WO2022155387A1 - Enhanced 5g and 6g uplink control information multiplexing on a physical uplink shared channel - Google Patents

Abstract

This disclosure describes systems, methods, and devices related to allocating resources for transmission of uplink control information. A device may encode downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and the UCI; cause to send the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; and detect the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

Description

ENHANCED 5G AND 6G UPLINK CONTROL INFORMATION MULTIPLEXING ON A PHYSICAL UPLINK SHARED CHANNEL

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATION(S)

This application claims the benefit of U.S, Provisional Application No. 63/137,412, filed January 14, 2021, and of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/138,704, filed January 18, 2021, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference as set forth in full.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for wireless communications and, more particularly, to sending uplink control information in 5^th Generation (5G) and 6^th Generation (6G) communications.

BACKGROUND

Wireless devices are becoming widely prevalent and are increasingly using wireless channels. The 3^rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) is developing one or more standards for wireless communications.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates example transmissions of uplink control information, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is an example mapping of uplink control information on a physical uplink shared control channel, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 illustrates example transmissions of uplink control information using a listen before talk technique, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 illustrates example multiplexing using separate demodulation reference signals (DMRSs) for uplink control information and for an uplink shared channel using a physical uplink shared control channel, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 5 illustrates an example of hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (IIARQ-ACK) codebook generation using a K2 scheduling delay, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation using a K2 scheduling delay and a non-numerical K2 value, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation using a K2 scheduling delay, a non-numerical K2 value, and a physical uplink shared channel resource indication, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 8 illustrates an example configuration of physical downlink control channel monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example periodicity of physical downlink control channel monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example configuration of physical downlink control channel monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example synchronization signal block rate-matching pattern for a physical downlink control channel, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG . 12 illustrates a flow diagram of illustrative process for uplink control information multiplexing using a physical uplink shared channel, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13 illustrates a network, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14 schematically illustrates a wireless network, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating components, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description and the drawings sufficiently illustrate specific embodiments to enable those skilled in the art to practice them. Other embodiments may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, algorithm, and other changes. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in, or substituted for, those of other embodiments. Embodiments set forth in the claims encompass all available equivalents of those claims.

For cellular telecommunications, the 3^rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) define communication techniques, including for the use of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) used to cany uplink control information (UCI), of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) to cany UCI, and of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) to carry' downlink control information (DCI).

Mobile communication has evolved significantly from early voice systems to today’s highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. The next generation wireless communication system, 5G, or new radio (NR) will provide access to information and sharing of data anywhere, anytime, and by various users and applications. NR is expected to be a unified network/ system that satisfies vastly different and sometime conflicting performance dimensions and services. Such diverse multi-dimensional requirements are driven by different services and applications. In general, NR will evolve based on 3GPP LTE-Advanced with additional potential new Radio Access Technologies (RATs) to enrich people lives with better, simple and seamless wireless connectivity solutions. NR will enable everything connected by wireless and deliver fast, rich contents and sendees.

In NR Release 15 (Rel-15), short PUCCH (e.g., PUCCH format 0 and 2) can span one or two symbols, and long PUCCH (e.g., PUCCH format 1, 3 and 4) can span from 4 to 14 symbols within a slot. Further, long PUCCH may span multiple slots to further enhance the coverage. In addition, for a given UE, two short PUCCHs as well as short PUCCH and long PUCCH can be multiplexed in a time division multiplexing (TDM) manner in a same slot, (e.g,, time slot).

UCI may be carried by a PUCCH transmission. In particular, UCI may include one or more of the following: scheduling request (SR), hybrid automatic repeat request- acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback, channel state information (CSI) report, e.g., channel quality indicator (CQI), pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI), CSI resource indicator (CRI) and rank indicator (RI) and/or beam related information (e.g., Ll-RSRP (layer I- reference signal received power)). Further, in NR Rel-15, when a PUCCH with single slot transmission overlaps with a

PUSCH with single slot transmission, and when a timeline requirement (e.g., as defined in Section 9.2.5 in the TS38.213 standard) is satisfied, user equipment (UE) may multiplex UCI on the PUSCH and drop the PUCCH (e.g., not transmit the PUCCH). Tire UCI may include important infonnation, so even when the PUCCH is not transmitted to allow' for transmission of the PUSCH, the UCI may need to be provided to a device, so the PUSCH may include the UCI. When UCI is multiplexed on the PUSCH, the amount of resources or resource elements (RE) allocated for UCI is determined in accordance with the beta offset, allocated resource for PUSCH transmission, and code rate for PUSCH. In Rel-15, resource allocation of one data transmission may be confined within a slot, where one slot has 14 symbols, for example. For systems operating above 52.6GHz earner frequency or 6G, a larger subcarrier spacing may be needed to combat severe phase noise. When a larger subcarrier spacing, e.g., 1.92MHz or 3,84MHz, is employed, the slot duration can be very short (e.g., ~5 microseconds). Tills extremely short slot duration may not be sufficient for higher layer processing, including Medium Access Layer (MAC) and Radio Link

Control (RLC) (e.g., in die communication stack).

To address this issue, a 5^th or 6^th Generation radio node (gNB) may schedule the downlink (DL) or uplink (UL) data transmission across the slot boundary. This may indicate that die concept of slot may not be necessary, which may provide maximal flexibility at die gNB on the data scheduling. In this case, certain mechanisms may need to be considered for UCI multiplexing on PUSCH tor higher carrier frequencies.

Accordingly, the present disclosure provides mechanisms for UCI multiplexing on PUSCH for 5G and 6G communications.

In one or more embodiments, for wireless devices operating above 52.6GHz earner frequency or 6G, and using larger subcarrier spacing such as 1 ,92MHz or 3.84MHz (e.g., using a short time slot duration), a gNB may schedule die DL or UL data transmission across the slot boundary, rendering the concept of slot unnecessary', and providing flexibility at the gNB for data scheduling. In this manner, a PUSCH may span multiple slots (e.g., and may not need to be contained by a single slot). In one or more embodiments, a first K symbols at the beginning of a PUSCH transmission can be used for UCI transmission on PUSCH. Tire value K can be configured by higher layers (e.g., MAC or RRC) via remaining minimum system information (RMSI), other system information (OSI), dedicated radio resource control (RRC) signaling, dynamically indicated in the DCI, or a combination thereof. In another option, the K symbols may represent an integer number of symbols allocated for one code block group (CBG) or transport block (TB) when symbol boundary alignment is used for IB or CBG transmission. In particular, assuming the number of symbols allocated for one CBG or TB is L_CSG , then the number of symbols for UCI transmission can be K = N . L_CBG, where N is a positive integer. N and L_CBG can be configured by higher layers via RRC signalling, e.g., as part of time domain resource allocation (TDRA) for PUSCH transmission or dynamically indicated in the DCI or a combination thereof. For example, mapping UCI onto PUSCH may include allocating the first three symbols of the UCI to the PUSCH, and the remaining symbols may be used for an uplink shared channel (UL-SCH) transmission. In this manner, a device may multiplex the UCI at the beginning of the PUSCH, using an indication of the number of symbols K for the UCI allocation (e.g., the first K symbols PUSCH allocated for the UCI).

In one or more embodiments, one field m the DCI may be used to indicate explicitly whether the UCI, including HARQ-ACK feedback, is multiplexed on the PUSCH. More specifically, bit ‘1’ may indicate that UCI is multiplexed on PUSCH while bit ‘0’ may indicate that UCI is not multiplexed on PUSCH. In addition, one field in the DCI may be used to indicate whether UL-SCH is transmited on PUSCH. More specifically, bit ' V may indicate that UL-SCH is transmitted on PUSCH while bit ‘0’ may indicate that UL-SCH is not transmitted on PUSCH. In another option, one field in the DCI may be used to jointly indicate whether UCI and/or UL-SCH are transmitted on PUSCH. In one example, Table 1 below shows the joint UCI and UL-SCH indicator in the DCI. Tire UCI does not have to be at the beginning of the PUSCH.

Table 1: Joint UCI and UL-SCH indicator in the DCI:

In one or more embodiments, in the DCI scheduling PUSCH, a time domain resource allocation (TDRA) only indicates the time domain resource allocation of UL-SCH. An additional field in the DCI may be used to indicate the K symbols for UCI on PUSCH. Alternatively, TDRA can jointly indicate the K symbols for UCI on PUSCH and the time domain resource allocation for UL-SCH on PUSCH.

In one or more embodiments, a list of time domain resource allocation entries may be configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB 1), OSI, or RRC signaling, and in some entries, only starting symbol and length of UL-SCH are configured, and in other entries, only starting symbol and length of UCI are configured. In some entries, both starting symbol and length of UCI and UL-SCH are configured. In this case, a time domain resource assignment field in the DCI can be used to implicitly indicate whether UCI and/or UL-SCH is transmitted on PUSCH when selecting one entry from the configured TDRA. In one option, the K symbols for UCI are allocated before the time domain resource for UL-SCHs. The benefit for such resource m apping support is to report HARQ-A CK as soon as possible . In another option, the K symbol s for UCI can be configured in the middle or in the end of the time domain resource allocation of UL-SCH (e.g., tin entry of the time domain resource allocation indicates time resource for X PUSCHs for UL-SCHs followed by K symbols for UCI, then followed by’ the other Y PUSCHs for UL-SCHs. X, Y is equal to or larger than 0). In this case, if listen before talk (LBT) is used for the UL transmission, and if the UE fails to access the channel in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the UE may drop up to X first PUSCHs for UL-SCHs, however, the UE can still transmit the K symbols that cany’ UCI. In one option, the K symbols for UCI are allocated before the time domain resource for UL-SCHs and are always transmitted unless LBT has failed. If LBT has failed in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the first PUSCH for UL-SCH is dropped, and the UE assumes the uplink resource allocation is K symbols for UCI followed by the second PUSCH and other PUSCHs tor UL- SCHs.

In one or more embodiments, LBT operation may' occur before the UL transmission. When the LBT is successful in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the UE transmits the UCI followed by three PUSCHs for UL-SCH. When the LBT fails in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the UE may continue LBT until the second start timing of UL. transmission. If LBT is successful at the second start timing, the UE transmits UCI followed by PUSCH 2 and PUSCH 3 for UL-SCH.

