RU2494572C2 - Extended acknowledgement and rate control channel - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: radio engineering, communication.

SUBSTANCE: embodiments disclosed herein address the need in the art for an extended acknowledgment/rate control channel. In one aspect, an acknowledgment command and a rate control command are combined to form a combined command. In another aspect, the combined command is generated in accordance with a constellation of points, each point corresponding to a pair consisting of a rate control command and an acknowledgment command. In yet another aspect, the points of the constellation are designed to provide the desired probability of error for the respective command pairs. In yet another aspect, a common rate control command is transmitted along with a combined or dedicated rate control command. Various other aspects are also presented. These aspects have the benefit of reduced overhead while providing acknowledgment and rate control to single remote stations and/or groups of remote stations.

EFFECT: control with reduced transmission acknowledgement overhead and enabling control of transmission rate when needed.

27 cl, 21 dwg

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention, in General, relates to a wireless communication system, and more specifically, to confirmation channels and speed control.

State of the art

Wireless communication systems are widely used to provide various types of communication, such as voice and information. A typical wireless information system, or network, provides multiple users access to one or more shared resources. The system can use a variety of multiple access technologies, such as frequency division multiplexing (FDM), time division multiplexing (TDM), code division multiplexing (CDM), and others.

Exemplary wireless networks include cellular information systems. The following are a few such examples: (1) “TIA / EIA-95-B Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard for Dual-Mode Wideband Spread Spectrum Cellular System” (Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard for a dual-mode wideband cellular system with a spread spectrum ) (IS-95 standard), (2) a standard proposed by a consortium called the “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP), and embodied in a set of documents including document numbers 3G TS 25.211, 3G TS 25.212, 3G TS 25.213 and 3G TS 25.214 (W-CDMA (Broadband Multi-Station Access) UPA with code division multiplexing)), (3) a standard proposed by a consortium named “3rd Generation Partnership Project 2” (3GPP2) and embodied in “TR-45.5 Physical Layer Standard for cdma2000 Spread Spectrum Systems ”(“ Physical layer TR-45.5 standard for cdma2000 systems with extended spectrum ”) (IS-2000 standard), (4) high-speed data transmission system (HDR), which complies with TIA / EIA / IS-856 standard (IS standard -856), and (5) revised version C of the IS-2000 standard, including C.S0001.C through C.S0006.C, and related documents (including subsequent sentences revisions D) are indicated as an offer of lxEV-DV.

In the exemplary system, according to the revised version D of the IS-2000 standard (currently under development), the transmission of mobile stations on the reverse channel is controlled by base stations. The base station can make a choice of the maximum speed or the ratio of the data stream to the pilot signal at which the mobile station is allowed to transmit. Currently, two types of control mechanisms are proposed: resolution-based and speed-based.

With permission-based control, the mobile station returns to the base station information about the possibility of transmitting to the mobile station, the size of the data buffer, the level of quality of service (QoS), etc. The base station monitors feedback from a large number of mobile stations and decides which mobile stations are allowed to transmit, and which corresponding maximum speed is allowed for each mobile station. These selection results are delivered to the mobile stations via permission messages.

With speed-based control, the base station adjusts the speed of the mobile station in a limited interval (i.e., increasing the speed by one, no change, or lowering the speed by one). The control command is transmitted to mobile stations using a simple binary bit of speed control or a multi-valued indicator.

In conditions of complete buffering, when active mobile stations have large amounts of data, technology-based resolution and speed-based technology do roughly the same thing. If you neglect the problem of overhead (overhead), the resolution method can be better adapted to control the mobile station in situations with models of real traffic (traffic flow). If you neglect overhead problems, the resolution method may be better suited to control flows of different QoS (quality of service). Two types of speed control can be considered, including a specialized speed control approach that provides one bit to each mobile station, and general speed control using one bit per sector. The various hybrids of these two approaches can attribute multiple mobile stations to a speed control bit. A general speed control approach may require less overhead. However, it may offer fewer mobile station control capabilities when compared to a more specialized control scheme. When the number of mobile stations transmitting at any given time decreases, the general speed control method and the specialized speed control method approach each other.

Resolution-based technologies can quickly change the transmission speed of a mobile station. However, purely resolution-based technology may suffer from large overheads if continuous speed changes occur. Similarly, pure speed control technology may suffer from slow rise time intervals and equal or large overhead during rise time intervals.

None of the approaches provides both reduced overhead and wide or quick adjustments. An example approach to meet this need is disclosed in US Patent Application No. XX / XXX, XXX (No. 030525 of the Applicant’s Case), entitled “COMBINING GRANT, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, AND RATE CONTROL COMMANDS” ), registered on February 17, 2004, assigned to the assignee of the present invention.

In addition, it is desirable to reduce the number of control channels, while maintaining the required error probability for associated commands on the control channels. There is a need in the art for a system that provides the ability to control the rates (or resource allocation) of both individual mobile stations and groups of mobile stations, without overly increasing the number of channels. Moreover, there is a need to provide the ability to adjust the probability of error of various speed control commands or acknowledgment. Therefore, in the art there is a need for control with reduced overhead, confirmation of transmissions, and the ability to adjust transmission rates as necessary.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The embodiments disclosed herein direct efforts to needs in the art for an extended rate acknowledgment / control channel. In one aspect, a confirmation command and a speed control command are combined to form a combined command. In another aspect, a combined command is formed in accordance with a constellation of points, each point corresponding to a pair consisting of a speed control command and a confirmation command. In yet another aspect, constellation points are intended to provide the required error probability for respective pairs of commands. In yet another aspect, a general speed control command is transmitted along with a combined or specialized speed control command. Various other aspects are also presented. These aspects have the advantage of reduced overhead, while providing confirmation and speed control of single remote stations and / or groups of remote stations.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 is a general structural diagram of a wireless communication system capable of supporting a number of users;

Figure 2 depicts an exemplary mobile station and a base station configured in a system configured to transmit data;

Figure 3 is a block diagram of a wireless communication device, such as a mobile station or base station;

4 depicts an exemplary embodiment of information and control signals for transmitting data on a reverse link;

5 is an exemplary confirmation channel;

6 is an exemplary speed control channel;

7 is an exemplary method applicable in a base station for allocating capacity in response to requests and transmissions from one or more mobile stations;

Fig. 8 is an exemplary method for generating permissions, confirmations, and speed control commands;

Fig. 9 is an exemplary method for a mobile station for monitoring and responding to permissions, acknowledgment, and speed control commands;

10 shows a time distribution for an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and rate control channels;

11 shows a time distribution for an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and speed control channels, along with a new resolution;

12 shows a time distribution for an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and speed control channels, without permission;

13 shows an exemplary embodiment of a system comprising a dedicated speed control signal and a common speed control signal;

Fig. 14 shows an embodiment of a system comprising a direct extended acknowledgment channel;

Fig. 15 shows an exemplary constellation suitable for use in an extended acknowledgment channel;

Fig. 16 depicts an alternative constellation suitable for use in an extended acknowledgment channel;

17 depicts a three-dimensional exemplary constellation suitable for use in an extended confirmation channel;

Fig. 18 depicts an embodiment of a method for processing received transmissions including acknowledgment and speed control;

Fig. 19 shows an embodiment of a method for responding to general and specialized speed control;

FIG. 20 shows an alternative embodiment of a method for processing received transmissions including acknowledgment and speed control; FIG. and

21 depicts a method for receiving and responding to a direct extended acknowledgment channel.

Detailed description

Exemplary embodiments of implementation, detailed below, provide for the allocation (allocation) of a shared resource, such as shared by one or more mobile stations in a communication system, primarily by controlling or adjusting one or more data rates in connection with various acknowledgment messages transmitted in the system .

Technologies for combining the use of permission channels, acknowledgment channels, and speed control channels to provide a combination of permission-based planning and speed-controlled planning, and their overall beneficial result, are disclosed herein. Various embodiments may provide one or more of the following useful results: a quick increase in the transmission speed of the mobile station, a quick stop of the mobile station in transmission mode, adjustment of the transmission speed of the mobile station with low overhead, confirmation of the transmission of the mobile station with low overhead, generally low overhead Cost and Quality of Service (QoS) management for streams from one or more mobile stations.

The combination of the speed control channel with the confirmation channel, using a constellation of points for different pairs of commands, provides for the reduction of control channels. In addition, a constellation may be formed in order to provide the desired probability of error for each of the associated teams. A dedicated speed control signal may be used in parallel with the general speed control signal. The use of one or more specialized speed control channels with one or more common speed control channels provides for individual control of the transmission speed of a single mobile station, as well as the ability to control large groups of mobile stations with reduced overhead. Various other benefits will be described in detail below.

One or more exemplary embodiments described herein is further described in the context of a digital wireless data system. While use within this context is advantageous, other embodiments of the invention may be included in various environments or configurations. In general, the diverse systems described herein may be configured using software-controlled processors, integrated circuits, or discrete logic. Data, instructions, commands, information, signals, symbols and elementary signals that may be mentioned throughout the application are mainly represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof. In addition, the structural elements shown in each structural diagram may represent hardware or process steps.

More specifically, various embodiments of the invention may be included in a wireless communication system operating in accordance with a communication standard outlined and disclosed in various standards published by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and other standards institutions. Such standards include the TIA / EIA-95 standard, the TIA / EIA-IS-2000 standard, the IMT-2000 standard, the UMTS (universal mobile communication system) standard, and WCDMA (wired CDMA), which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. A copy of the standards can be obtained by writing to TIA, Standards and Technology Department, 2500 Wilson, Arlington, VA 22201, United States of America (TIA, Standards and Technology Department, 2500 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201, United States of America ) The standard, commonly referred to as the UMTS standard, incorporated herein by reference, can be obtained by contacting the 3GPP Support Office (3GPP Support Office, 650 Route des Lucioles-Sophia Antipolis, Valbonne-France).

1 is a diagram of a wireless communication system 100 that can be designed to support one or more CDMA standards and / or projects (eg, W-CDMA standard, IS-95 standard, cdma2000 standard, HDR specification, lxEV-DV system). In an alternative embodiment, system 100 may further support any wireless communication standard or design other than a CDMA system. In an exemplary embodiment, system 100 is a 1xEV-DV (High Speed CDMA Packet Data Exchange System) system.

For simplicity, the system 100 is shown including three base stations 104 in communication with two mobile stations 106. The base station and its service area are often referred to collectively as “cell”. For example, in IS-95, cdma2000, or 1xEV-DV systems, a cell may include one or more sectors. In the W-CDMA specification, each base station sector and sector coverage area is indicated as a cell. As used in the materials of this application, the term base station can be used interchangeably with the terms access point or Node B. The term mobile station can be used interchangeably with the terms user equipment (UE), subscriber unit, subscriber station, access terminal, remote terminal, or others relevant terms known in the art. The term mobile station covers fixed wireless applications.

Depending on the CDMA system being implemented, each mobile station 106 may communicate with one (or possibly as many) base stations 104 on a forward link at any given moment, and may communicate with one or more base stations on a reverse link, depending on whether or not the mobile station is in a soft handoff state. The forward link (i.e., downlink) indicates transmission from the base station to the mobile station, and the reverse link (i.e., uplink) indicates transmission from the mobile station to the base station.

Although the various embodiments described herein are intended to provide reverse link or forward link signals to support reverse link transmission, and some may be well suited to the nature of reverse link transmission, those skilled in the art the technical field will understand that mobile stations, as well as base stations, can be equipped to transmit data, as described in the materials of this application, and also apply aspects of the present invention tions in these situations. The word "exemplary" is used in the materials of this application solely to mean "serving as an example, instance or illustration." Any embodiment described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments.

1xEV-DV forward link data transmission

A system 100, such as described in the lxEV-DV proposal, typically comprises four classes of forward link channels: service channels, dynamically changing IS-95 and IS-2000 channels, forward packet data channel (F-PDCH), and several redundant channels. Service channel assignments change slowly; for example, they may not change for months. Typically, they change when significant network configuration changes occur. Dynamically changing IS-95 and IS-2000 channels are distributed on a ring basis or used for IS-95 or voice and packet services of IS-2000 standard releases 0 through B. Typically, the available base station power remaining after service channels and dynamically changing channels have been allocated is allocated to the F-PDCH for the remaining information services.

The F-PDCH, like the IS-856 traffic channel, is used to send data at the highest acceptable data rate to one or two users at a time in each cell. In IS-856, the full power of the base station and the unified space of Walsh functions are available when sending data to the mobile station. However, in the lxEV-DV system, some base station power and some of the Walsh functions are allocated to service channels and existing IS-95 and cdma2000 services. The data transfer rate, which is acceptable, mainly depends on the available power and Walsh codes, after the powers and Walsh codes for service, IS-95 and IS-2000 channels have been set. Data transmitted over an F-PDCH is spread-spread encoded using one or more Walsh codes.

In the lxEV-DV system, the base station mainly transmits via the F-PDCH only one mobile station at a time, although many users in the cell can use packet services. (It is also possible to transmit to two users by scheduling transfers for two users and allocating power and Walsh channels to each user, respectively). Mobile stations are selected for transmission on a forward link based on some scheduling algorithm.

In a system like IS-856 or lxEV-DV, scheduling is based in part on feedback on the quality of the channel from the mobile stations being served. For example, in IS-856, mobile stations evaluate the quality of the forward link and calculate the transmission rate assumed to be suitable for current conditions. The required speed from each mobile station is transmitted to the base station. The scheduling algorithm may, for example, select a mobile station for transmission that supports a relatively high transmission rate in order to make the use of a shared communication channel more efficient. As another example, in the lxEV-DV system, each mobile station transmits an estimate of the carrier power to interference ratio (C / I), as an estimate of the channel quality, on the return channel of the quality indicator (R-CQICH). The scheduling algorithm is used to determine the mobile station selected for transmission, as well as the appropriate transmission speed and format, in accordance with the quality of the channel.

As described above, the wireless communication system 100 can support multiple users sharing and simultaneously using a communication resource, since the IS-95 system can allocate a communication resource completely to one user at a time, like the IS-856 system, or can allocate a communication resource to allow both types of access. The lxEV-DV system is an example of a system that shares a communication resource between both types of access, and dynamically assigns a proportional distribution according to a user's needs. An example embodiment of a forward link has just been described. Various exemplary reverse link embodiments are further detailed below.

