CN117099333A - Techniques for Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) indication - Google Patents

Abstract

Various embodiments herein provide techniques for Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table design in a wireless cellular system. The MCS table may be optimized for two multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) layer transmissions, e.g., without MIMO layer adaptation. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Description

Techniques for Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) indication

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The present application claims priority from the following applications: U.S. provisional patent application No. 63/149,529, filed 2/15/2021; U.S. provisional patent application No. 63/155,243 filed on day 1, 3 of 2021.

Technical Field

Various embodiments may relate generally to the field of wireless communications. For example, some embodiments may relate to a modulation and coding scheme (modulation and coding scheme, MCS) indication.

Background

The 5G New Radio (NR) supports dynamic adaptation of transmission parameters to actual link conditions. More specifically, depending on the channel state information (channel state information, CSI), the next generation node B (next generation Node B, gNB) may indicate to the User Equipment (UE) the optimal number of multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) layers and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) for a physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH) or a physical uplink shared channel (physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH) transmission.

Drawings

The embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To aid in this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 illustrates spectral efficiency provided by the modulation and coding scheme tables described herein, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 2 illustrates spectral efficiency associated with the MCS table of table 5, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 3 illustrates spectral efficiency associated with the MCS table of table 6, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 4 illustrates spectral efficiency associated with the MCS table of table 7, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 5 illustrates spectral efficiency associated with the MCS table of table 8, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 6 illustrates spectral efficiency associated with the MCS table of table 9, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 7 illustrates spectral efficiency versus SNR with uniform quantization of the spectral efficiency range, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 8 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 9 schematically illustrates components of a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 10 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

Fig. 11 illustrates a process of a User Equipment (UE) in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 12 illustrates a next generation node B (gNB) procedure in accordance with various embodiments.

Detailed Description

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as the particular architecture, interfaces, techniques, etc., in order to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of the various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art having had the benefit of the present disclosure, that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In some instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For the purposes of this document, the phrases "A or B" and "A/B" mean (A), (B) or (A and B).

Various embodiments herein provide techniques for Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table design assuming only two multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) layer transmissions. In an embodiment, the MCS table may be used for transmission of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) and/or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) using two MIMO layers without MIMO layer adaptation. For example, PDSCH and/or PUSCH may be transmitted below THz or in THz channels where MIMO layer adaptation is not required.

As described above, the 5G New Radio (NR) support dynamically adapting transmission parameters to actual link conditions. More specifically, depending on Channel State Information (CSI), the next generation node B (gNB) may indicate to a User Equipment (UE) an optimal number of MIMO layers for PDSCH or PUSCH transmission and a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS).

The modulation order and the target coding rate are provided to the UE using the MCS index. The MCS index is indicated to the UE by downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI) or radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) (in case of configuration grant transmission) signaling. The MCS index refers to a row in an MCS table configured for the UE using RRC signaling. It contains a set of supported MCS indices and associated modulation orders, quantization code rates, and spectral efficiency. Examples of MCS table 1 (supporting modulation orders up to 64 QAM) and MCS table 2 (supporting modulation orders up to 256 QAM) defined in 3GPP technical standard (Technical Standard, TS) 38.214v16.4.0 ("TS 38.214") are provided below.

Table 5.1.3.1-1: MCS index table 1 of PDSCH

Table 5.1.3.1-2: MCS index table 2 of PDSCH

The number of MIMO layers provides information about the number of spatial data streams that can be transmitted. It may be indicated implicitly (e.g., by a demodulation reference signal (demodulation reference signal, DM-RS) antenna port field) or explicitly.

Based on the indicated MCS and MIMO layer number, the UE determines the transport block size (transport block size, TBS) for PUSCH or PDSCH transmissions based on the four step procedure described in TS 38.214.

It should be noted that for 6G systems operating below THz or in the THz band, the most common propagation condition between transmission (Tx) and reception (Rx) is line-of-sight (LOS) (or LOS-like). In such channels, the mutual interference between the two polarizations is more easily cancelled, so that in most cases the two MIMO layer transmissions are more efficient than a single MIMO layer. Therefore, link adaptation for the number of MIMO layers is not required. The current design of the MCS table is optimized assuming transmission with one or more MIMO layers.

The current MCS table is not optimized assuming only two MIMO layer transmissions are used.

MIMO layer adaptation is not required for PDSCH and PUSCH transmissions due to the specificity of THz or below. Various embodiments herein provide MCS table designs assuming only two MIMO layer transmissions.

In the first embodiment, the MCS tables of the two MIMO layers may be constructed by using the following procedure:

reference MCS table is used for one and two MIMO layers to determine a reference set of spectral efficiency. The reference MCS table may be MCS table 1 or 2 from TS 38.214 (e.g., as shown above).

The supported spectral efficiency of the enhanced MCS table is obtained by summing the two sets of spectral efficiencies.

The first group has the same total (across two MIMO layers) spectral efficiency as the total spectral efficiency of a reference MCS table having two MIMO layers (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 from TS 38.214).

■ The respective spectral efficiencies from the enhanced MCS table are associated with modulation orders that are the same as the modulation orders of the respective MCSs from the reference MCS table.

The second group has the same total (across two MIMO layers) spectral efficiency as the reference MCS table with one MIMO layer (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 from TS 38.214).

■ If the difference from any spectral efficiency from the first set is less than a predetermined threshold, the spectral efficiency is not included in the second set, wherein the threshold may be an absolute value or a relative value.

■ The spectral efficiency of the enhanced MCS table is associated with modulation orders that are the same as the modulation orders of the corresponding MCSs from the reference MCS table.

The first set of spectral efficiencies may correspond to enhanced MCS table rows whose modulation and code rate are reused from some rows of the reference MCS table.

The second set of spectral efficiencies may correspond to new enhanced MCS table rows whose modulation and code rate are selected to reproduce the spectral efficiency (spectral efficiency, SE) of a reference MCS table with an unsupported number of MIMO layers (e.g., rank) 1.

An example of the first embodiment is illustrated in table 1, where the entries from the first group correspond to MCSs with indices 3-5, 7-8, 10-11, 13-18, 20-21, 23-25, 27-37, while the entries from the second group are MCS indices 0-2, 6, 9, 12, 19, 22, 26. I in the first group _MCS MCS indexes from the reference MCS table are provided in brackets of the columns.

Table 1 example of MCS table according to the first embodiment

In a second embodiment, an enhanced MCS table for two MIMO layer transmissions may be constructed using the following procedure:

the spectral efficiency of the enhanced MCS table is obtained by summing the two sets of spectral efficiencies.

The first group has the same total (across two layers) spectral efficiency as the reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) with a single MIMO layer.

