corresponding to the multiple TBs.

3. Discontinuous reception (discontinuous reception, DRX)

DRX: the terminal equipment can be periodically in a sleep state (sleep mode), does not need to monitor a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) in the sleep state, and monitors the PDCCH in a wake up state, so that the terminal equipment can achieve the purpose of saving electricity.

The implementation of the DRX mechanism is different between when the terminal device is in an idle state and when the terminal device is in a connected state, and the DRX described below refers to the DRX used when the terminal device is in a connected state, i.e. connected DRX (C-DRX).

Fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

As shown in fig. 5, the period of time for the identifier "drx-onduration timer" represents the time for the terminal device to monitor the PDCCH, and during this period of time, the terminal device is in an awake state; the period of time during which the "DRX occasion (Opportunity for DRX)" is identified indicates a time during which the terminal device is not listening to the PDCCH, and the terminal device is in a sleep state. As can be seen from fig. 5, the longer the "Opportunity for DRX" time, the lower the power consumption of the terminal device, but the corresponding delay of traffic transmission increases.

The period in which the terminal device listens to the PDCCH may be referred to as a DRX active period, and the period in which the terminal device does not listen to the PDCCH may be referred to as a DRX sleep period or a DRX sleep period. During the DRX active period, the terminal device continuously listens to the PDCCH. As an example, the DRX active period may use the following timers: drx-onDurationTimer, drx-InactivityTimer, drx-retransmission timer.

Wherein, drx-onduration timer and drx-incapacity timer represent timers related to the terminal device listening to the PDCCH, as shown in fig. 5, during operation of drx-onduration timer, the terminal device is in an awake state. The drx-retransmission timer indicates a timer associated with retransmission. The following describes the respective embodiments with reference to fig. 6 to 8.

Fig. 6 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

As shown in fig. 6, the terminal device is in an awake state during the operation of drx-onduration timer and drx-incavitytimer. Consider the following scenario: the last subframe (e.g., subframe 0) of the network device during the drx-onduration timer operation has a larger byte of data to be sent to the terminal device, and the data cannot be completely sent on subframe 0. If the DRX mechanism shown in fig. 5 is adopted, the terminal device enters a sleep state in subframe 1, does not receive PDSCH data from the network device, and the network device needs to wait until the DRX cycle ends, and continues to send data that is not completely transmitted to the terminal device when the DRX-onduration timer is running. The processing mechanism increases the transmission delay of the data. In order to avoid the above situation, and considering that a terminal device is likely to continue to be scheduled in the next several subframes after a certain subframe is scheduled and receives data or transmits data, DRX-incavitytimer is added to the DRX mechanism. The mechanism principle of the drx-InactivityTimer is as follows: in the On Duration of the DRX active period of the terminal device, when the terminal device performs uplink or downlink primary data transmission scheduling, the network device may start or restart a timer DRX-inactivity timer, and the terminal device will be in an awake state until the DRX-inactivity timer times out (or ends). For example, if the drx-incarvitytimer is running, even if the originally configured drx-onduration timer has been running over time, since the drx-incarvitytimer is still running, the terminal device continues to monitor the PDCCH until the drx-incarvitytimer is running over time. The transmission delay of data can be reduced through a drx-InactivityTimer mechanism.

Fig. 7 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

As shown in fig. 7, if the drx-incaactyitytimer is running, the terminal device continues to monitor the PDCCH until the drx-incaactyitytimer times out even though the drx-onduration timer has timed out.

Fig. 8 shows another schematic diagram of a DRX mechanism.

In the DRX mechanism, the timer associated with the retransmission includes at least: drx-retransmission Timer and drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer. For example, for downlink transmission, the timer drx-retransmission timer can also be described as: drx-retransmission timer DL. As an example, for downlink transmission, the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer may also be described as: drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerDL. Hereinafter, for the sake of not losing generality, the description is made with drx-retransmission Timer and drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

Consider the following scenario: if a certain TB fails to decode, the terminal device may assume that it may not retransmit the TB until after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer, so the terminal device may not need to monitor the PDCCH while the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is running. When the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer times out and the data received by the HARQ process of the TB is not successfully decoded, the terminal device starts a drx-retransmission Timer for the HARQ process. The drx-retransmission timer may represent the maximum time for which the terminal device waits for a retransmission. When the drx-retransmission timer runs, the terminal device listens to the PDCCH for retransmission.

3. Network Coding (NC)

In the embodiment of the present application, network coding may be considered as a way of coding data to be transmitted. For example, the transmitting end may perform network coding on the data packet to be transmitted to generate an additional redundancy packet, and the receiving end receives the data packet and the additional redundancy packet, and recovers the lost data through decoding of the network coding. The network code mentioned in the embodiment of the present application may be any code with an erasure function, for example, the receiving end can recover the lost data through decoding (or NC decoding) of the network code.

Fig. 9 shows a schematic diagram of a network coding scheme.

As shown in fig. 9, one network coding block (or referred to as a data block) includes a network coding packets (or may also be referred to as network coding sub-blocks, or sub-blocks), a being a positive integer. Each network code packet contains several bits of data, and each network code contains the same number of bits. As an example, a network-encoded packet containing data of a data block may be referred to as a network-encoded data packet, or a network-encoded system packet. And carrying out network coding on the A network coding data packets to generate B network coding redundant packets, wherein B is a positive integer. The size of each network coding redundancy packet is the same as the size of the network coding data packet, i.e. the number of bits contained in each network coding redundancy packet is the same as the number of bits contained in the network coding data packet. Wherein B may be a predefined or preconfigured fixed value or may be infinite. B is infinite and it is understood that there is no upper limit on the value of B. And when B is infinite, the sending end can be considered to always send the data of the network coding block until receiving the confirmation information fed back by the receiving end, and stopping sending the data of the network coding block. The network encoded data packets may be simply referred to as data packets, and the network encoded redundant packets may be simply referred to as redundant packets.

For some reasons, such as variations in channel quality, the receiving end may not be able to properly receive all packets encoded by the network. As shown in fig. 9, after undergoing air interface transmission, a part of the network-coded packets in the network-coded block are not received correctly. However, since the receiving end receives a certain number of network coding redundant packets, the network coding data packets with failed transmission can be recovered through decoding of the network coding.

Taking XR traffic as an example, an XR frame may be considered as a network coding block, which is divided into network coding packets, and network coding is performed between the network coding packets to generate redundant packets. After the air interface transmission is performed, after the receiving end receives a certain number (such as a) of network coding packets in the (a+b) network coding packets, the network coding packets with failed transmission can be recovered through decoding of the network coding, so that the complete transmission of the XR frame is enabled. For example, taking raptorQ code as an example, when the receiving end receives any a network coding packets in (a+b), the probability that the corresponding network coding block can be recovered is about 99%; when the receiving end receives any (A+1) network coding packets in (A+B), the probability that the corresponding network coding block can be recovered is about 99.99%; when the receiving end receives any (a+2) network coding packets in (a+b), the probability that the corresponding network coding block can be recovered is about 99.9999%.

As an example, the network coding function may be placed in a higher layer, i.e. a layer above the physical layer. For example, network coding functions are added in existing higher layers, such as in the radio link layer control protocol (radio link control, RLC) layer. For another example, a new protocol layer (or called a functional layer) is added, and the new protocol layer is used for implementing the network coding function.

Fig. 10 shows a schematic diagram of the network coding function.

As shown in (a) of fig. 10, a network coding function is added to the RLC layer, that is, the network coding function may be embedded in the RLC layer, that is, the network coding function is implemented in the RLC layer, which is not limited thereto, and for example, a network coding function may be added to a packet data convergence protocol (packet data convergence protocol, PDCP) layer or a media access control (media access control, MAC) layer. As shown in fig. 10 (b) or (c), a protocol layer, such as NC layer, is added to the network coding function. For example, as shown in (b) of fig. 10, the NC layer may be located between the PDCP layer and the RLC layer. As another example, as shown in (c) of fig. 10, the NC layer may be located between the RLC layer and the MAC layer.

Taking the structure shown in (a) of fig. 10 as an example, the data of the RLC layer performs not only some operations of the RLC layer but also operations of network coding as shown in fig. 9. For example, one RLC service data unit (service data unit, SDU) may be used as a network coding block, the one RLC SDU comprising a plurality of network coding packets, i.e. the RLC SDU is segmented into a plurality of network coding packets; for another example, each RLC SDU may be provided as a network coding packet, and a plurality of RLC SDUs may form a network coding block. After network coding, the RLC layer may send the network coded data to the MAC layer via a logical channel, and the MAC layer may multiplex a plurality of different RLC data into one MAC layer protocol data unit (protocol data unit, PDU).

By network coding, the degradation of user experience caused by data packet loss can be avoided, and the time delay of data transmission caused by retransmission of the lost data packet can be avoided. However, the following scenario may occur: in the data transmission process, the situation that the data packet is lost occurs, although the network coding packet reported by the higher layer based on the physical layer can be decoded, the receiving end still executes the operation related to retransmission because the physical layer is not known, thereby causing the problem of air interface resource waste and power consumption overhead. The following is a description with reference to fig. 11.

Fig. 11 shows a schematic diagram of network encoded data transmission.

As shown in fig. 11, it is assumed that the network coding packets of the same network coding block are transmitted in the D00 time slot to the D03 time slot, the network coding packets transmitted in the D02 time slot fail to be transmitted, and the network coding packets transmitted in the other time slots succeed in being transmitted. The terminal device starts decoding after receiving the network coding packet in the D03 time slot. It is assumed that the terminal device can successfully decode the network coding block based on the received network coding packet. However, since the network coding packet transmitted in the D02 time slot is decoded in the physical layer in error, the terminal device starts the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer after the NACK is reported in the U time slot. After the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is overtime, starting the drx-retransmission Timer, and monitoring control information for retransmission by the terminal equipment during the operation of the drx-retransmission Timer. Therefore, decoding of the network coding block is not facilitated, the terminal equipment which is in the sleep state originally can be awakened, power consumption of the terminal equipment is increased, and the transmission end schedules retransmission data to waste air interface resources.

According to the scheme, when the network coding packet reported by the physical layer can decode the network coding block, the physical layer is informed, so that the physical layer can not execute operations related to the network coding block, such as stopping receiving and/or decoding the network coding packet of the network coding block or stopping executing operations related to retransmission, waste of air interface resources is reduced, and power consumption expenditure is reduced.

The terms referred to in the present application are briefly described above, and will not be repeated in the following examples. Furthermore, the foregoing descriptions of the terms are provided for the purpose of illustration only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments of the present application.

It will be appreciated that the term "and/or" is merely one association relationship describing the associated object, and means that three relationships may exist, for example, a and/or B may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone. In addition, the character "/" herein generally indicates that the front and rear associated objects are an "or" relationship.

In this application, "indicated" may be indicated explicitly and/or implicitly. For example, the implicit indication may be based on a location and/or a resource used for the transmission; the explicit indication may be based on one or more parameters, and/or one or more indices, and/or one or more bit patterns it represents.

The method for data transmission according to the embodiment of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The embodiments provided herein may be applicable to any communication scenario in which a transmitting end device and a receiving end device communicate, for example, may be applied to the network architecture shown in fig. 1 or fig. 2.

In the following embodiments, the data block represents the network coding block described above, and the sub-block represents the network coding packet described above (i.e., the network coding packet carried in the network coding block). One transport block may include one or more sub-blocks and one data block may include one or more sub-blocks. In addition, in the following embodiments, "sub-blocks carried in a transport block" and "data of a transport block" are sometimes used interchangeably, and are used to represent the same meaning. For example, the lower layer may report the data of the transport block to the upper layer, or alternatively, the lower layer may report the sub-blocks carried in the transport block to the upper layer.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a method 1200 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application. The method 1200 may include the following steps.

The first communication device receives M TBs from the second communication device, where the M TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding.

Wherein M is a positive integer.

1220, the lower layer of the first communication device sends K sub-blocks to the higher layer of the first communication device, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by the TB where the channel decodes the correct TB from the M TBs.

Wherein K is a positive integer.

