CN106559896B

CN106559896B - Downlink control information transmission method, base station and user equipment for multi-user cooperative communication

Info

Publication number: CN106559896B
Application number: CN201510642117.4A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 何青春; 谢峰
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2015-09-30
Filing date: 2015-09-30
Publication date: 2022-01-18
Anticipated expiration: 2035-09-30
Also published as: CN106559896A; WO2017054583A1

Abstract

The invention provides a downlink control information transmission method, a base station and user equipment for multi-user cooperative communication. The method comprises the step that a base station sends downlink control information DCI containing the base station scheduling benefit user equipment to the cooperative user equipment. Another method, comprising: acquiring downlink control information DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment by the cooperative user equipment; and the cooperative user equipment sends the DCI information to the beneficial user equipment.

Description

Downlink control information transmission method, base station and user equipment for multi-user cooperative communication

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of mobile communications, and in particular, to a downlink control information transmission method, a base station, and a user equipment for multi-user cooperative communications.

Background

In a wireless cellular communication system, a Base Station (eNB or Base Station) is a device that provides wireless access to a User Equipment (UE, also referred to as terminal), and the Base Station and the UE perform wireless communication through electromagnetic waves. multi-User Cooperative Communication (MUCC) is a technology for improving throughput of a certain UE by cooperation of a plurality of User Equipments (UEs) in an LTE system. Specifically, the method comprises the following steps: two UEs that Cooperate, one is called cooperative User Equipment (C-UE), and the other is called beneficiary User Equipment (B-UE). The cooperative user equipment is used as a data relay between the base station and the beneficial user equipment, and backwards compatible with the air interface technology of the beneficial user equipment, and forwards the wireless service between the base station and the beneficial user equipment.

In the multi-user cooperative network, a base station does not directly perform wireless service with beneficial user equipment, but is realized through relay forwarding of cooperative user equipment, and multi-user cooperative communication is converted from single-hop communication between the traditional base station and the user equipment into two-hop or multi-hop communication with the cooperative user equipment. Therefore, in multi-user cooperative communication, there are three ways for scheduling benefit user devices: the first is that the base station uniformly schedules, and the base station independently schedules the benefited user equipment and the cooperative user equipment; the second is that the base station independently schedules the cooperative user equipment, and the cooperative user equipment independently schedules the benefited user equipment; and thirdly, the cooperative user equipment assists the base station to forward the scheduling control information to the beneficial user equipment. For the third mode, the base station cannot directly send the scheduling control information to the beneficial user equipment, and the cooperative user equipment needs to assist the base station to forward the scheduling control information to the beneficial user equipment, so that the transmission mode of the scheduling control signaling needs to be optimized to reduce the overhead of the scheduling signaling between the base station and the cooperative user equipment.

In the prior art, scheduling control information is directly transmitted between a base station and cooperative user equipment, which causes the problems of overlarge physical control signaling overhead and low reliability.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides a downlink control information transmission method for multi-user cooperative communication, a base station and user equipment, and aims to solve the technical problem of large signaling overhead when scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment.

In order to solve the technical problems, the invention provides the following technical scheme:

a Downlink Control Information (DCI) transmission method for multi-user cooperative communication comprises the following steps:

and the base station sends downlink control information DCI containing the base station scheduling benefit user equipment to the cooperative user equipment.

Wherein the DCI adopts a backward compatible DCI format.

Wherein the DCI is dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

Wherein the DCI is transmitted through a cooperative media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) data packet.

And the cooperative MAC PDU data packet comprises a cooperative MAC header, a cooperative MAC CE and the MAC PDU of the beneficial user equipment.

Wherein the base station enables the size of the coordinated MAC PDU data packet to match with a transmission resource block by adding padding bits after the MAC PDU of the user equipment benefiting the coordinated MAC PDU.

And the cooperative MAC PDU data packet is carried on a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH).

Wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

Wherein, the format of the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is a whole byte; or, when the number of bits of the DCI is less than a whole byte, the base station adds padding bits at the end of the DCI to implement the whole byte.

Wherein the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is processed by Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) at the base station; or, the base station does not perform CRC processing and performs CRC processing on the cooperative user equipment;

wherein the CRC processing is scrambling by using a Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI).

The radio network temporary identifier comprises a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI and/or a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identifier SPS-RNTI.