The corresponding spectral efficiency from the enhanced MCS table is associated with modulation orders that are the same as the modulation orders of the corresponding MCSs from the reference MCS table.

The second group has the same total (across two layers) spectral efficiency as the reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) with two MIMO layers, and has a spectral efficiency higher than the maximum spectral efficiency from the first group.

The corresponding spectral efficiency from the enhanced MCS table is associated with modulation orders that are the same as the modulation orders of the corresponding MCSs from the reference MCS table.

The first set of spectral efficiencies may correspond to new enhanced MCS table rows whose modulation and code rate are selected to reproduce the spectral efficiency of a reference MCS table having an unsupported number of MIMO layers (e.g., rank 1).

The second set of spectral efficiencies may correspond to enhanced MCS table rows whose modulation and code rate are reused from some rows of the reference MCS table.

An example of the second embodiment is illustrated in table 2, where the entries from the first group are MCS indexes 0-27, and the entries from the second group are MCS indexes 28-37. For MCSs with MCS indexes 28-37, indexes from the reference MCS table are provided in brackets.

Table 2 example of MCS table according to the second embodiment

In a third embodiment, the enhanced MCS table includes all spectral efficiencies supported by the reference MCS table for one and two MIMO layers having the same modulation order. The enhanced MCS table is used for 2MIMO layer transmission.

An example of the total spectral efficiency supported by an MCS table constructed from the reference MCS table using embodiments 1-3 is illustrated at fig. 1 (row 3, row 4). Examples of the total spectral efficiency supported by the reference MCS table are shown for reference (lines 1, 2).

In a fourth embodiment, the enhanced MCS table may also support pi/2BPSK and 256QAM modulation. In particular, the enhanced MCS table with pi/2BPSK modulation may also support spectral efficiency with a QPSK modulation order and an MCS with a coding rate less than a predetermined value (e.g., 1/5). Similarly, MCSs with 256QAM modulation orders may support additional spectral efficiency. The associated spectral efficiency number of the enhanced MCS table may be determined by referring to MCS table 2. An example of an MCS table supporting pi/2BPSK, QSPK, 16QAM, 64QAM, and 256QAM modulations designed according to the fourth embodiment is shown in table 3, wherein in the enhanced MCS table, pi/2BPSK entries have MCS indexes of 0-3 and 256QAM entries have MCS indexes of 40-47. It should be noted that MCSs with pi/BPSK modulation provide the same spectral efficiency as some MCSs with QPSK modulation. In another embodiment, to reduce overhead, the corresponding QPSK entry may be removed to reduce MCS indication overhead.

Table 3 example 1 of MCS table according to fourth embodiment

Another example of the fourth embodiment is illustrated in table 4, supporting pi/2BPSK, QSPK, 16QAM, 64QAM and 256QAM modulations. In the enhanced MCS table, MCS entries supporting pi/2BPSK have MCS indices of 0-3, and 256QAM entries have MCS indices of 42-49.

Table 4 example 2 of MCS table according to fourth embodiment

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In a fifth embodiment, an MCS table for two MIMO layer transmissions may be constructed by selecting a target spectral efficiency and modulation order to provide:

a substantially uniform grid of target SNRs (in dB) corresponding to target BLERs (e.g., 10%) of the respective MCSs when used with a particular channel coding scheme;

maximum and minimum SNR of MCS, which is almost the same as the SNR of MCS in the reference MCS table, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 and/or MCS table 2 defined for the 1 and 2MIMO layers in TS 38.214;

code rate and modulation combination of the corresponding MCS, which may minimize BLER when used with a specific channel coding scheme;

-the number of rows required to keep the DCI MCS field bit width below a predetermined value; and/or

SNR grid step size providing smooth link adaptation capability.

A first example of the fifth embodiment is provided in table 5, where 29 entries are assumed to be available for explicit MCS indication. An additional 3 entries may be used to support 256QAM modulation or implicit MCS indication for adaptive HARQ retransmissions.

Table 5 first example of fifth embodiment

A diagram of an MCS table design with spectral efficiency that provides nearly uniform SNR range quantization is illustrated in fig. 2.

A second example of the fifth embodiment is provided in table 6, in which the modulation orders are QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM, and 256QAM, assuming that 32 entries are available, for quantizing the corresponding spectral efficiency ranges. In another example of this embodiment, certain MCS entries associated with QPSK modulation and a coding rate below a threshold (e.g., a coding rate of 1/5) may be replaced with pi/2BPSK modulation orders that are twice as high as the coding rate. Replacing the QPSK entry with the pi/2BPSK entry may be fixed in the specification or may be configured by higher layers.

Table 6 second example of fifth embodiment

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A diagram of an MCS table design with spectral efficiency that provides nearly uniform SNR range quantization is illustrated in fig. 3.

A third example of the fifth embodiment is provided in table 7, in which it is assumed that 64 entries are available and that the modulation orders of pi/2BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM and 256QAM are used to quantize the respective spectral efficiency ranges. According to a third example, some MCS entries associated with QPSK modulation and coding rates below a threshold (e.g., a coding rate of 1/5) have substantially similar/identical spectral efficiency as MCS entries with pi/2BPSK modulation. Furthermore, the maximum spectral efficiency of some modulations has a similar/identical value as the minimum spectral efficiency of the next modulation order.

Table 7 third example of fifth embodiment

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A diagram of an MCS table design with spectral efficiency that provides nearly uniform SNR range quantization is illustrated in fig. 4.

A fourth example of the fifth embodiment is provided in table 8, in which it is assumed that 64 entries are available and that the modulation orders of pi/2BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM and 256QAM are used to quantize the respective spectral efficiency ranges. The spectrum efficiency range is expanded to a low value (about 4 times lower than the lowest spectrum efficiency supported in the third example of the present embodiment of table 7).

Table 8 fourth example of fifth embodiment

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A diagram of an MCS table design with spectral efficiency that provides nearly uniform SNR range quantization is illustrated in fig. 5.

A fifth example of the fifth embodiment is provided in table 9, in which it is assumed that 64 entries are available and that the modulation orders of pi/2BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM, and 256QAM are used to quantize the corresponding spectral efficiency ranges. This example maintains the spectral efficiency range as in the third example of the present embodiment (table 7) while reducing the quantization step size between subsequent entries.

Table 9 fifth example of fifth embodiment

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A diagram of an MCS table design with spectral efficiency that provides nearly uniform SNR range quantization is illustrated in fig. 6.

In the sixth embodiment, the method adopted in the fifth embodiment is reused. However, instead of a uniform grid of target SNR values (in dB) with a fixed SNR grid step size, a uniform grid of Spectral Efficiency (SE) is used. In other words, unlike the target SNR range, in the sixth embodiment, the SE range is uniformly quantized. This method is schematically illustrated in fig. 7.