In one or more embodiments, a modulation order for the transmission of UCI on PUSCH can be predefined in the specification or configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB 1), OSI or RRC signaling. In one example, pi/2 binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) can be used for the modulation of UCI on PUSCH. Further, a separate coding scheme can be used for the transmission of UCI and UL-SCH on PUSCH.

In one or more embodiments, a single port transmission may' be used for the transmission of UCI on PUSCH. When a two-port transmission is used for PUSCH, two demodulation reference signal (DMRS) antenna ports (APs) can be used. In this case, the DMRS AP used for the UCI transmission can be one of the two DMRS APs for PUSCH transmission. In one option, the first or the second DMRS AP tor PUSCH transmission is used for UCI transmission. In another option, which DMRS AP from the two DMRS APs for PUSCH transmission can be configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB1), OSI or RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI or a combination thereof.

In one or more embodiments, a separate DMRS can be used for the transmission of UCI and UL-SCH on PUSCH. More specifically, after UCI transmission, front-loaded DMRS symbol is allocated for U I .,-SCH transmission. Forthis option, the number of DMRS APs may be different for UCI and UL-SCH transmission on PUSCH. In one example, one DMRS AP is used for UCI transmission while two DMRS APs are used for UL-SCH transmission. In an example of separate DMRS for UCI and UL-SCH on PUSCH, a UCI spans three symbols and is allocated at the beginning of PUSCH. Different DMRSs are used for UCI and UL-SCH transmissions on PUSCH, respectively.

In one or more embodiments, assuming a joint DCI format which can schedule both physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and PUSCH transmissions, the joint DCI includes necessary fields to support the HARQ-ACK multiplexing on the PUSCH. The joint DCI indicates a PUSCH resource for the HARQ-ACK multiplexing. Consequently, there may not need to indicate a separate PUCCH resource. The PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) and PDSCH-to-HARQ-ACK feedback delay (KI) may not be needed in the joint DCI. The PUSCH resource is allocated by time domain resource allocation (TDRA) field which indicates a PDCCH-to-PUSCH scheduling delay (K2) and the start symbol and length of the PUSCH resource. In one case, there is no UL-SCH scheduled in the PUSCH resource, which means the allocated PUSCH resource is dedicated for UCI transmission. In one option, with the joint DCI, a K2 value is indicated when a PDSCH transmission is scheduled. A same HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the PDSCH transmissions, if the associated PUSCHs indicated by K2 are the same or partially overlapped. Alternatively, if the associated PUSCHs are included in the UL portion of a same time division duplex (TDD) period, a same HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the PDSCH transmissions. In one example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation based on configured K2 values, a device assumes that the set of K2 configured by high layer are 13, 4, 6} symbol groups. The three PDSCHs are associated with same PUSCH resource based on the indicated K2 values 6, 4 and 3. Consequently, a single HARQ-ACK codebook which includes HARQ-ACK bits of the three PDSCHs is generated and multiplexed on the PUSCH resource.

In one or more embodiments, assuming PUSCH is only scheduled by one DCI, inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 (NNK2) could be introduced for the joint DCI. The special value of inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 means that the PUSCH resource carrying HARQ-ACK that is associated with the PDSCH is not indicated by the joint DCI. The PUSCH resource carrying HARQ-ACK for the PDSCH is indicated in a later DCI. If K2 is jointly coded with other information on PUSCH resource allocation (e.g., the TDRA field), inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 can be indicated by a special row of the TDRA table. In this option, a PDSCH group index may be indicated in the DCI, so that the UE obtains the PUSCH resource for a PDSCH scheduled with NNK2 from a next DCI indicating the same PDSCH group index.

In one or more embodiments, as an extension to the above option using NNK2, the PUSCH resource carrying HARQ-ACK codebook can be indicated by multiple DCIs that are in the same timing as the last DCI. Because the multiple DCIs are in the same timing, a gNB can indicate the same PUSCH resource in the multiple DCIs. In this case, even if UE misses the last DCI, the UE can still determine the PUSCH resource for HARQ-ACK transmission by other DCIs in the same timing.

In one or more embodiments, an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation may be based on configured K2 values and NNK2. Assuming tire set of K2 configured by a high layer includes {3, 4, 6} symbol groups. When PDSCH 1 is scheduled, a gNB does not indicate a PUSCH resource, but NNK2 is indicated. PDSCH 2 is in a timing, and there is no proper K2 to allocate the PUSCH resource, so NNK2 is used. When PDSCH 3 is scheduled, K2 equal to three may indicate a point to the PUSCH resource for HARQ-ACK multiplexing. At the UE side, after reception of PDSCH 1 and PDSCH 2 that are scheduled with NNK2, the UE waits until the reception of PDSCH 3 to determine the timing for the PUSCH and dete imine that the HARQ-ACK codebook is for the three PDSCHs.

In one or more embodiments, as an extension to the above option using NNK2, the PUSCH resource carrying HARQ-ACK codebook can be indicated by multiple DCIs that indicate different K2 values. In this case, the UE rniss the last DCI, and the UE may determine the PUSCH resource for HARQ-ACK transmission in an early timing.

In one or more embodiments, HARQ-ACK codebook generation may be based on configured K2 values and NNK2 and PUSCH resource indication in multiple timings. Assuming the set of K2 configured by high layer is {3, 4, 6} symbol groups. When PDSCH 1 is scheduled, there is no proper K2 to allocate the PUSCH resource, so NNK2 is indicated. Then, for PDSCH 2 and PDSCH 3, a proper K2 value of 4 and 3 can be respectively indicated to allocate the same PUSCH resource. At the UE side, after reception of PDSCH I that is scheduled with NNK2, the UE waits until the reception of PDSCH 2 or PDSCH 3 to know the timing for the PUSCH resource. If PDSCH 3 is received, the UE determines that HARQ-ACK codebook is for the three PDSCHs on the PUSCH resource. If PDSCH 3 is missed, the UE can still obtain the PUSCH resource from the DCI scheduling PDSCH 2. However, unless a gNB can predict the size of HARQ-ACK codebook, the UE may assume the HARQ-ACK codebook is for PDSCH 1 and PDSCH 2.

In one or more embodiments, for the above options, for dynamic HARQ-ACK codebook based on counter DAI (C-DAI) and total DAI (T-DAI), a T-DAI field are included in the joint DCI, which helps UEs to determine a codebook size. There may be no need to differentiate T-DAI for DL grant or UL grant.

In addition, in Rel-15 NR, control resource set (CORESET) is defined as a set of resource element groups (REGs) with one or more symbol duration under a given numerology within which UE atempts to blindly decode downlink control information. For PDCCH, a REG is defined as a physical resource block (PRB) with one OFDM symbol, and one control channel element (CCE) has six REGs, Further, a PDCCH candidate consists of a set of CCEs and can be mapped contiguously or non-contiguously in frequency. CCE-to-REG mapping can be either localized or distributed in frequency domain. Further, a search space is defined as a set of candidate control channels for a given aggregation level. At a configured PDCCH monitoring occasion, UE may perform blind decoding and attempt to decode the candidate PDCCHs for a search space. In Rel-15, a control search space is associated with a single CORESET and multiple search spaces can be associated with a CORESET. In this case, for a given CORESET, different search spaces (e.g., common search space and UE-specific search space) can have different periodicities for a UE to monitor. In addition, PDCCH monitoring pattern with a bitmap in a slot can be configured, w Inch indicates the starting symbol of CORESET for PDCCH monitoring occasion.

In one example of configuration of PDCCH monitoring occasions in NR, PDCCH monitoring periodicity of eight slots is configured. Further, within a slot, PDCCH monitoring occasions with bitmap “10000001000000” is configured, which indicates two PDCCH monitoring occasions with starting symbols of 1st and 8th symbol in a slot.

As noted above, a larger subcarrier spacing may be needed to combat severe phase noise. When a larger subcarrier spacing, e.g, 1 ,92MHz or 3.84MHz is employed, the slot duration can be very short. This extremely short slot, duration may not be sufficient for higher layer processing, including Medium Access Layer (MAC) and Radio Link Control (RLC), etc. To address this issue, one option is to define a slot with relatively large number of symbols. Alternatively, a gNB may schedule the DL or UL data transmission across slot boundary'. This option may indicate that the concept of slot may not be necessary, which may provide maximal flexibility at a gNB for the data scheduling. In case when slot-less operation is used or a large number of symbols is defined for a slot, certain enhancements may need to be considered for the configuration of PDCCH monitoring occasions.

Hie present disclosure provides mechanisms for enhanced PDCCH monitoring occasions for higher carrier frequency. In particular, the present disclosure provides enhanced PDCCH monitoring occasions for higher carrier frequency, and synchronization signal block (SSB) indication for PDCCH and PDSCH rate-matching.

As mentioned above, for system operating at a higher frequency, e.g., above 52.6GHz carrier frequency, it is envisioned that a larger subcarrier spacing may be needed to combat severe phase noise. In case when a larger subcarrier spacing, e.g., 1.92MHz or 3.84MHz is employed, the slot duration can be very short. This extremely short slot duration may not be sufficient for higher layer processing, including Medium Access Layer (MAC) and Radio Link Control (RLC), etc. To address this issue, one option is to define a slot with relatively’ large number of symbols. Alternatively, a gNB may schedule the DL or UL data transmission across slot boundary. This option may indicate that the concept of slot may not be necessary, which may’ provide maximal flexibility’ at a gNB for the data scheduling. In case when slot-less operation is used or a large number of symbols is defined for a slot, certain enhancemen ts may need to be considered for the configuration of PDCCH monitoring occasions.

Embodiments of mechanisms on PDCCH monitoring occasions for higher carrier frequency are provided as follows. In one embodiment, offset and periodicity can be configured for PDCCH monitoring occasions, where offset and periodicity can be configured per symbol or symbol group level. Further, reference timing may be defined in accordance with 1ms or 10ms frame boundary. In case when symbol group level is used, the number of symbols in a group may be configured by higher layers via minimum system information (MSI), remaining minimum system information (RMSI), other system information (OSI) or dedicated radio resource control (RRC) signaling.

In one embodiment, when semi-static time division multiplexing (TDD) configuration is configured, tire periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions may be configured as an integer number of TDD periodicity. For instance, if the semi-static TDD configuration is configured with periodicity of 125,11s, periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions may be configured as K • 125/.1S, where K is a positive integer.

