WO2025156271A1

WO2025156271A1 - Wireless communication method and related devices

Info

Publication number: WO2025156271A1
Application number: PCT/CN2024/074284
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yiwei DENG; Kai Liu; Shahid JAN
Original assignee: Shenzhen TCL New Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Shenzhen TCL New Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2024-01-26
Filing date: 2024-01-26
Publication date: 2025-07-31
Anticipated expiration: 2026-07-26

Abstract

A wireless communication method and related devices are provided. The wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, including, transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI, wherein at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK bits. With this method, ambiguity between the terminal device and a network device for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

Description

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD AND RELATED DEVICES

Technical Field

The present application relates to wireless communication technologies, and more particularly, to a wireless communication method and related devices.

Background Art

Wireless communication systems, such as the third-generation (3G) of mobile telephone standards and technology are well known. Such 3G standards and technology have been developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) . The 3rd generation of wireless communications has generally been developed to support macro-cell mobile phone communications. The 3GPP has developed the so-called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system, namely, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunication System Territorial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) , for a mobile access network where one or more macro-cells are supported by base station known as an eNodeB or eNB (evolved NodeB) . LTE is evolving further towards the so-called 5G or NR (new radio) systems where one or more cells are supported by base stations known as a next generation Node B called gNodeB (gNB) .

In cellular wireless communication systems of 5G NR, user equipment (UE) is connected by a wireless link to a radio access network (RAN) . The RAN includes a set of base stations (BSs) which provide wireless links to the UEs located in cells covered by the base stations, and an interface to a core network (CN) which provides overall network control. The RAN and CN each conducts respective functions in relation to the overall network.

The 5G NR standard will support a multitude of different services each with very different requirements. These services include Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) for high data rate transmission, Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) for devices requiring low latency and high link reliability and Massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC) to support a large number of low-power devices for a long life-time requiring highly energy efficient communication.

New Radio (NR) supports a wide range of spectrum in different frequency ranges. It is expected that there will be increasing availability of spectrum in the market for 5G Advanced possibly due to re-farming from the bands originally used for previous cellular generation networks. Especially for low frequency FR1 bands, the available spectrum blocks tend to be more fragmented and scattered with narrower bandwidth. For FR2 bands and some FR1 bands, the available spectrum can be wider such that intra-band multi-carrier operation is implementable. To meet different needs of the spectrum, it is important to ensure that these scattered spectrum bands or wider bandwidth spectrum can be utilized in a more spectral/power efficient and flexible manner, providing higher throughput and decent coverage in the network.

Increasing flexibility and spectral/power efficiency on scheduling data over multiple cells including intra-band cells and inter-band cells is important in this field. The existing scheduling mechanism only allows scheduling of single cell PUSCH/PDSCH per scheduling DCI. With more available scattered spectrum bands or wider bandwidth spectrum, the need of simultaneous scheduling for multiple cells is expected to be increasing. To reduce the control overhead and save UE’s power, it benefits from extending from single-cell scheduling to multi-cell PUSCH/PDSCH scheduling with a single scheduling DCI. Meanwhile, a trade-off between overhead reduction and scheduling restriction has to be taken into account.

Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term that encapsulates Augmented Reality (AR) , Virtual Reality (VR) , Mixed Reality (MR) , and everything in between. In 3GPP Release 18 (R-18 or Rel-18) , to handle XR services with low latency and larger packet size, multiple TOs (transmission occasions) are introduced and more than one TOs can be configured in one CG (configured grant) configuration. To further improve the resource efficiency, a UTO-UCI is introduced and is used to indicate un-used TOs within a CG configuration. Then, the un-used TOs can be scheduled by a base station and used by other UEs. As identified in R-17, jitter and multiple flows come with XR services. How to handle these issues has not been decided yet. A most straightforward way is to configure multiple CG configurations over one component carrier (CC) or multiple CCs, and then the UE can choose a set of suitable CG configurations for transmission. However, the overhead of UTO-UCI will be large if each CG configuration has an individual UTO-UCI. In addition, when some CG configurations are not chosen by the UE, there will have no UTO-UCI that can be used for indication of un-used TOs. It will cause a waste of resources. Therefore, it needs to study how to address these problems, especially when the UTO-UCI is carried over PUSCH or CG-PUSCH.

For multiple-carriers/cells scheduling transmission and XR services, there are still some improvements that need to be enhanced.

SUMMARY

The objective of the present application is to provide a wireless communication method and related devices, for solving above problems.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method including: transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI, wherein at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK bits.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method including: transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information on one or more than one PUCCHs or PUSCHs for co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs based on a reference PDSCH, wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH or scheduling PDCCH of the PDSCH to a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method including: transmitting an UTO-UCI/UCI (uplink control information) to indicate un-used transmission occasions (TOs) within one or more configured grant (CG) configuration (s) .

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method including: receiving hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI, wherein at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK bits.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method including: receiving hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information on one or more than one PUCCHs or PUSCHs for co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs based on a reference PDSCH, wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH or scheduling PDCCH of the PDSCH to a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method including: receiving an UTO-UCI/UCI (uplink control information) to indicate un-used transmission occasions (TOs) within one or more configured grant (CG) configuration (s) .

In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a terminal device, including a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute any of the methods of the first aspect to the third aspect.

In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a network device, including a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute any of the methods of the fourth aspect to the sixth aspect.

In a ninth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer readable storage medium provided for storing a computer program, which enables a computer to execute the method of any of the first aspect to the sixth aspect.

In a tenth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer program product, which includes computer program instructions enabling a computer to execute the method of any of the first aspect to the eighth sixth.

In an eleventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer program, when running on a computer, enabling the computer to execute the method of any of the first aspect to the sixth aspect.

Description of Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present application or related art, the following figures that will be described in the embodiments are briefly introduced. It is obvious that the drawings are merely some embodiments of the present application, a person having ordinary skill in this field can obtain other figures according to these figures without paying the premise.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a timeline of HARQ-ACK feedback for different SCSs in existing arts.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a terminal device and a network device of wireless communication in a communication controlling system according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating radio protocol architecture within gNB and UE.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a gNB further including a centralized unit (CU) and a plurality of distributed unit (DUs) .

FIG. 5A is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a first embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 5B is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a first embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary example of second sub HARQ-ACK codebook according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating another exemplary example of second sub HARQ-ACK codebook according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 8A is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a second embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 8B is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a second embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 9A is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a third embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 9B is a flowchart of a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a third embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary example of UCI associated with more than one CG configurations according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram illustrating another exemplary example of UCI associated with more than one CG configurations according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram illustrating still another exemplary example of UCI associated with more than one CG configurations according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram illustrating unified CG configuration index for multiple carriers/cells according to an embodiment of the present application.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the application are described in detail with the technical matters, structural features, achieved objects, and effects with reference to the accompanying drawings as follows. Specifically, the terminologies in the embodiments of the present application are merely for describing the purpose of the certain embodiment, but not to limit the application.

In this document, the term "/" should be interpreted to indicate "and/or. " A combination such as “at least one of A, B, or C, ” “one or more of A, B, or C, ” “at least one of A, B, and C, ” “one or more of A, B, and C, ” or “A, B, and/or C” may be A only, B only, C only, A and B, A and 30 C, B and C, or A and B and C, where any combination may contain one or more members of A, B, or C.

UL/DL capacity (e.g., date rate, latency, reliability, etc. ) is one of key issues in current network. Carrier aggregation (CA) the most suitable way to improve the UL/DL transmission capacity. In R-18, it is provided a solution for scheduling multi-cell PUSCH/PDSCH (one PDSCH/PUSCH per cell) with a single DCI. Due to the increased size of DCI, legacy DCI is not suitable anymore for multiple carriers scheduling. For this reason, a new format of DCI is introduced. However, a trade-off between overhead reduction and scheduling flexibility has to be taken into account in advance. To reduce signalling overhead and complexity, some limitations for the multiple carriers scheduling has been involved, for example, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers (which can also be denoted as CC or cell) is limited to four, the number of PDSCH or PUSCH per CC is one at most, and the subcarrier spacing (SCS) for the co-scheduled CCs should be the same. However, there are some shortages when these limitations are involved for multiple carriers scheduling on a single DCI. Some further enhancements are needed to achieve a better capacity, e.g., achieving a higher spectral/power efficiency on scheduling data over multiple cells, ensuring high reliable transmission with low latency, etc.