Wherein the higher layers of the first communication device may represent protocol layers capable of implementing network coding functions. As an example, the higher layer of the first communication device may be any one of the following: RLC layer, PDCP layer, MAC layer or NC layer. Taking the structure shown in (a) of fig. 10 as an example, the higher layer of the first communication device may be the RLC layer; alternatively, taking the configuration shown in (b) or (c) in fig. 10 as an example, the higher layer of the first communication apparatus may be an NC layer.

Wherein the lower layer of the first communication device may represent a protocol layer receiving the TB or may represent a protocol layer reporting the TB data to a higher layer. As an example, the lower layer of the first communication device is the PHY layer.

1230, the higher layer of the first communication apparatus transmits notification information for notifying whether the first data block was successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks were NC-decoded to the lower layer of the first communication apparatus.

If, in a possible case, the higher layer of the first communication device can successfully decode the first data block after receiving the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device sends notification information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the notification information being used to notify that the first data block is successfully decoded.

According to the embodiment of the application, a lower layer (such as a physical layer) of the first communication device receives M TB(s) from the second communication device, and the M TB(s) transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block (such as a first data block) after network coding; if the lower layer of the first communication device decodes the M1 TB channels in the M TBs correctly, the lower layer of the first communication device sends all (K) sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 TBs to the upper layer; if the higher layer of the first communication device can successfully decode the first data block through the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may send notification information to the lower layer, from which the lower layer may learn that no more operations related to the first data block need to be performed, e.g., no more retransmission of TBs other than M1 out of the M TBs need to be requested, no more TBs for transmitting the first data block need to be received and/or decoded, and so on. Or if the higher layer of the first communication device does not successfully decode the first data block after receiving the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may send notification information to the lower layer, and the lower layer may learn that the first data block has not been successfully decoded according to the notification information. By the method, waste of air interface resources can be reduced, and power consumption overhead is reduced. Optionally, if the higher layer of the first communication device does not successfully decode the first data block after receiving the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may not notify the lower layer, and the lower layer may perform normal operations such as retransmission.

In connection with method 1200, a scheme is described above in which a higher layer informs a lower layer in the case that a first data block can be decoded based on a sub-block reported by the lower layer. The following describes a specific scenario from the TB perspective in connection with method 1300. It is to be appreciated that the schemes in method 1300 below can be utilized in conjunction with the schemes in method 1200.

Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of a method 1300 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application. The method 1300 may include the following steps.

1310, the first communication device receives N first control information, where the N first control information is used to indicate M TBs, and the N first control information is further used to indicate that the M TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding. That is, the N first control information is further used to indicate that one or more sub-blocks of the M TB transmissions after network coding belong to the same data block.

Wherein N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N. Optionally, N is an integer greater than 2 or equal to 2.

The first control information may be, for example, DCI, or side-uplink control information (sidelink control information, SCI), or other control information, without limitation.

The first data block is used to represent the same data block, and the naming thereof does not limit the protection scope of the embodiments of the present application. For example, the first data block may be replaced with the target data block, or replaced with the same data block.

1320, the first communication device receives M TBs based on the N first control information.

According to the embodiment of the application, the first communication device obtains M TB indicated by the N first control information according to the N first control information, and the M TB is used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding. Therefore, the network coding mode is adopted for the first data block, so that the requirement of the service on the time delay can be met as much as possible. In addition, by establishing the connection between the TB and the first data block, the corresponding TB of the first data block can be obtained, and further, the feedback information of a plurality of TB corresponding to the first data block can be determined based on the NC decoding condition of the first data block. For example, if the first data block can be successfully decoded after NC decoding, even if some TBs of the M TBs are not correctly decoded, the first communication device may not need to re-receive the TBs that are not correctly decoded by retransmission, and thus, after the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device may set all HARQ process numbers of the M TBs to ACK, so that retransmission is not required. Therefore, unnecessary retransmission is reduced, data transmission delay is reduced, and user experience is improved.

In the following embodiments, for convenience of description, the association relationship may be used to represent (or characterize) M TBs for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the same data block (e.g., denoted as a first data block) after network encoding. For example, if a plurality of TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network coding, the TBs may be considered to have an association relationship; if a plurality of TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of different data blocks after network coding, the TBs may be considered to have no association. Or if the TBs have an association relationship, it can be considered that all the sub-blocks transmitted by the TBs after network coding belong to the same data block; if the TBs do not have an association relationship, it may be considered that all sub-blocks transmitted by the TBs after network coding do not belong to the same data block (may include a case that part of the sub-blocks belong to the same data block), or the TBs may be considered to be used for transmitting higher layer data corresponding to different logical channels and/or radio data bearers. It will be appreciated that the "TB has an association relationship" mentioned below may be replaced by "TB is used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network coding". That is, there may be no concept of association in the concrete implementation process.

Optionally, the association is implemented by one or more bits in the first control information. In this way, the first communication device may determine, through the first control information, whether the received TB has an association relationship, that is, the first communication device may determine, through the first control information, whether the received TB is used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block after network encoding.

Optionally, the first control information includes first information, where the first information is one or more bits, and the first information is used to indicate whether the TB has an association relationship. This first information may also be referred to as association information, for example. Several possible implementations are described below.

As a possible implementation manner, each first control information in the N first control information includes first information, where N first information included in the N first control information is used to indicate that M TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding, where the N first information may satisfy a preset condition, for example, values of the N first information are the same. The preset conditions can be predefined by standards and can be configured by a network side. If the configuration is performed by the network side, the network side may send the preset configuration condition to the terminal device.

Based on the implementation manner, each piece of first control information comprises first information, and if the values of the first information in different pieces of first control information are the same, the different pieces of TB indicated by the different pieces of first control information are considered to have an association relation; if the values of the first information in the different first control information are different, the plurality of TB indicated by the different first control information are considered to have no association relation.

Taking the first control information as DCI, n=2, m=2, and 2 DCIs respectively indicated by 1 TB as an example for exemplary explanation. For distinction, these 2 DCIs are denoted as DCI0 and DCI1, respectively, where the TB indicated by DCI0 is TB0 and the TB indicated by DCI1 is TB1.

For example, the first information is a 2-bit field in DCI, where the value range of the field is: 00,01,10,11. If the values of the first information in DCI0 and DCI1 are the same, for example, "01" (or other values may be used), it may be considered that TB0 and TB1 have an association relationship; if the first information of DCI0 and DCI1 are different, if the first information of DCI0 is "00" and the first information of DCI1 is "10", it is considered that TB0 and TB1 do not have an association relationship.

For another example, the first information is a 1-bit field in DCI, where the value range of the field is: 0,1. If the values of the first information in DCI0 and DCI1 are the same, if both the values are "1", the association relationship between TB0 and TB1 can be considered; if the first information of DCI0 and DCI1 are different, if the first information of DCI0 is "0" and the first information of DCI1 is "1", it is considered that TB0 and TB1 do not have an association relationship.

It is to be understood that the above is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive.

As another possible implementation manner, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, and when one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information meet a preset condition, the one or more pieces of first information are used for indicating that the M TBs are used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding.

In an example, the first control information of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, and the last control information of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, and when the first information included in the first control information and the first information included in the last control information satisfy a certain preset condition, the first communication device may determine that the M TBs have an association relationship. The following description will be given by taking the first control information as DCI, n=4, and m=4, that is, the 4 DCIs respectively indicate 1 TB as an example. For distinction, these 4 DCIs are respectively designated as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, and DCI3, where the TB indicated by DCI0 is TB0, the TB indicated by DCI1 is TB1, the TB indicated by DCI2 is TB2, and the TB indicated by DCI3 is TB3.

For example, if the first information is included in both DCI0 and DCI3 and the first information included in DCI0 and DCI3 satisfies a certain preset condition, it may be considered that the TBs indicated by the DCI between DCI0 and DCI3 have an association relationship, that is, the TBs 0 to TB3 have an association relationship. For another example, the first information is a 1-bit field in DCI, where the value range of the field is: 0,1, if the first information values in DCI0 and DCI3 are both "1", it may be considered that the TBs indicated by DCI between DCI0 and DCI3 have an association relationship, that is, that TB0 to TB3 have an association relationship.

In yet another example, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, and when values of the N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information satisfy a preset condition, the first communication device determines that the M TBs have an association relationship. The preset condition may indicate that the values of the N first information satisfy a certain rule, or may also indicate that the values of the N first information belong to values in a preset range. The following exemplifies that the first control information is DCI, n=2, m=2, i.e. 2 DCIs indicate 2 TBs (each DCI indicates 1 TB). For distinction, these 2 DCIs are denoted as DCI0 and DCI1, respectively, where the TB indicated by DCI0 is TB0 and the TB indicated by DCI1 is TB1.

For example, the first information is a 2-bit field in DCI, where the value range of the field is: 00,01,10,11. If the first information in DCI0 and DCI1 has a value of 01 or 10 (for example, the first information in DCI0 has a value of "01" and the first information in DCI1 has a value of "10"), it is considered that TB0 and TB1 have an association relationship; if the values of the first information in DCI0 and DCI1 do not both belong to the values of 01 and 10 (for example, the value of the first information in DCI0 is "00", the value of the first information in DCI1 is "11", or the value of the first information in DCI0 is "01", the value of the first information in DCI1 is "00", etc.), it is considered that TB0 and TB1 do not have an association relationship.

As another possible implementation manner, n=1, the one first control information includes first information, where when the first information takes a specific value, M TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding.

Based on the implementation, one first control information includes first information, where the first control information may be used to indicate a plurality of TBs, and the first information is used to indicate whether the plurality of TBs have an association relationship. For example, the first information is 1 bit, and if the value of the first information is "1", the TBs indicated by the first control information are considered to have an association relationship; if the value of the first information is "0", the TBs indicated by the first control information are considered to have no association relationship.

As another possible implementation manner, n=1, where the first control information includes first information, M TBs are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding.

Based on the implementation, one first control information may be used to indicate a plurality of TBs, and whether the first control information includes the first information may be used to indicate whether the plurality of TBs have an association relationship. For example, if the first control information includes the first information, the TBs indicated by the first control information are considered to have an association relationship; if the first control information does not include the first information, the plurality of TBs indicated by the first control information are considered to have no association relation.

It will be appreciated that the several possible implementations described above are illustrative and embodiments of the application are not limited thereto. For example, when one first control information is used to indicate a plurality of TBs, the plurality of TBs may be defaulted to be used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding, that is, the M TBs have an association relationship.

Optionally, the method 1300 further includes: the lower layer of the first communication device sends K sub-blocks to the higher layer of the first communication device, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by the TB where the channel decoding is correct in the M TBs.

After the first communication device receives M TBs based on the N first control information in step 1310, the lower layer of the first communication device performs channel decoding on the M TBs; if the decoding of M1 TB channels in M TBs of the first communication device is correct, the lower layer of the first communication device reports all (K) sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 TBs to the upper layer (or: the lower layer of the first communication device reports K sub-blocks carried in the M1 TBs to the upper layer). Wherein M1 may be less than M, or M1 may also be equal to M. For example, if the CRC corresponding to the TB passes, the TB channel may be deemed to be decoded correctly.

After the higher layer of the first communication device receives the K sub-blocks, NC decoding may be performed on the K sub-blocks, and the second information may be sent to the lower layer of the first communication device based on a result of NC decoding.

Optionally, the higher layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, where the second information is used to indicate whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC-decoded. Wherein the second information may be signaling generated and transmitted by a higher layer of the first communication device.

The second information is the same as the notification information in step 1230, and is used to indicate whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded. The following description will mainly take the second information as an example, and the second information may be replaced by the notification information in step 130.

If the first communication device receives K sub-blocks and then successfully decodes the first data block through NC decoding, the higher layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, where the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded.

In another possible case, if the first data block cannot be successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded, the higher layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, where the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is not successfully decoded.

As an example, when K is greater than or equal to a preset threshold, the first data block after NC decoding of the K sub-blocks can be successfully decoded. When the number of sub-blocks received by a higher layer of the first communication device meets a certain condition (i.e. K is greater than or equal to a preset threshold), the first data block can be successfully decoded through the K sub-blocks. The preset threshold value can be predefined by a standard or configured by a network side. If the configuration is performed by the network side, the network side may send the configured preset threshold to the terminal device.

Optionally, the second information includes an identification of at least one TB of the information #a and/or the M1 TBs.