System and implementation

Fig. 8-10 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of the disclosed embodiments.

Fig. 8 illustrates a network 800 in accordance with various embodiments. Network 800 may operate in a manner consistent with the 3GPP technical specifications of LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited thereto and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems, and the like.

The network 800 may include a UE 802 that may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 804 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 802 may be communicatively coupled with the RAN 804 over a Uu interface. The UE 802 may be, but is not limited to, a smart phone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment device, in-vehicle entertainment device, dashboard, heads-up display device, in-vehicle diagnostic device, dashboard mobile device, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networking appliance, machine type communication device, M2M or D2D device, ioT device, etc.

In some embodiments, the network 800 may include a plurality of UEs that are directly coupled to each other via a side link interface. The UE may be an M2M/D2D device that communicates using a physical side link channel, such as, but not limited to PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.

In some embodiments, the UE 802 may also communicate with the AP 806 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 806 may manage WLAN connections that may be used to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 804. The connection between the UE 802 and the AP 806 may conform to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where the AP 806 may be wireless fidelityAnd a router. In some embodiments, the UE 802, RAN 804, and AP 806 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation (e.g., LWA/LWIP). cellular-WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 802 being configured by the RAN 804 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

RAN 804 may include one or more access nodes, e.g., AN 808.AN 808 may terminate the air interface protocol for UE 802 by providing AN access plane protocol that includes RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC and L1 protocols. In this way, the AN 808 may enable data/voice connectivity between the CN 820 and the UE 802. In some embodiments, the AN 808 may be implemented in a separate device or as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of, for example, a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool. AN 808 is referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, nodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. AN 808 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing a femtocell, picocell, or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than a macrocell.

In embodiments where the RAN 804 includes multiple ANs, they may be coupled to each other via AN X2 interface (if the RAN 804 is AN LTE RAN) or AN Xn interface (if the RAN 804 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interface (which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments) may allow the AN to communicate information related to handover, data/context transfer, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc.

The ANs of the RAN 804 may each manage one or more cells, groups of cells, component carriers, etc. to provide AN air interface for network access to the UE 802. The UE 802 may be connected with multiple cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 804 at the same time. For example, the UE 802 and RAN 804 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 802 to connect with multiple component carriers, each component carrier corresponding to one Pcell or Scell. In a dual connectivity scenario, the first AN may be a primary node providing AN MCG and the second AN may be a secondary node providing AN SCG. The first/second AN may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-enbs, etc.

RAN 804 may provide the air interface over licensed spectrum or unlicensed spectrum. To operate in unlicensed spectrum, a node may use CA technology based LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms with PCell/Scell. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the node may perform medium/carrier sense operations based on, for example, listen-before-talk (LBT) protocols.

In a V2X scenario, the UE 802 or AN 808 may be or act as AN RSU, which may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity for V2X communications. The RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a fixed (or relatively fixed) UE. An RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU"; an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU"; an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU"; etc. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled with a roadside-located radio frequency circuit that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic flow statistics, media, and applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow. The RSU may provide extremely low latency communications required for high speed events such as collision avoidance, traffic alerts, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communication services. The components of the RSU may be enclosed in a weather-proof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., ethernet) to a traffic flow signal controller or a backhaul network.

In some embodiments, RAN 804 may be an LTE RAN 810 with an eNB, e.g., eNB 812.LTE RAN 810 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; a CP-OFDM waveform for DL and an SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo coding for data and TBCCs for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation by means of PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS; and rely on CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operate in the frequency band below 6 GHz.

In some embodiments, RAN 804 may be an NG-RAN 814 with a gNB, e.g., gNB 816, or an NG-RAN 814 with a NG-eNB, e.g., NG-eNB 818. The gNB 816 may connect with 5G enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 816 may connect with the 5G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The NG-eNB 818 may also connect with the 5G core over the NG interface, but may connect with the UE via the LTE air interface. The gNB 816 and the ng-eNB 818 may be connected to each other through an Xn interface.

In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, one being a NG user plane (NG-U) interface that carries traffic data (e.g., an N3 interface) between the node of NG-RAN 814 and UPF 848, and the other being a NG control plane (NG-C) interface that is a signaling interface (e.g., an N2 interface) between the node of NG-RAN 814 and AMF 844.

NG-RAN 814 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: a variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM for UL and DFT-s-OFDM; polar codes for control, repetition codes, simplex codes, and Reed-Muller codes, and LDPC codes for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS, similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use CRS but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS is used for phase tracking of PDSCH; and the tracking reference signal is used for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operate on an FR1 band including a band below 6GHz or an FR2 band including a band from 24.25GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may comprise an SSB, which is a region of the downlink resource grid comprising PSS/SSS/PBCH.

In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWP for various purposes. For example, BWP may be used for dynamic adaptation of SCS. For example, the UE 802 may be configured with multiple BWP, where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 802, the SCS of the transmission is also changed. Another example of use of BWP relates to power saving. In particular, the UE 802 may be configured with multiple BWPs having different amounts of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission in different traffic load scenarios. BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs may be used for data transmission with small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 802 and in some cases at the gNB 816. BWP comprising a larger number of PRBs may be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.

The RAN 804 is communicatively coupled with a CN 820 that includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to clients/subscribers (e.g., users of the UE 802). The components of the CN 820 may be implemented in one physical node or in a separate physical node. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functionality provided by the network elements of CN 820 onto physical computing/storage resources in servers, switches, and the like. The logical instantiation of the CN 820 may be referred to as a network slice, and the logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 820 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

In some embodiments, CN 820 may be LTE CN 822, which may also be referred to as EPC. LTE CN 822 may include MME 824, SGW 826, SGSN 828, HSS 830, PGW 832, and PCRF 834, which are coupled to each other through interfaces (or "reference points"), as shown. The functions of the elements of the LTE CN 822 may be briefly described as follows.

The MME 824 may implement mobility management functions to track the current location of the UE 802 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handover, gateway selection, authentication, and so forth.

SGW 826 may terminate the RAN-oriented S1 interface and route data packets between the RAN and LTE CN 822. The S-GW 826 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handover and may also provide anchoring for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and some policy enforcement.

SGSN 828 may track the location of UE 802 and perform security functions and access control. Furthermore, SGSN 828 may perform EPC inter-node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW are selected as specified by MME 824; selecting an MME for handover; etc. The S3 reference point between MME 824 and SGSN 828 may be an inter-3 GPP access network mobility-enabled user and bearer information exchange in an idle/active state.

