WO2020029665A1

WO2020029665A1 - Methods and devices for transmission of transport block over unlicensed spectrum

Info

Publication number: WO2020029665A1
Application number: PCT/CN2019/089566
Authority: WO
Inventors: Zhan Zhang; Gen LI; Jinhua Liu; Jung-Fu Cheng; Tai Do
Original assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ)
Priority date: 2018-08-10
Filing date: 2019-05-31
Publication date: 2020-02-13

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a method (400) in a transmitting device for transmitting a Transport Block (TB) over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces. The method (400) includes: mapping (410) a TB onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another; performing (420) a Listen Before Talk (LBT) process in each of the N bandwidth pieces; and transmitting (430), in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device.

Description

METHODS AND DEVICES FOR TRANSMISSION OF TRANSPORT BLOCK OVER UNLICENSED SPECTRUM

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to wireless communication, and more particularly, to methods and devices for transmission of a Transport Block (TB) over unlicensed spectrum.

BACKGROUND

Mobile broadband will continue to drive demands for higher overall traffic capacity and larger achievable end-user data rates in wireless access networks. Several scenarios in the future will require data rates of up to 10 Gbps in local areas. These demands for very high system capacity and very high end-user date rates can be met by networks with distances between access nodes ranging from a few meters in indoor deployments to roughly 50 m in outdoor deployments, i.e. with an infrastructure density considerably higher than the densest networks of today. We refer to such networks as New Radio (NR) systems in the following which is currently studied in the 3 ^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) now. In addition to traditional licensed bands, NR systems are also expected to operate on unlicensed bands, especially for enterprise solutions. According to Radio Access Network 1 (RAN1) specifications in Release 15, the maximum channel bandwidth per NR carrier is 400MHz at above 6GHz or at least 100MHz at below 6GHz. The NR unlicensed systems are expected to operate mainly at 5GHz and may be extended to 6GHz and 60GHz in the future.

In enhanced Licensed Assisted Access (eLAA) uplink multicarrier operations, an evolved NodeB (eNB) may schedule Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmissions on multiple carriers. Different TBs can be generated for each carrier and subframe when Listen Before Talk (LBT) processes have succeeded in multiple channels. Due to Long Term Evolution (LTE) limitation, the maximum bandwidth of each carrier is 20MHz.

Unlike eLAA, a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (e,g., 802.11n, 802.11 ac, etc. ) system defines channels wider than 20MHz. For example, a 40MHz channel could bring more usable subcarriers than a simple aggregation of two 20MHz channels.

Before transmitting a 40MHz frame, a station shall ensure that the entire 40MHz channel is clear by means of Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) .

Similarly to NR, it is expected that NR Unlicensed (NR-U) will support transmissions with wide bandwidth, e.g., up to several hundred MHz. However, there could be different radio technologies with different device capabilities that simultaneously share the same spectrum. It is unlikely that a device can perform an LBT process over the entire wide bandwidth, especially in a high load situation. Thus, it is beneficial for the NR-U to support transmissions with dynamic bandwidth, such that the device can decide which part (s) of the supported bandwidth to use based on its LBT results.

There are two schemes for a device to use in wideband transmissions: Carrier Aggregation (CA) and single carrier wideband transmission. In the CA scheme, which is similar to LTE-based LAA, a device performs an LBT process per Component Carrier (CC) (each being e.g., 20MHz) , then transmits data in each CC for which the corresponding LBT process has succeeded. In the single carrier wideband transmission scheme, a device performs an LBT process per bandwidth piece (each being e.g., 20 MHz) and aggregates resources from each bandwidth piece for which the corresponding LBT process has succeeded into a single physical shared channel. In this way, different devices may operate with different maximum bandwidth sizes and transmit data in different numbers of Resource Blocks (RBs) depending on their LBT results.

Figs. 1A and 1B show examples of the CA and single carrier wideband transmission schemes, respectively. In both Figs. 1A and 1B, a total carrier bandwidth of 80MHz is assumed and each CC or bandwidth piece is assumed to have a bandwidth of 20MHz. In Fig. 1A, the carrier bandwidth is divided into four CCs: CC1, CC2, CC3 and CC4, having their corresponding Control Resource Sets (CORESETs) CORESET1, CORESET2, CORESET3 and CORESET4, respectively. As shown, CC1 may be used by a User Equipment (UE) , UE1, CC2 and CC3 may be used by UE2, and CC1, CC2, CC3 and CC4 may be used by UE3. In Fig. 1B, the carrier bandwidth is divided into four bandwidth pieces: BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4, having their corresponding Control Resource Sets (CORESETs) CORESET1, CORESET2, CORESET3 and CORESET4, respectively. As shown, BP1 may be used by UE1, BP2 and BP3 may be aggregated to be used by UE2, and BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4 may be aggregated to be used by UE3. Separate CORESETs and search spaces are configured for different bandwidth pieces to ensure availability of control signaling when at least one bandwidth piece is available. In the example shown in Fig. 1B, UE2 needs to monitor both CORESET2 and CORESET3 since a channel may be available only in BP2 or only in BP3. Similarly, UE3 shall monitor all four CORESETs to get its Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) .

In both LTE and NR, a TB is segmented into multiple Code Blocks (CBs) if the TB exceeds a certain size. For error detection, each of the CBs, as well as the TB, may have its own Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) bits. In LTE, a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) feedback is based on a decoding status of the TB, i.e. a single HARQ feedback bit is generated per TB. In addition to this HARQ feedback per TB, NR also supports HARQ feedback per Code Block Group (CBG) . In this case, one or more CBs are grouped into a CBG and one HARQ feedback bit is generated for each CBG. Only the erroneous CBGs, instead of the entire TB, need to be retransmitted. This is useful, especially when a large TB size is used, since only a fraction of the TB needs to be retransmitted if only one or few CBGs are erroneous.

Fig. 2 shows an example of a structure of a TB. As shown, the TB is segmented into eight CBs, CB0～CB7. CB0～CB2 are grouped into CBG0, CB3～CB5 are grouped into CBG1, and CB6～CB7 are grouped into CBG2. When, for example, a receiver fails to decode CB0, only CBG0 (i.e., CB0～CB2) needs to be retransmitted.

