CN111800244A

CN111800244A - Design of physical side loop feedback channel of NR-V2X

Info

Publication number: CN111800244A
Application number: CN202010234855.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: S·潘特列夫; A·霍里亚夫; M·希洛夫; K·罗特; L·戈梅斯巴尔塔尔
Original assignee: Intel Corp
Current assignee: Intel Corp
Priority date: 2019-04-01
Filing date: 2020-03-30
Publication date: 2020-10-20

Abstract

The invention relates to the design of a physical side loop feedback channel of NR-V2X. An embodiment relates to an apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), comprising: a transceiver which receives side link feedback control information (SFCI) allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH) from another UE; and a processor operatively connected to the transceiver, the processor identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with an SFCI; wherein the transceiver further transmits or retransmits the TB to the other UE over a sidelink; and the SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

Description

Design of physical side loop feedback channel of NR-V2X

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The application claims priority rights entitled "DESIGN OF PHYSICAL SIDELINK FEEDBACK CHANNEL (PSFCH) FOR NR-V2X (DESIGN OF Physical Sidelink FEEDBACK CHANNEL (PSFCH) OF NR-V2X)", U.S. provisional application Serial No. 62/827,764 filed 4/1 in 2019. The disclosure of this provisional application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the field of wireless communications. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to a new wireless vehicle Side Link (SL) to all (NR-V2X) Radio Access Technologies (RATs).

Background

One of the new features introduced in SL of NR-V2X RAT is the support of unicast and multicast transmission. For SL unicast and multicast, NR-V2X supports hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and combining HARQ in the physical layer to improve link performance. In

resource allocation patterns

1 and 2, HARQ-ACK (acknowledgement) or HARQ-NACK (non-acknowledgement) feedback for data transmitted in a physical sidelink shared channel (psch) is carried in a Sidelink Feedback Control Information (SFCI) format via a PSFCH. The Physical Sidelink Feedback Channel (PSFCH) is a new physical channel introduced under the framework of the NR-V2X SL design.

Previous solutions rely only on packet repetition without any HARQ feedback, such as long term evolution-SL broadcast of vehicle and everything (LTE-V2X), or Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)802.11p based on Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) or smart transmission system G5(ITS-G5) RAT. Other previous solutions rely on the use of signaling via other air interfaces (e.g., via cellular base stations) to provide feedback.

Previous solutions do not allow feedback to confirm correct or incorrect reception of data packets or feedback involves high latency due to the involvement of multiple hops, e.g. via a base station or access point.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a design of a PSFCH that can meet the requirements and constraints of the SL NR-V2X RAT. The design includes a physical structure and a corresponding program. This feedback channel is critical for enabling unicast and multicast SL transmissions.

Different options for PSFCH physical structure design and their corresponding programs are provided, optimized to meet all the additional constraints and requirements of NR-V2X SL in rel.16 (relative to rel.15nr-DL and UL).

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), including: a transceiver that receives side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH); and a processor operatively connected to the transceiver, the processor identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with an SFCI; wherein the transceiver further transmits or retransmits the TB to the other UE over a sidelink; and the SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus comprising a memory and a processor, wherein: the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform the steps of: receiving, at a User Equipment (UE), side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH); identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with the SFCI; and transmitting or retransmitting the TB to the other UE through a sidelink; wherein the SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a transmission method of a Transport Block (TB) at a User Equipment (UE), the method including: receiving side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH); identifying a TB associated with the SFCI; and transmitting or retransmitting the TB to the other UE through a sidelink; wherein the SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform one or more elements of the above-described method.

Since the PSFCH structure and procedure are optimized for the specific purpose of NR-V2X SL, efficiency is naturally improved since all constraints are taken into account. Thus, a more reliable link with improved performance is established for both unicast and multicast use cases.

Drawings

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of the invention.

However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the invention may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the present invention with unnecessary detail.

Fig. 1 illustrates different combinations of transmitting or receiving PSCCH/PSCCH and PSFCH in a particular time slot for multiplexing of PSCCH/PSCCH option 3 that a UE may experience in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 2a shows an example of a slot structure including a two-symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, an Automatic Gain Control (AGC) distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx (transmit/receive) gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 2b shows an example of a slot structure including a single symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, two AGC distortion symbols, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example of a slot structure including a dual-symbol PSFCH, a short PSSCH, option 3, an AGC distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 4 illustrates an example of a slot structure including a single symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, an AGC distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 5 illustrates an example of a slot structure including a two-symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 2, an AGC distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 6 illustrates an example of a slot structure including a dual-symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, an option 1A, AGC distorted symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 7 illustrates an example of a slot structure without a PSFCH in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 8 shows an example of a slot structure including a three symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, an AGC distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 9a shows an example of a slot structure including a single symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, two AGC distortion dual symbols, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 9b illustrates a periodically allocated PSFCH resource and HARQ feedback multiplexing, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 10 illustrates a PSFCH resource indication resulting from periodically allocated PSFCH resources, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 11 illustrates multiplexing of different PSFCHs in the same subchannel according to various embodiments.

Fig. 12 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 1 bits, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 13 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 2 bits, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 14 illustrates a PSFCH structure of HARQ-ACK 4 bits using two concatenated 2-bit structures, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 15 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 4 bits using a length 24 sequence, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 16 shows a PSFCH structure based on comb-1, comb-2, comb-4 sequence presence detection, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 17 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1700 of a network in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 18 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1800 including a first CN 1820, in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 19 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1900 that includes a second CN 1920 in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 20 illustrates an example of an infrastructure device 2000 in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 21 illustrates an example of a platform 2100 (or "device 2100") according to various embodiments.

Fig. 22 illustrates example components of a baseband circuit 22110 and a wireless front end module (RFEM)22115 in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 23 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 24 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

Detailed Description

A detailed description of systems and methods consistent with embodiments of the present invention is provided below. While several embodiments have been described, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to any one embodiment, but includes many alternatives, modifications, and equivalents. In addition, while numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments disclosed herein, some embodiments may be practiced without some or all of these details. Moreover, for the purpose of clarity, certain technical material that is known in the prior art has not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention.

The design of the PSFCH includes the following aspects.

Location of psfch in a slot

The PSFCH should be sent in the last available sidelink symbol in the slot. However, from each UE's perspective, at a certain time slot, there are different possibilities as to whether the UE is transmitting (Tx) or receiving (Rx) PSCCH, PSCCH and PSFCH. Due to half-duplex constraints, the UE may not be able to transmit and receive on the same time-frequency resources. Since PSCCH and PSCCH are assumed to always be transmitted or received together, there are 4 PSCCH/PSCCH Tx/Rx and PSFCH Tx/Rx combinations, as shown in fig. 1, for PSCCH/PSCCH option 3 multiplexing, such as 3GPP TR 38.885 V2.0.0 (2019-03): "NR; study-to-evaporating (Release 16) (NR; Vehicle-to-Everything study (16 th edition)) ", 3 months 2019, section 5.1.2.1.

Fig. 2a illustrates an example of a slot structure including a two-symbol PSFCH, a long PSSCH, option 3, an AGC distortion symbol, and a Tx/Rx gap, in accordance with various embodiments.

There should be a certain time interval before transmission (or reception) of the PSFCH in order to allow Tx/Rx or Rx/Tx switching whenever the UE needs to transmit the PSCCH/PSCCH and receive the PSFCH (or vice versa). To accommodate the switching time, a time interval of at least one symbol may be used. In addition, the receiver of the PSFCH needs to establish its AGC to correctly decode the information. To allow AGC to be established when receiving the PSFCH, it may be employed to repeat the PSFCH in two symbols carrying the same information. In this way, as depicted in more detail in fig. 2a, the PSFCH is transmitted in the last two available sidelink symbols in the slot with one symbol gap before the PSFCH for the multiplexing of PSCCH/PSCCH option 3 and long PSCCH.

Alternatively, instead of the PSFCH repetition for AGF establishment, similar symbols used in the beginning of the slot may be included before the PSFCH as depicted in fig. 2 b.

In the case of a short pscch transmission, the PSFCH is transmitted earlier in the slot, but after the pscch ends. Fig. 3 shows an example of a slot with a short pscch and option 3.

For example, it may not be necessary to wait for AGC adaptation when a UE that should receive a PSFCH also receives a previous PSCCH/PSCCH in the same slot. For these cases, as shown in fig. 4, the PSFCH may contain only one symbol for option 3. It is noted that the single symbol PSFCH can also be extended to a short PSSCH.

Similar variants exist for the FDM (frequency division multiplexing) PSCCH/PSCCH multiplexing option, e.g., option 2, in addition to the different variants listed above. Fig. 5 shows an example of a long pscch and a two-symbol PSFCH based on this option. The same results can be shown for short PSSCH and single symbol PSFCH.

In fig. 6, an example of a combination of PSFCH and PSCCH/PSCCH multiplexed option 1A is also shown. It can also be extended to short pschs and single symbol PSFCHs as well.

Finally, fig. 7 also shows an example of PSCCH/PSCCH multiplexing in a slot without a PSFCH.

As a special case, the time taken for AGC adaptation may require two symbols for a 60kHz subcarrier spacing in frequency range 1(FR1), and therefore, the total duration of three PSFCH symbols may be used, as shown in fig. 8. In the case of FR2, assuming that AGC takes a single symbol of 60kHz, the PSFCH may last two symbols in 60kHz and 3 symbols in 120kHz subcarrier spacing.

In one embodiment, the PSFCH may always take two symbols regardless of the frequency range and subcarrier spacing.

Alternatively, here also instead of a repetition of the PSFCH for AGF establishment, similar symbols used at the start of the slot may be included before the PSFCH as shown in fig. 9 a.

In all of the above examples, the AGC distortion symbols may be represented by one of the following options:

-psch symbols, rate matched from the transmitter's perspective, and punctured by the receiver if needed;

-repetition of one of the other psch symbols in the slot;

-repetition of one of the other PSCCH + PSCCH symbols in the slot;

-an AGC training signal having a bandwidth equal to the sidelink resource allocation bandwidth;

-repetition of a PSFCH symbol in a slot or in a previous slot.

Periodicity of PSFCH and time interval between PSSCH-PSFCH

The simplest rule to determine the time interval between the psch transmission and the HARQ feedback over the PSFCH is a fixed offset. This means that the PSFCH resources are potentially allocated in each slot and is absolutely undesirable since its overhead is very high regardless of the PSFCH design. For example, inserting one symbol for PSFCH, one symbol for AGC, one symbol switching gap in each slot, as shown in section a above, will greatly reduce the useful PSSCH region.

The PSFCH overhead may be reduced by more sparsely allocating the PSFCH among the slots (e.g., every K slots). In this way, a mechanism is proposed to adjust the PSFCH overhead in a preferred way, but at the cost of increasing the HARQ Round Trip Time (RTT).

The periodicity of the PSFCH resource may be in the range of, for example, K1, K2 or K4 slots (in the extreme case, K8 may also be considered — this may be done if two slots are assumed to be aggregated). Although a larger value may further reduce the PSFCH overhead, it may also lead to detrimental HARQ RTT and complexity in HARQ feedback multiplexing, so that K-4 slots may be accepted at the most. The corresponding timing of the PSFCH is shown in fig. 9 b.

In one example, the PSFCH periodicity K may be configured as part of a pre-configuration of a resource pool in a carrier, or may also be configured as part of an RRC configuration from the set of K ═ 1, 2, 4, 8. If no configuration is provided, the PSFCH resource is not committed (committed).

In another example, the PSFCH may be configured as a separate resource pool. The UE should not assume that the PSFCH resources from different resource pools may overlap. This may be needed to prevent time overlap between the PSFCH and other channels.

Furthermore, the time intervals from PSCCH to PSFCH and PSFCH to PSSCH should be lower bound by the processing time of PSCCH/PSCCH and PSFCH, respectively. For convenience, the processing time may be expressed as:

-N_S2Fas the number of symbols after the PSSCH ends and the corresponding PSFCH begins

This value is similar to T _ proc,1, but it may be larger to support concurrent unicast/multicast procedures in the UE. Note that T _ proc,1 is currently a function of subcarrier spacing, so N_S2FMay be different in different configurations.

-N_F2SAs the number of symbols after the end of the PSFCH and the start of the corresponding retransmitted PSSCH

This value may be similar to T _ proc,2, but, depending on the PSFCH design, it may be even smaller, for example, if the PSFCH detection does not require blind decoding using a polar decoder. Note that T _ proc,2 is currently a function of subcarrier spacing, so N_F2SMay be different in different configurations.

The potential gap values are summarized in table 1 in terms of NR rel.15 values for N1 and N2 (other values may be used depending on the final design of the physical channel).

TABLE 1 PSSCH to PSFCH and PSFCH to PSSCH minimum gaps

SCS(kHz)	N in time slot_S2F	N in time slot _F2S
			15	1	1
30	1	1
			60	2	2
120	2	3

Contents of PSFCH

Assuming that the maximum PSFCH period is K-4, a single UE may need to multiplex up to 4 HARQ-ACK bits in a single PSFCH. Therefore, the PSFCH should be able to carry K HARQ-ACK bits, ranging from 1 to K.

These bits will map to a specific sequence to be allocated in the time-frequency resource.

D. Determining sequences and/or time-frequency resources used by a PSFCH

The PSFCH should also carry all or part of the information about the PSSCH source ID to be acknowledged, e.g., L1 UE source ID. The source ID may be used to determine the PSFCH resource allocation in the PSFCH sequence and/or frequency, e.g. the PSFCH resource ID may be a function of a binary representation of the source ID, e.g. the N Least Significant Bits (LSBs) or the Most Significant Bits (MSBs) or any other bit combination of the source ID may be an argument of the mapping function.

