WO2020087501A1

WO2020087501A1 - Interleaving pattern based noma technology

Info

Publication number: WO2020087501A1
Application number: PCT/CN2018/113694
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yejian Chen; Yuantao Zhang; Emad Farag; Chunhai Yao; Kungmin PARK; Hong Zhou
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd.; Nokia Solutions And Networks Oy; Nokia Technologies Oy
Priority date: 2018-11-02
Filing date: 2018-11-02
Publication date: 2020-05-07
Also published as: CN112997434A; CN112997434B

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, devices and computer readable media for communication. In a method implemented at a first device, the f device receiving, at a first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; and determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

Description

INTERLEAVING PATTERN BASED NOMA TECHNOLOGY

FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication, and in particular, to methods, devices and computer readable storage media for interleaving pattern based Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology.

BACKGROUND

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is is intensively ongoing for 5G new radio. Different from conventional orthogonal multiple access technologies, NOMA can accommodate much more users via non-orthogonal resource allocation.

Consider adopting Interleave Division Multiple Access (IDMA) technology to NOMA, to realize the user-specific interleaving pattern. However, the realization of user-specific interleaving is a complex task. On the one hand the hardware complexity is very high. On the other hand it is difficult to guarantee the uniqueness of the interleaving pattern of a given user.

SUMMARY

In general, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, devices and computer readable media for communication, in particular, for extension of signatures in a multiple access system.

In a first aspect, there is provided a method implemented at a first device. The method comprises receiving, at a first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; and determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

In a second aspect, there is provided a method implemented at a second device. The method comprises determining, at a second device, a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device; and transmitting at least one of a reference sequence and data to the networking device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.

In a third aspect, there is provided a first device. The device comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program codes. The at least one memory and the computer program codes are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the device at least to perform the method according to the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a second device. The first device comprises at least one processor and at least one memory storing computer program code. The at least one memory and the computer program code are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the first device to perform the method according to the second aspect.

In a fifth aspect, there is provided an apparatus comprising means to perform the steps of the method according to the first aspect.

In a sixth aspect, there is provided an apparatus comprising means to perform the steps of the method according to the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, there is provided a computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon. The instructions, when executed on at least one processor of a device, cause the device to carry out the method according to the first aspect.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided a computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon. The instructions, when executed on at least one processor of a device, cause the device to carry out the method according to the second aspect.

It is to be understood that the summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Through the more detailed description of some embodiments of the present disclosure in the accompanying drawings, the above and other objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows an example communication system 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

FIG. 2 shows a diagram of an example process 200 for interleaving pattern based NOMA technology according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an example of an IDMA transceiver according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a diagram of an example of a simulation result according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a diagram of an example of a simulation result according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example method 600 for interleaving pattern based NOMA technology according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example method 700 for interleaving pattern based NOMA technology according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 8 is a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. The disclosure described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

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 used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network that follows any suitable communication standards or protocols such as long term evolution (LTE) , LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and 5G NR, and employs any suitable communication technologies, including, for example, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) , OFDM, time division multiplexing (TDM) , frequency division multiplexing (FDM) , code division multiplexing (CDM) , Bluetooth, ZigBee, machine type communication (MTC) , eMBB, mMTC and uRLLC technologies. For the purpose of discussion, in some embodiments, the LTE network, the LTE-A network, the 5G NR network or any combination thereof is taken as an example of the communication network.

As used herein, the term “device” may refer to any suitable device at a network side of a communication network. The first device may include any suitable device in an access network of the communication network, for example, including a base station (BS) , a relay, an access point (AP) , a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , a gigabit NodeB (gNB) , a Remote Radio Module (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a low power node such as a femto, a pico, and the like. For the purpose of discussion, in some embodiments, the eNB is taken as an example of the first device.

The device may also include any suitable device in a core network, for example, including multi-standard radio (MSR) radio equipment such as MSR BSs, network controllers such as radio network controllers (RNCs) or base station controllers (BSCs) , Multi-cell/multicast Coordination Entities (MCEs) , Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs) and MMEs, Operation and Management (O&M) nodes, Operation Support System (OSS) nodes, Self-Organization Network (SON) nodes, positioning nodes, such as Enhanced Serving Mobile Location Centers (E-SMLCs) , and/or Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs) .