For example, the second information includes information #a indicating whether the first data block is successfully decoded. The first communication device knows whether the first data block was successfully decoded or not based on the information #a. As an example, the information #a is 1 bit, and the range of values of the information #a is: 0,1. If the value of the information #A is "1", the second information is considered to indicate successful decoding of the first data block; if the value of the information #A is "0", the second information may be considered to indicate that the first data block is not successfully decoded.

For another example, the second information includes an identifier of at least one TB of the M1 TBs, and the first communication device learns to successfully decode the first data block according to the identifier of the at least one TB of the M1 TBs. Under this scheme, the identity of at least one TB of the M1 TBs may be used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, i.e. the first communication device may determine successful decoding of the first data block if the identity of at least one TB of the M1 TBs is included in the second information. Optionally, the first communication device determines the identification of the M TBs according to the identification of at least one TB of the M1 TBs. The identification of the M TBs is determined as described in detail later.

For another example, the second information includes an identification of at least one TB of the information #a and the M1 TBs. Wherein the information #a is used for indicating successful decoding of the first data block. Optionally, the first communication device determines the identification of the M TBs according to the identification of at least one TB of the M1 TBs. The identification of the M TBs is determined as described in detail later.

Wherein, the identification of TB is used for discerning TB. For example, the identification of the TB may be the HARQ process number of the TB or the index (index) of the TB. The following description mainly takes an HARQ process number of a TB identified as a TB as an example.

Taking the HARQ process number of the TB identified as the TB as an example, in one possible implementation, the lower layer of the first communication device sends third information to the higher layer of the first communication device, where the third information is used to indicate the HARQ process number of at least one TB of the M1 TBs.

Based on the implementation manner, the lower layer of the first communication device may report the HARQ process number to the higher layer of the first communication device, and further the higher layer may learn the HARQ process number for transmitting the first data block. Illustratively, the lower layer of the first communication device transmits the HARQ process number of at least one of the M1 TBs transmitting the K sub-blocks to the higher layer of the first communication device at the same time as the lower layer of the first communication device transmits the K sub-blocks to the higher layer of the first communication device. After receiving the K sub-blocks and the HARQ process number of at least one TB of the M1 TBs used for transmitting the K sub-blocks, the higher layer of the first communication device may establish a connection between the first data block to which the K sub-blocks belong and the HARQ process number. If the first data block is decodable, the higher layer of the first communication device sends the second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, and carries the received HARQ process number. In the following, 2 examples are presented taking the HARQ process number of M1 TBs as an example, where the third information is used to indicate the number.

In example 1, after the decoding of the lower layer is successful, the lower layer reports the sub-blocks transmitted by the M1 TBs and the HARQ process numbers of the M1 TBs to the upper layer.

For example, after receiving M TBs, the first communication device performs channel decoding (such as low density parity check code (low density parity check, LDPC)) on the M TBs, and determines whether the channel decoding of the M TBs is successful according to the CRC result. Assuming that M1 TBs of the M TBs are successfully decoded in the physical layer channel, the physical layer of the first communication device reports the data of the M1 TBs (e.g., denoted as K sub-blocks) to the higher layer together with the HARQ process numbers of the M1 TBs. For example, after the CRC check of the M1 TBs passes, the M1 TBs are demultiplexed in the MAC layer, i.e., the MAC layer transfers the data in the M1 TBs and the HARQ process number of the M1 TBs to the corresponding logical channel and data radio bearer (data radio bearer, DRB), and then reports to the higher layer.

In example 2, after the decoding of the lower layer is successful, if the logical channel or DRB corresponding to the data of the M1 TBs adopts network coding, the lower layer reports the data of the M1 TBs and the HARQ process numbers of the M1 TBs to the upper layer.

Based on example 2, if a TB is used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of a first data block after network coding, the MAC layer reports data in the TB and an HARQ process number corresponding to the TB to a logical channel where the first data block is located; if the TB is not used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding, the MAC layer demultiplexes the data in the TB onto the corresponding logical channel, and may not need to transmit the HARQ process number corresponding to the TB. As an example, if a logical channel or DRB corresponding to data in a TB is network encoded, the TB is considered to be used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding.

For example, after receiving M TBs, the first communication device performs channel decoding on the M TBs, and determines whether the channel decoding of the M TBs is successful according to the CRC check result. Assuming that M1 TBs of the M TBs are successfully decoded in the physical layer, and the data in the M1 TBs belongs to the data of the first data block (or the M1 TBs are used for transmitting the sub-block of the first data block after network coding), the physical layer of the first communication device reports the data of the M1 TBs (e.g. recorded as K sub-blocks) and the HARQ process number of the M1 TBs to the upper layer. For example, the CRC check of M1 TBs passes, and when M1 TBs are demultiplexed at the MAC layer, it may be determined whether the data of M1 TBs belongs to the data of the first data block; if the data of the M1 TBs belong to the data of the first data block, which means that the logical channel or DRB corresponding to the data of the M1 TBs adopts network coding, the data of the M1 TBs and the HARQ process number corresponding to the M1 TBs may be reported to a higher layer together.

While the foregoing describes an exemplary scenario of the identification of M1 TBs, it is to be understood that the foregoing describes, by way of example, reporting, by the lower layer of the first communication device, HARQ process numbers of the M1 TBs to the upper layer of the first communication device, and embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto. In the embodiment of the present application, the lower layer of the first communication device may report the HARQ process number of at least one TB of the M1 TBs to the higher layer of the first communication device. For example, the lower layer of the first communication device reports the HARQ process number of one TB of the M1 TBs to the higher layer of the first communication device; for another example, the lower layer of the first communication device reports HARQ process numbers of part of TBs in the M1 TBs to the higher layer of the first communication device; for another example, the lower layer of the first communication device reports the HARQ process number of each TB of the M1 TBs to the higher layer of the first communication device.

The scheme in which the first communication device determines the identity of M TBs is described below.

The first communication device determining the identity of the M TBs according to the identity of at least one of the M1 TBs may include the first communication device determining the identity of each of the M TBs according to the identity of the at least one of the M1 TBs. The following description is made in connection with two possible cases.

In a first possible scenario, the first communication device receives an identification of each of the M TBs from the second communication device, e.g., in step 1310, the N first control information includes an identification of each of the M TBs.

In this first possible case, after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the identifier of at least one TB of the M1 TBs (the identifier of the target TB is marked for distinction) from the upper layer of the first communication device, the target TB may be determined according to the identifier of the target TB, and further, the identifier of each TB of the M TBs having an association relationship with the target TB may be determined.

Taking the HARQ process number of the TB identified as the TB as an example, assume that in step 1310, the first communication device receives 4 (i.e., n=4) first control information (e.g., respectively denoted as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, DCI 3), where the 4 first control information is used to indicate 4 (i.e., m=4) TBs (e.g., respectively denoted as TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3), where the 4 TBs have an association relationship, i.e., TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3, for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network coding, and where the 4 DCIs respectively includes HARQ process numbers of the respective TBs, i.e., DCI0 includes HARQ process numbers of TB0, DCI1 includes HARQ process numbers of TB1, DCI2 includes HARQ process numbers of TB2, and DCI3 includes HARQ process numbers of TB 3. Assume that a lower layer of the first communication device receives a HARQ process number identified as TB0 for at least one TB of the M1 TBs from a higher layer of the first communication device. After the lower layer of the first communication device receives the HARQ process number of TB0 from the higher layer of the first communication device, the HARQ process number of TB0 may be determined, and according to the association between the TB0 and TB1, TB2, and TB3, the HARQ process number of TB1, the HARQ process number of TB2, and the HARQ process number of TB3 are determined.

In a second possible scenario, the first communication device receives an identification of at least one TB of the M TBs from the second communication device.

In this second possible case, there may be a certain relationship between the identifiers of the M TBs, and the first communication device may determine the identifiers of the remaining TBs according to the relationship between the identifier of a certain TB of the M TBs and the identifiers of the M TBs. For example, the first communication device may receive, from the second communication device, an identification of a TB that is the smallest of M TBs (e.g., an identification of the first TB), and the identification of TBs other than the first TB of the M TBs may be gradually increased by 1 based on the identification of the first TB. In this second possible case, after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the identifier of at least one TB (the identifier of the first TB at this time) from the upper layer of the first communication device, the first TB may be determined according to the identifier of the first TB, and further, the identifier of each TB in the M TBs having an association relationship with the first TB may be determined.

Taking the HARQ process number of the TB identified as the TB as an example, assume that in step 1310, the first communication device receives 1 (i.e. n=1) first control information (e.g. denoted as DCI 0), where the 1 first control information is used to indicate 4 (i.e. m=4) TBs (e.g. respectively denoted as TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3), where the 4 TBs have an association relationship, i.e. TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3, for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding. Suppose that the HARQ process numbers of adjacent TBs of the 4 TBs differ by x (x is, for example, 1, or an integer greater than 1), and DCI0 includes the HARQ process number of the first TB (e.g., TB 0). Based on the above assumption, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the HARQ process number identified as TB0 of at least one TB of the M1 TBs from the higher layer. Based on the second possible scenario, after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the HARQ process number of TB0 from the higher layer of the first communication device, the HARQ process number of TB0 may be determined, and according to the TB0 having an association with the TB1, the TB2, the TB3, and according to the difference x between the HARQ process numbers of adjacent TBs in the 4 TBs, the HARQ process number of TB1, the HARQ process number of TB2, and the HARQ process number of TB3 are determined. For example, x=1, the HARQ process number of tb0 is HARQ process number 3, then the HARQ process number of TB1 is HARQ process number 4, the HARQ process number of tb2 is HARQ process number 5, and the HARQ process number of TB3 is HARQ process number 6.

It is to be understood that both of the above are exemplary illustrations, and embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto. The M TBs have an association relationship, so long as the manner of determining the identifier of the other TB of the M TBs according to one TB of the M TBs is applicable to the embodiment of the present application.

It may also be appreciated that the embodiments of the present application are not limited as to whether the identification of each TB of the M TBs is the same.

It is to be understood that the identification of the TB transmitted by the lower layer of the first communication apparatus to the higher layer of the first communication apparatus may be the same as or different from the identification of the TB transmitted by the higher layer of the first communication apparatus to the lower layer of the first communication apparatus, and this is not limited. Several examples are listed below.

In one example, the lower layer of the first communication device transmits an identification of one of the M1 TBs (for convenience of description, denoted as an identification of tb#1) to the higher layer of the first communication device. In this example, the identification of the TB that the higher layer of the first communication device sends to the lower layer of the first communication device may be the identification of tb#1.

For another example, the lower layer of the first communication device transmits the identification of a plurality of TBs among the M1 TBs (for convenience of description, the identification of tb#1 and the identification of tb#2) to the higher layer of the first communication device. In this example, the identification of the TB transmitted by the higher layer of the first communication device to the lower layer of the first communication device may be the identification of tb#1, or the identification of the TB transmitted by the higher layer of the first communication device to the lower layer of the first communication device may be the identification of tb#2, or the identification of the TB transmitted by the higher layer of the first communication device to the lower layer of the first communication device may be the identification of tb#1 and the identification of tb#2.

Optionally, when the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device determines that the feedback result of the HARQ processes of the M TBs is ACK according to the second information.

In this embodiment of the present application, when the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information and the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device determines the identity (such as the HARQ process number) of the M TBs according to the second information when at least one TB of the M TBs has not been decoded correctly (i.e. when M1 is smaller than M), and further determines that the feedback results of the HARQ processes of the M TBs are all ACKs. Two implementations are described below.

In implementation 1, the second information includes an identifier of at least one TB of the M1 TBs, and the first communication device determines, according to the identifier of the at least one TB of the M1 TBs, that feedback results of HARQ processes of the M TBs are all ACKs.

Based on the implementation manner, the first communication device determines the identifiers of the M TBs according to the identifier of at least one TB of the M1 TBs included in the second information, so that feedback results of HARQ processes of the M TBs (that is, M HARQ processes corresponding to the M TBs) can be determined to be ACKs.

The following description mainly takes an HARQ process number of a TB identified as a TB as an example.