FIG. 2 shows exemplary mobile station 106 and base station 104 configured in a system 100 adapted for transmitting data. Base station 104 and mobile station 106 are shown supporting forward and reverse links. Mobile station 106 receives forward link signals at receiving subsystem 220. A base station 104 transmitting data and control channels detailed below may be referred to herein as a serving station for mobile station 106. An exemplary receiving subsystem is further detailed below in FIG. 3. The carrier-to-interference (C / I) ratio is estimated for the forward link signal received from the serving base station at the mobile station 106. The C / I measurement is an example of a channel quality metric used as a channel estimate, and additional channel quality metrics may be used in alternative embodiments. The C / I measurement result is delivered to the transmission subsystem 210 at the base station 104, an example of which is further detailed below in FIG. 3.

Transmission subsystem 210 delivers a C / I estimate on the reverse link when it is delivered to a serving base station. Note that in a soft handoff situation well known in the art, reverse link signals transmitted from a mobile station may be received by one or more base stations other than the serving base station, referred to herein as non-serving base stations. The receiving subsystem 230, at the base station 104, receives C / I information from the mobile station 106.

A scheduler 240 at base station 104 is used to determine whether and how data should be transmitted to one or more mobile stations within the coverage area of a serving cell. Any type of scheduling algorithm may be used within the scope of the present invention. One example is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. 08 / 798,951, entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FORWARD LINK RATE SCHEDULING", registered on February 11, 1997, the assignment of this assignment inventions.

In an exemplary 1xEV-DV embodiment, the mobile station is selected for forward link transmission when a C / I measurement received from the mobile station indicates that data can be sent at a specific speed. In terms of system capacity, it is advantageous to select the target mobile station so that the shared communication resource is always used at the maximum supported speed. Thus, a typical selected target mobile station may be one with the highest reported C / I. Other factors may also be included in the planning decision. For example, guarantees of a minimum quality of service for various users can be created. It may be that a mobile station with a relatively low reported C / I is selected for transmission in order to maintain a minimum data rate for such a user. It may turn out that a mobile station with not the largest reported C / I is selected for transmission in order to support a certain criterion of fairness among all users.

In an exemplary 1xEV-DV system, scheduler 240 determines which mobile station to transmit, as well as the data rate, modulation format, and power level for such a transmission. In an alternative embodiment, such as an IS-856 system, a decision on a supported modulation rate / format may be made in the mobile station based on the channel quality measured in the mobile station, and the transmission format may be sent to the serving base station instead of C / I. Those skilled in the art will recognize the myriad combinations of supported speeds, modulation formats, power levels, and the like that can be used within the scope of the present invention. Moreover, although in the various embodiments described herein, scheduling tasks are performed at the base station, in alternative embodiments, some or all of the scheduling process may occur at the mobile station.

Scheduler 240 instructs the transmission subsystem 250 to transmit to the selected mobile station on the forward link using the selected transmission rate, modulation format, power level, and the like.

In an exemplary embodiment, messages on a control channel, or PDCCH, are transmitted along with data on a data channel, or F-PDCH. The control channel can be used to identify the receiving mobile station on the F-PDCH, as well as identifying other communication parameters useful during the communication session. The mobile station should receive and demodulate data from the F-PDCH when the F-PDCCH indicates that the mobile station is the target of transmission. The mobile station responds on the reverse link after receiving such data with a message indicating a favorable outcome or transmission failure. Retransmission technologies well known in the art are typically used in data transmission systems.

A mobile station may be in communication with more than one base station in a situation known as soft handoff. Soft handoffs may include a large number of sectors from one base station (or one basic transceiver subsystem (BTS)), known as softer handoffs, as well as sectors from multiple BTSs. Sectors of the base station during soft handoff, as a rule, are stored in the active set of the mobile station. In a system with a simultaneously shared communication resource, such as IS-95, IS-2000, or the corresponding part of the 1xEV-DV system, the mobile station can combine forward link signals transmitted from all sectors in the active set. In a purely information system, such as IS-856, or the corresponding part of the 1xEV-DV system, the mobile station receives the forward link information signal from one base station in the active set serving the base station (determined according to a mobile station selection algorithm, such as described in C.S0002.C standard). Other forward link signals, examples of which are further detailed below, may also be received from non-serving base stations.

The reverse link signals from the mobile station can be received at a large number of base stations, and the quality of the reverse link is mainly supported for base stations in the active set. For reverse link signals received by multiple base stations, it is permissible to be combined. In general, the flexible combination of reverse link signals from disparate base stations might require significant network bandwidth with very low latency, so the sample system listed above does not support it. With softer handoffs, reverse link signals received over multiple sectors on a single BTS can be combined without network signaling. While any type of combination of reverse link signals can be used within the scope of the present invention, in the exemplary systems described above, reverse link power control maintains quality so that reverse link frames are successfully decoded in one BTS (switched diversity) .

Reverse link data transmission can also be performed in system 100. The described receiving and transmitting subsystems 210-230 and 250 can be used to send control signals on the forward link to direct data transmission on the reverse link. Mobile stations 106 may also transmit control information on the reverse link. Various mobile stations 106 in communication with one or more base stations 104 may access a shared communication resource (i.e., reverse link channel, which may be allocated in different ways, as in lxEV-DV, or with a fixed distribution as in IS-856), in response to various access control and speed control technologies, examples of which are detailed below. Scheduler 240 may be used to determine the allocation of reverse link resources. Exemplary control and information signals for transmitting reverse link data are detailed below.

Embodiments of an Exemplary Base Station and Mobile Station

Figure 3 is a block diagram of a wireless communication device, such as a mobile station 106 or a base station 104. The structural elements depicted in the exemplary embodiment will mainly be a subset of the components contained in either the base station 104 or the mobile station 106. Those skilled in the art In the art, the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 can easily be adapted for use in configurations of any number of base stations or mobile stations.

Signals are received at antenna 310 and delivered to receiver 320. Receiver 320 performs processing according to one or more wireless system standards, such as those listed above. Receiver 320 performs a variety of processing, such as converting a radio frequency (RF) into a frequency band of modulating signals, amplification, analog-to-digital conversion, filtering, and the like. Various techniques for receiving are well known in the art. A receiver 320 may be used to measure channel quality of the forward and reverse links when the device is a mobile station or base station, respectively, although, for clarity of discussion, a separate channel quality estimation block 335 is shown, detailed below.

Signals from receiver 320 are demodulated in demodulator 325 according to one or more communication standards. In an exemplary embodiment, a demodulator capable of demodulating lxEV-DV signals is used. In alternative embodiments, alternative standards may be supported, and embodiments may support multiple communication formats. The demodulator 330 can perform RAKE (multi-tap coherent) reception, compensation, combining, elimination of interleaving, decoding and various other functions, as required by the format of the received signals. Various demodulation techniques are known in the art. At base station 104, demodulator 325 will demodulate according to the reverse link. At mobile station 106, demodulator 325 will demodulate according to the forward link. The data and control channels described herein are examples of channels that can be received and demodulated at receiver 320 and demodulator 325. Forward data channel demodulation will occur in accordance with the control channel signaling, as described above.

Message decoder 330 receives demodulated data and extracts signals or messages directed to mobile station 106 or base station 104 on the forward or reverse link, respectively. Message decoder 330 decodes various messages used to establish, maintain, and reset a call (including voice and data sessions) in the system. Messages can include channel quality indicators, such as C / I measurements, power control messages, or control channel messages used to demodulate the forward data channel. Various types of control messages can be decoded either at the base station 104 or at the mobile station 106, as transmitted on the reverse or forward links, respectively. For example, the following are request messages and permission messages regarding scheduling the transmission of reverse link data for generation, respectively, in a mobile station or base station. Various other types of messages are known in the art and can be defined in various supported communication standards. Messages are delivered to processor 350 for use in subsequent processing. Some or all of the functions of the message decoder 330 may be performed on the processor 350, although a separate building block is shown for clarity of discussion. Alternatively, the demodulator 325 may decode certain information and send it directly to the processor 350 (examples are a single bit message, such as an ACK / NAK or a power up, power down control command). Various signals and messages for use in the embodiments disclosed herein are further detailed below.

A channel quality estimator 335 is connected to a receiver 320 and is used to make estimates of various power levels for use in the procedures described herein, as well as for a variety of other processing used in communications, such as demodulation. At mobile station 106, C / I measurements may be performed. In addition, measurements of any signal or channel used in the system can be measured in a channel quality estimator 335 of this embodiment. At base station 104 or mobile station 106, estimates of signal strength (power), for example, received pilot strength, can be made. Channel quality assessment unit 335 is shown as a stand-alone building block for clarity of discussion only. It is common for such a structural element to be enclosed within another structural element, such as a receiver 320 or a demodulator 325. Various kinds of estimates of signal strength can be made, depending on what type of signal or what type of system is being evaluated. In general, any kind of channel quality assessment structural element may be used in place of channel quality assessment block 335 within the scope of the present invention. At base station 104, channel quality estimates are delivered to processor 350 for use in scheduling or determining reverse link quality, as further described below. Channel quality estimates can be used to determine if power up or down control commands are required to bring the forward or reverse link power to the desired setting. The desired setting can be determined using an external transmission power control loop mechanism.

Signals are transmitted via antenna 310. The transmitted signals are formatted at transmitter 370 according to one or more wireless system standards, such as those listed above. Examples of components that may be included in the transmitter 370 are amplifiers, filters, digital-to-analog (D / A) converters, radio frequency (RF) converters, and the like. Data for transmission is supplied to transmitter 370 by modulator 365. Data and control channels can be formatted for transmission in accordance with a variety of formats. Data for transmission over the forward link data channel may be formatted in modulator 365 according to the transmission rate and modulation format specified by the scheduling algorithm in accordance with C / I or another measurement of channel quality. A scheduler such as scheduler 240 described above may reside in processor 350. Similarly, transmitter 370 may be oriented to transmit at a power level in accordance with a scheduling algorithm. Examples of components that may be included in modulator 365 include encoders, interleavers, spreading devices, and various types of modulators. The reverse link design, including exemplary modulation formats and access control suitable for use in the lxEV-DV system, is also described below.

Shaper 360 messages can be used to prepare messages of various types, as described in the materials of this application. For example, C / I messages may be generated in a mobile station for transmission on a reverse link. Various types of control messages can be generated either in the base station 104 or in the mobile station 106, for transmission, respectively, on the forward or reverse links. For example, the following are request messages and permission messages regarding scheduling the transmission of reverse link data for generation, respectively, in a mobile station or base station.

Data received and demodulated in demodulator 325 may be delivered to processor 350 for use in voice or information transmissions, as well as various other components. Similarly, data for transmission may be sent to a modulator 365 and transmitter 370 from a processor 350. For example, various information applications may be presented in a processor 350, or in another processor contained in a wireless communication device 104 or 106 (not shown). Base station 104 may be connected, through other equipment, not shown, to one or more external networks, such as the Internet (not shown). Mobile station 106 may include a communication line with an external device, such as a laptop computer (not shown).

The processor 350 may be a general purpose microprocessor, a digital signal processor (DSP), or a special purpose processor. The processor 350 may perform some or all of the functions of a receiver 320, a demodulator 325, a message decoder 330, a channel quality estimator 335, a message driver 360, a modulator 365, or a transmitter 370, as well as any other processing required by a wireless device. The processor 350 may be associated with special-purpose hardware to facilitate these tasks (details not shown). Information or voice applications may be external, for example, connected externally to a laptop computer or connected to a network, may operate on an additional processor within wireless device 104 or 106 (not shown), or may operate on processor 350 itself. Processor 350 is coupled to memory 355, which can be used to store data, as well as instructions for performing various procedures and methods described in the materials of this application. Those skilled in the art will recognize that memory 355 may be comprised of one or more storage components of various types, which may be embedded in whole or in part within processor 350.

A typical data transmission system may include one or more channels of various types. More precisely, in most cases, one or more data channels are used. It is also common to use one or more control channels, although in-band control signaling may be included in the data channel. For example, in a 1xEV-DV system, a forward packet data control channel (F-PDCCH) and a forward packet data channel (F-PDCH) are defined for transmitting control and forward data, respectively. Various exemplary reverse link data channels are detailed as follows.

1xEV-DV Feedback Link Design Considerations

This section describes various factors considered in designing an exemplary embodiment of a reverse link wireless communication system. In many embodiments, further detailed in the following sections, signals, parameters, and procedures associated with the 1xEV-DV standard are used. This standard is described for illustrative purposes only, since each of the aspects described herein and their combinations can be applied to any number of communication systems within the scope of the present invention. This section serves as a partial summary of various aspects of the invention, although it is not exhaustive. Exemplary embodiments are further detailed below, in subsequent sections, which describe additional aspects.

In many cases, the capacity of the reverse link is limited by mutual interference. Base stations allocate available reverse link communication resources to mobile stations for efficient use in order to maximize throughput in accordance with Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for various mobile stations.

Maximizing the use of the reverse link communication resource includes several factors. One of the factors to consider is the combination of planned reverse link transmissions from various mobile stations, each of which may be experiencing a change in channel quality at any given point in time. In order to increase the overall throughput (the sum of the data transmitted by all the mobile stations in the cell) for the reverse link, it is desirable to be fully utilized whenever there is reverse link data that needs to be transmitted. To fill the available capacity, the mobile stations may be allowed access at the highest speed that they can support, and additional mobile stations may be allowed access until the capacity is reached. One of the factors that a base station can consider when deciding which mobile stations to plan is the maximum speed that each mobile station can support and the amount of data that each mobile station must send. A mobile station capable of higher throughput can be selected instead of an alternative mobile station whose channel does not support higher throughput.

Another factor to be considered is the quality of service required by each mobile station. While it may be acceptable to delay access for one mobile station in the hope that the channel will improve, preferring to choose a better suitable mobile station instead, it may turn out that conditionally optimal mobile stations may require authorized access that meets the guarantees of a minimum quality of service. Thus, the planned information throughput may not be absolutely maximum, but rather, maximized estimated channel conditions, available mobile station transmit power and service requirements. Any configuration requires a reduction in signal-to-noise ratio for the selected combination.

