WO2019019829A1

WO2019019829A1 - Method and device for transmitting uplink control information

Info

Publication number: WO2019019829A1
Application number: PCT/CN2018/091017
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jinhua Liu; Min Wang; Magnus Thurfjell
Original assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ)
Priority date: 2017-07-28
Filing date: 2018-06-13
Publication date: 2019-01-31

Abstract

A method and device for transmitting UCI. The method includes: determining available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and determining data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI. Therefore, decoding performance degradation of data may be alleviated or avoided, while at the same time reception reliability for UCI transmission is not sacrificed.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR TRANSMITTING UPLINK CONTROL INFORMATION

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of communications, and more particularly, to a method and device for transmitting uplink control information (UCI) .

BACKGROUND

This section introduces aspects that may facilitate better understanding of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.

In long term evolution (LTE) releases 8 and 9, a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) is not transmitted in the same subframe as a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) . While, LTE release 13 allows simultaneous transmission of PUCCH and PUSCH.

When UCI is to be transmitted in a subframe in which a user equipment (UE) has been allocated transmission resources for PUSCH, the UCI may be multiplexed together with PUSCH data (or may be referred to as UL-SCH data) before performing a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) spreading.

UCI may include the following information for hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) and channel state information (CSI) feedback: channel quality indicator (CQI) , precoding matrix indicator (PMI) , HARQ ACK/NACK, rank indicator (RI) .

CQI/PMI, HARQ ACK/NACK and RI may be multiplexed with symbols of the PUSCH data onto a plurality of uplink resource elements (REs) . In LTE or LTE-A(advanced LTE) , puncturing may be performed in order to multiplex the UCI and the data. For example, one or more REs of PUSCH data may be occupied by the HARQ ACK/NACK. The term “puncturing” , when used in this disclosure, can be referred to LTE/LTE-A specification, such as release 12.

On the other hand, 3GPP RAN1 has agreed that a NR (New Radio) UE may be configured with either DFT spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) waveform or cyclic prefix OFDM (CP-OFDM) waveform. With CP-OFDM as the waveform for uplink, peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) may be higher on average than that with DFT-S-OFDM.

In addition, in NR there will be some services with high requirement on transmission reliability and/or with small size on data packet. For example, for ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) services, packet size usually is very small. For instance, for URLLC service using for factory automation, usually there are only packets to control behavior of manufacturing machines, and such packets are usually very small. For another example, URLLC and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services may have high requirement on the transmission reliability.

SUMMARY

The inventors found that, when UCI is transmitted via PUSCH multiplexing with the data with a small size, there may be obvious decoding performance degradation since punctured REs take a considerable ratio of the total available REs for data transmission. So that, this may negatively impact on the reception reliability of the data; for some services (such as URLLC or eMBB services) with high requirement on the transmission reliability, such impact may be not acceptable.

Therefore, certain enhancement shall be achieved to alleviate or avoid the decoding performance degradation of data, while at the same time not sacrificing reception reliability for UCI transmission.

In order to solve at least part of the above problems, methods, apparatus, devices and computer programs are provided in the present disclosure. It may be appreciated that embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to a wireless system operating in NR network, but could be more widely applied to any application scenario where similar problems exist.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure mainly aim at providing methods, devices and computer programs for controlling a transmission between a transmitter and a receiver, for example, in a shared frequency band. Either of the transmitter and the receiver could be, for example, a terminal device or a network device. Other features and advantages of embodiments of the present disclosure will also be understood from the following description of specific embodiments when reading in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of embodiments of the present disclosure.

In general, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a solution for transmitting/receiving UCI. Available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI may be determined according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

In a first aspect, there is provided a method of operating a terminal device, includes: determining available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and determining data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI.

In an embodiment, the capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.

In an embodiment, the UCI to be transmitted in the PUSCH is determined according to a priority order of different types of UCI.

In an embodiment, a part of the UCI is transmitted in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is discarded or transmitted in another time interval. The time interval includes one of the following: frame, subframe, transmission time interval, slot, mini slot.

In an embodiment, a transmission power boost of the PUSCH is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information to reserve the capacity for carrying the UCI.

In an embodiment, the preconfigured puncturing limit information includes a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio.

In an embodiment, the method further includes: determining the number of modulation symbols of the UCI; and calculating a puncturing ratio based on the number of modulation symbols of the UCI and the number of resources for the data included in the PUSCH; and the transmission power boost of the PUSCH is further determined based on the calculated puncturing ratio and the mapping of the power boost and the puncturing ratio.

In an embodiment, a multiplexing manner of the data and the UCI is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.

In an embodiment, the data in a logical channel with a higher priority is transmitted while all or a part of UCI with a lower priority is not transmitted via the physical uplink shared channel.

In an embodiment, the method further includes: receiving an indication signaling form the network device; and it is determined whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI according to the indication signaling.

In an embodiment, the method further includes: receiving configuration information from a network device; the configuration information is used to configure the puncturing limit information.

In an embodiment, the puncturing limit information includes one or more of the following information: the number of resource elements for the UCI; a puncturing ratio for the UCI; a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio; an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI; an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.

In an embodiment, the configuration information is further used to enable or disable of determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

In an embodiment, the enabling or disabling is determined based on an uplink waveform.

In an embodiment, the configuration information is carried by a radio resource control (RRC) message, or a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) , or a physical layer message, or a radio link control layer message.