According to traditional LTE PDSCH re-transmission mechanism, gNB shall re-transmit all of the code blocks (CBs) in a transport block (TB) after receiving a NACK from UE. Actually, when a TB includes more than one CBs, if there is only a CB is decoded incorrectly, then the receiver needs to feed back NACK. This mechanism is more suitable for a TB with small size. In a case that the TB is of a large size, re-transmission of the whole TB may waste too many resources when there is only one erroneous code block. To address this problem, in NR Rel-15, code block group based (CBG-based) PDSCH transmission was specified by grouping code blocks of a TB into code block groups. The main purpose is to reduce the resources for re-transmission to improve the capacity by only re-transmitting the code block groups with erroneous code blocks. For the CA case (e.g., multiple carriers scheduling by a single DCI) , the objective is to improve the date rate and reduce the latency of DL and UL. In general, there are TBs with large packet size. The CBG-based re-transmission would be a suitable way for this case. Multi-cell PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduling by a single DCI and CBG-based PDSCH/PUSCH transmission on the same/different cell (s) may be enabled simultaneously to further improve the capacity.

In current 3GPP specification, when CBG based transmission or multi-cells (multi-carriers scheduling by a single DCI) PDSCH/PUSCH scheduling by a single DCI is enabled, two sub-codebooks for Type 2 HARQ-ACK are introduced to avoid ambiguity between gNB and UE. When both multi-cells PDSCH scheduling by a single DCI and CBG-based re-transmission of PDSCH/PUSCH are configured, it will cause more than 2 types of HARQ-ACK size, in which one type of HARQ-ACK is for TB-level, one type of HARQ-ACK is for CBG- level, and one type of HARQ-ACK is for multiple-cell level. To avoid ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook, how to handle type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for this case needs to be studied.

In addition, when a set of HARQ-ACK codebooks are introduced, how gNB can distinguish the type of HARQ-ACK codebook is also a problem. To address this problem, mapping order of the HARQ-ACK codebooks will need to be determined. Therefore, the mechanism for determining the mapping rule of the HARQ-ACK codebook (i.e., Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook) will be needed.

Multi-cells scheduling from one cell to other cells is beneficial to saving UE power consumption for PDCCH monitoring and achieving a balance of signalling load between the cells. Multiple-slots scheduling is also beneficial for UE power saving, especially for multiple FR2 carriers with higher SCS. In addition, the overhead of DCI can also be reduced for multiple-slots scheduling by a single DCI. In some scenarios (e.g., vertical commercial scenarios, like XR, with low latency, low power consumption, high date rate and high reliability) , enabling multiple CCs in some cases is not enough. Conversely, multiple PxSCH (PUSCH or PDSCH) scheduling in CA scenario is a suitable way to satisfy the requirements)

In current 3GPP specification, a single DCI can be used to schedule up to 4 CCs simultaneously in CA scenario, and at most one PDSCH/PUSCH on a scheduled cell. In this case, similar mechanism of type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for CBG is used. For Type-2 HARQ-ACK codebook, two sub-codebooks are generated. The first sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information for PDSCH (s) scheduled by a set of DCIs and each DCI scheduling a single cell, and the second sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for PDSCH (s) scheduled by a set of DCIs and each DCI scheduling multiple cells. Separate downlink assignment index (DAI) counting is used for these two types of DCI. However, when multiple carriers/cells scheduling via a single DCI is enabled and each cell within the co-scheduled cells is enabled with multiple-slots PDSCH/PUSCHs scheduling, there will have three types of HARQ-ACK codebook totally, that is, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for TB based transmission, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for multi-carriers based transmission, and one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for multiple-slots PDSCH transmission. The existing mechanism is not suitable anymore. Some enhancements on this will be needed.

In addition, when a set of HARQ-ACK codebooks are introduced, how gNB can distinguish the type of HARQ-ACK codebook is a problem. To address this problem, mapping order of the HARQ-ACK codebooks will need to be determined. Therefore, the mechanism for determining the mapping rule of the HARQ-ACK codebook (i.e., Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook) will be needed.

For this case, there are for now at most 5 types of HARQ-ACK codebook for the transmission, that is, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for TB based transmission, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for multi-carrier based transmission, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for multiple-slots PDSCH transmission, one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for CBG-based transmission, and one type of HARQ-ACK codebook is for a combination of CBG based transmission, multiple carriers based transmission and multiple slots based transmission. Therefore, the existing mechanism using up to two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks will inevitably cause ambiguity between UE and gNB. Some enhancements on this need to be studied.

In addition, when a set of HARQ-ACK codebooks are introduced, how gNB can distinguish the type of HARQ-ACK codebook is a problem. To address this problem, a mapping order of the HARQ-ACK codebooks will need to be determined. The mechanism used for determining the mapping rule of the HARQ-ACK codebook (i.e., Type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook) will be needed.

In short, when multiple slots scheduling per CC or CBG configured with multiple carriers scheduling simultaneously, how to handle type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook is an important issue in this field.

In current 3GPP specification, multiple carriers can be scheduled via a single DCI and the SCS between the co-scheduled carriers should be the same. However, the SCS of each carrier within the co-scheduled carriers or the SCS of BWP of a carrier within the co-scheduled carriers is configured individually. If a set of carriers are configured with different SCS, the set of carriers cannot be scheduled by a single DCI simultaneously. As a result, the scheduling flexibility is limited. To relax this limitation of scheduling, it can be considered to support the co-scheduled carriers with different SCS. When a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers with different SCS is enabled, due to different processing timeline for different numerologies, the existing reference carrier or reference PDSCH which is used to determine the HARQ feedback is not suitable anymore. Thus, how to address this problem needs to be studied.

Based on current 3GPP specification, the processing time for different numerologies is different. As shown in FIG. 1, two carriers are scheduled by a single DCI, denoted as CC1 and CC2, the SCS of CC1 is 15Khz, the SCS of CC2 is 30Khz, A+N1 represents minimum time for HARQ-ACK, in which N1 (corresponding to the duration of a symbol) , the right hand side of the formula, is equal to N₁, A present the remaining portion of the formula, where N₁ equal to 8 and 10 for μ=0 (SCS=15Khz) or μ=1 (SCS=30Khz) respectively, by taking dmrs-AdditionalPosition = 'pos0' for example. This can be referred to TS 38.214, TS 38.211 and TS 38.133 for details.

Case 1: PDCCH and PUCCH with same SCS, PDSCH over multiple carriers with different SCS and at least one of SCS of PDSCH is smaller than the SCS of PDCCH and PUCCH.

For case1, it is assumed the last symbol of a PDSCH with large SCS is later than the last symbol of a PDSCH with small SCS, as shown in FIG. 1, the last symbol of PDSCH2 with 30Khz over CC2 is later than the last symbol of PDSCH1 with 15Khz over CC1, and PDCCH and PUCCH with the same SCS equal to 30Khz. In this case, for PDSCH1, the minimum symbols of processing time for PDSCH1 before HARQ-ACK feedback is represented by N1 (=8) + d_1, 1 + d₂ for 15Khz. In other words, the feedback time of HARQ-ACK for PDSCH1 needs to be later than T1. The minimum symbols of processing time for PDSCH2 before HARQ-ACK feedback is represented by N1 (=10) + d_1, 1+ d₂ for 30Khz. In other words, the feedback time of HARQ-ACK of PDSCH2 needs to be later than T0. As can be seen, T1 is later than T0. The existing reference carrier/PDSCH may cause processing time to be not enough for some carriers within the co-scheduled cells.

Case 2: PDCCH and PUCCH with different SCS, PDSCH over multiple carriers with different SCS and at least one of SCS of PDSCH is smaller than any of the SCS of PDCCH and PUCCH. In this case, how to determine the reference carrier or reference PDSCH for HARQ-ACK feedback needs to be studied when multiple carriers with different SCS which are scheduled by a single DCI.

In short, how to determine the reference carrier or reference PDSCH for HARQ-ACK feedback is an important issue in this field.

In R-18, to provide XR services with low latency and larger packet size, multiple TOs (transmission occasions) are introduced and more than one TOs can be configured in one CG (configured Grant) configuration. To further improve the resource efficiency, a UTO-UCI is introduced and is used to indicate un-used TOs within a CG configuration. Then the un-used TOs can be scheduled by a base station and used by other UEs. As identified in R-17, jitter and multiple flows come with XR services. How to handle these issues has not been decided yet. A most straightforward way is to configure multiple CG configurations over one CC or multiple CCs, and then the UE can choose a set of suitable CG configurations for transmission. However, the overhead of UTO-UCI will be large if each CG configuration has an independent UTO-UCI. In addition, when some CG configurations are not chosen by the UE, there will have no UTO-UCI that can be used for indication of un-used TOs. It will cause a waste of resources. Therefore, it needs to study how to address these problems, especially when the UTO-UCI is carried over PUSCH or CG-PUSCH.