As used herein, the term “device” may also refer to a device capable of, configured for, arranged for, and/or operable for communications with a first device or a further second device in a communication network. The communications may involve transmitting and/or receiving wireless signals using electromagnetic signals, radio waves, infrared signals, and/or other types of signals suitable for conveying information over air. In some embodiments, the second device may be configured to transmit and/or receive information without direct human interaction. For example, the second device may transmit information to the first device on predetermined schedules, when triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to requests from the network side.

Examples of the second device include, but are not limited to, user equipment (UE) such as smart phones, wireless-enabled tablet computers, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , and/or wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE) . For the purpose of discussion, in the following, some embodiments will be described with reference to UEs as examples of the second devices, and the terms “second device” and “user equipment” (UE) may be used interchangeably in the context of the present disclosure.

As used herein, the term “cell” refers to an area covered by radio signals transmitted by a first device. The second device within the cell may be served by the first device and access the communication network via the first device.

As used herein, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following:

(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry) and

(b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable) : (i) a combination of analog and/or digital hardware circuit (s) with software/firmware and (ii) any portions of hardware processor (s) with software (including digital signal processor (s) ) , software, and memory (ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and

(c) hardware circuit (s) and or processor (s) , such as a microprocessor (s) or a portion of a microprocessor (s) , that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular first device, or other computing or first device.

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. The term “includes” and its variants are to be read as open terms that mean “includes, but is not limited to” . The term “based on” is to be read as “based at least in part on” . The term “one embodiment” and “an embodiment” are to be read as “at least one embodiment” . The term “another embodiment” is to be read as “at least one other embodiment” . Other definitions, explicit and implicit, may be included below.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication environment 100 in which embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. The communication environment 100 may comprise a first device 110, which provides wireless connections for a plurality of second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 (hereinafter collectively referred to as second devices 120) within its coverage. The second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 may communicate with the first device 110 via wireless transmission channels 115, 125, and 135, respectively. Additionally, the second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 may communicate with each other via device-to-device (D2D) links (not shown in Fig. 1) .

In an example shown in FIG. 1, the first device 110 may be considered as a network device and the second device 120 may be considered as the terminal device. However, the first device 110 may also be considered as a terminal device and the second device 120 may be considered as the network device.

In some embodiments, the wireless transmission channels 115, 125, and 135 may be carried by a common physical channel, such as the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) as defined in 3GPP specifications. In this event, a multiple access scheme, such as the NOMA, may be employed by the second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 for accessing the common physical channel. If the NOMA scheme is utilized, the second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 may transmit in same time frequency resources but use different signatures, so that the first device 110 as a receiving device may distinguish transmitted data from different second devices.

It is to be understood that the number of first devices and the number of second devices as shown in FIG. 1 are only for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitations. The communication environment 100 may include any suitable number of first devices and any suitable number of second devices adapted for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure. In addition, it would be appreciated that there may be various wireless communications as well as wireline communications (if needed) among these additional first devices and additional second devices.

The communications in the communication environment 100 may conform to any suitable standards including, but not limited to, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) , Extended Coverage Global System for Mobile Internet of Things (EC-GSM-IoT) , Long Term Evolution (LTE) , LTE-Evolution, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) , Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) , GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) , and the like.

Furthermore, the communications in the communication environment 100 may be performed according to any generation communication protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Examples of the communication protocols include, but not limited to, the first generation (1G) , the second generation (2G) , 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G) , the fourth generation (4G) , 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G) communication protocols.

By way of illustrative example, the various example implementations or techniques described herein may be applied to various second devices, such as machine type communication (MTC) second devices, enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) second devices, Internet of Things (IoT) second devices, and/or narrowband IoT second devices.

IoT may refer to an ever-growing group of objects that may have Internet or network connectivity, so that these objects may send information to and receive information from other first devices. For example, many sensor type applications or devices may monitor a physical condition or a status, and may send a report to a server or other first device, for example, when an event occurs. Machine Type Communications (MTC, or Machine to Machine communications) may, for example, be characterized by fully automatic data generation, exchange, processing and actuation among intelligent machines, with or without intervention of humans.