After data has been encoded for transmission, modulation symbols are generated from the encoded data and the modulation symbols are successively mapped to allocated radio resources. In NR, modulation symbols are mapped to radio resources in spatial domain (layers) first, then frequency domain and then time domain.

Fig. 3 shows an example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain. The spatial domain is omitted for simplicity. In the example shown in Fig. 3, an NR-U carrier contains four bandwidth pieces: BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4. One slot containing 14 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols is shown in the time domain. As indicated by the arrows, successive data symbols in a TB containing CBGs 0～3 are first mapped to the OFDM symbol 0 (from BP1 to BP4) , then to the OFDM symbol 1 (from BP1 to BP4) , then to the OFDM symbol 2 (from BP1 to BP4) , and so on.

SUMMARY

It is an object of the present disclosure to provide methods and devices for transmission of a TB over unlicensed spectrum.

According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, a method in a transmitting device for transmitting a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces is provided. The method includes: mapping a TB onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another; performing an LBT process in each of the N bandwidth pieces; and transmitting, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs. The operation of mapping can include: mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the method can include, prior to mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces: applying padding or rate matching to the one or more CBGs, such that the one or more CBGs are aligned with the one bandwidth piece.

In an embodiment, the operation of mapping can include: dividing the TB into N sub-TBs; mapping each of the N sub-TBs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, each of the N sub-TBs may contain one or more CBGs each including one or more CBs.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs each including one or more CBs. The operation of mapping can include: mapping the plurality of CBGs onto the N bandwidth pieces. Each CB that is mapped to symbols across more than one bandwidth piece can constitute one CBG itself.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The method can further include: filling the guard band with data independent from the TB; and notifying the receiving device of the filling.

In an embodiment, the data independent from the TB may include a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) or one or more independent CBs.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The method can further include: extending the neighboring bandwidth pieces with the guard band; remapping the data symbols that have been mapped onto the neighboring bandwidth pieces onto the extended bandwidth pieces; and notifying the receiving device of the remapping.

In an embodiment, the method can further include: transmitting to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

In an embodiment, the transmitting device can be a network device and the receiving device can be a terminal device.

According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a method in a transmitting device for transmission of a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces is provided. The method includes: mapping data symbols in a TB onto the plurality of bandwidth pieces; performing an LBT process in each of the plurality of bandwidth pieces; transmitting, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device; and transmitting to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the plurality of bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, a transmitting device is provided. The transmitting device includes a transceiver, a processor and a memory. The memory contains instructions executable by the processor whereby the transmitting device is operative to perform the method according to any of the above first and second aspects.

According to a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, a computer readable storage medium is provided. The computer readable storage medium has computer program instructions stored thereon. The computer program instructions, when executed by a processor in a transmitting device, cause the transmitting device to perform the method according to any of the above first and second aspects.

According to a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, a method in a receiving device for receiving a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces is provided. The method includes: receiving, in one or more of the N bandwidth pieces, at least a portion of a TB from a transmitting device; reconstructing at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the one or more bandwidth pieces in such a manner that the data symbols from each of the one or more bandwidth pieces are treated as successive data symbols in the TB; and decoding at least the portion of the TB.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs and one or more of the plurality of CBGs can be received in each of the one or more bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the operation of decoding can include, for each of the one or more bandwidth pieces: removing padding from the bandwidth piece or applying rate matching to the bandwidth piece to obtain one or more CBGs; and decoding the one or more CBGs.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain N sub-TBs and each of the N sub-TBs can be received in one of the one or more bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, each of the N sub-TBs may contain one or more CBG each including one or more CBs.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs each including one or more CBs. Each CB containing symbols across more than one bandwidth piece can constitute one CBG itself.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The method can further include: receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the guard band is filled with data independent from the TB; and receiving and decoding the data independent from the TB in the guard band.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The method can further include: receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the neighboring bandwidth pieces are extended with the guard band. The operation of reconstructing can include: reconstructing at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the extended bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the method can further include: receiving from the transmitting device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces at least the portion of the TB is actually transmitted.

In an embodiment, the operation of decoding can include: applying soft combining in decoding at least the portion of the TB based on the indication.

In an embodiment, the receiving device can be a terminal device and the transmitting device can be a network device.

According to a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, a method in a receiving device for receiving a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces is provided. The method includes: receiving from a transmitting device a first indication indicating a first subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receiving a first portion of a TB in the first subset of bandwidth pieces; receiving from the transmitting device a second indication indicating a second subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receiving a second portion of the TB in the second subset of bandwidth pieces; reconstructing the TB from at least the first portion and the second portion; and decoding the TB.

According to a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, a receiving device is provided. The receiving device includes a transceiver, a processor and a memory. The memory contains instructions executable by the processor whereby the receiving device is operative to perform the method according to any of the above fifth and sixth aspects.

According to an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, a computer readable storage medium is provided. The computer readable storage medium has computer program instructions stored thereon. The computer program instructions, when executed by a processor in a receiving device, cause the receiving device to perform the method according to any of the above fifth and sixth aspects.

With the embodiments of the present disclosure, successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another. In this way, when one or more of bandwidth pieces in a carrier bandwidth is unavailable, e.g., due to LBT failure, the amount of data required to be retransmitted can be reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and advantages will be more apparent from the following description of embodiments with reference to the figures, in which:

Figs. 1A and 1B are schematic diagrams showing examples of the CA and single carrier wideband transmission schemes, respectively;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a structure of a TB;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain;

Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a transmitting device for transmitting a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram showing another example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram showing yet another example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a transmitting device for transmitting a TB according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a receiving device for receiving a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method in a receiving device for receiving a TB according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 11 is a block diagram of a transmitting device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 12 is a block diagram of a transmitting device according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 13 is a block diagram of a receiving device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 14 is a block diagram of a receiving device according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 15 schematically illustrates a telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer;

Fig. 16 is a generalized block diagram of a host computer communicating via a base station with a user equipment over a partially wireless connection; and

Figs. 17 to 20 are flowcharts illustrating methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

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 1G (the first generation) , 2G (the second generation) , 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G (the third generation) , 4G (the fourth generation) , 4.5G, 5G (the fifth generation) 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 to 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, a portable computer, an image capture terminal device such as a digital camera, a gaming terminal device, a music storage and playback appliance, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, a voice over IP (VoIP) phone, a wireless local loop phone, a tablet, a wearable device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , a portable computer, a desktop computer, a wearable terminal device, a vehicle-mounted wireless terminal device, a wireless endpoint, a mobile station, a laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , a laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , a USB dongle, a smart device, a 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′sGSM, 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 machineries, 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 limiting 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.