For example, there are currently 30 base sequences of length 12 (constant amplitude zero autocorrelation-CAZAC) used for PUCCH format 0. In one example, the PSFCH format may carry 1 or 2 bits using NR PUCCH format 0 and the PSFCH sequence is a function of source L1 ID. To determine the sequence, 5 LSBs or MSBs (or any other bits) from the L1ID (or the entire source ID) may be employed, and modulo arithmetic may be applied so that the index converted from the L1ID points to one of the 30 sequences. Other functions may also be used to convert part or the entire source L1ID into a base sequence. Furthermore, the sequences employed may be different types of CAZAC sequences, such as Zadoff-Chu, any polyphase sequence or other periodic or aperiodic complex-valued constant amplitude orthogonal or semi-orthogonal sequences.

In another example, there may be N PSFCH resources corresponding to the acknowledged PSCCH time-frequency resource and the associated PSCCH resource that was successfully decoded. One of the N resources may be selected for the PSFCH transmission based on the source L1ID and the PSCCH resource ID or related PSCCH resource ID (subchannel ID).

Additionally, the PSFCH resources and sequences may also be determined based on the target ID (or L1 target ID). This may be useful for unicast link and connection-oriented multicast where both ACKs and NACKs should be sent. Finally, the PSFCH may also carry ACK/NACK information over a Code Block Group (CBG). Support of CBG may require the addition of a payload on the PSFCH message.

In summary, the PSFCH resources may be determined as a sequence and time-frequency allocation of the PSFCH transmissions and may be the functional parameters or a subset of the parameters listed below:

1) the HARQ ACK/NACK bit is set to,

2) a subset of the bits of the source ID,

3) a subset of the bits in the target ID,

4) PSCCH/PSCCH starting subchannel Index (ID) or PRB,

5) the PSCCH/PSCCH slot index,

6) the CBG group index of each slot is,

7) if mapping of multiple codewords to a single psch transmission is supported, for a psch MIMO (multiple input multiple output) layer,

8) UE geographical location.

PSCFH physical structure

The most straightforward physical structure of a PSFCH is for PSFCH transmission (e.g., 1 or 2 PRBs) using PRB level granularity (e.g., multiples of 12 REs (resource elements)).

Another option is to use sub-PRB level granularity for the PSFCH transmission (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 REs for PSFCH signaling). The granularity at the sub-PRB level may be used to multiplex responses from different slots, where the feedback for each slot is represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 REs.

ACK and NACK transmissions may also be allocated to two different resources, e.g., two sets of REs (e.g., even or odd REs, etc.).

F. Multiplexing feedback in one PSFCH

If the PSFCH is allocated every K slots, it may not be possible to rely on a 1: 1 mapping. For example, as shown in fig. 10, assuming that K is 2, since UE-1 chooses to transmit different TBs in the same sub-channel, the PSCCH and PSCCH do not have a 1 between the two corresponding PSCCH/PSCCH: allocation of 1 map. However, if UE-2 chooses to transmit different TBs in different sub-channels, as also shown in fig. 10, two transmissions of PSFCH from Rx UEs may be made in two different sub-channels within the same time slot. Therefore, to multiplex the feedback of multiple transport blocks into a single PSFCH resource, some indication still needs to be made in the Sidelink Control Information (SCI), which may be located in a different sub-channel than the PSCCH/PSCCH transmission.

If the frequency subchannel of the PSFCH is explicitly signaled in the SCI, the UE should not expect the PSFCH resources to be different for the different TBs being multiplexed, otherwise there may be ambiguity and efficiency loss due to the possibility of missing SCIs, since TX and RX UEs may have different understanding of the PSFCH subchannel.

In one embodiment, to preserve at least partial mapping of the PSSCH subchannel to the PSFCH resources, the SCI scheduled TB should not point to a PSFCH subchannel other than the PSSCH subchannel if there is no previous TB transmitted with the PSFCH expected in the same PSFCH occasion.

When different UEs transmit in the same subchannel but in different time slots, it should be possible to multiplex the PSFCH in the same subchannel. In one embodiment, when the PSFCH is allocated every K slots, K sets of PSFCH resources are defined, each set having a one-to-one mapping transmitted over the PSSCH to a slot. When K is 1, 2, or 4, the following may be mentioned:

K1-UE transmitting in different time slots without multiplexing

K2-2 UEs that need to be multiplexed for transmission in different time slots. Two resource groups may be used, one resource group corresponding to each time slot between PSFCH occasions (as shown in fig. 11).

K-4-there is a need to multiplex 4 UEs transmitting in different time slots. Four resource groups may be used, one resource group corresponding to each time slot between PSFCH occasions.

Within a subchannel, it should be possible to multiplex more than one SFCI from one UE and more than one PSFCH from multiple UEs (at least in multicast mode). These two different cases will be discussed separately.

In an additional example, as in NR DL/UL, the PSFCH payload size may be derived from the explicit SCI payload based on the counter DAI and the total DAI signaling. Even if a single PSFCH periodicity is configured, it allows the use of different PSFCH formats. Alternatively, this can be done by PSFCH format signaling in SCI.

Multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs for different TBs in a single PSFCH

Fig. 12 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 1 bits, in accordance with various embodiments. Fig. 13 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 2 bits, in accordance with various embodiments. Fig. 14 illustrates a PSFCH structure of HARQ-ACK 4 bits using two concatenated 2-bit structures, in accordance with various embodiments. Fig. 15 illustrates a PSFCH structure for HARQ-ACK 4 bits using a length 24 sequence, in accordance with various embodiments.

Assuming a single TB for spatial multiplexing MIMO transmission and the possibility that feedback from 1, 2, 4 slots can be multiplexed, the following PSFCH design can be used:

K＝1：

-PSFCH format is equal to PUCCH format 0,

signaling ACK-NACK using a phase rotated version of the basic length 12 sequence (as shown in figure 12),

m＝3，m＝9，

the base sequence is a function of the source UE ID,

-PRBs in a subchannel are a function of the UE ID.

K＝2：

-PSFCH format is equal to PUCCH format 0,

signaling ACK-NACK using a phase rotated version of the basic length 12 sequence (as shown in figure 13),

m＝0，m＝3，m＝6，m＝9，

-the base sequence is a function of the source UE ID

-PRBs within a resource group within a subchannel are a function of the UE ID,

a NACK may be generated when one of the TBs is not Detected (DTX).

TB-0	TB-1	PSFCH payload
			DTX	DTX	-
NACK	DTX					00
			ACK	DTX			10
DTX	NACK					00
			NACK	NACK			00
ACK	NACK					10
			DTX	ACK			01
NACK	ACK					01
			ACK	ACK			11

In addition, the DTX status may also be coded separately if more bits are available.

K＝4：

-option 1: the PSFCH format is a concatenation of two PUCCH formats 0 in frequency (as shown in figure 14),

each TB pair corresponds to a portion of the PSFCH format,

if no TB is detected in only one of the sections, that section is still transmitted with "00" content. Alternatively, the portion is not sent at all,

-option 2: the PSFCH format is a sequence of length 24, spanning 2 PRBs and 1 symbol in frequency,

the 16 phase shifts of this length-24 sequence are used to indicate 4 HARQ ACK bits (as shown in figure 15),

the base sequence is a function of the source UE ID.

In another alternative, each HARQ-ACK bit may be mapped to one sequence of comb-1, comb-2, or comb-4. Status detection is then used to determine either ACK (presence sequence) or NACK (absence sequence). This embodiment is shown in fig. 16 for 1, 2, 4 bits. This scheme may be applied in sub-PRB level allocation for PSFCH transmission, where several REs may be allocated for ACK and NACK transmission.

Multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs from different UEs in a group

For the NACK-only indication case, SFN class (system frame number class) transmission should obviously be applied to save resource overhead. In this case, the sub-channels and resources signaled in the SCI should be used by UEs that do not decode the corresponding pschs to transmit the same signal to report NACKs.

Multiplexing of NACKs may be problematic if a single UE in the group transmits more than one TB. One option is to limit NACK-only to a single HARQ-ACK bit scheme. Another option is to allocate orthogonal frequency resources within the same subchannel. This may also result in a multi-cluster transmission if one TB has been successfully received, but may be successful if a maximum of two resources are used.

Option 1 (alt.1): not allowing multiplexing of more than one TB from a single UE in a group in the PSFCH;

option 2 (alt.2): more than one TB from a single UE in the group is allowed between different PSFCH occasions, but a single NACK is sent for all TBs if at least one of them is not decoded;

option 3 (alt.3): by allocating two consecutive PSFCH resources, at most two TB multiplexes are allowed.

In view of the periodic PSFCH resource allocation, it is desirable to allow transmission of more than one TB between PSFCH occasions. Also, since ReTX for successful TBs is too high, sending a single NACK may be inefficient, so option 3(alt.3) is the first choice to provide a compromise.

For an ACK/NACK indication, at least ACKs from different group members should be sent in different resources. Although not required, the NACK status may also be sent in different resources for simplicity. Under these baseline assumptions, the transmission of PSFCHs from UEs in a group may be considered as multiple unicast feedbacks, preferably multiplexed in an FDM fashion.

To organize the FDM multiplex, the following mechanisms may be utilized:

option 1 (alt.1): mapping from UE ID to FDM resource. The UE IDs within the group should have a mapping to FDM resources within subchannels explicitly or implicitly derived from PSCCH/PSCCH;

option 2 (alt.2): resources are explicitly negotiated with group members. During connection establishment, each UE may provide FDM resources for the PSFCH to each group member.

For multicast with NACK-only reporting, it is proposed to send feedback in the same sequence in the same resource in SFN fashion and allow up to 2 NACK bits to be transmitted in different PRBs. Furthermore, it is proposed to utilize the UE ID within a group to determine the frequency resources for the PSFCH transmission of a particular UE for multicast with ACK and NACK reports.

HARQ process

TX procedure

The total number of TX procedures should be limited by the transmission capability of the UE. Currently in NR UL, it is 16 processes. Furthermore, depending on the PSFCH timing and the process value N_F2S、N_S2FThe number of HARQ processes used for each unicast connection may also vary.

It may be assumed that the UE should also take into account the capabilities of the RX UE to manage its own transmission procedure.

RX procedure

The total number of RX procedures should be limited by the UE capability, which is mainly related to the UE soft buffer size determination. Currently in NR DL, its number is at most 16. However, it should be carefully considered how many HARQ processes based on simultaneous feedback are supported by the RX UE. Even in DL, the number of simultaneously generated feedbacks is very limited due to the limitations of the pipeline assumption and unicast PDSCH processing. According to the Uu assumption, in order not to impose substantial deviations in UE implementation, the number of HARQ processes based on simultaneous feedback should also be limited to e.g. 2 processes per carrier (e.g. required for the two Codeword (CW) case).

In one embodiment relating to controlling the number of simultaneous feedback-based RX procedures, the total number of connections may be managed by the RX UE so as not to exceed its capabilities. In another option, during unicast connection establishment, the UE may provide a set of resources to the timing-preemptive UE (ta UE), which may satisfy RX UE capabilities. For example, if the UE already has a feedback-based connection, it may indicate the time resources for the new connection, which results in interlaced transmission on different links.

With respect to the above embodiments, the UE may also employ the dropping of PSFCH transmissions that exceed the UE capabilities in a simultaneous feedback based procedure. The decision to drop may be based on service priority and quality of service (QoS).

System and implementation

Fig. 17 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1700 of a network in accordance with various embodiments. The following description is provided for an example system 1700, the example system 1700 operating in conjunction with the LTE system standard and the 5G or NR system standard provided by the 3GPP technical specification. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this respect, and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks benefiting from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX), etc.).

As shown in fig. 17, system 1700 includes UE1701 a and UE1701 b (collectively referred to as "UE 1701" or "UE 1701"). In this example, the UE1701 is shown as a smartphone (e.g., a handheld touchscreen mobile computing device connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as a consumer electronic device, a cellular phone, a smartphone, a feature phone, a tablet, a wearable computer device, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a pager, a wireless handset, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), an in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) device, an instrument panel (IC), a heads-up display (HUD) device, an in-vehicle diagnostics (OBD) device, a dashboard mobile Device (DME), a Mobile Data Terminal (MDT), an Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS), an electronic/Engine Control Unit (ECU), an electronic/Engine Control Module (ECM), an embedded system, a microcontroller, a mobile device (e.g., a mobile device, a mobile phone, a control module, an Engine Management System (EMS), a network or "smart" device, a Machine Type Communication (MTC) device, a machine-to-machine (M2M), an internet of things (IoT) device, and the like.

In some embodiments, any UE1701 may be an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. IoT UEs may communicate over public land mobile network PLMN, ProSe, or device-to-device D2D using M2M or MTC like technologies, the sensor network or IoT network exchanging data with MTC servers or devices. The M2M or MTC data exchange may be a machine initiated data exchange. An IoT network describes interconnected IoT UEs that may contain uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) with ephemeral connections. The IoT may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connection of the IoT network.

The UE1701 may be configured to connect or communicatively couple with, for example, a Radio Access Network (RAN) 1710. In an embodiment, RAN1710 may be an NG RAN or a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN, such as UTRAN or GERAN. As used herein, the term "NG RAN" or the like may refer to the RAN1710 operating in the NR or 5G system 1700, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to the RAN1710 operating in the LTE or 4G system 1700. The UE1701 utilizes connections (or channels) 1703 and 1704, respectively, each connection including a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below).

In this example,

connections

1703 and 1704 are shown as implementing communicatively coupled air interfaces and may be consistent with a cellular communication protocol, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, an NR protocol, and/or any other communication protocol discussed herein. In an embodiment, the UE1701 may exchange communication data directly via the ProSe interface 1705. ProSe interface 1705 may alternatively be referred to as SL interface 1705 and may include one or more logical channels including, but not limited to, PSCCH, pscsch, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

The UE1701 b is shown configured to access an Access Point (AP)1706 (also referred to as a "WLAN node 1706," a "WLAN terminal 1706," a "WT 1706," etc.) via a connection 1707. Connection 1707 may comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where AP1706 would include wireless fidelity

A router. In this example, AP1706 is shown connected to the internet without being connected to a core network of a wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, the UE1701 b, the RAN1710, and the AP1706 may be configured to operate with LWA and/or LWIP. LWA operation may involve a UE1701 b in RRC _ CONNECTED being configured by RAN nodes 1711a-b to utilize radio resources for LTE and WLAN. LWIP operations may involve the UE1701 b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 1707) through an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt data packets (e.g., IP data packets) sent over the connection 1707. An IPsec tunnel may include encapsulating the entire original IP data packet and adding a new header to protect the original header of the IP data packet.