Wherein, the cooperative MAC header includes at least one of the following identifiers:

a logical channel identifier, configured to indicate that the content carried by the MAC CE is DCI;

indication information of the DCI format, which is used for indicating the adopted DCI format;

CRC indication information for indicating whether or not CRC check information is added to the downlink control information DCI.

Wherein the DCI format comprises at least one of: one of a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) and a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH).

acquiring downlink control information DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment by the cooperative user equipment;

and the cooperative user equipment sends the DCI information to the beneficial user equipment.

Wherein the DCI is received by the cooperative user equipment through a PDSCH.

And the cooperative user equipment transmits the DCI information to the beneficial user equipment through a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or an enhanced PDCCH.

A base station, comprising:

a first sending module, configured to send, to the cooperative user equipment, DCI including the base station scheduling benefit user equipment.

Wherein the DCI adopts a backward compatible DCI format.

Wherein the DCI is dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

Wherein the first transmitting module matches the size of the coordinated MAC PDU packet with a transmission resource block by adding padding bits after the coordinated MAC PDU of the user equipment benefiting the coordinated MAC PDU.

Wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

Wherein the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is processed by Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) at a base station; or, the base station does not carry out CRC processing and carries out CRC processing on the cooperative user equipment;

A user equipment, comprising:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain DCI of the ue benefiting the base station scheduling;

and a second sending module, configured to send the DCI information to the beneficial user equipment.

Wherein the DCI is received by the acquisition module through a PDSCH.

The second sending module sends the DCI information to the beneficial user equipment through a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or an enhanced PDCCH.

According to the embodiment provided by the invention, the base station sends the DCI (downlink control information) containing the base station scheduling benefit user equipment to the cooperative user equipment, and the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment is transmitted by means of the communication relation between the cooperative user equipment and the benefit equipment, so that the signaling when the scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is reduced, and the purpose of reducing the signaling overhead is achieved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a MAC PDU frame structure used for wireless service between cooperative user equipment and beneficial user equipment provided in the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a frame structure of a cooperative MAC PDU used for performing a wireless service between a base station and a cooperative user equipment according to the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of a downlink control information transmission method for multi-user cooperative communication according to the present invention;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a protocol stack structure adopted in a user cooperative communication mode provided by the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a process of adding CRC and scrambling to the DCI according to the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a wireless network architecture including a base station, cooperative ue and beneficiating ue according to the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a cooperative communication flow according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a block diagram of a user equipment provided in the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other without conflict.

A downlink control information transmission method for multi-user cooperative communication comprises the following steps:

The DCI adopts a backward compatible DCI format to ensure the compatibility with the existing protocol.

Wherein the DCI is dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

The DCI is sent through a cooperative MAC (Media Access Control) PDU (Protocol Data Unit) Data packet.

The MAC PDU of the beneficial user equipment is the MAC PDU of the beneficial user equipment specified in the existing protocol or the MAC PDU defined for the beneficial user equipment in advance.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a MAC PDU frame structure used for wireless service between cooperative user equipment and user equipment benefiting the wireless service provided in the present invention. And the cooperative user equipment adopts a backward compatible air interface technology and an MAC PDU frame structure to carry out message interaction with the beneficial user equipment. The MAC PDU refers to a media access control protocol data unit, and includes a media access control header (MAC header), a media access control unit (MAC CE), a media access control service data unit (MAC SDU), and optional padding bits padding.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a frame structure of a cooperative MAC PDU used for performing a wireless service between a base station and a cooperative user equipment according to the present invention. And the base station adopts a new air interface technology and a new MAC PDU frame structure to carry out message interaction with the cooperative user equipment. Wherein, the cooperative MAC PDU frame and the cooperative MAC PDU data packet carried on the PDSCH at least include three parts of contents: a coordinated MAC PDU header, a coordinated MAC CE, and a MAC PDU of a benefit user equipment.

The MAC PDU beneficial to the ue is encapsulated into a cooperative MAC PDU through a cooperative MAC (i.e., a newly added MAC function).

The cooperative MAC PDU header and the cooperative MAC CE terminate at the cooperative user equipment, and the cooperative MAC CE refers in particular to a media access control unit including downlink control information DCI.

Wherein, the cooperative MAC PDU data packet is carried on a PDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel).

Wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

Wherein, the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is processed by cyclic redundancy check CRC at the base station; or, the base station does not perform CRC processing and performs CRC processing on the cooperative user equipment;

wherein the CRC process is scrambled by using Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI).