As discussed above, NR-U will support a wide carrier bandwidth composed of a number of bandwidth pieces (each being e.g., 20MHz) . As a coexisting radio access technology, e.g., Wi-Fi, may have a transmission bandwidth of 20 MHz, one or more of the bandwidth pieces in an NR-U carrier may be unavailable from time to time due to LBT failures. Owing to the nature of unlicensed spectrum, when a number of radio systems are active, such partial unavailability is very likely.

One straightforward solution to this problem is to puncture data in each bandwidth piece for which an LBT process fails. Referring to Fig. 3, when the LBT process for BP2 fails, i.e., when BP2 is unavailable, the data mapped to BP2 can be punctured, i.e., not transmitted to a receiver. However, in this case, none of the CBGs 0～3 can be received completely at the receiver and all of them need to be retransmitted, which is inefficient.

Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method 400 for transmitting a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 400 can be performed at a transmitting device for transmitting a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces to a receiving device. N is an integer larger than one. Here, the transmitting device can be a network device and the receiving device can be a terminal device. Alternatively, the transmitting device can be a terminal device and the receiving device can be a network device.

At block 410, a TB is mapped onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto the N bandwidth pieces one by one.

At block 420, an LBT process is performed in each of the N bandwidth pieces.

At block 430, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece are transmitted to the receiving device.

Fig. 5 shows an example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain. In the example shown in Fig. 5, a carrier bandwidth contains four bandwidth pieces: BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4. One slot containing 14 OFDM symbols is shown in the time domain. As indicated by the arrows, successive data symbols in a TB containing CBGs 0～3 are first mapped to BP1 (from OFDM symbol 0 to OFDM symbol 13) , then to BP2 (from OFDM symbol 0 to OFDM symbol 13) , then to BP3 (from OFDM symbol 0 to OFDM symbol 13) and finally to BP4 (from OFDM symbol 0 to OFDM symbol 13) . For example, when the LBT process for BP2 fails, the data mapped to BP2 cannot be transmitted to the receiving device. However, unlike the situation shown in Fig. 3, only CBG1 needs to be retransmitted and other CBGs, CBG0, CBG2 and CBG3, can be transmitted successfully. In this case, the number of CBGs required to be retransmitted can be significantly reduced.

The TB may contain a plurality of CBGs. Preferably, in the block 410, one or more of the plurality of CBGs are mapped onto one of the N bandwidth pieces. Optionally, before the mapping in the block 410, the transmitting device can apply padding or rate matching to the one or more CBGs, such that the one or more CBGs are aligned with the one bandwidth piece.

Fig. 6 shows another example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain. In the example shown in Fig. 6, a carrier bandwidth contains four bandwidth pieces: BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4. A TB contains four CBGs, CBG 0, CBG1, CBG2 and CBG3. As shown, CBG 0, CBG1, CBG2 and CBG3 are mapped to, and aligned with, BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4, respectively. It is to be noted that the alignment may be a result of padding or rate matching and may not be necessary. For example, after all the data of CBG0 has been mapped to BP1, if there are some remaining radio resources available in BP1 but they are not sufficient to accommodate the entire CBG1, the remaining radio resources in BP1 may be left blank and CBG1 can be mapped to BP2. As long as there is no CBG that is mapped to more than one bandwidth piece (i.e., across CBGs) , the receiving device can decode each CBG from data received in one corresponding bandwidth piece.

In an example, in the block 410, the TB can be divided into N sub-TBs and each of the N sub-TBs can be mapped onto one of the N bandwidth pieces. Here, each of the N sub-TBs may contain one or more CBGs each including one or more CBs. If a size of a CBG is too large as compared to a sub-TB, the CBG can be split into two or more CBGs to facilitate the mapping. With the introduction of sub-TBs, the receiving device can start decoding the sub-TBs without waiting for the entire TB to be received to have full information for each CB or CBG. This can reduce the overall processing delay, the buffering size and the processing complexity. Further, padding can be applied to the CBs or CBGs in the sub-TB when appropriate. The padding data could be either predefined data or any data for control purposes. The receiving device can be aware of such padding data according to a predefined protocol or specification, or an instruction or indication, either explicit or implicit, beforehand. Hence, the receiving device can deal with the padding data properly, such as discarding it or decoding it to obtain control information.

As discussed above, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs each including one or more CBs. In an example, in the block 410, when the plurality of CBGs are mapped onto the N bandwidth pieces, each CB that is mapped to symbols across more than one bandwidth piece can constitute one CBG itself.

Fig. 7 shows yet another example of data mapping in frequency domain and time domain. In the example shown in Fig. 7, a carrier bandwidth contains four bandwidth pieces: BP1, BP2, BP3 and BP4. In this example, a CB that is mapped to symbols across BP1 and BP2 constitutes CBG1 itself. In this way, for example, when the LBT process for BP2 fails, only CBG1 and CBG2 need to be retransmitted. If the CB constitutes a portion of CBG0 instead, when the LBT process for BP2 fails, CBG0 would have to be retransmitted too.

A guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces. In an example, the LBT processes in neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces may succeed. In this case, the guard band between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded can be filled with data independent from the TB and the receiving device can be notified of such filling, such that the receiving device can deal with the guard band properly. For example, the data independent from the TB may be a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) or one or more independent CBs. An independent CB can be a CB that is not organized as a part of the TB.