In a second aspect, there is provided a method of operating a network device, includes: transmitting configuration information to a terminal device; the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a PUSCH; and receiving data and/or UCI from the terminal device via the PUSCH; available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined according to the puncturing limit information.

In one embodiment, capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.

In one embodiment, a part of the UCI is received in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is received in another time interval.

In one embodiment, the method further includes: determining a type of UCI is to be received in a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.

In one embodiment, the method further includes: transmitting an indication signaling to the terminal device; and whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the indication signaling.

In one embodiment, the puncturing limit information includes one or more of the information: the number of resource elements for the UCI; a puncturing ratio for the UCI; a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio; an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI; an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.

In one embodiment, the configuration information is further used to enable or disable of determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

In a third aspect, there is provided a terminal device, including a processor and a memory. The memory containing instructions executable by the processor whereby the terminal device is operative to perform a method according to the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a network device, including a processor and a memory. The memory containing instructions executable by the processor whereby the network device is operative to perform a method according to the second aspect.

According to various embodiments of the present disclosure, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI is determined according to preconfigured puncturing limit information. Therefore, decoding performance degradation of data may be alleviated or avoided, while at the same time reception reliability for UCI transmission is not sacrificed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other aspects, features, and benefits of various embodiments of the disclosure will become more fully apparent, by way of example, from the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals or letters are used to designate like or equivalent elements. The drawings are illustrated for facilitating better understanding of the embodiments of the disclosure and not necessarily drawn to scale, in which:

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram which shows a wireless communication network;

Fig. 2 is a diagram which shows an example for multiplexing of UCI with UL-SCH data;

Fig. 3 is a flowchart which shows a method 300 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 4 is a flowchart for transmission power boost in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 5 is another flowchart which shows a method 500 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 6 is a flowchart which shows a method 600 for receiving UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 7 shows a block diagram of an apparatus 700 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 8 shows a block diagram of an apparatus 800 for receiving UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 9 is a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure will now be discussed with reference to several example embodiments. It should be understood that these embodiments are discussed only for the purpose of enabling those skilled persons in the art to better understand and thus implement the present disclosure, rather than suggesting any limitations on the scope of the present disclosure.

As used herein, the term “wireless communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , LTE, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) , High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) , and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the wireless communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) , Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) , Long Term Evolution (LTE) , and/or other suitable, and/or other suitable the first generation (1G) , the second generation (2G) , 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , 4.5G, the future fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, wireless local area network (WLAN) standards, such as the IEEE 802.11 standards; and/or any other appropriate wireless communication standard, such as the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) , Bluetooth, and/or ZigBee standards, and/or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future.

The term “network device” refers to a device in a wireless communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device refers a base station (BS) , an access point (AP) , or any other suitable device in the wireless communication network. The BS may be, for example, a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , or gNB, a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a relay, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, and so forth. Yet further examples of the network device may include multi-standard radio (MSR) radio equipment such as MSR BSs, network controllers such as radio network controllers (RNCs) or base station controllers (BSCs) , base transceiver stations (BTSs) , transmission points, transmission nodes. More generally, however, the network device may represent any suitable device (or group of devices) capable, configured, arranged, and/or operable to enable and/or provide a terminal device access to the wireless communication network or to provide some service to a terminal device that has accessed the wireless communication network.

The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that can access a wireless communication network and receive services therefrom. By way of example and not limitation, the terminal device refers to a mobile terminal, user equipment (UE) , or other suitable devices. The UE may be, for example, a Subscriber Station (SS) , a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS) , or an Access Terminal (AT) . The terminal device may include, but not limited to, portable computers, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, wearable terminal devices, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE) and the like. In the following description, the terms “terminal device” , “terminal” , “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably. As one example, a terminal device may represent a UE configured for communication in accordance with one or more communication standards promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) , such as 3GPP’s GSM, UMTS, LTE, and/or 5G standards. As used herein, a “user equipment” or “UE” may not necessarily have a “user” in the sense of a human user who owns and/or operates the relevant device. In some embodiments, a terminal device may be configured to transmit and/or receive information without direct human interaction. For instance, a terminal device may be designed to transmit information to a network on a predetermined schedule, when triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to requests from the wireless communication network. Instead, a UE may represent a device that is intended for sale to, or operation by, a human user but that may not initially be associated with a specific human user.

The terminal device may support device-to-device (D2D) communication, for example by implementing a 3GPP standard for sidelink communication, and may in this case be referred to as a D2D communication device.

As yet another example, in an Internet of Things (IOT) scenario, a terminal device may represent a machine or other device that performs monitoring and/or measurements, and transmits the results of such monitoring and/or measurements to another terminal device and/or network equipment. The terminal device may in this case be a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, which may in a 3GPP context be referred to as a machine-type communication (MTC) device. As one particular example, the terminal device may be a UE implementing the 3GPP narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT) standard. Particular examples of such machines or devices are sensors, metering devices such as power meters, industrial machinery, or home or personal appliances, for example refrigerators, televisions, personal wearables such as watches etc. In other scenarios, a terminal device may represent a vehicle or other equipment that is capable of monitoring and/or reporting on its operational status or other functions associated with its operation.

As used herein, a downlink, DL transmission refers to a transmission from the network device to a terminal device, and an uplink, UL transmission refers to a transmission in an opposite direction.