HSS 830 may include a database for network users including subscription related information to support the handling of communication sessions by network entities. HSS 830 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location compliance, and so on. The S6a reference point between HSS 830 and MME 824 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data to authenticate/authorize user access to LTE CN 820.

PGW 832 may terminate an SGi interface towards a Data Network (DN) 836, which may include application/content servers 838.PGW 832 may route data packets between LTE CN 822 and data network 836. PGW 832 may be coupled to SGW 826 by an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. PGW 832 may also include nodes (e.g., PCEFs) for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Furthermore, the SGi reference point between PGW 832 and data network 836 may be an operator external public, private PDN or intra-operator packet data network, e.g. for provisioning of IMS services. PGW 832 may be coupled with PCRF 834 via a Gx reference point.

PCRF 834 is a policy and charging control element of LTE CN 822. PCRF 834 may be communicatively coupled with application/content server 838 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. PCRF 832 may provision the associated rules into a PCEF with the appropriate TFTs and QCIs (via Gx reference points).

In some embodiments, CN 820 may be 5gc 840. The 5gc 840 may include AUSF 842, AMF 844, SMF 846, UPF 848, NSSF 850, NEF 852, NRF 854, PCF 856, UDM 858, and AF 860 coupled to each other through interfaces (or "reference points"), as shown. The function of the elements of the 5gc 840 may be briefly described as follows.

The AUSF 842 may store data for authentication of the UE 802 and handle authentication related functions. The AUSF 842 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5gc 840 through reference points as shown, the AUSF 842 may also present an interface based on the Nausf service.

The AMF 844 may allow other functions of the 5gc 840 to communicate with the UE 802 and RAN 804, and subscribe to notifications regarding mobility events for the UE 802. The AMF 844 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., for registering the UE 802), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 844 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 802 and the SMF 846 and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF 844 may also provide transport for SMS messages between the UE 802 and the SMSF. The AMF 844 may interact with the AUSF 842 and the UE 802 to perform various security anchoring and context management functions. Furthermore, the AMF 844 may be an end point of the RAN CP interface, which may include or may be an N2 reference point between the RAN 804 and the AMF 844; and the AMF 844 may be a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling and perform NAS encryption and integrity protection. AMF 844 may also support NAS signaling with UE 802 over the N3 IWF interface.

The SMF 846 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 848 and AN 808); UE IP address assignment and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of the UP function; configuring traffic manipulation at UPF 848 to route traffic to an appropriate destination; terminating the interface facing the strategy control function; policy enforcement, charging, and QoS control; lawful interception (for SM events and interfaces to LI systems); terminating the SM portion of the NAS message; downlink data notification; AN specific SM information sent to AN 808 via AN AMF 844 over N2 is initiated; and determining the SSC mode of the session. SM may refer to the management of PDU sessions, while PDU sessions or "sessions" may refer to PDU connectivity services that provide or enable the exchange of PDUs between UE 802 and data network 836.

UPF 848 may serve as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point for interconnection to data network 836, and a branching point to support multi-homing PDU sessions. UPF 848 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform policy rules user plane part, lawful interception packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport layer packet tagging in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 848 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to the data network.

NSSF 850 may select a set of network slice instances for serving UE 802. NSSF 850 may also determine allowed NSSAIs and mappings to subscribed S-NSSAIs, if desired. NSSF 850 may also determine the set of AMFs, or list of candidate AMFs, to be used to serve UE 802 based on the appropriate configuration and possibly by querying NRF 854. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 802 may be triggered by AMF 844 with which UE 802 registers by interacting with NSSF 850, which may result in a change in AMF. NSSF 850 may interact with AMF 844 via the N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in the visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). In addition, NSSF 850 may expose an interface based on the Nnssf service.

The NEF 852 may securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal exposure/re-exposure, AF (e.g., AF 860), edge computing or fog computing systems, and so forth. In such embodiments, NEF 852 can authenticate, authorize or throttle AF. NEF 852 can also translate information exchanged with AF 860 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 852 may translate between an AF service identifier and internal 5GC information. The NEF 852 can also receive information from other NF based on the exposed capabilities of the other NF. This information may be stored as structured data at NEF 852 or at data store NF using a standardized interface. The stored information may then be re-exposed by NEF 852 to other NF and AF, or used for other purposes, such as parsing. Furthermore, NEF 852 may expose an interface based on Nnef services.

NRF 854 may support a service discovery function, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 854 also maintains information of available NF instances and services supported by it. As used herein, the term "instantiation" and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Further, NRF 854 may present an interface based on Nnrf services.

PCF 856 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them and may also support a unified policy framework to constrain network behavior. PCF 856 may also implement a front end to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of UDM 858. In addition to communicating with functions through reference points as shown, PCF 856 may also present an interface based on the Npcf service.

The UDM 858 may handle subscription related information to support handling of communication sessions by network entities and may store subscription data for the UE 802. Subscription data may be communicated, for example, via an N8 reference point between UDM 858 and AMF 844. The UDM 858 may include two parts, an application front-end and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for UDM 858 and PCF 856, and/or store structured data and application data for NEF 852 (including PFD for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 802) for exposure. The Nudr service-based interface may be exposed by UDR 221 to allow UDM 858, PCF 856, and NEF 852 to access a particular set of stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of related data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE that is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, and so forth. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs through reference points as shown, the UDM 858 may also present an interface based on Nudm services.

AF 860 may provide application impact on traffic routing, provide access to the NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

In some embodiments, the 5gc 840 may enable edge computation by selecting an operator/third party service to be geographically close to the point where the UE 802 attaches to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide an edge computing implementation, the 5gc 840 may select a UPF 848 near the UE 802 and perform traffic manipulation from the UPF 848 to the data network 836 via the N6 interface. This may be based on UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by AF 860. Thus, AF 860 may affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on the operator deployment, the network operator may allow the AF 860 to interact directly with the associated NF when the AF 860 is considered a trusted entity. Further, AF 860 may present an interface based on Naf services.

The data network 836 may represent various network operator services, internet access, or third party services, which may be provided by one or more servers, including, for example, application/content servers 838.

Fig. 9 schematically illustrates a wireless network 900 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 900 may include a UE 902 in wireless communication with AN 904. The UE 902 and the AN 904 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, similarly-named components described elsewhere herein.

The UE 902 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 904 via a connection 906. Connection 906 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and may conform to a cellular communication protocol, such as the LTE protocol or the 5G NR protocol operating at frequencies below mmWave or 6 GHz.