In one example of periodici ty of the PDCCH moni toring occasions, one TDD period consists of DL symbols, guard period and UL symbols. Further, PDCCH regions which consist one or more PDCCH monitoring occasions, are located at the beginning of the TDD period. The periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions is same as duration of TDD period. In other words, one TDD period has one PDCCH region.

In another option, periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions is aligned with the gap between two SSB transmissions. In particular, in case when SSBs are uniformly distributed within the SSB period, the number of symbols between two SSB transmission can be used for the periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions. This may be used for the configuration of PDCCH with CORESET0 or Type0-PDCCH common search space (CSS) sets. In this case, periodicity of Type0-PDCCH CSS sets may not be indicated in the minimum system information (MSI).

In another embodiment of the invention, within the periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions, one or more windows may be configured for PDCCH monitoring occasions.

When one window' is configured for PDCCH monitoring occasions, the starting symbol and length of window (SLIV) may be configured by higher layers via MSI, RMSI (SIB1), OSI or RRC signaling. The starting symbol and length of the window may be defined per symbol level or symbol group level . In one option, w hen the symbol group level is used, number of symbols in one group may be configured by higher layers via MSI, RMSI (SIB 1 ), OSI or RRC signaling. In one example, PDCCH window' configuration field consists of a resource allocation value (RIV) corresponding to a starting symbol or symbol group (Win_start) and a length in terms of contiguously allocated symbols or symbol groups lroccH^W-

resource indication value is defined by:

else

Where ^and shall ⁿ°l exceed N

periodicity' of PDCCH monitoring occasions,

is the number of symbols in a symbol group.

In another option, symbol group size can be determined in accordance with the periodicity’ of the PDCCH monitoring occasions. For instance, w'hen the periodicity' of the PDCCH monitoring occasions is larger than a predefined value, a first number of symbols is used as symbol group size. Further, when the periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions is smaller than or equal to a predefined value, a second number of symbols is used as symbol group size.

When more than one windows are configured for PDCCH monitoring occasions, a combinatorial index r can be used to indicate the position of PDCCH monitoring window #1 and #2. More specifically, the combinatorial index r corresponds to a starting symbol group, ending symbol group of PDCCH monitoring window 1, s₀ and s

₁ — 1 and PDCCH monitoring window' 2, s₂ and s₃ — 1, respectively, where r is given by equation

icity of PDCCH monitoring occasions, symbols in a symbol group and M is an integer, e.g., M = 4. The set

< ^si+i) contains M sorted symbol group indices and

is the extended binomial coefficient, where x and y are positive integers, resulting in unique label

Note that the combinatorial index r consists of bits.

In another embodiment of the invention, w'ithin the PDCCH monitoring window(s), a bitmap may be used to indicate the starting symbols of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the window(s). The bitmap may be defined per symbol level or symbol group level. W^rhen the symbol group level is used for bitmap indication, the group size can be same as the group size to define the PDCCH monitoring window(s). Alternatively, the group size can be separately configured from that for PDCCH monitoring window(s).

In one option, when the symbol group level is used for bitmap indication, number of symbols in one group may be configured by higher layers via MSI, RMSI (SIB 1), OSI or RRC signaling. In one option, when the symbol group level is used for bitmap indication, number of symbols in one group may be equal to the duration of CORESET,

In another option, symbol group size can be determined in accordance with the w indow size. For instance, when the window size is larger than a predefined value, a first number of symbols is used as symbol group size. Further, when the window size is smaller than or equal to a predefined value, a second number of symbols is used as symbol group size.

In one example of configuration of PDCCH monitoring occasions, 18 symbols are configured as PDCCH monitoring window within the PDCCH monitoring period. Further, 2 symbols are configured as symbol group. Bitmap of “1 11000000” indicates that symbol #0, 2 and 4 are configured as the starting symbol of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the PDCCH monitoring window. Note that in the example, CORESET duration is 2 symbols. Illis indicates that UE may need to monitor the PDCCH candidates in symbol #0-1, #2-3 and #4-5, respectively.

In NR Rel-15, a bitmap which is provided by higher layer parameter ssb- PositionsInBurst in SIB1 and ServingCellConfigCommon, is used to indicate the actually transmitted SS Block position in SS block potential position. Note that this information is used to allow UE to perform rate-matching of physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) which are partially overlapping with SSB resource in time and frequency. When SSB overlaps with a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) candidate at least one resource element (RE), the UE may not be required to monitor the PDCCH candidate. However, for higher carrier frequency, if gNB is equipped with multiple panels, the gNB may transmit multiple signals in different beam directions simultaneously⁷ when the spatial separation of the transmissions is good. More specifically, the gNB may be able to transmit the SSB and PDSCH/PDCCH at the same time, which can help improve the spectrum efficiency. To enable this, certain mechanisms may⁷ need to be considered for SSB indication for PDSCH/PDCCH rate-matching.

Embodiments of SSB indication for PDSCH/PDCCH rate-matching are provided as follows.

In one embodiment of tire invention, if the UE has received ssb-PositionsInBurst m SIB1 or ssb-PositionsInBurst in ServingCellConfigCommon for a serving cell and if the UE does not monitor PDCCH candidates in a Type0-PDCCH common search space (CSS) set and at least one symbol including DMRS symbol for a PDCCH candidate overlaps with at least one symbol corresponding to a SS/PBCH block index provided by ssb-PositionsInBurst in SIB1 or ssb-PositionsInBurst in ServingCellConfigCommon for a serving cell, the UE may not be required to monitor the PDCCH candidate. In another embodiment of the invention, a UE may be provided with more than one bitmaps for SSB indication.

In one option, the first bitmap may be used to indicate the actually transmitted SS Block position in SS block potential position and the second bitmap may be used to indicate the SS Block position where PDSCH and/or PDCCH should be rate-matched around. More specifically, in the second bitmap, bit “1 ” may indicate that PDSCH and/or PDCCH should be rate-matched around the SSB with indicated SSB position while bit “0” may indicate that PDSCH and/or PDCCH may not need to be rate-matched around the SSB with indicated SSB position. The second bitmap could be a bitmap that applies to all PDSCHs and/or PDCCHs.

Alternatively, the second bitmap could be configured per TCI state for PDSCH and/or PDCCH. Specifically, a second bitmap which impacts PDCCH is obtained according the activated TCI state for PDCCH. Then, according to the TCI state indicated in a DCI, if provided, UE can know the second bitmap that applies to PDSCH rate matching. Note that the first bitmap for SS block position indication can be used for SSB based measurement, e.g., tor channel measurement for Layer 1 - Reference Signal Received Power (Ll-RSRP) computation. The second bitmap may be considered for the case when a gNB is equipped with multiple panels and can transmit the signals in different beam directions simultaneously. Further, if the second bitmap is not provided by higher layers, the default value can be the first bitmap. In this case, the actually transmitted SS block position is also used for PDSCH and/or PDCCH rate -matching.

In one example of SSB rate-matching pattern tor PDCCH, 3 PDCCH monitoring occasion is configured within a PDCCH monitoring window. Further, first PDCCH monitoring occasion overlaps with the SSB in time. However, if the second bitmap indicates “0” for this SSB, PDCCH may not need to be rate-matched around the SSB. In this case, UE still may need to monitor at the first PDCCH monitoring occasion within the PDCCH monitoring window.

In another option, the first bitmap may be used to indicate tire actually transmitted SS Block position in SS block potential position, the second bitmap may be used to indicate the SS Block position where PDCCH should be rate-matched around, and the third bitmap may be used to indicate the SS Block position where PDSCH should be rate-matched around. The second bitmap may be configured per CORESET. The third bitmap could be a bitmap that applies to all PDSCH transmissions. Alternatively, the third bitmap could be configured per TCI state for PDSCH. The above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting. Numerous other examples, configurations, processes, algorithms, etc., may exist, some of which are described in greater detail below. Example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying figures. FIG. 1 illustrates example transmissions (e.g., transmission 100 and transmission 110) of UCI, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 1, the transmissions 100 and 110 may include a UE 120 communicating with a gNB 122. In the transmission 100, the UE 120 may communicate using a slot 123 (e.g., time slot) having a number of symbols 124 (e.g., fourteen symbols as shown, the symbols 124 represented by the boxes within the slot 123). The UE 120 may be set for a PUCCH transmission 126 with UCI to the gNB 122 and a PUSCH transmission 128 to the gNB. The PUCCH transmission 126 and the PUSCH transmission 128 may be triggered by different DE transmissions from the gNB 122 (e.g., PUSCH transmissions may be triggered by DCI 130 - one or multiple --- sent by the gNB 122), so the PUCCH transmission 126 and the PUSCH transmission 128 may overlap in time during the slot 123. Because the UCI may include important information, rather than risking the UCI being missed by the gNB 122, the transmission 110 may include the UCI in a PUSCH transmission 150 (e.g., triggered by the DCI 130). In the transmission 110, the PUCCH transmission 126 that would otherwise overlap in time with a PUSCH transmission is omited (e.g., the PUCCH transmission 126 is not transmitted). To ensure delivery of the UCI, the UCI may be included in the PUSCH transmission 150 with no overlapping PUCCH transmission.

In one or more embodiments, for the UCI to be multiplexed on the PUSCH transmission 150, the amount of resource or REs allocated for the UCI may be determined based on a beta offset, allocated resource for the PUSCH transmission 150, and code rate for the PUSCH transmission 150 (e.g,, as provided by the gNB 122, such as in the DCI 130 sent by the gNB 122).

In one or more embodiments, when the slot 123 has a short duration with larger subcarrier spacing (e.g., I.92MHz or 3.84MHz), the PUSCH transmission 150 may need to be scheduled by the gNB 122 across a boundary of the slot 123 (e.g., the PUSCH transmission 150 may not fit entirely within the slot 123), so the gNB 122 may need a way to indicate the multiplexing scheme to the UE 120, such as by providing information in the DCI 130 (e.g., one or more DCIs as explained further herein).

FIG. 2 is an example mapping 200 of UCI on a PUSCH 202, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. Referring to FIG. 2, the symbols of the PUSCH 202 (e.g., representing the PUSCH transmission 150 of FIG. 1 ) may include a DMRS 204, UCI 206, UL-SCH 208, DMRS 210, and UL-SCH 212. The UCI 206 may include a number of symbols 220 represented by K, where K is an integer number of symbols allocated for one code block group (CBG) or transport block (TB) when symbol boundary alignment is used for TB or CBG transmission. In particular, assuming the number of symbols allocated for one CBG or TB is L_CBG, then the number of symbols for UCI transmission can be K — N • L_CBG, In the example of FIG. 2, the first K symbols of the PUSCH 202 followed by the DMRS 204 are allocated tor the UCI 206, and the remaining symbols of the PUSCH 202 are used tor the UL-SCH 208 and 212.