References in the specification to “one embodiment, ” “an embodiment, ” “an example embodiment, ” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

It shall be understood that although the terms “first” and “second” etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed terms.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be liming of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a” , “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” , “comprising” , “has” , “having” , “includes” and/or “including” , when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof.

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

Now some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below with reference to the figures.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a wireless communication network 100 in which embodiments of the disclosure may be implemented. As shown in Fig. 1, the wireless communication network 100 may include one or more network devices, for example network devices 101.

It will be appreciated that the network device 101 could also be in a form of gNB, Node B, eNB, BTS (Base Transceiver Station) , and/or BSS (Base Station Subsystem) , access point (AP) and the like. The network device 101 may provide radio connectivity to a set of terminal devices or UEs 102-1, 102-2, …, 102-N (collectively referred to as “terminal device (s) 102) within its coverage, where N is a natural number.

The network device 101 includes processing circuitry, device readable medium, interface, user interface equipment, auxiliary equipment, power source, power delivery circuitry, and antenna. These components are depicted as single boxes located within a single larger box, and in some cases, contain additional boxes therein.

In practice, however, the network device 101 may include multiple different physical components that make up a single illustrated component (e.g., interface includes ports/terminals for coupling wires for a wired connection and radio front end circuitry for a wireless connection) . As another example, network device 101 may be a virtual network node. Similarly, network node may be composed of multiple physically separate components (e.g., a NodeB component and a RNC component, a BTS component and a BSC component, etc. ) , which may each have their own respective components.

In certain scenarios in which network device includes multiple separate components (e.g., BTS and BSC components) , one or more of the separate components may be shared among several network nodes. For example, a single RNC may control multiple NodeB’s . In such a scenario, each unique NodeB and RNC pair, may in some instances be considered a single separate network node. In some embodiments, network node may be configured to support multiple radio access technologies (RATs) . In such embodiments, some components may be duplicated (e.g., separate device readable medium for the different RATs) and some components may be reused (e.g., the same antenna may be shared by the RATs) .

Although network device 101 illustrated in the example wireless communication network may represent a device that includes a particular combination of hardware components, other embodiments may include network nodes with different combinations of components. It is to be understood that a network device may include any suitable combination of hardware and/or software needed to perform the tasks, features, functions and methods disclosed herein.

It is to be understood that the configuration of Fig. 1 is described merely for the purpose of illustration, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art would appreciate that the wireless communication network 100 may include any suitable number of terminal devices and/or network devices and may have other suitable configurations.

Fig. 2 is a diagram which shows an example for multiplexing of UCI with UL-SCH data. As shown in Fig. 2, CQI/PMI resources are placed at the beginning of UL-SCH data resources and mapped sequentially to all single carrier frequency division multiplexing access (SC-FDMA) symbols on one subcarrier before continuing on the next subcarrier. The UL-SCH data is rate-matched (i.e. punctured) to reserve the room for the CQI/PMI data. The same modulation order as UL-SCH data on PUSCH is used for CQI/PMI.

For example, for small CQI and/or PMI reports (such as the size is up to 11 bits at most) , a (32, k) block code may be used, with optional circular repetition of encoded data; no cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is applied. For large CSI reports (such as the size is lager than 11 bits) , an 8-bit CRC is attached and channel coding and rate matching is performed using a tail-biting convolutional code.

The HARQ ACK/NACK resources may be mapped to SC-FDMA symbols by puncturing the UL-SCH data. Positions next to a reference signal (RS) may be used for the HARQ ACK/NACK, so as to benefit from the best possible channel estimation. The maximum amount of resource for HARQ ACK/NACK may be 4 SC-FDMA symbols.

The coded RI symbols are placed next to the HARQ ACK/NACK symbol, irrespective of whether ACK/NACK is actually present in a given subframe or not. The modulation of the 1-bit or 2-bit ACK/NACK or RI may satisfy that Euclidean distance of the modulation symbols carrying ACK/NACK and RI is maximized.

The outermost constellation points of higher-order 16/64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) PUSCH modulations are used, resulting in increased transmit power for ACK/NACK/RI relative to average power of the PUSCH data. The coding of the RI and CQI/PMI are separate, with the UL-SCH data being rate-matched around the RI similarly to the case of CQI/PMI.

However, there may be obvious decoding performance degradation since punctured REs take a considerable ratio of the total available REs for data transmission. For example, the number of REs occupied by UCI (i.e. punctured) may be large and may be not acceptable. Therefore, too much puncturing in a PUSCH may negatively impact on the reception reliability of the data; for some services (such as URLLC or eMBB services) with high requirement on the transmission reliability, such impact may be not acceptable.

In this disclosure, certain enhancement shall be achieved to alleviate or avoid the decoding performance degradation of data, while at the same time not sacrificing reception reliability for UCI transmission.

First aspect of embodiments

A method for transmitting UCI is provided in an embodiment. The method is implemented at a terminal device as an example.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart which shows a method 300 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, and illustrates the method for transmitting UCI by taking a terminal device as an example.

As shown in Fig. 3, the method 300 includes determining, by a terminal device, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information, at block 301; and determining, by the terminal device, data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI, at block 302.

For example, the available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI may include the number of REs for UCI. Alternatively, the available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI may include a ratio of the number of REs for UCI and the number of all REs in a subframe. However, it is not limited thereto.