Various scheduling mechanisms are described below to enable mobile stations to transmit data on the reverse link. One of the reverse link transmission classes includes a mobile station making a request to transmit on the reverse link. The base station decides whether resources are available to satisfy the request. To provide the ability to transfer, permission can be created. This acknowledgment exchange between the mobile station and the base station introduces a delay before the reverse link data can be transmitted. For some reverse link data classes, a delay may be acceptable. Other classes may be more sensitive to delays, and alternative technologies for reverse link transmission to reduce delay are detailed below.

In addition, reverse link resources are expanded to make a transfer request, and forward link resources are expanded to respond to a request, that is, to transmit a permission. When the channel quality of the mobile station is low, that is, with a poor location or severe fading, the power required to reach the mobile device in a forward link can be relatively high. Various technologies are detailed below to reduce the number or required transmit power of requests and permissions required to transmit data on the reverse link.

In order to avoid the delay introduced by the handshake by request / resolution, as well as to save the resources of the forward and reverse links required to support them, an autonomous reverse link transmission mode is supported. The mobile station can transmit data at a limited speed on the reverse link, without performing a request or waiting for permission.

It may also be necessary to modify the transmission rate of a mobile station that is transmitting, in accordance with the resolution, or autonomously, without the overhead of the permission. To achieve this, speed control commands can be implemented along with autonomous and request / permission based scheduling. For example, a set of commands may include a command to increase, decrease, and hold a constant current transmission rate. Such speed control commands may be addressed to each mobile station individually or for groups of mobile stations. Various examples of speed control commands, channels and signals are further detailed below.

The base station allocates a portion of the reverse link capacity to one or more mobile stations. A mobile station that is allowed access is provided with a maximum power level. In the exemplary embodiments described herein, a reverse link resource is allocated using a traffic to pilot ratio (T / P). Since the pilot signal of each mobile station is adaptively controlled by power control, setting the T / P ratio indicates the available power for use in transmitting data on the reverse link. A base station may create individual permissions for one or more mobile stations indicating a T / P value specific to each mobile station. The base station can also create a general permission for the remaining mobile stations that have requested access indicating the maximum T / P value that is provided for transmission to such remaining mobile stations. Autonomous and scheduled transmission, individual and general permissions, and speed control are further detailed below.

Various scheduling algorithms are known in the art, and even larger ones have to be developed that can be used to determine various individual and general T / P values for permissions, as well as commands for controlling the required speed, in accordance with the number of registered mobile stations, the possibility of autonomous transmissions by mobile stations, the number and size of pending requests, the expected average response to permissions, and any number of other factors. In one example, the selection is made based on the priority of quality of service (QoS), efficiency, and achievable bandwidth from multiple requesting mobile stations. One exemplary planning technology is disclosed in a pending US application No. 10/651,810 for a US patent entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR A TIME-SCALABLE PRIORITY-BASED SCHEDULER” "), Registered on August 28, 2003, assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Additional reference materials include US Pat. SCHEDULING ", both assigned to the assignee of the present invention.

A mobile station may transmit packet data using one or more subpackets, where each subpacket contains completed packet information (each subpacket is not necessarily encoded the same, since various encoding or redundancy can be used across all different subpackets). Retransmission technologies can be used to guarantee reliable transmission, such as automatic repeat request (ARQ). Thus, if the first subpacket is received without error (for example, using CRC (cyclic redundancy code)), a positive acknowledgment (ACK) is sent to the mobile station, and additional subpackets will not be sent (recall that, in one form or another, each subpacket contains complete package information). If the first subpacket is not received correctly, then a negative acknowledgment (NAK) signal is sent to the mobile station, and the second subpacket will be transmitted. The base station can combine the energy of two subpackets and try to decode. This process can be repeated indefinitely, although it is generally accepted to specify the maximum number of subpackets. In the exemplary embodiments described herein, up to four subpackets may be transmitted. Thus, the likelihood of a correct reception increases as additional subpackets are received. The following details a variety of ways to combine ARQ responses, speed control commands, and resolutions to provide the required level of flexibility in bit rates with acceptable levels of overhead.

As just described, the mobile station may alternately use bandwidth or latency when deciding whether to use autonomous transmission to transmit data with low latency, or requesting a higher transmission rate and waiting for a general or individual resolution. In addition, for a given T / P value, the mobile station may select a data rate corresponding to latency or throughput. For example, a mobile station with a relatively small number of bits for transmission may decide that low latency is required. For the available T / P (probably the maximum autonomous transmission, in this example, but could also be T / P of individual or general resolution), the mobile station can choose the speed and format of the modulation from the condition that the probability of the base station receiving correctly the first subpackage is high. Although a retransmission, if necessary, will be available, it is likely that this mobile station will be able to transmit its data bits in one subpacket. In various exemplary embodiments described herein, each subpacket is transmitted for 5 ms. Therefore, in this example, the mobile station can make the next autonomous transmission, which is likely to be received at the base station in the next 5 millisecond interval. Note that, as an alternative, the mobile station may use additional subpackets to increase the amount of data transmitted for this T / P. This means that the mobile station can choose autonomous transmission in order to reduce the delay associated with requests and permissions, and can additionally sacrifice the throughput of a specific T / P in order to minimize the number of required subpackets (and therefore the delay). Even if the full number of subpackets is selected, autonomous transmission will have less delay than request and resolution for relatively small data transfers. Those skilled in the art will recognize that while the amount of data to be transmitted increases by requesting multiple packets for transmission, the overall delay can be reduced by switching to a request and permission format, since the negative side of the request and permission will ultimately be offset by increased throughput of a higher data rate across multiple packets. This process is further detailed below, together with an example set of transmission rates and formats that can be associated with various T / P destinations.

Reverse link data transmission

One of the goals of reverse link design may be to keep the excess thermal noise (RoT) at the base station relatively constant as long as there is reverse link data that needs to be transmitted. Transmission via the reverse information channel is controlled in three different modes:

Offline transmission: This case is used for traffic requiring low latency. The mobile station is allowed to transmit immediately, up to a certain transmission rate determined by the serving base station (that is, the base station to which the mobile station sends its channel quality indicator (CQI)). A serving base station is also referred to as a scheduling base station or an enabling base station. The maximum allowable transmission rate for autonomous transmission can be signaled dynamically by the serving base station based on system load, congestion, etc.

Scheduled Transmission: The mobile station sends an estimate of its buffer size, available power, and possibly other parameters. The base station determines when the mobile station is allowed to transmit. The purpose of the scheduler is to limit the number of simultaneous transmissions, and accordingly, to reduce crosstalk between mobile stations. The scheduler may try to oblige mobile stations in areas between cells to transmit at lower speeds in order to reduce crosstalk for neighboring cells, and strictly control RoT to maintain the quality of voice transmitted over the R-FCH, DV feedback on R-CQICH and confirmation (R-ACKCH), as well as system stability.

Speed-controlled transmission: Whether the mobile station transmits as planned (that is, by permission) or autonomously, the base station can adjust the transmission speed by means of speed control commands. Exemplary speed control commands include increasing, decreasing, or holding the current speed. Additional commands can be included in the composition to specify how the change in speed should be implemented (that is, the amount of increase or decrease). Speed control commands can be probabilistic or deterministic.

Various embodiments detailed in the materials of this application contain one or more features designed to improve the throughput, capacity, and overall system performance of a reverse link wireless communication system. For illustrative purposes only, the information part of the lxEV-DV system is described, in particular, the optimization of transmission by various mobile stations via the advanced auxiliary return channel (R-ESCH). The various forward and reverse link channels used in one or more exemplary embodiments are detailed in this section. These channels are typically a subset of the channels used in a communication system.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary embodiment of information and control signals for transmitting reverse link data. Mobile station 106 is shown to support communication on different channels, each channel is attached to one or more base stations 104A - 104C. Base station 104A is marked as a scheduling base station. Other base stations 104B and 104C are part of the active set of the mobile station 106. Four types of reverse link signals and four types of forward link signals are shown. They are described below.

R-REQCH

A reverse request channel (R-REQCH) is used by a mobile station to request a reverse link data transmission from a planning base station. In an exemplary embodiment, the requests are for transmission on the R-ESCH (further detailed below). In an exemplary embodiment, the R-REQCH request includes a T / P ratio that the mobile station can maintain, a variable regarding changing channel conditions, and a buffer size (i.e., the amount of data that is waiting to be transmitted). The request can also set the quality of service (QoS) for data pending transmission. Note that a mobile station may have a single QoS level defined for a mobile station, or, alternatively, different QoS levels for different types of service options. Higher-level protocols may indicate QoS or other required parameters (such as latency or throughput requirements) for various information services. In an alternative embodiment, a reverse dedicated control channel (R-DCCH) used in connection with other reverse link signals, such as a reverse main channel (R-FCH) (used, for example, for voice services), can be used to Transfer access requests. In general, access requests can be described as containing a logical channel, that is, a Scheduled Request Reverse Channel (R-SRCH), which can be converted to any existing physical channel, such as R-DCCH. An exemplary embodiment is backward compatible with existing CDMA systems, such as IS-2000 revision C, and R-REQCH is a physical channel that can be used in the absence of any of the R-FCH or R-DCCH. For clarity, the term R-REQCH is used to describe an access request channel in the descriptions of an embodiment provided herein, although those skilled in the art will easily extend the principles to any type of access request system, whether the access request channel is logical or physical . The R-REQCH may be closed until a request is required, thereby reducing crosstalk and maintaining system capacity.

In an exemplary embodiment, the R-REQCH contains 12 input bits, which consist of the following: 4 bits to specify the maximum T / P R-ESCH ratio that the mobile device can support, 4 bits to specify the amount of data in the buffer of the mobile device, and 4 bits to specify QoS. Those skilled in the art will recognize that any number of bits and various other fields may be included in alternative embodiments.

F-gch

The forward grant channel (F-GCH) is transmitted from the scheduling base station to the mobile station. The F-GCH may be composed of multiple channels. In an exemplary embodiment, the common F-GCH is used to create common permissions, and one or more individual F-GCHs are used to create individual permissions. Permissions are created by the planning base station in response to one or more requests from one or more mobile stations according to their respective R-REQCH. Resolution channels may be labeled GCH _x , where the subscript x identifies the channel number. Channel number 0 can be used to indicate a common permission channel. If N individual channels are used, the subscript x may vary from 1 to N.

An individual authorization may be created for one or more mobile stations, each of which authorizes the identified mobile station to transmit on the R-ESCH at a given T / P ratio or lower. The formation of permissions on a direct communication line, of course, will introduce overhead costs that consume some capacity of the direct communication line. Various options for reducing the overhead associated with permits are detailed in the materials of this application, and other choices will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the ideas set forth in the materials of this application.

One consideration is that mobile stations will be located under certain circumstances, so that each will experience a change in channel quality. Thus, for example, a well-positioned mobile station with a good forward and reverse link channel may need relatively small power for the enable signal and should probably have the advantage of a high data rate, and therefore be preferred for individual resolution. A poorly positioned mobile station, or a station experiencing deeper fading, may need significantly more power to reliably receive individual resolution. Such a mobile station may not be the best candidate for an individual permit. The overall resolution for this mobile station, detailed below, may be less costly on the forward link overhead.

In an exemplary embodiment, a number of individual F-GCHs are implemented to provide an appropriate number of individual resolutions at a particular point in time. F-GCHs are code division multiplexed. This facilitates the ability to transmit each resolution at the power level required to reach only a single, implied mobile station. In an alternative embodiment, a single individual resolution channel may be used, with the number of individual resolutions divided by time. The need to vary the power of each resolution over a time-multiplexed individual F-GCH can introduce additional complexity. Any signaling technology for delivering generic or individual permissions can be implemented within the scope of the present invention.

In some embodiments, a relatively large number of individual grants (i.e., F-GCHs) are used to provide for a relatively large number of individual grants at one time. In this case, it may be necessary to limit the number of individual permission channels that each mobile station must control. In one exemplary embodiment, various subsets of the total number of individual resolution channels are defined. Each mobile station is assigned a subset of the individual permission channels that it must control. This provides the mobile station with the opportunity to reduce the processing complexity and, accordingly, reduce power consumption. A compromise solution is in planning flexibility, since the planning base station may not be able to arbitrarily assign sets of individual permissions (for example, all individual permissions cannot be created for members of one group, since such members, according to the project, do not control one or more individual resolution channels). Note that this loss of flexibility does not necessarily result in loss of capacity. To illustrate, consider an example that includes four individual resolution channels. An even-numbered mobile station may be assigned to control the first two permission channels, and an odd-numbered mobile station may be assigned to control the last two. In another example, the subsets may overlap, for example, even mobile stations that control the first three permission channels, and odd mobile stations that control the last three permission channels. It is clear that the planning base station cannot arbitrarily assign four mobile stations from any one group (even or odd). These examples are illustrative only. Any number of channels with any configuration of the subsets can be used within the scope of the present invention.

The remaining mobile stations that have made a request but have not accepted an individual permit may be given the right to transmit via R-ESCH using the general permission, which sets the maximum T / P ratio that each of the remaining mobile stations must adhere to. A common F-GCH may also be indicated as a forward common grant channel (F-CGCH). The mobile station monitors one or more individual permission channels (or a subset of them), as well as a common F-GCH. Until an individual permission is set, the mobile station may transmit if a general permission is issued. General resolution indicates the maximum T / P ratio at which the remaining mobile stations (general-resolution mobile stations) can transmit, for data with a specific QoS type.

In an exemplary embodiment, each common resolution is valid for a number of transmission intervals of subpackets. Once having accepted a general authorization, the mobile station that sent the request but has not received an individual authorization may begin to transmit one or more encoder packets within subsequent transmission intervals. The permission information may be repeated multiple times. This provides for sending general resolution at a reduced power level relative to individual resolution. Each mobile station can combine energy from multiple transmissions to reliably decode the overall resolution. Therefore, the total resolution can be selected for mobile stations, for example, with a poor location, where an individual resolution is considered too costly in terms of direct line capacity. However, general permissions still require overhead, and various technologies for reducing these overheads are detailed below.