The radio network temporary identifier comprises a Cell radio network temporary identifier (Cell RNTI, C-RNTI) and/or a Semi-Persistent Scheduling radio network temporary identifier (Semi-Persistent Scheduling-RNTI, SPS-RNTI).

It should be noted that, when the cooperative MAC header does not contain all the above information, the information that is not contained may be transmitted through a newly defined message or by using an unused field of an existing message.

The cooperative MAC header includes indication information of the DCI format, for example, a downlink control information DCI format used is indicated by 3 bits, and the downlink control information DCI does not consider the situations of common and multicast. The cooperative MAC header information is shown in fig. 2.

Wherein, the cooperative MAC header includes CRC indication information for indicating whether CRC check information is added to the downlink control information DCI.

Wherein, the content carried by the MAC CE (DCI) in fig. 2 is indicated as downlink control information DCI information by using a reserved 5-bit Logical Channel Identifier (LCID) in the cooperative MAC header. The downlink control information DCI may be divided into DCI formats scheduled by an uplink PUSCH according to different DCI formats, such as DCI format 0; DCI formats for downlink PDSCH scheduling, such as DCI formats 1, 1A, 1B, 1D, 2A; DCI formats that schedule common control information, such as DCI formats 1A, 1C; the DCI format of the power control information for scheduling multicast, e.g., DCI format 3, 3A.

The DCI information adopts a format of a whole byte, and if the DCI information is less than the whole byte, padding bits are added at the end of the DCI information.

According to the method provided by the invention, the base station sends the DCI (downlink control information) containing the base station scheduling benefit user equipment to the cooperative user equipment, and the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment is transmitted by means of the communication relation between the cooperative user equipment and the benefit equipment, so that the signaling when the scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is reduced, and the purpose of reducing the signaling overhead is achieved.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a downlink control information transmission method for multi-user cooperative communication according to the present invention. The method of fig. 3, comprising:

301, the cooperative user equipment acquires the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment;

step 302, the cooperative user equipment sends the DCI information to the beneficiating user equipment.

Wherein the DCI is received by the cooperative user equipment through a PDSCH.

According to the method provided by the invention, the cooperative user equipment forwards the DCI (downlink control information) which is sent by the base station and contains the base station scheduling benefit user equipment, and the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment is transmitted by means of the communication relation between the cooperative user equipment and the benefit equipment, so that the signaling when the scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is reduced, and the aim of reducing the signaling overhead is fulfilled.

The following illustrates the method embodiments provided by the present invention:

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a protocol stack structure adopted in the user cooperative communication mode provided by the present invention. The method is characterized in that an MAC entity is added to a base station and cooperative user equipment, the protocol stack structure of the user equipment is benefited to maintain the protocol stack structure of the existing user equipment unchanged, the generation and analysis of the cooperative MAC PDU are realized by the MAC entity filled by lines on the base station side, and correspondingly, the MAC entity with similar functions also corresponds to the cooperative user equipment.

In the prior art, the implementation manner of performing CRC processing may process DCI information, and is not described herein again. Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a process of adding CRC and scrambling to the DCI provided by the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a wireless network architecture including a base station, cooperative user equipment, and beneficiating user equipment according to the present invention. The wireless link between the base station and the beneficial user equipment is defined as a beneficial user equipment link 1, the bandwidth of the link is relatively small, and the data rate is low; a wireless link between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is defined as a cooperative user equipment link, the link has larger bandwidth and higher data rate; the wireless link between the cooperative user equipment and the beneficiary user equipment is defined as beneficiary user equipment link 2, and the data rate of the beneficiary link 2 is higher than that of the beneficiary link because the beneficiary user equipment served by the cooperative user equipment is not much in number, the cooperative user equipment is closer to the beneficiary user equipment in distance, the link quality is good, and the like. The patent only considers the scenario of assisting communication based on cooperative ue, and does not discuss the wireless communication benefiting the ue link 1.

Example one

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a cooperative communication flow provided in an embodiment of the present invention, where a base station adds CRC check information to downlink control information DCI of a beneficial user equipment and encapsulates the DCI into a cooperative MAC PDU, and further, the base station sends the cooperative MAC PDU to the cooperative user equipment. The method comprises the following steps:

step 701: and the base station encapsulates the downlink control information DCI of the scheduling benefit user equipment in the cooperation MAC PDU and sends the cooperation MAC PDU to the cooperation user equipment.

The DCI refers to downlink scheduling information for scheduling the beneficial ue by the base station, and is forwarded to the beneficial ue by the cooperative ue.