Alternatively, the neighboring bandwidth pieces can be extended with the guard band. The data symbols that have been mapped onto the neighboring bandwidth pieces can be remapped onto the extended bandwidth pieces. The receiving device can be notified of such remapping, such that the receiving device can deal with the guard band properly. For example, rate matching or padding may be applied to the guard band to allow for a short processing delay, before the remapping can be applied. In this way, the bandwidth utilization can be further enhanced.

In another example, an indication (e.g., a bitmap) indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted can be transmitted to the receiving device. With this indication, the receiving device can know which of the bandwidth pieces carry/carries useful data to be used in soft combining.

Fig. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method 800 for transmitting a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 800 can be performed at a transmitting device for transmitting a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces to a receiving device. Here, the transmitting device can be a network device and the receiving device can be a terminal device. Alternatively, the transmitting device can be a terminal device and the receiving device can be a network device.

At block 810, data symbols in a TB are mapped onto the plurality of bandwidth pieces. The examples of mapping as described above in connection with the method 400 and Figs. 5～7 may also be applied in the block 810.

At block 820, an LBT process is performed in each of the plurality of bandwidth pieces.

At block 830, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece are transmitted to the receiving device.

At block 840, an indication (e.g., a bitmap) indicating in which of the plurality of bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted is transmitted to the receiving device.

With this indication, the receiving device can buffer the data received in the indicated bandwidth piece (s) and wait for retransmission of the missing portion of the TB. When all the data has been received, the receiving device can combine the received data and decode the entire TB. In this way, only the data mapped to the bandwidth piece (s) for which the LBT process fails needs to be retransmitted, such that the amount of data required to be retransmitted can be reduced.

Fig. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a method 900 for receiving a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 900 can be performed at a receiving device for receiving a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces from a transmitting device. N is an integer larger than one. Here, the receiving device can be a terminal device and the transmitting device can be a network device. Alternatively, the receiving device can be a network device and the transmitting device can be a terminal device.

At block 910, at least a portion of a TB is received from a transmitting device in one or more of the N bandwidth pieces.

At block 920, at least the portion of the TB is reconstructed from data symbols in the one or more bandwidth pieces in such a manner that the data symbols from each of the one or more bandwidth pieces are treated as successive data symbols in the TB, referring to Fig. 5 for example.

At block 930, at least the portion of the TB is decoded.

In an example, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs and one or more of the plurality of CBGs can be received in each of the one or more bandwidth pieces, referring to Fig. 6 for example.

In an example, in the block 930, for each of the one or more bandwidth pieces: padding is removed from the bandwidth piece or rate matching is applied to the bandwidth piece to obtain one or more CBGs. Then, the one or more CBGs are decoded.

In an example, the TB may contain N sub-TBs and each of the N sub-TBs can be received in one of the one or more bandwidth pieces. Each of the N sub-TBs may contain one or more CBG each including one or more CBs.

In an example, the one or more CBs can padded with predefined data.

In an example, the method 900 can further include: receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the one or more CBs are padded with predefined data.

In an example, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs each including one or more CBs. Each CB containing symbols across more than one bandwidth piece can constitute one CBG itself, referring to Fig. 7 for example.

In an example, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The method 900 can further include: receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the guard band is filled with data independent from the TB; and receiving and decoding the data independent from the TB in the guard band.

In an example, the data independent from the TB may include a CSI-RS or one or more independent CBs.

In an example, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The method 900 can further include: receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the neighboring bandwidth pieces are extended with the guard band. In the block 920, at least the portion of the TB can be reconstructed from data symbols in the extended bandwidth pieces.

In an example, the method 900 can further include: receiving from the transmitting device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces at least the portion of the TB is actually transmitted.

In an example, in the block 930, soft combining can be applied in decoding at least the portion of the TB based on the indication. With this indication, the receiving device can know which of the bandwidth pieces carry/carries useful data and which of the bandwidth pieces carry/carries unwanted data. Accordingly, the receiving device can apply soft combining to the useful data only.

Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method 1000 for receiving a TB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 1000 can be performed at a receiving device for receiving a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces from a transmitting device. Here, the receiving device can be a terminal device and the transmitting device can be a network device. Alternatively, the receiving device can be a network device and the transmitting device can be a terminal device.

At block 1010, a first indication is received from the transmitting device, indicating a first subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted, and a first portion of a TB is received from the transmitting device in the first subset of bandwidth pieces. Here, the receiving device may receive and buffer data in the indicated bandwidth piece (s) only. Alternatively, the receiving device may receive data in all of the plurality of bandwidth pieces and then buffer the useful data in the indicated bandwidth piece (s) only while discarding the unwanted data in other non-indicated bandwidth piece (s) .

At block 1020, a second indication is received from the transmitting device, indicating a second subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted, and a second portion of the TB is received from the transmitting device in the second subset of bandwidth pieces.

At block 1030, the TB is reconstructed from at least the first portion and the second portion.

At block 1040, the TB is decoded.

With the above indications, the receiving device can buffer the data received in the indicated bandwidth piece (s) and wait for retransmission of the missing portion of the TB. When all the data of the TB has been received, the receiving device can combine the received data and decode the entire TB. In this way, only the data mapped to the bandwidth piece (s) for which the LBT process fails needs to be retransmitted, such that the amount of data required to be retransmitted can be reduced.

Correspondingly to the method 400 and/or method 800 as described above, a transmitting device is provided. Fig. 11 is a block diagram of a transmitting device 1100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The transmitting device 1100 can transmit a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces (e.g., N bandwidth pieces) .

As shown in Fig. 11, the transmitting device 1100 includes a mapping unit 1110 configured to map a TB onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another. The transmitting device 1100 further includes an LBT unit 1120 configured to perform an LBT process in each of the N bandwidth pieces. The transmitting device 1100 further includes a transmitting unit 1130 configured to transmit, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs. The mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to: map one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to, prior to mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces: apply padding or rate matching to the one or more CBGs, such that the one or more CBGs are aligned with the one bandwidth piece.