In short, how to handle large signalling overhead and resource waste for multiple CG configurations for XR service is an important issue in this field.

Carrier aggregation (CA) is the most suitable way to improve UL/DL transmission date rate and decrease the latency. In Rel-18, some enhancements on a single DCI scheduling multiple carrier have been approved. However, there are some limitations for multiple carrier scheduling. These limitations cause some shortages for multiple carrier scheduling by a single DCI. Further enhancements (e.g., re-design control signalling) will be needed in order to achieve improved spectral/power efficiency, low latency, reduced signalling overhead and high reliability. Furthermore, the invention provided in this disclosure can avoid ambiguity between a base station and a terminal. In addition, the mechanism provided in this disclosure is suitable to be applied to the services with jitter and multiple flows. It is also beneficial for reduced signalling overhead and improved resource efficiency.

FIG. 2 illustrates that, in some embodiments, one or more terminal device (e.g., user equipments (UEs) ) 10 and a network device (e.g., a base station (e.g., gNB or eNB) ) 20 for wireless communication in a communication network system 30 according to an embodiment of the present application are provided. The communication network system 30 includes the one or more terminal devices 10 and the network device 20.

The network device (e.g., base station) 10 can be an entity which is used to transmit or receive information, such as gNB. The network device 20 can also be eNodeB, transmission reception point (TRP) , NodeB in next generation communication or access point in WIFI.

The terminal device (e.g., UE) 10 is an entity which is used to transmit or receive information on the user side, such as a cell phone. The UE can also be called a terminal, UE, mobile station, mobile terminal. The UE can be a mobile phone, pad, VR, AR, wireless terminal of industrial control, wireless terminal of self-driving, wireless terminal of remote medical surgery, wireless terminal of smart grid, wireless terminal of transport safety, wireless terminal of smart city, wireless terminal of smart home, etc.

Furthermore, the terminal device 10 and the network device 20 can be deployed in land, including indoor, outdoor, handheld, on-board. They can also be deployed in other environments, including water, air, plane, drone or satellite.

The one or more terminal devices 10 may include a memory 12, a transceiver 13, and a processor 11 coupled to the memory 12 and the transceiver 13. The network device 20 may include a memory 22, a transceiver 23, and a processor 21 coupled to the memory 22 and the transceiver 23. The processor 11 or 21 may be configured to implement proposed functions, procedures and/or methods described in this description. Layers of radio interface protocol may be implemented in the processor 11 or 21. The memory 12 or 22 is operatively coupled with the processor 11 or 21 and stores a variety of information to operate the processor 11 or 21. The transceiver 13 or 23 is operatively coupled with the processor 11 or 21, and the transceiver 13 or 23 transmits and/or receives a radio signal. The network device 20 and a next generation core network (5GCN) may also communicate with each other either wirelessly or in a wired way. When the communication network system 30 complies with the New Radio (NR) standard of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) , the next generation core network is a backend serving network system and may include an Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) , User Plane Function (UPF) , and a Session Management Function (SMF) . In one aspect, the terminal device 10 can include almost any consumer electronic device or appliance that can connect to a radio access network and a core network for the releases of 3GPP and further, such as, but not limited to NR networks.

The processor 11 or 21 may include application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) , other chipset, logic circuit and/or data processing device. The memory 12 or 22 may include read-only memory (ROM) , random access memory (RAM) , flash memory, memory card, storage medium and/or other storage device. The transceiver 13 or 23 may include baseband circuitry to process radio frequency signals. When the embodiments are implemented in software, the techniques described herein can be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the functions described herein. The modules can be stored in the memory 12 or 22 and executed by the processor 11 or 21. The memory 12 or 22 can be implemented within the processor 11 or 21 or external to the processor 11 or 21 in which case those can be communicatively coupled to the processor 11 or 21 via various means as is known in the art.

In a case that the terminal device 10 is a UE and the network device 20 is a gNB, the user plane radio protocol architecture within the gNB and UE is shown in FIG. 3, which includes optional Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) , Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) , Radio Link Control (RLC) , Medium Access Control (MAC) . In RAN functional split, a gNB further includes a centralized unit (CU) and a plurality of distributed unit (DUs) as shown in FIG. 4. The protocol stack of CU includes an RRC layer, an optional SDAP layer, and a PDCP layer, while the protocol stack of DU includes an RLC layer, a MAC layer, and a PHY layer. The F1 interface between the CU and DU is established between the PDCP layer and the RLC layer.

This disclosure proposes approach (es) to handle type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook when multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduling per carrier/cell and/or CBG PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) based transmission and/or multiple carriers (cells) scheduling by a single DCI and/or different DCIs simultaneously. The multiple slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduling per cell means a single DCI is used to scheduling multiple slots over a cell/carrier within multiple carriers/cells, and the multiple slots are used to transmit the same or different TBs. The multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduling means a single DCI is used to schedule more than one carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, and it can also be denoted as co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) In this case, two or more than two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be used, and each sub HARQ-ACK codebook is used to carry one size or more than one size of HARQ ACK bits. Finally, the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks need to be connected together. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided, thereby avoiding the ambiguity between base station and terminal in a further step, mapping order of the sub-codebooks is also disclosed.

FIG. 5A illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a first embodiment of the present application. FIG. 5B illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a first embodiment of the present application. Referring to FIGs. 5A and 5B in conjunction with FIG. 2, the methods 100A and 100B include the followings. In Steps 110A and 110B, the terminal device 10 transmits (and the network device 20 receives) hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI. During this process, at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK bits. With the methods 100A and 100B, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In some embodiments, the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and/or the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission within multiple/co-scheduled carriers/cells. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum value between the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of CBGs within the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission which are within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the HARQ-ACK is bundled for each group of carriers/cells and the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) of each group of carriers/cells is based on a binary AND operation on the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) of carriers/cells of the group; or the HARQ-ACK is bundled for each group of CBGs within the co-scheduled carriers/cells and the HARQ-ACK of each group of CBGs is based on the binary AND operation on the HARQ-ACK of CBGs of the group.

In some embodiments, the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells.

In some embodiments, the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and/or multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum of the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the HARQ-ACK is bundled for each group of carriers/cells and the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) of each group of carriers/cells is based on a binary AND operation on the HARQ-ACK of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) of carriers/cells of the group; or the HARQ-ACK is bundled for each group of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the HARQ-ACK of each group of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) is based on the binary AND operation on the HARQ-ACK of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) of the group.

In some embodiments, the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI. In an example, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In an example, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .

In some embodiments, a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on priorities of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks. In some embodiments, a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on granularity size of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks. In some embodiments, a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on unit size or maximum unit size of each type of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks. For example, a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is the first sub-codebook and the second sub-codebook in order, or the first sub-codebook, the second sub-codebook and the third sub-codebook in order.

Further details will be described as follows.

For case1: CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission is enabled when multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) are scheduled via a single DCI (it can also be denoted as co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) ) .

It is noted that in this disclosure, multiple carriers/cells scheduling via a single DCI means a single DCI schedules multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over multiple carriers/cells or a single DCI schedules multiple carrier/cell PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .

In a first possible implementation, two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks (also called HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks) can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and/or CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and/or CBG based SPS transmission, etc. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided, accordingly, the system capacity can be guaranteed.

For this case, the maximum size between the co-scheduled carries/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) (e.g. co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) means multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) which are scheduled by a single DCI) and the number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) configured within multiple carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells can be used for determining the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook. For instance, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) are 4 or the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) via a single DCI scheduling are up to 4, and the maximum number of CBG of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within a set of carriers/cells is equal to 6. Then, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of 6. The total size of second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is equal to: (the number of or actual number of or available number of PDCCH which are used to schedule multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmissions) *6. As shown in FIG. 6, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on 6, and for the scheduling of DCI1, the total 6 bits are available, each bit corresponds to a CBG. For the size of CBG of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and/or the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) that is smaller than 6, denoted as M, the MSBs (the most significant bits) (equal to M bits) are valid bits and/or the LSB (the least significant bits) (equal to 6-M bits) are padding bits. Alternatively, the LSB M bits are valid bits and/or the MSB (6-M) bits are padding bits. In some embodiments, the padding bits means UE or gNB generate NACK for the corresponding padding bits.

The final HARQ-ACK codebook needs to connect all of the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks and/or the DAI of the two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks is counted independently.