The DCI adopts a backward compatible DCI format, and can be identified by the cooperative user equipment and the beneficial user equipment.

Wherein the DCI may be a dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

And adding Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) to the Downlink Control Information (DCI), wherein the CRC is scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI).

Wherein, whether the cyclic redundancy check CRC is added in the downlink control information DCI is indicated by a "CRC addition indication" bit in the header of the cooperative MAC PDU. For example, bit 1 indicates that CRC check information is added to the downlink control information DCI.

The radio network temporary identifier RNTI at least comprises a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI and/or a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identifier SPS-RNTI.

And the MAC entity of the base station selects a proper coding modulation scheme MCS according to the resource allocation condition of a physical layer and the CQI feedback of the cooperative user equipment to the beneficial user equipment link 2 to ensure that the DCI scheduling information sent by the base station is matched with the channel quality of the beneficial user equipment link 2, thereby avoiding the segmented processing of the cooperative user equipment to the transport block TBs.

Wherein the benefited user equipment link 2 refers to a wireless link between the cooperative user equipment and the benefited user equipment. As shown in fig. 1.

The data and the DCI sent to the beneficial ue are assembled according to the format of fig. 2, that is, the base station adds the MAC CE control unit carrying the DCI and the corresponding MAC subheader field information in front of the MAC PDU data packet to form a coordinated MAC PDU. The cooperative MAC PDU is shown in fig. 2.

And the base station assembles the DCI of the beneficial user equipment and the data service into a cooperative MAC PDU and sends the DCI and the data service to the cooperative user equipment. Therefore, the base station does not need to additionally transmit the scheduling control information of the beneficial user equipment to the cooperative user equipment through the (enhanced) physical downlink control channel (e) PDCCH.

Step 702: and the cooperative user equipment receives and analyzes the cooperative MAC PDU sent by the base station, acquires the downlink control information DCI, and schedules the beneficial user equipment.

Based on the fact that the transmission rate is not matched under the influence of the air interface technology, the frequency point and the bandwidth used between the cooperative user equipment and the base station, which are different from the air interface technology, the frequency point and the bandwidth used between the cooperative user equipment and the beneficial user equipment, the cooperative user equipment has the capability of caching downlink data of the base station, and the cooperative user equipment feeds the caching state back to the base station for flow control of the base station.

And the cooperative user equipment performs separation operation of the MAC PDU and the downlink control information DCI on the received cooperative MAC PDU data packet sent by the base station, and analyzes the downlink control information DCI.

And the DCI is scheduling information for scheduling the beneficial user equipment by the base station.

Wherein the cooperative user equipment maps the downlink control information DCI of the benefited user equipment to the (enhanced) physical downlink control channel (e) PDCCH, and schedules the benefited user equipment through the (enhanced) physical downlink control channel (e) PDCCH.

Further, the cooperative user equipment resolves the radio network temporary identifier RNTI through CRC check information in the downlink control information DCI.

The radio network temporary identifier RNTI comprises a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI and/or a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identifier SPS-RNTI

Further, the cooperative user equipment determines a routing direction of the data service according to the cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI, that is, to which beneficial user equipment the cooperative user equipment should forward the data service.

Wherein the cooperative MAC PDU may be data content that needs to be forwarded to the beneficiary ue, or may be data content of the cooperative ue itself.

Step 702 a: and if the data content is the data content of the beneficial user equipment, transparently transmitting and forwarding the MAC PDU data packet to the beneficial user equipment through an air interface technology which is backward compatible with the beneficial user equipment.

Step 702 b: and if the data content is the data content of the cooperative user equipment, directly delivering the data packet to a higher layer of the cooperative user equipment according to a protocol process.

Step 703: and the beneficial user equipment transmits and receives the wireless service according to the DCI scheduling indication forwarded by the cooperative user equipment.

And the beneficial user equipment receives or transmits data on the designated resource according to the (e) PDCCH scheduling indication transmitted by the cooperative user equipment.

Wherein the PDCCH scheduling indication (e) is downlink control information DCI forwarded by the cooperative user equipment, where the DCI is for scheduling the beneficial user equipment by the base station.

Wherein, the data received by the beneficial ue is the MAC PDU data packet from the base station forwarded by the cooperative ue.

The downlink control information DCI comprises downlink scheduling information and uplink scheduling information of scheduling benefit user equipment.

