WO2017136004A1

WO2017136004A1 - Systems and methods for flexible time-domain resource mapping for npdcch and npdsch in nb-iot systems

Info

Publication number: WO2017136004A1
Application number: PCT/US2016/055068
Authority: WO
Inventors: Debdeep CHATTERJEE; Ralf Bendlin; Seunghee Han
Original assignee: Intel IP Corporation
Priority date: 2016-02-05
Filing date: 2016-10-01
Publication date: 2017-08-10
Also published as: CN108541359B; HK1258303A1; CN108541359A

Abstract

Techniques for providing flexible time-domain resource mapping are provided. Narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) user equipment (UE) can be provided with information relating to discontinuous reception of a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a corresponding narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH). Available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH can be provided for the NB-IoT UE or a group of NB-IoT UEs having similar coverage conditions. A flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH can also be provided.

Description

SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR FLEXIBLE TIME-DOMAIN RESOURCE MAPPING FOR NPDCCH AND NPDSCH IN NB-IOT SYSTEMS

RELATED CASE

This application claims priority to United States Provisional Patent Application Number 62/292,038, filed February 5, 2016, the entirety of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments herein generally relate to communications between devices in narrowband wireless communications networks.

BACKGROUND

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduced a narrowband Internet-of- Things (NB-IoT) design into its Release 13 specifications of the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless mobile communications standard. For a NB-IoT device that may operate in poor coverage conditions, transmissions to the NB-IoT device may need to be repeated. Repeating transmissions to certain NB-IoT devices to ensure reception may block transmissions to other NB-IoT devices that may not require repeated transmission. Accordingly, new techniques to service NB-IoT devices in poor coverage areas without detrimentally affecting transmissions to NB-IoT devices in better coverage areas may be needed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary operating environment.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary transmission scheme.

FIG. 4 illustrates a second embodiment of a logic flow.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a storage medium.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a first device.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a second device.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a wireless network.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments may be generally directed to techniques for providing flexible time- domain resource mapping. NB-IoT user equipment (UE) can be provided with information relating to discontinuous reception of a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a corresponding narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH). Available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH can be provided for the NB-IoT UE or a group of NB-IoT UEs having similar coverage conditions. A flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH can also be provided. Other embodiments are described and claimed. Various embodiments may comprise one or more elements. An element may comprise any structure arranged to perform certain operations. Each element may be implemented as hardware, software, or any combination thereof, as desired for a given set of design parameters or performance constraints. Although an embodiment may be described with a limited number of elements in a certain topology by way of example, the embodiment may include more or less elements in alternate topologies as desired for a given implementation. It is worthy to note that any reference to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment," "in some

embodiments," and "in various embodiments" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

The techniques disclosed herein may involve transmission of data over one or more wireless connections using one or more wireless mobile broadband technologies. For example, various embodiments may involve transmissions over one or more wireless connections according to one or more 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 3GPP Long Term

Evolution (LTE), and/or 3GPP LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technologies and/or standards, including their revisions, progeny and variants - including 4G and 5G wireless networks.

Various embodiments may involve transmissions over one or more wireless connections according to one or more narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) technologies and/or standards such as, for example, the 3GPP NB-IoT design introduced into the Release 13 specifications of the LTE wireless mobile communications standard. The 3GPP LTE NB-IoT specifications define a Radio Access Technology (RAT) for a cellular Internet-of-Things (CIoT) based on a non-backward-compatible variant of the evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) standard specifically tailored towards improved indoor coverage, support for a massive number of low throughput devices, low delay sensitivity, ultra-low device complexity and cost, low device power consumption, and optimized network architecture.

Various embodiments may additionally or alternatively involve transmissions according to one or more Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)/Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), and/or GSM with General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) system (GSM/GPRS) technologies and/or standards, including their revisions, progeny and variants.

Examples of wireless mobile broadband technologies and/or standards may also include, without limitation, any of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 wireless broadband standards such as IEEE 802.16m and/or 802.16p, International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-ADV), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and/or WiMAX II, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 (e.g., CDMA2000 lxRTT, CDMA2000 EV-DO, CDMA EV-DV, and so forth), High Performance Radio

Metropolitan Area Network (HIPERMAN), Wireless Broadband (WiBro), High Speed

Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), High Speed Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Packet Access (HSOPA), High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technologies and/or standards, including their revisions, progeny and variants.

Some embodiments may additionally or alternatively involve wireless communications according to other wireless communications technologies and/or standards. Examples of other wireless communications technologies and/or standards that may be used in various

embodiments may include, without limitation, other IEEE wireless communication standards such as the IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802. l lg, IEEE 802.11η, IEEE 802.Hu, IEEE 802.1 lac, IEEE 802. Had, IEEE 802.11af, and/or IEEE 802.11ah standards, High-Efficiency Wi-Fi standards developed by the IEEE 802.11 High Efficiency WLAN (HEW) Study Group, Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA) wireless communication standards such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Direct Services, Wireless Gigabit (WiGig), WiGig Display Extension (WDE), WiGig Bus Extension (WBE), WiGig Serial Extension (WSE) standards and/or standards developed by the WFA Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) Task Group, machine-type communications (MTC) standards such as those embodied in 3GPP Technical Report (TR) 23.887, 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 22.368, and/or 3GPP TS 23.682, and/or near-field communication (NFC) standards such as standards developed by the NFC Forum, including any revisions, progeny, and/or variants of any of the above. The embodiments are not limited to these examples.