In some embodiments, the UE generates the HARQ-ACK codebook by appending the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook to the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, or the UE generates the HARQ-ACK codebook by appending the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook to the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook.

In some embodiments, the UE generates the HARQ-ACK codebook by appending the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook to the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook if the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook with higher priority.

In some embodiments, the counter DAI value and/or the total DAI value applies separately for each HARQ-ACK sub-codebook or sub HARQ-ACK codebook.

In some embodiments, more than one code words can also be used. The HARQ-ACK sequence can be HARQ-ACK codebook of code word 1, HARQ-ACK codebook of code word 2 in order. In other words, when the code word for a PDSCH is 1, 1 bit is used for HARQ-ACK feedback; when the code word for a PDSCH is 2 or more, 2 or more bits are used for HARQ-ACK feedback.

In some embodiments, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells (the number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) can be denoted as M) . If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells within multiple carriers/cells (the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells can be denoted as N) is smaller than the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCHs within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells, then the MSB or LSB (M-N) padding bits can be added for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) HARQ-ACK codebook. If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells within multiple carriers/cells (the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells can be denoted as N) is larger than the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells, then the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) can be divided into M groups, and each group includes at least one carrier (s) /cell (s) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . In this way, the HARQ-ACK bits can be bundled within a group, and the HARQ-ACK of each carrier/cell group’s PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) performs “binary AND” operation. For the “binary AND” operation, 1 AND 1 is equal to 1, 1 AND 0 is equal to 0, 0 AND 1 is equal to 0, and 0 AND 0 equal to 0.

In some embodiments, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) (denoted as M) . If the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells (denoted as N) is smaller than the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells, then the MSB or LSB (M-N) padding bits can be added for CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) HARQ-ACK codebook. If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells is smaller than the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells, then the CBGs can be divided into M groups, each group includes at least one CBG (s) . In this way, the HARQ-ACK can be bundled within a group, and the HARQ-ACK of each CBG group performs “binary AND” operation. For “binary AND” operation, 1 AND 1 is equal to 1, 1 AND 0 is equal to 0, 0 AND 1 is equal to 0, and 0 AND 0 is equal to 0.

In some embodiments, when two sub-codebooks are adopted, to reduce the overhead of HARQ-ACK feedback, the HARQ-ACK bundling (which can also be applied with the afore-described “binary AND” operation) can also be enabled. For this case, the HARQ-ACK for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) can be performed with the “binary AND” operation, and corresponding codebook can be regarded as the first HARQ-ACK sub-codebook. The DAI within the corresponding DCI is counted with the DCI used to schedule single carrier without CBG-based transmission and/or without co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission. In some embodiments, the HARQ-ACK bundling for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission can be enabled by RRC, MAC-CE, DCI or any combination of RRC, MAC-CE and DCI.

In a second possible implementation, three sub HARQ-ACK codebooks (also called three HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks) can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0/0_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling (candidate) multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG-based transmission. Then, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is generated by concatenating the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided. In addition, since each sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for a size of HARQ-ACK bits, the total overhead of HARQ-ACK feedback can also be reduced. In some embodiments, the size of HARQ-ACK bits can be determined from a set consisting of {1, 2, the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells, the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) } .

In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) is generated based on the maximum number of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) that can be scheduled. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG-based transmission is generated based on the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within all co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells, wherein all the co-scheduled carriers/cells or all the candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells are configured/indicated by base station.

In some embodiments, the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG-based transmission, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . Then, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is generated by concatenating the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) is generated based on the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within the multiple carriers/cells, wherein the multiple carriers/cell can be configured/indicated by base station. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG-based transmission is generated based on the maximum number of CBGs within all co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells, wherein all the co-scheduled carriers/cells or all the candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells are configured/indicated by base station.

In some embodiments, the order or connection order of the sub-codebooks of HARQ-ACK information relates to the unit size or maximum unit size between all of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks. The unit size or maximum unit size means a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on corresponding size. For example, in a case of a DCI scheduling a TB, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is 1 and a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for unit size of 1. In a case of a single DCI scheduling up to M co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is M and a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for unit size of M. In a case of a single DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG transmission over a set of carrier/cells, the maximum number of CBGs over the set of carriers/cells is N, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is N, then a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the unit size of N. The first of the order is the sub HARQ-ACK codebook which is generated for the smallest unit size, the second of the order is the sub HARQ-ACK codebook which is generated for the second smallest unit size, and so on. For instance, when CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission are configured simultaneously (single TB scheduling or 2 TB scheduling when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks may also exist) , and the maximum number of carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by a single DCI is M, the maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) configured over all co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells is N, if M<N, the first sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs/PUSCH (s) transmission, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG transmission. Then, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order, or the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order.

If M>N, then the first sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, and the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with CBG transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order, or the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order.

If M=N, then two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are generated. One sub HARQ-ACK codebook is used for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, and one sub HARQ-ACK codebook is used for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and/or CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission. In some embodiments, when M=N, 3 sub codebooks can be generated. The second or third sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be indicated by RRC or MAC-CE or DCI. In some embodiments, when M=N, 3 sub codebooks can be generated, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the first co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and CBG-based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission which with low CC index.

In some embodiments, the total number of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks is indicated by gNB via RRC or MAC-CE or DCI.

For case 2: Multi-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) based transmission is enabled when a single DCI schedules multiple carriers PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission.

It is noted in this disclosure, multiple carriers/cells scheduling via a single DCI means a single DCI scheduling multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over multiple carriers/cells or a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , it can be denote as co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) . Multiple slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduling means a single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over a carrier/cell or more than one carriers/cells.

In a first possible implementation, two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks (also called HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks) can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs and/or a single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH transmission over a carrier/cell or more than one carriers/cells. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided. Note that the transmission scheduled by a single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCHs is also called single DCI scheduled multiple-slot PDSCHs transmission (it can also be denoted as multiple-slot PDSCHs) , the single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs can be denoted as co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs.

For this case, the maximum size between the number of co-scheduled carries/cells PDSCH (s) and the number of multiple-slot PDSCHs over a carrier/cell within co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) can be used for determining the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook, wherein the multiple carriers/cells are configured/indicated by base station.

For instance, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs is 4 or the maximum number of co-scheduling carriers/cells PDSCHs via a single DCI is up to 4, and the maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCHs over one carrier/cell within multiple carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells is equal to 2. Then, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of 4. By taking scheduling one TB as an example, the total size of second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is equal to: (the number of or actual number of or available number of PDCCH used to schedule multiple carriers and multiple slots PDSCH) *4. As shown in FIG. 7, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on 4. For the scheduling of DCI3, total 4 bits are available, and each bit corresponds to a carrier/cell PDSCH. For the size of multiple slots PDSCH and/or the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs smaller than 4, denoted as M, the MSBs (the most significant bits) (equal to M bits) are valid bits and/or the LSB (the least significant bits) (equal to 4-M bits) are padding bits. Alternatively, the LSB M bits are valid bits and/or the MSB (4-M) bits are padding bits. In some embodiments, the padding bits means UE or gNB generate NACK for the corresponding padding bits.

In some embodiments, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of maximum number of the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs (denoted as M) . If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells is larger than the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH over a carrier/cell within multiple carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate carriers/cells (denoted as N) , then the MSB or LSB (M-N) padding bits can be added for multiple slots PDSCH HARQ-ACK codebook, wherein multiple carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate carriers/cells is configured/indicated by base station If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells is smaller than the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH over all candidate carriers/cells (denoted as N) , then the multiple slots PDSCH over all candidate carriers/cells can be divided into M groups, and each group includes at least one slot PDSCHs. In this way, the HARQ-ACK can be bundled within a group, and the HARQ-ACK of each group of slots PDSCH performs “binary AND” operation. For the “binary AND” operation, 1 AND 1 is equal to 1, 1 AND 0 is equal to 0, 0 AND 1 is equal to 0, and 0 AND 0 equal to 0.

In some embodiments, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on the size of maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCHs over a carrier/cell within multiple carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells or all candidate carriers/cells (denoted as M) . If the maximum number of the co-scheduled carriers/cells (denoted as N) is smaller than the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells, then the MSB or LSB (M-N) padding bits can be added for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH HARQ-ACK codebook. If the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells (denoted as N) is smaller than the maximum number of multiple slot PDSCHs over a carrier/cell (denoted as M, wherein the carrier/cell is within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells) , then the multiple carriers/cells PDSCH can be divided into M groups, and each group includes at least one carriers/cell PDSCH. In this way, within a group, the HARQ-ACK can be bundled and the HARQ-ACK of the carriers/cells PDSCH needs to perform “binary AND” operation. For the “binary AND” operation, 1 AND 1 is equal to 1, 1 AND 0 is equal to 0, 0 AND 1 is equal to 0, and 0 AND 0 equal to 0.