The RAN1710 can include one or more Access Network (AN) nodes or

RAN nodes

1711a and 1711b (collectively, "RAN node 1711" or "RAN node 1711") that enable the

connections

1703 and 1704. As used herein, the terms "access node," "access point," and the like may describe a device that provides radio baseband functionality for data and/or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as base stations BS, gnbs, RAN nodes, enbs, nodebs, road side units RSUs, transmission reception points TRxP or TRPs, etc., and may comprise ground stations (e.g., ground access points) or satellite station areas (e.g., cells) providing coverage within a geographical area. As used herein, the term "NG RAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node 1711 operating in an NR or 5G system 1700 (e.g., a gNB), and the term "E-UTRAN node" or the like may refer to a RAN node 1711 operating in an LTE or 4G system 1700 (e.g., an eNB). According to various embodiments, the RAN node 1711 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices, such as a macrocell base station and/or a Low Power (LP) base station, for providing a femtocell, picocell, or other similar cell having a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than a macrocell.

In some embodiments, all or part of the RAN node 1711 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network, which may be referred to as cloud radio access network CRAN and/or virtual baseband unit pool (vbbp). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vbbp may implement: RAN functional partitioning, e.g., PDCP partitioning, where radio resource control, RRC, and packet data convergence protocol, PDCP, layers are operated by CRAN/vbbp, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by a separate RAN node 1711; MAC/PHY division, where RRC, PDCP, radio control link RLC and medium access control MAC layers are operated by CRAN/vbup, while the physical layer (PHY layer) is operated by each RAN node 1711; or "lower layer PHY" division, where the upper parts of RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC and PHY layers are operated by the CRAN/vbbp, while the lower parts of PHY layers are operated by respective RAN nodes 1711. This virtualization framework allows the processor cores of RAN node 1711 to be freed up to execute other virtualized applications. In some embodiments, a separate RAN node 1711 may represent a separate gNB-DU connected to the gNB-CU through a separate F1 interface (not shown in fig. 17). In these embodiments, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., fig. 20), and the gNB-CUs may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN1710, or by a server pool in a similar manner as the CRAN/vbbp. Additionally or alternatively, one or more RAN nodes 1711 may be next generation enbs (NG-enbs), which are RAN nodes (e.g., CN 1920 of fig. 19) that provide E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations towards the UE1701 over a NG interface (described below) and are connected to a5 GC.

In the V2X scenario, one or more RAN nodes 1711 may be or act as road side units, RSUs. The term "road side unit" or "RSU" may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity for V2X communication. The RSU may be implemented in or by an appropriate RAN node or a fixed (or relatively fixed) UE, where the RSU in or implemented by the UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU", the RSU in or implemented by the eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU", the RSU in or implemented by the gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU", and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located at the roadside that provides connection support to passing vehicle UEs 1701(vUE 1701). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing the geometry of the intersection map, traffic statistics, media, and applications/software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9GHz Direct Short Range Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latency communications required for high speed events (e.g., avoiding collisions, traffic warnings, etc.). Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X frequency band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications as well as other cellular communication services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4GHz band) and/or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. The computing equipment and some or all of the radio frequency circuitry of the RSU may be encased in a weatherproof housing suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller to provide wired connection (e.g., ethernet) signal control and/or backhaul network with the service.

Any of the RAN nodes 1711 may terminate the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 1701. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 1711 may implement various logical functions of the RAN1710, including, but not limited to, functions of a Radio Network Controller (RNC), such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and packet scheduling, and mobility management.

In an embodiment, the UE1701 may be configured to communicate with each other or any of the RAN nodes 1711 using OFDM communication signals over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance with various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some embodiments, the downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any RAN node 1711 to the UE1701, while uplink transmissions may utilize similar techniques. The grid may be a time-frequency grid, referred to as a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. For OFDM systems, such a time-frequency plane representation is common practice, which makes radio resource allocation intuitive. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one time slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in the resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid includes a plurality of resource blocks that describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block includes a set of resource elements. In the frequency domain, this may represent the least resources that may currently be allocated. Several different physical downlink channels are transmitted using such resource blocks.

According to various embodiments, the UE1701 and the RAN node 1711 communicate (e.g., transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to as "licensed spectrum" and/or "licensed frequency band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as "unlicensed spectrum" and/or "unlicensed frequency band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in the frequency range of about 400MHz to about 3.8GHz, while the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5GHz band.

To operate in unlicensed spectrum, the UE1701 and the RAN node 1711 may operate using licensed assisted access, LAA, enhanced licensed assisted access, eLAA, and/or further enhanced licensed assisted access, feLAA mechanisms. In these embodiments, the UE1701 and the RAN node 1711 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations and/or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmission in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operation may be performed according to a Listen Before Talk (LBT) protocol.

LBT is a mechanism by which a device (e.g., UE1701 RAN node 1711, etc.) may sense a medium (e.g., channel or carrier frequency) and transmit when it is sensed that the medium is in an idle state (or when it is sensed that a particular channel in the medium is unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include CCA that determines whether there are other signals on the channel, at least with the ED, to determine whether the channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism allows the cellular/LAA network to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum as well as other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over an entire expected transmission band for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predetermined or configured threshold.

Typically, the existing system in the 5GHz band is a WLAN based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs employ a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA/CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a Mobile Station (MS) such as UE1701, AP1706, etc.) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform a CCA prior to the transmission. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node perceives the channel as idle and transmits simultaneously, a back-off mechanism is used to avoid collisions. The back-off mechanism may be a counter drawn randomly within the CWS that will increment exponentially when a collision occurs and reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. The LBT mechanism designed specifically for LAA is similar to CSMA/CA for WLAN. In some embodiments, an LBT procedure for a DL or UL transmission burst including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions, respectively, may have an LAA contention window whose length is variable between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values of the CWS of the LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μ β); however, the size of the CWS and MCOT (e.g., transmission bursts) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

The LAA mechanism is built on the carrier aggregation CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is referred to as a component carrier CC. The CCs may have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20MHz, and up to five CCs may be aggregated, and thus, the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In FDD systems, the number of aggregated carriers may be different for DL and UL, where the number of UL ccs is equal to or less than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, a single CC may have a different bandwidth than other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC are typically the same for DL and UL.

The CA also includes respective serving cells to provide respective CCs. The coverage of the serving cell may differ, for example, because CCs on different frequency bands will experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell may provide a primary component carrier PCC for UL and DL and may handle RRC and non-access stratum NAS related activities. The other serving cells are referred to as scells, and each SCell may provide a separate SCC for UL and DL. SCCs may be added and deleted as needed, while changing PCCs may require the UE1701 to switch. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all scells may operate in unlicensed spectrum (referred to as "LAA scells"), and the LAA scells are assisted by PCell operating in licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCell indicating different PUSCH starting positions within the same subframe.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to the UE 1701. The PDCCH carries information about a transmission format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It may also inform the UE1701 about the transport format, resource allocation and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 1701b within a cell) can typically be performed on any RAN node 1711 based on channel quality information fed back from any UE 1701. The downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each UE 1701.

The PDCCH conveys control information using Control Channel Elements (CCEs). The PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets before being mapped to resource elements, and then the quadruplets may be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine groups of four physical resource elements called REGs. Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the DCI and the channel conditions, the PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more CCEs. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L ═ 1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some embodiments may utilize EPDCCH which uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. One or more ECCEs may be used to transmit EPDCCH. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to a set of nine physical resource elements, referred to as an Enhanced Resource Element Group (EREG). In some cases, ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

The RAN nodes 1711 may be configured to communicate with each other via an interface 1712. In embodiments where the system 1700 is an LTE system (e.g., when the CN1720 is an EPC 1820 as in fig. 18), the interface 1712 may be an X2 interface 1712. An X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711 (e.g., two or more enbs, etc.) connected to the EPC 1720, and/or between two enbs connected to the EPC 1720. The X2 interfaces may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user data packets transmitted over the X2 interface and may be used to communicate information about the transfer of user data between enbs. For example, X2-U may provide specific sequence number information for user data transmitted from MeNB to SeNB; information on successful sending of PDCP PDUs from SeNB to UE1701 to user data; information of PDCP PDUs which have not been delivered to the UE 1701; information on a current minimum expected buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting user data to the UE; and so on. X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functions including context transfer from source to target eNB, user plane transfer control, etc.; a load management function; and an inter-cell interference coordination function.

In embodiments where the system 1700 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., when the CN1720 is a 5GC1920 as in fig. 19), the interface 1712 may be an Xn interface 1712. An Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711 (e.g., two or more gnbs, etc.) connected to the 5GC 1720, between a RAN node 1711 (e.g., a gNB) connected to the 5GC 1720 and an eNB, and/or between two enbs connected to the 5GC 1720. In some implementations, the Xn interface can include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U can provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flow control functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functions, i.e., functions to manage the Xn-C interface; mobility support for a UE1701 in CONNECTED mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED) includes functionality to manage CONNECTED mode UE mobility between one or more RAN nodes 1711. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 1711 to the new (target) serving RAN node 1711; and controls user plane tunneling between the old (source) serving RAN node 1711 to the new (target) serving RAN node 1711. The protocol stack of the Xn-U may comprise a transport network layer built on top of an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, a GTP-U layer on top of UDP and/or IP layers for carrying user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol, referred to as the Xn application protocol (Xn-AP), and a transport network layer established over the stream control transport protocol SCTP. SCTP can be located above the IP layer and can provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver signaling PDUs. In other embodiments, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same as or similar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

The RAN1710 is shown communicatively coupled to a core network, in this embodiment a Core Network (CN) 1720. The CN1720 may include a plurality of network elements 1722 configured to provide various data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of the UE 1701) connected to the CN1720 via the RAN 1710. The components of CN1720 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes that include components that read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, any or all of the above network node functions may be virtualized using Network Function Virtualization (NFV) via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). Logical instances of CN1720 may be referred to as network slices, and logical instances of a portion of CN1720 may be referred to as network subslices. The NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources, which may alternatively be performed by proprietary hardware, including industry standard server hardware, storage hardware, or a combination of switches. In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components/functions.

In general, the application server 1730 may be an element that provides applications using IP bearer resources to the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 1730 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UE1701 via the EPC 1720.

In an embodiment, the CN1720 may be a 5GC (referred to as a "5 GC 1720" or the like), and the RAN1710 may be connected with the CN1720 via an NG interface 1713. In an embodiment, NG interface 1713 may be split. The signaling interface between NG user plane (NG-U) interface 1714 and RAN S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 1715 is divided into two parts: a NG user plane (NG-U) interface 1714 transports traffic data nodes 1711 and AMFs between RAN node 1711 and UPFs. An embodiment where CN1720 is 5GC 1720 is discussed in more detail with respect to fig. 19.

In embodiments, CN1720 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5 GC 1720" or the like), while in other embodiments, CN1720 may be an EPC. In the case where the CN1720 is an EPC (referred to as "EPC 1720" or the like), the RAN1710 may connect with the CN1720 via an S1 interface 1713. In an embodiment, the S1 interface 1713 may be divided into two parts, i.e., the S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 1714 carries traffic data between the RAN node 1711 and the S-GW, and the S1-MME interface 1715 is a signaling interface between the RAN node 1711 and the Mobility Management Entity (MME).

Figure 18 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1800 including a first CN 1820, in accordance with various embodiments. In this example, system 1800 may implement the LTE standard, where CN 1820 is EPC 1820 corresponding to CN1720 of fig. 17. Additionally, the UE 1801 may be the same or similar to the UE1701 of fig. 17, and the E-UTRAN 1810 may be the same or similar RAN as the RAN1710 of fig. 17, and may include the RAN node 1711 previously discussed. The CN 1820 may include the MME1821, a serving gateway (S-GW)1822, a PDN gateway (P-GW)1823, a Home Subscriber Server (HSS)1824, and a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 1825.

The MME1821 may be similar in function to the control plane of a legacy SGSN, and may implement Mobility Management (MM) functions to track the current location of the UE 1801. The MME1821 may perform various MM procedures to manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as "EPS MM" or "EMM" in E-UTRAN systems) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data stores, etc. for maintaining knowledge about the current location of the UE 1801, providing user identity confidentiality, and/or performing other similar services to the user/subscriber. Each UE 1801 and MME1821 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and when the attach procedure is successfully completed, an MM context may be established in the UE 1801 and MME 1821. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM related information of the UE 1801. The MME1821 may be coupled with the HSS 1824 via an S6a reference point, with the SGSN 1825 via an S3 reference point, and with the S-GW1822 via an S11 reference point.

The SGSN 1825 may be a node that serves the UE 1801 by tracking the location of the individual UE 1801 and performing security functions. In addition, the SGSN 1825 may perform inter-EPC node signaling to enable mobility between 2G/3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks. PDN and S-GW selection specified by MME 1821; the handling of the UE 1801 time zone function is as specified by MME 1821; and MME selection for handover to an E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between MME1821 and SGSN 1825 may enable inter-3 GPP access network mobility for user and bearer information exchange in idle and/or active states.

The HSS 1824 may include a database for network users that includes subscription-related information to support processing of communication sessions by network entities. The EPC 1820 may include one or more HSS 1824, depending on the number of mobile users, the capabilities of the devices, the organization of the network, and so forth. For example, the HSS 1824 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication. The S6a reference point between HSS 1824 and MME1821 may enable the transmission of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to EPC 1820 between HSS 1824 and MME 1821.

The S-GW1822 may terminate the S1 interface 1713 ("S1-U" in fig. 18) to the RAN1810 and route data packets between the RAN1810 and the EPC 1820. In addition, S-GW1822 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers, and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and certain policy enforcement. An S11 reference point between the S-GW1822 and the MME1821 may provide a control plane between the MME1821 and the S-GW 1822. The S-GW1822 may be coupled with the P-GW1823 via an S5 reference point.