In one or more embodiments, for the gNB 122 of FIG. I to indicate whether the UCI 206 (e.g., including HARQ-ACK feedback) is multiplexed on the PUSCH 202, the gNB 122 may send DCI (not shown) to the UE 120, and may include a field to indicate whether the UCI 206 is to be multiplexed on the PUSCH 202. More specifically, bit ‘ 1’ may indicate that the UCI 206 is multiplexed on the PUSCH 202 while bit ‘0’ may indicate that the UCI 206 is not multiplexed on the PUSCH 202. In addition, one field in the DCI is used to indicate whether the UL-SCH 208 and 212 is transmitted on the PUSCH 202. More specifically, bit ‘ 1’ may indicate that UL-SCH 208 and 212 is transmitted on the PUSCH 202while bit ‘0’ may indicate that UL-SCH 208 and 212 is not transmited on the PUSCH 202. In another option, one field in the DCI is used to jointly indicate whether the UCI 206 and/or UL-SCH 208 and 212 are transmitted on the PUSCH 202. In one example, Table 1 provides the joint UCI and UL-SCH indicator of the DCI.

In one or more embodiments, in the DCI that schedules the PUSCH 202, TDRA only indicates the time domain resource allocation of UL-SCH 208 and 212. Additional field in the DCI is used to indicate the K symbols for the UCI 206 on the PUSCH 202. Alternatively, TDRA can jointly indicates the K symbols for UCI on the PUSCH 202 and the time domain resource allocation for UL-SCH 208 and 212 on the PUSCH 202. A list of time domain resource allocation entries are configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB1), OSI or RRC signaling, wherein in some entries, only starting symbol and length of UL-SCH 208 and 212 is configured, where in other entries, only starting symbol and length of the UCI 206 is configured. Further, in some entries, both starting symbol and length of the UCI 206 and UL- SCH 208 and 212 is configured. In this case, time domain resource assignment field in the DCI can be used to implicitly indicate whether UCI 206 and/or UL-SCH 208 and 212 is transmitted on the PUSCH 202 when selecting one entry from the configured TDRA. In one option, the K symbols for the UCI 206 are allocated before the time domain resource for UL-SCHs. The benefit for such resource mapping support to report HARQ-ACK as soon as possible.

FIG. 3 illustrates example transmissions of UCI using a listen before talk (LBT) technique, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. Referring to FIG. 3, symbols 300 may include UCI 302, a first PUSCH 304, a second

PUSCH 306, and a third PUSCH 308. Symbols 350 may include UCI 352 (e.g., the UCI 302), a fourth PUSCH 354 (e.g., the second PUSCH 3060, and a fifth PUSCH 356 (e.g., the third PUSCH 308).

In one or more embodiments, the K symbols for UCI (e.g., the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352) can be configured in the middle or in the end of the time domain resource allocation of

UL-SCH (e.g., in FIG. 2, the UCI 206 may not need to precede the UL-SCH 208 and/or 212). That is, an entry of the time domain resource allocation indicates time resource for X number of PUSCHs for UL-SCHs followed by K symbols for UCI, then followed by the other Y number of PUSCHs for UL-SCHs. X, Y may be equal to or larger than 0. In this manner, if LBT is used for the UL transmission (e.g., LBT occurring before the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 in FIG. 3), and if the UE 120 of FIG. I fails to access the channel in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the UE 120 may drop up to X first PUSCHs for UL-SCHs, however, the UE 120 can still transmit the K symbols that carry’ UCI.

In one or more embodiments, the K symbols for UCI (e.g., the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352) are allocated before the time domain resource for UL-SCHs 208 and 212 of FIG. 2 and are always transmitted unless the LBT (e.g., the listening that occurs prior to the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352) has failed. If LBT has failed in the beginning of the time domain resource allocation, the first PUSCH 304 for UL-SCH is dropped, the UE 120 assumes the uplink resource allocation is K symbols for the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 followed by the second PUSCH 306 and other PUSCHs for UL-SCHs.

In the example shown in FIG. 3, if LBT is successful at the beginning (e.g., prior to the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352), the UE 120 of FIG. I transmits UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 followed by multiple PUSCHs for UL-SCH. If LBT failed prior to the UCI 302, the UE 120 can continue LBT until the second start timing of UL transmission (e.g., the UE 120 may not transmit the first PUSCH 304, the second PUSCH 306, or the third PUSCH 308, and may continue to perform LBT until the UCI 352). If LBT is successful at the second start timing, the UE 120 transmits the UCI 352 followed by the fourth PUSCH 354 and the fifth PUSCH 356 for UL- SCH. In another embodiment of the invention, a modulation order for the transmission of the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 on PUSCH can be predefined (e.g., in the technical specification) or configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB1 ), OSI or RRC signaling. In one example, pi/2 BPSK can be used for the modulation of the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 on PUSCH. A separate coding scheme can be used for the transmission of UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 and UL-SCH on PUSCH.

In another embodiment of the invention, single port transmission can be used for the transmission of the UCI 302 and/or UCI 352 on PUSCH,

FIG. 4 illustrates example multiplexing 400 using separate DMRSs for UCI and for an UL-SCH using a PUSCH 402, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 4, symbols of the PUSCH 402 may include a DMRS 404 for UCI 406, the UCI 406, a DMRS 408 for UL-SCH 410, the UL-SCH 410, a DMRS 414 for UL-SCH 416, and the UL-SCH 416. In this manner, the DMRS 404 is a separate DMRS for the UCI 406, and the DMRS 408 and the DMRS 414 are separate DMRSs from the DMRS 404 (e.g., the DMRS 408 and the DMRS 414 are for the UL-SCH 410 and 416, respectively). The multiple DMRSs for UCI and UL-SCH may be due to a two-port (e.g., antenna ports) transmission (e.g., from the UE 120 of FIG. 1) of the PUSCH 402.

In one option, the first or the second DMRS AP for the PUSCH 402 transmission is used for UCI transmission. In another option, which DMRS AP from the two DMRS APs for the PUSCH 402 transmission can be configured by higher layers via RMSI (SIB1), OSI or RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI or a combination thereof.

In another embodiment, separate DMRSs can be used for the transmission of UCI and UL-SCH on the PUSCH 402. More specifically, after UCI transmission, a front-loaded DMRS symbol (e.g., the DMRS 408) is allocated for UL-SCH transmission. For this option, the number of DMRS APs may be different for UCI and UL-SCH transmission on the PUSCH 402. In one example, one DMRS AP is used for UCI transmission while two DMRS APs are used for UL-SCH transmission.

FIG. 4 provides one example of separate DMRS for UCI and UL-SCH on the PUSCH 402. In the figure, the UCI spans multiple symbols and is allocated at the beginning of the

PUSCH 402. Further, different DMRSs are used for UCI and UL-SCH transmissions on the PUSCH 402, respectively. FIG. 5 illustrates an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation 500 using a K2 scheduling delay, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 5, symbols 502. may include a first PDSCH (PDSCH 1), a second PDSCH (PDSCH 2), a third PDSCH (PDSCH 3), which may include resources to be multiplexed as a HARQ-ACK 504 of a PUSCH 506.

In another embodiment, assuming a joint DO format which can schedule both PDSCH and PUSCH transmissions, the joint DCI includes necessary fields to support the HARQ-ACK 504 multiplexing on the PUSCH 506. The joint DCI indicates a PUSCH resource for the HARQ-ACK 504 multiplexing. Consequently, there may be no need to indicate a separate PUCCH resource. That is, PUCCH resource indicator (PRI) and PDSCH-to-HARQ-ACK feedback delay (KI) may not be needed in the joint DCI. The PUSCH resource is allocated by time domain resource allocation (TDRA) field which indicates a PDCCH-to-PUSCH scheduling delay (K2) and the start symbol and length of the PUSCH resource. In a special case, there is no UL-SCH scheduled in the PUSCH resource, which means the allocated PUSCH resource is dedicated for UCI transmission.

In one option, with the joint DCI, a K2 value is indicated when a PDSCH transmission is scheduled. A same HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the PDSCH transmissions, if the associated PUSCHs indicated by K2 are the same or partially overlapped. Alternatively, if the associated PUSCHs are included in the UL portion of a same TDD period, a same HARQ- ACK codebook is generated for the PDSCH transmissions.

FIG. 5 provides one example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation based on configured K2 values. It assumes that the set. of K2 configured by a high layer is {3, 4, 6} symbol groups. The three PDSCHs are associated with a same PUSCH resource (e.g., as shown by the arrow's) based on the indicated K2 values 6, 4 and 3. Consequently, a single HARQ-ACK codebook which includes HARQ-ACK bits of the three PDSCHs are generated and multiplexed on the PUSCH resource.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation 600 using a K2 scheduling delay and a NNK2 value, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 6, symbols 602. may include a first PDSCH (PDSCH 1), a second PDSCH (PDSCH 2), a third PDSCH (PDSCH 3), which may include resources to be multiplexed as a HARQ-ACK 604 of a PUSCH 606. In one option, assuming the PUSCH 606 is only scheduled by one DCI, inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 (NNK2) could be introduced for the joint DCI. The special value of inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 means that the PUSCH resource carrying the HARQ- ACK 604 that is associated with the PDSCHs is not indicated by the joint DCI. The PUSCH resource carrying the HARQ-ACK 604 for the PDSCHs is indicated in a later DCI. If K2 is jointly coded with other information in PUSCH resource allocation (e.g., the TDRA field), inapplicable K2 or non-numerical K2 can be indicated by a special row of the TDRA table. In this option, a PDSCH group index may be indicated in the DCI, so that the UE 120 of FIG, 1 may obtain the PUSCH resource for a PDSCH scheduled with NNK2 from a next DCI indicating the same PDSCH group index.

In another option, as an extension to the above option using NNK2, the PUSCH resource carrying the HARQ-ACK 604 codebook can be indicated by multiple DCIs that are in the same timing as the last DCI. Since the multiple DCIs are in the same timing, the gNB 122 of FIG. 1 can indicate the same PUSCH resource in tire multiple DCIs. In this case, even if the UE 120 misses the last DCI, the UE 120 can still determine the PUSCH resource for the

HARQ-ACK 604 transmission by other DCIs in the same timing.