Also, in an example implementation, a second device or UE may be a UE/second device with URLLC applications. A cell (or cells) may include a number of second devices connected to the cell, including second devices of different types or different categories, for example, including the categories of MTC, NB-IoT, URLLC, or other UE category.

The various example implementations may be applied to a wide variety of wireless technologies or wireless networks, such as LTE, LTE-A, 5G, cmWave, and/or mmWave band networks, IoT, MTC, eMTC, URLLC, and the like, or any other wireless network or wireless technology. These example networks or technologies are provided only as illustrative examples, and the various example implementations may be applied to any wireless technology/wireless network.

As mentioned above, Interleave Division Multiple Access (IDMA) technology has been considered to be used for NOMA. An arbitrary NOMA scheme can be characterized by the user signature. IDMA is featured by the user-specific interleaving. For example, for second devices 120-1, 120-2 and 120-3 shown as in FIG. 1, each second device should be allocated a user-specific interleaving pattern. Nevertheless, the realization of user-specific interleaving is not a straightforward task. Not only is the hardware complexity considered, but also how to guarantee the uniqueness of the interleaving pattern of a given user.

Therefore, a scheme for realizing a low-cost user-specific interleaving pattern is proposed by the embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure.

Principle and implementations of the present disclosure will be described in detail below with reference to FIG. 2, which shows process 200 according to example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the process 200 will be described with reference to FIG. 1. The process 200 may involve an interleaving pattern based NOMA technology. In an example shown in FIG. 2, the first device 110 may be considered as a network device and the second device 120 may be considered as the terminal device.

As shown in FIG. 2, the second device 120 determines 210 a cyclic shift specific to the second device 120 and a common interleaving pattern. The common interleaving pattern is to be used in interleaving processes at a first device 110 and all second devices managed by the first device 110.

In some embodiments, if the second device 120 is connected to the first device 110, the second device 120 may receive an identifier specific to the second device 120 from the first device 110. For example, the identifier may be a Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI) , which may represent with “X” and has 16 bits. This identifier may be considered as a unique identifier for the second device 120.

In this case, the second device 120 may determine a data length of the data to be transmitted to the second device 120 based on preconfigured information for the second device 120. The preconfigured information may comprise, but not limit to the resources allocated to the second device 120, such as physical resource blocks allocated to the second device 120, the encoding pattern and the modulation pattern.

The second device 120 may determine the cyclic shift based on the identifier specific to the second device and the data length. For example, the cyclic shift τ _k is determined based on Equation (1) as below:

τ _k = mod (X _k, L _k) (1)

where L _k denotes the data length of the signals of second devices, and X _k denotes the C-RNTI of user k.

If the data length L _k is the same for all the second devices, the shift τ _k can be regarded as a unique value in one cell. Further, the C-RNTI X _k is selected from the available C-RNTI pool with respect to potential second devices, in order to make shift τ _k absolutely unique. Thus, the interleaving pattern specific to the second device 120 can be indirectly achieved user-specific cyclic shift with a common interleaving pattern with respect to Equation (1) .

In some embodiments, if the second device 120 is not connected to the first device 110, the second device 120, the second device 120 may select a cyclic shift from a cyclic shift pool as the cyclic shift. There is a mapping relationship between the random access preamble and/or Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) and the cyclic shift in the cyclic shift pool. The mapping relationship refers to as one-to-one mapping relationship or one-to-multiple mapping relationship. One-to-one mapping relationship means one random access preamble and/or DMRS corresponding to one cyclic shift. One-to-multiple mapping relationship means one random access preamble and/or DMRS corresponding to more than one cyclic shift, for example, to a set of the cyclic shifts. In this case, the second device 120 may randomly selects a cyclic shift from a set of cyclic shifts associated with a preamble/DMRS.

In some embodiments, the second device 120 may interleave the data based on the determined cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern. The common interleaving pattern is to be used in interleaving processes at a first device 110 and all second devices 120 managed by the first device 110.

Referring back to FIG. 2, the second device 120 transmits 220 at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device 110. As mentioned above, the reference sequence, i.e. a preamble/DMRS, is selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data is interleaved at the second device 120 based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern.