For example, it may be predefined (e.g. predefined by a protocol), if the higher layer indicates the HARQ process number to the lower layer, the feedback result of the HARQ process is defaulted to be ACK, so if the second information includes at least one of the HARQ process numbers of M1 TBs, the lower layer determines that the feedback result of the at least one HARQ process is ACK according to the predefined (e.g. predefined by a protocol). After the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, the feedback result of the HARQ process of the M TBs is determined to be ACK according to the feedback result of the at least one HARQ process being ACK, and the M TBs having an association relationship.

It is assumed that in step 1310, the first communication device receives 4 (i.e., n=4) first control information (e.g., respectively denoted as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, DCI 3), where the 4 first control information is used to indicate 4 (i.e., m=4) TBs (e.g., respectively denoted as TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3), where the 4 TBs have an association relationship, i.e., TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3, for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after network encoding. Assuming that the lower layer of the first communication device correctly decodes DCI0, TB2 and TB3 indicated by DCI2 and DCI3, and TB1 indicated by DCI1 fails the lower layer decoding; the lower layer of the first communication device reports the data of TB0, TB2, TB3 to the higher layer of the first communication device, and when the higher layer of the first communication device can successfully decode the first data block based on the data of TB0, TB2, TB3, the lower layer of the first communication device is sent the second information.

For example, when the lower layer of the first communication device reports the data of TB0, TB2, TB3 to the upper layer of the first communication device, the HARQ process number of TB0, TB2, TB3 is reported at the same time, and when the upper layer of the first communication device sends the second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the second information includes the HARQ process number of TB 0. After the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, it knows that TB0 has an association relationship with TB1, TB2, and TB3 according to the association relationship, so that it can be determined that feedback results of HARQ processes of TB0, TB1, TB2, and TB3 are all ACKs.

For another example, when the lower layer of the first communication device reports the data of TB0, TB2, and TB3 to the upper layer of the first communication device, the HARQ process numbers of TB0, TB2, and TB3 are reported at the same time, and when the upper layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the second information includes the HARQ process numbers of TB0, TB2, and TB3, and after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, the lower layer of the first communication device knows that the data of TB0, TB2, and TB3 has an association relationship with TB1 according to the association relationship, so that the feedback results of the HARQ processes of TB0, TB1, TB2, and TB3 can be determined to be ACK.

For another example, when the lower layer of the first communication device reports the data of TB0, TB2, and TB3 to the upper layer of the first communication device, the HARQ process number of TB0 is reported at the same time, and when the upper layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the second information includes the HARQ process number of TB0, and after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, the lower layer of the first communication device knows that TB0 has an association relationship with TB2, TB3, and TB1, and therefore, it can be determined that the feedback results of the HARQ processes of TB0, TB1, TB2, and TB3 are all ACKs.

In implementation 2, the first communication device determines, according to the preset identifier and the logical channel and/or DRB corresponding to the first data block, that feedback results of HARQ processes of the M TBs are ACK.

Based on the implementation manner, the first communication device determines the identifiers of the M TBs according to the preset identifier and the logical channel and/or DRB corresponding to the first data block, so that the feedback result of the HARQ process of the M TBs can be determined to be ACK.

The preset identifiers comprise M identifiers of the TB. In other words, the identifications of the M TBs are selected from preset identifications. For example, the N first control information is further used to indicate the identifiers of the M TBs, where the identifiers of the M TBs belong to the preset identifier.

The preset identifier is used for indicating a logical channel corresponding to the first data block and/or a (or called available) TB identifier bound by the DRB. The following description will take a preset identifier to represent a TB identifier of a logical channel bonding corresponding to the first data block, and a HARQ process number of the TB identified as the TB as an example.

Logical channel bonded HARQ process numbers represent HARQ process numbers that are available for the logical channel, that is, data for the logical channel is transmitted on the logical channel bonded HARQ process. In the embodiment of the present application, the relationship between the HARQ process number and the first data block may be established by binding the HARQ process number by the logical channel, so that data of the logical channel where the first data block is located is transmitted on the HARQ process bound by the logical channel.

Assume that in step 1310, the first communication device receives 4 (i.e., n=4) first control information (e.g., respectively denoted as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, DCI 3) indicating 4 (i.e., m=4) TBs (e.g., respectively denoted as TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3), where the 4 TBs have an association relationship. Assuming that the lower layer of the first communication device correctly decodes DCI0, DCI2, TB0, TB2, TB3 indicated by DCI3, and TB1 indicated by DCI1 fails to decode at the lower layer, the lower layer reports the data of TB0, TB2, and TB3 to the higher layer, and the higher layer can successfully decode the first data block based on the data of TB0, TB2, and TB3 and send the second information to the lower layer.

For example, the higher layer of the first communication device transmits second information including information #a to the lower layer of the first communication device. After the lower layer of the first communication equipment receives the second information, the lower layer of the first communication equipment acquires that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are subjected to NC decoding according to the information #A; and the first communication equipment sets all HARQ feedback of a preset HARQ process number to be ACK according to the logic channel corresponding to the first data block and the preset HARQ process number, wherein the preset HARQ process number comprises HARQ process numbers of TB0, TB1, TB2 and TB 3.

Optionally, the first communication device acquires information of a preset identifier, where the information of the preset identifier includes: start identifier, end identifier, number of identifiers. In one possible implementation manner, the first communication device receives configuration information of a logical channel corresponding to the first data block, where the configuration information may include one or more of the following information of a preset HARQ process number: start HARQ process number, end HARQ process number, number of HARQ processes.

For example, the admission sps-List parameter is added to LogicalChannelConfig information element configuration information in radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC), which may be specifically:

nrofHARQ-Processes INTEGER(1..16)OPTIONAL,

harq-ProcID-Offset-r19 INTEGER(0..15)OPTIONAL,

wherein nrofHARQ-Processes is used to represent the number of HARQ Processes available for the logical channel, and HARQ-ProcID-Offset-r19 is used to represent the starting HARQ process number available for the logical channel.

For example, when nrofHARQ-Processes is 4 and HARQ-ProcID-Offset-r19 is 5, the HARQ Processes available for the logical channel can be considered as: and 4 continuous HARQ processes starting with the HARQ process number 5, namely the HARQ process number 5, the HARQ process number 6, the HARQ process number 7 and the HARQ process number 8. Assuming that there are a maximum of 16 HARQ Processes (i.e., process numbers 0-15), if nrofHARQ-Processes is 4 and HARQ-ProcID-Offset-r19 is 14, the HARQ Processes available for the logical channel can be considered as: HARQ process number 14, HARQ process number 15, HARQ process number 0, HARQ process number 1, or HARQ processes that may also be considered as available for the logical channel are: HARQ process number 14, HARQ process number 15, HARQ process number 12, HARQ process number 13.

It is to be understood that the foregoing is illustrative and that the embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto.

Optionally, upon successful decoding of the first data block, the method 1300 further comprises: the first communication device stops receiving and/or decoding the TB for transmitting the first data block, and the first communication device stops receiving or monitoring the second control information.

When the first data block is successfully decoded, the acknowledgement information of all HARQ processes corresponding to the M TBs may be replaced with an ACK, or may also be replaced with second information for indicating that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded, or may also be replaced with second information for indicating that the first data block may be successfully decoded.

In this embodiment of the present application, after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, since the first data block may be successfully decoded, the operation related to transmitting the first data block may be stopped, and the operation related to retransmitting the M TBs may also be stopped. The following description will be made by way of example in connection with the two cases, respectively.

In a first possible scenario, the first communication device stops receiving and/or decoding the TB for transmitting the first data block.

For example, the first communication device receives X pieces of third control information from the second communication device, where the X pieces of third control information are used to indicate L TBs, L being a positive integer, and the L TBs and the M TBs have an association relationship. Upon successful decoding of the first data block, if the first communication device has not received the L TBs, the first communication device stops receiving the L TBs; if the first communication device has received the L TB, the first communication device stops decoding the data in the L TB.

Optionally, the first communication device stops (stop) the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs.

Wherein, stopping can be replaced by closing (close), or alternatively by cutting (switch off), or not opening.

In one possible implementation, the first communication device receives first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L TBs. The timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs may be used to indicate one or more of the following: the physical control channel indicates to the MAC entity a new transmitted duration, the duration of the DRX start (the duration at the beginning of a DRX cycle). For example, the first communication device monitors control information during the duration (e.g., the first communication device monitors third control information during the duration), and if the first communication device monitors control information during the duration, the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs. In this embodiment of the present application, considering that the first data block may be successfully decoded, even if the first notification device monitors the control information, the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs may not be started, or may be closed when the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs is already in an on state.

As an example, the timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L TBs include one or more of the following timers: drx-InacitityTimer, drx-ondurationTimer. Wherein, the drx-inastitytimer is used to indicate (or be used for implementing, or be used for controlling) the physical control channel to indicate a new transmitted duration for the MAC entity. The DRX-onduration timer is used to indicate (or to implement, or to control) the duration of the DRX start. For each timer, reference may be made to the previous descriptions in fig. 5 to 8, and the description thereof will not be repeated here.

In a second possible scenario, the first communication device stops receiving or monitoring the second control information.

Wherein the second control information is used to indicate retransmission of at least one TB of the M TBs. For example, M1 is smaller than M, for (M-M1) TBs except for M1 TBs, since the first communication device decodes the (M-M1) TB channels in error, the first communication device receives or monitors (or listens to) retransmission control information (i.e. the second control information) of the (M-M1) TBs in the prior art. According to the embodiment of the application, since the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are subjected to NC decoding, the first communication device can stop receiving or monitoring the second control information; in other words, since the first data block can be successfully decoded, the first communication device may determine that the acknowledgement information of all HARQ processes corresponding to the M TBs is ACK, so the first communication device may stop receiving or stopping monitoring the second control information, and the (M-M1) TBs are no longer required to be retransmitted.

For example, if the second control information is the same as the HARQ process number of the first control information and the new data indication (new data indicator, NDI) is the same, the TB indicated by the second control information is considered to be a retransmission of the TB indicated by the first control information, wherein the second control information is later than the first control information.

Optionally, the first communication device stops timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the M TBs.

In one possible implementation, the first communication device receives second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the M TBs. The timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M TBs may be used to indicate one or more of the following: waiting for a maximum duration of retransmission (the maximum duration until a DL retransmission is received), the MAC entity expects to receive a minimum duration of HARQ retransmission allocation. For example, the first communication device monitors control information indicating retransmissions corresponding to HARQ processes of M transport blocks for the maximum duration (e.g., the first communication device monitors second control information for the duration). In this embodiment of the present application, considering that the first data block may be successfully decoded, even if the first notification device monitors the control information, the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M TBs may not be started, or may be closed when the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M TBs is already in an on state.

As an example, the timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M TBs include one or more of the following timers: drx-retransmission Timer, drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer. For example, if the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the higher layer, the first communication device turns off or stops or does not turn on the drx-retransmission timer. Wherein, drx-retransmission timer is used to indicate (or be used for implementation or be used for control) the maximum duration of waiting for retransmission. The drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is used to indicate (or for implementation, or for control) the minimum duration for which the MAC entity expects to receive HARQ retransmission assignments. For each timer, reference may be made to the previous descriptions in fig. 5 to 8, and the description thereof will not be repeated here.

The above mainly describes two possible scenarios, which are not limiting. For example, when the K sub-blocks are NC decoded and the first data block is successfully decoded, for example, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, and the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, the first communication device may start a timer, for example, a pdschkipping timer. Among them, PDSCHskipping is only one possible naming, and the naming thereof does not limit the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present application. For example, the second information may also be used to indicate that no TB indicated by the third control information needs to be received and/or decoded after the second information is received. As an example, the second information includes a PDSCHskipping field for indicating that it is not necessary to receive and/or decode the information of the TB indicated by the third control information after receiving the second information.

For example, to indicate how many TBs indicated by the third control information need not be received and/or need not be decoded after the second information is received, a PDSCHskipping field may be added to the second information, where the PDSCHskipping field may be in units of the number of third control information (e.g., 0,1, 2). For another example, to indicate that there is no need to receive and/or decode the TB indicated by the third control information after the second information is received, a PDSCHskipping field may be added to the second information, where the PDSCHskipping field may be in units of time (e.g., 10ms,20 ms), or may also be in units of time slots. The pdschsky parameter is illustratively added to DRX-config in RRC as follows.

drx-PDSCHskippingCHOICE{

milliSecondsENUMERATED{ms0,ms1,ms2,ms3,ms4,ms5,ms6,ms7,ms8},

NrofSlotsENUMERATED{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7},

NrofDCIENUMERATED{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7},

}OPTIONAL,

Where msi represents is, i= 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. If the drx-PDSCHskipping is configured, triggering a drx-PDSCHskipping timer after receiving the second information or at the start time of the next adjacent time slot after receiving the second information.