In addition to transmission over one or more wireless connections, the techniques disclosed herein may involve transmission of content over one or more wired connections through one or more wired communications media. Examples of wired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads, printed circuit board (PCB), backplane, switch fabric, semiconductor material, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, and so forth. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

Conventional techniques may be based on a scheduling window concept to provide means of supporting discontinuous transmissions for NPDCCH and NPDSCH. For the scheduling window based approach - a certain time window is defined that always comprises of a first set of subframes that may carry NPDCCH and a second set of subframes carrying NPDSCH, and this pattern is repeated. The disclosed techniques for discontinuous transmissions for NPDCCH and NPDSCH provided herein provide enhanced and improved flexibility. The disclosed techniques provided herein allow decoupling of sets of subframes used for control and data transmission. The disclosed techniques provided herein also allow flexibility in terms of time domain multiplexing of different UEs via different configurations of available downlink (DL) subframes for each UE for NB-PDCCH and/or NB-PDSCH.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary operating environment 100 such as may be representative of some embodiments in which techniques for discontinuous mapping of time-domain resources may be implemented. The operating environment 100 can include a mobile device 102 and a cellular base station 104. The operating environment 100 can be considered to be a portion of a network enabling wireless communications between the mobile device 102 and the base station 104. The mobile device 102 can communicate with the base station 104 over a wireless communications interface 106. The mobile device 102 can be any mobile computing device capable of communicating wirelessly with one or more wireless communication networks. As an example, the mobile device 102 can be an IoT device capable of communicating wirelessly over a relatively narrowband range of frequencies with the cellular base station 104. The mobile device 102 can be a user equipment (UE). The base station 104 can be a cellular base station such as, for example, an evolved node B (eNB). The wireless communications interface 106 can be, for example, a wireless interface for any of the wireless networks or standards described herein including, for example, a 4G, LTE, or 5G wireless network, or, in particular, an NB-IoT technology and/or standard (e.g., the 3GPP LTE NB-IoT standard). As an example, the mobile device 102 can be a smart meter that can be connected to or incorporated into a larger device for communicating information about the associated device (and therefore can be intended to be immobile or fixed to the larger device). The mobile device 102 and the base station 104 can implement the techniques for discontinuous mapping of time-domain resources described herein.

The operating environment 100, including its constituent components including the mobile device 102 and the base station 104, can operate according to the 3GPP LTE NB-IoT standard. The operating environment 100, the mobile device 102, and the base station 104 can support, for example, three different modes of operation, namely, stand-alone, guard-band, and in-band mode of operation. For the stand-alone and guard-band modes of operation, all resources within the NB-IoT carrier can be available for transmission of NB-IoT signals and channels. An NB-IoT carrier can generally comprise one legacy LTE Physical Resource Block (PRB) corresponding to a system bandwidth of 180 kHz having a subcarrier spacing of 15kHz. LTE NB-IoT (or NB- LTE) can be based on Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in the downlink (DL) and Single-Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) in the uplink (UL).

The NB-IoT physical layer design that can be used in the operating environment 100 can use a subset of the channels defined for legacy LTE systems. Other channels may not be defined for NB-IoT systems. An NB-IoT UE (e.g., the mobile device 102) may perform a cell search to identify a suitable cell to connect to the Internet. In a first step, the NB-IoT UE 102 can attempt to detect a narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal (NB-PSS). The NB-IoT UE 102 may also use the NB-PSS to synchronize its clock with the NB-IoT network and to detect the symbol boundaries of the OFDM waveforms. In a second step, the NB-IoT UE 102 can attempt to obtain downlink subframe and frame timing as well as the Physical Cell ID (PCI) of the NB-IoT carrier using a narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal (NB-SSS). From the cell ID and the radio frame synchronization, the UE 102 can proceed to decode the narrowband Physical Broadcast Channel (NB-PBCH) which may contain scheduling information for additional system information transmissions. Acquiring the NB-IoT system information will enable the NB-IoT UE 102 to initiate a Random Access (RA) procedure to attach to the NB-IoT network. The network can respond to the random access procedure with a Random Access Response (RAR). The random access procedure allows the network to configure the NB-IoT UE 102 for communication with the network and may comprise a contention resolution procedure. After connection establishment, the network can configure the NB-IoT UE 102 with cell-specific and UE-specific Radio Resource Control (RRC) parameters to control transmissions of the NB-IoT UE 02 and also reception behavior.

Communication between the NB-IoT UE 102 and the network (via and including the base station 104) can be scheduled by a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) (with the possible exception of the Random Access Channel (RACH)). The NPDCCH can convey Downlink Control Information (DCI) from the eNodeB 104 to the NB-IoT UE 102 that can schedule narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) and/or narrowband physical uplink shared channel (NPUSCH) transmissions in the downlink and uplink, respectively. Other channels may not be needed in an NB-LTE system but are not precluded.

Demodulation of a narrowband physical broadcasting channel (NPBCH), the NPDCCH, and/or the NPDSCH may be based on Cell-Specific Reference Signals (CRS), Demodulation Reference Signals (DMRS), or Narrowband Reference Signals (NB-RS). Moreover, different channels may be modulated using different reference signals. Lastly, a single channel may be demodulated using several reference signals. For example, the NPBCH may be demodulated using NB-RS whereas the NPDCCH may be demodulated using CRS. In a different example, the NPDCCH may be demodulated using CRS when the NB-IoT UE 102 is in good coverage conditions whereas other NB-IoT UEs (not shown in FIG. 1 for simplicity) may use both CRS and NB-RS to demodulate the NPDCCH.

With reference to the NPDCCH, irrespective of its detailed physical layer (PHY) design, mechanisms to allow an NB-IoT UE (e.g., the mobile device 102) to decode the NPDCCH without prior knowledge of the physical resources used for transmission of the NPDCCH may be needed. Unlike the NPDSCH and the NPUSCH, whose transmissions are scheduled by DCI comprising the resource allocation and Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) scheme of the transmission, the NB-IoT UE 102 may need to decode the NPDCCH without such a priori knowledge.

Assuming a fixed modulation scheme for the NPDCCH (e.g., Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)) and deterministic payload sizes of the DCI, the eNB scheduler can adapt the code rate of a NPDCCH transmission by dynamically changing the number of Resource Elements (REs) in the time-frequency grid allocated to a given NPDCCH. The NB-IoT UE 102, in attempting to decode the NPDCCH, can typically blindly decode a defined set of physical resources called a Search Space (SS) for possible NPDCCH transmissions whereby a NPDCCH is successfully decoded when the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) passes for a NPDCCH candidate.