If the benefited user equipment receives the uplink resource authorization indication forwarded by the cooperative user equipment from the base station, the benefited user equipment sends data to the cooperative user equipment on the designated resource. Further, the cooperative user equipment assembles the data content of the beneficial user equipment into an uplink cooperative MAC PDU according to a similar process, sends the uplink cooperative MAC PDU to the base station, and finally, the base station performs parsing.

Wherein, according to different versions of the beneficial user equipment, only a PDCCH scheduling mode is supported, or a PDCCH/ePDCCH scheduling mode is supported. Correspondingly, the cooperative user equipment adopts a corresponding scheduling mode.

The MAC PDU frame structure between the beneficiary ue and the cooperating ue follows the MAC PDU form supported by the beneficiary ue, and is shown in fig. 5.

Example two

The second embodiment of the present invention adopts the schematic diagram of the cooperative communication flow shown in fig. 7, and is different from the first embodiment in that the base station sends the cooperative MAC PDU to the cooperative user equipment, wherein the downlink control information DCI of the beneficial user equipment encapsulated in the cooperative MAC PDU is not added with CRC check information, and the cooperative user equipment determines the routing direction of the data service through the logical channel identifier LCID. The method comprises the following steps:

And the base station does not add Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) check information to the Downlink Control Information (DCI) of the beneficial user equipment.

Wherein, whether the cyclic redundancy check CRC is added in the downlink control information DCI is indicated by a "CRC addition indication" bit in the header of the cooperative MAC PDU. For example, bit 0 indicates that CRC information is not added to the downlink control information DCI.

And the cooperative user equipment acquires the Logical Channel Identifier (LCID) by analyzing the MAC PDU subheader information in the cooperative MAC PDU. The MAC PDU subheader information is shown in fig. 2.

Each radio bearer of the ue corresponds to a logical channel identity LCID, which is unique in the cooperative ue assistance group, so that the cooperative ue can determine a routing direction of the data service by analyzing the logical channel identity LCID, that is, to which beneficiating ue the cooperative ue should forward the data service.

And the cooperative user equipment adds CRC (Cyclic redundancy check) information to Downlink Control Information (DCI) of the beneficial user equipment and scrambles the CRC information by using a terminal identifier (such as C-RNTI).

Further, the cooperative ue maps the DCI of the benefited ue to the (enhanced) physical downlink control channel (e) PDCCH, and schedules the benefited ue through the (enhanced) physical downlink control channel (e) PDCCH.

The present invention provides a base station, comprising:

Wherein the DCI adopts a backward compatible DCI format.

Wherein the DCI is dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

Wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

According to the base station provided by the invention, the base station sends the DCI (downlink control information) containing the base station scheduling benefit user equipment to the cooperative user equipment, and the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment is transmitted by means of the communication relation between the cooperative user equipment and the benefit equipment, so that the signaling when the scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is reduced, and the purpose of reducing the signaling overhead is achieved.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of a user equipment provided in the present invention. The user equipment shown in fig. 8 includes:

an obtaining module 801, configured to obtain DCI of the ue benefiting from base station scheduling;

a second sending module 802, configured to send the DCI information to the beneficiary user equipment.

Wherein the DCI is received by the acquisition module through a PDSCH.

According to the user equipment provided by the invention, the cooperative user equipment forwards the DCI (downlink control information) which is sent by the base station and contains the base station scheduling benefit user equipment, and the DCI of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment is transmitted by means of the communication relation between the cooperative user equipment and the benefit equipment, so that the signaling when the scheduling control information is directly transmitted between the base station and the cooperative user equipment is reduced, and the purpose of reducing the signaling overhead is achieved.

It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may be implemented using a computer program flow, which may be stored in a computer readable storage medium and executed on a corresponding hardware platform (e.g., system, apparatus, device, etc.), and when executed, includes one or a combination of the steps of the method embodiments.

Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may be implemented by using an integrated circuit, and the steps may be respectively manufactured as an integrated circuit module, or a plurality of the blocks or steps may be manufactured as a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the present invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The devices/functional modules/functional units in the above embodiments may be implemented by general-purpose computing devices, and they may be centralized on a single computing device or distributed on a network formed by a plurality of computing devices.