For ease of understanding, the following description will take 4 first control information (e.g., DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, DCI3, respectively) as an example.

It is assumed that in step 1310, the first communication device receives 4 (i.e., n=4) first control information (e.g., respectively denoted as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, DCI 3), where the 4 first control information is used to instruct 4 (i.e., m=4) TBs (e.g., respectively denoted as TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3), the lower layer of the first communication device correctly decodes DCI0, DCI2, TB3 indicated by DCI3, and the lower layer of the first communication device reports the sub-blocks carried in TB0, TB2, TB3 to the upper layer, and the upper layer can successfully decode the first data block based on the sub-blocks carried in TB0, TB2, TB3, i.e., the second information is used to instruct the sub-blocks carried in TB0, TB2, TB3 to successfully decode the first data block after NC decoding. Based on the above assumption, the following description is made in connection with several scenarios, and the description modes under two specific examples are given.

First, an exemplary description is made in connection with several possible scenarios.

In scenario 1, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the higher layer before blind detection of DCI4 or during blind detection of DCI 4. The DCI4 (i.e., the aforementioned third control information) is used to indicate L TBs, where the L TBs have an association relationship with M TBs.

In this scenario, after confirming that L TBs indicated by DCI4 and TBs indicated by DCI0-3 have an association, the lower layer of the first communication device does not receive and/or does not decode L TBs indicated by DCI4 any more, sets the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by DCI4 as ACK, and does not trigger drx-incavitytimer for the DCI4 (or the HARQ process of the TB indicated by DCI 4).

Scene 2, the lower layer of the first communication device receives second information from the higher layer in decoding the TB indicated by DCI 4.

In this scenario, the lower layer of the first communication device may perform one or more of the following operations after confirming that the TB indicated by DCI4 has an association with the TB indicated by DCI 0-3: the decoding process of the TB indicated by the DCI4 is interrupted, the HARQ buffer related to the TB indicated by the DCI4 is cleared, the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by the DCI4 is set as ACK, and the drx-InactivityTimer is not triggered for the DCI4 (or the HARQ process of the TB indicated by the DCI 4).

Scene 3, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the higher layer after decoding the TB indicated by DCI 4.

In this scenario, the lower layer of the first communication device does not trigger drx-incarvitytimer for DCI4 (or the HARQ process of the TB indicated by DCI 4) after confirming that the TB indicated by DCI4 has an association with the TB indicated by DCI 0-3.

Scene 4, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the higher layer during the drx-incavitytimer operation corresponding to the DCI 4.

For example, DCI4 has triggered drx-incarvitytimer, in this scenario, after confirming that the TB indicated by DCI4 has an association relationship with the TB indicated by DCI0-3, the first communication device stops drx-incarvitytimer, and sets the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by DCI4 to ACK.

Scene 5, the lower layer of the first communication device receives second information from the higher layer during drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer operation.

For example, DCI1 has triggered drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer, in which case, after confirming that TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3 have an association, the first communication device may perform one or more of the following: setting HARQ process feedback of the TB1 as ACK, (2) stopping drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer, (3) if the TB decoding indicated by the DCI1 fails, triggering drx-retransmission Timer for the DCI1 (or the HARQ process of the TB 1).

Scenario 6, the lower layer of the first communication device receives DCI4 during the run of the drx-pdschskipiping timer.

After the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, starting a drx-pdschskipiping timer, receiving DCI4 during the operation of the drx-pdschskipiping timer, and after confirming that the TB indicated by DCI4 has an association relationship with the TB indicated by DCI0-3, performing one or more of the following steps: (1) setting HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by the DCI4 to be ACK, (2) not decoding the TB indicated by the DCI4, and (3) not triggering drx-InactivityTimer for the DCI4.

Scene 7, the lower layer of the first communication device receives second information from the higher layer during drx-onduration timer and/or drx-incavitytimer operation.

In this scenario, if the first communication device receives DCI4 and the first communication device confirms that the TB indicated by DCI4 has an association relationship with the TB indicated by DCI0-3, the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by DCI4 is set to ACK for the PDCCH corresponding to DCI4 without triggering drx-incavitytimer.

The above has been described by way of example in connection with several scenarios, and embodiments of the present application are not limited to these. It can be appreciated that in either scenario, the feedback is an ACK for the HARQ processes for TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3, and for the HARQ processes for TBs having an association with TB0, TB1, TB2, TB 3.

The following will still take the assumption above scenario 1 as an example, and the description will be given below in two specific examples.

Example 1

Assuming that the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, the second information is used to indicate that the sub-blocks carried in the TB0, TB2, TB3 successfully decode the first data block after NC decoding. For convenience of description, a TB indicated by the second information hereinafter means a TB associated with the second information, or a TB for transmitting the first data block.

For example, the second information is used to indicate that the sub-blocks carried in the TB0, TB2, TB3 are NC decoded to successfully decode the first data block, where the TB indicated by the second information includes: TB0, TB1, TB2, TB3.

For another example, the second information is used for indicating that the sub-blocks carried in the TBs 0, TB2, and TB3 are successfully decoded after NC decoding, where the second information includes an identifier of at least one TB, the TB indicated by the second information includes a TB corresponding to the identifier of the at least one TB, and a TB having an association relationship with the TB corresponding to the identifier of the at least one TB. Wherein the identification of the at least one TB may include one or more of: identification of TB0, identification of TB2, identification of TB3.

One possible description is as follows:

And a step 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e is executed when the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information. The sequence of steps 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e, etc. is not limited in this embodiment.

Starting a drx-PDSCHskipping timer (or starting a drx-PDSCHskipping timer from the start of the next adjacent slot). If the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the second information arrival time but not later than the time corresponding to the timeout of the drx-pdschskipiping timer, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH will not trigger the drx-inactivity timer, or the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH is not decoded, or the HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH is set to ACK. Or if the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the second information arrival time but not later than the time corresponding to the timeout of the drx-pdschkippiping timer, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH does not trigger drx-inactivity timer, does not decode the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH, and sets HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH as ACK.

And 2b, setting the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by the second information as ACK.

And 2c, if the drx-retransmission timer of the HARQ process of at least one TB indicated by the second information is started, stopping the drx-retransmission timer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB.

And 2d, if the PDSCH is being decoded and the TB corresponding to the PDSCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, executing one or more of 3a,3b and 3c.

Stopping decoding the PDSCH;

3b, stopping the drx-InactivityTimer triggered by the PDCCH corresponding to the PDSCH;

and 3c, setting the HARQ process feedback corresponding to the PDSCH as ACK.

If the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the arrival time of the second information but not later than the time corresponding to the time out of the drx-InactivityTimer or the drx-onduration Timer, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH does not trigger the drx-InactivityTimer, or does not decode the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH, or sets the HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH as ACK. Or if the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the second information arrival time but not later than the time corresponding to the drx-incarvitytimer or drx-onduration timer timeout, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH does not trigger the drx-incarvitytimer, does not decode the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH, and sets the HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH to ACK.

Example 2

Assuming that the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, the second information is used for indicating that the sub-blocks carried in the TBs 0, 2 and 3 are successfully decoded by the NC after being decoded by the NC, and the first communication device receives the HARQ process number of the TB indicated by the second information from the second communication device. Wherein the TB indicated by the second information represents the TB associated with the second information, or the TB used for transmitting the first data block.

For example, the second information is used to indicate that the sub-blocks carried in the TB0, TB2, TB3 are NC decoded to successfully decode the first data block, where the TB indicated by the second information includes: the HARQ process number of the TB indicated by the second information includes: HARQ process number for TB0, HARQ process number for TB1, HARQ process number for TB2, HARQ process number for TB 3.

For another example, the second information is used to indicate that the sub-blocks carried in the TBs 0, TB2, and TB3 are decoded by NC and then successfully decode the first data block, where the second information includes an identifier of at least one TB, the TB indicated by the second information includes a TB corresponding to the identifier of the at least one TB, and a TB having an association relationship with the TB corresponding to the identifier of the at least one TB, and the HARQ process number of the TB indicated by the second information includes: the HARQ process number of the TB corresponding to the identification of the at least one TB and the HARQ process number of the TB having an association relationship with the TB corresponding to the identification of the at least one TB. Wherein the identification of the at least one TB may include one or more of: identification of TB0, identification of TB2, identification of TB 3.

One possible description is as follows:

and a step 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e,2f is executed when the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information. The sequence of steps 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e,2f is not limited in this embodiment.

And 2a, stopping the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer of the HARQ process of at least one TB in the TB indicated by the second information if the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB is started, and not starting the drx-retransmission Timer.

And 2b, stopping the drx-InactivityTimer of the HARQ process of at least one TB if the drx-InactivityTimer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB indicated by the second information is started.

And 2c, setting the HARQ process feedback of the TB indicated by the second information as ACK.

And 2d, if the drx-retransmission timer of the HARQ process of at least one TB in the TB indicated by the second information is started, stopping the drx-retransmission timer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB.

And 2e, if the PDSCH is being decoded and the TB corresponding to the PDSCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, executing one or more of 3a,3b and 3 c.

Stopping decoding the PDSCH;

And 3c, setting the HARQ process feedback corresponding to the PDSCH as ACK.

Another possible description is as follows:

1. after the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e,2f,2g are performed. The sequence of steps 2a,2b,2c,2d,2e,2f,2g, etc. is not limited in this embodiment.

And 2d, if the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer of the HARQ process of at least one TB in the TB indicated by the second information is started, stopping the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB, and not starting the drx-retransmission Timer.

And 2e, stopping the drx-InactivityTimer of the HARQ process of at least one TB if the drx-InactivityTimer of the HARQ process of the at least one TB indicated by the second information is started.

And 2f, if the PDSCH is being decoded and the TB corresponding to the PDSCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, executing one or more of 3a,3b and 3c.

Stopping decoding the PDSCH;

and 3c, setting the HARQ process feedback corresponding to the PDSCH as ACK.

If the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the arrival time of the second information but not later than the time corresponding to the time out of the drx-InactivityTimer or the drx-onduration Timer, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH does not trigger the drx-InactivityTimer, or does not decode the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH, or the HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH is ACK. Or if the time of receiving the PDCCH by the lower layer of the first communication device is later than the second information arrival time but not later than the time corresponding to the drx-incarvitytimer or drx-onduration timer timeout, and the TB scheduled (or indicated) by the PDCCH has an association relationship with the TB indicated by the second information, the PDCCH will not trigger the drx-incarvitytimer, and the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH is not decoded, and the HARQ process feedback of the PDSCH indicated by the PDCCH is ACK.

While the foregoing has been described primarily in terms of successfully decoding a first data block, it will be appreciated that upon unsuccessfully decoding the first data block, the method 1300 optionally further includes: the first communication device starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted TB of the M TBs.

As an example, starting a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of a retransmitted TB of the M TBs includes: and starting a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted TB in the M TB in the next adjacent time unit after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is overtime. In other words, the first communication device starts a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks in a first time unit, where the first time unit is later than a second time unit, and the first time unit is adjacent to the second time unit, and the second time unit indicates a time unit in which drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is overtime. Wherein a time unit (which may also be referred to as a time domain unit) may be one symbol or several symbols, or one or more mini-slots (slots), or one or more subframes (subframes), or one or more milliseconds, etc. The above-mentioned time unit sizes are merely for facilitating understanding of the solution of the present application, and do not limit the protection scope of the embodiments of the present application. Taking a time unit as an example, in the embodiment of the present application, for example, the drx-retransmission Timer of the HARQ process of the TB retransmitted in the M TBs is started in the next adjacent time unit (the starting time, the ending time, or any time in the middle of the next adjacent time unit) after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer times out.

One possible description approach is:

if the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is overtime, and if the data corresponding to the HARQ process number is not decoded correctly, and if the second information is not received, starting the drx-retransmission Timer of the corresponding HARQ process in the next adjacent time unit after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is overtime.