The first device 110 receives at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device 120 and determines 230 the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device 120 based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

In some embodiments, if the second device 120 is connected to the first device 110, the first device 110 may determine a data length of the received data based on preconfigured information for the second device 120. The first device 110 may also determine the identifier specific to the second device 120, i.e. the C-RNTI as mentioned above, which is pre-allocated by the first device 110, based on the received data. The first device 110 may determine the cyclic shift based on the data length and the identifier.

In some embodiments, if the second device 120 is not connected to the first device 110, the first device 110 may obtain the mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift. The first device 110 may determine the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.

In some embodiments, the first device 110 may also deinterleave the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.

In this way, a user-specific interleaving pattern is realized by a user-specific cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern. The complexity for generating the user-specific interleaving pattern is reduced and the uniqueness of the interleaving pattern of a given user is guaranteed.

FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an example of an IDMA transceiver 300 according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 3, an example IDMA transceiver 300 may comprise a transmitter 310 and a receiver 320. The transmitter 310 comprises a cyclic shift determining module 311 for determining the user-specific cyclic shift and a common interleaver 312 for interleaving the data to be transmitted.

Correspondingly, the receiver 320 comprises a cyclic shift determining module 321 for determining the user-specific cyclic shift and a common interleaver 322 for deinterleaving the received data. The receiver 320 may refer to as the first device 110 and the transmitter 310 may refer to as the second device 120, vice versa.

According to the IDMA transceiver 300 shown in FIG. 3 and the example flowchart 200 shown in FIG. 2, a simulation could be performed in the environments on LDPC code rate 1/2. For case 1, the user K=10 and the repetition rate is 1/4 and for case 2, the user K=20 and the repetition rate is 1/8.

It can be seen from FIG. 4, the result of cyclic shift (

curves

405, 415, 425 and 435) , according to the present disclose, are similar with the result of the specific interleaver (

curves

410, 420, 430 and 440) .

In some case, the data length of the NOMA users may be different. Assume that the data block length follows a uniform distribution between 1000 to 10000 bits, and C-RNTI follows a uniform distribution between 1 to 800. Further, assume that two users have a same data stream, if their data lengths are the same, so that it is possible to compute the correlation between the processed data stream, in order to exhibit the effect of randomization. If the data lengths are different, assume that the superimposed data part of two users are exactly the same. The effect of randomization can be similarly computed after the processing.

FIG. 5 shows a diagram of an example of another simulation result according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 5, it can be observed that for the same data length user-specific interleaving (curve 515) and cyclic shift (curve 505) deliver very similar results. For different data length (curve 510) , marginal degradation can be observed, and good randomization can still be achieved to support IDMA operation.

The result shown in FIG. 5 reveals the fact that IDMA still works with the user-specific cyclic shift, even if the data block length are different.

In some embodiments, if the second device 120 is connected to the first device 110, the the first device can indicate a common data block length L _k = L to all users. Each user should simply add on redundancy, being similar to rate matching. This helps C-RNTI-based solution mentioned above, to guarantee the randomness of cyclic shift τ _k.

In some embodiments, the system can generally create a pool of common interleaver patterns. A group of NOMA users is allocated one common interleaver pattern. Adjacent cells are assigned different common interleave from the pool, this could reduce the cell interference.

In some embodiments, a cell could be assigned two or more common interleaver patterns {C ₀, C ₁, ... C _N-1} . This is to increase the number of available NOMA signatures in the cell. In this case, the NOMA signatures are determined by the user specific cyclic shift τ _k, represented by Equation (1) and the common interleaver C _n, which represent by Equation (2) as below:

where N is the number of common interleaver patterns in a cell.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example method 600 for interleaving pattern based NOMA technology according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The method 600 can be implemented at the first device 110 as shown in FIG. 1. For the purpose of discussion, the method 600 will be described with reference to FIG. 1.

At 610, receiving, at a first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device.

In some embodiments, the reference sequence comprises one of the following a random access preamble and a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.

In some embodiments, the first device may determine a data length of the received data based on preconfigured information for the second device. The first device may determine, based on the received data, an identifier specific to the second device, the identifier being pre-allocated by the first device. The first device may determine the cyclic shift based on the data length and the identifier.

In some embodiments, the reference sequence is received by the first device, the first device may obtain a mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift. The first device may determine the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.

At 620, the first device determines the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

In some embodiments, the first device may deinterleave the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.