In an embodiment, the capacity for the UCI may be determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.

For example, the capacity of the PUSCH may be 14*18 REs. 2*18 REs are used for a reference signal and the rest of REs are used for UCI (including HARQ ACK/NACK, CQI/PMI, RI) and PUSCH data. A puncturing ratio of the PUSCH may be 2%, i.e., the puncturing may be occurred on about 5 REs.

For example, a network device may preconfigure a threshold of a puncturing ratio. For another example, the network device may preconfigure the number of REs used for UCI transmission so that the ratio of punctured REs among all PUSCH REs does not exceeds a threshold. The amount of the resources for UCI may be determined considering some factors, such as latency/reliability requirements of the data, the latency/reliability requirements of the UCI.

In this embodiment, a part of the UCI may be transmitted in a time interval; and other part of the UCI may be discarded or transmitted in another time interval. The time interval may include one of the following: frame, subframe, transmission time interval, slot, mini slot; but it is not limited thereto.

For example, the UCI may be allowed to be transmitted partly in a corresponding sub-frame. The rest information of the UCI may be skipped or transmitted in the subsequent sub-frame, or even be simultaneously transmitted in other MAC PDUs. In this way, the terminal device may receive several grants at the same time, or subsequently.

Alternatively, portion of resources for UCI configuration may also be determined based on a size of transmission block (TB) . For example, when the size of PUSCH transmission block (or may be referred to as PUSCH resource block size in this disclosure) is smaller than a preconfigured threshold, a part or all UCI is prohibited to be transmitted over PUSCH or is prohibited to be transmitted at certain PUSCH transmission such as the current transmission. The part of UCI which is prohibited to be transmitted over PUSCH at the current transmission may either wait for later PUSCH transmission or may be abandoned.

In this embodiment, the UCI content to be transmitted in the PUSCH may be determined according to a priority order of different types of information which can be included in UCI.

For example, the UCI may include some types of information, such as HARQ ACK/NACK and CSI, and the CSI may include CQI/PMI and RI. In an example, the priority of the HARQ ACK/NACK may be higher than the priority of the CSI; in another example, the priority of the RI may be higher than the priority of the CQI/PMI. However, it is not limited thereto.

In an example, HARQ ACK/NACK may be carried and CSI may be discarded directly according to the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH. However, it is not limited in this disclosure, other manners may be adopted according to actual scenarios.

In another example, HARQ ACK/NACK may be carried and CSI may be discarded further according to the PUSCH resource block size.

For example, table 1 shows that the terminal device may determine the UCI content to be carried on PUSCH. Correspondingly, the network device shall know what UCI content is carried on PUSCH. According to the same rules and configurations as the terminal device, the network device can correctly decode the carried UCI and data respectively.

Table 1: UCI content to be carried with respect to PUSCH resource block size

In an embodiment, a transmission power boost of the PUSCH may be determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information to reserve the capacity for carrying the UCI.

For example, the preconfigured puncturing limit information may include a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio. A table between offsets of the power boost and the puncturing ratio may be preconfigured and the terminal device may determine the power boost based on the determined puncturing ratio by looking up the table.

For example, table 2 shows an example of the mapping of the power boost and a puncturing ratio.

Table 2: Puncturing ratio to power boost mapping

Condition	Power boost [dB]
X1 ≥ Puncturing ratio > 0	Δ1 (Δ1 > 0)
X2 ≥ Puncturing ratio ≥ X1	Δ2 (Δ2 > Δ1)
Puncturing ratio > X2	Δ3 (Δ3 > Δ2)

For example, X1 may be 2%and X2 may be 4%. The transmission power of the PUSCH may be P + Δ1 when the puncturing ratio is 1%which is larger than 0 and smaller than or equal to X1; alternatively, the transmission power of the PUSCH may be P + Δ2 when the puncturing ratio is 3%which is larger than X1 and smaller than or equal to X2; alternatively, the transmission power of the PUSCH may be P + Δ3 when the puncturing ratio is 5%which is larger than X2. P may be an average power or an original power or a preconfigured power for PUSCH transmission.

In this embodiment, a puncturing ratio may be calculated by the terminal device.

Fig. 4 is a flowchart for transmission power boost in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, and illustrates the method by taking a terminal device as an example.

As shown in Fig. 4, the method may include receiving, by a terminal device, mapping configuration of power boost and puncturing ratio, at block 401; determining, by the terminal device, the number of modulation symbols of the UCI (for example, including CSI and/or HARQ ACK/NACK) , at block 402.

As shown in Fig. 4, the method may further include calculating, by the terminal device, a puncturing ratio based on the number of modulation symbols of the UCI and the number of resources for the data included in the PUSCH, at block 403.

As shown in Fig. 4, the method may further include determining, by the terminal device, the transmission power boost of the PUSCH based on the calculated puncturing ratio and the mapping of the power boost and the puncturing ratio, at block 404; and transmitting the PUSCH based on the transmission power boost, at block 405.

It should be appreciated that Fig. 4 is only an example of the disclosure, but it is not limited thereto. For example, the order of operations at blocks may be adjusted and/or some blocks may be omitted. Moreover, some blocks not shown in Fig. 4 may be added.

In this embodiment, negative impact due to puncturing may be compensated by means of transmission power boost. Alternatively, the transmission power boost may be enabled when the size of PUSCH resource block is smaller than a preconfigured threshold; but it is not limited thereto.