Optionally, the method 1300 further includes: the first communication device transmits fourth information to the second communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device whether to continue transmitting data of the first data block.

In a possible scenario, upon successful decoding of the first data block, the method 1300 further comprises: the first communication device transmits fourth information to the second communication device, the fourth information being used to inform the second communication device to stop transmitting the data of the first data block. In another possible scenario, upon unsuccessful decoding of the first data block, the method 1300 further comprises: the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, wherein the fourth information is used for notifying the second communication device to continue sending the data of the first data block.

Based on the embodiment of the application, under the condition of successfully decoding the first data block, if the second communication device continues to send the data of the first data block, the decoding of the first communication device is not facilitated, and the air interface resource is occupied, so that the waste of the air interface resource is caused. Therefore, in the case of successfully decoding the first data block (for example, the lower layer of the first communication device receives the second information, where the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded), the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, where the fourth information is used to notify that the data of the first data block is stopped to be sent, so that air interface resources are saved.

In the embodiment of the present application, the decoding situation of the first data block may be fed back based on the RLC acknowledged mode (acknowledged mode, AM), as shown in fig. 14, where fig. 14 may be used for RLC of the transmitting side (e.g. the second communication device) and RLC of the receiving side (e.g. the first communication device).

Taking a transmitting end as an example, after network coding of a left link, higher layer data (such as PDCP) can be cached, for example, the data is cached in NCbuffer and is transmitted according to MAC layer resources; when receiving the RLC status report (i.e., the fourth information) from the right link, the routing module may send the RLC status report to an RLC/NC control (control) module for indicating whether to continue transmitting data of the first data block.

Taking a receiving end as an example, the TB is transmitted to an NC decoder side after being subjected to routing shunt; the NC decoder can determine whether the first data block to which the current TB belongs can be decoded (e.g., by an NC packet count (NC packet counting) module) according to the number of K and the network coding content indicated by each TB header; if the first data block can be successfully decoded based on the K sub-blocks (e.g., K is greater than or equal to a preset threshold), the RLC/NC control module can send an NC acknowledgement to the sender; if the first data block cannot be successfully decoded based on the K sub-blocks (e.g., K is smaller than a preset threshold), the transmitting end may store the received TB in the NC buffer.

Optionally, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other first data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block.

For example, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block, and the fourth information is used to notify the second communication device to stop transmitting the data of the first data block. After the second communication device receives the fourth information from the first communication device, the second communication device knows to stop sending the data of the first data block according to the index of the first data block. In a possible scenario, if the fourth information is used to indicate that the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks that are further needed for decoding the first data block is 0, the second communication device determines to stop transmitting sub-blocks of the first data block.

For another example, the fourth information includes information #b for notifying whether to continue transmitting the data of the first data block and an index of the first data block. After the second communication device receives the fourth information from the first communication device, the second communication device knows to stop sending the data of the first data block according to the index of the first data block and the information #B. As an example, the information #b is 1 bit, and the range of values of the information #b is: 0,1. If the value of the information #b is "1", the fourth information may be considered to be used to inform the second communication apparatus to stop transmitting the data of the first data block; if the value of the information #b is "0", the fourth information may be considered to inform the second communication apparatus to continue transmitting the data of the first data block.

For another example, the fourth information includes indication information for indicating whether the fourth information includes information of other first data blocks. After the second communication device receives the fourth information from the first communication device, the second communication device obtains whether the fourth information contains information of other first data blocks according to the indication information. As an example, the indication information is 1 bit, and the value range of the indication information is: 0,1. If the value of the indication information is "1", the fourth information can be considered to contain the information of other first data blocks; if the value of the instruction information is "0", the fourth information may be considered to contain no information of the other first data block.

The above examples are illustrative, and embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto.

As shown in fig. 15, the fourth information may include the following fields as an example: D/C, control PDU Type (CPT), A/N, E, R. It will be appreciated that the number and names of the fields included in the fourth information are exemplary, and are not limited thereto.

Wherein the D/C may be used to indicate whether the information is control information or data information. In the embodiment of the present application, the format shown in fig. 15 is the format of the fourth information, so the D/C may be used to indicate that the fourth information is control information.

Wherein the CPT may be used to indicate a control information type. For example, if the CPT is "000", it indicates that the control information is used for ARQ feedback in RLC-AM mode; if the CPT is "001", the control information indicates the transmission condition of the network coding. In the embodiment of the present application, the format shown in fig. 15 is the format of the fourth information, and thus the CPT takes a value of "001". It will be appreciated that the foregoing is illustrative, and the embodiments of the present application are not limited with respect to the correspondence between the CPT value and the control information type.

Wherein the a/N may be used to indicate whether the data of the first data block needs to continue to be transmitted. For example, each a/N field occupies 1 bit, each a/N has a corresponding first data block number (NC block number), and the a/N field and the first data block number corresponding to the a/N field are used together to indicate whether the first data block corresponding to the first data block number still needs to be continuously transmitted. Where NC block numbers occupy, for example, 4 bits. As shown in fig. 15, the fourth information includes two a/N fields, each a/N corresponds to an NC block number, which indicates a case where the fourth information is used to feed back the two NC blocks, for example, whether the data for feeding back the two NC blocks needs to be continuously transmitted.

Wherein E may be used to indicate whether the fourth information also contains information of other data blocks. For example, as shown in fig. 15, if the E field after the first NC block number is "0", it is considered that no a/N of other data blocks needs to be reported at this time; if the value of the E field after the number of the first NC block is "1", it is considered that the A/N of other data blocks still needs to be reported. It should be understood that the foregoing is illustrative, and the embodiments of the present application are not limited with respect to the correspondence between the value of the E field and the information about whether other data blocks are included.

Wherein R is a reserved field.

Taking the format shown in fig. 15 as an example, after receiving the fourth information, the second communication device may determine whether to continue to transmit the data corresponding to the NC block number according to the NC block number and the corresponding a/N. For example, after receiving the fourth information from the first communication device, if the value of the a/N field corresponding to a certain NC block number is "0", the second communication device may consider to continue to transmit the data corresponding to the NC block number; if the a/N field corresponding to another NC block number has a value of "1", it is considered that it is not necessary to continue transmitting data corresponding to the NC block number.

Optionally, the method 1300 further includes: the higher layer of the first communication device determines a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, wherein the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block except the K sub-blocks; the first communication device transmits fifth information to the second communication device, the fifth information being used to indicate the value Q. In one possible scenario, Q may be (X1-K) assuming that the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required to decode the first data block in total is X1. If Q is 0, this indicates that the transmission of the sub-block of the first data block is stopped.

In the embodiment of the present application, the fourth information and the fifth information may be carried in the same signaling, or may also be carried in different signaling, which is not limited.

For easy understanding, the flow of the data transmission method provided in the embodiment of the present application is described below with reference to fig. 16 by taking the first control information as DCI, the lower layer as the physical layer, the higher layer as the RLC layer, and the HARQ process number of the TB identified as the TB as an example.

Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram of a method 1600 for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application. Method 1600 may include the following steps.

The first communication device 1610 receives N first control information from the second communication device. Accordingly, the second communication device transmits the N pieces of first control information to the first communication device.

Wherein N may be, for example, an integer greater than 2 or equal to 2.

In the embodiment of the present application, assume that in step 1610, n=3, m=3, and the 3 DCIs indicate 1 TB, respectively. For distinction, the 3 DCIs are denoted as DCI0, DCI1, DCI2, where DCI0, DCI1, DCI2 are respectively used to indicate TB0, TB1, TB2, TB0, TB1, TB2 are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the same data block (e.g. denoted as a first data block) after network coding.

In one possible implementation manner, the first communication device determines whether the TBs have an association relationship according to whether the values of the first information in the N first control information are the same. For example, each of DCI0, DCI1, and DCI2 includes first information, and the values of the first information in DCI0, the first information in DCI1, and the first information in DCI2 are the same, e.g., the values of the first information in DCI0, DCI1, and DCI2 are all "01". The first communication device determines that the association relationship exists among the TB0, the TB1 and the TB2 indicated by the DCI0, the DCI1 and the DCI2 according to the fact that the values of the first information in the DCI0, the DCI1 and the DCI2 are the same.

Optionally, the first communication device may also receive other control information, for example, the first communication device may also receive DCI3 from the second communication device, where the DCI3 is used to indicate TB3, and the TB3 is used to transmit other data (e.g. data of other services or one or more sub-blocks of other data blocks after network coding). The first information may be included in the DCI3, and the first communication device may determine whether the association relationship between the TB3 and the TB0, the TB1, and the TB2 is present according to the first information in the DCI 3. For example, the values of the first information in DCI0, DCI1, DCI2 are all "01", and the value of the first information in DCI3 is "00", so that the first communication device determines that the TB3 and the TB0, TB1, and TB2 have no association relationship according to the fact that the values of the first information in DCI0-DCI2 are the same, and the values of the first information in DCI3 and DCI0, DCI1, and DCI2 are different.

The foregoing is illustrative, and for the implementation of the association relationship, reference may be made to the description in 1300, which is not repeated here.

1620, the second communication device transmits M TBs indicated by the N first control information to the first communication device. Accordingly, the first communication device receives the M TBs.

Wherein M may be greater than or equal to N. The first communication device receives M TBs according to the N first control information received in step 1610.

For example, the first communication device receives, from DCI0, TB0 indicated by the DCI0, receives, from DCI1, TB1 indicated by the DCI1, and receives, from DCI2, TB2 indicated by the DCI 2.

1630, the physical layer of the first communication device channel decodes the M TBs.

Assuming that DCI0, TB0 indicated by DCI2, TB2 is correctly decoded in the physical layer channel of the first communication device, and TB1 indicated by DCI1 is incorrectly decoded in the physical layer channel of the first communication device.

1640, the physical layer of the first communication device reports to the RLC layer the sub-blocks transmitted by the TB whose channel decodes correctly from among the M TBs.

In step 1640, the physical layer of the first communication device may report K sub-blocks to the RLC layer, where the K sub-blocks represent sub-blocks transmitted by a TB with correct channel decoding among the M TBs, and K is a positive integer.

For example, the physical layer of the first communication device transmits TB0 and TB2 to the MAC layer of the first communication device because the physical layer of the first communication device transmits TB0 and TB2 indicated by DCI0, DCI2 and TB2 are correctly decoded in the physical layer channel of the first communication device and the physical layer of the first communication device indicates that TB1 is incorrectly decoded in the physical layer channel of the first communication device; the MAC layer of the first communication device demultiplexes the data of TB0 and TB2 onto the corresponding logical channels according to the MAC header file information of TB0 and TB 2. For example, the MAC layer of the first communication device multiplexes the data of TB0 and TB2 onto the logical channel on which the first data block is located.

Optionally, in step 1640, the physical layer of the first communication device reports to the RLC layer the HARQ process number of at least one TB of M1 TBs of the K sub-blocks, where the M1 TBs decode the correct TB for the channel of the M TBs. For example, the MAC layer of the first communication device multiplexes the data in TB0 and TB2, the HARQ process number of TB0, and the HARQ process number of TB2 onto the logical channel on which the first data block is located.

If the first communication device also receives TB3 indicated by DCI3, the physical layer of the first communication device may perform channel decoding on the TB 3. Assuming that the physical layer channel of the TB3 indicated by DCI3 is decoded correctly in the first communication device, if the TB3 is other data than a data block, for example, the MAC layer of the first communication device demultiplexes the data in the TB3 onto the corresponding logical channel; if TB3 is the data of another data block (i.e. one or more sub-blocks used for transmitting the other data block after network coding), the MAC layer of the first communication device reports the data in TB3 and the HARQ process number of TB3 to the logical channel where the other data block is located. The first data block and the other data blocks may be located in the same logic channel, or may be located in different logic channels, without limitation.

1650, the RLC layer of the first communication device sends the second information to the physical layer. Accordingly, the physical layer of the first communication device receives the second information from the RLC layer.

For the second information, reference may be made to the description in method 1300, which is not repeated here.