In an embodiment, the mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to: divide the TB into N sub-TBs; and map each of the N sub-TBs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the TB may contain a plurality of CBGs each including one or more CBs. The mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to: map the plurality of CBGs onto the N bandwidth pieces. Each CB that is mapped to symbols across more than one bandwidth piece can constitute one CBG itself.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to fill the guard band with data independent from the TB. The transmitting unit 1130 can further be configured to notify the receiving device of the filling.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The mapping unit 1110 can further be configured to extend the neighboring bandwidth pieces with the guard band and remap the data symbols that have been mapped onto the neighboring bandwidth pieces onto the extended bandwidth pieces. The transmitting unit 1130 can further be configured to notify the receiving device of the remapping.

In an embodiment, the transmitting unit 1130 can further be configured to transmit to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

Alternatively, the transmitting device 1100 includes a mapping unit 1110 configured to map data symbols in a TB onto the plurality of bandwidth pieces. The transmitting device 1100 further includes an LBT unit 1120 configured to perform an LBT process in each of the plurality of bandwidth pieces. The transmitting device 1100 further includes a transmitting unit 1130 configured to transmit, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device. The transmitting unit 1130 is further configured to transmit to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the plurality of bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

The units 1110～1130 can be implemented as a pure hardware solution or as a combination of software and hardware, e.g., by one or more of: a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software, a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 4 or 8.

Fig. 12 is a block diagram of a transmitting device 1200 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. The transmitting device 1200 can transmit a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces (e.g., N bandwidth pieces) .

The transmitting device 1200 includes a transceiver 1210, a processor 1220 and a memory 1230. The memory 1230 contains instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 4. Particularly, the memory 1230 contains instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to: map a TB onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another; perform an LBT process in each of the N bandwidth pieces; and transmit, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device.

In an embodiment, the memory 1230 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to, prior to mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces: apply padding or rate matching to the one or more CBGs, such that the one or more CBGs are aligned with the one bandwidth piece.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The memory 1230 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to: fill the guard band with data independent from the TB; and notify the receiving device of the filling.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded. The memory 1230 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to: extend the neighboring bandwidth pieces with the guard band; remap the data symbols that have been mapped onto the neighboring bandwidth pieces onto the extended bandwidth pieces; and notify the receiving device of the remapping.

In an embodiment, the memory 1230 may further contain instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to: transmit to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

Alternatively, the memory 1230 can contain instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 8. Particularly, the memory 1230 contains instructions executable by the processor 1220 whereby the transmitting device 1200 is operative to: map data symbols in a TB onto the plurality of bandwidth pieces; perform an LBT process in each of the plurality of bandwidth pieces; transmit, in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device; and transmit to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the plurality of bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.

Correspondingly to the method 900 and/or method 1000 as described above, a receiving device is provided. Fig. 13 is a block diagram of a receiving device 1300 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The receiving device 1300 can receive a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces (e.g., N bandwidth pieces) .

As shown in Fig. 13, the receiving device 1300 includes a receiving unit 1310 configured to receive, in one or more of the N bandwidth pieces, at least a portion of a TB from a transmitting device. The receiving device 1300 further includes a reconstructing unit 1320 configured to reconstruct at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the one or more bandwidth pieces in such a manner that the data symbols from each of the one or more bandwidth pieces are treated as successive data symbols in the TB. The receiving device 1300 further includes a decoding unit 1330 configured to decode at least the portion of the TB.

In an embodiment, the decoding unit 1330 can further be configured to, for each of the one or more bandwidth pieces: remove padding from the bandwidth piece or apply rate matching to the bandwidth piece to obtain one or more CBGs; and decode the one or more CBGs.

In an embodiment, a guard band can be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The receiving unit 1310 can further be configured to receive from the transmitting device a notification that the guard band is filled with data independent from the TB; and receive the data independent from the TB in the guard band. The decoding unit 1330 can further be configured to decode the data independent from the TB in the guard band.

In an embodiment, a guard band can be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The receiving unit 1310 can further be configured to receive from the transmitting device a notification that the neighboring bandwidth pieces are extended with the guard band. The reconstructing unit 1320 can further be configured to reconstruct at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the extended bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the receiving unit 1310 can further be configured to receive from the transmitting device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces at least the portion of the TB is actually transmitted.

In an embodiment, the decoding unit 1330 can further be configured to apply soft combining in decoding at least the portion of the TB based on the indication.

Alternatively, the receiving device 1300 includes a receiving unit 1310 configured to receive from a transmitting device a first indication indicating a first subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receive a first portion of a TB in the first subset of bandwidth pieces. The receiving unit 1310 is further configured to receive from the transmitting device a second indication indicating a second subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receive a second portion of the TB in the second subset of bandwidth pieces. The receiving device 1300 further includes a reconstructing unit 1320 configured to reconstruct the TB from at least the first portion and the second portion. The receiving device 1300 further includes a decoding unit 1330 configured to decode the TB.

The units 1310～1330 can be implemented as a pure hardware solution or as a combination of software and hardware, e.g., by one or more of: a processor or a micro-processor and adequate software and memory for storing of the software, a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) or other electronic component (s) or processing circuitry configured to perform the actions described above, and illustrated, e.g., in Fig. 9 or 10.

Fig. 14 is a block diagram of a receiving device 1400 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. The receiving device 1400 can receive a TB over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces (e.g., N bandwidth pieces) .

The receiving device 1400 includes a transceiver 1410, a processor 1420 and a memory 1430. The memory 1430 contains instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 9. Particularly, the memory 1430 contains instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to: receive, in one or more of the N bandwidth pieces, at least a portion of a TB from a transmitting device; reconstruct at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the one or more bandwidth pieces in such a manner that the data symbols from each of the one or more bandwidth pieces are treated as successive data symbols in the TB; and decode at least the portion of the TB.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The memory 1430 can further contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to: receive from the transmitting device a notification that the guard band is filled with data independent from the TB; and receive and decode the data independent from the TB in the guard band.