The UE 902 may include a host platform 908 coupled to a modem platform 910. Host platform 908 may include application processing circuitry 912, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 914 of modem platform 910. The application processing circuitry 912 may run various applications that source/sink application data for the UE 902. The application processing circuitry 912 may further implement one or more layer operations to send and receive application data to and from the data network. These layer operations may include transport (e.g., UDP) and internet (e.g., IP) operations.

Protocol processing circuit 914 may implement one or more layers of operations to facilitate sending or receiving data over connection 906. Layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuit 914 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

Modem platform 910 may also include digital baseband circuitry 916, which may implement one or more layer operations in the network protocol stack that are "lower" than the layer operations performed by protocol processing circuitry 914. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations, including one or more of the following: HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/demapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding (which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency, or space coding), reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

Modem platform 910 may also include transmit circuitry 918, receive circuitry 920, radio frequency circuitry 922, and Radio Frequency Front End (RFFE) 924, which may include or be connected to one or more antenna panels 926. Briefly, transmit circuit 918 may include a digital-to-analog converter, a mixer, an Intermediate Frequency (IF) component, and so on; the receive circuitry 920 may include digital-to-analog converters, mixers, intermediate Frequency (IF) components, and the like; the radio frequency circuitry 922 may include low noise amplifiers, power tracking components, and so forth; RFFE 924 may include filters (e.g., surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beam forming components (e.g., phased array antenna components), and so forth. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 918, receive circuitry 920, radio frequency circuitry 922, RFFE 924, and antenna panel 926 (commonly referred to as the "transmit/receive component") may depend on the specifics of the particular implementation, e.g., whether the communication is TDM or FDM, frequencies below mmWave or 6gHz, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be arranged in the same or different chips/modules, and so on.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuit 914 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

UE reception may be established by and via antenna panel 926, RFFE 924, RF circuitry 922, receive circuitry 920, digital baseband circuitry 916, and protocol processing circuitry 914. In some embodiments, the antenna panel 926 may receive transmissions from the AN 904 through receive beamformed signals received by multiple antennas/antenna elements of one or more antenna panels 926.

UE transmissions may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 914, digital baseband circuitry 916, transmit circuitry 918, RF circuitry 922, RFFE 924, and antenna panel 926. In some embodiments, the transmit component of the UE 904 may apply spatial filters to data to be transmitted to form transmit beams that are transmitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panel 926.

Similar to the UE 902, the AN 904 may include a host platform 928 coupled to a modem platform 930. Host platform 928 may include application processing circuitry 932 coupled to protocol processing circuitry 934 of modem platform 930. The modem platform may also include digital baseband circuitry 936, transmit circuitry 938, receive circuitry 940, RF circuitry 942, RFFE circuitry 944, and an antenna panel 946. The components of the AN 904 may be similar to similarly named components of the UE 902 and are substantially interchangeable. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of AN 908 may perform various logic functions including, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

Fig. 10 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some example embodiments. In particular, FIG. 10 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1000, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1010, one or more memory/storage devices 1020, and one or more communication resources 1030, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1040 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments that utilize node virtualization (e.g., NFV), hypervisor (hypervisor) 1002 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize hardware resources 1000.

The processor 1010 may include, for example, a processor 1012 and a processor 1014. The processor 1010 may be, for example, a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (reduced instruction set computing, RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (complex instruction set computing, CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (graphics processing unit, GPU), DSP, ASIC, FPGA such as a baseband processor, a radio-frequency integrated circuit (radio-frequency integrated circuit, RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination of these.

Memory/storage 1020 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination of these. Memory/storage 1020 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (dynamic random access memory, DRAM), static random access memory (static random access memory, SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory), flash memory, solid state storage, and the like.

The communication resources 1030 may include an interconnection or network interface controller, component, or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1004 or one or more databases 1006 or other network elements via the network 1008. For example, the communication resources 1030 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components, NFC components, and so forth,(or low energy consumption->) Assembly (S)>Components, and other communication components.

The instructions 1050 may include software, programs, applications, applets, apps, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 1010 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 1050 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 1010 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), within the memory/storage 1020, or any suitable combination of these. Further, any portion of instructions 1050 may be transferred from any combination of peripherals 1004 or databases 1006 to hardware resource 1000. Accordingly, the memory of the processor 1010, the memory/storage device 1020, the peripherals 1004, and the database 1006 are examples of computer readable and machine readable media.

Example procedure

In some embodiments, the electronic device(s), network(s), system(s), chip(s) or component(s) or portions or implementations of fig. 8-10 or some other figures herein may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques or methods as described herein or portions thereof. One such process 1100 is depicted in fig. 11. In some embodiments, the process 1100 may be performed by a UE or a portion thereof. At 1102, process 1100 can include receiving a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) index. At 1104, process 1100 may further include determining a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency of the transmission based on an entry in an MCS table corresponding to the MCS index, wherein the MCS table is for a fixed number of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) layers without MIMO layer adaptation. For example, the fixed number may be 2 or other suitable number of MIMO layers. At 1106, the process may further include sending or receiving a transmission based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

Fig. 12 illustrates another process 1200 in accordance with various embodiments. Process 1200 may be performed by a gNB or a portion thereof. At 1202, process 1200 can include determining an entry in a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table for a transmission having a fixed number of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers without MIMO layer adaptation, wherein the entry includes an MCS index, a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency. For example, the fixed number may be 2 or other suitable number of MIMO layers. At 1204, process 1200 may further include transmitting an MCS index to a User Equipment (UE). At 1206, process 1200 may further include sending or receiving a transmission based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components recited in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, procedures, and/or methods recited in the following example section. For example, the baseband circuitry described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more examples set forth below. As another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc., described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures, can be configured to operate in accordance with one or more examples recited below in the examples section.

Example

Example A1 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRMs) having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a User Equipment (UE) to: receiving a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) index; determining a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency of the transmission based on an entry in a MCS table corresponding to the MCS index, wherein the MCS table is adapted for a fixed number of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) layers without the need for the MIMO layers; and transmitting or receiving the transmission based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

Example A2 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example A1, wherein the MCS table includes a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein there is at least one entry for which the respective modulation order is each of: pi/2 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), 64QAM, and 256QAM.

Example A3 may include one or more NTCRMs of example A2, wherein there are 64 entries in the MCS table.

Example A4 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example A1, wherein the MCS table includes a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to provide: when used with a particular channel coding scheme, a substantially uniform grid of target signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) corresponding to target block error rates (BLERs) of the respective MCSs, or a substantially uniform grid of spectral efficiency of the respective MCSs; a combination of code rate and modulation order for the respective spectral efficiency, which combination minimizes BLER when used with a particular channel coding scheme; and maintaining the bit width of the MCS field in the downlink control information at or below the number of entries required for the predetermined value.