In some embodiments, when two sub-codebooks are adopted, the HARQ-ACK bundling (which can also be applied with the afore-described “binary AND” operation) can also be enabled. For this case, the HARQ-ACK between multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs or the multiple slot PDSCH can be performed with the “binary AND” operation, and corresponding codebook can be regarded as the first sub-codebook. The DAI within the corresponding DCI is counted with the DCI used to schedule single carrier without multiple slots PDSCH scheduling and/or without multiple carrier/cell PDSCHs scheduling. In some embodiments, the HARQ-ACK bundling for multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs transmission can be enabled by RRC, MAC-CE, DCI or any combination of RRC, MAC-CE and DCI.

In a second possible implementation, three sub HARQ-ACK codebooks (also called three HARQ-ACK sub-codebooks) can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH/PUSCH transmission. Then, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is generated by concatenating the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. In some embodiments, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook, and the order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided. In addition, since each sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for a size of HARQ-ACK bits, the total overhead of HARQ-ACK feedback can also be reduced. In some embodiments, the size of HARQ-ACK bits can be determined from a set consisting of: {1, 2, the maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells, the maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) } . Note that the transmission scheduled by a single DCI scheduling multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) is also called multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, the single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) is also called co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .

In some embodiments, when the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are with different priorities, the sub-codebook with the highest priority is mapped first, then the sub HARQ-ACK codebook with the second priority is mapped, and so on. When a set of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are with the same priority, the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are mapped based on the granularity size of HARQ-ACK codebook, and the mapping order is arranged from small granularity size to large granularity size. The granularity size of a sub HARQ-ACK codebook may mean the HARQ-ACK bits information size that is feedback for a scheduling transmission. In some embodiments, the granularity size of HARQ-ACK bits can be determined from a set consisting of: {1, 2, the maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells, the maximum number of multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) } .

In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs is generated based on the maximum number of multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs that can be scheduled. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH transmission which is generated based on maximum size of the number of multiple slots PDSCH over a carrier/cell, the carrier/cell is within co-scheduled carriers/cells or candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells. All the co-scheduled carriers/cells or all the candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells are configured/indicated by base station.

In some embodiments, the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH/PUSCH transmission, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs. Then, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is generated by concatenating the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs is generated based on the maximum number of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH that can be scheduled. In some embodiments, the sub HARQ-ACK codebook for single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH transmission is generated based on maximum size of the number of multiple slots PDSCH over a carrier/cell. The carrier/cell is within co-scheduled carriers/cell or candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells. All the co-scheduled carriers/cells or all the candidate co-scheduled carriers/cells are configured/indicated by base station.

In some embodiments, the order or connection order of the sub-codebooks of HARQ-ACK information relates to the unit size or maximum unit size between all candidate types of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks. The unit size or maximum unit size means a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on corresponding size (in other words, the unit size or maximum unit size is the number of HARQ-ACK information bits for each of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling) . For example, in a case of a DCI scheduling a TB, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is 1 and the sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for unit size of 1. In a case of a single DCI scheduling up to M carriers/cells PDSCH, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is M and the sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for unit size of M. In a case of a single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH, it means the unit size or maximum unit size for a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is N. The first of the order is the sub HARQ-ACK codebook which is generated for the smallest unit size, the second of the order is the sub HARQ-ACK codebook which is generated for the second smallest unit size, and so on. For instance, when multiple slots PDSCH transmission and a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells are configured simultaneously (single TB scheduling or 2 TB scheduling when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks may also exist) , the maximum number of carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI is M, and the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH transmission is N, if M<N, then the first sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for multiple slots PDSCH transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order, or the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order.

If M>N, then the first sub-codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling, and the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook includes HARQ-ACK information bits for multiple slots PDSCH transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order, or the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook + the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order.

If M=N, then two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are generated. One sub HARQ-ACK codebook is used for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 or and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, and one sub HARQ-ACK codebook is used for multiple carriers/cells PDSHC and/or multiple slots PDSCH transmission. In some embodiments, when M=N, three sub codebooks can be generated, and the second or third sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be indicated by RRC or MAC-CE or DCI. In some embodiments, when M=N, three sub codebooks can be generated, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for the first co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs transmission multiple-slot PDSCHs which with low CC index. In some embodiments, for this case, the total number of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks is indicated by gNB via RRC or MAC-CE or DCI.

For case 3: Multi-slots PDSCH based transmission is enabled when a single DCI schedules multiple carriers transmission, and/or the single DCI schedules multiple carriers/cells PDSCH/PUSCH and multiple slots PDSCH/PUSCHs simultaneously.

In a first possible implementation, two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCHs and/or a single DCI scheduling multiple slots PDSCH transmission over a carrier/cell or more than one carriers/cells and/or a single DCI scheduling multiple carriers/cells and multiple slots PDSCH simultaneously. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In this case, the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells + maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH can be used for determining the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook. In other words, the number of HARQ-ACK information bits for each of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling and/or multiple slots PDSCH scheduling and/or multiple carriers/cells and multiple slots PDSCH scheduling are equal to the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells + the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH. When the actual maximum number of multiple carriers/cells scheduling and/or multiple slots PDSCH scheduling is smaller than the value of (the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells + the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH) , LSB or MSB X bits are padding bits, where X is related to the maximum number if co-scheduled carriers/cells and/or the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH and/or (the maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells + the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH) .

In some embodiments, the final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook in order or by connecting the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the first HARQ-ACK codebook in order.

In some embodiments, when a single DCI simultaneously scheduling multiple carriers/cells PDSCH and multiple slots PDSCH, an AND operation can be performed on HARQ-ACK bits of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH or multiple slots PDSCH, and the size aligns with the maximum number of multiple carriers/cells or the maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH.

In a second possible implementation, three sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling transmission and/or multiple slots PDSCH scheduling transmission, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells and multiple slots PDSCH scheduling by a single DCI. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In some embodiments, when the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are with different priorities, the sub-codebook with the highest priority is mapped first, then the sub HARQ-ACK codebook with the second priority is mapped, and so on. When a set of sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are with the same priority, the sub HARQ-ACK codebooks are mapped based on the granularity size of HARQ-ACK codebook. The mapping order is arranged from small granularity size to large granularity size. The granularity size of a sub HARQ-ACK codebook means the HARQ-ACK bits information size that is fed back for a scheduling transmission.

In some embodiments, the size of maximum number of multiple carriers/cell PDSCH and maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH needs to be aligned with each. Any one of the maximum number of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH and maximum number of multiple slots PDSCH can be defined as a reference size, and the remaining size needs to be aligned with the reference size.

In a third possible implementation, four sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling transmission and/or multiple slots PDSCH scheduling transmission, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple slots PDSCH scheduling transmission and/or multiple carriers/cells PDSCH scheduling transmission, and the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells and multiple slots PDSCH scheduling by a single DCI. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

For case 4: Multi-slots PDSCH based transmission is enabled when a single DCI schedules multiple carriers transmission, and/or the single DCI schedules multiple carriers/cells PDSCH/PUSCH and multiple slots PDSCH/PUSCHs simultaneously and/or CBG-based PDSCH/PUSCH transmission is also supported.

In a first possible implementation, two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH and/or multiple slots PDSCH and/or CBG-based on PDSCH and/or multiple carriers/cells + multiple slots PDSCHs scheduling transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In a second possible implementation, three sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH and/or multiple slots PDSCH and/or CBG-based on PDSCH, and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells + multiple slots PDSCHs scheduling transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In a third possible implementation, four sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH and/or multiple slots PDSCH, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for CBG-based PDSCH transmissions, and the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells + multiple slots PDSCHs scheduling transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In a fourth possible implementation, five sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. The first sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for single TB scheduling via a DCI and/or 2 TB scheduling via a DCI when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks and/or SPS transmission and/or SPS configuration activation/de-activation and/or CG configuration activation/de-activation and/or the fallback (e.g., DCI format 1_0) DCI scheduling PDSCH over a cell with enabled CBG-based transmission and/or single TB scheduling by DCI format 1_3 and/or 2 TB scheduling via DCI 1_3 when maxNrofCodeWordsScheduledByDCI with reception of two transport blocks, etc. The second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells PDSCH, the third sub codebook is generated for multiple slots PDSCH transmissions, the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for CBG-based PDSCH transmissions, and the fifth sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated for multiple carriers/cells + multiple slots PDSCHs scheduling transmission. The final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting all of the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook, the fourth sub HARQ-ACK codebook and the fifth sub HARQ-ACK codebook. The order can be arbitrary. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In a fifth possible implementation, M sub HARQ-ACK codebooks can be generated. Each sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on a unit size, wherein the unit size is related to {1 or 2, maximum number of multi-slots PDSCH scheduling transmission, maximum number of multiple carriers/cells PDSCH transmission, multiple carriers/cells PDSCH/PUSCH + multiple slots PDSCH/PUSCHs scheduling transmission, maximum size of CBG-based PDSCH/PUSCH} , which means the sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated based on corresponding size. In other words, a sub HARQ-ACK codebook is generated with the same size of HARQ-ACK bits information, and the number of HARQ-ACK information bits for each PDSCH scheduling is equal to the unit size. In this way, ambiguity between UE and gNB for HARQ-ACK codebook can be avoided.