Search spaces can be considered to be logical concepts that are mapped to physical resources by means of Control Channel Elements (CCEs). Herein, narrowband control channel elements (NCCEs) can denote CCEs used to define the mapping to physical resource elements for the NPDCCH. In particular, a NB-IoT UE (e.g., the mobile device 102) can attempt to decode a NPDCCH for different code rate hypotheses called Aggregation Levels (ALs) whereby each AL maps to different number of NCCEs assumed for transmission of the NPDCCH.

Additionally each set of NCCEs in a subframe can be repeated multiple times according to the Repetition Level (RL). In other words, NPDCCH candidates are defined as a function of both the AL, a starting NCCE index, and RL of a given NPDCCH candidate, m.

The number of candidates (namely, blind decoding attempts) for a given AL is a priori known to the UE 102 as is the search space definition. Furthermore, the search space definition may comprise a hashing function to randomize CCE indices across subframes to prevent blocking among different NB-IoT UEs. To further handle the blocking aspect for both NPDCCH and NPDSCH transmissions, the NPDCCH and NPDSCH may be mapped onto a discontinuous set of subframes (e.g., in time), at least for UEs in extended or extreme coverage conditions. In one example, these coverage conditions could be mapped to 154 dB and 164 dB Maximum Coupling Loss (MCL). Further, flexible indication of the time-domain resources via flexible indication of the starting subframe of the scheduled NPDSCH can further provide scheduling flexibility considering the limited amount of resources available in the frequency domain for each subframe.

Techniques described herein facilitate such flexibility via support of discontinuous transmissions for NPDCCH and NPDSCH and flexible time-domain scheduling for NPDSCH.

As mentioned above, for NB-IoT systems, limited resources may be available in the frequency domain (e.g., 1 PRB spanning 180 kHz). As a result, for NB-IoT systems, there may be a reliance on time-division multiplexing (TDM)-based multiplexing between downlink (DL) transmissions of the NPDCCH and NPDSCH for same or different UEs (e.g., the mobile device 102). Furthermore, in order to provide coverage enhancements for UEs in poor channel conditions, the NPDCCH and NPDSCH transmissions may need to be repeated multiple times. For transmissions of moderately large payloads (e.g., -500 to 1000 bits of information), a single NPDSCH transport block (TB) may also be mapped to multiple DL subframes.

The NPDCCH can be transmitted using one or two NB-CCEs in a subframe that can be repeated in subsequent subframes to provide required coverage. While for UEs in good coverage, the NPDCCH transmissions of up to two such UEs may be multiplexed via FDM within a subframe, with machine-type communication (MTC)-enabled user PDCCH signals (M-PDCCH signals with AL equal to 2 may be multiplexed via TDM.

Further, in order to reduce the number of time domain repetitions needed for a UE to receive NPDSCH, the NPDSCH may occupy all available resources in a PRB-pair for each subframe - i.e., no FDM may be used between NPDCCH and NPDSCH or between two

NPDSCH transmissions.

In view of this, as described above, in order to provide sufficient scheduling flexibility and avoid blocking of NPDCCH or NPDSCH transmissions by NPDCCH or NPDSCH transmissions to UEs that may require large number of repetitions/subframes, discontinuous mapping of time- domain resources at the subframe level may be used for both NPDCCH and NPDSCH transmissions. Additional flexibility can be further provided by allowing a flexible time gap between the NB -PDCCH and the scheduled (associated) NB-PDSCH instead of a fixed time gap.

Accordingly, provided herein are techniques for providing discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for NPDCCH and NPDSCH. In various embodiments, bitmap-based mechanisms can be used. The embodiments and techniques described herein however are not so limited. Further, provided herein are techniques for providing flexible time-domain resource allocation with a flexible gap between NPDCCH and NPDSCH.

In various embodiments, techniques are providing for providing sufficient scheduling flexibility and avoid blocking of NPDCCH and/or NPDSCH transmissions to other UEs by NPDCCH or NPDSCH transmissions to UEs that require large number of repetitions/subframes .

In various embodiments, to realize discontinuous resource allocation in time- domain, a UE-specific or a UE-group-specific bitmap-based configuration of available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be utilized. For the UE-group-specific options, either all UEs in the cell or UEs with similar coverage classes may be provided with a common configuration.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a logic flow 200 that may be representative of the implementation of one or more of the disclosed techniques for providing discontinuous resource allocation. For example, logic flow 200 may be representative of operations that may be performed in some embodiments by mobile device 102 (e.g., as a UE) and/or base state 104 in operating environment 100 of FIG. 1. In general, the logic flow can represent operations performed between a mobile device (e.g., mobile device 102) and a base station (e.g., the base station 104) to facilitate discontinuous resource mapping for NB-IoT devices.

At 202, a mobile device and base station can establish a wireless communication link. The wireless communication link can be a narrowband wireless communication link. The wireless communication link can be the wireless link 106 described in relation to FIG. 1. The mobile device can be a NB-IoT device. The mobile device can be a mobile device that is positioned or situated in a relatively poor coverage area. That is, the mobile device can be a mobile device that may be sent a relatively large number of transmission repetitions (e.g. , repeated subframes) in comparison to other mobile devices

communicating with the base station in order for transmissions to be properly received and processed by the mobile device.

At 204, an indication that discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for NPDCCH and/or NPDSCH can be provided. The indication can be provided by the base station. The indication can be received by the mobile device. The mobile device can decode and process the received indication. The indication can be provided over a control channel or as part of control information. The indication can be provided as part of downlink control information (DCI).

At 206, an indication of available subframes for NPDCCH and/or NPDSCHcan be provided. The indication can be provided by the base station. The indication can be received by the mobile device. The mobile device can decode and process the received indication. The indication can be provided over a control channel or as part of control information. The indication can be provided as part of downlink control information (DCI).