The F-GCH is sent by the base station to each mobile station that the base station plans to send a new R-ESCH packet. It can also be sent during transmission or retransmission of the encoded packet to force the mobile station to modify the transmission T / P ratio for subsequent subpackets of the encoder packet in the event that it becomes necessary to suppress congestion.

In an exemplary embodiment, the total resolution consists of 12 bits containing a 3-bit type field to specify the format of the next nine bits. The remaining bits indicate the maximum allowable T / P ratio for the three classes of mobile stations, as specified in the type field with three bits expressing the maximum allowable T / P ratio for each class. Mobile station classes may be based on QoS requirements, or other criteria. Various other general resolution formats are foreseen, and will be readily apparent to the ordinary person skilled in the art.

In an exemplary embodiment, the individual resolution contains 12 bits, including: 11 bits, to specify the ID (identifier) of the mobile station and the maximum allowable T / P ratio for the mobile station subject to permission to transmit, or to explicitly signal the mobile station to change it the maximum allowable T / P ratio, including setting the maximum allowable T / P ratio to 0 (that is, instructing the mobile station not to transmit R-ESCH). These bits specify the ID of the mobile station (1 of 192 values) and the maximum allowable T / P ratio (1 of 10 values) for a given mobile station. In an alternative embodiment, 1 bit of long resolution may be set for a given mobile station. When the long-resolution bit is set to one, the mobile station is authorized to transmit a relatively large, fixed, predetermined number (which can be changed by signaling) of packets on this ARQ channel. When the long resolution bit is set to zero, the mobile station is allowed to transmit one packet. The mobile station may be ordered to collapse its R-ESCH transmissions by setting the T / P ratio to zero, and this may be used to signal the mobile station to collapse its R-ESCH transmissions to transmit a single subpacket of one packet if the long resolution bit is disabled, or for a longer period of time if the long-resolution bit is on.

In one exemplary embodiment, the mobile station only controls the F-GCH channel (s) from the serving base station. If the mobile station receives the F-GCH message, then the mobile station follows the transmission rate information in the F-GCH message, and ignores the rate control bits. It might be an alternative for the mobile station to use the rule that if any rate control indicator from the base station, other than the serving base station, indicates a decrease in transmission speed (that is, the RATE_DECREASE command detailed below), then the mobile station will decrease its transmission rate even if the F-GCH indicates an increase.

In an alternative embodiment, the mobile station may monitor the F-GCH from all base stations or a subset of base stations in its active set. Higher-level signaling indicates to the mobile station which F-GCH channel (s) should be monitored and how to combine them when assigning the channels, via a soft handover direction message, or other messages. Note that a subset of F-GCH channels from different base stations can be flexibly combined. A mobile station will be notified of this opportunity. Despite the possible flexible combination of F-GCH channels from different base stations, there can still be multiple F-GCH channels at any given time. The mobile station may then select its transmission rate as the lowest allowed rate (or by some other rule).

R-PICH

The reverse pilot channel (R-PICH) is transmitted from the mobile station to the base stations in the active set. Power in the R-PICH can be measured at one or more base stations for use in reverse link power control. As is well known in the art, pilot signals can be used to provide amplitude and phase measurements for use in coherent demodulation. As described above, the amount of transmit power available to the mobile station (limited by the scheduling base station or internal restrictions of the power amplifier of the mobile station) is split between the pilot channel, the traffic channel or channels, and the control channels. Additional pilot power may be needed for higher data rates and modulation formats. To simplify the use of R-PICH for power control, and to avoid some problems associated with instantaneous changes in the required pilot power, an additional channel can be allocated for use as an auxiliary or secondary pilot. Although, as a rule, pilot signals are transmitted using known data sequences, as disclosed in the materials of this application, can also be applied information carrier signal for use in the formation of the reference information for demodulation. In an exemplary embodiment, the R-RICH is used to carry the required additional pilot signal power.

R-RICH

The reverse rate indicator channel (R-RICH) is used by the mobile station to indicate a transmission format on the reverse traffic channel, R-ESCH. This channel may alternately be referred to as a reverse packet data control channel (R-PDCCH). R-RICH may be transmitted whenever a mobile station transmits a subpacket. R-RICH can also be transmitted indicating zero speed when the mobile station is not busy on the R-ESCH. The transmission of R-RICH zero-speed frames (R-RICH, which indicates that the R-ESCH is not transmittable) helps the base station detect that the mobile station is not busy, support reverse link power control for the mobile station and other functions.

The start of the R-RICH frame is time aligned with the start of the current R-ESCH transmission. The frame length of the R-RICH may be identical or shorter than that of the corresponding R-ESCH transmission. R-RICH transmits the R-ESCH parallel transmission transmission format, such as payload, subpacket ID and ARQ instance sequence number (AISN) bit, as well as CRC (cyclic redundancy code) for error detection. An exemplary AISN is a bit that is switched each time a new packet is transmitted on a particular ARQ, sometimes referred to as a “color bit”. This can be used for asynchronous ARQ, in which there is no constant synchronization between transfers of packet subpackets. The color bit can be used to prevent the receiver from combining the subpacket (s) of one packet with the subpacket (s) of an adjacent packet in the same ARQ channel. R-RICH may also carry additional information.

R-ESCH

The Enhanced Reverse Auxiliary Channel (R-ESCH) is used as the reverse link traffic channel in the exemplary embodiments described herein. Any number of transmission rates and modulation formats can be used for R-ESCH. In an exemplary embodiment, the R-ESCH has the following properties: Physical retransmissions are supported. For retransmissions, when the original code is a code with a code rate of 1/4, the retransmission uses a code with a code rate of 1/4, and energy combination is used. For retransmissions, when the original code has a rate greater than 1/4, incremental redundancy is used. The underlying code is a 1/5 code rate code. Alternatively, incremental redundancy could also be used for all cases.

Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) is supported for standalone and scheduled users, both of whom can access the R-ESCH.

The synchronous operation of multiple ARQ channels can be supported by constant synchronization between retransmissions: a constant number of subpackets between consecutive subpackets of the same packet can be allowed. Alternating gears are also acceptable. As an example, for 5 millisecond frames, 4 ARQ channels could be supported with a 3-sub-packet delay between sub-packets.

Table 1 lists exemplary data rates for the advanced reverse auxiliary channel. The 5-millisecond subpacket size is described, and associated channels have been designed to fit this option. Other subpacket sizes may also be selected, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. The reference pilot level is not adjustable for these channels, that is, the base station has the flexibility of choosing a T / P ratio to target a given operating point. The maximum T / P value is signaled on the forward enable channel. A mobile station may use a lower T / P if it goes beyond the transmit power, allowing the HARQ to meet the required QoS. Layer 3 signaling messages can also be transmitted on the R-ESCH, allowing the system to operate without an R-FCH and / or R-DCCH.

In an exemplary embodiment, turbo coding is used for all speeds. When encoding with R = 1/4, an interleaver similar to the modern cdma2000 reverse link is used. When encoding with R = 1/5, an interleaver similar to the forward packet data channel is used.

The number of bits per encoder packet includes CRC bits and 6 end combination bits. For an encoder packet size of 192 bits, a 12-bit CRC is used; otherwise, a 16-bit CRC is used. 5 millisecond segments are assumed to be 15 ms apart to allow for ACK / NAK response times. If ACK is received, the remaining packet segments are not transmitted.

The 5-ms subpacket duration, and the associated parameters just described, serve only as an example. Any number of combinations of speeds, formats, possible options for repeating a subpacket, packet duration, etc. it will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the idea presented herein. An alternative embodiment at 10 ms could be used using 3 ARQ channels. In one embodiment, a single subpacket duration or frame size is selected. For example, a 5 ms or 10 ms structure could be selected. In an alternative embodiment, the system may support multiple frame durations.

F-CPCCH

The forward common power control channel (F-CPCCH) can be used to control the power of various reverse link channels, including R-ESCH when F-FCH and F-DCCH are not present, or when F-FCH and F-DCCH are present but not allocated to the user. By channel allocation, a reverse link power control channel is assigned to the mobile station. The F-CPCCH may comprise a number of power control subchannels.

The F-CPCCH may carry a power control subchannel called the common congestion containment subchannel (F-OLCH). An exemplary overload containment subchannel is typically located at a speed of 100 bps, however, other speeds may be used. A single bit (which can be repeated for reliability), indicated in the materials of this application as a busy state bit, indicates to mobile stations in stand-alone transmission mode, or in general resolution mode, or both, either increase or decrease their speed. In an alternative embodiment, individual resolution modes may also be susceptible to this bit. Various embodiments may be used with any combination of F-OLCH susceptible transmission types. This can be done probabilistically or deterministically.

In one embodiment, setting the busy bit to “0” indicates that mobile stations susceptible to the busy bit should slow down their transmission rate. Setting the busy bit to “1” indicates a corresponding increase in transmission rate. A myriad of signaling schemes may be employed, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and various alternative examples are set forth in detail below.

During channel allocation, the mobile station is assigned to these special power control channels. The power control channel may control all mobile devices in the system, or alternatively, the changing subsets of the mobile stations may be controlled by one or more power control channels. Note that using a specific channel to contain congestion is just one example.

F-ACKCH

The forward acknowledgment channel, or F-ACKCH, is used by the base station to acknowledge the correct reception of the R-ESCH, and can also be used to extend an existing resolution. Acknowledgment (ACK) on the F-ACKCH indicates the correct reception of the subpacket. Additional transmission of such a subpacket by the mobile station is optional. Negative acknowledgment (NAK) on the F-ACKCH allows the mobile station to transmit another subpacket, limited by the maximum allowed number of subpackets per packet.

In the embodiments detailed in the materials of this application, the F-ACKCH is used to provide a positive or negative acknowledgment of the received subpacket, as well as an indication of whether or not speed control commands will be issued (described below regarding the F-RCCH).

5 is an exemplary embodiment illustrating a three-digit F-ACKCH. This exemplary F-ACKCH consists of a single indicator transmitted from one or more base stations to a mobile station to indicate whether the transmission on R-ESCH has been received correctly by the respective base station from the mobile station. In an exemplary embodiment, the F-ACKCH indicator is transmitted by each base station in the active set. Alternatively, the F-ACKCH may be transmitted with a given subset of the active set. A plurality of base stations sending an F-ACKCH may be indicated as an F-ACKCH active set. The F-ACKCH active set may be signaled by Layer 3 (L3) transmitting signals to the base station, and may be set during channel allocation in a handover direction message (HDM), or by techniques known in the art.

For example, the F-ACKCH may be a 3-stable channel with the following values: NAK, ACK_RC and ACK_STOP. The NAK indicates that the packet from the mobile station should be retransmitted (however, if the last subpacket was sent, the mobile station may need to resend the packet using any of the available technologies, such as request / permission, speed control or autonomous transmission). The mobile station may need to monitor the speed control indicator in the corresponding F-RCCH (described in detail below) if the NAK corresponds to the last subpacket of the packet.

ACK_RC indicates that no retransmissions of the packet from the mobile station are necessary, and the mobile station should monitor the rate control indicator according to the corresponding F-RCCH. ACK_STOP indicates that no retransmission is necessary. However, in this case, the mobile station should return to offline mode for subsequent transmission only if the mobile station does not receive an F-GCH permission message (described in detail above).

L3 signaling may indicate whether or not a mobile station should flexibly combine F-ACKCH indicators from different base stations in its active set. This may be equivalent to manipulating power control bits in accordance with IS-2000 revision C. For example, there may be an indicator, say - ACK_COMB_IND, sent by channel allocation, and in handover messages, which could indicate whether the mobile station should combine F-ACKCH indicators from different base stations. A variety of technologies can be used to transmit F-ACKCHs, examples of which are given below. Some examples include a single TDM channel, a TDM / CDM channel, or some other format.

In this example, there are two classes of F-ACK channel control results, depending on whether the packet is acknowledged or not. If NAK is accepted, there are many options available. The mobile station may send additional subpackets until the maximum number of subpackets has been sent. (In an exemplary embodiment, subpackets are sent using the same transmission format initiated during either autonomous or allowed transmission, and in any case undergoing revision of the speed control. In an alternative embodiment, the transmission format of the subpacket may be changed using any of the technologies disclosed in the materials of this application). Following the NAK of the last subpacket, the mobile station can either take action on the appropriate speed control commands (control the F-RCCH), stop the transmission according to the previous resolution or speed control command (that is, return to offline transmission, if necessary), or respond again accepted permission.

If an ACK is received, it may correspond to a speed control command or an instruction to stop. If speed control is indicated, the speed control channel (F-RCCH) is monitored and monitored. If it is necessary to stop as a result, the mobile station does not monitor the speed control indicators via F-RCCH and returns to stand-alone mode (transmission up to the maximum stand-alone speed). If an explicit permission is received at the same time as ACK_STOP, then the mobile station follows the command in an explicit permission.

For example, first we consider a member of the active set or the case when the indicators for all sectors are the same (which means they are indicated by ACK_COMB_IND). In this case, there is a single result indicator. When the mobile station receives the NAK (no indicator is transmitted), the mobile station retransmits the next subpacket (at a suitable time). If the mobile station does not receive the ACK for the last subpacket, then the mobile station proceeds to the next packet (the wandering packet can be retransmitted according to any retransmission algorithm that is followed). However, the mobile station does this as an indication of speed control (i.e., controls the speed control channel).

In this example, the basic rule is the following (applies to both the single member of the active set and the multiple separate members of the F-ACKCH of the active set). If any indicator is ACK_STOP or ACK_RC, the result is ACK. If none of the indicators is ACK_STOP or ACK_RC, the result is NAK. Then, with regard to speed control, if the indicator is ACK_STOP, the mobile station will stop (i.e., return to offline mode, or respond to resolution, if any). If no indicator is ACK_STOP and at least one indicator is ACK_RC, the indicator in the speed control channel (F-RCCH) of the corresponding base station should be decoded. If the last subpacket has been received, and all indicators are NAK, you should decode the indicator in the speed control channels (F-RCCH) of all base stations. Responding to speed control commands in these scenarios is further detailed below with respect to the description of the F-RCCH.