Example A5 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example A4, wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide maximum and minimum SNRs corresponding to a target BLER for an MCS such that an absolute value of a decibel difference between the two is less than a uniform SNR grid step provided by the MCS table: the maximum or minimum SNR in the MCS table corresponding to the target BLER, and the respective maximum or minimum SNR in the reference MCS table corresponding to the target BLER.

Example A6 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example A5, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined for a1 or 2MIMO layer in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

Example A7 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example A3, wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide SNR grid steps below a threshold.

Example A8 may include one or more NTCRMs of any of examples A1-A7, wherein the MCS table is:

/>

wherein I is _MCS Is the MCS index, Q _m Is the modulation order, R is the code rate, and per-layer Spectral Efficiency (SE) is the spectral efficiency per MIMO layer.

Example A9 may include one or more NTCRMs of any one of examples A1-A7, wherein the fixed number is 2.

Example a10 may include an apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: a memory to store Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) tables for two multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers, wherein the MCS tables include: a first set of entries having the same total spectral efficiency and associated modulation order as corresponding entries of a reference MCS table having two MIMO layers; and a second set of entries having the same total spectral efficiency and associated modulation order as corresponding entries of the reference MCS table having one MIMO layer. The device may also include a processor circuit coupled with the memory, the processor circuit: receiving an MCS index; determining a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) based on the MCS index and the MCS table; and encoding the PUSCH for transmission or decoding the PDSCH based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

Example a11 may include the apparatus of example a10, wherein an entry of the reference MCS table having one MIMO layer is not included in the second set if a difference between a spectral efficiency of the entry and any entry from the first set of entries is less than a predetermined threshold.

Example a12 may include the apparatus of example a11, wherein the threshold is an absolute value or a relative value.

Example a13 may include the apparatus of example a10, wherein the second set of entries have respective modulation orders and code rates to reproduce a corresponding spectral efficiency of the reference MCS table with one MIMO layer.

Example a14 may include the apparatus of example a10, wherein the PDSCH or PUSCH is transmitted without MIMO layer adaptation.

Example a15 may include the apparatus of any of examples a 10-a 14, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

Example a16 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRMs) having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a next generation node B (gNB) to: determining entries in a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table for a transmission having a fixed number of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers without MIMO layer adaptation, wherein the entries include an MCS index, a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency; transmitting the MCS index to a User Equipment (UE); and transmitting or receiving the transmission based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

Example a17 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example a16, wherein the MCS table includes a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein there is at least one entry for which the respective modulation order is each of: pi/2 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), 64QAM, and 256QAM.

Example a18 may include one or more NTCRMs of example a17, wherein there are 64 entries in the MCS table.

Example a19 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example a16, wherein the MCS table includes a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to provide: when used with a particular channel coding scheme, a substantially uniform grid of target signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) corresponding to target block error rates (BLERs) of the respective MCSs, or a substantially uniform grid of spectral efficiency of the respective MCSs; a combination of code rate and modulation order for the corresponding spectral efficiency that, when used with a particular channel coding scheme, minimizes BLER; and maintaining the bit width of the MCS field in the downlink control information at or below the number of entries required for the predetermined value.

Example a20 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example a19, wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide maximum and minimum SNRs corresponding to a target BLER for an MCS such that an absolute value of a decibel difference between the two is less than a uniform SNR grid step size provided by the MCS table: the maximum or minimum SNR in the MCS table corresponding to the target BLER, and the respective maximum or minimum SNR in the reference MCS table corresponding to the target BLER.

Example a21 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example a20, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined for a1 or 2MIMO layer in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

Example a22 may include the one or more NTCRMs of example a19, wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide SNR grid steps below a threshold.

Example a23 may include one or more NTCRMs of any of examples a 16-a 22, wherein the MCS table is:

wherein I is _MCS Is the MCS index, Q _m Is the modulation order, R is the code rate, and per-layer Spectral Efficiency (SE) is the spectral efficiency per MIMO layer.

Example a24 may include one or more NTCRMs of any one of examples a 16-a 22, wherein the fixed number is 2.

Example B1 may include a method of enhanced MCS table construction, wherein the method comprises

Determining a reference set of spectral efficiencies supported by a reference MCS table having one or more MIMO layers; and is also provided with

A new MCS table is defined that supports a real prime number of reference spectral efficiencies at a fixed number of MIMO layers, wherein some of the reference spectral efficiencies may be approximated by similar values from the enhanced MCS table.

Example B2 may include the method of example B1 or some other example herein, wherein the plurality of MIMO layers corresponds to two MIMO layers.

Example B3 may include the method of example B1 or some other example herein, wherein the fixed number of MIMO layers corresponds to two MIMO layers.

Example B4 may include the method of example B1 or some other example herein, wherein the supported spectral efficiency of the enhanced MCS table is obtained by summing two sets of spectral efficiencies.

Example B5 may include the method of example B4 or some other example herein, wherein the first group has the same total (e.g., across two MIMO layers) spectral efficiency as a reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) having two MIMO layers, and the second group has the same total (e.g., across two MIMO layers) spectral efficiency as a reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) having one MIMO layer, wherein if the difference from any spectral efficiency from the first group is less than a predetermined threshold, the spectral efficiency is not included in the second group, wherein the threshold may be an absolute value or a relative value.

Example B6 may include the method of example B4 or some other example herein, wherein the first group has the same total (e.g., across two layers) spectral efficiency as a reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) having a single MIMO layer, and the second group has the same total (e.g., across two layers) spectral efficiency as a reference MCS table (e.g., MCS table 1 or MCS table 2) having two MIMO layers, and has a spectral efficiency that is higher than a maximum spectral efficiency from the first group.

Example B7 may include the method of example B5 or B6 or some other example herein, wherein the respective spectral efficiencies from the enhanced MCS table are associated with the following modulation orders: these modulation orders are the same as the corresponding MCSs from the reference MCS table.

Example B8 may include the method of example B1 or some other example herein, wherein the enhanced MCS table includes all spectral efficiencies supported by the reference MCS table for one and two MIMO layers having a same modulation order.

Example B9 may include the method of example B1 or B4 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table further includes an MCS with pi/2BPSK modulation having the same spectral efficiency and coding rate below a predetermined value as the MCS entry with QPSK modulation.

Example B10 may include the system and method as described in example B9 or some other example herein, wherein the predetermined value of the code rate is 1/5.