In various embodiments, available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be indicated using a bitmap-based configuration. In various other embodiments, available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be indicated by other signaling techniques as described herein. In various embodiments, available subframes for NPDCCH and

NPDSCH can be indicated for each mobile device specifically (e.g., on a UE-specific basis). In various other embodiments, the available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be indicated for groups of mobile devices (e.g., on a UE-group-specific basis). In various embodiment, a combination of UE-specific and UE-group-specific indications can be used. In various embodiments, for UE-group-specific options, either all UEs in the cell or UEs with similar coverage classes may be provided with a common configuration.

As an example, UEs in robust coverage, extended coverage, and extreme coverage corresponding to maximum coupling loss (MCL) values up to 144 dB, 154 dB, 164 dB respectively, may be grouped in order to multiplex the NPDCCH and NPDSCH

transmissions to UEs belonging to different coverage classes. In various embodiments (e.g., for UE-group-specific configurations), control information related to available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be conveyed via common radio resource control (RRC) RRC (e.g., system information block (SIB) signaling) or by dedicated RRC signaling.

In general, singling provided to UEs on a UE-specific basis can also be used to provide signaling to UEs on a UE-group-specific basis.

In various embodiments, a common configuration of UE-specific available subframes for all downlink (DL) unicast channels (e.g., both NPDCCH and NPDSCH) can be signaled by the eNodeB. In various embodiments, separate configuration of UE-specific available subframes for NPDCCH and NPDSCH can be signaled by the eNodeB. In various embodiments, the configuration (e.g., via a bitmap-based signaling) can relate to absolute radio frame and/or subframe indices.

In various embodiments, signaling (e.g., through construction of a bitmap) can indicate the subframes available within a larger set of all DL subframes (or sets of consecutive valid subframes available) or valid DL subframes (e.g., 10 or 20 valid subframe(s)). In various embodiments, the indication (e.g., pattern) can be repeated in time.

As described above, techniques described herein provide for flexible time-domain resource allocation. Flexible time-domain resource allocation can be provided through support of discontinuous time-domain resource mapping (e.g., at the subframe-level) as described herein. Scheduling flexibility can be further enhanced by support of a flexible time gap between the scheduling assignment carried by the NPDCCH and the scheduled (e.g., associated) NPDSCH.

In various embodiment, for NPDSCH scheduling having a flexible time gap from the last subframe of the corresponding NPDCCH, the eNodeB can configure or indicate a value k_PDSCH. The value k_PDSCH can be used such that the first subframe of the scheduled NPDSCH is the first UE-specific available subframe after a gap of k_PDSCH-l subframes from the last subframe of the scheduling NPDCCH.

In various embodiments, the value of k_PDSCH can be at least 2. In various

embodiments, the lower bound can be increased further to allow additional time budget for the decoding of the NPDCCH to enable low complexity UE implementation with reduced requirements on peak processing load. In various embodiments, the value of k_PDSCH can be signaled via higher layers (e.g., dedicated RRC) or using the DCI scheduling the NPDSCH. In various embodiments, for indicating k_PDSCH using DCI signaling, a number of bits (e.g., 1 or 2 bits) can be used to indicate the k_PDSCH value.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary subframe structure 300 for providing a flexible time gap between a scheduling assignment carried by the NPDCCH and the scheduled (e.g., associated or corresponding) NPDSCH. An indication of a relative timing relationship is shown by indicator 302. As shown in FIG. 3, a subsframe 304 can represent the last subframe of the scheduling NPDCCH. A subframe 306 can represent a first subframe of a scheduled NPDSCH (e.g., scheduled by the NPDCCH). A gap 308 can be provided between the subframes 304 and 306. In various embodiments, the gap 308 can be a flexible time gap 308. The gap 308 can indicate the first UE-specific available subframe for the NPDSCH 306. The gap 308 can indicate the start of the NPDSCH 306 relative to an end of the NPDCCH 304. In various embodiments, the gap 308 can be configured or indicated using a value k_PDSCH as described above.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a logic flow 400 that may be representative of the implementation of one or more of the disclosed techniques for providing a flexible time gap between a scheduling assignment carried by the NPDCCH and the scheduled (e.g., associated or corresponding) NPDSCH. For example, logic flow 400 may be

representative of operations that may be performed in some embodiments by mobile device 102 (e.g., as a UE) and/or base state 104 in operating environment 100 of FIG. 1. In general, the logic flow can represent operations performed between a mobile device (e.g., mobile device 102) and a base station (e.g., the base station 104) to facilitate providing a flexible time gap between a scheduling assignment carried by the NPDCCH and the scheduled (e.g., associated or corresponding) NPDSCH for NB-IoT devices. At 402, a mobile device and base station can establish a wireless communication link. The wireless communication link can be a narrowband wireless communication link. The wireless communication link can be the wireless link 106 described in relation to FIG. 1. The mobile device can be a NB-IoT device. The mobile device can be a mobile device that is positioned or situated in a relatively poor coverage area. That is, the mobile device can be a mobile device that may be sent a relatively large number of transmission repetitions (e.g. , repeated subframes) in comparison to other mobile devices

At 404, an indication that a flexible time gap between a scheduling assignment carried by the NPDCCH and the scheduled (e.g., associated or corresponding) NPDSCH can be provided. The indication can be provided by the base station. The indication can be received by the mobile device. The mobile device can decode and process the received indication. The indication can be provided over a control channel or as part of control information. The indication can be provided as part of downlink control information (DCI).

At 406, an indication of the value (e.g., or length or duration) of the flexible time gap can be provided. In various embodiment, the vaslue can be indicated using a value k_PDSCH. The value k_PDSCH can be used to indicate that the first subframe of the scheduled NPDSCH can be the first UE-specific available subframe after a gap of k_PDSCH-l subframes from the last subframe of the scheduling NPDCCH. In this way, a flexible time gap between NPDCCH and a scheduled associated NPDSCH can be provided.