In an embodiment, a guard band may be provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces. The memory 1430 can further contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to: receive from the transmitting device a notification that the neighboring bandwidth pieces are extended with the guard band. The operation of reconstructing can include: reconstructing at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the extended bandwidth pieces.

In an embodiment, the memory 1430 can further contain instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to: receive from the transmitting device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces at least the portion of the TB is actually transmitted.

Alternatively, the memory 1430 contains instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 10. Particularly, the memory 1430 contains instructions executable by the processor 1420 whereby the receiving device 1400 is operative to: receive from a transmitting device a first indication indicating a first subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receive a first portion of a TB in the first subset of bandwidth pieces; receive from the transmitting device a second indication indicating a second subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receive a second portion of the TB in the second subset of bandwidth pieces; reconstruct the TB from at least the first portion and the second portion; and decode the TB..

The present disclosure also provides at least one computer program product in the form of a non-volatile or volatile memory, e.g., a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, an Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) , a flash memory and a hard drive. The computer program product includes a computer program. The computer program includes: code/computer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor 1220 causes the transmitting device 1200 to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 4 or 8; or code/computer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor 1420 causes the receiving device 1400 to perform the actions, e.g., of the procedure described earlier in conjunction with Fig. 9 or 10.

The computer program product may be configured as a computer program code structured in computer program modules. The computer program modules could essentially perform the actions of the flow illustrated in Fig. 4, 8, 9 or 10.

The processor may be a single CPU (Central processing unit) , but could also comprise two or more processing units. For example, the processor may include general purpose microprocessors; instruction set processors and/or related chips sets and/or special purpose microprocessors such as Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASICs) . The processor may also comprise board memory for caching purposes. The computer program may be carried by a computer program product connected to the processor. The computer program product may comprise a non-transitory computer readable storage medium on which the computer program is stored. For example, the computer program product may be a flash memory, a Random-access memory (RAM) , a Read-Only Memory (ROM) , or an EEPROM, and the computer program modules described above could in alternative embodiments be distributed on different computer program products in the form of memories.

With reference to Fig. 15, in accordance with an embodiment, a communication system includes a telecommunication network 1510, such as a 3GPP-type cellular network, which comprises an access network 1511, such as a radio access network, and a core network 1514. The access network 1511 comprises a plurality of

base stations

1512a, 1512b, 1512c, such as NBs, eNBs, gNBs or other types of wireless access points, each defining a

corresponding coverage area

1513a, 1513b, 1513c. Each

base station

1512a, 1512b, 1512c is connectable to the core network 1514 over a wired or wireless connection 1515. A first user equipment (UE) 1591 located in coverage area 1513c is configured to wirelessly connect to, or be paged by, the corresponding base station 1512c. A second UE 1592 in coverage area 1513a is wirelessly connectable to the corresponding base station 1512a. While a plurality of

UEs

1591, 1592 are illustrated in this example, the disclosed embodiments are equally applicable to a situation where a sole UE is in the coverage area or where a sole UE is connecting to the corresponding base station 1512.

The telecommunication network 1510 is itself connected to a host computer 1530, which may be embodied in the hardware and/or software of a standalone server, a cloud-implemented server, a distributed server or as processing resources in a server farm. The host computer 1530 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider, or may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider. The

connections

1521, 1522 between the telecommunication network 1510 and the host computer 1530 may extend directly from the core network 1514 to the host computer 1530 or may go via an optional intermediate network 1520. The intermediate network 1520 may be one of, or a combination of more than one of, a public, private or hosted network; the intermediate network 1520, if any, may be a backbone network or the Internet; in particular, the intermediate network 1520 may comprise two or more sub-networks (not shown) .

The communication system of Fig. 15 as a whole enables connectivity between one of the connected

UEs

1591, 1592 and the host computer 1530. The connectivity may be described as an over-the-top (OTT) connection 1550. The host computer 1530 and the connected

UEs

1591, 1592 are configured to communicate data and/or signaling via the OTT connection 1550, using the access network 1511, the core network 1514, any intermediate network 1520 and possible further infrastructure (not shown) as intermediaries. The OTT connection 1550 may be transparent in the sense that the participating communication devices through which the OTT connection 1550 passes are unaware of routing of uplink and downlink communications. For example, a base station 1512 may not or need not be informed about the past routing of an incoming downlink communication with data originating from a host computer 1530 to be forwarded (e.g., handed over) to a connected UE 1591. Similarly, the base station 1512 need not be aware of the future routing of an outgoing uplink communication originating from the UE 1591 towards the host computer 1530.

Example implementations, in accordance with an embodiment, of the UE, base station and host computer discussed in the preceding paragraphs will now be described with reference to Fig. 16. In a communication system 1600, a host computer 1610 comprises hardware 1615 including a communication interface 1616 configured to set up and maintain a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of the communication system 1600. The host computer 1610 further comprises processing circuitry 1618, which may have storage and/or processing capabilities. In particular, the processing circuitry 1618 may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. The host computer 1610 further comprises software 1611, which is stored in or accessible by the host computer 1610 and executable by the processing circuitry 1618. The software 1611 includes a host application 1612. The host application 1612 may be operable to provide a service to a remote user, such as a UE 1630 connecting via an OTT connection 1650 terminating at the UE 1630 and the host computer 1610. In providing the service to the remote user, the host application 1612 may provide user data which is transmitted using the OTT connection 1650.

The communication system 1600 further includes a base station 1620 provided in a telecommunication system and comprising hardware 1625 enabling it to communicate with the host computer 1610 and with the UE 1630. The hardware 1625 may include a communication interface 1626 for setting up and maintaining a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of the communication system 1600, as well as a radio interface 1627 for setting up and maintaining at least a wireless connection 1670 with a UE 1630 located in a coverage area (not shown in Fig. 16) served by the base station 1620. The communication interface 1626 may be configured to facilitate a connection 1660 to the host computer 1610. The connection 1660 may be direct or it may pass through a core network (not shown in Fig. 16) of the telecommunication system and/or through one or more intermediate networks outside the telecommunication system. In the embodiment shown, the hardware 1625 of the base station 1620 further includes processing circuitry 1628, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. The base station 1620 further has software 1621 stored internally or accessible via an external connection.