The P-GW1823 may terminate the SGi interface towards the PDN 1830. P-GW1823 may route data packets between EPC 1820 and an external network, such as a network including application server 1730 (alternatively referred to as an "AF"), through IP interface 1725 (e.g., see fig. 17). In an embodiment, P-GW1823 may be communicatively coupled to an application server (application server 1730 of fig. 17 or PDN 1830 of fig. 18) via IP communication interface 1725 (e.g., see fig. 17). An S5 reference point between P-GW1823 and S-GW1822 may provide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between P-GW1823 and S-GW 1822. The S5 reference point may also be used for the S-GW 1822. Relocation results from the mobility of the UE 1801 and whether the S-GW1822 needs to connect to a non-collocated P-GW1823 to achieve the required PDN connectivity. The P-GW1823 may further include a node (e.g., PCEF (not shown)) for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Additionally, the SGi reference point between the P-GW1823 and the Packet Data Network (PDN)1830 may be an operator external public network, a private PDN, or an operator internal packet data network, e.g., for providing IMS services. The P-GW1823 may be coupled with a policy control and charging rules function (PCRF)1826 via a Gx reference point.

PCRF1826 is a policy and charging control element of EPC 1820. In a non-roaming case, there may be only one PCRF1826 in a Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with an Internet protocol connected access network (IP-CAN) session for the UE 1801. In a roaming scenario with local traffic disruption, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of the UE 1801, a local PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within the Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF1826 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 1830 via the P-GW 1823. Application server 1830 may signal PCRF1826 to indicate the new service flow and select the appropriate QoS and charging parameters. The PCRF1826 may provide the rules to a PCEF (not shown) with appropriate TFTs and QCIs, which starts QoS and charging as specified by the application server 1830. A Gx reference point between the PCRF1826 and the P-GW1823 may allow QoS policy and charging rules to be transmitted from the PCRF1826 to the PCEF in the P-GW 1823. The Rx reference point may reside between PDN 1830 (or "AF 1830") and PCRF 1826.

Figure 19 illustrates an architecture of a system 1900 that includes a second CN 1920, in accordance with various embodiments. The illustrated system 1900 includes a UE1901, which may be the same as or similar to the UE1701 and the UE 1801 discussed previously; AN (R) AN1910, which may be the same or similar to RAN1710 and RAN1810 discussed previously, and may include RAN node 1711 discussed previously; DN1903, which may be, for example, an operator service, internet access, or third party service; and a 5G core network (5GC) 1920. The 5GC1920 may include an authentication server function (AUSF) 1922; an access and mobility management function (AMF) 1921; session Management Function (SMF) 1924; a Network Exposure Function (NEF) 1923; policy Control Function (PCF) 1926; (network function storage function) NRF 1925; unified Data Management (UDM) 1927; an Application Function (AF) 1928; a User Plane Function (UPF) 1902; and a Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) 1929.

UPF 1902 may serve as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an interconnected external PDU session point to DN1903, and a branch point for supporting multihomed PDU sessions. The UPF 1902 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing for the user plane (e.g., packet filtering), gating, UL/DL rate enforcement, perform uplink traffic validation (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transmit level packet marking in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 1902 may include an uplink classifier to support routing of traffic flows to a data network. DN1903 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third party services. DN1903 may include or be similar to application server 1730 discussed previously. UPF 1902 can interact with SMF1924 through an N4 reference point between SMF1924 and UPF 1902.

The AUSF1922 may store data for authentication of the UE1901 and process functions related to the authentication. The AUSF1922 may facilitate a universal authentication framework for various access types. AUSF1922 may communicate with AMF1921 via an N12 reference point between AMF1921 and AUSF 1922; and may communicate with UDM 1927 through an N13 reference point between UDM 1927 and AUSF 1922. Furthermore, AUSF1922 may expose a Nausf service based interface.

The AMF1921 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., registering the UE1901, etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception and access authentication and authorization of AMF-related events. AMF1921 may be the termination point of the reference point N11 between AMF1921 and SMF 1924. AMF1921 may provide for the transmission of SM messages between UE1901 and SMF1924 and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF1921 may also provide for transmission of SMS messages between the UE1901 and the SMSF (not shown in fig. 19). The AMF1921 may act as a SEAF, which may include interactions with AUSF1922 and UE1901, receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE1901 authentication procedure. In the case where USIM based authentication is used, AMF1921 may retrieve security materials from AUSF 1922. AMF1921 may also include an SCM function that receives a key from the SEA that is used to derive the visited network specific key. Further, AMF1921 may be a termination point of the RAN CP interface, which may include or may be AN N2 reference point between (R) AN1910 and AMF 1921; the AMF1921 may be the termination point of NAS (N1) signaling and performs NAS ciphering and integrity protection.

The AMF1921 may also support NAS signaling with the UE1901 through an N3IWF (interworking function) interface. The N3IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3IWF may be AN endpoint of the N2 interface between the (R) AN1910 and the AMF1921 for the control plane and may be AN endpoint of the N3 reference point between the (R) AN1910 and the UPF 1902 for the user plane. In this way, AMF1921 may process N2 signaling for PDU sessions and QoS from SMF1924 and AMF1921, encapsulate/decapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunnels, flag N3 user plane packets in the uplink, and enforce QoS corresponding to QoS. N0 packet marking is performed on N3 packet marking taking into account the QoS requirements associated with such marking received through N2. The N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control plane NAS signaling between the UE1901 and the AMF1921 and uplink and downlink user plane packets between the UE1901 and the UPF 1902 via an N1 reference point between the UE1901 and the AMF 1921. The N3IWF also provides a mechanism for establishing an IPsec tunnel with the UE 1901. AMF1921 may expose a Namf service based interface and may be the termination point of the N14 reference point between two AMFs 1921 and the N17 reference point between AMFs 1921 and 5G-EIR (not shown in fig. 19).

The UE1901 may need to register with the AMF1921 in order to receive network services. The RM is used to register or deregister the UE1901 with the network (e.g., AMF1921) and establish a UE context (e.g., AMF1921) in the network. The UE1901 may operate in an RM-REGISTERED (RM REGISTERED) state or an RM-DEREGISTERED (RM DEREGISTERED) state. In the RM deregistered state, the UE1901 is not registered with the network and the UE context in AMF1921 does not retain valid location or routing information for the UE1901, so AM 1192 cannot reach the UE 1901. In the RM registration state, the UE1901 has registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF1921 may hold valid location or routing information for the UE1901 so that AMF1921 may access the UE 1901. In the RM registration state, the UE1901 may perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiration of a periodic update timer (e.g., to notify the network that the UE1901 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network, etc.

The AMF1921 may store one or more RM contexts for the UE1901, where each RM context is associated with a particular access to the network. The RM context may be a data structure, database object, etc. that indicates or stores registration status and periodic update timers, etc. for each access type. AMF1921 may also store a 5GC MM context that is the same as or similar to the (E) MM context previously discussed. In various embodiments, AMF1921 may store the CE mode B restriction parameters for UE1901 in the associated MM context or RM context. The AMF1921 may also derive this value from the UE usage setting parameters already stored in the UE context (and/or MM/RM context) when needed.

Connection Management (CM) may be used to establish and release signaling connections between the UE1901 and the AMF1921 over the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE1901 and the CN 1920 and includes a signaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., AN RRC connection for non-3 GPP access or a UE-N3IWF connection) and AN N2 connection between the UE1901 and the AN (e.g., RAN 1910) and AMF 1921. The UE1901 may operate in one of two CM states, CM-IDLE mode or CM-CONNECTED mode. When the UE1901 operates in the CM-IDLE state/mode, the UE1901 may not have AN NAS signaling connection established with the AMF1921 over the N1 interface, and there may be AN (R) AN1910 signaling connection (e.g., AN N2 and/or N3 connection). When the UE1901 is operating in the CM-CONNECTED state/mode, the UE1901 may establish a NAS signaling connection with the AMF1921 over the N1 interface and AN (R) AN1910 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and/or N3 connection) for the UE 1901. Establishing AN N2 connection between the (R) AN1910 and the AMF1921 may transition the UE1901 from CM-IDLE to CM-CONNECTED mode, and the UE1901 may transition from CM-CONNECTED to CM-IDLE mode when N2 signaling is released from between the (R) AN1910 and the AMF 1921.

SMF1924 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, modification, and release, including tunnel maintenance between UPF and AN nodes); UE IP address assignment and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of the UP function; configuring flow control on the UPF to route the flow to the correct destination; terminating the interface with the policy control function; controlling a portion of policy enforcement and QoS; lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system); termination of the SM part of the NAS message; downlink data notification; starting a specific SM message, which is sent to the AN through the AMF on N2; the SSC pattern for the session is determined. SM may refer to management of PDU sessions, and a PDU session or "session" may refer to a PDU connection service that provides or enables exchange of PDUs between the UE1901 and a Data Network (DN)1903 identified by a Data Network Name (DNN). The PDU session may be established according to the UE1901 request, modified according to the UE1901 and 5GC1920 request using NAS SM signaling exchanged between the UE1901 and SMF1924 with the N1 reference point, and released according to the UE1901 and 5GC1920 request. On the application server, the 5GC1920 may trigger a specific application in the UE 1901. In response to receiving the trigger message, the UE1901 may communicate the trigger message (or related portions/information of the trigger message) to one or more applications in one or more identified UEs 1901. One or more applications identified in UE1901 may establish a PDU session to a particular DNN. SMF1924 may check whether the UE1901 request conforms to user subscription information associated with UE 1901. In this regard, SMF1924 may retrieve and/or request to receive update notifications from UDM 1927 regarding SMF1924 level subscription data.

SMF1924 may include the following roaming functions: processing local enforcement to apply QoS SLA (VPLMN); a charging data collection and charging interface (VPLMN); lawful interception (in VPLMN for SM events and connected to LI system); interaction with the foreign DN is supported to transmit signaling of PDU session authorization/authentication through the foreign DN. An N16 reference point between two SMFs 1924 may be included in system 1900, which N16 reference point may be between another SMF1924 in the visited network and SMF1924 in the home network in the roaming scenario. Additionally, SMF1924 may expose an Nsmf service based interface.

NEF 1923 may provide various means for securely exposing services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions to third parties, internal exposure/re-exposure, application functions (e.g., AF 1928), edge computing or fog computing systems, and the like. In embodiments, NEF 1923 may authenticate, authorize and/or limit AF. NEF 1923 may also translate information exchanged with AF1928 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 1923 may convert between the AF service identifier and the internal 5GC information. NEF 1923 may also receive information from other Network Functions (NFs) based on the exposed capabilities of the other network functions. This information may be stored as structured data at NEF 1923, or may be stored at data store NF using a standardized interface. The stored information may then be re-exposed by NEF 1923 to other NFs and AFs, and/or used for other purposes, such as analysis. In addition, NEF 1923 may expose an interface based on the Nnef service.

NRF 1925 may support a service discovery function, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 1925 also maintains information of available NF instances and the services that they support. As used herein, the term "instantiation" or the like may refer to the creation of an instance, while "instance" may refer to the specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. Additionally, NRF 1925 may expose an interface based on the Nnrf service.

The PCF1926 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to perform them and may also support a unified policy framework to manage network behavior. The PCF1926 may also implement a Front End (FE) to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 1927. PCF1926 may communicate with AMF1921 via an N15 reference point between PCF1926 and AMF1921, which may include: PCF1926 in the visited network and AMF1921 in roaming situations. The PCF1926 may communicate with the AF1928 via the N5 reference point between the PCF1926 and the AF 1928; and communicates with SMF1924 through an N7 reference point between PCF1926 and SMF 1924. In the visited network, system 1900 and/or CN 1920 may also include an N24 reference point between PCF1926 (in the home network) and PCF 1926. In addition, PCF1926 may expose an Npcf service-based interface.

UDM 1927 may process subscription-related information to support processing of communication sessions by network entities and may store subscription data for UE 1901. For example, subscription data may be transferred between UDM 1927 and AMF1921 via the N8 reference point between UDM 1927 and AMF 1921. The UDM 1927 may include two parts, an application FE and a UDR (FE and UDR not shown in FIG. 19). The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for UDMs 1927 and PCFs 1926 of NEFs 1923, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1901). UDR 221 may expose a service-based interface to allow UDM 1927, PCF1926 and NEF 1923 to access a particular set of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE that is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, and the like. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses the subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification processing, access authorization, registration/mobility management and subscription management. The UDR may interact with SMF1924 via an N10 reference point between UDM 1927 and SMF 1924. UDM 1927 may also support SMS management, where the SMS-FE implements similar application logic as previously discussed. Additionally, UDM 1927 may expose a Nudm service based interface.

The AF1928 may have an application impact on traffic routing, provide access to NCE, and interact with the policy framework for policy control. The NCE may be a mechanism that allows the 5GC1920 and AF1928 to provide information to each other via NEF 1923, which may be used for edge computing implementations. In such embodiments, network operator and third party services may be hosted at the access point near the UE1901 access point to enable efficient service delivery with reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network. For edge calculation implementations, the 5GC may select a UPF 1902 close to the UE1901 and perform flow control from the UPF 1902 to the DN1903 over the N6 interface. This may be based on UE subscription data, UE location and information provided by the AF 1928. In this way, the AF1928 may affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, the network operator may allow the AF1928 to interact directly with the relevant NFs when the AF1928 is considered a trusted entity. In addition, the AF1928 may expose a Naf service-based interface.

The NSSF1929 may select a set of network slice instances that serve the UE 1901. NSSF1929 may also determine allowed Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (NSSAI) and mapping to subscribed S-NSSAI, if desired. The NSSF1929 may also determine the set of AMFs or candidate AMF list 1921 to be used to serve the UE1901 based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 1925, which may be done by querying the network slice instance. The movement of the UE1901 may be triggered by interacting with the AMF1921 registered with the UE1901 with NSSF1929, which may result in a change of the AMF 1921. NSSF1929 may interact with AMF1921 via the N22 reference point between AMF1921 and NSSF 1929; and may communicate with another NSSF1929 in the visited network via the N31 reference point (not shown in figure 19). In addition, NSSF1929 may expose an NSSF service based interface.