Assuming that the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, the second information includes the HARQ process number of TB0 and/or the HARQ process number of TB2, and the first communication device determines that the HARQ process feedback of TB0 and/or TB2 is ACK according to the second information. In addition, TB0, TB1, TB2 have an association relationship, so the first communication device determines that HARQ process feedback of TB0, TB1, TB2 is ACK according to the second information and the association relationship. Optionally, for the HARQ process of TB1, after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer times out, the drx-retransmission Timer is not started any more. Or, for the HARQ process of TB1, the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer is stopped or interrupted, and the drx-retransmission Timer is not started any more.

1660, the first communication device transmits fourth information to the second communication device.

Wherein the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device whether to continue transmitting the data of the first data block. For the fourth information, reference may be made to the description in the method 1300, and a detailed description is omitted here.

Optionally, the method 1600 further comprises: the first communication device transmits fifth information to the second communication device, the fifth information being used to indicate the value Q. Regarding the fifth information and the value Q, reference may be made to the previous related description, and the description is omitted here.

It is to be understood that the method 1600 is merely a simple exemplary illustration, and all aspects of the method 1300 may be used in the method 1600, which is not described herein.

It will be appreciated that in some embodiments described above, reference is made to "transmitting," which includes receiving and/or transmitting, unless specifically indicated otherwise. For example, transmitting the signal may include receiving the signal and/or transmitting the signal.

It will also be appreciated that in some of the embodiments described above, network coding is referred to multiple times. In the embodiment of the present application, the network code may be any code having an erasure function. For example, referring to the network coding scheme shown in fig. 9, by performing network coding on a data packet to be transmitted, an additional redundancy packet is generated, and then the receiving end receives the data packet and the additional redundancy packet, and can recover lost data through decoding (or NC decoding) of the network coding.

It will also be appreciated that in some of the embodiments described above, reference is made to the control information indicating TB a number of times, which may also be replaced by a control information scheduling TB. For example, the first communication device may receive M TBs indicated by the first control information based on the first control information, representing that the first communication device may receive M TBs scheduled by the first control information based on the first control information, or representing that the first communication device receives M TBs scheduled (or indicated) by the first control information.

It will be further appreciated that in some of the above embodiments, the second information is mainly used to indicate whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded, which is not limited. Taking the example that the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded, as an example, "the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded," the second information may be replaced with the second information to indicate that the first data block may be decoded, or the second information may be replaced with the second information to indicate that the data of the first data block does not need to be continuously transmitted, and so on.

It will be further appreciated that in some embodiments, reference is made to "K sub-blocks successfully decoded the first data block after NC decoding" for a plurality of times, and as an example, "K sub-blocks successfully decoded the first data block after NC decoding" may be replaced with "K sub-blocks successfully decoded the first data block after NC decoding" or "K sub-blocks can be successfully decoded by the first data block after NC decoding" or "the first data block can be decoded" or the like.

It will be further understood that in the embodiments of the present application, the interaction between the first communication device and the second communication device is mainly exemplified, and the present application is not limited thereto, and the first communication device may be replaced with a receiving end device, and the second communication device may be replaced with a transmitting end device. The receiving end device may be a terminal device or a network device, and the transmitting end device may also be a terminal device or a network device. For example, "first communication device" may be replaced with "terminal device" and "second communication device" may be replaced with "network device".

It will also be appreciated that the examples in fig. 12-16 in the embodiments of the present application are merely for convenience of understanding the embodiments of the present application by those skilled in the art, and are not intended to limit the embodiments of the present application to the specific scenarios illustrated. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the examples of fig. 12-16 that various equivalent modifications or variations may be made, and such modifications or variations are intended to be within the scope of the embodiments of the present application.

It will also be appreciated that some optional features of the various embodiments of the application may, in some circumstances, be independent of other features, or may, in some circumstances, be combined with other features, without limitation.

It is also to be understood that the aspects of the embodiments of the present application may be used in any reasonable combination, and that the explanation or illustration of the terms presented in the embodiments may be referred to or explained in the various embodiments without limitation.

It is further understood that in the foregoing embodiments of the methods and operations implemented by the communication device, the methods and operations may also be implemented by component parts (e.g., chips or circuits) of the communication device.

Corresponding to the methods given by the above method embodiments, the embodiments of the present application also provide corresponding apparatuses, where the apparatuses include corresponding modules for performing the above method embodiments. The module may be software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware. It will be appreciated that the technical features described in the method embodiments described above are equally applicable to the device embodiments described below.

Fig. 17 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1700 includes a transceiver unit 1710. The transceiver unit 1710 may be used to implement a corresponding communication function. The transceiver unit 1710 may also be referred to as a communication interface or a communication unit.

Optionally, the apparatus 1700 further comprises a processing unit 1720. The processing unit 1720 may be configured to perform data processing.

Optionally, the apparatus 1700 further comprises a storage unit, where the storage unit may be used to store instructions and/or data, and the processing unit 1720 may read the instructions and/or data in the storage unit, so that the apparatus implements the actions of the communication device in the foregoing method embodiments.

In one design, the apparatus 1700 may be the first communication device in the foregoing embodiment, or may be a component (e.g., a chip) of the first communication device. The apparatus 1700 may implement steps or procedures corresponding to those performed by the first communication device in the above method embodiment, where the transceiving unit 1710 may be configured to perform transceiving related operations of the first communication device in the above method embodiment, and the processing unit 1720 may be configured to perform processing related operations of the first communication device in the above method embodiment.

In one possible implementation manner, the transceiver 1710 is configured to receive N pieces of first control information, where the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate M transport blocks, and the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the network coding NC, where N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N; the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive M transport blocks based on the N first control information.

Optionally, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, where the one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, and the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

Optionally, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, where N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send K sub-blocks to a higher layer of the first communication device, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transport block with correct channel decoding in the M transport blocks, and K is a positive integer; the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send second information to a lower layer of the first communication device, where the second information is used to indicate whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC-decoded.

Optionally, the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, and the processing unit 1720 is configured to determine, according to the second information, that acknowledgement information of all HARQ processes of the M transport blocks is acknowledgement ACK, if at least one transport block of the M transport blocks is not correctly decoded.

Optionally, the second information is used to indicate that the first data block is successfully decoded, the second information includes an identifier of at least one transport block of M1 transport blocks used for transmitting the K sub-blocks, the M1 transport blocks are transport blocks in which channel decoding is correct in the M transport blocks, and M1 is a positive integer.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to determine the identities of the M transport blocks according to the identities of the at least one transport block and the association relationship.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send third information to a higher layer of the first communication device, where the third information is used to indicate an identification of at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to determine the identities of the M transport blocks according to the preset identity and the logical channels and/or radio data bearers corresponding to the first data block, where the logical channels and/or radio data bearers corresponding to the first data block are used to transmit transport blocks corresponding to the preset identity, and the preset identity includes the identities of the M transport blocks.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to obtain information of a preset identifier, where the information of the preset identifier includes: start identifier, end identifier, number of identifiers.

Alternatively, the identification of a transport block is the HARQ process number of the transport block or the index of the transport block.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to stop receiving and/or stop decoding a transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or stopping receiving or monitoring second control information, wherein the second control information is used for indicating retransmission of at least one transport block in the M transport blocks; the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive X pieces of third control information, where the X pieces of third control information are used to indicate L transport blocks, where X, L is a positive integer, and L is greater than or equal to X; if the L transport blocks and the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, the processing unit 1720 is configured to stop receiving and/or stopping decoding the L transport blocks.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks, where the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used to instruct the physical control channel to indicate a new transmitted duration for the MAC entity, and/or the timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks include drx-inacatityimer; and/or, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is used for indicating the duration of starting discontinuous reception DRX, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks includes DRX-onduration timer.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to stop or close a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive second configuration information, where the second configuration information is used to configure a timer corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks is used to indicate a maximum duration of retransmission corresponding to an HARQ process of M transport blocks, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of M transport blocks includes drx-retransmission timer; and/or, the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks is used for indicating the minimum duration of time for which the MAC entity expects to receive the HARQ retransmission allocation, and/or the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks includes drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to stop or close a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to start a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block of the M transport blocks if the first data block is not successfully decoded.

Optionally, the processing unit 1720 is configured to start a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks in a next adjacent time unit after the drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer times out.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send fourth information to the second communication device, where the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device whether to continue sending the sub-block of the first data block.

Optionally, in case the first data block is successfully decoded, the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device to stop transmitting sub-blocks of the first data block.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send K sub-blocks to a higher layer of the first communication device, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transport block with correct channel decoding in the M transport blocks, and K is a positive integer; a processing unit 1720, configured to determine a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, where the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block other than the K sub-blocks; the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send fifth information to the second communication device, where the fifth information is used to indicate the value Q.

Optionally, the higher layer of the first communication device is a radio link control RLC layer, a packet data convergence protocol PDCP layer, a media access control MAC layer, or an NC layer; and/or the lower layer of the first communication device is a physical PHY layer.

Optionally, N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

The apparatus 1700 may implement steps or flows corresponding to those performed by the first communication device in the method embodiment according to the embodiments of the present application, and the apparatus 1700 may include means for performing the method performed by the first communication device in the embodiment shown in fig. 12 to 16.

In another design, the apparatus 1700 may be the second communication device in the foregoing embodiment, or may be a component (such as a chip) of the second communication device. The apparatus 1700 may implement steps or processes performed by the second communication device in the above method embodiment, where the transceiving unit 1710 may be configured to perform transceiving related operations of the second communication device in the above method embodiment, and the processing unit 1720 may be configured to perform processing related operations of the second communication device in the above method embodiment.

A possible implementation manner, the transceiver 1710 is configured to send N pieces of first control information to the first communications device, where the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate M transport blocks, the N pieces of first control information are used to indicate that the M transport blocks have an association relationship, and the association relationship is used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the network coding NC, where N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N; the transceiver 1710 is further configured to send M transport blocks to the first communication device.

Optionally, one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information include first information, and the first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information is used to indicate that the M transport blocks have an association relationship.

Optionally, each of the N pieces of first control information includes first information, and when values of the N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are the same, the M transport blocks have an association relationship.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive fourth information from the first communication device, where the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device whether to continue sending the sub-block of the first data block.

Optionally, the fourth information includes an index of the first data block and/or indication information, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the fourth information includes information of other data blocks; alternatively, the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block.

Optionally, N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

Optionally, the transceiver 1710 is further configured to receive fifth information from the first communication device, where the fifth information is used to indicate a value Q, where the value Q is a number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block in addition to K sub-blocks, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transport block with correct channel decoding in the M transport blocks, and K is a positive integer.

The apparatus 1700 may implement steps or flows corresponding to those performed by the second communication device in the method embodiment according to the embodiment of the present application, and the apparatus 1700 may include means for performing the method performed by the second communication device in the embodiment shown in fig. 12 to 16.

A more detailed description of the apparatus 1700 may be obtained directly with reference to the related description in the above method embodiments, and will not be repeated here.

It should be understood that the specific process of each unit performing the corresponding steps has been described in detail in the above method embodiments, and is not described herein for brevity.

It should also be appreciated that the apparatus 1700 herein is embodied in the form of functional units. The term "unit" herein may refer to an application specific integrated circuit (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor, etc.) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an alternative example, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the apparatus 1700 may be specifically configured as a communication device (such as a first communication device and also as a second communication device) in the foregoing embodiments, and may be configured to perform each flow and/or step corresponding to the communication device in each foregoing method embodiment, which is not repeated herein.

The apparatus 1700 of each of the above aspects has functionality to implement the corresponding steps performed by the communication device (e.g., the first communication device, and also e.g., the second communication device) in the above method. The functions may be implemented by hardware, or may be implemented by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software comprises one or more modules corresponding to the functions; for example, the transceiver unit may be replaced by a transceiver (e.g., a transmitting unit in the transceiver unit may be replaced by a transmitter, a receiving unit in the transceiver unit may be replaced by a receiver), and other units, such as a processing unit, etc., may be replaced by a processor, to perform the transceiver operations and related processing operations in the various method embodiments, respectively.

The transceiver 1710 may be a transceiver circuit (e.g., may include a receiving circuit and a transmitting circuit), and the processing unit may be a processing circuit.

It should be noted that the apparatus in fig. 17 may be the device in the foregoing embodiment, or may be a chip or a chip system, for example: system on chip (SoC). The receiving and transmitting unit can be an input and output circuit and a communication interface; the processing unit is an integrated processor or microprocessor or integrated circuit on the chip. And are not limited herein.