In some embodiments, when multiple slots scheduling and multiple carriers scheduling are enabled simultaneously, HARQ-ACK bundling can be enabled for one of multiple slots scheduling and/or multiple carriers scheduling. The HARQ-ACK obtained after the bundling can be regarded as the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook, and the corresponding DAI is countered together with the first sub HARQ-ACK codebook.

In some embodiments, when multiple slots scheduling and multiple carrier scheduling are enabled simultaneously, to save the HARQ-ACK feedback overhead, the HARQ-ACK bundling can be enabled, and an indicator for the enabling can be transmitted via RRC, MAC-CE, DCI or any combination of RRC, MAC-CE and DCI.

This disclosure proposes approach (es) to handle the processing time when co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) are with different numerologies (multiple carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) with different SCS) . In current 3GPP specification, the processing time from PDSCH to HARQ-ACK feedback or from PDCCH to scheduled PUSCH is different for different numerologies. As a result, the existing reference PDSCH used for determining corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH is not suitable anymore. Some modifications are needed.

FIG. 8A illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a second embodiment of the present application. FIG. 8B illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a second embodiment of the present application. Referring to FIGs. 8A and 8B in conjunction with FIG. 2, the methods 200A and 200B include the followings. In Steps 210A and 210B, the terminal device 10 transmits (and the network device 20 receives) hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information on one or more than one PUCCHs or PUSCHs for co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs based on a reference PDSCH. During this process, the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH or scheduling PDCCH of the PDSCH to a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH. With the methods 200A and 200B, in the case of co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs, a suitable reference PDSCH used for determining corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH or PUSCH can be determined.

In some embodiments, the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from a last symbol of the PDSCH or the PDCCH which is used to schedule the PDSCH to a start symbol of the corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH. At least two of the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs are with different subcarrier spacing (SCS) . The co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs with the same SCS is grouped into a same group, and the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the same group of PDSCHs is transmitted on a same PUCCH/PUSCH.

Further details will be described as follows.

In a first possible implementation, among the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs, a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH to corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback can be defined as a reference PDSCH for determining the HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH or PUSCH. Therefore, a suitable reference PDSCH used for determining corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH or PUSCH can be determined.

In some embodiments, as defined in TS 38.214, if the first uplink symbol of the PUCCH which carries the HARQ-ACK information, as defined by the assigned HARQ-ACK timing K₁ and K_offset, if configured, and the PUCCH resource to be used and including the effect of the timing advance, starts no earlier than at symbol L₁, where L₁ is defined as the next uplink symbol with its CP starting after T_proc, 1= (N₁+d_1, 1+d₂) (2048+144) ·κ2^-μ·T_C+T_ext (denoted as formula 1) after the end of the last symbol of a PDSCH carrying the TB being acknowledged, then the UE shall provide a valid HARQ-ACK message.

N₁ is based on μ of table 1 and table 2 for UE processing capability 1 and 2 respectively, where μcorresponds to the one of (μ_PDCCH, μ_PDSCH, μ_UL) resulting with the largest T_proc, 1, where the μ_PDCCH corresponds to the subcarrier spacing of the PDCCH scheduling the PDSCH, the μ_PDSCH corresponds to the subcarrier spacing of the scheduled PDSCH, and μ_UL corresponds to the subcarrier spacing of the uplink channel with which the HARQ-ACK is assumed to be transmitted regardless of whether or not the PDSCH reception provides a transport block for a HARQ process with disabled HARQ-ACK information as indicated by HARQ-feedbackEnabling-disablingperHARQprocess, if provided, and κ is defined in clause 4.1 of [4, TS 38.211] .

The reference PDSCH is a PDSCH among the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs, and the reference PDSCH can be the last PDSCH among the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs, or any one PDSCH among the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs or a PDSCH among the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCHs, which is with the largest processing time from the PDSCH to corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.

In some embodiments, when the timeline of a PDSCH or a set of PDSCH (s) over one or more than one carriers/cells to corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH/PUSCH is/are not satisfied, then NACK can be feedback. In some embodiments, at least one of carriers/cells PDSCH needs to satisfy the timeline of PDSCH processing. The timeline of PDSCH processing means processing time from a PDSCH over a carrier/cell to corresponding PUCCH/PUSCH, wherein the PUCCH/PUSCH is used to carry the HARQ-ACK bits.

In a second possible implementation, the DCI field is extended. More than one PUCCHs/PUSCHs and k2 used to carry HARQ-ACK information can be indicated, wherein the k2 is the timelines between PDSCH and PUCCH/PUSCH used for HARQ-ACK feedback. In this case, the same SCS can be grouped into the same group and fed back on a same PUCCH/PUSCH. Therefore, a suitable reference PDSCH used for determining corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback on a PUCCH or PUSCH can be determined.

In R-18, to handle XR services with low latency and larger packet size, multiple TOs (transmission occasions) are introduced and more than one TOs can be configured in one CG (configured Grant) configuration. To further improve the resource efficiency, a UTO-UCI is introduced and is used to indicate un-used TOs within a CG configuration. As identified in R-17, jitter and multiple flows come with XR services. How to handle these issues has not been decided yet. A most straightforward way is to configure multiple CG configurations over one CC (carrier/cell) or multiple CCs (carries/cells) , and then the UE can choose a set of suitable CG configurations for transmission. However, in this case, the overhead of UTO-UCI will be large if each CG configuration has an independent UTO-UCI. In addition, when some CG configurations are not chosen by the UE, there will have no UTO-UCI that can be used for indication of un-used TOs. It will cause a waste of resources. Therefore, it needs to study how to address these problems, especially when the UTO-UCI is carried over PUSCH or CG-PUSCH.

This disclosure proposes approach (es) to determine the relationship between a UTO-UCI/UCI and multiple TOs within more than one CG configurations. At least one field within a UTO-UCI/UCI and/or joint coding of multiple TOs within more than one CG configurations can be used. The UTO-UCI or the UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs within a CG configuration or a set of CG configurations. The CG configurations can be set over a carrier/cell or multiple carriers/cells. In some embodiments, the UCI used to indicate the un-used TOs within a CG configuration is carried by the first actual transmission TOs.

FIG. 9A illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a terminal device according to a third embodiment of the present application. FIG. 9B illustrates a wireless communication method performed by a network device according to a third embodiment of the present application. Referring to FIGs. 9A and 9B in conjunction with FIG. 2, the methods 300A and 300B include the followings. In Steps 310A and 310B, rhe terminal device 10 transmits (and the network device 20 receives) an UTO-UCI/UCI (uplink control information) to indicate un-used transmission occasions (TOs) within one or more configured grant (CG) configuration (s) . With the methods 300A and 300B, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI.

In some embodiments, the un-used TOs within the one or more CG configuration (s) are indicated by at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI. Each of the at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs in one CG configuration. The size of each of the at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI is related to the number of TOs for being selected as the un-used TOs in one CG configuration. Each bit of the at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI indicates whether a TO is un-used TO.

In some embodiments, a first part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate an index of each of the CG configurations, and a second part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs. For example, the first part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI may be related to a maximum number of the CG configurations. For another example, the first part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI may be related to an actual number of the CG configurations. The second part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI may be related to the number of TOs for being selected as the un-used TOs.

In some embodiments, the UTO-UCI/UCI is carried by one or more PUSCHs over one or more CG configurations. The CG configuration carrying the UTO-UCI/UCI is a reference CG configuration, and the CG configuration (s) which is overlapped with the reference CG configuration in time domain is/are indicated as an un-used CG configuration (s) or un-used TOs. In some embodiments, some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a CG configuration list including one or more CG configurations, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the indicated CG configurations.