As previously described, the CN 1920 may include a SMSF that is responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification and relays SM messages to and from the UE1901 to and from other entities, such as SMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF1921 and UDM 1927 for notification procedures that UE1901 is available for SMS transmission (e.g., set the UE unreachable flag, and notify UDM 1927 when UE1901 is available for SMS).

CN 120 may also include other elements not shown in fig. 19, such as a data storage system/architecture, 5G device identification register (5G-EIR), Secure Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP), and the like. The data storage system may include a Structured Data Storage Function (SDSF), an Unstructured Data Storage Function (UDSF), and the like. Any Network Function (NF) may store and retrieve unstructured data to and from the UDSF (e.g., UE context) via an N18 reference point (not shown in fig. 19) between any NF and the UDSF. The various NFs may share a UDSF for storing their respective unstructured data, or the various NFs may have their respective UDSF at or near the various NFs. Additionally, the UDSF may expose a Nudsf service based interface (not shown in figure 19). The 5G-EIR may be a NF to check the status of a permanent device identifier (PEI) to determine whether a particular device/entity is blacklisted from the network. The SEPP may be a non-transparent proxy and may perform topology hiding, message filtering and policy management on the control plane interface between Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMNs).

Additionally, there may be more reference points and/or service-based interfaces between NF services in the NF; however, for clarity, these interfaces and reference points have been omitted from FIG. 19. In one example, CN 1920 may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between an MME (e.g., MME 1821) and AMF1921, in order to enable interworking between CN 1920 and CN 1820. The reference point may comprise an interface based on the N5G-EIR service, shown by the 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between the NRF in the visited network and the NRF in the home network; the N31 reference point between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF in the home network.

Fig. 20 illustrates an example of an infrastructure device 2000 in accordance with various embodiments. Infrastructure device 2000 (or "system 2000") may be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node such as RAN node 1711 and/or AP1706 shown and described previously, an application server 1730, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. In other examples, system 2000 may be implemented in or by a UE.

The system 2000 includes an application circuit 2005, a baseband circuit 2010, one or more Radio Front End Modules (RFEM)2015, a memory circuit 2020, a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC)2025, a power tee circuit 2030, a network controller circuit 2035, a network interface connector 2040, a satellite positioning circuit 2045, and a user interface 2050. In some embodiments, device 2000 may include other elements, such as memory/storage, a display, a camera, a sensor, or an input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device. For example, the circuitry may be included separately in one or more devices for cloud radio access networks CRAN, vbub, or other similar implementations.

Application circuit 2005 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more low dropout regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers such as serial peripheral interface SPI, I²A serial interface such as a C or universal programmable serial interface module, a Real Time Clock (RTC), a timer including a watchdog timer, a universal input/output (I/O or IO), a memory card controller (e.g., Secure Digital (SD), multimedia card (MMC), etc.), a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, a Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interface, and a Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) testThe port is accessed in a trial manner. The processor (or core) of the application circuitry 2005 may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 2000. In some embodiments, the memory/storage elements may be on-chip memory circuits, which may include any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of storage device technology (e.g., the technology discussed herein).

The processors of application circuitry 2005 may include, for example, one or more processor Cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), one or more Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processors, one or more Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 2005 may include or may be a dedicated processor/controller that operates in accordance with various embodiments herein. By way of example, the processor of the application circuit 2005 may include one or more Intels

Or

A processor; advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Processors, Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) or

A processor; ARM-based processors that have acquired ARMHoldings, Ltd. permission, such as the ARM Cortex-A family of processors and the processor provided by Cavium (TM), Inc

MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, inc., such as mipsparior class P processors; and the like. In some embodiments, system 2000 may not utilize application circuitry 2005, but may include a dedicated processor/controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5 GC.

In some implementations, the application circuitry 2005 can include one or more hardware accelerators, which can be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, and the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, Computer Vision (CV) and/or Deep Learning (DL) accelerators. By way of example, the programmable processing device may be one or more Field Programmable Devices (FPDs), such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or the like; programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (cplds), high capacity PLDs (hcplds), and the like; ASICs, such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable soc (psoc); and so on. In such implementations, the circuitry of the application circuitry 2005 may include logic blocks or logic structures, as well as other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 2005 may include storage units (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic structures, data, etc. in a look-up table (LUT) or the like.

Baseband circuit 2010 may be implemented, for example, as a soldered lower substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. The various hardware electronics of baseband circuit 2010 are discussed below with reference to fig. 22.

The user interface circuit 2050 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with the system 2000 or user interfaces where peripheral components are designed to enable peripheral device interaction with the system 2000. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a speaker or other audio emitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, and the like. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, non-volatile memory ports, Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, audio jacks, power interfaces, and the like.

The Radio Front End Module (RFEM)2015 may include millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separate from the millimeter wave RFEM. RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 22111 of fig. 22 below), and RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In an alternative embodiment, both millimeter-wave and sub-millimeter-wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFEM2015, which incorporates millimeter-wave antennas and sub-millimeter-waves.

The memory circuit 2020 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory including Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and/or Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), and non-volatile memory (NVM) including high speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM), and the like, and may include

And

a three-dimensional (3D) cross point (XPOINT) memory. Memory circuit 2020 may be implemented as one or more of a solder-down packaged integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

The PMIC 2025 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources, such as batteries or capacitors. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of power down (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage) conditions. Power tee circuit 2030 may provide power drawn from a network cable to provide power and data connections to infrastructure device 2000 using a single cable.

The network controller circuit 2035 may provide connectivity to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as ethernet, ethernet over GRE tunnels, ethernet over multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. The network connection may be provided to/from the infrastructure device 2000 via the network interface connector 2040 using a physical connection, which may be electrical (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), optical, or wireless. Network controller circuit 2035 may include one or more special purpose processors and/or FPGAs to communicate using one or more of the protocols described above. In some embodiments, the network controller circuit 2035 may include multiple controllers to provide connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 2045 includes circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted/broadcast by a positioning network of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the united states, the global navigation system in russia (GLONASS), the galileo system in the european union, the beidou navigation satellite system in china, the regional navigation system or the GNSS augmentation system (for example, for indian constellation Navigation (NAVIC), the quasi-zenith satellite system (QZSS) in japan, doppler orbit imaging in france, and satellite integrated radio positioning (DORIS), etc.). The positioning circuitry 2045 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. to facilitate OTA communication) to communicate with components of a positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, positioning circuitry 2045 may include a Micro-technology (Micro-PNT) IC for positioning, navigation, and timing that performs position tracking/estimation using a master timing clock without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 2045 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 2010 and/or the RFEM2015 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuitry 2045 can also provide location data and/or time data to the application circuitry 2005, which can be used by the application circuitry 2005 to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN node 1711, etc.), and so forth.

The components shown in fig. 20 may communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and/or Interconnect (IX) technologies such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), extended ISA (eisa), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), extended peripheral component interconnect (PCI x), PCI Express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a dedicated bus, for example, for use in a SoC-based system. May include other bus/IX systems, e.g. I²C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus.

Fig. 21 illustrates an example of a platform 2100 (or "device 2100") according to various embodiments. In embodiments, the computer platform 2100 may be suitable for use as the UE1701, 1801, 1901, the application server 1730, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. The platform 2100 may include any combination of the components shown in the examples. The components of platform 2100 may be implemented as Integrated Circuits (ICs), portions thereof, discrete electronic devices or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or combinations thereof suitable for computer platform 2100, or as components otherwise incorporated in the chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of FIG. 21 is intended to illustrate a high-level view of the components of computer platform 2100. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and a different arrangement of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

The application circuit 2105 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more LDOs, interrupt controllers such as SPI, I²A serial interface such as C or a universal programmable serial interface module, RTC, timer counters (including interval timers and watchdog timers), universal I/O, memory card controller (e.g., SD MMC or similar), USB interface, MIPI interface and JTAG test access port. Processor (or core) of application circuit 2105) May be coupled with or may include memory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 2100. In some embodiments, the memory/storage elements may be on-chip memory circuits, which may include any suitable volatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of storage device technology (e.g., the technology discussed herein).

The processors of application circuitry 2005 may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, a multi-threaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embedded processor, some other known processing element, or any other suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 2005 may include or may be a dedicated processor/controller that operates in accordance with various embodiments herein.

As an example, the processor of the application circuit 2105 may include a processor based on

Architecture Core^TMProcessors of, e.g. Quark^TM，Atom^TMI3, i5, i7 or MCU grade processors, or may be selected from

Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. obtains another such processor. The processor of the application circuitry 2105 may also be one or more of the following: advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

A processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU);

company a5-a9 processor,

snapdagon of Technologies, Inc^TMProcessors, Texas instruments,

open type multimedia application platform (OMAP)^TMA processor; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, inc, such as MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs, such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M series of processors, licensed by ARM Holdings, Ltd; and so on. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 2105 may be part of a system on a chip (SoC), where the application circuitry 2105 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, e.g.

Edison from Corporation^TMOr Galileo^TMAnd (6) an SoC board.

Additionally or alternatively, the application circuitry 2105 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more Field Programmable Devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs or the like; programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (cplds), high capacity PLDs (hcplds), and the like; ASICs, such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable soc (psoc); and so on. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuitry 2105 may include logic blocks or logic structures, as well as other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 2105 may include a storage unit (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory).

The baseband circuitry 2110 may be implemented, for example, as a solder substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Various hardware electronics for baseband circuit 2110 are discussed below with reference to fig. 22.

The RFEM 2115 may include millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separate from the millimeter wave RFEM. RFICs may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 22111 of fig. 22 below), and RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In an alternative implementation, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFEM 2115, the physical RFEM 2115 containing a millimeter wave antenna and sub-millimeter waves.

Memory circuitry 2120 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a given amount of system memory. As an example, memory circuitry 2120 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory including Random Access Memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (dram), and/or synchronous dynamic RAM (sdram), and non-volatile memory (NVM) including high speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM), and the like. The memory circuit 2120 may be developed according to the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) design based on Low Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR) such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc. Memory circuitry 2120 may be implemented as one or more of the following: solder-down packaged integrated circuits, Single Die Packages (SDP), Dual Die Packages (DDP) or quad die packages (Q17P), slot-in memory modules, dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), including micro DIMMs or MiniDIMMs, and/or soldered to a motherboard via a Ball Grid Array (BGA). In a low power implementation, memory circuit 2120 may be an on-die memory or a register associated with application circuitry 2105. To provide persistent storage of information, such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., memory circuitry 2120 may include one or more mass storage devicesIt may include, inter alia, a Solid State Disk Drive (SSDD), a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), a miniature HDD, a resistance change memory, a phase change memory, a holographic memory or a chemical memory. For example, computer platform 2100 may incorporate information from

And

a three-dimensional (3D) cross point (XPOINT) memory.

Removable storage circuitry 2123 may comprise devices, circuitry, housings/shells, ports or receptacles, etc. for coupling portable data storage devices with platform 2100. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage purposes and may include those used for example for flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, microSD cards, xD picture cards, etc.), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, etc.

Platform 2100 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) for interfacing external devices to platform 2100. External devices connected to the platform 2100 through interface circuits include sensor circuits 2121 and electromechanical components (EMC)2122, as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory circuits 2123.

The sensor circuit 2121 includes devices, modules, or subsystems that are intended to detect events or changes in their environment and to transmit information (sensor data) about the detected events to other devices, modules, subsystems, and the like. Examples of sensors include, inter alia, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) comprising a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis gyroscope and/or magnetometer; a liquid level sensor; a flow sensor; a temperature sensor (e.g., a thermistor); a pressure sensor; an air pressure sensor; a gravimeter; an altimeter; an image capture device (e.g., a camera or a lens-less aperture); a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiation detectors, etc.), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers; a microphone or other similar audio capture device; and so on.

EMC2122 includes devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is to enable platform 2100 to change its state, position, and/or orientation, or to move or control a mechanism or (subsystem). Additionally, EMC2122 may be configured to generate and send messages/signaling to other components of platform 2100 to indicate the current state of EMC 2122. Examples of EMC2122 include one or more power switches, relays including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or Solid State Relays (SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., dc motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and/or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, the platform 2100 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 2122 based on one or more captured events and/or instructions or control signals received from a service provider and/or various clients.

In some embodiments, interface circuitry may connect platform 2100 with positioning circuitry 2145. The positioning circuitry 2145 comprises circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted/broadcast by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include GPS in the united states, GLONASS in russia, galileo in the european union, beidou navigation satellite system in china, regional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), QZSS in japan, DORIS in france, and so on. The positioning circuitry 2145 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. to facilitate OTA communications) to communicate with components of a positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 2145 may comprise a Micro-PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking/estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 2145 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 2010 and/or the RFEM 2115 to communicate with nodes and components of a positioning network. The positioning circuitry 2145 may also provide location data and/or time data to the application circuitry 2105, which the application circuitry 2105 may use to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio base stations), for line-by-line navigation applications, and so forth.

In some embodiments, interface circuitry may connect platform 2100 with Near Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 2140. The NFC circuitry 2140 is configured to provide contactless, short-range communication based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standards, where magnetic field induction is used to communicate between the NFC circuitry 2140 external to the platform 2100 and NFC-enabled devices (e.g., an "NFC contact point"). The NFC circuitry 2140 includes an NFC controller coupled to the antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip/IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuitry 2140 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executable by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executable by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit the short-range radio frequency RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to NFC circuitry 2140, or to activate NFC circuitry 2140 with another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or NFC-enabled POS terminal near platform 2100).