The ACK_RC command combined with the speed control channel can be considered as a class of commands, indicated as “confirm and continue” commands. The mobile station may continue to transmit the following packets, continuing in accordance with various rate control commands that may be issued (examples are described in detail below). The “confirm and continue” command provides the base station with the opportunity to confirm the successful reception of the packet and, at the same time, allow the mobile station to transmit using the permission, which leads to the successfully received packet (allowing possible revisions according to the speed control commands). This eliminates the overhead of the new permit.

In the F-ACKCH embodiment of FIG. 5, a positive value for the ACK_STOP symbol, a NULL symbol for NAK, and a negative value for the ACK_RC symbol are used. Amplitude manipulation (that is, not sending a NAK) on the F-ACKCH provides the base station (especially the base station without scheduling) the option of not sending the ACK when the cost (required power) to accomplish this is too high. This provides the base station with a compromise between the forward link and reverse link capacities, since a correctly received packet that is not acknowledged by the ACK signal is likely to trigger retransmission at a later point in time.

A variety of technologies for sending F-ACKCH can be used within the scope of the present invention. Individual signals for each mobile station can be combined in a common channel. For example, acknowledgment responses for a large number of mobile stations may be time division multiplexed. In an exemplary embodiment, up to 96 mobile device IDs may be supported in one F-ACKCH. Additional F-ACKCHs can be used to support additional mobile device IDs.

Another example is to convert a large number of acknowledgment signals for a large number of mobile stations to a plurality of orthogonal functions. The Hadamard encoder is one example of an encoder for converting to a variety of orthogonal functions. Various other technologies may also be used. For example, any Walsh code or other error-correcting code can be used to encode information bits. Different users may be transmitted at different power levels if each independent channel has an independent gain. The exemplary F-ACKCH transmits one dedicated three-digit flag per user. Each user monitors the F-ACKCH from all base stations in their active set (or, alternatively, may determine a reduced active set to reduce complexity).

In various embodiments, implementation, every two channels are covered by a sequence of Walsh wrapper in 128 chips. One channel is transmitted on channel I, and the other is transmitted on channel Q. Another embodiment of the F-ACKCH uses a single Walsh wrapper sequence of 128 chips to support up to 192 mobile stations simultaneously. An exemplary embodiment uses a 10 millisecond duration for each three-digit flag.

It should be commented that when a mobile station has a packet for sending that requires the use of an R-ESCH, it can make a request on the R-REQCH. The base station may respond with a resolution using the F-GCH. However, this operation can be somewhat expensive. To reduce the overhead of the forward link, the F-ACKCH can send the ACK_RC flag, which extends the existing resolution (subject to speed control) at low cost, by means of a planning base station (or others when handoff permissions from multiple base stations are supported). This method works for both individual and general permissions. ACK_RC is used, starting from the resolution of the base station (or base stations), and extends the existing resolution for yet another encoder packet in the same ARQ channel (subject to speed control).

Note that, as shown in FIG. 4, not every base station in the active set needs to send back the F-ACKCH. A plurality of base stations sending an F-ACKCH in soft handoff may be a subset of the active set. Exemplary technologies for F-ACKCH transmission are disclosed in a pending application for US Pat. No. 10 / 611,333, entitled “CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXING COMMANDS ON A CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXED CHANNEL” "), Registered June 30, 2003, assigned to the assignee of the present invention.

F-RCCH

A forward speed control channel (F-RCCH) is transmitted from one or more base stations to a mobile station to transmit a speed control signal for the next transmission. The mobile station may be instructed to monitor an indicator from each F-ACKCH member of the active set or its subset. For clarity, a plurality of base stations sending an F-RCCH to be controlled by a mobile station will be indicated as an F-RCCH active set. The F-RCCH active set may be signaled by a Layer 3 (L3) signaling, which may be specified during channel allocation, in a handover direction message (HDM), or in any other manner known to those skilled in the art.

6 depicts an exemplary F-RCCH. The F-RCCH is a 3-stable channel with the following values: RATE_HOLD (speed hold), indicating that the mobile station can transmit the next packet at no more than the same speed of the current packet, RATE_INCREASE (speed increase), indicating that the mobile station can either in a deterministic or probabilistic way to increase the maximum speed for transmitting the next packet relative to the transmission rate of the current packet, and RATE_DECREASE (speed reduction), indicating that the mobile station can either deterministic, or of probabilistically, decrease the maximum rate for next packet transmission relative to the transmission rate of the current packet.

L3 signaling may indicate whether or not a mobile station should combine speed control indicators from different base stations. This is similar to what is done with speed control bits in the IS-2000 Edition. So, there could be an indicator, for example RATE_COMB_IND, sent after channel allocation, and in handover messages, which could indicate whether the mobile station should flexibly combine F-RCCH bits from different base stations. Those skilled in the art will understand that there are many formats for transmitting channels, such as F-RCCH, including separate TDM channels, combined TDM / CDM channels, or other formats.

In various embodiments, various bit rate control configurations are possible. For example, all mobile stations can be controlled by a single indicator per sector. Alternatively, each mobile station may be controlled by an individual sector indicator allocated to each mobile station. Otherwise, groups of mobile stations may be controlled by their own attributed indicator. This configuration provides mobile stations with the same maximum QoS class the ability to be assigned to the same indicator. For example, all mobile stations, only whose flow is indicated by “best efforts”, can be controlled by one highlighted indicator, thus, providing the possibility of lowering the load for these flows of best efforts.

In addition, signaling can be used to configure the mobile station so that the mobile station only focuses on the F-RCCH indicator from the serving base station or from all base stations in the F-RCCH active set. Note that if the mobile station controls only the indicator from the serving base station, and RATE_COMB_IND specifies that the indicator is identical from multiple base stations, then the mobile station can combine all the indicators in the same group as the serving base station, before making a decision. Many base stations with separate speed control indicators when used at any time will be indicated as many in F-RCCH circulation. Thus, if the mobile station is configured such that the mobile station only pays attention to the F-RCCH indicator from the serving base station, then the size of the plurality of those in the F-RCCH call is 1.

You can imagine that the usage rules for the F-RCCH can be configured by the base station. The following is an exemplary set of rules for a mobile station with a one-term set in F-RCCH circulation. If RATE_HOLD is received, the mobile station does not change its transmission rate. If RATE_INCREASE is received, the mobile station increases its speed by one (that is, one speed level, an example of which is described in detail in Table 1 above). If RATE_DECREASE is received, the mobile station decreases its speed by one. Note that the mobile station only monitors the indicators when circumstances dictate (that is, the action as a result of the ACK sequence of operations detailed in more detail below indicating speed control is active).

The following is an exemplary set of rules for a mobile station with multiple members of a plurality of F-RCCH calls. The simple rule for increasing / decreasing speed at 1 speed is modified. If any ACK_STOP is received, the mobile station returns to autonomous speeds. Otherwise, if any indicator is RATE_DECREASE, the mobile station decreases its speed by one. If no indicator is RATE_DECREASE, and at least one base station has a speed control action (as a result of an ACK) that indicates RATE_HOLD, then the mobile station maintains the same speed. If no indicator is RATE_DECREASE, no base station indicates speed control and RATE_HOLD, and at least one base station has a speed control action and an indication of RATE_INCREASE; then the mobile station increases its speed by one.

Exemplary Embodiments of Combined Resolution, ARO, and Speed Control

To summarize some of the aspects introduced above, mobile stations may be empowered to perform autonomous transmissions, which, although they may be limited in bandwidth, provide low latency. In this case, the mobile station can transmit without request up to the maximum T / P R-ESCH, T / P _{Max_auto} , which can be set and configured by the base station by transmitting signals.

Scheduling may be defined at one or more base stations, and reverse link capacity allocations may be performed by permissions transmitted over the F-GCH at relatively high speed. Additionally, speed control commands can be used to modify pre-authorized transmissions or stand-alone transmissions, with low overhead, thereby adjusting the reverse link capacity distribution. Scheduling can thus be used to accurately control reverse link load and thus maintain voice quality (R-FCH), DV feedback (R-CQICH) and DV acknowledgment (R-ACKCH).

Individual resolution enables detailed control of the transmission of the mobile station. A mobile station can be selected based on location and QoS to maximize throughput while maintaining the required service levels. Generic resolution enables effective notification, especially for poorly located mobile stations.

The F-ACKCH in combination with the F-RCCH effectively implements “confirm and continue” commands that extend the existing resolution at low cost. (The continuation may be speed-controlled, as described above, and further detailed below). This works with both individual permissions and general permissions. Various embodiments and technologies for scheduling, authorizing, and transmitting over a shared resource, such as 1xEV-DV reverse link, are disclosed in U.S. Patent Pending No. 10 / 646,955 for SCHEDULED AND AUTONOMOUS TRANSMISSION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT "(" PLANNED AND AUTONOMOUS TRANSFER AND CONFIRMATION "), registered on August 21, 2003, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference.

7 depicts a method 700 that one or more base stations can apply to allocate capacity in response to requests and transmissions from one or more mobile stations. Note that the sequence of steps shown is only one example, and the sequence of the various steps may be rearranged or combined with other steps not shown without departing from the scope of the present invention. The flow begins at block 710. The base station receives any transmission requests that may be transmitted by one or more mobile stations. Since method 700 can be repeated indefinitely, previous requests may also be accepted that might not be allowed, which may be combined with new requests to estimate the amount of transfer demand for requests.

At 720, one or more mobile stations may transmit subpackets that are received by the base station. These transmitted subpackets could be transmitted according to previous permissions (potentially modified by previous speed control commands) or autonomously (also potentially modified by previous speed control commands). The number of autonomous transmissions, the number of registered mobile stations and / or other factors can be used to estimate the amount of autonomous transmission demand.

At step 730, the base station decodes any received subpackets, not necessarily flexibly combined with respective pre-received subpackets, to determine if packets were received without error. These solutions will be used to send positive or negative acknowledgment to the respective transmitting mobile stations. Recall that HARQ can be used for packet transmission over R-ESCH. That is, a packet can be transmitted up to a certain number of times until it is correctly received by at least one mobile station. At the boundary of each frame, each base station decodes the R-RICH frame and determines the transmission format on the R-ESCH. The base station can also make this determination using the current R-RICH frame and previous R-RICH frames. Alternatively, the base station may also determine using other information extracted from the reverse pilot secondary channel (R-SPICH) and / or R-ESCH. With a specific transmission format, the base station attempts to decode the packet on the R-ESCH using pre-received subpackets that match.

At step 740, the base station performs scheduling. Any planning technique can be applied. The base station can factorize within the demand for transmission, anticipated autonomous transmission, estimates the current channel conditions, and / or various other parameters in order to plan for the allocation of the shared resource (reverse link capacity, in this example). Scheduling can take many forms for different base stations. Examples include granting permission (allocation on demand, increasing previous permission or decreasing previous permission), generating speed control commands to increase, decrease, or hold previously allowed speed or autonomous transmission, or ignoring the request (transferring the mobile station to autonomous transmission).

At step 750, the base station processes the received transmissions for each mobile station. This may include, among other functions, confirmation of accepted subpackets and conditional generation of permissions in response to transfer requests. FIG. 8 depicts an example method 750 for generating permissions, acknowledgments, and speed control commands. It is suitable for use in the exemplary method 700 depicted in FIG. 7, and can be adapted for use with other methods, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Method 750 may be repeated for each active mobile station during each pass of method 700, as described above.

At decision block 805, if a subpacket for the mobile station that is currently being processed has not been accepted, they are sent at block 810. No confirmation and no rate control command are needed to issue. Neither the F-ACKCH nor the F-RCCH need to be transmitted, and both characters can be subjected to transmission interrupt (DTX) (not transmitted). At decision block 815, if the request has been accepted, they are sent to decision block 820. Otherwise, the sequence of operations may stop.

At decision block 820, if a resolution was determined for this mobile station during scheduling, they are routed to block 825 to transmit the permission on the corresponding F-GCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. The mobile station can transmit in accordance with this resolution during the next suitable frame (examples of time distribution are described in detail below with respect to FIGS. 10-12).

Turning to decision block 805, if a subpacket has been received from the mobile station, they are sent to decision block 830. (Note that for the subpacket and the request, it is possible to be accepted, in which case both branches leaving the decision block 805 can be performed for the mobile station, the details are not shown for clarity of discussion).

At decision block 830, if the received subpacket was decoded correctly, an ACK will be generated. Forwarded to decision block 835. If speed control is required (including holding the speed, that is, Continue), go to step 845. If speed control is not required, go to step 840. At step 840, ACK_STOP is transmitted on the F-ACKCH. F-RCCH is not required to be transmitted, that is, a DTX may be generated. If at this moment no permission has been generated, the mobile station will be switched to autonomous transmission (or should stop if autonomous transmission is not available or is not applied). Alternatively, a new permission may be issued that will invalidate the stop command. Forwarded to decision block 820 to process this decision as described above.

At 845, speed control was indicated. As such, ACK_RC will be transmitted on the F-ACKCH. Forwarded to decision block 850. If a raise is required, transmit RATE_INCREASE on the F-RCCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. If no enhancement is required, go to decision block 860. At decision block 860, if a reduction is required, transmit RATE_DECREASE over the F-RCCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. Otherwise, transmit RATE_HOLD on the F-RCCH. In this example, retention is indicated by DTX. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

Turning to decision block 830, if the received subpacket has not been decoded correctly, a NAK will be generated. Go to block 875 to transmit the NAK on the F-ACKCH. In this example, NAK is indicated by DTX. Refer to decision block 880 to determine if the received subpacket was the last subpacket (i.e., whether the maximum number of retransmissions of subpackets has been reached). If not, in this example, the mobile station may retransmit according to the previous transmission format. DTX may be transmitted on the F-RCCH, as indicated in step 895. (Alternative embodiments, in this case, may perform additional signaling, examples of which are described below). Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

If the received and NAK signal subpacket is the last subpacket, they are sent from decision block 880 to decision block 885 to determine if speed control (including retention) is required. This is an example technology for extending prior resolution or autonomous transmission (including prior speed control, if any), with low overhead. If no speed control is required, a DTX is generated for the F-RCCH. In this example, the mobile station will transmit the next subpacket. Similar to decision block 835, if a new permission is not generated for the mobile station, the mobile station will be switched to autonomous transmission (if available). Alternatively, a new permission may be generated that will impose an available transmission for the mobile station. Forwarded to decision block 820 to complete this determination as described above.