Each device/function module/function unit in the above embodiments may be implemented in the form of a software function module and may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium when being sold or used as a separate product. The computer readable storage medium mentioned above may be a read-only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, etc.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present invention, and all the changes or substitutions should be covered within the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting Downlink Control Information (DCI) of multi-user cooperative communication is characterized by comprising the following steps:

a base station encapsulates downlink control information DCI of scheduling beneficial user equipment in a cooperative media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU), wherein the DCI comprises the downlink scheduling information of the base station scheduling the beneficial user equipment;

and the base station sends the DCI to cooperative user equipment through the cooperative MAC PDU so that the cooperative user equipment sends the DCI to the beneficial user equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the DCI employs a backward compatible DCI format.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the DCI is a dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the DCI is transmitted via a cooperative media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) packet.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the cooperative MAC PDU packet comprises a cooperative MAC header, a cooperative MAC CE, and a MAC PDU of a benefit user equipment.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the base station matches the size of the coordinated MAC PDU packet to the transmission resource block by adding padding bits after the coordinated MAC PDU's benefit user equipment's MAC PDU.

7. The method according to any of claims 4 to 6, wherein the cooperative MAC PDU packets are carried on a physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the format of the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is an entire byte; or, when the number of bits of the DCI is less than a whole byte, the base station adds padding bits at the end of the DCI to implement the whole byte.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is processed by Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) at the base station; or, the base station does not perform CRC processing and performs CRC processing on the cooperative user equipment;

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the radio network temporary identity comprises a cell radio network temporary identity C-RNTI and/or a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identity SPS-RNTI.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the cooperative MAC header comprises at least one of the following identifiers:

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the DCI format comprises at least one of: one of a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) and a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH).

14. A method for transmitting Downlink Control Information (DCI) of multi-user cooperative communication is characterized by comprising the following steps:

acquiring Downlink Control Information (DCI) encapsulated in a cooperative media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) of a base station scheduling benefit user equipment by the cooperative user equipment, wherein the DCI comprises the downlink scheduling information of the base station scheduling benefit user equipment;

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the DCI is received by the cooperating user equipment via a PDSCH.

16. The method of claim 14 or 15, wherein the cooperative user equipment transmits the DCI information to the benefit user equipment through a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or an enhanced PDCCH.

17. A base station, comprising:

a first sending module, configured to encapsulate DCI (downlink control information) for scheduling beneficial user equipment in a MAC PDU (media access control protocol data unit), where the DCI includes downlink scheduling information for scheduling the beneficial user equipment by a base station; and sending the DCI to cooperative user equipment through the cooperative MAC PDU so that the cooperative user equipment sends the DCI to the beneficial user equipment.

18. The base station of claim 17, wherein the DCI employs a backward compatible DCI format.

19. The base station of claim 17, wherein the DCI is a dynamically or semi-statically scheduled DCI.

20. The base station of claim 17, wherein the DCI is transmitted via a cooperative media access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) packet.

21. The base station of claim 20, wherein the cooperative MAC PDU packet comprises a cooperative MAC header, a cooperative MAC CE, and a MAC PDU of a benefit user equipment.

22. The base station of claim 21, wherein the first transmitting module matches the size of the cooperative MAC PDU packet to a transmission resource block by adding padding bits after the cooperative MAC PDU's benefit user equipment MAC PDU.

23. The base station according to any of claims 20 to 22, wherein the cooperative MAC PDU packets are carried on a physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH.

24. The base station of claim 21, wherein the cooperative MAC CE carries the DCI.

25. The base station of claim 24, wherein the format of the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is an entire byte; or, when the number of bits of the DCI is less than a whole byte, the base station adds padding bits at the end of the DCI to implement the whole byte.

26. The base station of claim 24, wherein:

the DCI carried by the cooperative MAC CE is processed by cyclic redundancy check CRC at a base station; or, the base station does not carry out CRC processing and carries out CRC processing on the cooperative user equipment;

27. The base station according to claim 26, wherein the radio network temporary identity comprises a cell radio network temporary identity C-RNTI and/or a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identity SPS-RNTI.

28. The base station of claim 21, wherein the cooperative MAC header comprises at least one of the following identifiers:

29. The base station of claim 28, wherein the DCI format comprises at least one of: one of a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) and a DCI format scheduled by a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH).

30. A user device, comprising:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain DCI (downlink control information) encapsulated in a MAC PDU (media access control protocol data unit) of a user equipment beneficial to base station scheduling, where the DCI includes downlink scheduling information of the user equipment beneficial to base station scheduling;

31. The user equipment of claim 30, wherein the DCI is received by the acquisition module via a PDSCH.

32. The UE of claim 30 or 31, wherein the second sending module sends the DCI information to the beneficiary UE through a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) or an enhanced PDCCH.