In some embodiments, some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a carrier (s) or cell (s) configuration list including one or more carriers/cells, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the CG configurations set for the indicated carriers/cells. Some bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI are used to indicate an index of each of the CG configurations, and the CG configuration index within co-scheduled carries/cells has a common index number. The UTO-UCI/UCI includes at least one of the following: a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index; a bit field used to indicate a set of carriers/cells index; a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index and/or a set of carriers/cells index; and a bit field used to indicate the un-used TOs within one CG configuration or multiple CG configurations or multiple CG configurations over multiple carries/cells.

Further details will be described as follows.

In a first possible implementation, a UTO-UCI/UCI can be used to indicate a set of TOs within more than one CG configurations, wherein each CG or candidate CG configuration has a corresponding field within the UCI. The field size related to each CG configuration can be same or different, as shown in FIG. 10. In this way, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI.

In some embodiments, the field size or the size of UCI/UTO-UCI is configured by base station via RRC and/or MAC-CE and/or DCI, and a list of field size of UCI/UTO-UCI can be indicated, for example, {field size 1, field size 2, field size 3, ……} . Each field size within the UCI/UTO-UCI is related to a set of TOs within a CG configuration and used to indicate the un-used TOs within the CG configuration. The relationship between a field and a CG configuration is pre-defined or indicated by base station or based on a mapping rule.

In some embodiments, all the candidate TOs within all CG configurations can be connected as an entirety. The connection order can be arranged from the small CG index to large CG index. The field within UCI/CG-UCI can be used to indicate the un-used TOs. Each bit of the field is related to a TO, for example, “0” means the TO is un-used or “1” means the TO is un-used. As shown in FIG. 11, bit1 (index) is used to indicate the TO1 within CG1, bit2 is used to indicate the TO2 within CG1, bit3 is used to indicate the TO3 within CG1, bit4 is used to indicate the TO4 within CG1, bit5 is used to indicate the TO1 within CG2, and so on.

In some embodiments, a reference CG configuration can be indicated by base station or can be pre-defined (e.g., the CG configuration with the lowest index or the CG configuration which is configured in the UTO-UCI) . All the CG configurations which are overlapped with the reference CG configuration in time and/or frequency domain can be connected as an entirety in an order from low CG index to large CG index.

In a second possible implementation, a UCI/UTO-UCI can be used to indicate the TOs as un-used TOs within more than one CG configurations. The size of UCI/UTO-UCI is configured by base station via RRC and/or MAC-CE and/or DCI. N MSB bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the CG configuration index, where N is a fixed number (e.g., which is related to the maximum number of multiple CG configurations including more than one TOs) . The remaining bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within more than one CG configurations. In this way, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI. In some cases, all of the CG configurations indicated by the N MSB bits share the same bit sequence, which is used to indicate the un-used TOs.

In some embodiments, N MSB bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the CG configuration index, where N is a fixed number (e.g., which is related to the maximum number of multiple CG configurations including more than one TOs) . The remaining bits are equal to N*M, where M is equal to the number of TOs within a CG configuration or M is equal to the maximum number of TOs within a set of CG configurations or configured by base station via RRC and/or MAC-CE and/or DCI. In some cases, the remaining bits are equal to N’ *M, where M is equal to the number of TOs within a CG configuration or M is equal to the maximum number of TOs within a set of CG configurations or configured by base station via RRC and/or MAC-CE and/or DCI, and N’ is equal to the actual number of CG configurations.

In a third possible implementation, a set of CG configurations with more than one TOs are configured by RRC, and/or the UTO-UCI is carried by one or more CG configuration (s) . The CG configuration carrying the UTO-UCI can be regarded as a reference CG configuration, and the CG configurations which are overlapped with the reference CG configuration in time domain can be indicated as un-used TOs or un-used CG configurations. In this way, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI. As shown in FIG. 12, a UTO-UCI/UCI or a set of UTO-UCI/UCI is/are configured over CG1 configuration, and the CG2, CG3 and CG4 configurations are overlapped with CG1 configuration in time domain. If UTO-UCI is transmitted over CG1 configuration, then CG2, CG3, CG4 or TOs within CG2, CG3 and CG4 are indicated as un-used CGs or un-used TOs. In some embodiments, 1 bit is used to indicate whether the overlapped CG configurations are used or not, for example, “1” indicates un-used or “0” indicates as un-used. The overlapped CG configurations means the CG configurations which are overlapped within the reference CG configuration in time domain.

In a fourth possible implementation, a UCI/UTO-UCI can be used to indicate the TOs as un-used TOs within more than one CG configurations, and a bit field or fixed M bits within the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the CG configurations index. The bit field is used to indicate an index of a CG configuration list or CG configuration table, and each index of the CG configuration list or CG configuration table includes one or more CG configurations index, as shown in Table 1 below. The CG configuration list or CG configuration table can be configured by RRC and/or MAC-CE and/or the combination of RRC and MAC-CE. The remaining bits within the UTO-UCI/UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the indicated CG configurations, and a shared field or an un-shared field can be used for this. In this way, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI.

Table 1 UTO-UCI/UCI related to multiple CG configurations

In a fifth possible implementation, a UCI/UTO-UCI can be used to indicate the TOs as un-used TOs within more than one CG configurations, and a bit field or fixed M bits within the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the carriers/cells index. The bit field is used to indicate an index of a carries/cells configuration list or carriers/cells configuration table, and each index of the carriers/cells configuration list or carriers/cells configuration table includes one or more carriers/cells index, as shown in Table 2 below. The remaining bits within the UTO-UCI/UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the CG configurations, and a shared field or an un-shared field can be used for this. In this way, the resource efficiency is improved by using such a UTO-UCI/UCI.

Table 2 UTO-UCI/UCI related to multiple CG configurations over multiple carriers/cells

In some embodiments, a UCI/UTO-UCI can be used to indicate the TOs as un-used TOs within more than one CG configurations, and the more than one CG configurations are set for multiple carriers/cells. At least two fields within UCI-UTO-UCI can be used to indicate the un-used TOs, in which one field is used to indicate the carriers/cells information, and another field is used to indicate the un-used TOs within multiple CG configurations. The multiple CG configurations is set over multiple carries/cells.

In some embodiments, the CG configuration index within the co-scheduled carries/cells has a common index number. This means in CA/DC/multi-TRP scenarios, a unified CG configuration index is used within all carries/cells/multi-TRPs, as shown in FIG. 13.

In some embodiments, 1 bit can be introduced into the CG-UCI to distinguish the types of legacy UCI/UTO-UCI (e.g., UTO-UCI/UCI for R-18 or UTO-UCI/UCI for XR in R-18) and enhanced UTO-UCI/UCI (e.g., a UTO-UCI/UCI used for multiple CG configurations, in which the multiple CG configurations are set for one carrier/cell or more than one carriers/cells) .

In some embodiments, at least one of the following bit fields can be included by the CG-UCI: a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index, a bit field used to indicate a set of carriers/cells index, a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index and/or a set of carriers/cells index, a bit field used to indicate the un-used TOs within one CG configuration or multiple CG configurations or multiple CG configurations over multiple carries/cells.

Commercial interests for some embodiments are as follows. 1. Solving issues in the prior art. 2. Improving resource efficiency. 3. Reducing signaling overhead. 4. Achieving high reliability. 5. Providing a good communication performance. Some embodiments of the present application are used by 5G-NR chipset vendors, V2X communication system development vendors, automakers including cars, trains, trucks, buses, bicycles, moto-bikes, helmets, and etc., drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) , smartphone makers, communication devices for public safety use, AR/VR device maker for example gaming, conference/seminar, education purposes. Some embodiments of the present application are a combination of “techniques/processes” that can be adopted in 3GPP specification to create an end product. Some embodiments of the present application could be adopted in the 5G NR unlicensed band communications. Some embodiments of the present application propose technical mechanisms.

The embodiment of the present application further provides a computer readable storage medium for storing a computer program. The computer readable storage medium enables a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the UE/BS in each of the methods of the embodiments of the present application. For brevity, details will not be described herein again.

The embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program product including computer program instructions. The computer program product enables a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the UE/BS in each of the methods of the embodiments of the present application. For brevity, details will not be described herein again.

The embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program. The computer program enables a computer to execute corresponding processes implemented by the UE/BS in each of the methods of the embodiments of the present application. For brevity, details will not be described herein again.