Driver circuitry 2146 may include software and hardware elements that control particular devices embedded in platform 2100, attached to platform 2100, or otherwise communicatively coupled with platform 2100. Driver circuitry 2146 may comprise individual drivers that allow other components of platform 2100 to interact with or control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be present on platform 2100 or connected to platform 2100. For example, driver circuit 2146 can include a display driver to control and allow access to a display device, a touch screen driver to control and allow access to a touch screen interface of platform 2100, a sensor driver to obtain sensor readings of sensor circuit 2121 and control and allow access to sensor circuit 2121, an EMC driver to obtain actuator positions 2122 of the EMC and/or control and allow access to EMC2122, a camera driver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device, and an audio driver to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

A Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC)2125 (also referred to as a "power management circuit 2125") may manage power provided to various components of platform 2100. In particular, with respect to the baseband circuitry 2110, the PMIC 2125 may control power source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging or DC-DC conversion. PMIC 2125 is typically included when platform 2100 is capable of being powered by battery 2130 (e.g., when the device is included in UEs 1701, 1801, 1901).

In some embodiments, PMIC 2125 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of platform 2100. For example, if the platform 2100 is in RRC _ Connected state, which is still Connected to the RAN node to receive traffic for a short time as expected, discontinuous reception mode (DRX) may be entered after a period of inactivity. During this state, the platform 2100 may be powered down for a brief interval of time, thereby conserving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 2100 can transition to an RRC _ Idle state where it is disconnected from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, and the like. The platform 2100 enters a low power state and performs paging during which it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. In this state, the platform 2100 may not be able to receive data; to receive data, it must transition back to the RRC _ Connected state. The additional power-save mode may allow the device to be unavailable to the network for a period of time that exceeds the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is completely inaccessible to the network and may be completely powered down. Any data transmitted during this period will incur a large delay and it is assumed that the delay is acceptable.

A battery 2130 may provide power to the platform 2100, although in some examples, the platform 2100 may be deployed to be deployed in a fixed location and may have a power source coupled to a power grid. Battery 2130 may be a lithium ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, or the like. In some implementations, such as in a V2X application, battery 2130 may be a typical lead-acid automotive battery.

In some embodiments, battery 2130 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a Battery Management System (BMS) or battery monitoring integrated circuit. A BMS may be included in the platform 2100 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 2130. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 2130 to provide fault prediction, such as the state of health (SoH) and the functional state (SoF) of the battery 2130. The BMS may communicate information of the battery 2130 to the application circuitry 2105 or other components of the platform 2100. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 2105 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 2130 or the current from the battery 2130. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 2100 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and the like.

A power block or other power source coupled to the grid may be coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 2130. In some examples, power block XS30 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, e.g., via a loop antenna in computer platform 2100. In these examples, the wireless battery charging circuit may be included in a BMS. The particular charging circuit selected may depend on the size of the battery 2130, and thus the current required. The charging may be performed using an air fuel standard promulgated by the air fuel Alliance (air fuel Alliance), a Qi Wireless charging standard promulgated by the Wireless Power consortium (Wireless Power consortium), or a rezene charging standard promulgated by the Wireless Power consortium (Alliance for Wireless Power).

User interface circuitry 2150 includes various input/output (I/O) devices present in platform 2100 or connected to platform 2100, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with platform 2100 and/or peripheral components. These interfaces are designed to enable peripheral components to interact with platform 2100. The user interface circuit 2150 includes input device circuitry and output device circuitry. The input device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, inter alia, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. Output device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for displaying or otherwise communicating information, such as sensor readings, actuator positions, or other similar information. The output device circuitry may include any number and/or combination of audio and/or visual displays, including, among other things, one or more simple visual outputs/indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g., Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs))) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs, such as a display device or touch screen (e.g., Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), LED display, quantum dot display, projector, etc.), and outputs characters, graphics, multimedia objects, etc. generated or produced by operation of platform 2100. Output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, etc. In some embodiments, the sensor circuit 2121 can be used as an input device circuit (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.), and one or more EMCs can be used as an output device circuit (e.g., an actuator that provides haptic feedback). In another example, an NFC circuit including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled with an antenna element may be included to read an electronic tag and/or connect with another NFC-enabled device. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, non-volatile memory ports, USB ports, audio jacks, power interfaces, and the like.

Although not shown, the components of platform 2100 may communicate with one another using an appropriate bus or Interconnect (IX) technology, which may include a variety of technologies including ISA, EISA, PCI x, PCIe, Time Triggered Protocol (TTP) systems, FlexRay systems, or many other technologies. The bus/IX may be a dedicated bus/IX, e.g. for use in a SoC based system. May include other bus/IX systems, e.g. I²C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus etc..

Fig. 22 illustrates example components of a baseband circuit 22110 and a Radio Front End Module (RFEM)22115 in accordance with various embodiments. Baseband circuit 22110 corresponds to baseband

circuits

2010 and 2110 of fig. 20 and 21, respectively. RFEM 22115 corresponds to RFEM2015 and 2115 of fig. 20 and 21, respectively. As shown, RFEM 22115 may include Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 22106, Front End Module (FEM) circuitry 22108, antenna array 22111 coupled together at least as shown.

The baseband circuitry 22110 includes circuitry and/or control logic configured to perform various radio/network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 22106. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to: signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the modulation/demodulation circuitry of baseband circuitry 22110 may include Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functions. In some embodiments, the encoding/decoding circuitry of baseband circuitry 22110 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functions. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and other suitable functions may be included in other embodiments. Baseband circuitry 22110 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of RF circuitry 22106 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of RF circuitry 22106. The baseband circuitry 22110 is configured to interface with the application circuitry 2005/2105 (see fig. 20 and 21) for generating and processing baseband signals and controlling the operation of the RF circuitry 22106. The baseband circuitry 22110 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and/or control logic of baseband circuitry 22110 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 22104A, a 4G/LTE baseband processor 22104B, a 5G/NR baseband processor 22104C, or some other baseband processor 22104D for other existing generations, generations under development, or to be developed in the future (e.g., sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of the baseband processors 22104A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 22104G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 22104E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 22104A-D may be provided as hardware accelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with instructionsAn appropriate bit stream or logic block stored in each memory cell. In various embodiments, memory 22104G may store program code for a real-time os (rtos) that, when executed by CPU 22104E (or other baseband processor), will cause CPU 22104E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources. Examples of an RTOS may include

Embedded Operating System (OSE) provided^TM，Mentor

Provided nucleous RTOS^TM，Mentor

Multifunctional real-time executor (VRTX) provided by Express

Provided ThreadX^TMFreeRTOS, consisting of

REX OS, provided by Open Kernel (OK)

OKL4 provided or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry 22110 includes one or more audio Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) 22104F. The audio DSP 22104F includes elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, each processor 22104A-22104E includes a respective memory interface to send/receive data to/from memory 22104G. Baseband circuitry 22110 may further include one or more interfaces communicatively coupled to other circuitry/devices, such as interfaces for transmitting/receiving data to/from memory external to baseband circuitry 22110; an application circuit interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuit 2005/2105 of fig. 20-22;an RF circuit interface for transmitting/receiving data to/from the RF circuit 22106 of fig. 22; a wireless hardware connection interface to connect one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) components,

the Low Energy component is a component of the Low Energy,

components and/or others); a power management interface for transmitting/receiving power or control signals to/from the PMIC 2125.

In alternative embodiments (which may be combined with the embodiments described above), baseband circuitry 22110 includes one or more digital baseband systems coupled to each other and to the CPU subsystem, audio subsystem, and interface subsystem through an interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem may also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem through another interconnection subsystem. Each interconnect subsystem may include a bus system, point-to-point connections, a Network On Chip (NOC) fabric, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry (e.g., analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry), analog circuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, and/or other similar components. In an aspect of the disclosure, the baseband circuitry 22110 may include protocol processing circuitry having one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for digital baseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radio front end module 22115).

Although not shown in fig. 22, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 22110 includes a single processing device (e.g., a "multi-protocol baseband processor" or "protocol processing circuitry") for processing one or more wireless communication protocols and a single processing device that implements PHY layer functionality. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implements various protocol layers/entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, when baseband circuitry 22110 and/or RF circuitry 22106 are part of mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellular communication circuitry, the protocol processing circuitry may operate the LTE protocol entity and/or the 5G/NR protocol entity. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry will operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC and NAS functionality. In a second example, when baseband circuitry 22110 and/or RF circuitry 22106 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols. In a second example, the protocol processing circuit will operate Wi-Fi MAC and Logical Link Control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more storage structures (e.g., 22104G) for storing program code and data for operating the protocol functions and one or more processing cores for executing the program code and performing various operations using the data. The baseband circuitry 22110 may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware components of the baseband circuitry 22110 discussed herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder substrate including one or more Integrated Circuits (ICs), a single packaged IC soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one example, the components of baseband circuitry 22110 may be suitably combined in a single chip or chip set, or arranged on the same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 22110 and the RF circuitry 22106 may be implemented together, e.g., a system on a chip (SoC) or a System In Package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the constituent components of baseband circuitry 22110 may be implemented as separate socs communicatively coupled with RF circuitry 22106 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 22106). In yet another example, some or all of the constituent components of baseband circuitry 22110 and application circuitry 2005/2105 may be implemented together as a single SoC mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., "multi-chip package").

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 22110 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 22110 may support communication with an E-UTRAN or other WMAN, WLAN, WPAN. Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 22110 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

The RF circuitry 22106 may enable communication with a wireless network using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 22106 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, and the like to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuitry 22106 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from FEM circuitry 22108 and provide baseband signals to baseband circuitry 22110. RF circuitry 22106 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include: the circuitry up-converts the baseband signal provided by baseband circuitry 22110 and provides an RF output signal to FEM circuitry 22108 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of RF circuit 22106 may include a mixer circuit 22106a, an amplifier circuit 22106b, and a filter circuit 22106 c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of RF circuit 22106 may include a filter circuit 22106c and a mixer circuit 22106 a. RF circuitry 22106 may also include synthesizer circuitry 22106d for synthesizing the frequencies used by mixer circuitry 22106a for the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path may be configured to downconvert RF signals received from FEM circuit 22108 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 22106 d. The amplifier circuit 22106b may be configured to amplify the downconverted signal, and the filter circuit 22106c may be a Low Pass Filter (LPF) or a Band Pass Filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the downconverted signal to produce an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to baseband circuitry 22110 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, although this is not required. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path may comprise a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, mixer circuit 22106a of the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 22106d to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 22108. A baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuitry 22110 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 22106 c.

In some embodiments, mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path and mixer circuit 22106a of the transmit signal path may comprise two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 22106a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 22106a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 22106a of the receive signal path and mixer circuit 22106a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, RF circuitry 22106 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and baseband circuitry 22110 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with RF circuitry 22106.

In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuits may be provided to process signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 22106d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional-N/N +1 synthesizer, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuit 22106d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuit 22106d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by the mixer circuit 22106a of the RF circuit 22106. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 22106d may be a fractional N/N +1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), although this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by the baseband circuit 22110 or the application circuit 2005/2105 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on the channel indicated by the application circuit 2005/2105.

Synthesizer circuit 22106d of RF circuit 22106 may include frequency dividers, Delay Locked Loops (DLLs), multiplexers, and phase accumulators. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual-mode divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a Digital Phase Accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide an input signal by N or N +1 (e.g., based on a carry) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to divide the VCO period into Nd equal phase groups, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. Thus, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 22106d may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with a quadrature generator and frequency divider circuit to produce a plurality of signals at the carrier frequency having a plurality of different phases relative to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, RF circuit 22106 may include an IQ/polarity converter.

FEM circuitry 22108 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 22111, amplify the received signals, and provide amplified versions of the received signals to RF circuitry 22106 for further processing. FEM circuitry 22108 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals provided by RF circuitry 22106 for transmission by one or more antenna elements of antenna array 22111. In various embodiments, amplifying the receive signal path or receive signal path by transmission may be done in RF circuitry 22106 only, in FEM circuitry 22108 only, or in both RF circuitry 22106 and FEM circuitry 22108.

In some embodiments, FEM circuitry 22108 may include TX/RX switches to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. FEM circuitry 22108 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of FEM circuitry 22108 may include an LNA to amplify the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to RF circuitry 22106). The transmit signal path of FEM circuitry 22108 may include a Power Amplifier (PA) to amplify the incoming RF signal (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 22106), and one or more filters to generate the RF signal for subsequent transmission through one or more antenna elements of antenna array 22111.

Antenna array 22111 includes one or more antenna elements, each configured to convert electrical signals into radio waves for propagation in the air and to convert received radio waves into electrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided by baseband circuitry 22110 are converted to analog RF signals (e.g., modulation waveforms) to be amplified and transmitted via antenna elements of antenna array 22111 including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed in a variety of arrangements as is known and/or discussed herein. Antenna array 22111 may include microstrip antennas or printed antennas fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 22111 may be formed as various shapes of metal foils (e.g., patch antennas) and may be coupled with the RF circuitry 22106 and/or the FEM circuitry 22108 using metal transmission lines or the like.

The processor of the application circuit 2005/2105 and the processor of the baseband circuit 22110 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuitry 22110 may be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuitry 2005/2105 may start with received data (e.g., packet data) from these layers and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As referred to herein, layer 3 may include an RRC layer, as described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may comprise the PHY layer of the UE/RAN node, as will be described in further detail below.

Fig. 23 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, in accordance with various embodiments. In particular, fig. 23 includes an arrangement 2300 that illustrates the interconnections between the various protocol layers/entities. The following description of fig. 23 is provided for various protocol layers/entities that operate in conjunction with the 5G/NR system standard and the LTE system standard, although some or all aspects of fig. 23 may be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

The protocol layers of arrangement 2300 may include one or more of PHY2310, MAC2320, RLC 2330, PDCP2340, SDAP2347, RRC 2355 and NAS layer 2357, among other higher layer functions not shown. The protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g.,

items

2359, 2356, 2350, 2349, 2345, 2335, 2325, and 2315 in fig. 23), which may provide communication between two or more protocol layers.

PHY2310 may transmit and receive physical layer signals 2305 that may be received or transmitted from one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signal 2305 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY2310 may further perform link adaptive or Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers (e.g., RRC 2355). 2310 may further perform error detection on the transport channels, Forward Error Correction (FEC) encoding/decoding of the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of the physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping on the physical channels, and MIMO antenna processing. In an embodiment, an instance of PHY2310 may process and provide an indication to a request from an instance of MAC2320 via one or more PHY-SAPs 2315. The request and indication transmitted via the PHY-SAP 2315 may include one or more transport channels, according to some embodiments.