In some embodiments, the first device may be a first device and the second device m a second device.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example method 700 for interleaving pattern based NOMA technology according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The method 700 can be implemented at the second device 120 as shown in FIG. 1. For the purpose of discussion, the method 700 will be described with reference to FIG. 1.

At 710, the second device determines a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device.

In some embodiments, the second device may receive an identifier specific to the second device from the first device. The second device may determine a data length of the data to be transmitted to the second device based on preconfigured information for the second device. The second device may also determine the cyclic shift based on the identifier specific to the second device and the data length.

In some embodiments, the second device may select a cyclic shift from a cyclic shift pool as the cyclic shift.

At 720, the second device transmits at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.

In some embodiments, the second device may obtain a mapping relationship between cyclic shifts and reference sequences. The second device may determine the reference sequence based on the mapping relationship and the determined cyclic shift.

In some embodiments, the second device may interleave the data based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

In some example embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing the method 600 (for example, the first device) may comprise means for performing the respective steps of the method 600. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus comprises: means for receiving, at the first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; means for determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.

In some example embodiments, the reference sequence comprises one of the following a random access preamble and a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.

In some example embodiments, the mean for determining the cyclic shift comprises: means for determining a data length of the received data based on preconfigured information for the second device; means for determining, based on the received data, an identifier specific to the second device, the identifier being pre-allocated by the first device; and means for determining the cyclic shift based on the data length and the identifier.

In some example embodiments, the reference sequence is received by the first device, the mean for determining the cyclic shift comprises: means for obtaining a mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift; and determining the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus further comprises means for deinterleaving the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.

In some example embodiments, wherein the first device is a first device and the second device is a second device.

In some example embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing the method 700 (for example, the second device) may comprise means for performing the respective steps of the method 700. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus comprises: means for determining, at a second device, a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device and means for transmitting at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.

In some example embodiments, the means for determining the cyclic shift comprises means for receiving an identifier specific to the second device from the first device; means for determining a data length of the data to be transmitted to the second device based on preconfigured information for the second device and means for determining the cyclic shift based on the identifier specific to the second device and the data length.

In some example embodiments, the reference sequence is received by the first device, the means for determining the cyclic shift comprises means for obtaining a mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift and means for determining the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus may further comprises means for deinterleaving the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.

FIG. 8 is a simplified block diagram of a device 800 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 800 can be considered as a further example implementation of the first device 110 as shown in FIG. 1. Accordingly, the device 800 can be implemented at or as at least a part of the second device 120.

As shown, the device 800 includes a processor 810, a memory 820 coupled to the processor 810, a suitable transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) 840 coupled to the processor 810, and a communication interface coupled to the TX/RX 840. The memory 810 stores at least a part of a program 830. The TX/RX 840 is for bidirectional communications. The TX/RX 840 has at least one antenna to facilitate communication, though in practice an Access Node mentioned in this application may have several ones. The communication interface may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements, such as X2 interface for bidirectional communications between eNBs, S1 interface for communication between a Mobility Management Entity (MME) /Serving Gateway (S-GW) and the eNB, Un interface for communication between the eNB and a relay node (RN) , or Uu interface for communication between the eNB and a second device.

The program 830 is assumed to include program instructions that, when executed by the associated processor 810, enable the device 800 to operate in accordance with the example embodiments of the present disclosure, as discussed herein with reference to Figs. 2 to 7. The example embodiments herein may be implemented by computer software executable by the processor 810 of the device 800, or by hardware, or by a combination of software and hardware. The processor 810 may be configured to implement various example embodiments of the present disclosure. Furthermore, a combination of the processor 810 and memory 810 may form processing means 850 adapted to implement various example embodiments of the present disclosure.

The memory 810 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may be implemented using any suitable data storage technology, such as a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, 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 memory 810 is shown in the device 800, there may be several physically distinct memory modules in the device 800. The processor 810 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network, 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 800 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 device. 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.

The present disclosure also provides at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium. The computer program product includes computer-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target real or virtual processor, to carry out the process or method as described above with reference to any of Figs. 2 to 7. 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.

In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program codes or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable media.

The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer 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 computer 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.