FIG. 6 provides one example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation based on configured K2 values and NNK2. Assuming the set of K2 configured by high layer is {3, 4, 6} symbol groups. When PDSCH 1 is scheduled, the gNB 122 may not indicate a PUSCH resource, while NNK2 is indicated. PDSCH 2 is in a timing and there is no proper K2 to allocate the PUSCH resource, so NNK2 is used. Finally, when PDSCH 3 is scheduled, K2 equals to 3 is indicated which point to the PUSCH resource for HARQ-ACK 604 multiplexing. At UE side, after reception of PDSCH 1 and PDSCH 2 that are scheduled with NNK2, the UE 120 waits until the reception of PDSCH 3 to know' the timing for the PUSCH 606 and know' that the HARQ- ACK 604 codebook is for the three PDSCHs.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation 700 using a K2 scheduling delay, a NNK2 value, and a PUSCH indication, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 7, symbols 702 may include a first PDSCH (PDSCH I), a second PDSCH (PDSCH 2), a third PDSCH (PDSCH 3), which may include resources to be multiplexed as a HARQ-ACK 704 of a PUSCH 706.

In one option, as an extension to the above option using NNK2, the PUSCH resource carrying the HARQ-ACK 704 codebook can be indicated by multiple DCIs that indicate different K2. values. In this case, if the UE 120 of FIG. 1 misses the last DCI, the UE 120 may determine the PUSCH resource for the HARQ-ACK 704 transmission in an early timing.

FIG. 7 provides one example of HARQ-ACK codebook generation based on configured K2 values and NNK2 and PUSCH resource indication in multiple timings. Assuming the set of K2 configured by high layer is {3, 4, 6} symbol groups. When PDSCH 1 is scheduled, there is no proper K2 to allocate the PUSCH resource, so NNK2 is indicated. Then, tor PDSCH 2 and PDSCH 3, a proper K2 value 4 and 3 can be respectively indicated to allocate the same PUSCH resource. At the UE side, after reception of PDSCH 1 that is scheduled with NNK2, the UE 120 of FIG. 1 waits until the reception of PDSCH 2 or PDSCH 3 to determine the timing for the PUSCH resource. If PDSCH 3 is received, the UE 120 determines that HARQ- ACK 704 codebook is for the three PDSCHs on the PUSCH resource. On the other hand, if PDSCH 3 is missed, the UE 120 can still obtain the PUSCH resource from the DCI scheduling PDSCH 2. However, unless the gNB 122 of FIG. 1 can predict the size of the HARQ-ACK 704 codebook, the UE 120 may assume the HARQ-ACK 704 codebook is for PDSCH 1 and PDSCH 2.

Referring to FIGs. 5-7, for dynamic HARQ-ACK codebooks based on counter DAI (C- DAI) and total DAI (T-DAI), a T-DAI field may be included in a joint DCI to help UEs determine a codebook size . There may be no need to differentiate T-DAI for a DL versus UL grant. FIG. 8 illustrates an example configuration of PDCCH monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 8, a device (e.g., the UE 120 of FIG. 1) may monitor for a PDCCH 800 over multiple time slots (e.g., as indicated by the “slot index” as shown). Tire monitoring may occur over a periodicity 802 of a number of slots (e.g., eight slots as shown). Within a slot (e.g,, slot 2 as shown), PDCCH monitoring occasions with a bitmap may be configured to indicate during which the symbols 804 of the slot the PDCCH 800 is to be monitored. In the example shown, the bitmap may be “10000001000000,” where a “1” means to monitor the PDCCH 800 during tire symbol (e.g., the symbols 804) corresponding to the bit of the bitmap, and a “1” means” not to monitor the PDCCH 800 during the symbol (e.g., the symbols 804) corresponding to the bit of the bitmap. In the example bitmap, a PDCCH monitoring occasion 806 begins at the first symbol of the symbols 804, and another PDCCH monitoring occasion 808 begins at the eighth symbol of the symbols 804.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example periodicity of PDCCH monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. Referring to FIG. 9, a device (e.g., the LIE 120 of FIG. 1) may monitor for a PDCCH over multiple time periods 900 (e.g., TDD periods as shown). In FIG. 9, each TDD period may include DL symbols 902, a guard period 904, and UL symbols 906. PDCCH regions (e.g., PDCCH region 908) which include one or more PDCCH monitoring occasions may be located at the beginning of a TDD period (e.g., as shown). The periodicity of the PDCCH monitoring occasions may be the same as the duration of a TDD period (e.g., each TDD period may have one PDCCH region).

FIG. 10 illustrates an example configuration of PDCCH monitoring, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. Referring to FIG. 10, symbols 1002 (e.g., representing a PDCCH monitoring period) may include a PDCCH monitoring window 1004 (e.g., a subset of the symbols 1002). Within the PDCCH monitoring window 1004, groups of two symbols may be configured as symbol groups. A bitmap, such as ‘T i l 000000,” may indicate which symbols (e.g., corresponding to the “1” bits of the bitmap) are configured as starting symbols of PDCCH monitoring occasions within the PDCCH monitoring window 1004. The example shown in FIG, 10 corresponds to the bitmap 1 11000000, so a first symbol group 1006 (e.g., symbols 0 and 1) is a PDCCH monitoring occasion, a second symbol group 1008 (e.g., symbols 2 and 3) is a PDCCH monitoring occasion, and a third symbol group 1010 (e.g., symbols 4 and 5) is a PDCCH monitoring occasion. FIG. 11 illustrates an example SSB rate-matching patern for a PDCCH, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 1 1 , symbols 1102 (e.g., representing a PDCCH monitoring period) may include symbols for SSB 1104, and symbols for PDCCH monitoring occasions (e.g., PDCCH monitoring occasion 1108, PDCCH monitoring occasion 1110, PDCCH monitoring occasion 1 112) during a PDCCH monitoring window 1114. In the example of FIG, 11, the PDCCH monitoring occasion 1 108 overlaps with the SSB 1 104 in time. However, if the second bitmap indicates “0” for the SSB 1104, PDCCH may not need to be rate-matched around the SSB. In this case, the UE 120 of FIG. 1 still may need to monitor at the first PDCCH monitoring occasion within the PDCCH monitoring window (e.g., the PDCCH monitoring occasion 1108). In one or more embodiments, the UE 102 of FIG. 1 may include any suitable processor- driven device including, but not limited to, a mobile device or a non-mobile, e.g., a static device. For example, the UE 102 may include, a personal computer (PC), a wearable wireless device (e.g., bracelet, watch, glasses, ring, etc.), a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a laptop computer, an ultrabook™ computer, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a server computer, a handheld computer, a handheld device, an internet of things (loT) device, a sensor device, a PDA device, a handheld PDA device, an on-board device, an off-board device, a hybrid device (e.g., combining cellular phone functionalities with PDA device functionalities), a consumer device, a vehicular device, a non-vehicular device, a mobile or portable device, a non-mobile or non-portable device, a mobile phone, a cellular telephone, a PCS device, a PD A device which incorporates a wireless communication device, a mobile or portable GPS device, a DVB device, a relatively small computing device, a non-desktop computer, a context-aware device, a video device, an audio device, an A/V device, a set-top-box (STB), a blu-ray disc (BD) player, a BD recorder, a digital video disc (DVD) player, a high definition (HD) DVD player, a DVD recorder, a HD DVD recorder, a personal video recorder (PVR), a broadcast HD receiver, a video source, an audio source, a video sink, an audio sink, a stereo tuner, a broadcast radio receiver, a flat panel display, a personal media player (PMP), a digital video camera (DVC), a digital audio player, a speaker, an audio receiver, an audio amplifier, a gaming device, a data source, a data sink, a digital still camera (DSC), a media player, a smartphone, a television, a music player, or the like. Other devices, including smart devices such as lamps, climate control, car components, household components, appliances, etc. may also be included in this list.

As used herein, the term “Internet of Things (loT) device’’ is used to refer to any object (e.g., an appliance, a sensor, etc.) that has an addressable interface (e.g., an Internet protocol (IP) address, a Bluetooth identifier (ID), a near-field communication (NFC) ID, etc.) and can transmit information to one or more other devices over a wired or wireless connection. An loT device may have a passive communication interface, such as a quick response (QR) code, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag, an NFC tag, or the like, or an active communication interface, such as a modem, a transceiver, a transmitter-receiver, or the like. An loT device can have a particular set of attributes (e.g., a device state or status, such as whether the loT device is on or off, open or closed, idle or active, available for task execution or busy, and so on, a cooling or heating function, an environmental monitoring or recording function, a light- emitting function, a sound-emitting function, etc.) that can be embedded in and/or controlled/monitored by a central processing unit (CPU), microprocessor, ASIC, or the like, and configured for connection to an loT network such as a local ad-hoc network or the Internet.

For example, loT devices may include, but are not limited to, refrigerators, toasters, ovens, microwaves, freezers, dishwashers, dishes, hand tools, clothes washers, clothes dryers, furnaces, air conditioners, thermostats, televisions, light fixtures, vacuum cleaners, sprinklers, electricity meters, gas meters, etc., so long as the devices are equipped with an addressable communications interface for communicating with the loT network. loT devices may also include cell phones, desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc. Accordingly, the loT network may be comprised of a combination of “legacy” Internet-accessible devices (e.g., laptop or desktop computers, ceil phones, etc.) in addition to devices that do not typically have Internet-connectivity (e.g., dishwashers, etc.).