An instance of MAC2320 may process and provide an indication of a request from an instance of RLC 2330 via one or more MAC-SAPs 2325. These requests and indications transmitted via MAC-SAP 2325 may include one or more logical channels. MAC2320 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs to be transmitted to PHY2310 through a transport channel, and demultiplexing MAC SDUs from the TBs onto one or more logical channels. The MAC SDUs are multiplexed to TBs, scheduled information reports, error correction by HARQ and logical channel prioritization, transmitted from the PHY2310 through a transport channel.

The instance of RLC 2330 may process requests from the instance of PDCP2340 and provide indications to the instance of PDCP2340 via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 2335. These requests and indications transmitted via the RLC-SAP 2335 may include one or more RLC channels. RLC 2330 may operate in a variety of operating modes including: transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). RLC 2330 may perform transmission of higher layer Protocol Data Units (PDUs), error correction by automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transmission, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission. RLC 2330 may also perform re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transmission, re-order RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transmission, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect protocol errors for AM data transmission, and perform RLC re-establishment.

One or more instances of PDCP2340 may process and provide indications to one or more packet data convergence protocol service access points (PDCP-SAPs) 2345 of requests from an instance of RRC 2355 and/or an instance of SDAP 2347. These requests and indications communicated via the PDCP-SAP2345 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP2340 may perform header compression and IP data decompression, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-order transmission of higher layer PDUs upon lower layer re-establishment, eliminate duplicate entries of lower layer SDUs mapping to the radio bearer layer of the RLC AM upon lower layer re-establishment, cipher and decipher control plane data, integrity protect and verify control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

An instance of the service data adaptation protocol, SDAP2347, may process and provide indications to one or more higher layer protocol entities via one or more SDAP-SAPs 2349. These requests and indications communicated via the SDAP-SAP 2349 may include one or more QoS flows. The SDAP2347 may map QoS flows to data radio carriers DRB and vice versa, and may also tag QoS flow identifiers QFI in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 2347 may be configured for a single PDU session. In the UL direction, the NG-RAN 1710 can control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two ways, i.e., reflection mapping or explicit mapping. For reflective mapping, the SDAP2347 of the UE1701 may monitor the QFI of the DL packets of each DRB and may apply the same mapping to packets flowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP2347 of the UE1701 may map UL packets belonging to a QoS flow corresponding to the QoS flow ID and PDU session observed in the DL packets for that DRB. To enable reflection mapping, NG-RAN 1910 may label DL packets with QoS flow IDs on the Uu interface. Explicit mapping may involve the RRC 2355 configuring the SDAP2347 with explicit QoS flows as a DRB mapping rule, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 2347. In an embodiment, the SDAP2347 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

RRC 2355 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY2310, MAC2320, RLC 2330, PDCP2340, and SDAP2347, via one or more management service access points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of RRC 2355 may process and provide indications to requests from one or more NAS entities 2357 via one or more RRC-SAPs 2356. The primary services and functions of RRC 2355 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in MIB or SIB associated with NAS), broadcasting of system information related to Access Stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of RRC connections (e.g., RRC connection paging), RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification and RRC connection release between UE1701 and RAN1710, establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point-to-point radio bearers, methods of security function UE measurement reporting including key management, inter-RAT mobility and measurement configuration. The MIB and SIBs may include one or more IEs, each of which may include a separate data field or data structure.

NAS 2357 may form the highest level of the control plane between UE1701 and AMF 1921. NAS 2357 may support mobility for UE1701 and session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between UE1701 and the P-GW in an LTE system.

According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of the arrangement 2300 may be implemented in: UE1701 in NR implementation, RAN node 1711, AMF1921, or MME1821 in LTE implementation, UPF 1902 in NR implementation, or S-GW1822 and P-GW1823 in LTE implementation, etc. for control plane or user plane communication protocol stack between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities, which may be implemented in one or more of the UE1701, the gNB1711, the AMF1921, etc., may communicate with a corresponding peer protocol entity, which may be implemented in or on another device that performs such communication using the services of the corresponding lower layer protocol entity. In some embodiments, the gNB-CU of gNB1711 may host RRC 2355, SDAP2347, and PDCP2340 of the gNB that controls operation of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB1711 may each host RLC 2330, MAC2320, and PHY2310 of gNB 1711.

In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 2357, RRC 2355, PDCP2340, RLC 2330, MAC2320 and PHY 2310. In this example, an upper layer 2360 may be built on top of NAS 2357, which includes IP layer 2361, SCTP 2362 and application layer signaling protocol (AP) 2363.

In NR implementations, AP2363 may be a NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP)2363 for a NG interface 1713 defined between NG-RAN node 1711 and AMF1921, or AP2363 may be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP)2363 for an Xn interface 1712 defined between two or more RAN nodes 1711.

NG-AP 2363 may support the functionality of NG interface 1713 and may include basic procedures (EPs). The NG-AP EP may be a unit of interaction between NG-RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921. The NG-AP 2363 service may include two groups: UE-related services (e.g., UE 1701-related services) and UE-related services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between NG-RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to a NG-RAN node 1711 involved in a specific paging area; and a UE context management function for allowing AMF1921 to establish, modify and/or release UE contexts in AMF1921 and NG-RAN node 1711; the UE1701 mobility function in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HO support of intra-NG-RAN mobility and inter-system HO support of mobility to and from EPS systems; NAS signaling transport function, which is used to transport or reroute NAS messages between UE1701 and AMF 1921; NAS node selection function, which determines the association between AMF1921 and UE 1701; the NG interface management function is used for setting the NG interface and monitoring errors on the NG interface; a warning message transmission function for providing a means of transmitting a warning message or canceling an ongoing warning message broadcast via the NG interface; a configuration transfer function for requesting and transferring RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information, Performance Measurement (PM) data, etc.) between the two RAN nodes 1711 via the CN 1720; and/or other similar functions.

XnAP 2363 may support the functionality of Xn interface 1712 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the NG RAN 1711 (or E-UTRAN 1810), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging, procedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and the like. The XnAP global procedures may include procedures unrelated to the particular UE1701, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, and the like.

In an LTE implementation, AP2363 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP)2363 for an S1 interface 1713 defined between E-UTRAN node 1711 and an MME, or AP2363 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP)2363 for an X2 interface 1712 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 1711.

The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP)2363 may support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP previously discussed, the S1-AP may include the S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an element of interaction between the E-UTRAN node 1711 and the MME1821 within the LTE CN 1720. The S1-AP2363 services may include two groups: UE-related services and non-UE-related services. The functions performed by these services include, but are not limited to: E-UTRAN radio access bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM) and configuration transport.

The X2AP 2363 may support the functionality of the X2 interface 1712 and may include X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. The X2AP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within E-UTRAN 1720, such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, procedures related to dual connectivity, and so forth. The X2AP global procedures may include procedures unrelated to the particular UE1701, such as X2 interface set and reset procedures, load indication procedures, error indication procedures, cell activation procedures, and the like.

The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 2362 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). SCTP 2362 may ensure reliable transfer of signaling messages between RAN node 1711 and AMF 1921/MME 1821 based in part on IP protocols supported by IP 2361. Internet protocol layer (IP)2361 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 2361 may use point-to-point transmission to communicate and transmit PDUs. In this regard, the RAN node 1711 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME/AMF to exchange information.

In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, SDAP2347, PDCP2340, RLC 2330, MAC2320 and PHY 2310. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between the UE1701, the RAN node 1711 and the UPF 1902 in NR implementations, or may be used for communication between the S-GW1822 and the P-GW1823 in LTE implementations. In this example, upper layers 2351 may be built on top of the SDAP2347, and may include a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP/IP)2352, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for a user plane layer (GTP-U)2353, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 2363.

Transport network layer 2354 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and GTP-U2353 may be used on top of UDP/IP layer 2352 (including UDP layer and IP layer) to carry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the "Internet layer") may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets, for example, in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats.

GTP-U2353 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. The user data transmitted may be, for example, data packets in IPv4, IPv6, or PPP format. UDP/IP 2352 may provide a checksum of data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, as well as encryption and authentication of selected data streams. The RAN node 1711 and the S-GW1822 may exchange user-plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 2310), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC2320, RLC 2330, PDCP2340, and/or SDAP 2347), a UDP/IP layer 2352, and a GTP-U2353 using an S1-U interface. The S-GW1822 and the P-GW1823 may exchange user-plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP/IP layer 2352 and a GTP-U2353 using an S5/S8a interface. As previously described, the NAS protocol may support mobility for the UE1701 and session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE1701 and the P-GW 1823.

Further, although not shown in fig. 23, an application layer may exist above the AP2363 and/or the transport network layer 2354. The application layer may be a layer in which the UE1701, RAN node 1711 or other users. The network elements interact with software applications, for example, executed by the application circuit 2005 or application circuit 2105, respectively. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for software applications to interact with the communication system (e.g., baseband circuitry 22110) of the UE1701 or the RAN node 1711. In some implementations, the IP layer and/or the application layer can provide the same interface or functionality similar to layers 5-7 or portions thereof of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (e.g., OSI layer 7-application layer, OSI layer 6-presentation layer, OSI layer 5-session layer).

As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instantiate," etc. may refer to the creation of an instance, while "instance" may refer to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution. Program code. A network instance may refer to information identifying domains that may be used for traffic detection and routing in the case of different IP domains or overlapping IP addresses. A network slice instance may refer to a set of Network Function (NF) instances and resources (e.g., computing, storage, and networking resources) required to deploy the network slice.

With respect to 5G systems (see, e.g., fig. 19), a network slice always includes a RAN part and a CN part. The support of network slicing relies on the following principles: traffic of different slices is handled by different PDU sessions. The network may implement different network slices by scheduling and providing different L1/L2 configurations. If provided by NAS, the UE1901 provides assistance information for network slice selection in an appropriate RRC message. Although the network may support a large number of slices, the UE need not support more than 8 slices simultaneously.

The network slice may include the CN 1920 control plane and user plane NF, NG-RAN 1910 in the serving PLMN, and N3IWF functionality in the serving PLMN. Each network slice may have a different single NSSAI (S-NSSAI) and/or may have a different slice/service type SST. The NSSAI comprises one or more S-NSSAIs, and each network slice is uniquely identified by an S-NSSAI. The network slice may be different for supported functions and network function optimizations, and/or multiple network slice instances may deliver the same services/functions but for different groups of UEs 1901 (e.g., enterprise users). For example, each network slice may deliver a different commitment service and/or may be dedicated to a particular customer or enterprise. In this example, each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI with the same SST but with a different slice specifier. In addition, a single UE may be simultaneously provisioned with one or more network slice instances via a 5G AN and associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. Further, an AMF1921 instance serving a single UE1901 may belong to each network slice instance serving that UE.

Network slices in NG-RAN 1910 relate to RAN slice awareness. RAN slice awareness includes differential handling of traffic for different network slices, which have been pre-configured. Slice awareness in NG-RAN 1910 is introduced at the PDU session level by indicating the S-NSSAI corresponding to the PDU session in all signaling including PDU session resource information. How the NG-RAN 1910 supports segment enablement in terms of NG-RAN functionality (e.g., a set of network functions that includes each segment) depends on the implementation. The NG-RAN 1910 selects the RAN part of the network slice using assistance information provided by the UE1901 or 5GC1920 that explicitly identifies one or more pre-configured network slices in the PLMN. NG-RAN 1910 also supports resource management and policy enforcement between slices according to SLAs. A single NG-RAN node may support multiple slices, and NG-RAN 1910 may also apply the appropriate RRM strategies for SLAs appropriately to each supported slice. NG-RAN 1910 may also support intra-chip QoS differentiation.

The NG-RAN 1910 may also use the UE assistance information during initial attachment to select AMF1921 (if available). The NG-RAN 1910 uses the assistance information to route the initial NAS to the AMF 1921. If the NG-RAN 1910 cannot use the assistance information to select AMF1921, or the UE1901 does not provide any such information, the NG-RAN 1910 sends NAS signaling to the default AMF1921, which default AMF1921 may be in the pool of AMFs 1921. For subsequent access, the UE1901 provides the temporary ID assigned to the UE1901 by the 5GC1920 to enable the NG-RAN 1910 and routes the NAS message to the appropriate AMF1921 as long as the temporary ID is valid. The NG-RAN 1910 knows and can reach the AMF1921 associated with the temporary ID. Otherwise, the initial attach method will be applied.

NG-RAN 1910 supports resource isolation between tiles. NG-RAN 1910 resource isolation may be implemented by RRM policies and protection mechanisms to avoid a shortage of shared resources if one slice violates another slice's service level agreement. In some embodiments, NG-RAN 1910 resources may be fully dedicated to a certain slice. How the NG-RAN 1910 supports resource isolation depends on the implementation.

Some slices may only be available in part of the network. The perception in the NG-RAN 1910 of the slice supported in its neighbor cells may be beneficial for inter-frequency mobility in connected mode. Slice availability may not change within the registration area of the UE. NG-RAN 1910 and 5GC1920 are responsible for handling service requests for slices that may or may not be available in a given area. Allowing or denying access to a slice may depend on a number of factors, such as support for the slice, availability of resources, support for requested services by NG-RAN 1910.

The UE1901 may be associated with multiple network slices simultaneously. In the case where UE1901 is associated with multiple tiles at the same time, only one signaling connection is maintained, and for intra-frequency cell reselection, UE1901 attempts to camp on the best cell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, dedicated priorities may be used to control the frequency on which UE1901 camps. The 5GC1920 will verify that the UE1901 has the right to access the network slice. Prior to receiving the initial context setup request message, the NG-RAN 1910 may be allowed to apply some temporary/local policy based on knowledge of the particular slice that the UE1901 is requesting access. During initial context setup, NG-RAN 1910 is informed that a slice of its resources is being requested.

The NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize (optionally performed by proprietary hardware) one or more NFs onto physical resources that contain a combination of industry standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components/functions.