In an embodiment, a multiplexing manner of the data and the UCI may be determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.

For example, a relative priority order between the data transmission and the UCI transmission may be configured. In this way, the data in a logical channel with a higher priority may be transmitted while all or a part of UCI with a lower priority may be not transmitted via the PUSCH.

In one example, the network device may configure which logical channel (s) is/are not allowed to be multiplexed by the UCI. In this way, the logical channel (s) with high priority or critical quality of service (QoS) requirements can be transmitted separately without interruption by UCI transmission. For example, the data of URLLC may be prioritized over UCI, such that the URLLC transmission is not interrupted by the UCI transmission.

For example, the terminal device may receive an indication signaling from the network device; and the terminal device may further determine whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI according to the indication signaling.

In one example, the network device may configure which logical channel (s) is/are allowed to be multiplexed by the UCI. The network device may send signaling to the terminal device to indicate that UCI transmission is allowed to multiplex with data of eMBB. Then, the UCI may be either transmitted via PUCCH when there is no transmission for eMBB, or transmitted via PUSCH when there is transmission for eMBB.

In another example, the network device may send signaling to the terminal device to indicate whether UCI is allowed to multiplex with the data for upcoming transmissions. Then, the terminal device doesn’ t need to know what exact logical channel (s) is/are allowed to transmit together with the UCI. The indication may be valid for a certain period of time. In this way, the network device may send a signaling to activate the UCI multiplexing on PUSCH; after the certain period of time, the network device may send another signaling to deactivate the UCI multiplexing on PUSCH.

In an embodiment, the terminal device may receive configuration information from a network device. The configuration information is used to configure the puncturing limit information.

For example, the puncturing limit information may include one or more of the following information: the number of resource elements for the UCI; a puncturing ratio for the UCI; a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio; an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI; an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.

It should be appreciated that the information are only examples of the disclosure, but it is not limited thereto. For example, the puncturing limit information may include other configuration and/or information.

In an embodiment, the configuration information may further be used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information (it may be referred to as an enhancement of UCI in this disclosure) . For example, the enabling or disabling may be determined based on an uplink waveform.

In one example, the enhancement may be enabled when the terminal device is configured with CP-OFDM waveform; and the enhancement may be disabled when the terminal device is configured with another waveform (such as, DFT-S-OFDM) . However, it is not limited thereto, there may be more examples on how to enable or disable the enhancement mechanism depending on the using UL waveform.

In another example, the enhancement may be enabled when the network device or the terminal device determines that there is a risk of reception failure for UCI when critical data is multiplexed with the UCI.

In an embodiment, the network device or the terminal device may monitor the transmission/reception and collect the statistics information. The terminal device may be required to provide some information to assist the network device to perform configuration.

Fig. 5 is a flowchart which shows a method 500 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, and illustrates the method for transmitting UCI by taking a terminal device and a network device as an example.

As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 may include transmitting, by a terminal device, assistant information to a network device, at 501. The assistant information may include one or more of the following: information on uplink waveform, statistics information on transmission measurement, statistics information on reception measurement; but it is not limited thereto.

As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 may include determining, by the network device, configuration information based on the assistant information, at 502. The configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of PUSCH.

The puncturing limit information may include one or more of the following information: the number of resource elements for the UCI; a puncturing ratio for the UCI; a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio; an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI; an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI. However, it is not limited thereto.

Alternatively, the configuration information may further be used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 may include transmitting, by the network device, configuration information to the terminal device, at 503. The configuration information may be transmitted by using one or more message, at the same time or successively.

For example, the configuration information may be carried by a radio resource control (RRC) message, or a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) , or a L1 (such as physical layer) message, or a L2 (such as radio link control layer) message. Alternatively, the network device may send a MAC CE to indicate enabling/disabling of the configuration. However, it is not limited in this disclosure, and other message or information may be used according to actual scenarios.

As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 may include determining, by the terminal device, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information, at 504.

As shown in Fig. 5, the method 500 may include determining, by the terminal device, data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI, at 505; and transmitting, by the terminal device, the data and/or the UCI to the network device via the PUSCH, at 506. The above embodiments and relevant arts may be referred for the detail of the PUSCH transmission.

It should be appreciated that Fig. 5 is only an example of the disclosure, but it is not limited thereto. For example, the order of operations at blocks (or steps) may be adjusted and/or some blocks (or steps) may be omitted. Moreover, some blocks (or steps) not shown in Fig. 5 may be added.

As can be seen from the above embodiments, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI can be determined according to preconfigured puncturing limit information. Therefore, the decoding performance degradation of data may be alleviated or avoided, while at the same time reception reliability for UCI transmission is not sacrificed.

Second aspect of embodiments

A method for receiving UCI is provided in an embodiment. The method is implemented at a network device as an example, and the same contents as those in the first aspect of embodiments are omitted.

Fig. 6 is a flowchart which shows a method 600 for receiving UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, and illustrates the method for receiving UCI by taking a network device as an example.

As shown in Fig. 6, the method 600 includes transmitting, by a network device, configuration information to a terminal device; and the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a PUSCH, at block 601; and receiving, by the network device, data and/or UCI from the terminal device via the PUSCH. Available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the puncturing limit information.

In an embodiment, capacity for the UCI may be determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.