The communication system 1600 further includes the UE 1630 already referred to. Its hardware 1635 may include a radio interface 1637 configured to set up and maintain a wireless connection 1670 with a base station serving a coverage area in which the UE 1630 is currently located. The hardware 1635 of the UE 1630 further includes processing circuitry 1638, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. The UE 1630 further comprises software 1631, which is stored in or accessible by the UE 1630 and executable by the processing circuitry 1638. The software 1631 includes a client application 1632. The client application 1632 may be operable to provide a service to a human or non-human user via the UE 1630, with the support of the host computer 1610. In the host computer 1610, an executing host application 1612 may communicate with the executing client application 1632 via the OTT connection 1650 terminating at the UE 1630 and the host computer 1610. In providing the service to the user, the client application 1632 may receive request data from the host application 1612 and provide user data in response to the request data. The OTT connection 1650 may transfer both the request data and the user data. The client application 1632 may interact with the user to generate the user data that it provides.

It is noted that the host computer 1610, base station 1620 and UE 1630 illustrated in Fig. 16 may be identical to the host computer 1530, one of the

base stations

1512a, 1512b, 1512c and one of the

UEs

1591, 1592 of Fig. 15, respectively. This is to say, the inner workings of these entities may be as shown in Fig. 16 and independently, the surrounding network topology may be that of Fig. 15.

In Fig. 16, the OTT connection 1650 has been drawn abstractly to illustrate the communication between the host computer 1610 and the use equipment 1630 via the base station 1620, without explicit reference to any intermediary devices and the precise routing of messages via these devices. Network infrastructure may determine the routing, which it may be configured to hide from the UE 1630 or from the service provider operating the host computer 1610, or both. While the OTT connection 1650 is active, the network infrastructure may further take decisions by which it dynamically changes the routing (e.g., on the basis of load balancing consideration or reconfiguration of the network) .

The wireless connection 1670 between the UE 1630 and the base station 1620 is in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. One or more of the various embodiments improve the performance of OTT services provided to the UE 1630 using the OTT connection 1650, in which the wireless connection 1670 forms the last segment. More precisely, the teachings of these embodiments may improve the radio resource utilization and thereby provide benefits such as reduced user waiting time.

A measurement procedure may be provided for the purpose of monitoring data rate, latency and other factors on which the one or more embodiments improve. There may further be an optional network functionality for reconfiguring the OTT connection 1650 between the host computer 1610 and UE 1630, in response to variations in the measurement results. The measurement procedure and/or the network functionality for reconfiguring the OTT connection 1650 may be implemented in the software 1611 of the host computer 1610 or in the software 1631 of the UE 1630, or both. In embodiments, sensors (not shown) may be deployed in or in association with communication devices through which the OTT connection 1650 passes; the sensors may participate in the measurement procedure by supplying values of the monitored quantities exemplified above, or supplying values of other physical quantities from which

software

1611, 1631 may compute or estimate the monitored quantities. The reconfiguring of the OTT connection 1650 may include message format, retransmission settings, preferred routing etc.; the reconfiguring need not affect the base station 1620, and it may be unknown or imperceptible to the base station 1620. Such procedures and functionalities may be known and practiced in the art. In certain embodiments, measurements may involve proprietary UE signaling facilitating the host computer’s 1610 measurements of throughput, propagation times, latency and the like. The measurements may be implemented in that the

software

1611, 1631 causes messages to be transmitted, in particular empty or ‘dummy’ messages, using the OTT connection 1650 while it monitors propagation times, errors etc.

Fig. 17 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 17 will be included in this section. In a first step 1710 of the method, the host computer provides user data. In an optional substep 1711 of the first step 1710, the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application. In a second step 1720, the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE. In an optional third step 1730, the base station transmits to the UE the user data which was carried in the transmission that the host computer initiated, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. In an optional fourth step 1740, the UE executes a client application associated with the host application executed by the host computer.

Fig. 18 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Fig. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 18 will be included in this section. In a first step 1810 of the method, the host computer provides user data. In an optional substep (not shown) the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application. In a second step 1820, the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE. The transmission may pass via the base station, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. In an optional third step 1830, the UE receives the user data carried in the transmission.

Fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 19 will be included in this section. In an optional first step 1910 of the method, the UE receives input data provided by the host computer. Additionally or alternatively, in an optional second step 1920, the UE provides user data. In an optional substep 1921 of the second step 1920, the UE provides the user data by executing a client application. In a further optional substep 1911 of the first step 1910, the UE executes a client application which provides the user data in reaction to the received input data provided by the host computer. In providing the user data, the executed client application may further consider user input received from the user. Regardless of the specific manner in which the user data was provided, the UE initiates, in an optional third substep 1930, transmission of the user data to the host computer. In a fourth step 1940 of the method, the host computer receives the user data transmitted from the UE, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.

Fig. 20 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figs. 15 and 16. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Fig. 20 will be included in this section. In an optional first step 2010 of the method, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure, the base station receives user data from the UE. In an optional second step 2020, the base station initiates transmission of the received user data to the host computer. In a third step 2030, the host computer receives the user data carried in the transmission initiated by the base station.

The disclosure has been described above with reference to embodiments thereof. It should be understood that various modifications, alternations and additions can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirits and scope of the disclosure. Therefore, the scope of the disclosure is not limited to the above particular embodiments but only defined by the claims as attached.