As described by the techniques described herein, an NB-IoT UE (e.g., the UE 102) can decode an indication contained in received downlink information, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a NPDCCH and a NPDSCH based on the indication, and can decode available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping. The available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH can be provided or indicated in the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping. The indication provided to the NB-IoT UE 102 can correspond to the NB- IoT UE only/uniquely. The base station 104 can provide indications relating to discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for each NB-IoT UE within a cell individually or can provide similar time-domain resource mappings for multiple NB-IoT UEs. For example, the base station 104 can provide a group of NB-IoT UEs with the same discontinuous time -domain resource mapping. That is, a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping can be provided to a group of NB-IoT UEs. As an example, the group of NB-IoT UEs to operate within a same cell. As another example, the group of NB-IoT UEs to operate within a same coverage class. That is, the group of NB-IoT UEs can operate with similar reception qualities and/or coverage conditions (e.g., and may require similar numbers of repetitions to ensure adequate reception).

The discontinuous time-domain resource mapping can specify available subframes for the NPDCCH and/or available subframes for the NPDSCH. The discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to can specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices and/or based on reference to absolute radio frames. The decoded indication can include a further indication of a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH. Alternatively, a separate or independent indication of the flexible time-gap can be provided and decoded.

Downlink information received by the NB-IoT UEs can be received over the DCI or dedicated RRC.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a storage medium 500. Storage media 500 may comprise any non-transitory computer-readable storage media or machine-readable storage media, such as an optical, magnetic or semiconductor storage media. In various embodiments, storage media 500 may comprise an article of manufacture. In some embodiments, storage media 500 may store computer-executable instructions, such as computer-executable instructions to implement logic flow 200 of FIG. 2 and/or logic flow 400 of FIG. 4. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium or machine-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capable of storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatile memory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasable memory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples of computer-executable instructions may include any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be

implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, circuitry may include logic, at least partially operable in hardware. Embodiments described herein may be implemented into a system using any suitably configured hardware and/or software.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a mobile device 600 that may be representative of a mobile device such as, for example, a UE that implements one or more of the disclosed techniques in various embodiments. For example, mobile device 600 may be representative of mobile device 102 according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, the mobile device 600 may include application circuitry 602, baseband circuitry 604, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 606, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 608 and one or more antennas 610, coupled together at least as shown.

The application circuitry 602 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 602 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with and/or may include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications and/or operating systems to run on the system.

The baseband circuitry 604 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 604 may include one or more baseband processors and/or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 606. Baseband processing circuity 604 may interface with the application circuitry 602 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 606. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 604 may include a second generation (2G) baseband processor 604a, third generation (3G) baseband processor 604b, fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 604c, and/or other baseband processor(s) 604d for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., fifth generation (5G), 6G, etc.). The baseband circuitry 604 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 604a-d) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 606. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation,

encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments,

modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 604 may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, and/or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 604 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, and/or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 604 may include elements of a protocol stack such as, for example, elements of an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) protocol including, for example, physical (PHY), media access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), and/or radio resource control (RRC) elements. A central processing unit (CPU) 604e of the baseband circuitry 604 may be configured to run elements of the protocol stack for signaling of the PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP and/or RRC layers. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 604f. The audio DSP(s) 604f may be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 604 and the application circuitry 602 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 604 may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 604 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) and/or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 604 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

RF circuitry 606 may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 606 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 606 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 608 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 604. RF circuitry 606 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 604 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 608 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 606 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 may include mixer circuitry 606a, amplifier circuitry 606b and filter circuitry 606c. The transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 606 may include filter circuitry 606c and mixer circuitry 606a. RF circuitry 606 may also include synthesizer circuitry 606d for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 608 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 606d. The amplifier circuitry 606b may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 606c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 604 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 606a of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 606d to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 608. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 604 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 606c. The filter circuitry 606c may include a low-pass filter (LPF), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and/or upconversion respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606a 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 circuitry 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606a may be arranged for direct downconversion and/or direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 606a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606a of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 606 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry 604 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 606. In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 606d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 606d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 606d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 606a of the RF circuitry 606 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 606d may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 604 or the applications processor 602 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 602.

Synthesizer circuitry 606d of the RF circuitry 606 may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+l (e.g., based on a carry out) 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 break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 606d 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 quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some

embodiments, the RF circuitry 606 may include an IQ/polar converter. FEM circuitry 608 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 610, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 606 for further processing. FEM circuitry 608 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 606 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 610.

In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 608 may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry 608 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include a low-noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 606). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 606), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 610.

In some embodiments, the mobile device 600 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, and/or input/output (I/O) interface.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a communications device 700 that may implement one or more of mobile device 102, base station 104, logic flow 200, logic flow 400, storage medium 500, and the mobile device 600. In various embodiments, device 700 may comprise a logic circuit 728. The logic circuit 728 may include physical circuits to perform operations described for one or more of mobile device 102, base station 104, logic flow 200, logic flow 400, storage medium 500, and the mobile device 600 for example. As shown in FIG. 7, device 700 may include a radio interface 710, baseband circuitry 720, and computing platform 730, although the embodiments are not limited to this configuration.

The device 700 may implement some or all of the structure and/or operations for one or more of mobile device 102, base station 104, logic flow 200, logic flow 400, storage medium 500, and the mobile device 600, and logic circuit 728 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a single device. Alternatively, the device 700 may distribute portions of the structure and/or operations for one or more of mobile device 102, base station 104, logic flow 200, logic flow 400, storage medium 500, and the mobile device 600, and logic circuit 728 across multiple computing entities using a distributed system architecture, such as a client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shared database architecture, and other types of distributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in this context. In one embodiment, radio interface 710 may include a component or combination of components adapted for transmitting and/or receiving single-carrier or multi-carrier modulated signals (e.g., including complementary code keying (CCK), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and/or single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) symbols) although the embodiments are not limited to any specific over-the-air interface or modulation scheme. Radio interface 710 may include, for example, a receiver 712, a frequency synthesizer 714, and/or a transmitter 716. Radio interface 710 may include bias controls, a crystal oscillator and/or one or more antennas 718-/. In another embodiment, radio interface 710 may use external voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), surface acoustic wave filters, intermediate frequency (IF) filters and/or RF filters, as desired. Due to the variety of potential RF interface designs an expansive description thereof is omitted.