The non-transitory computer readable medium may include at least one from a group consisting of: a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a Read Only Memory, a Programmable Read Only Memory, an Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, EPROM, an Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory and a Flash memory. In an embodiment where the elements are implemented using software, the software may be stored in a computer-readable medium and loaded into computing system using, for example, removable storage drive. A control module (in this example, software instructions or executable computer program code) , when executed by the processor in the computer system, causes a processor to perform the functions of the invention as described herein.

Furthermore, the inventive concept can be applied to any circuit for performing signal processing functionality within a network element. It is further envisaged that, for example, a semiconductor manufacturer may employ the inventive concept in a design of a stand-alone device, such as a microcontroller of a digital signal processor (DSP) , or application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and/or any other sub-system element.

A person of ordinary skill in the art may be aware that, in combination with the examples described in the embodiments disclosed in this specification, units and algorithm steps may be implemented by electronic hardware or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether the functions are performed by hardware or software depends on particular applications and design constraint conditions of the technical solutions. A person skilled in the art may use different approaches to implement the described functions for each particular application, but it should not be considered that the implementation goes beyond the scope of the present application.

While the present application has been described in connection with what is considered the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is understood that the present application is not limited to the disclosed embodiments but is intended to cover various arrangements made without departing from the scope of the broadest interpretation of the appended claims.

Claims

A wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method comprising:

transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI,

wherein at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK.
The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and/or the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission within multiple/co-scheduled carriers/cells.
The method of claim 2, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum value between the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of CBGs within the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission.
The method of claim 2, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission which are within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells.
The method of claim 2, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission.
The method of claim 6, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 6, wherein the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells.
The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and/or multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI.
The method of claim 9, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum of the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 9, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 9, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI.
The method of claim 13, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 13, wherein the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 1, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on priorities of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks.
The method of claim 1, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on granularity size of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks.
The method of any of claims 2, 6, 9 and 13, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is the first sub-codebook and the second sub-codebook in order, or the first sub-codebook, the second sub-codebook and the third sub-codebook in order.
A wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method comprising: transmitting hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information on one or more than one PUCCHs or PUSCHs for co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs based on a reference PDSCH, wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH or scheduling PDCCH of the PDSCH to a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.
The method of claim 19, wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from a last symbol of the PDSCH to a start symbol of the corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.
The method of claim 19, wherein at least two of the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs are with different subcarrier spacing (SCS) .
The method of claim 21, wherein the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs with the same SCS are grouped into a same group, and the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the same group of PDSCHs is transmitted on a same PUCCH/PUSCH.
A wireless communication method, performed by a terminal device, the method comprising: transmitting an UTO-UCI/UCI (uplink control information) to indicate un-used transmission occasions (TOs) within one or more configured grant (CG) configuration (s) .
The method of claim 23, wherein the un-used TOs within the one or more CG configuration (s) are indicated by at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI.
The method of claim 24, wherein each of the at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs in one CG configuration.
The method of claim 23, wherein a first part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate an index of each of the CG configurations, and a second part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs.
The method of claim 23, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI is carried by one or more PUSCHs over one or more CG configurations.
The method of claim 27, wherein the CG configuration carrying the UTO-UCI/UCI is a reference CG configuration, and the CG configuration (s) which is overlapped with the reference CG configuration in time domain is/are indicated as an un-used CG configuration (s) or un-used TOs.
The method of claim 23, wherein some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a CG configuration list including one or more CG configurations, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the indicated CG configurations.
The method of claim 23, wherein some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a carrier (s) or cell (s) configuration list including one or more carriers/cells, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the CG configurations set for the indicated carriers/cells.
The method of claim 23, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI comprises one bit used to differentiate UTO-UCI/UCI type.
The method of claim 23, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI comprises at least one of the following:

a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index;

a bit field used to indicate a set of carriers/cells index;

a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index and/or a set of carriers/cells index; and

a bit field used to indicate the un-used TOs within one CG configuration or multiple CG configurations or multiple CG configurations over multiple carries/cells.
A wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method comprising:

receiving hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) based on type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook for at least one of: code block group based (CBG based) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, single/two transport block (TB) PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission, multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single downlink control information (DCI) per carrier/cell and co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within multiple carriers/cells, wherein the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) mean multiple PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) over more than one carriers/cells scheduled by a single DCI,

wherein at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks of the type 2 HARQ-ACK codebook are used, and the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks carry a set of size (s) of HARQ-ACK bits.
The method of claim 33, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and/or the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission within multiple/co-scheduled carriers/cells.
The method of claim 34, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum value between the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of CBGs within the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission.
The method of claim 34, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission which are within the co-scheduled carriers/cells or multiple carriers/cells.
The method of claim 34, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 33, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the CBG based PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission.
The method of claim 38, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 38, wherein the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of CBGs of PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) within co-scheduled carriers/cells or the multiple carriers/cells.
The method of claim 33, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over a single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , and a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for the co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission and/or multiple-slot PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI.
The method of claim 41, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum of the number of co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) and the number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 41, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 41, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 33, wherein the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks comprise a first sub HARQ-ACK codebook for PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) scheduled by DCI (s) each scheduling a single transport block (TB) or two TBs over single/multiple carrier (s) /cell (s) , a second sub HARQ-ACK codebook for co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) , and a third sub HARQ-ACK codebook for multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) transmission scheduled by a single DCI.
The method of claim 45, wherein the second sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of co-scheduled carriers/cells or co-scheduled carriers/cells PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 45, wherein the third sub HARQ-ACK codebook is determined based on a maximum number of multiple-slots PDSCH (s) /PUSCH (s) .
The method of claim 33, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on priorities of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks.
The method of claim 33, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is determined based on granularity size of the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks.
The method of any of claims 34, 38, 41 and 45, wherein a final HARQ-ACK codebook is obtained by connecting the at least two sub HARQ-ACK codebooks in order, and the order is the first sub-codebook and the second sub-codebook in order, or the first sub-codebook, the second sub-codebook and the third sub-codebook in order.
A wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method comprising:

receiving hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information on one or more than one PUCCHs or PUSCHs for co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs based on a reference PDSCH,

wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from the PDSCH or scheduling PDCCH of the PDSCH to a corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.
The method of claim 51, wherein the reference PDSCH is a PDSCH with the largest processing time from a last symbol of the PDSCH to a start symbol of the corresponding HARQ-ACK feedback PUCCH or PUSCH.
The method of claim 51, wherein at least two of the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs are with different subcarrier spacing (SCS) .
The method of claim 53, wherein the co-scheduled carrier/cell PDSCHs with the same SCS are grouped into a same group, and the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the same group of PDSCHs is transmitted on a same PUCCH/PUSCH.
A wireless communication method, performed by a network device, the method comprising:

receiving an UTO-UCI/UCI (uplink control information) to indicate un-used transmission occasions (TOs) within one or more configured grant (CG) configuration (s) .
The method of claim 55, wherein the un-used TOs within the one or more CG configuration (s) are indicated by at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI.
The method of claim 56, wherein each of the at least one field in the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs in one CG configuration.
The method of claim 55, wherein a first part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate an index of each of the CG configurations, and a second part of bits of the UTO-UCI/UCI is used to indicate the un-used TOs.
The method of claim 55, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI is carried by one or more PUSCHs over one or more CG configurations.
The method of claim 59, wherein the CG configuration carrying the UTO-UCI/UCI is a reference CG configuration, and the CG configuration (s) which is overlapped with the reference CG configuration in time domain is/are indicated as an un-used CG configuration (s) or un-used TOs.
The method of claim 55, wherein some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a CG configuration list including one or more CG configurations, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the indicated CG configurations.
The method of claim 55, wherein some bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate an index of a carrier (s) or cell (s) configuration list including one or more carriers/cells, and some other bits of the UCI/UTO-UCI are used to indicate the un-used TOs within the CG configurations set for the indicated carriers/cells.
The method of claim 55, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI comprises one bit used to differentiate UTO-UCI/UCI type.
The method of claim 55, wherein the UTO-UCI/UCI comprises at least one of the following:

a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index;

a bit field used to indicate a set of carriers/cells index;

a bit field used to indicate a set of CG configuration index and/or a set of carriers/cells index; and

a bit field used to indicate the un-used TOs within one CG configuration or multiple CG configurations or multiple CG configurations over multiple carries/cells.
A terminal device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 1 to 18.
A terminal device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 19 to 22.
A terminal device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 23 to 32.
A network device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 33 to 50.
A network device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 51 to 54.
A network device, comprising a processor, configured to call and run program instructions stored in a memory, to execute the method of any of claims 55 to 64.