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, comprising:

receiving, at a first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; and

determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.
The method of Claim 1, wherein the reference sequence comprises one of the following:

a random access preamble; and

a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.
The method of Claim 1, wherein determining the cyclic shift comprises:

determining a data length of the received data based on preconfigured information for the second device;

determining, based on the received data, an identifier specific to the second device, the identifier being pre-allocated by the first device; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the data length and the identifier.
The method of Claim 1, wherein the reference sequence is received by the first device, determining the cyclic shift comprises:

obtaining a mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.
The method of Claim 1, further comprising:

deinterleaving the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.
The method of Claim 1, wherein the first device is a network device and the second device is a terminal device.
A method, comprising:

determining, at a second device, a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device; and

transmitting at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.
The method of Claim 7, wherein determining the cyclic shift comprises:

receiving an identifier specific to the second device from the first device;

determining a data length of the data to be transmitted to the second device based on preconfigured information for the second device; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the identifier specific to the second device and the data length.
The method of Claim7, wherein determining the cyclic shift comprises;

selecting a cyclic shift from a cyclic shift pool as the cyclic shift.
The method of Claim 7, wherein transmitting the reference sequence comprises:

obtaining a mapping relationship between cyclic shifts and reference sequences; and

determining the reference sequence based on the mapping relationship and the determined cyclic shift.
The method of Claim 7, wherein the reference sequence comprises one of the following:

a random access preamble; and

a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.
The method of Claim 7, further comprising:

interleaving the data based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.
The method of Claim 7, wherein the first device is a network device and the second device is a terminal device.
A device, wherein the device is a first device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program codes;

the at least one memory and the computer program codes are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the second device at least to:

receiving, at the first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; and

determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.
The device of Claim 14, wherein the reference sequence comprises one of the following:

a random access preamble; and

a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.
The device of Claim 14, wherein the first device is caused to determine the cyclic shift by:

determining a data length of the received data based on preconfigured information for the second device;

determining, based on the received data, an identifier specific to the second device, the identifier being pre-allocated by the first device; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the data length and the identifier.
The device of Claim 14, wherein the reference sequence is received by the first device, the first device is caused to determine the cyclic shift by:

obtaining a mapping relationship between the reference sequence and the cyclic shift; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the mapping relationship and the received reference sequence.
The device of Claim 14, wherein the first device is further caused to:

deinterleaving the received data by applying the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern to the received data.
The device of Claim 14, wherein the first device is a network device and the second device is a terminal device.
A device, wherein the device is a second device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program codes;

the at least one memory and the computer program codes are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the first device at least to:

determining, at the second device, a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device; and

transmitting at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the second device is caused to determine the cyclic shift by:

receiving an identifier specific to the second device from the first device;

determining a data length of the data to be transmitted to the second device based on preconfigured information for the second device; and

determining the cyclic shift based on the identifier specific to the second device and the data length.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the second device is caused to determine the cyclic shift by:

selecting a cyclic shift from a cyclic shift pool as the cyclic shift.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the second device is caused to transmit the reference sequence by:

obtaining a mapping relationship between cyclic shifts and reference sequences; and

determining the reference sequence based on the mapping relationship and the determined cyclic shift.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the reference sequence comprises one of the following:

a random access preamble; and

a demodulation reference signal, DMRS.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the second device is further caused to:

interleave the data based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.
The device of Claim 20, wherein the first device is a network device and the second device is a terminal device.
An apparatus for communication, comprising:

means for receiving, at a first device, at least one of a reference sequence and data transmitted from a second device, the data being interleaved at the second device by a cyclic shift specific to the second device and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at the first device and all second devices managed by the first device; and

means for determining the cyclic shift from the at least one of the reference sequence and the data for deinterleaving data from the second device based on the cyclic shift and the common interleaving pattern.
An apparatus for communication, comprising:

means for determining, at a second device, a cyclic shift specific to the second device, the cyclic shift being associated with interleaving to be performed at the second device; and

means for transmitting at least one of a reference sequence and data to the first device, the reference sequence being selected based on the cyclic shift, and the data being interleaved at the second device based on the cyclic shift and a common interleaving pattern, the common interleaving pattern being to be used in interleaving processes at a first device and all second devices managed by the first device.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method of any of claims 1-6.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method of any of claims 7-13.