Fig. 18 is a schematic block diagram of another apparatus for data transmission provided in an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1800 includes a first module 1870 and a second module 1820.

The first module 1870 may be, for example, a lower layer module, such as a physical layer module. The first module 1870 may be configured to perform operations performed by lower layers on the communication device (e.g., the first communication device) side in the above method embodiments.

The second module 1820 may be, for example, a high-level module, which implements NC functions. The first module 1870 and the second module 1820 may be integrated together or may be separately provided. The second module 1820 may be configured to perform operations performed by higher layers on the communication device (e.g., the first communication device) side in the method embodiments described above.

In one possible manner, the first communication device receives M transmission blocks from the second communication device, where the M transmission blocks are used to transmit one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block is subjected to network coding NC, and M is a positive integer; the first module 1870 is configured to send K sub-blocks to the second module 1820, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transport block with correct channel decoding in the M transport blocks, and K is a positive integer; the first module 1870 is further configured to receive second information from the second module 1820, where the second information is used to indicate whether the first data block is successfully decoded after the K sub-blocks are NC decoded. A more detailed description of the apparatus 1800 may be obtained directly with reference to the related description in the above method embodiments, and will not be repeated here.

Fig. 19 is a schematic block diagram of yet another apparatus for data transmission provided by an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1900 comprises a processor 1980, the processor 1980 being coupled to a memory 1920, the memory 1920 for storing computer programs or instructions and/or data, the processor 1980 for executing the computer programs or instructions stored by the memory 1920 or for reading the data stored by the memory 1920 for performing the methods in the method embodiments above.

In some embodiments, processor 1980 is one or more.

In some embodiments, memory 1920 is one or more.

In some embodiments, the memory 1920 is integrated with the processor 1980, or separately provided.

In some embodiments, as shown in fig. 19, the apparatus 1900 further comprises a transceiver 1930, the transceiver 1930 being used for reception and/or transmission of signals. For example, processor 1980 is configured to control transceiver 1930 to receive and/or transmit signals.

Alternatively, the apparatus 1900 may be configured to perform the operations performed by a device (e.g., a first communication device, and a second communication device) in the method embodiments described above.

It should be appreciated that the processors referred to in the embodiments of the present application may be central processing units (central processing unit, CPU), but may also be other general purpose processors, digital signal processors (digital signal processor, DSP), application specific integrated circuits (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), off-the-shelf programmable gate arrays (field programmable gate array, FPGA) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, or the like. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

It should also be understood that the memories mentioned in the embodiments of the present application may be volatile memories and/or nonvolatile memories. The nonvolatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically Erasable EPROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (random access memory, RAM). For example, RAM may be used as an external cache. By way of example, and not limitation, RAM includes the following forms: static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus RAM (DR RAM).

It should be noted that when the processor is a general purpose processor, DSP, ASIC, FPGA or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware components, the memory (storage module) may be integrated into the processor.

It should also be noted that the memory described herein is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

Embodiments of the present application also provide a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer instructions for implementing the method performed by the device (e.g., the first communication device, and also e.g., the second communication device) in the above-described method embodiments.

Embodiments of the present application also provide a computer program product containing instructions that, when executed by a computer, implement the method performed by a device (e.g., a first communication device, and also e.g., a second communication device) in the method embodiments described above.

The explanation and beneficial effects of the related content in any of the above-mentioned devices can refer to the corresponding method embodiments provided above, and are not repeated here.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of the units is merely a logical function division, and there may be additional divisions when actually implemented, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted or not performed. Furthermore, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed with each other may be through some interface, device or unit indirect coupling or communication connection, which may be in electrical, mechanical or other form.

In the above embodiments, it may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When loaded and executed on a computer, produces a flow or function in accordance with embodiments of the present application, in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. For example, the computer may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc. The computer instructions may be stored in or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another, for example, by wired (e.g., coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital Subscriber Line (DSL)), or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that contains an integration of one or more available media. For example, the aforementioned usable media include, but are not limited to, U disk, removable hard disk, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (random access memory, RAM), magnetic disk or optical disk and other various media that can store program code.

The foregoing is merely specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily think about changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and the changes and substitutions are intended to be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of data transmission, the method comprising:

the first communication device receives N pieces of first control information, wherein the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating M transmission blocks, the N pieces of first control information are also used for indicating one or more sub-blocks of the M transmission blocks after the first data blocks pass through a network coding NC, N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N;

the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the position of the substrate comprises,

one or more pieces of first control information in the N pieces of first control information each include first information, and one or more pieces of first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information are used for indicating that the M transport blocks are used for transmitting the one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, where the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that,

each piece of first control information in the N pieces of first control information comprises first information, N pieces of first information included in the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating the M transmission blocks to be used for transmitting the one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the NC, and the values of the N pieces of first information are the same.

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein after the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further comprises:

the lower layer of the first communication device sends K sub-blocks to the upper layer of the first communication device, wherein the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by a transmission block with correct channel decoding in the M transmission blocks, and K is a positive integer;

the higher layer of the first communication device sends second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, where the second information is used to indicate whether the K sub-blocks are decoded successfully by NC decoding.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, the method further comprising:

And under the condition that at least one transport block in the M transport blocks is not correctly decoded in a channel, determining that the response information of all the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes of the M transport blocks is Acknowledgement (ACK) by the lower layer of the first communication equipment according to the second information.

6. The method according to claim 4 or 5, wherein the second information is used to indicate a successful decoding of the first data block,

the second information includes an identification of at least one transport block of M1 transport blocks used for transmitting the K sub-blocks, where the M1 transport blocks are transport blocks with correct channel decoding in the M transport blocks, and M1 is a positive integer.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the method further comprises:

the first communication device determines the identification of the M transport blocks according to the identification of the at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein prior to the higher layer of the first communication device sending the second information to the lower layer of the first communication device, the method further comprises:

the lower layer of the first communication device sends third information to the higher layer of the first communication device, where the third information is used to indicate an identification of the at least one transport block of the M1 transport blocks.

9. The method of claim 4 or 5, wherein the second information is used to indicate successful decoding of the first data block, the method further comprising:

the first communication device determines the identifications of the M transmission blocks according to a preset identification and a logic channel and/or a wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block, wherein the logic channel and/or the wireless data bearer corresponding to the first data block is used for transmitting the transmission block corresponding to the preset identification, and the preset identification comprises the identifications of the M transmission blocks.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

the first communication device obtains information of the preset identifier, where the information of the preset identifier includes: start identifier, end identifier, number of identifiers.

11. The method according to any of claims 6 to 10, characterized in that the identification of the transport block is the HARQ process number of the transport block or the index of the transport block.

12. The method according to any of claims 1 to 11, wherein in case of successful decoding of the first data block, the method further comprises:

the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block; and/or the number of the groups of groups,

The first communication device stops receiving or monitoring second control information indicating retransmission of at least one of the M transport blocks.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein after the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further comprises:

the first communication device receives X pieces of third control information, where the X pieces of third control information are used to indicate L transport blocks, X, L is a positive integer, and L is greater than or equal to X;

the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode a transport block for transmitting the first data block, comprising:

and if the L transmission blocks and the M transmission blocks are used for transmitting one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after passing through the NC, the first communication equipment stops receiving and/or decoding the L transmission blocks.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

the first communication device receives first configuration information, the first configuration information is used for configuring timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the L transport blocks,

The timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks are used for indicating the physical control channel to indicate a new duration for the medium access control MAC entity, and/or the timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transport blocks include drx-incavitytimer;

and/or the number of the groups of groups,

the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks is used to indicate the duration of starting discontinuous reception DRX, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the L transport blocks includes DRX-onDurationTimer.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the first communication device ceasing to receive and/or ceasing to decode the L transport blocks comprises:

and stopping or closing the timers corresponding to the HARQ processes of the L transmission blocks by the first communication equipment.

16. The method according to claim 12, wherein the method further comprises:

the first communication device receives second configuration information, the second configuration information is used for configuring timers corresponding to HARQ processes of the M transmission blocks,

the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks is used for indicating a maximum duration of waiting for retransmission corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks, and/or the timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks includes drx-retransmission timer;

And/or the number of the groups of groups,

the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks is used to indicate the minimum duration of time for which the MAC entity expects to receive HARQ retransmission allocation, and/or the Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the M transport blocks includes drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first communication device ceasing to receive or ceasing to monitor the second control information comprises:

and stopping or closing the timer corresponding to the HARQ processes of the M transmission blocks by the first communication equipment.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises:

and under the condition that the first data block is not successfully decoded, the first communication equipment starts a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the first communication device starting a timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block of the M transport blocks, comprising:

and starting a Timer drx-retransmission Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks by the first communication equipment in a next adjacent time unit after the Timer drx-HARQ-RTT-Timer corresponding to the HARQ process of the retransmitted transport block in the M transport blocks is overtime.

20. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 19, wherein after the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further comprises:

the first communication device sends fourth information to the second communication device, wherein the fourth information is used for notifying the second communication device whether to continue sending the sub-blocks of the first data block.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the fourth information is used to inform the second communication device to stop transmitting sub-blocks of the first data block if the first data block is successfully decoded.

22. The method according to claim 20 or 21, wherein,

the fourth information comprises an index of the first data block and/or indication information, wherein the indication information is used for indicating whether the fourth information contains information of other data blocks or not; or,

the fourth information is used to indicate the number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks required for coding the first data block.

23. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein after the first communication device receives the M transport blocks based on the N first control information, the method further comprises:

the higher layer of the first communication device determines a value Q according to the K sub-blocks and the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block, where the value Q is the number of transmission blocks and/or sub-blocks required for decoding the first data block other than the K sub-blocks;

the first communication device sends fifth information to the second communication device, wherein the fifth information is used for indicating the value Q.

24. The method according to any one of claims 4 to 23, wherein,

the upper layer of the first communication equipment is a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, a media intervention control (MAC) layer or an NC layer; and/or the number of the groups of groups,

the lower layer of the first communication device is a physical PHY layer.

25. The method of any one of claims 1 to 24, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

26. A method of data transmission, the method comprising:

the second communication device sends N pieces of first control information to the first communication device, wherein the N pieces of first control information are used for indicating M transmission blocks, the N pieces of first control information are also used for indicating one or more sub-blocks of the M transmission blocks after the first data block passes through the network coding NC, N, M is a positive integer, and M is greater than or equal to N;

The second communication device sends the M transport blocks to the first communication device.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein one or more of the N pieces of first control information each include first information, one or more of the first information included in the one or more pieces of first control information is used to indicate that the M transport blocks are used to transport the one or more sub-blocks of the first data block after the first data block passes through the NC, wherein the one or more pieces of first information satisfy a preset condition.

28. The method according to claim 26 or 27, wherein,

29. The method according to any one of claims 26 to 28, wherein after the second communication device transmits the M transport blocks to the first communication device, the method further comprises:

The second communication device receives fourth information from the first communication device, wherein the fourth information is used for notifying the second communication device whether to continue to send the sub-blocks of the first data block.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the step of providing the first information comprises,

31. The method according to any one of claims 26 to 29, wherein after the second communication device transmits the M transport blocks to the first communication device, the method further comprises:

the second communication device receives fifth information from the first communication device, where the fifth information is used to indicate a value Q, where the value Q is a number of transport blocks and/or sub-blocks that are required for decoding the first data block in addition to K sub-blocks, where the K sub-blocks are sub-blocks transmitted by transport blocks that are correctly decoded by channels in the M transport blocks, and K is a positive integer.

32. An apparatus for data transmission, comprising means or units for performing the method of any one of claims 1 to 31.

33. An apparatus for data transmission, comprising a processor for executing a computer program or instructions stored in a memory to cause the apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 31.

34. A computer readable storage medium, characterized in that it has stored thereon a computer program or instructions, which when run on a communication device, cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 31.

35. A computer program product, characterized in that the computer program product comprises a computer program or instructions for performing the method of any one of claims 1 to 31.

36. A chip, characterized in that the chip is coupled to a memory for reading and executing program instructions stored in the memory for implementing the method according to any of claims 1 to 31.