In this embodiment, a part of the UCI may be received in a time interval; and other part of the UCI may be received in another time interval. The time interval may include one of the following: frame, subframe, transmission time interval, slot, mini slot; but it is not limited thereto.

In an embodiment, the network device may determine a type of UCI which is to be received in a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.

In an embodiment, the network device may further transmit an indication signaling to the terminal device; and whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the indication signaling.

In an embodiment, the puncturing limit information may include one or more of the information: the number of resource elements for the UCI; a puncturing ratio for the UCI; a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio; an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI; an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.

In an embodiment, the configuration information may be further used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

As can be seen from the above embodiments, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI can be determined according to preconfigured puncturing limit information. Therefore, decoding performance degradation of data may be alleviated or avoided, while at the same time reception reliability for UCI transmission is not sacrificed.

Third aspect of embodiments

An apparatus for transmitting UCI is provided in an embodiment. The apparatus may be the terminal device 102 or may be configured in the terminal device 102, and the same contents as those in the first aspect of embodiments are omitted.

Fig. 7 shows a block diagram of an apparatus 700 for transmitting UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in Fig. 7, the apparatus 700 includes: a first determining unit 701 configured to determine available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and a second determining unit 702 configured to determine data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI.

In this embodiment, the UCI to be transmitted in the PUSCH may be determined according to a priority order of different types of UCI. A part of the UCI may be transmitted in a time interval; and other part of the UCI may be discarded or transmitted in another time interval. The time interval may include one of the following: frame, subframe, transmission time interval, slot, mini slot.

In an embodiment, a transmission power boost of the PUSCH may be determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information to reserve the capacity for carrying the UCI. For example, the preconfigured puncturing limit information may include a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio.

In this embodiment, the first determining unit 701 may further be configured to determine the number of modulation symbols of the UCI; calculate a puncturing ratio based on the number of modulation symbols of the UCI and the number of resources for the data included in the PUSCH; and determine the transmission power boost of the PUSCH based on the calculated puncturing ratio and the mapping of the power boost and the puncturing ratio.

For example, the data in a logical channel with a higher priority may be transmitted while all or a part of UCI with a lower priority may be not transmitted via the physical uplink shared channel.

As shown in Fig. 7, the apparatus 700 may further include: a receiving unit 703 configured to receive an indication signaling from the network device; and the first determining unit 701 is further configured to determine whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI according to the indication signaling.

In an embodiment, the receiving unit 703 may further be configured to receive configuration information from a network device; and the configuration information is used to configure the puncturing limit information.

For another example, the configuration information may be further used to enable or disable of determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information. For example, the enabling or disabling may be determined based on an uplink waveform.

In this embodiment, the configuration information may be carried by a radio resource control (RRC) message, or a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) , or a physical layer message, or a radio link control layer message.

As shown in Fig. 7, the apparatus 700 may further include: a transmitting unit 704 configured to transmit assistant information to the network device; and the configuration information is determined by the network device based on the assistant information.

For example, the assistant information may include one or more of the following: information on uplink waveform, statistics information on transmission measurement, statistics information on reception measurement.

It should be appreciated that components included in the apparatus 700 correspond to the operations of the method 300. Therefore, all operations and features described above with reference to Fig. 3 is likewise applicable to the components included in the apparatus 700 and have similar effects. For the purpose of simplification, the details will be omitted.

It should be appreciated that the components included in the apparatus 700 may be implemented in various manners, including software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof.

In an embodiment, one or more units may be implemented using software and/or firmware, for example, machine-executable instructions stored on the storage medium. In addition to or instead of machine-executable instructions, parts or all of the components included in the apparatus 700 may be implemented, at least in part, by one or more hardware logic components.

For example, and without limitation, illustrative types of hardware logic components that can be used include Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) , Application-specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) , Application-specific Standard Products (ASSPs) , System-on-a-chip systems (SOCs) , Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLDs) , and the like.

The apparatus 700 may be a part of a device. But it is not limited thereto, for example, the apparatus 700 may be the terminal device 102, other parts of the terminal device 102, such as transmitter and receiver, are omitted in the Fig. 7.

As can be seen from the above embodiments, available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI is determined according to preconfigured puncturing limit information. Therefore, decoding performance degradation of data may be alleviated or avoided, while at the same time reception reliability for UCI transmission is not sacrificed.

Fourth aspect of embodiments

An apparatus for receiving UCI is provided in an embodiment. The apparatus may be the network device 101 or may be configured in the network device 101, and the same contents as those in the second aspect of embodiments are omitted.

Fig. 8 shows a block diagram of an apparatus 800 for receiving UCI in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in Fig. 8, the apparatus 800 includes: a transmitting unit 801 configured to transmit configuration information to a terminal device; and the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a PUSCH; and a receiving unit 802 configured to receive data and/or UCI from the terminal device via the PUSCH. Available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the puncturing limit information.

In this embodiment, a part of the UCI may be received in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is received in another time interval.

As shown in Fig. 8, the apparatus 800 may further include: a determining unit 803 configured to determine a type of UCI which is to be received in a MAC PDU according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.

In an embodiment, the transmitting unit 801 may further be configured to transmit an indication signaling to the terminal device; and whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the indication signaling.

In an embodiment, the configuration information may further be used to enable or disable of determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.