Claims

A method (400) in a transmitting device for transmitting a Transport Block, TB, over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces, the method comprising:

- mapping (410) a TB onto the N bandwidth pieces in such a manner that successive data symbols in the TB are mapped onto one bandwidth piece after another;

- performing (420) a Listen Before Talk, LBT, process in each of the N bandwidth pieces; and

- transmitting (430) , in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device.
The method (400) of claim 1, wherein the TB contains a plurality of Code Block Groups, CBGs, and said mapping (410) comprises:

mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.
The method (400) of claim 2, further comprising, prior to mapping one or more of the plurality of CBGs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces:

- applying padding or rate matching to the one or more CBGs, such that the one or more CBGs are aligned with the one bandwidth piece.
The method (400) of claim 1, wherein said mapping (410) comprises:

dividing the TB into N sub-TBs;

mapping each of the N sub-TBs onto one of the N bandwidth pieces.
The method (400) of claim 4, wherein each of the N sub-TBs contain one or more Code Block Groups, CBGs, each including one or more Code Blocks, CBs.
The method (400) of claim 1, wherein the TB contains a plurality of Code Block Groups, CBGs, each including one or more Code Blocks, CBs, and wherein said mapping (410) comprises:

mapping the plurality of CBGs onto the N bandwidth pieces,

wherein each CB that is mapped to symbols across more than one bandwidth piece constitutes one CBG itself.
The method (400) of any of claims 1-6, wherein a guard band is provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded and the method further comprises:

- filling the guard band with data independent from the TB; and

- notifying the receiving device of said filling.
The method (400) of claim 7, wherein the data independent from the TB comprises a Channel State Information Reference Signal, CSI-RS or one or more independent CBs.
The method (400) of any of claims 1-6, wherein a guard band is provided between neighboring ones of the N bandwidth pieces in which the LBT process has succeeded and the method further comprises:

- extending the neighboring bandwidth pieces with the guard band;

- remapping the data symbols that have been mapped onto the neighboring bandwidth pieces onto the extended bandwidth pieces; and

- notifying the receiving device of said remapping.
The method (400) of any of claims 1-9, further comprising:

- transmitting to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.
The method (400) of any of claims 1-10, wherein the transmitting device is a network device and the receiving device is a terminal device.
A method (800) in a transmitting device for transmission of a Transport Block, TB, over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces, the method comprising:

- mapping (810) data symbols in a TB onto the plurality of bandwidth pieces;

- performing (820) a Listen Before Talk, LBT, process in each of the plurality of bandwidth pieces;

- transmitting (830) , in each bandwidth piece in which the LBT process has succeeded, the data symbols that are mapped onto the bandwidth piece to a receiving device; and

- transmitting (840) to the receiving device an indication indicating in which of the plurality of bandwidth pieces the data symbols are actually transmitted.
Atransmitting device (1200) , comprising a transceiver (1210) , a processor (1220) and a memory (1230) , the memory (1230) comprising instructions executable by the processor (1220) whereby the transmitting device (1200) is operative to perform the method according to any of claims 1-12.
A computer readable storage medium having computer program instructions stored thereon, the computer program instructions, when executed by a processor in a transmitting device, causing the transmitting device to perform the method according to any of claims 1-12.
A method (900) in a receiving device for receiving a Transport Block, TB, over a carrier bandwidth composed of a number, N, of bandwidth pieces, the method comprising:

- receiving (910) , in one or more of the N bandwidth pieces, at least a portion of a TB from a transmitting device;

- reconstructing (920) at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the one or more bandwidth pieces in such a manner that the data symbols from each of the one or more bandwidth pieces are treated as successive data symbols in the TB; and

- decoding (930) at least the portion of the TB.
The method (900) of claim 15, wherein the TB contains a plurality of Code Block Groups, CBGs, and one or more of the plurality of CBGs are received in each of the one or more bandwidth pieces.
The method (900) of claim 16, wherein said decoding (930) comprises:

for each of the one or more bandwidth pieces:

removing padding from the bandwidth piece or applying rate matching to the bandwidth piece to obtain one or more CBGs; and

decoding the one or more CBGs.
The method (900) of claim 16, wherein the TB contains N sub-TBs and each of the N sub-TBs is received in one of the one or more bandwidth pieces.
The method (900) of claim 18, wherein each of the N sub-TBs contain one or more Code Block Groups, CBGs, each including one or more Code Blocks, CBs.
The method (900) of claim 15, wherein the TB contains a plurality of Code Block Groups, CBGs, each including one or more Code Blocks, CBs, and wherein each CB containing symbols across more than one bandwidth piece constitutes one CBG itself.
The method (900) of any of claims 15-20, wherein a guard band is provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces and the method further comprises:

- receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the guard band is filled with data independent from the TB; and

- receiving and decoding the data independent from the TB in the guard band.
The method (900) of claim 21, wherein the data independent from the TB comprises a Channel State Information Reference Signal, CSI-RS or one or more independent CBs.
The method (900) of any of claims 15-22, wherein a guard band is provided between neighboring ones of the one or more bandwidth pieces and the method further comprises:

- receiving from the transmitting device a notification that the neighboring bandwidth pieces are extended with the guard band, wherein said reconstructing comprises:

reconstructing at least the portion of the TB from data symbols in the extended bandwidth pieces.
The method (900) of any of claims 15-23, further comprising:

- receiving from the transmitting device an indication indicating in which of the N bandwidth pieces at least the portion of the TB is actually transmitted.
The method (900) of claim 24, wherein said decoding (930) comprises:

- applying soft combining in decoding at least the portion of the TB based on the indication.
The method (900) of any of claims 15-25, wherein the receiving device is a terminal device and the transmitting device is a network device.
A method (1000) in a receiving device for receiving a Transport Block, TB, over a carrier bandwidth composed of a plurality of bandwidth pieces, the method comprising:

- receiving (1010) from a transmitting device a first indication indicating a first subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receiving a first portion of a TB in the first subset of bandwidth pieces;

- receiving (1020) from the transmitting device a second indication indicating a second subset of the plurality of bandwidth pieces in which data is actually transmitted and receiving a second portion of the TB in the second subset of bandwidth pieces;

- reconstructing (1030) the TB from at least the first portion and the second portion; and

- decoding (1040) the TB.
A receiving device (1400) , comprising a transceiver (1410) , a processor (1420) and a memory (1430) , the memory (1430) comprising instructions executable by the processor (1420) whereby the receiving device (1400) is operative to perform the method according to any of claims 15-27.
A computer readable storage medium having computer program instructions stored thereon, the computer program instructions, when executed by a processor in a receiving device, causing the receiving device to perform the method according to any of claims 15-27.