At decision block 885, if speed control is required, are routed to decision block 850. Increase, decrease or retention can be formed for transmission on the F-RCCH, as described above. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

As a result, if the packet is received correctly, the base station can send a positive acknowledgment and, by condition, can send a speed control message to the mobile station.

The base station can send ACK_STOP (via F-ACKCH) to signal that the packet has been delivered and the mobile station is returning offline for the next transmission. The base station can also send a new permission if required. The mobile station may transmit up to the allowed rate for the next transmission. In any case, F-RCCHs are subjected to DTX. In one embodiment, only the serving (or enabling) base station can generate permissions. In an alternative embodiment, one or more base stations may generate permissions (details on handling this feature are detailed below).

The base station can send ACK_RC (on F-ACKCH) and RATE_HOLD (on F-RCCH) to signal that the packet was delivered and that the maximum speed at which the mobile station can transmit the next packet is the same as the current package.

The base station can send ACK_RC (on F-ACKCH) and RATE_INCREASE (on F-RCCH) to signal that a packet has been delivered and that the mobile station can increase the maximum speed for the next packet transmission relative to the transmission speed of the current packet. A mobile station can increase speed by following certain rules known to both the base station and the mobile station. The increase in speed can be either deterministic or probabilistic. Those skilled in the art will recognize a myriad of rules to increase speed.

The base station can send ACK_RC (on F-ACKCH) and RATE_DECREASE (on F-RCCH) to signal that a packet has been delivered and that the mobile station should reduce the maximum speed for the next packet transmission relative to the transmission speed of the current packet. A mobile station may slow down by following certain rules known to both the base station and the mobile station. The decrease can be either deterministic or probabilistic. Those skilled in the art will recognize a myriad of rules to reduce speed.

If the packet is not successfully received by the base station, and the packet can be further retransmitted (that is, not the last subpacket), the base station sends a NAK on the F-ACKCH. Note that the F-RCCHs are subjected to DTX in this example.

If additional retransmission is not allowed for the packet (i.e., the last subpacket), the base station may take the following possible actions. The base station can send a NAK (via F-ACKCH) and an enable message together on the F-GCH to signal to the mobile station that the packet was not delivered and that the mobile station can transmit up to the allowed rate for the next transmission. F-RCCHs are subjected to DTX in this case. In one embodiment, only the serving (or delegating) base station can generate permissions. In an alternative embodiment, one or more base stations may generate permissions (details on handling this feature are detailed below).

The base station can also send NAK (via F-ACKCH) and RATE_HOLD (via F-RCCH) to signal that the packet has not been delivered and that the maximum speed at which the mobile station can transmit the next packet is the same as the speed transmitting the current packet.

The base station can also send NAK (on F-ACKCH) and RATE_INCREASE (on F-RCCH) to signal that the packet has not been delivered and that the mobile station can increase the maximum speed for the next packet transmission relative to the transmission speed of the current packet. A mobile station can increase speed by following certain rules known to both the base station and the mobile station. The increase in speed can be either deterministic or probabilistic.

The base station can also send NAK (via F-ACKCH) and RATE_DECREASE (via F-RCCH) to signal that the packet has not been delivered and that the mobile station should reduce the maximum speed for the next packet transmission relative to the transmission speed of the current packet. A mobile station may slow down by following certain rules known to both the base station and the mobile station. The decrease can be either deterministic or probabilistic.

In an alternative embodiment (details not shown in FIG. 8), an alternative for NAK and shutdown may be created. For example, in the above scenario, the F-RCCH DTX corresponding to the NAK cannot be determined from Not Confirm and Hold. If you need to have a command to force a stop (or return to autonomous transmission), the base station could also use NAK and speed control, up to the last subpacket, to indicate that holding (or increasing or decreasing) the speed in the final subpacket means stopping. For example, any one of the speed control commands (that is, RATE_INCREASE, RATE_DECREASE, or RATE_HOLD) may be instructed to mean a stop in this particular case. The mobile station will be aware of when the last subpacket was received, and in this case, it can analyze the speed control commands accordingly. When the base station is aware that if the transmission of the final subpacket should be followed by a stop in case of a NAK, the selected rate control command may be issued from the NAK of the previous subpacket. The mobile station receiving the identified speed control command along with the NAK of the subpacket (not final) might know that the NAK (and RATE_HOLD, for example) in the final subpacket could mean that the previous permission could be canceled and the mobile station should return to autonomous transmission. Speed control commands not used for this purpose (i.e., RATE_INCREASE or RATE_DECREASE) sent from the NAK of the final subpacket might still be available. An alternative would be to transmit the resolution at zero (or lower) speed along with the final NAK, although this might require additional overhead. Those skilled in the art will easily find a compromise among these alternatives in accordance with the likelihood of “Not confirming and stopping” with other possibilities. The required overhead, in this case, can be optimized based on the probabilities of various situations.

FIG. 9 depicts an example method 900 for a mobile station to monitor and respond to permissions, acknowledgments, and rate control commands. The method is suitable for use in one or more mobile stations for use in conjunction with one or more base stations using the method 700 described above, as well as other embodiments of the base station.

The flow begins at block 910. The mobile station monitors the F-GCH, F-ACKCH, and F-RCCH. Note that in the various embodiments described above, the mobile station may monitor one or more of these channels. For example, there may be multiple resolution channels, and each mobile station may monitor one or more of them. Note also that each of these channels can be transmitted from one base station, or more than one, when the mobile station is in soft handoff. A channel can contain messages or commands directed to multiple mobile stations, which means that a mobile station can retrieve messages or commands directed specifically to it.

Other rules may be applied to provide the mobile station with the ability to conditionally control one or more control channels. For example, as described above, the F-RCCH may not be transmitted when ACK_STOP is issued. Thus, in this case, the mobile station does not need to control the F-RCCH when ACK_STOP is received. A rule may be specified that the mobile station searches for permission messages and / or speed control commands only if the mobile station has received a request to which such messages may be answered.

In the following description of FIG. 9, it is assumed that the mobile station has previously transmitted a subpacket for which a confirmation response is expected (including potential permissions or speed control commands). If the request has not been previously authorized, the mobile station may still monitor the resolution in response to the previously transmitted request. Those skilled in the art will readily adapt method 900 to take this situation into account. These and other steps of the potential processing of the mobile station were omitted for clarity of discussion.

Starting from decision block 915, processing of the F-ACKCH begins. The mobile station extracts information on all F-ACKCHs that it controls. Recall that there may be an F-ACKCH between the mobile station and each member of the F-ACKCH of the active set. Some of the F-ACKCH commands can be flexibly combined, as specified by L3 signaling. If the mobile station receives at least one positive notification, either ACK_RC or ACK_STOP (on F-ACKCH), the current packet has been received correctly and no additional subpackets need to be transmitted. An acceptable rate for transmitting the next packet, if any, needs to be determined.

At decision block 915, if ACK_STOP was received, the mobile station is aware that the previously transmitted subpacket was received correctly and that speed control commands should not be decoded.

At decision block 920, the mobile station determines whether an F-GCH grant has been received. If so, the mobile station transmits the next packet according to the grant, as indicated in step 930. In one embodiment, only one delegating station produces the grant. If ACK_STOP and the permission message are received from the base station, the mobile station transmits a new packet on the same ARQ channel at any speed equal to or lower than the allowed speed.

In an alternative embodiment, more than one base station may send a grant. If the base stations coordinate the grant and send an identical message, the mobile station can flexibly combine the permissions. Different rules can be applied to handle cases where different permissions are accepted. One example is to oblige the mobile station to transmit at the lowest speed specified in the received permission in order to avoid excessive crosstalk in the cell corresponding to the corresponding delegating base station (including ACK_STOP without the appropriate permission - indicating that the transmission should return offline). Various other alternatives will be apparent to those skilled in the art. If the permission was not taken at decision block 920, the mobile station should return to autonomous speed, as shown at decision block 925. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

Turning to decision block 915, if ACK_STOP is not adopted, they are sent to decision block 940. If ACK_RC is received, the mobile station monitors the corresponding F-RCCH of the base station from which a positive acknowledgment (s) is received, if any. Note that there may not be an F-RCCH between the base station and the mobile station, since the F-RCCH active set is a subset of the F-ACKCH active set. Note again that when the mobile station receives the F-ACKCH from multiple base stations, the corresponding messages may be inconsistent. For example, one or more ACK_STOP commands may be received, one or more ACK_RC commands may be issued, one or more permissions may be transmitted, or any combination thereof. Specialists in the art will be aware of the various rules for implementation in order to accommodate any of the possibilities. For example, a mobile station may determine the lowest possible transmission authority (which may be from ACK_STOP without permission, ACK_RC with a decrease or resolution with a lower value) and transmit accordingly. This is similar to the technology commonly known as the “downtime range”. Such technology can be used to completely avoid excessive crosstalk with neighboring cells. Or, one or more base stations may have priority assigned to them, so that one or more base stations may be able to interrupt others (possibly with associated conditions). For example, a scheduling (or delegating) base station may have some priority over other base stations in soft handoff. Other rules are also allowed. (Recall that one or more NAKs can also be received, but the mobile station does not need to retransmit. However, the mobile station can enter speed control or resolution commands, in a similar manner, from the NAK-transmitting base station, if required). To facilitate discussion in the materials of this application, when it is said that the mobile station determines whether ACK_STOP, ACK_RC, NAK, or permission is received, this may be the result of applying the required set of rules to the number of received commands, and the result is an identified team.

If an ACK_RC has been received, go to decision block 945 to start determining which type of speed control command should be supported. If an increase is indicated, they are sent to step 950. The next transmission can be transmitted on the same ARQ channel at an increased speed based on the current speed. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. Again, an increase can be deterministic or probabilistic. In addition, RATE_INCREASE may not necessarily result in an immediate increase in speed, but could increase the transmission speed from the mobile station in the future (that is, a credit-like algorithm is used at the mobile station), or RATE_INCREASE may result in an increase covering multiple speeds. In the example of a credit algorithm, the mobile station supports an internal “balance / credit” parameter. Whenever it receives RATE_INCREASE, but cannot increase its speed (either energy or data are exhausted), the mobile station increases the parameter. When energy or data becomes available to the mobile station, it can use the stored “credit / balance” at the selected data rate. Various methods of increasing speed will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

If the increase is not indicated at decision block 945, they are sent to decision block 955 to determine if the decrease is indicated. If an increase is indicated, they are sent to block 960. The next transmission can be transmitted on the same ARQ channel at a reduced speed based on the current speed. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. Again, the decline may be deterministic or probabilistic. In addition, RATE_INCREASE may not necessarily result in an immediate decrease in speed, but could reduce the transmission rate from the mobile station in the future (that is, a credit-like algorithm is used at the mobile station), or RATE_INCREASE may result in a decrease covering multiple speeds. When the approximate credit algorithm is used in the context of RATE_DECREASE, when the mobile station receives RATE_DECREASE but does not follow it for some reason (for example, urgent data that needs to be sent), it receives a negative credit, and this negative credit needs to be addressed later, before a certain degree. Various methods of reducing speed will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

If neither increase nor decrease is indicated, RATE_HOLD has been accepted. The mobile station can transmit the next packet at a maximum speed equal to the speed of the current packet, as indicated in step 965. Then, the sequence of operations can be stopped.

Turning to decision block 940, if no type of ACK has been identified, it will be determined that a NAK has been received. At decision block 970, if transmission is still possible for the packet (that is, the current subpacket was not the last subpacket), the mobile station retransmits the subpacket on the same ARQ channel with incremented subpacket ID, as shown at block 980.

At decision block 970, if the current packet was the last subpacket, the mobile station has reached retransmission for the packet. We will go to decision block 975 to determine if a permit has been received (in a similar manner as described above with respect to block 920). If the permission message is assigned to the mobile station (either from a single base station, or more than one, as described above), the mobile station can transmit a new packet on the same ARQ channel at a speed equal to or lower than the allowed speed. Go to step 930 described above.

At decision block 975, if resolution has not been received, the mobile station can monitor the multiple F-RCCHs of the active set, receive speed control commands, and select the maximum speed allowed to transmit the next packet on the same ARQ channel. The selection of speeds when more than one speed control command is received can be made as described above. Go to decision block 945 and continue as described above.

Various other technologies may be applied by an exemplary embodiment of a mobile station. The mobile station can control the number of destroys of the packet (i.e., the absence of positive confirmation after the last subpacket). The measurement can be performed by counting the number of consecutive packet destroys, or by counting the number of destroyed packets within an interval (i.e., a moving interval). If a mobile station recognizes that too many packets have been destroyed, it can reduce its transmission speed even if control commands indicate another command (i.e., RATE_HOLD or RATE_INCREASE).

In one embodiment, the permission message may have a higher priority than the rate control bit. Alternatively, the permission message may be interpreted with the same priority as the speed control bit. In this case, the definition of speed can be modified. For example, if no permission message has been assigned to the mobile station, the speed for the next transmission is determined by the speed control commands (RATE_INCREASE, RATE_HOLD, RATE_DECREASE and ACK_STOP) using the “idle time range” rule or the like. When, in addition, permission is accepted, the speed for the next transmission can be determined by all speed control commands (RATE_INCREASE, RATE_HOLD, RATE_DECREASE and ACK_STOP) using the rule "working idle range" or the like, the result of which is compared with the allowed speed, and the most low speed.

Signaling can be used to configure the mobile station so that the mobile station monitors only the F-RCCH indicator either from the serving base station or from all base stations in the F-RCCH active set. For example, when RATE_COMB_IND can specify that the speed control command is the same from multiple base stations, then the mobile station can combine all the indicators in the identified groups before making a decision. The number of distinctive indicators when used at any time can be indicated as the set of those in F-RCCH circulation. In one example, the mobile station may be configured to monitor the F-RCCH indicator only from the serving base station, in which case the size of the plurality of those in the F-RCCH call is 1.

In addition, as described above, various rules can be applied to control speeds in response to F-RCCH commands. Any of these speeds can be adjusted by transmitting signals from the base station. In one example, there may be a set of probabilities and step sizes used in determining whether a mobile station increases or decreases its speed, and by how much. These probabilities and possible speed step sizes can be updated by transmitting signals as needed.