Any of the UE 102 and the gNB 122 of FIG. 1 may include one or more communications antennas. The one or more communications antennas may be any suitable type of antennas corresponding to the communications protocols used by the UE 102 and the gNB 122. Some non-limiting examples of suitable communications antennas include 3GPP antennas, directional antennas, non-directional antennas, dipole antennas, folded dipole antennas, patch antennas, multiple -input multiple -output (MIMO) antennas, omnidirectional antennas, quasi-omnidirectional antennas, or the like. The one or more communications antennas may be communicatively coupled to a radio component to transmit and/or receive signals, such as communications signals to and/or from the UE 102 and the gNB 122. It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 12 illustrates a flow' diagram of illustrative process 1200 for UCI multiplexing using a PDSCH, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. At block 1202, a device (e.g., the gNB 122 of FIG. 1, the gNB 1316 of FIG. 13, the ng- eNG 1318 of FIG. 13) may generate (e.g., encode) DCI (e.g., the DCI 130 of FIG. 1) that includes an allocation of one or more REs and symbols of a PUSCH with which to multiplex UCI. For example, the PUSCH transmission may be scheduled at time that overlaps with another scheduled UCI transmission (e.g., the PUCCH transmission 126 of FIG. 1), so the UCI that would be transmitted in the overlapping transmission may be carried instead by the PUSCH transmission (e.g., the PUSCH transmission 150 ofFIG. 1). The PUSCH transmission may fit within a time slot, or may span across the boundary of a time slot (e.g., into multiple time slots), especially when the time slot is of short duration due to subcarrier spacing of 1 ,92MHz or 3.84MHz, and due to the use of a transmission frequency of at least 52.6GHz. At block 1204, the device may send the DCI to the UE device using a wireless medium.

The allocation may be indicated using a technique as described in any of the above embodiments (e.g., FIGs. 1-7, Table 1), and may indicate a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission with which to multiplex the UCI, whether the UCI includes HARQ-ACK feedback, whether the PUSCH transmission also includes UL-SCH and/or DMRSs, and the like. The allocation may be for a UE device (e.g., the UE 120 of FIG. 1, the UE 1302 of FIG. 13), allowing the UE device to determine whether and how to multiplex the UCI using a PUSCH transmission to the device, how to modulate the UCI, whether to transmit the PUSCH using single or multiple antenna ports, whether the RE for the HARQ-ACK will be transmited in a subsequent DCI, and the like. Processing circuitry (e.g., the one or more processors 1510 of FIG. 15) of the device may cause transmission circuitry (e.g., the transmit circuitry 1438 of FIG. 14) to send the DCI to the UE. The UE may receive the DCI and determine, based on the DCI, to generate the UCI and send the UCI to the device using the allocated resources of the PUSCH according to the multiplexing scheme indicated by the allocation included in the DCI. At block 1206, the device may detect (e.g., by decoding) the UCI received from the

UE. The UE may multiplex the UCI using resources of the PUSCH based on the allocation provided in the DCI. The device may receive the PUSCH carrying the UCI, and may detect the UCI based on the multiplexing scheme rising the PUSCH allocation.

The examples herein are not meant to be limiting. FIG. 13 illustrates a network 1300, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Tlie network 1300 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems, or the like.

The network 1300 may include a UE 1302, which may include any mobile or non- mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 1304 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 1302 may be communicatively coupled -with the RAN 1304 by a Uu interface. The UE 1302 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, eiectronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine- type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc.

In some embodiments, the network 1300 may include a plurality of UEs coupled directly with one another via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M/D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc. In some embodiments, the UE 1302 may additionally communicate with an AP 1306 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 1306 may manage a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 1304. The connection between the UE

1302 and the AP 1306 may be consistent with any IEEE 802. 11 protocol, wherein the AP 1306 could be a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In some embodiments, the UE 1302, RAN 1304, and AP 1306 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation (tor example, LWA/LWIP). Cellular-

WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 1302 being configured by the RAN 1304 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

Tire RAN 1304 may include one or more access nodes, for example, AN 1308. AN 1308 may terminate air-interface protocols for the UE 1302 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and LI protocols. In tins manner, the AN 1308 may enable data/voice connectivity between CN 1320 and the UE 1302. In some embodiments, the AN 1308 may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of, for example, a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool. The AN 1308 be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. The AN 1308 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In embodiments in which the RAN 1304 includes a plurality of ANs, they may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 1304 is an LTE RAN) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 1304 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data/context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc. The ANs of the RAN 1304 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide the UE 1302 with an air interface for network access. The UE 1302 may be simultaneously connected with a plurality of cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 1304. For example, the UE 1302 and RAN 1304 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 1302 to connect with a plurality' of component earners, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN may be a master node that provides an MCG and a second AN may be secondary node that provides an SCG. The first/second ANs may be any⁷ combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc.

The RAN 1304 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells/Scells. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium/carrier-sensing operations based on, tor example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

In V2X scenarios the UE 1302 or AN 1308 may be or act as a RSU, which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary') UE. An RSU implemented in or by: a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU”; a gNB may’ be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU”; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry' to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications for high-speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communications services. The components of the R SU may' be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network.

In some embodiments, the RAN 1304 may be an LTE RAN 1310 with eNBs, for example, eNB 1312. The LTE RAN 1310 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; CP-OFDM waveform for DL and SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely’ on CSI- RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH'TDCCH demodulation; and CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operating on sub-6 GHz bands.

In some embodiments, the RAN 1304 may be an NG-RAN 1314 with gNBs, for example, gNB 1316, or ng-eNBs, for example, ng -eNB 1318. The gNB 1316 may connect with 5G-enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 1316 may connect with a 5G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 1318 may also connect with the 5G core through an NG interface, but may connect with a UE via an LTE air interface. The gNB 1316 and the ng-eNB 1318 may’ connect with each other over an Xn interface. In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data, between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1314 and a UPF 1348 (e.g., N3 interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1314 and an AMF 1344 (e.g., N2 interface). The NG-RAN 1314 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH; and tracking reference signal for time tracking. The 5G- NR air interface may operating on FR1 bands that include sub-6 GHz bands or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB that is an area of a dow nlink resource grid that includes PSS/SSS/PBCH.

In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used for dynamic adaptation of the SCS. For example, the UE 1302 can be configured with multiple BWPs where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 1302, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 1302 with different amount of frequency resources (for example, PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 1302 and in some cases at the gNB 1316. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.

Tlie RAN 1304 is communicatively coupled to CN 1320 that includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (for example, users of UE 1302). The components of the CN 1320 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 1320 onto physical compute/ storage resources in servers, switches, etc. A logical instantiation of the CN 1320 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of tire CN 1320 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

In some embodiments, the CN 1320 may be an LTE CN 1322, which may also be referred to as an EPC. Tire LTE CN 1322 may include MME 1324, SGW 1326, SGSN 1328, HSS 1330, PGW 1332, and PCRF 1334 coupled with one another over interfaces (or ‘"reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the LTE CN 1322 may be briefly introduced as follows.

The MME 1324 may implement mobility management functions to track a current location of the UE 1302 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

The SGW 1326 may terminate an S I interface toward the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the LTE CN 1322. The SGW 1326 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. The SGSN 1328 may track a location of the UE 1302 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 1328 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1324; MME selection for handovers; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 1324 and the SGSN 1328 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in idle/active states.

Tire HSS 1330 may include a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 1330 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 1330 and the MME 1324 may enable transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to the LTE CN 1320.

The PGW 1332 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 1336 that may include an application/content server 1338. The PGW 1332 may route data packets between the LTE CN 1322 and the data network 1336. The PGW 1332 may be coupled with the SGW 1326 by an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 1332 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (for example, PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point between the PGW 1332 and the data network 4 36 may be an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra- operator packet data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. The PGW 1332 may be coupled with a PCRF 1334 via a Gx reference point.

The PCRF 1334 is the policy and charging control element of the LTE CN 1322. The PCRF 1334 may be communicatively coupled to the app/content server 1338 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flow's. Tire PCRF 1332 may provision associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI. In some embodiments, the CN 1320 may be a 5GC 13130. "Die 5GC 13130 may include an AUSF 1342, AMF 1344, SMF 1346, UPF 1348, NSSF 1350, NEF 1352, NRF 1354, PCF 1356, UDM 1358, AF 1360, and LMF 1362 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points’’) as shown. Functions of the elements of the 5GC 13130 may be briefly introduced as follows.

The AUSF 1342 may store data for authentication of UE 1302 and handle authentication-related functionality. The AUSF 1342 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5GC 13130 over reference points as shown, the AUSF 1342 may exhibit an Nausf service- based interface.

The AMF 1344 may allow other functions of the 5GC 13130 to communicate with the UE 1302 and the RAN 1304 and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events with respect to the UE 1302. The AMF 1344 may be responsible for registration management (for example, for registering UE 1302), connection management, reachability management, and mobility management, lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 1344 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 1302 and the SMF 1346, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1344 may also provide transport for SMS messages between UE 1302 and an SMSF. AMF 1344 may interact with the AUSF 1342 and the UE 1302 to perform various security anchor and context management functions. Furthermore, AMF 1344 may be a termination point of a RAN CP interface, w^rhich may include or be an N2 reference point between the RAN 1304 and the AMF 1344; and the AMF 1344 may be a termination point of NAS (N1 ) signaling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. AMF 1344 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 1302 over an N3 IWF interface. The SMF 1346 may be responsible for SM (for example, session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 1348 and AN 1308); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 1348 to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful intercept (tor SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sent via AMF 1344 over N2 to AN 1308; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM may refer to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 1302 and the data network 1336. The UPF 1348 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to data network 1336, and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF 1348 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rales, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 1348 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network. The NSSF 1350 may select a set of netw ork slice instances serving the UE 1302. The

NSSF 1350 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 1350 may also determine the AMF set to be used to serve the UE 1302, or a list of candidate AMFs based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 1354. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 1302 may be triggered by the AMF 1344 with which the UE 1302 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 1350, which may lead to a change of AMF. The NSSF 1350 may interact with the AMF 1344 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). Additionally, the NSSF 1350 may exhibit an Nnssf service-based interface. The NEF 1352 may securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, AFs (e.g., AF 1360), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 1352 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 1352 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 1360 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 1352 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 1352 may also receive information from other NFs based on exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information may be stored at the NEF 1352 as structured data, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re- exposed by the NEF 1352 to other NFs and AFs, or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF 1352 may exhibit an Nnef sendee-based interface.

The NRF 1354 may support service discovery functions, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide the information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 1354 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and an ‘’instance” may refer to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 1354 may exhibit the Nnrf service-based interface.

The PCF 1356 may provide policy rales to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 1356 may also implement a front end to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM 1358. In addition to communicating with functions over reference points as shown, the PCF 1356 exhibit an Npcf service-based interface.

Tire UDM 1358 may handle subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions, and may store subscription data of UE 1302. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 1358 and the AMF 1344. The UDM 1358 may include two parts, an application front end and a UDR, The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 1358 and the PCF 1356, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1302) for the NEF 1352. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allow' the UDM 1358, PCF 1356, and NEF 1352 to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, and subscription management and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points as shown, the UDM 1358 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

The AF 1360 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provide access to NEF, and interact with the policy framew ork for policy control.