Example B11 may include a method of enhanced MCS table construction, wherein the method comprises:

for transmission of a fixed number of MIMO layers with a fixed BLER (block error rate) corresponding to the respective MCS, selecting a target spectral efficiency and modulation order that provides a substantially uniform grid of target SNRs (signal-to-noise ratios);

selecting target minimum and maximum spectral efficiency supported by the MCS table; and is also provided with

An SNR step size of a uniform grid of target SNRs is selected.

Example B12 may include a method of enhanced MCS table construction, wherein the method comprises:

selecting a target spectral efficiency and modulation order that provide a substantially uniform grid of spectral efficiencies for transmission with a fixed number of MIMO layers;

selecting target minimum and maximum spectral efficiency supported by the MCS table; and is also provided with

A spectral efficiency step size of a uniform spectral efficiency grid is selected.

Example B13 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the BLER of the corresponding MCS is measured using an LDPC channel coding scheme.

Example B14 may include the method of example B11 or B12 or some other example herein, wherein the minimum and maximum spectral efficiency is selected to be approximately the same as the minimum and maximum spectral efficiency of a reference MCS table, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 and/or MCS table 2 defined for 1 and 2MIMO layers in TS 38.214.

Example B15 may include the method of example B11 or B12 or some other example herein, wherein the minimum and maximum spectral efficiency is selected such that the target maximum and minimum SNR supported by the MCS table is approximately the same as the maximum and minimum SNR of a reference MCS table, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 and/or MCS table 2 defined for 1 and 2MIMO layers in TS 38.214.

Example B16 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the SNR grid step size is selected to achieve a predetermined DCI MCS field bit width.

Example B17 may include the method of example B12 or some other example herein, wherein the SE trellis step size is selected to achieve a predetermined DCI MCS field bit width.

Example B18 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table is according to table 5.

Example B19 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table is according to table 6.

Example B20 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table is according to table 7.

Example B21 may include the method of example B11 or B12 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS entries supporting pi/2BPSK provide similar or identical spectral efficiency as the subset of MCS entries supporting QPSK modulation.

Example B22 may include the method as described in example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table is according to table 8.

Example B23 may include the method of example B11 or some other example herein, wherein the MCS table is according to table 9.

Example B24 may include the systems and methods as described in example B11 or B12 or some other examples herein, wherein MCS entries supporting pi/2BPSK provide similar or identical spectral efficiency as a subset of MCS entries supporting QPSK modulation.

Example B25 may include a method comprising:

determining one or more parameters for transmission of the signal based on one or more of the MCS tables herein; and is also provided with

The signal is encoded or decoded based on the determined one or more parameters.

Example B26 may include the method of example B25 or some other example herein, wherein the one or more parameters are determined based on an MCS index.

Example B27 may include the method of examples B25-B26 or some other example herein, wherein the one or more parameters include a transport block size, a number of layers, and/or a spectral efficiency.

Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the methods described in or associated with any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, when executed by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of the methods described in or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27 or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z03 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of the methods described in or associated with any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described in any of examples A1-A24, B1-B27 or related to any of examples A1-A24, B1-B27, or portions thereof.

Example Z05 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, technique, or process as described in any one of examples 1-25 or in connection with any one of examples 1-25, or some portion thereof.

Example Z06 may include signals as described in any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27 or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or portions thereof.

Example Z07 may include a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol Data Unit (PDU), or message, or some portion thereof, as described in any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27 or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or other described datagrams, packets, frames, fragments, protocol Data Units (PDUs), or messages in this disclosure.

Example Z08 may include a signal encoded with data as described in any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27 or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or portions thereof, or other described data in this disclosure.

Example Z09 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol Data Unit (PDU), or message, or some portion thereof, as described in any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27 or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or other described datagrams, packets, frames, fragments, protocol Data Units (PDUs), or messages in this disclosure.

Example Z10 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or portions thereof.

Example Z11 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples A1-a24, B1-B27, or portions thereof.

Example Z12 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z13 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z14 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

Example Z15 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Any of the above examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples) unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Abbreviations (abbreviations)

Unless used differently herein, terms, definitions, and abbreviations may be consistent with terms, definitions, and abbreviations defined in 3GPP TR 21.905v16.0.0 (2019-06). For purposes of this document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

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Terminology

For purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

The term "circuitry" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes, hardware components such as the following configured to provide the described functionality: electronic circuitry, logic circuitry, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an application specific integrated circuit (Application Specific Integrated Circuit, ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., field-programmable gate array, FPGA), a programmable logic device (programmable logic device, PLD), a Complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (hcpll), a structured ASIC, or programmable SoC), a digital signal processor (digital signal processor, DSP), and so forth. In some embodiments, circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functions. The term "circuitry" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or circuitry for use in an electrical or electronic system) and program code for performing the functions of the program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuit.

The term "processor circuit" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes the following circuitry: the circuitry is capable of sequentially and automatically performing a sequence of operations or logic operations, or recording, storing, and/or transmitting digital data. The processing circuitry may include one or more processing cores to execute instructions and one or more memory structures to store program and data information. The term "processor circuit" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical Central Processing Unit (CPU), a single core processor, a dual core processor, a tri-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer executable instructions such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. The processing circuitry may include further hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer Vision (CV) and/or Deep Learning (DL) accelerators. The terms "application circuitry" and/or "baseband circuitry" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuitry" and may be referred to as "processor circuitry".

The term "interface circuit" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes a circuit that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I/O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, and so forth.

The term "user equipment" or "UE" as used herein refers to a device that has radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous with, and may be referred to as, the following terms: a client, mobile phone, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. In addition, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

The term "network element" as used herein refers to a physical or virtualized device and/or infrastructure for providing wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous with and/or referred to by the following terms: networked computers, networking hardware, network devices, network nodes, routers, switches, hubs, bridges, radio network controllers, RAN devices, RAN nodes, gateways, servers, virtualized VNFs, NFVI, and so forth.

The term "computer system" as used herein refers to any type of interconnected electronic device, computer device, or component thereof. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to each other. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to a plurality of computer devices and/or a plurality of computing systems communicatively coupled to each other and configured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The terms "appliance," "computer appliance," and the like, as used herein, refer to a computer device or computer system having program code (e.g., software or firmware) specifically designed to provide a particular computing resource. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or is otherwise dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

The term "resource" as used herein refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, a processor/CPU time, a processor/CPU usage, a processor and accelerator load, a hardware time or usage, a power supply, an input/output operation, a port or network socket, a channel/link allocation, a throughput, a memory usage, a storage, a network, a database and application, a workload unit, and the like. "hardware resources" may refer to computing, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware element(s). "virtualized resources" may refer to computing, storage, and/or network resources provided by a virtualization infrastructure to applications, devices, systems, and the like. The term "network resource" or "communication resource" may refer to a resource that is accessible by a computer device/system via a communication network. The term "system resource" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service and may include computing and/or network resources. A system resource may be considered a collection of coherent functions, network data objects, or services accessible through a server, where such system resource resides on a single host or multiple hosts and is clearly identifiable.