It should be appreciated that components included in the apparatus 800 correspond to the operations of the method 600. Therefore, all operations and features described above with reference to Fig. 6 is likewise applicable to the components included in the apparatus 800 and have similar effects. For the purpose of simplification, the details will be omitted.

It should be appreciated that the components included in the apparatus 800 may be implemented in various manners, including software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof.

In an embodiment, one or more units may be implemented using software and/or firmware, for example, machine-executable instructions stored on the storage medium. In addition to or instead of machine-executable instructions, parts or all of the components included in the apparatus 800 may be implemented, at least in part, by one or more hardware logic components.

The apparatus 800 may be a part of a device. But it is not limited thereto, for example, the apparatus 800 may be the network device 101, other parts of the network device 101, such as transmitter and receiver, are omitted in the Fig. 8.

Fifth aspect of embodiments

A communications system is provided, as shown in Fig. 1, the communication system 100 includes a network device 101 configured to perform a method for receiving UCI according to the second aspect of embodiments and a terminal device 102 configured to perform a method for transmitting UCI according to the first aspect of embodiments.

A device (such as a network device 101 or a terminal device 102) is provided in an embodiment, and the same contents as those in the first to fourth aspects of embodiments are omitted.

Fig. 9 shows a simplified block diagram of a device 900 that is suitable for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure. It would be appreciated that the device 900 may be implemented as at least a part of, for example, the network device 101 or the terminal device 102.

As shown, the device 900 includes a communicating means 930 and a processing means 950. The processing means 950 includes a data processor (DP) 910, a memory (MEM) 920 coupled to the DP 910. The communicating means 930 is coupled to the DP 910 in the processing means 950. The MEM 920 stores a program (PROG) 940. The communicating means 930 is for communications with other devices, which may be implemented as a transceiver for transmitting/receiving signals.

In some embodiments, the device 900 acts as a terminal device. For example, the memory 920 stores a plurality of instructions; and the processor 910 coupled to the memory 920 and configured to execute the instructions to: determine available capacity in a PUSCH for UCI according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and determine data and/or the UCI to be included in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI.

In some other embodiments, the device 900 acts as a network device. For example, the memory 920 stores a plurality of instructions; and the processor 910 coupled to the memory 920 and configured to execute the instructions to: transmit configuration information to a terminal device; the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a PUSCH; and receive data and/or UCI from the terminal device via the PUSCH; available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the puncturing limit information.

The PROG 940 is assumed to include program instructions that, when executed by the associated DP 910, enable the device 900 to operate in accordance with the embodiments of the present disclosure, as discussed herein with the methods 300-600. The embodiments herein may be implemented by computer software executable by the DP 910 of the device 900, or by hardware, or by a combination of software and hardware. A combination of the data processor 910 and MEM 920 may form processing means 950 adapted to implement various embodiments of the present disclosure.

The MEM 920 may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment and may be implemented using any suitable data storage technology, such as semiconductor based memory devices, magnetic memory devices and systems, optical memory devices and systems, fixed memory and removable memory, as non-limiting examples. While only one MEM is shown in the device 900, there may be several physically distinct memory modules in the device 900. The DP 910 may be of any type suitable to the local technical environment, and may include one or more of general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 900 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing devices. While various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representation, it will be appreciated that the blocks, apparatus, systems, techniques or methods described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

By way of example, embodiments of the present disclosure can be described in the general context of machine-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target real or virtual processor. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. These program codes may be provided to a processor or controller of a general-purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program codes, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions/operations specified in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

The above program code may be embodied on a machine-readable medium, which may be any tangible medium that may contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The machine-readable medium may be a machine-readable signal medium or a machine-readable storage medium. The machine-readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

More specific examples of the machine-readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random-access memory (RAM) , a read-only memory (ROM) , an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory) , an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) , an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

In the context of this disclosure, the device may be implemented in the general context of computer system-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer system. Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and so on that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The device may be practiced in distributed cloud computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer system storage media including memory storage devices.

Further, while operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

Although the present disclosure has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

A method of operating a terminal device, comprising:

determining available capacity in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) for uplink control information (UCI) according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and

determining data and/or the UCI to be comprised in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the available capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and

the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.
The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the UCI to be transmitted in the PUSCH is determined according to a priority order of different types of UCI.
The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a part of the UCI is transmitted in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is discarded or transmitted in another time interval.
The method according to claim 4, wherein the time interval comprises one of the following: frame, subframe, transmission time interval, slot, mini slot.
The method according to any of claims 1-5, wherein a transmission power boost of the PUSCH is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information to reserve the capacity for carrying the UCI.
The method according to claim 6, wherein the preconfigured puncturing limit information comprises a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio.
The method according to claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

determining the number of modulation symbols of the UCI; and

calculating a puncturing ratio based on the number of modulation symbols of the UCI and the number of resources for the data comprised in the PUSCH;

and the transmission power boost of the PUSCH is further determined based on the calculated puncturing ratio and the mapping of the power boost and the puncturing ratio.
The method according to any of claims 1-8, wherein a multiplexing manner of the data and the UCI is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.
The method according to claim 9, wherein the data in a logical channel with a higher priority is transmitted while all or a part of UCI with a lower priority is not transmitted via the physical uplink shared channel.
The method according to claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an indication signaling from the network device;