In some embodiments, the 5GC 13130 may enable edge computing by selecting operator/3rd party services to be geographically close to a point that the UE 1302 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide edge-computing implementations, the 5GC 13130 may select a UPF 1348 close to the UE 1302 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 1348 to data network 1336 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 1360. In this way, the AF 1360 may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1360 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 1360 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 1360 may exhibit an Naf service-based interface.

The data network 1336 may represent various network operator services, internet access, or third party' sendees that may be provided by one or more servers including, for example, application/content server 1338.

FIG. 14 schematically illustrates a wireless network 1400, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Tire wireless network 1400 may include a UE 1402 in wireless communication with an AN 1404. The UE 1402 and AN 1404 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein.

The UE 1402 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 1404 via connection 1406. The connection 1406 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at mm Wave or sub-6GHz frequencies.

Tire UE 1402 may include a host platform 1408 coupled with a modem platform 1410. The host platform 1408 may include application processing circuitry 1412, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 1414 of the modem platform 1410. The application processing circuitry' 1412 may ran various applications for the UE 1402 that source/sink application data. The application processing circuitry 1412 may further implement one or more layer operations to transnnt/receive application data to/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations The protocol processing circuitry' 1414 may implement one or more of layer operations to facilitate transmission or reception of data over the connection 1406. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing ci rcuitry 1414 may' include, for example, M AC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

The modem platform 1410 may further include digital baseband circuitry' 1416 that may implement one or more layer operations that are ‘"below” layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 1414 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decodmg, layer mapping/de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, which may' include one or more of space-time, space-frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

The modern platform 1410 may further include transmit circuitry 1418 (e.g., with one or multiple antenna ports), receive circuitry 1420 (e.g., with one or multiple antenna ports), RF circuitry 1422, and RF front end (RFFE) 142.4, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 1426. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 1418 may include a digital-to-analog converter, mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.: the receive circuitry 1420 may include an analog-to-digital converter, mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry' 1422. may include a low-noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; RFFE 1424 may include filters (for example, surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry- 1418, receive circuitry' 1420, RF circuitry 1422, RFFE 1424, and antenna panels 1426 (referred generically as “transmiVreceive components”) may be specific to details of a specific implementation such as, for example, whether communication is TDM or FDM, in mmWave or sub-6 gHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be disposed in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry' 1414 may include one or more instances of control circmuy (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

A UE reception may be established by and via the antenna panels 1426, RFFE 1424, RF circuitry 1422, receive circuitry 1420, digital baseband circuitry 1416, and protocol processing circuitry' 1414. In some embodiments, the antenna panels 1426 may receive a transmission from the AN 1404 by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 1426.

A UE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry' 1414, digital baseband circuitry 1416, transmit circuitry 1418, RF circuitry 1422, RFFE 1424, and antenna panels 1426. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 1404 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panels 1426.

Similar to the UE 1402, the AN 1404 may include a host platform 1428 coupled with a modem platform 1430. The host platform 1428 may include application processing circuitry' 1432 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 1434 of the modem platform 1430. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 1436, transmit circuitry 1438, receive circuitry 1440, RF circuitry 1442, RFFE circuitry 1444, and antenna panels 1446. The components of the AN 1404 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with like- named components of the UE 1402. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, tire components of the AN 1408 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating components, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Tire components may be able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer- readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, Figure 6 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1500 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1510, one or more memory/ storage devices 1520, and one or more communication resources 1530, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1540 or other interface circuitry, For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1502 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources.

The processors 1510 may include, for example, a processor 1512 and a processor 1514. The processors 1510 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory /storage devices 1520 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/ storage devices 1520 may include, but are not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc. Tire communication resources 1530 may include interconnection or network interface controllers, components, or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1504 or one or more databases 1506 or other network elements via a network 1508. For example, the communication resources 1530 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

Instructions 1550 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 1510 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1550 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 1510 (e.g., within the processor’s cache memory), the memory/storage devices 1520, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 1550 may be transferred to the hardware resources from any combination of the peripheral devices 1504 or the databases 1506. Accordingly, the memory' of processors 1510, the memory/storage devices 1520, the peripheral devices 1504, and the databases 1506 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth in the example section below . For example, the baseband circuitry' as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance w'ith one or more of the examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc. as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below in the example section. The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodiment described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. The terms “computing device,” “user device,” “communication station,” “station,” “handheld device,” “mobile device,” “wireless device” and “user equipment” (UE) as used herein refers to a wireless communication device such as a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a tablet, a netbook, a wireless terminal, a laptop computer, a femtocell, a high data, rate (HDR) subscriber station, an access point, a printer, a point of sale device, an access terminal, or other personal communication system (PCS) device. The device may be either mobile or stationary.

As used within this document, the term “communicate” is intended to include transmitting, or receiving, or both transmitting and receiving. This may be particularly usefi.il in claims when describing the organization of data that is being transmitted by one device and received by another, but only' the functionality' of one of those devices is required to infringe the claim. Similarly, the bidirectional exchange of data between two devices (both devices transmit and receive during the exchange) may be described as “communicating,” when only the functionality of one of those devices is being claimed. The term “communicating” as used herein with respect to a wireless communication signal includes transmitting the wireless communication signal and/or receiving the wireless communication signal. For example, a wireless communication unit, which is capable of communicating a wireless communication signal, may include a wireless transmitter to transmit the wireless communication signal to at least one other wireless communication unit, and/or a wireless communication receiver to receive the wireless communication signal from at least one other wireless communication unit.

As used herein, unless otherwise specified, the use of the ordinal adjectives “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., to describe a common object, merely indicates that different instances of like objects are being referred to and are not intended to imply that the objects so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.

The term “access point” (AP) as used herein may be a fixed station. An access point may also be referred to as an access node, a base station, an evolved node B (eNodeB), or some other similar terminology known in the art. An access terminal may also be called a mobile station, user equipment (UE), a wireless communication device, or some other similar terminology known in the art. Embodiments disclosed herein generally pertain to wireless networks. Some embodiments may relate to wireless networks that operate in accordance with one of the IEEE 802.11 standards.

Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with various devices and systems, for example, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a server computer, a handheld computer, a handheld device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) device, a handheld PDA device, an on- board device, an off-board device, a hybrid device, a vehicular device, a non-vehicular device, a mobile or portable device, a consumer device, a non-mobile or non-portable device, a wireless communication station, a wireless communication device, a wireless access point (AP), a wired or wireless router, a wired or wireless modem, a video device, an audio device, an audio-video (A/V) device, a wired or wireless network, a wireless area network, a wireless video area network (WVAN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a personal area network (PAN), a wireless PAN (WPAN), and the like. Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with one way and/or two-way radio communication systems, cellular radio-telephone communication systems, a mobile phone, a cellular telephone, a wireless telephone, a personal communication system (PCS) device, a PDA device which incorporates a wireless communication device, a mobile or portable global positioning system (GPS) device, a device which incorporates a GPS receiver or transceiver or chip, a device which incorporates an RFID element or chip, a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transceiver or device, a single input multiple output (SIMO) transceiver or device, a multiple input single output (MISO) transceiver or device, a device having one or more internal antennas and/or external antennas, digital video broadcast (DVB) devices or systems, multi- standard radio devices or systems, a wired or wireless handheld device, e.g., a smartphone, a wireless application protocol (WAP) device, or the like.

Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with one or more types of wireless communication signals and/or systems following one or more wireless communication protocols, for example, radio frequency (RF), infrared (IR), frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), orthogonal FDM (OFDM), time-division multiplexing (TDM), time-division multiple access (TDMA), extended TDMA (E-TDMA), general packet radio service (GPRS), extended GPRS, code-division multiple access (CDMA), wideband CDMA (WCDMA), CDMA 2000, single-carrier CDMA, multi -carrier CDMA, multi-carrier modulation (MDM), discrete multi- tone (DMT), Bluetooth®, global positioning system (GPS), Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, ZigBee, ultra- wideband (UWB), global system for mobile communications (GSM), 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, fifth generation (5G) mobile networks, 3GPP, long term evolution (LTE), LTE advanced, enhanced data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), or the like. Other embodiments may be used in various other devices, systems, and/or networks.

Embodiments according to the disclosure are in particular disclosed in tire attached claims directed to a method, a storage medium, a device and a computer program product, wherein any feature mentioned in one claim category, e.g., method, can be claimed in another claim category, e.g., system, as well. The dependencies or references back in the attached claims are chosen for formal reasons only. However, any subject matter resulting from a deliberate reference back to any previous claims (in particular multiple dependencies) can be claimed as well, so that any combination of claims and the features thereof are disclosed and can be claimed regardless of the dependencies chosen in the attached claims. The subject- matter which can be claimed comprises not only the combinations of features as set out in the attached claims but also any other combination of features in the claims, wherein each feature mentioned in the claims can be combined with any other feature or combination of other features in the claims. Furthermore, any of the embodiments and features described or depicted herein can be claimed in a separate claim and/or in any combination with any embodiment or feature described or depicted herein or with any of the features of the attached claims. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments. Example 1 may be an apparatus for a device comprising memory and processing circuitry' configured to: encode downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) and/or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and the UCI; cause to send the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; detect the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

Example 2 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise the UCI.

Example 3 may incl ude tire apparatus of example 2 and/or some other example herein, wherein the first K symbols is an integer of symbols allocated for a code block group or a transport block.

Example 4 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein tire DCI further comprises a field indicative of the UCI including hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback. Example 5 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of an uplink shared channel transmitted using the PUSCH transmission, and wherein the I. Ci precedes the uplink shared channel.

Example 6 may include the apparatus of example 5 and/or some other example herein, wherein the field jointly indicates that the UCI and an uplink shared channel are transmitted using the PUSCH transmission.

Example 7 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UCI is detected from the UE device based on a communication channel being unavailable at a first time for a second PUSCH transmission, and based on the communication channel being available at a second time for the PUSCH transmission, wherein the second PUSCH transmission is omitted based on the communication channel being unavailable at the first time.

Example 8 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UCI is modulated using pi/2 binary phase-shift keying (BPSK). Example 9 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a single antenna port transmission.