Method 900 may be adapted to include various alternatives described for a base station employing method 750 described above. For example, in one embodiment, the NAK and the stop command are not explicitly defined, while the DTX in the F-RCCH along with the NAK indicates speed retention. In an alternative embodiment, the NAK and stop functionality can be applied in accordance with any alternative technologies described above for method 750. Also, as noted above with respect to method 750, in an exemplary embodiment, based on speed control or resolution, a speed change is performed at the borders of the packet. It is anticipated that the described methods may be modified to also include rate changes within the subpacket.

Those skilled in the art will understand, in light of the idea set forth in the materials of this application, that any procedures and features described in the materials of this application can be combined in various ways. For example, a mobile station can only be controlled by the main base station through permission, and not be controlled by other base stations through the speed control bits. Alternatively, a mobile station can be controlled through permissions from all base stations or a subset of base stations in its active set. Some F-GCHs can be flexibly combined. The mode in which the base station operates can be set by L3 signaling during channel allocation or by other messages during a packet data call.

As another example, if the packet is received correctly, the main base station can send either ACK_STOP or ACK_RC. Speed control commands may not be used, so ACK_RC can be used to mean “confirm and continue” for this mode. In this context, “acknowledge and continue” indicates that the mobile station can transmit a new packet at the same rate as the packet that is acknowledged. As before, if ACK_STOP is sent, the base station can also send the dominant F-GCH grant assigned to the MS. In this example, the NAK will indicate “do not acknowledge and stop” if the corresponding permission is not transferred from the NAK. In this scenario, non-primary base stations also send ACK_STOP or ACK_RC, where ACK_RC is not followed by a speed control command, and indicates “acknowledge and continue”.

In another exemplary special mode, the described features are included in the subset, the mobile station can only be controlled by the speed control bits (from base stations in its F-RCCH active set). This mode can be set by means of L3 signaling during channel allocation or other messages during a packet data call. In this mode, the base station sends a NAK if the packet is not received successfully. When the packet is received correctly, the base station sends either ACK_STOP or ACK_RC, together with F-RCCH (RATE_HOLD, RATE_INCREASE or RATE_DECREASE). NAK after the last subpacket may be followed by F-RCCH (RATE_HOLD, RATE_INCREASE or RATE_DECREASE).

10-12 show examples illustrating the time distribution of various channels described in the materials of this application. The examples do not represent any exact choice of the length of the coordinate system, but illustrate the relative distribution in time of resolution, ACK, and speed control (RC) indicators. The ACK indicator, the RC indicator, and the resolution appear during the same time interval, so that the mobile station receives the ACK, RC and resolution information at approximately the same time for use in transmitting the next packet. In these examples, the mobile station does not need to monitor the RC indicators, except in cases where it receives an acknowledgment or when all subpackets have been transmitted (as described in the exemplary embodiments described above). The mobile station monitors the ACK bit assigned to it and the RC indicator corresponding to a specific ARQ sequence. For example, if there are four ARQ sequences, and the mobile station transmits in all ARQ sequences, then the mobile station monitors the ACK indicator every interval and up to the RC indicator (as applicable) in each interval. Empty intervals between different transmissions have been introduced to allow time for the base station or mobile station to receive and decode, as applicable, requests, subpacket transmissions, permissions, acknowledgments, and rate control commands.

Note that these timing charts are not exhaustive, but serve only to illustrate the various aspects described above. Those skilled in the art will recognize a myriad of combinations of sequences.

10 shows a time distribution for an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and rate control channels. The mobile station transmits a transmission request on the R-REQCH. The base station subsequently transmits permission on the F-GCH in response to the request. The mobile station then transmits the first subpacket using parameters in accordance with the resolution. The subpacket is not decoded correctly at the base station, as indicated by striking out the transmission of the subpacket. The base station transmits the ACK / NAK transmission signal on the F-ACKCH together with the speed control command on the F-RCCH. In this example, the NAK is transmitted and the F-RCCH is DTX. The mobile station receives the NAK and retransmits the second subpacket in response. In the meantime, the base station correctly decodes the second subpacket and again sends the ACK / NAK transmission signal on the F-ACKCH along with the speed control command on the F-RCCH. In this example, no additional permission is transferred. An ACK_RC is transmitted and a speed control command is issued (it may indicate an increase, decrease, or hold, as determined according to the desired planning). The mobile station then transmits the first subpacket of the next packet, using parameters associated with resolution, modified as necessary according to the F-RCCH speed control command.

11 shows the time distribution of an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and speed control channels, along with a new resolution. The permission request, the transmission of a subpacket (not decoded correctly) and the NAK are formerly transmitted as the first eight slots described above with respect to FIG. 10. In this example, the second transmission of the subpacket is also received and decoded correctly. However, instead of the ACK_RC transmitted by the base station, ACK_STOP is transmitted. If there is no permission accompanying ACK_STOP, the mobile station could return to autonomous transmission. Instead, a new permission is being transferred. The mobile station does not need to control the F-RCCH during this interval. The mobile station then transmits the first subpacket of the next packet in accordance with the new resolution.

12 shows a time distribution of an exemplary embodiment with combined acknowledgment and speed control channels, without permission. This example is identical to FIG. 10, except that no permission is sent in response to the original request of the mobile station. Thus, the transmission of the first subpacket of the first packet is transmitted at autonomous speed. Again, at the base station, this subpacket is not decoded correctly. The second subpacket is correctly decoded again, and ACK_RC is transmitted along with the rate control command. The mobile station then sends the next packet at a potentially adjusted rate. This example illustrates the ability to arbitrarily change the speed of a mobile station using only speed control commands, without any permission.

Note that in an alternative embodiment, the base station may use autonomous transmissions with or without prior request. The reduction can be used to ease congestion, and the increase can be awarded when there is additional capacity, although the BS may not know the information requirements since the request was not transmitted.

13 shows an exemplary embodiment of a system 100 comprising a dedicated speed control signal and a common speed control signal. The dedicated speed control channel (F-DRCCH) is transmitted from the base station 104 to the mobile station 106. The F-DRCCH functions, together with the forward acknowledgment channel (F-ACKCH) to provide acknowledgment, continue resolution, and perform speed control in essentially the same way like F-ACKCH and F-RCCH described above. A base station can send a dedicated speed control channel to each of a large number of mobile stations. In this embodiment, the base station also transmits a common rate control channel (F-CRCCH). A common speed control channel can be used to simultaneously control the speed of a group of mobile stations.

FIG. 14 shows an embodiment of a system 100 comprising a forward spread acknowledgment channel (F-EACKCH). An F-EACKCH may take the place of both an acknowledgment channel (i.e., F-ACKCH described above) and a speed control channel (i.e., F-RCCH). The functions of both channels can be combined into one channel in a manner consistent with various aspects of the invention. The F-EACKCH is transmitted from one or more base stations 104 to one or more mobile stations 106. The F-CRCCH may be transmitted together with the F-EACKCH, as described above, and is further detailed below. The concepts of a common speed control channel and an extended acknowledgment channel, however, are separate, meaning the two do not need to be combined (hence the dashed line for the F-CRCCH shown in FIG. 14).

For example, the F-ACKCH may contain instructions according to a two-bit data pattern (having four states). Confirm and continue information can be combined with a command to increase the data rate as the first state. Confirm and continue information can be combined with a command to reduce the data rate as a second state. “Confirm and Stop” may be the third state, and NAK as the fourth state. Four states can be represented with a constellation of modulation format I and Q, in accordance with well-known technologies.

15 depicts an exemplary constellation suitable for use in the F-EACKCH. As is known in the art, such a constellation can be applied using quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) techniques. In an alternative embodiment, any two signals may be applied to display commands in two dimensions, as shown.

In this example, seven points are assigned to various commands. Missing transfer point (0,0) assigned to NAK_HOLD. This may be the most likely transmitted command, and therefore, the transmit power and capacity can be stored for this purpose. Various other commands assigned to points on the circle as shown include ACK_INCREASE, ACK_HOLD, ACK_DECREASE, NAK_DECREASE, NAK_INCREASE and ACK_STOP. Each of these commands can be sent as a single QAM modulation symbol. Each command corresponds to a pair of commands sent over a similar set of ACKCH and F-RCCH channels. ACK_INCREASE indicates that the previous subpacket was decoded correctly, and future subpackets can be sent at increased speed. ACK_HOLD indicates that the previous subpacket was decoded correctly, and the future subpacket can be transmitted at the existing speed. ACK_DECREASE indicates that the previous subpacket was decoded correctly, and that the future subpacket can be transmitted, however, at reduced speed. ACK_STOP indicates that the previous subpacket was decoded correctly, but any previous permissions and / or speed control commands have been canceled. The mobile station is only transferred to autonomous transmission (if applicable).

NAK_INCREASE indicates that the subpacket was not decoded correctly. Future transmissions may be sent at a higher speed (probably due, for example, to facilitating capacity limitations). In one embodiment, speed control commands are sent after the final subpacket is transmitted. An alternative embodiment may include speed control transmissions with NAK signals at any given time. Similarly, NAK_DECREASE indicates that the previous subpacket was not decoded correctly, and future transmissions should be performed at a reduced rate. ACK_HOLD indicates that the previous subpacket was not decoded correctly, and future transmission may occur at the existing speed.

The NAK_STOP command is not used in the example of FIG. 15, although those skilled in the art will recognize that such a command (or other commands) could be entered. Various alternatives for encoding NAK_STOP (detailed above) can also be used in conjunction with F-EACKCH.

Specialists in the art will recognize an uncountable number of constellations that can be used to include in any set of commands (or combinations thereof), as described in detail in the materials of this application. Constellations can be designed to provide different levels of protection (that is, the probability of correct reception) for a variety of teams, sets of commands or types of commands.

16 depicts an alternative constellation suitable for use in the F-EACKCH. This example illustrates the speed control exception for NAK commands. Various ACK commands include ACK_HOLD, ACK_INCREASE, ACK_DECREASE, and ACK_STOP. An empty command (0,0) is assigned to the NAK for the reasons described above. In addition, you can see that the distance between the NAK and any ACK command is equivalent, and can be set to any value to provide the desired error probability for the NAK.

Different constellations can be assigned to sets of team groups with the desired properties. For example, NAK commands can be distributed points relatively close to each other, ACK commands can be distributed points relatively close to each other, and the two groups can be separated by a relatively greater distance. In this way, although the probability of misinterpretation of one type of team in a group to another in a group may increase, the probability of misinterpretation of the type of group is relatively reduced. This means that ACKs are less likely to be mistakenly identified as NAKs, and vice versa. If a decrease, increase or hold is mistakenly identified, the subsequent speed control command can be used to compensate. (Note that indicating an increase when a decrease or hold was sent, for example, may increase crosstalk to other channels in the system).

17 depicts a three-dimensional exemplary constellation suitable for use in the F-EACKCH. A three-dimensional constellation can be formed by using any three signals to indicate the dimensional characteristics of each axis. Or, a single signal can be time-multiplexed to carry information for one or more measurements in a first time period, followed by information for one or more additional measurements in one or more second measurements. Those skilled in the art will recognize that this can be expanded to any number of dimensions. In one example, the QAM signal and the BPSK signal may be transmitted simultaneously. The QAM signal can carry x and y axis information, while the BPSK signal carries z axis information. Constellation technology is well known in the art.

The example of FIG. 17 further illustrates the concept of grouping ACK commands aside from NAK commands. Note that the relative distance between ACK_STOP, ACK_DECREASE, ACK_HOLD and ACK_INCREASE is less than the distance between any ACK command and any NAK command (which includes NAK_HOLD, NAK_INCREASE and NAK_DECREASE, in this example). Thus, a mobile station is less likely to misinterpret a confirmation command than a speed command. Specialists in the art will apply the ideas set forth in the materials of this application to form constellations containing any set of commands, with protection set the same for the teams, or with protection distributed in any desired way.

FIG. 18 depicts an embodiment of a method 750 for processing received transmission signals at a base station, including acknowledgment and rate control, suitable for use in step 750 described above. Recall that before step 750, the base station accepted previous requests, if any, completed any required permissions, accepted both authorized and autonomous transmissions, and completed planning using these and other factors.

This embodiment of step 750 begins at step 1810. The base station generates any required permissions that are applicable, in accordance with previously completed scheduling. At step 1820, an ACK or NAK command is generated to confirm previous transmissions. A confirmation command can be combined with or accompanied by a command to extend the previous resolution, or a command to enable existing speed control (including autonomous transmission speed control). Any of the technologies described in the materials of this application can be used to transmit signals at step 1820, including control signals for the transmission rate and confirmation, as well as a combined signal for confirmation and speed control.

At step 1830, an ACK_STOP command may be sent to indicate that the mobile station should return from the previous permission offline. In this example, ACK_STOP is also used to direct the mobile station to switch from monitoring a dedicated speed control channel (that is, F-DRCCH, and instead, control a common speed control signal (i.e. F-CRCCH). In an alternative embodiment, other commands can be selected to indicate the offset of the control from specialized to a common speed control channel. For this purpose, a special command can be defined. A special command can be included in the combined channel, as well with one or more points in the constellation, or it can be sent via signal transmission.In step 1840, one or more base stations provide acknowledgment for subsequent autonomous transmissions.In step 1850, general speed control is then used to modify one or more mobile stations controlling the common speed control channel, then the sequence of operations can stop.

FIG. 19 shows an embodiment of a method 1900 for responding to general and specialized speed control. Method 1900 can be used in a mobile station responsive to a base station using a combination of general and specialized speed control, such as described previously with respect to FIGS. 7 and 18. The flow begins at block 1910. In this example, specialized speed control is provided along with resolution . A non-resolution mobile station will control a common speed control channel. In alternative embodiments, permission-enabled mobile stations may also be required to follow a common speed control signal, or a dedicated speed control channel may be assigned to non-authorized mobile stations. These alternatives are not shown in FIG. 19, but those skilled in the art will readily apply such embodiments and their modifications using any various signaling technologies, in light of the idea presented herein. At decision block 1910, if the mobile station operates at the previous permission, they are sent to block 1940.