Baseband circuitry 720 may communicate with radio interface 710 to process receive and/or transmit signals and may include, for example, a mixer for down-converting received RF signals, an analog- to-digital converter 722 for converting analog signals to digital form, a digital- to-analog converter 724 for converting digital signals to analog form, and a mixer for up- converting signals for transmission. Further, baseband circuitry 720 may include a baseband or physical layer (PHY) processing circuit 726 for PHY link layer processing of respective receive/transmit signals. Baseband circuitry 720 may include, for example, a medium access control (MAC) processing circuit 727 for MAC/data link layer processing. Baseband circuitry 720 may include a memory controller 732 for communicating with MAC processing circuit 727 and/or a computing platform 730, for example, via one or more interfaces 734.

In some embodiments, PHY processing circuit 726 may include a frame construction and/or detection module, in combination with additional circuitry such as a buffer memory, to construct and/or deconstruct communication frames. Alternatively or in addition, MAC processing circuit 727 may share processing for certain of these functions or perform these processes independent of PHY processing circuit 726. In some embodiments, MAC and PHY processing may be integrated into a single circuit.

The computing platform 730 may provide computing functionality for the device 700. As shown, the computing platform 730 may include a processing component 740. In addition to, or alternatively of, the baseband circuitry 720, the device 700 may execute processing operations or logic for one or more of mobile device 102, base station 104, logic flow 200, storage medium 700, and the mobile device 800, and logic circuit 728 using the processing component 740. The processing component 740 (and/or PHY 726 and/or MAC 727) may comprise various hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software elements may include software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, software development programs, machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints, as desired for a given implementation.

The computing platform 730 may further include other platform components 750. Other platform components 750 include common computing elements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors, co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals, interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards, multimedia input/output (I/O) components (e.g., digital displays), power supplies, and so forth. Examples of memory units may include without limitation various types of computer readable and machine readable storage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, such as read-only memory (ROM), random- access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDR AM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymer memory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase change or ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices (e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type of storage media suitable for storing information.

Device 700 may be, for example, an ultra-mobile device, a mobile device, a fixed device, a machine-to- machine (M2M) device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a telephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, user equipment, eBook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a mini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices, display, television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point, base station, node B, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof. Accordingly, functions and/or specific configurations of device 700 described herein, may be included or omitted in various embodiments of device 700, as suitably desired.

Embodiments of device 700 may be implemented using single input single output (SISO) architectures. However, certain implementations may include multiple antennas (e.g., antennas 718-/) for transmission and/or reception using adaptive antenna techniques for beamforming or spatial division multiple access (SDMA) and/or using MIMO communication techniques.

The components and features of device 700 may be implemented using any combination of discrete circuitry, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), logic gates and/or single chip architectures. Further, the features of device 700 may be implemented using

microcontrollers, programmable logic arrays and/or microprocessors or any combination of the foregoing where suitably appropriate. It is noted that hardware, firmware and/or software elements may be collectively or individually referred to herein as "logic" or "circuit."

It should be appreciated that the exemplary device 700 shown in the block diagram of FIG. 7 may represent one functionally descriptive example of many potential implementations. Accordingly, division, omission or inclusion of block functions depicted in the accompanying figures does not infer that the hardware components, circuits, software and/or elements for implementing these functions would be necessarily be divided, omitted, or included in embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a broadband wireless access system 800. As shown in FIG. 8, broadband wireless access system 800 may be an internet protocol (IP) type network comprising an internet 810 type network or the like that is capable of supporting mobile wireless access and/or fixed wireless access to internet 810. In one or more embodiments, broadband wireless access system 1800 may comprise any type of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-based or single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA)-based wireless network, such as a system compliant with one or more of the 3GPP LTE Specifications and/or IEEE 802.16 Standards, and the scope of the claimed subject matter is not limited in these respects.

In the exemplary broadband wireless access system 800, radio access networks (RANs) 812 and 818 are capable of coupling with evolved nodeBs or base stations (eNBs) 814 and 820, respectively, to provide wireless communication between one or more fixed devices 816 and internet 810 and/or between or one or more mobile devices 822 and Internet 810. One example of a fixed device 816 and a mobile device 822 is device 700 of FIG. 7, with the fixed device 816 comprising a stationary version of device 700 and the mobile device 822 comprising a mobile version of device 800. RANs 812 and 818 may implement profiles that are capable of defining the mapping of network functions to one or more physical entities on broadband wireless access system 800. eNBs 814 and 820 may comprise radio equipment to provide RF communication with fixed device 816 and/or mobile device 822, such as described with reference to device 700, and may comprise, for example, the PHY and MAC layer equipment in compliance with a 3GPP LTE Specification or an IEEE 802.16 Standard. Base stations or eNBs 814 and 820 may further comprise an IP backplane to couple to Internet 810 via RANs 812 and 818, respectively, although the scope of the claimed subject matter is not limited in these respects.