and it is determined whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI according to the indication signaling.
The method according to any of claims 1-11, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving configuration information from a network device; wherein the configuration information is used to configure the puncturing limit information.
The method according to claim 12, wherein the puncturing limit information comprises one or more of the following information:

a number of resource elements for the UCI;

a puncturing ratio for the UCI;

a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio;

an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI;

an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.
The method according to claim 12, wherein the configuration information is further used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.
The method according to claim 14, wherein the enabling or disabling is determined based on an uplink waveform.
The method according to claim 12, wherein the configuration information is carried by a radio resource control (RRC) message, or a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) , or a physical layer message, or a radio link control layer message.
A method of operating a network device, comprising:

transmitting configuration information to a terminal device; wherein the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) ; and

receiving data and/or uplink control information (UCI) from the terminal device via the PUSCH; wherein available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined according to the puncturing limit information.
The method according to claim 17, wherein the available capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and

the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.
The method according to claim 17 or 18, wherein a part of the UCI is received in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is received in another time interval.
The method according to any of claims 17-19, wherein the method further comprises:

determining a type of UCI to be received in a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.
The method according to any of claims 17-20, wherein the method further comprises:

transmitting an indication signaling to the terminal device; and whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the indication signaling.
The method according to any of claims 17-21, wherein the puncturing limit information comprises one or more of the information:

a number of resource elements for the UCI;

a puncturing ratio for the UCI;

a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio;

an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI;

an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.
The method according to any of claims 17-22, wherein the configuration information is further used to enable or disable determining the available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.
A terminal device, comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory containing instructions executable by the processor whereby the terminal device is operative to:

determine available capacity in a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) for uplink control information (UCI) according to preconfigured puncturing limit information; and

determine data and/or the UCI to be comprised in the PUSCH according to the available capacity for the UCI.
The terminal device according to claim 24, wherein the available capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and

the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.
The terminal device according to claim 24 or 25, wherein the UCI to be transmitted in the PUSCH is determined according to a priority order of different types of UCI.
The terminal device according to claim 24 or 25, wherein a part of the UCI is transmitted in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is discarded or transmitted in another time interval.
The terminal device according to any of claims 24-27, wherein a transmission power boost of the PUSCH is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information to reserve the capacity for carrying the UCI.
The terminal device according to claim 28, wherein the preconfigured puncturing limit information comprises a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio.
The terminal device according to claim 29, wherein the terminal device is further operative to:

determine a number of modulation symbols of the UCI;

calculate a puncturing ratio based on the number of modulation symbols of the UCI and the number of resources for the data comprised in the PUSCH; and

determine the transmission power boost of the PUSCH based on the calculated puncturing ratio and the mapping of the power boost and the puncturing ratio.
The terminal device according to any of claims 24-30, wherein a multiplexing manner of the data and the UCI is determined according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.
The terminal device according to claim 31, wherein the data in a logical channel with a higher priority is transmitted while all or a part of UCI with a lower priority is not transmitted via the physical uplink shared channel.
The terminal device according to claim 31, wherein the terminal device is further operative to:

receive an indication signaling from the network device; and

determine whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI according to the indication signaling.
The terminal device according to any of claims 24-33, wherein the terminal device is further operative to:

receive configuration information from a network device; wherein the configuration information is used to configure the puncturing limit information.
The terminal device according to claim 34, wherein the puncturing limit information comprises one or more of the following information:

a number of resource elements for the UCI;

a puncturing ratio for the UCI;

a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio;

an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI;

an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.
The terminal device according to claim 34, wherein the configuration information is further used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.
A network device, comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory containing instructions executable by the processor whereby the network device is operative to:

transmit configuration information to a terminal device; wherein the configuration information is used to configure puncturing limit information of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) ; and

receive data and/or uplink control information (UCI) from the terminal device via the PUSCH; wherein available capacity in the PUSCH for the UCI is determined according to the puncturing limit information.
The network device according to claim 37, wherein the available capacity for the UCI is determined according to capacity of the PUSCH and a puncturing ratio of the PUSCH; and

the puncturing ratio of the PUSCH is lower than or equal to a preconfigured threshold.
The network device according to claim 37 or 38, wherein a part of the UCI is received in a time interval; and other part of the UCI is received in another time interval.
The network device according to any of claims 37-39, wherein the network device is further operative to:

determine a type of UCI to be received in a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) according to the preconfigured puncturing limit information and a priority order of the data and the UCI.
The network device according to any of claims 37-40, wherein the network device is further operative to:

transmit an indication signaling to the terminal device; and whether or not the data is multiplexed with the UCI is determined by the terminal device according to the indication signaling.
The network device according to any of claims 37-41, wherein the puncturing limit information comprises one or more of the information:

a number of resource elements for the UCI;

a puncturing ratio for the UCI;

a mapping of a power boost and a puncturing ratio;

an index of a logical channel whose data is allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI;

an index of a logical channel whose data is not allowed to be multiplexed with the UCI.
The network device according to any of claims 37-42, wherein the configuration information is further used to enable or disable determining available capacity in PUSCH for UCI transmission according to preconfigured puncturing limit information.
A computer program product being tangibly stored on a computer readable storage medium and including instructions which, when executed on a processor of a terminal device, cause the terminal device to perform a method according to any of claims 1-16.
A computer program product being tangibly stored on a computer readable storage medium and including instructions which, when executed on a processor of a network device, cause the network device to perform a method according to any of claims 17-23.