Fig. 24 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the following, according to some example embodiments. The methods discussed herein. In particular, fig. 24 shows a schematic diagram of a hardware resource 2400, the hardware resource 2400 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 2410, one or more memory/storage devices 2420, and one or more communication resources 2430, each of which may be communicatively coupled via. For embodiments utilizing node virtualization (e.g., NFV), hypervisor 2402 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/subslices to utilize hardware resources 2400.

Processor 2410 may include, for example, processor 2412 and processor 2414. Processor 2410 can be, for example, a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, or a complex instruction. A set computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a DSP (e.g., baseband processor), an ASIC, an FPGA, a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor (including the processors discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 2420 may include a main memory, a disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage 2420 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid state memory, and the like.

Communication resources 2430 can include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 2404 or one or more peripheral devices 2408 via a network 2408A plurality of databases 2406 are in communication. For example, communication resource 2430 can include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling via USB), a cellular communication component, an NFC component,

(or

Low power consumption) components are used in the system,

components and other communication components.

The instructions 2450 may include software, programs, applications, applets, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 2410 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 2450 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processor 2410 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), the memory/storage 2420, or any suitable combination thereof. Further, any portion of the instructions 2450 may be communicated to the hardware resource 2400 from any combination of the peripherals 2404 or the database 2406. Thus, the memory of the processor 2410, memory/storage 2420, peripherals 2404, and database 2406 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, procedures, and/or methods as set forth in the example section below. For example, baseband circuitry as described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc., as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures, can be configured to operate in accordance with one or more examples set forth below in the examples section.

Examples of the invention

Example 1 may include resource allocation in a slot of an NR side link of a specific physical channel structure and introduction of a corresponding procedure to support HARQ feedback.

Example 2 may include a Physical Sidelink Feedback Channel (PSFCH) resource allocation scheme to support HARQ-ACK and feedback of HARQ-NACK.

Example 3 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting different numbers of symbols and combinations with different psch/PSCCH multiplexing options, which involves:

example 3a relates to the resource allocation of example 3, wherein one or more symbols are used;

example 3b relates to the resource allocation of example 3, wherein the time gap of at least one symbol is included before transmission;

example 3c relates to the resource allocation of example 3, wherein the psch/PSCCH are time multiplexed;

example 3d relates to the resource allocation of example 3, wherein the psch/PSCCH is frequency multiplexed;

example 3e relates to the resource allocation of example 3, wherein the psch/PSCCH is partially frequency multiplexed, partially time multiplexed;

example 3f relates to the resource allocation of example 3a, wherein the symbol is a repetition of one symbol;

example 3g relates to the resource allocation of example 3a, wherein the one or more symbols are of an AGC distortion type;

example 3h relates to the resource allocation in examples 3a-3g, wherein the psch has a long duration; and/or

Example 3i relates to the resource allocation of examples 3a-3g, wherein the psch has a short duration.

Example 4 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting different periodicities and time intervals between PSSCH and feedback in a respective PSFCH, involving:

example 4a relates to the resource allocation of example 3, periodically every K slots;

example 4b relates to the PSFCH period K being configured as part of a (pre-) configuration of a resource pool in a carrier or as part of an RRC configuration;

example 4c involves not committing to PSFCH resources if configuration is not provided;

example 4c relates to the time interval between psch-PSFCH being bounded by the physical channel processing time; and/or

Example 4e relates to the time interval between psch-PSFCH being different for different sub-carrier intervals (SCS).

Example 5 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting different numbers of bits for HARQ-ACK and HARQ-NACK, involving:

example 5a relates to the number of bits supported by the PSFCH depending on the period K; and/or

Example 5b relates to the number of bits supported by the PSFCH being equal to the period K.

Example 6 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting different options to select sequence and time-frequency resources, involving:

example 6a involves the selection of a sequence depending on the source ID (e.g., L1 ID);

example 6b relates to selection of time-frequency resources depending on the source ID;

example 6c involves the selection of a sequence depending on the target ID; and/or

Example 6d relates to the selection of time-frequency resources depending on the target ID.

Example 7 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting different numbers of frequency resources, involving:

example 7a relates to the resource allocation in example 7, wherein a plurality of Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) are used;

example 7b relates to the resource allocation in example 6, wherein a portion of a Physical Resource Block (PRB) allocation, also referred to as a sub-PRB allocation, is employed; and/or

Example 7b relates to the resource allocation in example 6b, wherein a portion of the PRBs or Resource Elements (REs) in the sub-PRB allocation are divided into ACK and NACK groups.

Example 8 may include a PSFCH resource allocation scheme supporting multiplexing of multiple HARQ feedback, involving:

example 8a involves the resource location of the PSFCH being indicated, e.g., explicitly indicated in the SCI;

example 8b relates to the resource allocation of example 7, wherein the multiplexed HARQ feedback corresponds to the pschs received in different slots;

example 8c relates to the resource allocation of example 7, wherein the multiplexed HARQ feedback corresponds to a psch received in different UEs;

example 8d relates to the resource allocation in example 7, which combines example 7a and example 7 b;

example 8e relates to PSFCHs from different UEs and time slots using orthogonal sequences and/or time-frequency resources;

example 8f involves taking different rotations of the base sequence depending on the number of bits supported;

example 8g involves using different concatenations of base sequences, depending on the number of bits supported;

example 8h relates to a combination of examples 8e-8 f; and/or

Example 8i relates to multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs from different UEs in an identifiable group.

Example 9 may include a transmitter supporting one or more HARQ processes, the transmitter being aware of the functionality of the receiver when managing its HARQ processes.

Example 10 may include a receiver supporting one or more HARQ processes, the UE may discard the PSFCH if the number of processes exceeds a UE capability of simultaneous feedback based processes.

Example 11 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing any one of examples 1-10 or a method related thereto or one or more elements of any other method or process described herein.

Example 12 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, when executed by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or in connection with any of examples 1-10 or any other method or process described herein.

Example 13 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform any one of examples 1-10 or a method related thereto, or one or more elements of any other method or process described herein.

Example 14 may include, or be part of, a method, technique, or process as described in or associated with any of examples 1-10.

Example 15 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the methods, techniques, or processes described in any one of examples 1-10 or portions related thereto or a portion thereof.

Example 16 may include or be associated with a signal, or a portion thereof, as any one of examples 1-10.

Example 17 may include, or be part of, a datagram, packet, frame, segment, Protocol Data Unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples 1-10 or otherwise described in this disclosure.

Example 18 may include a signal encoded with data or portions thereof as described in or relating to any of examples 1-10, or data otherwise described in this disclosure.

Example 19 may include a signal, or a portion thereof, encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, Protocol Data Unit (PDU) or message as any one of examples 1-10 or associated therewith or described in this disclosure.

Example 20 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform any one of, or a method, technique, or process related to, the examples of examples 1-10 or portions thereof.

Example 21 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process, or a portion thereof, of examples 1-10 or in connection with any of examples 1-10.

Example 22 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 23 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 24 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

Example 25 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Any of the above examples can be combined with any other example (or combination of examples) unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the implementations to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Term(s) for

For purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

As used herein, the term "circuitry" refers to hardware components, such as, for example, electronic circuitry, logic circuitry, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Device (FPD) (e.g., a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a complex PLD (cpld), a high-capacity PLD (hcpld) configured to provide the above-described functionality, a structured ASIC or programmable SoC, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), or the like. In some embodiments, circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term "circuitry" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) and program code for performing the functions of the program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term "processor circuit" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes a circuit capable of sequentially and automatically performing a series of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing and/or transmitting digital data. The term "processor circuit" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, physical Central Processing Units (CPUs), single-core processors, dual-core processors, tri-core processors, quad-core processors, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions (e.g., program code, software modules, and/or functional processes). The terms "application circuitry" and/or "baseband circuitry" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuitry" and may be referred to as "processor circuitry".

As used herein, the term "interface circuit" refers to, is part of, or includes a circuit capable of exchanging information between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I/O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, and the like.

The term "user equipment" or "UE" as used herein refers to devices having radio communication capabilities and may describe remote users of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous with client, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote device, and may be referred to as "UE". Furthermore, the terms "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device, including wireless communication interfaces.

The term "network element" as used herein refers to a physical or virtualized device and/or infrastructure for providing wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network device, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized virtual network function VNF, network function virtualization infrastructure NFVI, etc.

The term "computer system" as used herein refers to any type of interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. In addition, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to various components communicatively coupled to each other on a computer. Moreover, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to multiple computing devices and/or multiple computing systems communicatively coupled to one another and configured to share computing and/or network resources.

As used herein, the terms "device," "computer device," and the like refer to a computer device or computer system having program code (e.g., software or firmware) specially designed to provide specific computing resources. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image implemented by a virtual machine hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer device, or is dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

As used herein, the term "resource" refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, processor/CPU time, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator load, hardware time or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channel/link assignments, throughput, memory usage, storage, networks, databases and applications, units of workload, and the like. "hardware resources" may refer to computational, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware elements. "virtual resources" may refer to computing, storage, and/or network resources provided by a virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. The term "network resource" or "communication resource" may refer to a resource that is accessible by: computer device/system over a communication network. The term "system resource" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service, and may include computing and/or network resources. A system resource can be thought of as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server, where the system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term "channel" as used herein refers to any tangible or intangible transmission medium to communicate data or streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and/or equivalent to "communication channel," "data communication channel," "transmission channel," "data transmission channel," "access channel," "data access channel," "link," "data link," "carrier," "radio frequency carrier," and/or any other similar term denoting the path or medium through which data is communicated. In addition, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection between two devices over a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The term "instantiation" or the like as used herein refers to the creation of an instance. An "instance" also refers to a specific occurrence of an object, such as might occur during execution of program code.

The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other but yet still co-operate or interact with each other, and/or that one or more elements are coupled or connected between what is referred to as being coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with each other through communications, including through wires or other interconnection connections, through wireless communications channels or ink, or the like.

The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the respective content of an information element or a data element containing content.

The term "SMTC" refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by an SSB-measurementtimingtonfiguration.

The term "SSB" refers to the SS/PBCH block.

The term "master cell" refers to a master cell group, MCG, cell operating on a master frequency, where a UE performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

The term "primary secondary cell group SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when performing a reconfiguration procedure with synchronization for DC operation.

The term "second cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources for a UE configured with CA over a dedicated cell.

The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells that includes the PSCell for DC-configured UEs and zero or more secondary cells.

The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell of a UE in RRC _ CONNECTED that is not configured with CA/DC, and only one serving cell includes the primary cell.

The term "serving cell" or "serving cell" refers to a set of cells including one or more special cells and all secondary cells of a UE in RRC _ CONNECTED with CA/configuration.

The term "special cell" refers to either the PCell of a DC operated MCG or the PSCell of an SCG; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to Pcell.

The foregoing description of one or more embodiments provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the disclosure to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments of the disclosure.

Claims

1. An apparatus of a User Equipment (UE), comprising:

a transceiver that receives side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH); and

a processor operatively connected to the transceiver, the processor identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with an SFCI;

wherein the transceiver further transmits or retransmits the TB to the other UE over a sidelink; and is

The SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a time gap of at least one symbol is included prior to transmission over the sidelink.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the SFCI is allocated to the psch and PSCCH, which are time division multiplexed or frequency division multiplexed.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the SFCI is allocated to the psch and PSCCH, which are partially frequency division multiplexed and partially time division multiplexed.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the SFCI is allocated to a PSFCH, and the PSFCH is transmitted in one or more symbols within a slot.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the one or more symbols comprise a repetition of one symbol.

7. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the one or more symbols are for Automatic Gain Control (AGC) establishment purposes.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine that no configuration for a PFSCH is provided and to determine not to afford PSFCH resources based on not providing the configuration.

9. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein a time gap between the PSSCH and the associated PSFCH is bounded by a processing time of the physical channel.

10. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein a time gap between a PSSCH and an associated PSFCH is different for different subcarrier spacing (SCS).

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein transmission over the sidelink supports different options to select a sequence and time-frequency resources, the selection of the sequence depending on a source Identification (ID) or a target ID, and the selection of the time-frequency resources depending on a source ID or a target ID.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein transmissions over the sidelink support different numbers of frequency resources, and wherein sub-resource block (PRB) allocations are formed in multiples of a PRB.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, in which a portion of PRBs are used and a portion of PRBs or Resource Elements (REs) in a sub-PRB allocation are grouped into ACK and NACK groups.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein HARQ feedback is multiplexed corresponding to pschs received in different time slots or from different UEs.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein PSFCHs from different UEs and slots use orthogonal sequences and/or time-frequency resources.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein different rotations or different concatenations of base sequences are employed depending on the number of bits supported.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the multiplexing of HARQ-ACKs is from different UEs in an identifiable group.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a resource location of a PSFCH is explicitly indicated in Sidelink Control Information (SCI).

19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the transceiver is aware of receiver capabilities when managing HARQ processes.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the processor is further configured to: based on the number of in-process procedures for simultaneous feedback exceeding the UE capability, the PSFCH is discarded.

21. An apparatus comprising a memory and a processor, wherein:

the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform the steps of:

receiving, at a User Equipment (UE), side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH);

identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with the SFCI; and

transmitting or retransmitting the TB to the other UE over a sidelink;

wherein the SFCI carries feedback of hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) or hybrid automatic repeat request non-acknowledgement (HARQ-NACK).

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the PSFCH has a long or short duration.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the transmission of the PSFCH is allocated periodically every K slots.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the PSFCH has a period K configured as part of a configuration of a resource pool in a carrier or as part of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) configuration.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the number of bits supported by the PSFCH depends on or is equal to the period K.

26. A method of transmitting a Transport Block (TB) at a User Equipment (UE), the method comprising:

receiving side link feedback control information (SFCI) from another UE, the side link feedback control information (SFCI) being allocated to at least one of a physical side link feedback channel (PSFCH), a physical side link control channel (PSCCH), and a physical side link shared channel (PSSCH);

identifying a Transport Block (TB) associated with the SFCI; and

transmitting or retransmitting the TB to the other UE over a sidelink;

27. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the transmission method of claim 26.