Broadband wireless access system 800 may further comprise a visited core network (CN) 824 and/or a home CN 826, each of which may be capable of providing one or more network functions including but not limited to proxy and/or relay type functions, for example authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) functions, dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) functions, or domain name service controls or the like, domain gateways such as public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateways or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) gateways, and/or internet protocol (IP) type server functions, or the like. However, these are merely example of the types of functions that are capable of being provided by visited CN 824 and/or home CN 826, and the scope of the claimed subject matter is not limited in these respects. Visited CN 824 may be referred to as a visited CN in the case where visited CN 824 is not part of the regular service provider of fixed device 816 or mobile device 822, for example where fixed device 816 or mobile device 822 is roaming away from its respective home CN 826, or where broadband wireless access system 800 is part of the regular service provider of fixed device 816 or mobile device 822 but where broadband wireless access system 800 may be in another location or state that is not the main or home location of fixed device 816 or mobile device 822. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

Fixed device 816 may be located anywhere within range of one or both of base stations or eNBs 814 and 820, such as in or near a home or business to provide home or business customer broadband access to Internet 810 via base stations or eNBs 814 and 820 and RANs 812 and 818, respectively, and home CN 826. It is worthy of note that although fixed device 816 is generally disposed in a stationary location, it may be moved to different locations as needed. Mobile device 822 may be utilized at one or more locations if mobile device 822 is within range of one or both of base stations or eNBs 814 and 820, for example. In accordance with one or more embodiments, operation support system (OSS) 828 may be part of broadband wireless access system 800 to provide management functions for broadband wireless access system 800 and to provide interfaces between functional entities of broadband wireless access system 800. Broadband wireless access system 800 of FIG. 8 is merely one type of wireless network showing a certain number of the components of broadband wireless access system 800, and the scope of the claimed subject matter is not limited in these respects.

Various embodiments may be implemented using hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include processors,

microprocessors, circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software may include software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints.

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment may be implemented by representative instructions stored on a machine -readable medium which represents various logic within the processor, which when read by a machine causes the machine to fabricate logic to perform the techniques described herein. Such representations, known as "IP cores" may be stored on a tangible, machine readable medium and supplied to various customers or manufacturing facilities to load into the fabrication machines that actually make the logic or processor. Some embodiments may be implemented, for example, using a machine -readable medium or article which may store an instruction or a set of instructions that, if executed by a machine, may cause the machine to perform a method and/or operations in accordance with the embodiments. Such a machine may include, for example, any suitable processing platform, computing platform, computing device, processing device, computing system, processing system, computer, processor, or the like, and may be implemented using any suitable combination of hardware and/or software. The machine-readable medium or article may include, for example, any suitable type of memory unit, memory device, memory article, memory medium, storage device, storage article, storage medium and/or storage unit, for example, memory, removable or nonremovable media, erasable or non-erasable media, writeable or re-writeable media, digital or analog media, hard disk, floppy disk, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), Compact Disk Recordable (CD-R), Compact Disk Rewriteable (CD-RW), optical disk, magnetic media, magneto-optical media, removable memory cards or disks, various types of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD), a tape, a cassette, or the like. The instructions may include any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, encrypted code, and the like, implemented using any suitable high-level, low- level, object-oriented, visual, compiled and/or interpreted programming language.

The following examples pertain to further embodiments:

Example 1 is a narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) user equipment (UE) comprising a memory and baseband circuitry coupled to the memory, the baseband circuitry to decode an indication contained in received downlink information, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) based on the indication, and decode available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

Example 2 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the indication to correspond to only the NB-IoT UE.

Example 3 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the indication to correspond to a group of NB-IoT UEs.

Example 4 is an extension of Example 3 or any other example disclosed herein, the group of NB-IoT UEs to operate within a same cell.

Example 5 is an extension of Example 3 or any other example disclosed herein, the group of NB-IoT UEs to operate within a same coverage class.

Example 6 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDCCH.

Example 7 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDSCH.

Example 8 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices. Example 9 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

Example 10 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 11 is an extension of Example 10 or any other example disclosed herein, the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the

NPDCCH.

Example 12 is an extension of Example 11 or any other example disclosed herein, a value of k_PDSCH to indicate the flexible time-gap.

Example 13 is an extension of Example 12 or any other example disclosed herein, k_PDSCH - 1 to indicate the number of subsframes from the last subframe of a scheduling NB- PDCCH.

Example 14 is an extension of Example 12 or any other example disclosed herein, the value of k_PDSCH to comprise an integer.

Example 15 is an extension of Example 12 or any other example disclosed herein, the value of k_PDSCH to comprise an integer of two or larger.

Example 16 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the received downlink information to comprise a dedicated Radio Resource Control (RRC).

Example 17 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the received downlink information to comprise downlink control information (DCI).

Example 18 is an extension of Example 1 or any other example disclosed herein, the apparatus comprising at least one radio frequency (RF) transceiver and at least one RF antenna.

Example 19 is a wireless communication method comprising decoding an indication contained in received downlink information, determining a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) based on the indication, and decoding available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time- domain resource mapping.

Example 20 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the indication corresponding to only one NB-IoT UE.

Example 21 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the indication corresponding to a group of NB-IoT UEs.

Example 22 is an extension of Example 21 or any other example, the group of NB-IoT UEs operating within a same cell. Example 23 is an extension of Example 21 or any other example, the group of NB-IoT UEs operating within a same coverage class.

Example 24 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping specifying available subframes for the NPDCCH.

Example 25 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping specifying available subframes for the NPDSCH.

Example 26 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping specifying available subframes based on reference to subframe indices.

Example 27 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping specifying available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

Example 28 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the indication further indicating a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 29 is an extension of Example 28 or any other example, the flexible time-gap specifying a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

Example 30 is an extension of Example 29 or any other example, a value of k_PDSCH indicating the flexible time-gap.

Example 31 is an extension of Example 30 or any other example, k_PDSCH - 1 indicating the number of subframes from the last subframe of a scheduling NB-PDCCH.

Example 32 is an extension of Example 30 or any other example, the value of k_PDSCH comprising an integer.

Example 33 is an extension of Example 30 or any other example, the value of k_PDSCH comprising an integer of two or larger.

Example 34 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the received downlink information comprising a dedicated Radio Resource Control (RRC).

Example 35 is an extension of Example 19 or any other example, the received downlink information comprising downlink control information (DCI).

Example 36 is at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a wireless communication method according to any of Examples 19 to 35 or any other example disclosed herein.