Example 10 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a two antenna port transmission, wherein the PUSCH transmission comprises a first demodulation reference signal associated with a first antenna port of the two antenna port transmission and further comprises a second demodulation reference signal associated with a two antenna port transmission, the UCI transmitted after the first demodulation reference signal and preceding the second demodulation reference signal.

Example 11 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, the PDSCH comprising a HARQ-ACK, and wherein the indication of the allocation comprises a time domain resource allocation field indicative of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)-to-PUSCH scheduling delay, a start symbol for the PDSCH transmission, and a length of one or more REs and symbols for the PDSCH transmission.

Example 12 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a PDSCH transmission and a non- numerical PDCCH-to-PU SCH value, the PDSCH comprising a HARQ-ACK, and wherein the non-numerical PDCCH-to-PUSCH value indicates that an RE of the PUSCH with which to transmit the HARQ-ACK will be transmitted in a second DCI after the DCI.

Example 13 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a first PDSCH transmission, a second PDSCH transmission, a non-numerical PDCCH-to-PUSCH value associated with the first PDSCH transmission, and a PDCCH-to-PUSCH value associated with the second PDSCH transmission.

Example 14 may include a computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising: encoding, by a radio node B device, downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of one or more resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and the; causing to send the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; detecting the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

Example 15 may' include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise the UCI.

Example 16 may include the computer-readable medium of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the first K symbols is an integer of symbols allocated for a code block group or a transport block.

Example 17 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative ofthe UCI including hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback.

Example 18 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of an uplink shared channel transmitted using the PUSCH transmission, and wherein the UCI precedes the uplink shared channel.

Example 19 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UCI is detected from tire UE device based on a communication channel being unavailable at a first time for a second PUSCH transmission, and based on the communication channel being available at a second time for the PUSCH transmission, wherein the second PUSCH transmission is omited based on the communication channel being unavailable at the first time.

Example 20 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a single antenna port transmission.

Example 21 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a two antenna port transmission, wherein the PUSCH transmission comprises a first demodulation reference signal associated with a first antenna port of the two antenna port transmission and further comprises a second demodulation reference signal associated with a two antenna port transmission, the UCI transmitted after the first demodulation reference signal and preceding the second demodulation reference signal.

Example 22 may include the computer-readable medium of example 14 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, the PDSCH comprising a HARQ-ACK, and wherein the indication of the allocation comprises a time domain resource allocation field indicative of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)-to-PUSCH scheduling delay, a start symbol for the PDSCH transmission, and a length of one or more REs and symbols for the PDSCH transmission. Example 23 may include a method comprising: encoding, by processing circuitry of a radio node B device, downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and the UCI; causing to send, by the processing circuitry, the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; detecting, by the processing circuitry, the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

Example 24 may include the method of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise the UCI.

Example 25 may include tire method of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of the UCI including hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback.

Example 26 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 27 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or any oilier method or process described herein.

Example 28 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or any other method or process described herein. Example 29 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples I -25, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 30 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions thereof

Example 31 may include a signal as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions or parts thereof. Example 32 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example 33 may include a signal encoded with data as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example 34 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example 35 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors is to cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-25, or portions thereof.

Example 36 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element is to cause the processing element to carry out the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1 -25, or portions thereof.

Example 37 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 38 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein. Example 39 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example 40 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Certain aspects of the disclosure are described above with reference to block and flow diagrams of systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or computer program products according to various implementations. It will be understood that one or more blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and the flow diagrams, respectively, may be implemented by computer-executable program instructions. Likewise, some blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams may not necessarily need to be performed in the order presented, or may not necessarily need to be performed at all, according to some implementations.

These computer-executable program instructions may be loaded onto a special-purpose computer or other particular machine, a processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a particular machine, such that the instructions that execute on the computer, processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus create means for implementing one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable storage media or memory that may direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable storage media produce an article of manufacture including instruction means that implement one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. As an example, certain implementations may provide for a computer program product comprising a computer- readable storage medium having a computer-readable program code or program instructions implemented therein, said computer-readable program code adapted to be executed to implement one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational elements or steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that the instructions that execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide elements or steps for implementing the functions specified in the flow diagram block orblocks.

Accordingly, blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams support combinations of means for performing tire specified functions, combinations of elements or steps for performing the specified functions arid program instruction means for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that each block of the block diagrams and flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and flow diagrams, may be implemented byspecial -purpose, hardware-based computer systems that perform the specified functions, elements or steps, or combinations of special-purpose hardware and computer instructions.

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or “may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certain implementations could include, while other implementations do not include, certain features, elements, and/or operations. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended to imply that features, elements, and/or operations are in any way- required for one or more implementations or that one or more implementations necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without user input or prompting, whether these features, elements, and/or operations are included or are to be performed in any particular implementation.

Many modifications and other implementations of the disclosure set forth herein will be apparent having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not to be limited to the specific implementations disclosed and that modifications and other implementations are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.

For the purposes of the present document, the following terms and definitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes hardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PIT)), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PIT) (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carrying out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing, and/or transferring digital data. Processing circuitry may include one or more processing cores to execute instructions and one or more memory structures to store program and data information. The term “processor circuitry’” may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, and a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. Processing circuitry' may include more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and/or deep learning (DL) accelerators. The terms “application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.” The term “interface circuitry'” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or die like. The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a. remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment” or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical or virtualized equipment and'br infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services, lire term “network element” may’ be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any type interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another and configured to share computing and/or networking resources. The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used herein refers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide a specific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPU time, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardware time or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channei/link allocation, throughput, memory' usage, storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or the like. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware eiement(s). A “virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communication resource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computer devices/systems via a communications network. The term “system resources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services, and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. ITe term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to “communications channel,” “data communications channel,” “transmission channel,” “data, transmission channel,” “access channel,” “data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequency carrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” as used herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used herein refers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code.

Tlie terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivatives thereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another, may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements that are said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another. The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with one another by a means of communication including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or link, and/or the like. The term “information element” refers to a structural element containing one or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains content.

Unless used differently herein, terms, definitions, and abbreviations may be consistent with terms, definitions, and abbreviations defined in 3GPP TR 21.905 v16.0.0 (2019-06) and/or any other 3GPP standard. For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations (shown in Table 2) may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

Table 2: Abbreviations

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1 . An apparatus of a radio node B device for allocating resources for transmission of uplink control information (UCI), the apparatus comprising processing circuitry coupled to storage, the processing cu'cuiin configured to: encode downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and the UCI; cause to send the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; and detect the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise the UCI.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first K symbols is an integer of symbols allocated for a code block group or a transport block.

4. 'The apparatus of any of claims 1-3, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of the UCI including hybrid automatic repeat request “acknowledgement (HAR.Q- ACK) feedback.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of an uplink shared channel transmitted using the PUSCH transmission, and wherein the UCI precedes the uplink shared channel.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the field jointly' indicates that the UCI and an uplink shared channel are transmitted using the PUSCH transmission.

7. The apparatus of claim I, wherein the UCI is detected from the UE device based on a communication channel being unavailable at a first time for a second PUSCH transmission, and based on the communication channel being available at a second time for the PUSCH transmission, wherein the second PUSCH transmission is omitted based on the communication channel being unavailable at the first time.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the UCI is modulated using pi/2 binary phase- shift keying (BPSK).

9, The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a single antenna port transmission.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a two antenna port transmission, wherein the PUSCH transmission comprises a first demodulation reference signal associated with a first antenna port of the two antenna port transmission and further comprises a second demodulation reference signal associated with a two antenna port transmission, the UCI transmitted after the first demodulation reference signal and preceding the second demodulation reference signal.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indicati on of a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission, the PDSCH comprising a HARQ-ACK, and wherein the indication of the allocation comprises a time domain resource allocation field indicative of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH-to- PUSCH scheduling delay, a start symbol for the PDSCH transmission, and a length of REs and symbols for the PDSCH transmission.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a PDSCH transmission and a non-numerical PDCCH-to-PUSCH value, the PDSCH comprising a HARQ-ACK, and wherein tire non-numerical PDCCH-to-PUSCH value indicates that an RE of the PUSCH with which to transmit the HARQ-ACK will be transmited in a second DCI after the DCI.

13. Hie apparatus of claim 1, wherein the DCI further comprises a second indication of a first PDSCH transmission, a second PDSCH transmission, a non-numerical PDCCH-to- PUSCH value associated with the first PDSCH transmission, and a PDCCH-to-PUSCH value associated with the second PDSCH transmission.

14. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions to cause processing circuitry of a radio node B device, upon execution of the instructions by the processing circuitry', to: encode downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and uplink control information (UCI); cause to send the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; and detect the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

15. Tire computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise the UCI.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the first K symbols is an integer of symbols allocated for a code block group or a transport block.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of any of claims 14-16, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of the UCI including hybrid automatic repeat request- acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) feedback.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the DCI further comprises a field indicative of an uplink shared channel transmitted using tire PU SCH transmission, and w herein the UCI precedes the uplink shared channel.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the UCI is detected from the UP! device based on a communication channel being unavailable at a first time for a second PUSCH transmission, and based on the communication channel being available at a second time for the PUSCH transmission, wherein the second PUSCH transmission is omitted based on the communication channel being unavailable at the first time.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a single antenna port transmission.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the PUSCH transmission is a two antenna port transmission, wherein the PUSCH transmission comprises a first demodulation reference signal associated with a first antenna port of the two antenna port transmission and further comprises a second demodulation reference signal associated with a two antenna port transmission, the UCI transmitted after the first demodulation reference signal and preceding the second demodulation reference signal.

22. A method for allocating resources for transmission of uplink control information, the method comprising: encoding, by processing circuitry of a radio node B device, downlink control information (DCI) comprising an indication of an allocation of resource elements (REs) or symbols to be used for multiplexing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and uplink control information (UCI); causing to send, by the processing circuitry, the DCI to a user equipment (UE) device; and detecting, by the processing circuitry, the PUSCH transmission multiplexed with the UCI received from the UE device using the REs or symbols.

2.3. The method of claim 22, wherein the symbols comprise a first K symbols of the PUSCH transmission, after a demodulation reference signal, and wherein the first K symbols comprise tire UCI.

24. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions to perform the method of any of claims 22-23.

25. An apparatus comprising means for performing any of the methods of claims 22-2.3.