At step 1940, the mobile station monitors a grant channel (i.e., F-GCH) acknowledgment and rate control channels (which may be F-ACKCH and F-DRCCH or a combined F-EACKCH, as described above). At step 1945, if an ACK_STOP command is received, they are sent to step 1950. In this embodiment, ACK_STOP is used to assign a return to offline transmission, as shown in step 1950. As will be further detailed below, ACK_STOP also indicates a transition from monitoring a dedicated control channel speed to control the common speed control channel. In an alternative embodiment, a command other than ACK_STOP may be used to indicate that control is switched from dedicated to a common speed control channel, and the command does not need to be identical to the command to return to offline mode. After step 1950, the sequence of operations may stop. In an exemplary embodiment, method 1900 will be repeated iteratively, as needed.

At step 1945, if the ACK_STOP command is not received, they are sent to step 1955. At step 1955, the mobile station may transmit, according to the ACK / NAK channel commands, speed control and / or permissions that may be received. Then, the sequence of operations for the current iteration may stop.

Referring to decision block 1910, if the mobile station operates according to the previous permission, they are sent to block 1915. At block 1915, if a permission is received via the permission channel, they are sent to block 1920 and transmit according to the received permission, after which the sequence of operations may stop. Note that in this example, as described above, permission is used to indicate that the mobile station should monitor a dedicated speed control channel. Thus, in a subsequent iteration of method 1900, this mobile station could go from decision block 1910 to block 1940, as described above. In alternative embodiments, alternative technologies may be applied to signal a switch to monitoring a dedicated speed control channel.

In decision block 1915, if resolution is not accepted, the mobile station monitors the common speed control channel, as shown in decision block 1925. If a general speed control command is issued, they are sent to step 1930. The mobile station adjusts the speed in accordance with the general speed control command and can continue to transmit autonomously at a changed speed. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

If, at decision block 1925, a general speed control command is not received, they are sent to block 1935. The mobile station may continue to transmit autonomously at the current speed. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

FIG. 20 shows an alternative embodiment of a method 750 for processing received transmission signals, including acknowledgment and rate control, suitable for use in step 750 described above. This embodiment illustrates the use of an extended acknowledgment channel ((F-EACKCH) for combining acknowledgment and rate control. Recall that before step 750, the base station accepted previous requests, if any, fulfilled any required permissions, accepted both allowed and autonomous transmissions, and carried out planning involving these and other factors.

This embodiment of step 750 begins at step 2005. The base station produces any required permissions, as applicable, in accordance with the previously executed planning depicted at step 2010. At decision step 2015, an ACK or NAK is determined in response to a previously received transmission. ACK or NAK will be combined with speed control to provide a combined F-EACKCH, detailed below.

If an ACK is to be sent, go to decision block 2020. If speed control, including holding the current speed (ie, “confirm and continue”) is required for the target mobile station (as determined by any planning performed in the previous steps), they are sent to decision block 2030. At decision block 2030, if an increase is required, they are routed to block 2035 and send ACK_INCREASE via F-EACKCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. If an increase is not required, it is determined whether a decrease is required at decision block 2040. If so, they are sent to step 2045 to transmit ACK_DECREASE on the F-EACKCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. If neither increase nor decrease is required, retention is to be maintained. Forwarded to step 2050 to transmit ACK_HOLD on the F-EACKCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. Note that each of these three ACK commands, with speed control, is also used to extend the previous resolution.

In decision block 2020, if speed control is not required, transmit ACK_STOP on the F-EACKCH, as shown in block 2025. Then, the flow of operations may stop. When used in conjunction with an embodiment, such as shown, for example, in FIGS. 18-19, which applies general and specialized speed control, ACK_STOP is one example of a command that can instruct a mobile station to switch from specialized speed control to general . In this example, ACK_STOP terminates any previous permission, and the mobile station will then be transferred to autonomous transmission.

Turning to the decision step 2015, if the ACK should not be transmitted, then the NAK is appropriate. As described above, there are various alternatives for combining speed control with a NAK, depending on whether a NAK occurs in response to the final subpacket or not. In an alternative embodiment, such alternatives may also be included in the method depicted in FIG. In this example, if at step 2055 the NAK does not occur in response to the final subpacket, they are sent to step 2060 to transmit the NAK_HOLD on the F-EACKCH. This command, as described above, indicates that the subpacket has not been decoded correctly, and the next packet may be transmitted at the current speed. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

At decision block 2055, if the NAK occurs in response to the final subpacket, they are routed to decision block 2065. If no speed control is required, go to step 2060 to transmit NAK_HOLD on the F-EACKCH, as described above. Note that in an alternative embodiment, additional instructions may also be included. For example, NAK_STOP can be used to send a NAK to a subpacket, along with revoking a previous permission. Specialists in the art will comprehend countless other combinations in the light of the idea given in the materials of this application.

At decision block 2065, if speed control is required, they are routed to decision block 2070. If an increase is required, they are sent to step 2075 to transmit NAK_INCREASE via F-EACKCH. Otherwise, they are routed to step 2085 to transmit NAK_DECREASE on the F-EACKCH. Then, the sequence of operations may stop. Note that in this example, the default NAK, NAK_HOLD, as shown in step 2060, is reachable from decision block 2065. If an alternative embodiment is used, that is, including NAK_STOP, an additional decision branch, similar to steps 2040-2050 described above, can be used to include an alternative branch to transmit NAK_HOLD.

21 depicts a method 2100 for receiving and responding to an F-EACKCH. In one embodiment, method 2100 can be applied to a mobile station responsive to a base station transmitting according to various methods described above, including those shown in FIGS. 7, 18 and 20. The method begins at step 2110, wherein the mobile the station monitors a grant channel (i.e., F-GCH) to determine if a grant has been received.

At step 2120, the mobile station also monitors the F-EACKCH in response to a previously transmitted subpacket. The mobile station then transmits or retransmits as directed by the ACK or NAK on the F-EACKCH. The baud rate is also modified in accordance with any of STOP, HOLD, INCREASE or DECREASE by F-EACKCH, as well as any accepted permissions. Then, the sequence of operations may stop.

Various alternative embodiments, including general and specialized management, are further described below.

A mobile station in soft handoff can control the overall speed control from all cells in the active set, from a subset of them, or only from a serving cell. In one exemplary embodiment, each mobile station may increase its data rate only if all F-CRCCHs from the plurality of monitored cells indicate an allowed increase in data rate. This may include advanced crosstalk management. As indicated by this example, the data rate of different mobile stations during soft handoff may be different, due to the difference in the sizes of their active sets. F-CRCCH can be used to provide greater signal processing gain than F-DRCCH. Thus, for the same transmit power, it can be, by its nature, more reliable.

Recall that speed control can be configured as general speed control (i.e., a single indicator per sector), specialized speed control (specialized for one mobile station), or group speed control (one or more mobile stations in one or more groups). Depending on which speed control mode is selected (which may be indicated to the mobile station through L3 signaling), the mobile station may have different rights to control the speed based on the speed control bits, i.e., in particular, RATE_INCREASE and RATE_DECREASE. For example, speed control may be probabilistic if it is a general speed control, and deterministic if it is a specialized speed control. Various other permutations will be apparent in light of the idea presented in the materials of this application.

In addition, in the previous examples described above, it was assumed that speed control occurs on each HARQ channel. That is, the mobile station only pays attention to the speed control commands when it receives a positive acknowledgment or a negative acknowledgment after the last subpacket, and determines the rate control for the next transmission on the same ARQ channel. She may not pay attention to speed control commands during mid-gear. Accordingly, the base station does not send speed control commands in the middle of transmission.

For general speed control or group speed control, alternatives are foreseen for the above rule. In particular, the base station may send speed control commands during mid-transmission. Accordingly, the mobile station can accumulate speed control commands in the middle of transmission and use them to transmit the next packet. In this example, we assume that speed control still occurs on each HARQ channel. However, the F-ACKCH and F-RCCH function as two channels with independent operation. These technologies can also be generalized to speed control across all ARQ channels (or a subset of them).

It should be noted that in all of the embodiments described above, the steps of the method can be rearranged without leaving the scope of the invention. The descriptions disclosed in the materials of this application, in many cases with reference to the signals, parameters and procedures associated with the lxEV-DV system, but the scope of the invention is not limited as such. Specialists in the art will easily apply the principles set forth in the materials of this application to various other communication systems. These and other modifications will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Those skilled in the art will understand that information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be indicated throughout the foregoing description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination of them.

Those skilled in the art will further appreciate that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithmic steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have been described above in a general sense in terms of their functionality. Whether functionality such as hardware or software is implemented depends on the particular application and design constraints imposed on the entire system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each individual application, but such implementation choices should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present invention.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits disclosed in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented or implemented by a general-purpose processor, digital signal processor (DSP), specialized programmable integrated circuit (ASIC), matrix (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete key or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to make you perform the functions described in the materials of this application. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, for example, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a large number of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

The steps of a method or algorithm disclosed in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or a combination of the two. The software module can be located in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory (ROM, read-only memory), EEPROM memory (EPROM, electrically programmable ROM), EEPROM memory (EEPROM, electrically erasable and programmable ROM), registers, on the hard disk , a removable disk, a CD-ROM (ROM on a CD), or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. Alternatively, the storage medium may be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. ASICs may reside in a user terminal. Alternatively, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in a user terminal.

The foregoing description of the disclosed embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications in these embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention does not intend to be limited by the embodiments shown in the materials of this application, but should be brought into line with the widest scope compatible with the principles and new features disclosed in the materials of this application.

Claims (27)

1. A receiving device comprising:
a receiver for receiving the channel, the channel being configured to transmit ACK / NAK information (positive acknowledgment / negative acknowledgment) and transmission rate control information; and
a processor for decoding ACK / NAK information and channel rate control information,
wherein, the ACK / NAK information and the transmission rate control information are mapped to a set of data patterns to allow separation of the ACK / NAK information and the transmission rate control information in the receiver. 2. The receiver of claim 1, wherein the channel uses one channelization code in a code division multiplexing system. 3. The receiving device according to claim 1, in which the set of data patterns contains orthogonal functions. 4. The receiver of claim 1, wherein the data patterns are represented by modulation format groups I and Q. 5. The receiving device according to claim 1, wherein the transmission rate control information comprises three states, said three states indicating, respectively, whether the receiving device should transmit the next packet at the same speed as the current packet, transmit the next packet at a higher speed than the current packet, or transmit the next packet at a lower speed than the current packet. 6. The receiver according to claim 1, wherein the ACK / NAK information contains three states, NAK to indicate that the packet should be retransmitted from the receiver, ACK_RC to indicate to the receiver that retransmission is not required and the speed control pointer should be monitored transmission, and ACK_STOP to instruct the receiver to go offline for the next transmission, unless an authorization message is received. 7. A transmitting device comprising:
a processor for combining ACK / NAK information and transmission rate control information in one channel; and
a transmitter for transmitting information combined in a channel to a receiver. 8. The transmitter of claim 7, wherein the channel uses one channelization code in a code division multiplexing system. 9. The transmitter of claim 7, wherein the ACK / NAK information and the rate control information are mapped to a set of data patterns to allow ACK / NAK information and the rate control information to be separated at the receiver. 10. The transmitter of claim 9, wherein the set of data patterns comprises orthogonal functions. 11. The transmitter of claim 9, wherein the data patterns are represented by modulation format groups I and Q. 12. The transmitter of claim 9, wherein the transmission rate control information comprises three states, said three states indicating, respectively, whether the receiver should transmit the next packet at the same speed as the current packet, transmit the next packet at a higher speed, than the current packet, or transmit the next packet at a lower rate than the current packet. 13. The transmitter according to claim 9, wherein the ACK / NAK information contains three states, NAK for indicating that the packet should be retransmitted from the receiver, ACK_RC for indicating to the receiver that retransmission is not required and the speed control indicator should be monitored transmission, and ACK_STOP to instruct the receiver to go offline for the next transmission, unless an authorization message is received. 14. A method for processing received transmissions, including acknowledgments, comprising the steps of:
receiving a channel, the channel being configured to transmit ACK / NAK information and rate control information; and
decode ACK / NAK information and channel rate control information. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the channel uses one channelization code in a code division multiplexing system. 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the ACK / NAK information and the rate control information are mapped to a set of data patterns to enable separation of the ACK / NAK information and the rate control information. 17. The method according to clause 16, in which the set of data patterns contains orthogonal functions. 18. The method of claim 16, wherein the data patterns are represented by modulation format groups I and Q. 19. The method according to clause 16, in which the information transfer speed control contains three states, and the above three states indicate, respectively, whether the receiving device should transmit the next packet at the same speed as the current packet, transmit the next packet at a higher speed, than the current packet, or transmit the next packet at a lower rate than the current packet. 20. The method according to clause 16, in which the ACK / NAK information contains three states, NAK to indicate that the packet should be retransmitted from the receiver, ACK_RC to indicate to the receiver that retransmission is not required and the rate control pointer should be monitored , and ACK_STOP to instruct the receiver to go offline for the next transmission, unless an authorization message has been received. 21. A receiving device comprising:
means for receiving a channel, the channel being configured to transmit ACK / NAK information and rate control information; and
means for decoding ACK / NAK information and channel rate control information;
wherein the ACK / NAK information and the rate control information are mapped to a set of data patterns to allow separation of the ACK / NAK information and the rate control information. 22. The receiver of claim 21, wherein the channel uses one channelization code in a code division multiplexing system. 23. The receiving device according to paragraph 24, in which the set of data patterns contains orthogonal functions. 24. The receiver of claim 21, wherein the data patterns are represented by modulation format groups I and Q. 25. The receiver of claim 21, wherein the transmission rate control information comprises three states, said three states indicating, respectively, whether the receiver should transmit the next packet at the same speed as the current packet, transmit the next packet at a higher speed than the current packet, or transmit the next packet at a lower speed than the current packet. 26. The receiver of claim 21, wherein the ACK / NAK information contains three possible states, NAK to indicate that the packet should be retransmitted from the receiver, ACK_RC to indicate to the receiver that retransmission is not required and the control pointer should be monitored baud rate, and ACK_STOP to instruct the receiver to go offline for the next transmission, unless an authorization message is received. 27. Machine-readable medium for storing a computer program product containing code for implementing the method according to any one of paragraphs.14-20.

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