Example 37 is a user equipment (UE) comprising means for performing a wireless communication method according to any of Examples 19 to 35 or any other example disclosed herein. Example 38 is at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to decode an indication contained in received downlink information, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) based on the indication, and decode available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

Example 39 is an extension of Example 38 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDCCH.

Example 40 is an extension of Example 38 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDSCH.

Example 41 is an extension of Example 38 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices.

Example 42 is an extension of Example 38 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

Example 43 is an extension of Example 38 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the indication.

Example 44 is an extension of Example 43 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

Example 45 is an extension of Example 44 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine a value of k_PDSCH to indicate the flexible time-gap. Example 46 is an extension of Example 45 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine k_PDSCH - 1 to indicate the number of subframes from the last subframe of a scheduling NB-PDCCH.

Example 47 is an extension of Example 45 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to decode the received downlink information from a dedicated Radio Resource Control (RRC).

Example 48 is an extension of Example 45 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to decode the received downlink information from downlink control information (DCI).

Example 49 is a narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) user equipment (UE), comprising a memory, radio frequency (RF) circuitry, the RF circuitry to receive downlink control, and baseband circuitry coupled to the memory and coupled to the RF circuitry, the baseband circuitry to decode an indication contained in the received downlink information, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) based on the indication, and decode available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping, the RF circuitry to receive the available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 50 is an extension of Example 49 or any other example disclosed herein, the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 51 is an apparatus, comprising a memory and baseband circuitry coupled to the memory, the baseband circuitry to determine a set of user equipment (UE) devices of a same coverage class, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) for the set of UE devices, and encode an indication of available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH for the determined set of UE devices based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

Example 52 is an extension of Example 51 or any other example disclosed herein, the set of UE devices to operate within a same cell.

Example 53 is an extension of Example 51 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices. Example 54 is an extension of Example 51 or any other example disclosed herein, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

Example 55 is an extension of Example 51 or any other example disclosed herein, the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 56 is an extension of Example 55 or any other example disclosed herein, the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the

NPDCCH.

Example 57 is an extension of Example 56 or any other example disclosed herein, a value of k_PDSCH to indicate the flexible time-gap.

Example 58 is an extension of any of Examples 51 to 57 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising at least one radio frequency (RF) transceiver and at least one RF antenna.

Example 59 is at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to determine a set of user equipment (UE) devices of a same coverage class, determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) for the set of UE devices, and encode an indication of available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH for the determined set of UE devices based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

Example 60 is an extension of Example 59 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to determine the set of UE devices to operate within a same cell.

Example 61 is an extension of Example 59 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices.

Example 62 is an extension of Example 59 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

Example 63 is an extension of Example 59 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to encode the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

Example 64 is an extension of Example 63 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to encode the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

Example 65 is an extension of Example 64 or any other example disclosed herein, comprising a set of wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to encode a value of k_PDSCH to indicate the flexible time-gap.

Numerous specific details have been set forth herein to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. It will be understood by those skilled in the art, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known operations, components, and circuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the embodiments. It can be appreciated that the specific structural and functional details disclosed herein may be representative and do not necessarily limit the scope of the embodiments.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression "coupled" and "connected" along with their derivatives. These terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. For example, some embodiments may be described using the terms "connected" and/or "coupled" to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. The term "coupled," however, may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, it may be appreciated that terms such as "processing," "computing," "calculating," "determining," or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and/or transforms data represented as physical quantities (e.g., electronic) within the computing system's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

It should be noted that the methods described herein do not have to be executed in the order described, or in any particular order. Moreover, various activities described with respect to the methods identified herein can be executed in serial or parallel fashion.

Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it should be appreciated that any arrangement calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or variations of various embodiments. It is to be understood that the above description has been made in an illustrative fashion, and not a restrictive one. Combinations of the above

embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. Thus, the scope of various embodiments includes any other applications in which the above compositions, structures, and methods are used.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. § 1.72(b), requiring an abstract that will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment. In the appended claims, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as the plain- English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising" and "wherein," respectively.

Moreover, the terms "first," "second," and "third," etc. are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory; and

baseband circuitry coupled to the memory, the baseband circuitry to:

decode an indication contained in received downlink information; determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) based on the indication; and

decode subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, the indication to correspond to a group of narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) user equipment (UE) devices.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, the group of NB-IoT UE devices to operate within a same cell.

4. The apparatus of claims 2 or 3, the group of NB-IoT UE devices to operate within a same coverage class.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDCCH.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDSCH.

7. The apparatus of claims 5 or 6, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices.

8. The apparatus of claims 5 or 6, the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, a value of k_PDSCH to indicate the flexible time-gap.

12. At least one computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of wireless

communication instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to:

13. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDCCH.

14. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time-domain resource mapping to specify available subframes for the NPDSCH.

15. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 or 14, comprising

wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to subframe indices.

16. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 or 14, comprising

wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the discontinuous time- domain resource mapping to specify available subframes based on reference to absolute radio frames.

17. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH based on the indication.

18. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory; and

baseband circuitry coupled to the memory, the baseband circuitry to:

determine a set of user equipment (UE) devices of a same coverage class; determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) for the set of UE devices; and

encode an indication of available subframes for the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH for the determined set of UE devices based on the determined discontinuous time-domain resource mapping.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, set of UE devices to operate within a same cell.

21. The apparatus of claims 19 or 20, the indication to further indicate a flexible time-gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.

23. At least one computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of wireless

determine a set of user equipment (UE) devices of a same coverage class;

determine a discontinuous time-domain resource mapping for a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH) for the set of UE devices; and

24. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to encode the indication to further indicate a flexible time- gap between the NPDCCH and the NPDSCH.

25. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, comprising wireless communication instructions that, in response to being executed on the computing device, cause the computing device to encode the flexible time-gap to specify a first frame of the NPDSCH relative to a last frame of the NPDCCH.