The term "channel" as used herein refers to any transmission medium, whether tangible or intangible, used to convey data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and/or equivalent to "communication channel," "data communication channel," "transmission channel," "data transmission channel," "access channel," "data access channel," "link," "data link," "carrier wave," "radio frequency carrier wave," and/or any other similar term that refers to a channel or medium through which data is communicated. Furthermore, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection that occurs between two devices via a RAT in order to send and receive information.

The term "instantiation" and the like as used herein refers to creating an instance. "instance" also refers to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code.

The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, may mean that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other but still co-operate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements purportedly coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in contact with each other through communication means, including by wire or other interconnection connection, by wireless communication channels or links, and so forth.

The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the individual content of an information element, or a data element containing content.

The term "SMTC" refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-measurementtiming configuration.

The term "SSB" refers to an SS/PBCH block.

The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency, wherein the UE either performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

The term "primary SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when performing a reconfiguration procedure with synchronization for DC operation.

The term "secondary cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources for a CA-configured UE over a special cell.

The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells for a DC configured UE that includes PSCell and zero or more secondary cells.

The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE in rrc_connected that is not configured with CA/DC, and only one serving cell is composed of the primary cell.

The term "serving cell" refers to a set of cells including special cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE in rrc_connected configured with CA.

The term "special cell" refers to a PCell of an MCG or a PSCell of an SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to a Pcell.

Claims (24)

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRMs) having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a User Equipment (UE) to:

receiving a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) index;

determining a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency of the transmission based on an entry in a MCS table corresponding to the MCS index, wherein the MCS table is adapted for a fixed number of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) layers without the need for the MIMO layers; and is also provided with

The transmission is sent or received based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

2. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 1, wherein the MCS table comprises a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein there is at least one entry for which the respective modulation order is each of: pi/2 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), 64QAM, and 256QAM.

3. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 2 wherein there are 64 entries in the MCS table.

4. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 1 wherein the MCS table comprises a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to provide:

when used with a particular channel coding scheme, a substantially uniform grid of target signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) corresponding to target block error rates (BLERs) of the respective MCSs, or a substantially uniform grid of spectral efficiency of the respective MCSs;

a combination of code rate and modulation order for the respective spectral efficiency, which combination minimizes BLER when used with a particular channel coding scheme; and

the bit width of the MCS field in the downlink control information is maintained at or below the number of entries required for a predetermined value.

5. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 4 wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide maximum and minimum SNRs corresponding to a target BLER for an MCS such that the absolute value of the decibel difference between the two is less than the uniform SNR grid step size provided by the MCS table: the maximum or minimum SNR in the MCS table corresponding to the target BLER, and the respective maximum or minimum SNR in the reference MCS table corresponding to the target BLER.

6. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 5 wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined for a 1 or 2MIMO layer in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

7. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 3 wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide SNR grid steps below a threshold.

8. The one or more NTCRMs of any of claims 1-7 wherein the MCS table is:

wherein I is _MCS Is the MCS index, Q _m Is the modulation order, R is the code rate, and per-layer Spectral Efficiency (SE) is the spectral efficiency per MIMO layer.

9. The one or more NTCRMs of any one of claims 1 to 7 wherein the fixed number is 2.

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

a memory for storing Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) tables for two multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers, wherein the MCS tables comprise:

a first set of entries having the same total spectral efficiency and associated modulation order as corresponding entries of a reference MCS table having two MIMO layers; and

a second set of entries having the same total spectral efficiency and associated modulation order as corresponding entries of the reference MCS table having one MIMO layer; and

A processor circuit coupled with the memory, the processor circuit to:

receiving an MCS index;

determining a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency of a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) based on the MCS index and the MCS table; and is also provided with

The PUSCH is encoded for transmission or the PDSCH is decoded based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein entries of the reference MCS table with one MIMO layer are not included in the second set if: the spectral efficiency of the entry differs from any entry from the first set of entries by less than a predetermined threshold.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the threshold is an absolute value or a relative value.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the second set of entries have respective modulation orders and code rates to reproduce a corresponding spectral efficiency of the reference MCS table with one MIMO layer.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the PDSCH or PUSCH is transmitted without MIMO layer adaptation.

15. The apparatus of any of claims 10 to 14, wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

16. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRMs) having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause a next generation node B (gNB) to:

determining entries in a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) table for a transmission having a fixed number of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers without MIMO layer adaptation, wherein the entries include an MCS index, a modulation order, a code rate, and a spectral efficiency;

transmitting the MCS index to a User Equipment (UE); and is also provided with

The transmission is sent or received based on the modulation order, the code rate, and the spectral efficiency.

17. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 16 wherein the MCS table comprises a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein there is at least one entry for which the respective modulation order is each of: pi/2 Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), 64QAM, and 256QAM.

18. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 17 wherein there are 64 entries in the MCS table.

19. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 16 wherein the MCS table comprises a plurality of entries corresponding to respective MCS indexes, and wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to provide:

when used with a particular channel coding scheme, a substantially uniform grid of target signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) corresponding to target block error rates (BLERs) of the respective MCSs, or a substantially uniform grid of spectral efficiency of the respective MCSs;

a combination of code rate and modulation order for the respective spectral efficiency, which combination minimizes BLER when used with a particular channel coding scheme; and is also provided with

The bit width of the MCS field in the downlink control information is maintained at or below the number of entries required for a predetermined value.

20. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 19 wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide maximum and minimum SNRs corresponding to a target BLER for an MCS such that the absolute value of the decibel difference between the two is less than the uniform SNR grid step size provided by the MCS table: the maximum or minimum SNR in the MCS table corresponding to the target BLER, and the respective maximum or minimum SNR in the reference MCS table corresponding to the target BLER.

21. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 20 wherein the reference MCS table is MCS table 1 or MCS table 2 defined for a 1 or 2MIMO layer in 3GPP Technical Standard (TS) 38.214v 16.4.0.

22. The one or more NTCRMs of claim 19 wherein the entries of the MCS table combine to further provide SNR grid steps below a threshold.

23. The one or more NTCRMs of any of claims 16-22, wherein the MCS table is:

wherein I is _MCS Is the MCS index, Q _m Is the modulation order, R is the code rate, and per-layer Spectral Efficiency (SE) is the spectral efficiency per MIMO layer.

24. The one or more NTCRMs of any one of claims 16 to 22 wherein,

the fixed number is 2.