Granted Patent B2

US 8,462,657 · App. 13/247,770 · Granted Jun 11, 2013

Inventors: Zhijun Cai (Euless, TX); James Earl Womack (Bedford, TX); Yi Yu (Irving, TX)

Assignee: Research In Motion Limited

Abstract

Claims (33)

1. A user equipment (UE), comprising:

a processor configured to:

control a receiver in the UE to have one or more periodic on-durations, the one or more periodic on-durations each associated with a discontinuous reception (DRX) operation mode of the UE;

receive a resource configuration, the resource configuration indicating periodic channel quality indicator (CQI) reporting resources;

determine that data was not received properly;

determine a time period for one or more potential retransmissions of the data that was not received properly, the time period occurring after the start of one of the on-durations of the DRX operation mode of the UE;

begin CQI transmissions using the periodic CQI reporting resource at a CQI reporting interval that occurs before the start of the one of the on-durations; and

end CQI transmissions at a CQI reporting interval that occurs at an end of the time period for potential retransmissions.

2. The UE of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to begin CQI transmissions using an assigned periodic CQI reporting resource that immediately precedes the start of the on-duration of the DRX operation mode.

3. The UE of claim 1 wherein the processor is configured to begin CQI transmissions using an assigned periodic CQI reporting resource that immediately precedes a lead time before the on-duration of the DRX operation mode, where the lead time is determined as the sum of a propagation delay of sending the CQI transmission to travel from the UE to an enhanced node B (ENB) and a processing lag time of the ENB to receive, process, and adapt based on the CQI transmission.

4. The UE of claim 3 , wherein the processing lag time of the ENB is equal to about a time duration of two sub-frames.

5. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the UE is a long-term evolution (LTE) UE.

6. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to receive voice over internet protocol transmissions from an enhanced node B (eNB) during one or more of the periodic on durations using a resource configured by the eNB.

7. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the CQI is a layer 1 control signal.

8. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to transmit a request to send data to an enhanced node B.

9. A method for transmitting a control signal from a user equipment (UE) to an enhanced node B (ENB), comprising:

determining when an on-duration of a discontinuous reception (DRX) operation of the UE is scheduled;

identifying an assigned periodic channel quality indicator (CQI) reporting resource preceding the scheduled start of the on-duration;

determining that data was not received properly;

determining a time period one or more potential retransmissions of the data that was not received properly, the time period occurring after the start of the on-duration of the DRX operation of the UE;

beginning a periodic CQI control signal transmission at the time of the assigned periodic CQI reporting resource identified; and

ending CQI transmissions at a CQI reporting interval that occurs at the end of the time period for potential retransmissions.

10. The method of claim 9 , herein identifying an assigned periodic CQI reporting resource preceding the start of the on-duration is further characterized as identifying the assigned periodic CQI reporting resource that immediately precedes the start of the on-duration.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein identifying an assigned periodic CQI reporting resource that immediately precedes a lead time before the on-duration, where the lead time is determined as the sum of a propagation delay of sending the CQI transmission to travel from the UE to an the ENB and a processing lag time of the ENB to receive, process, and adapt based on the CQI transmission.

12. A method for transmitting a control signal from a user equipment (UE) to an enhanced node B (ENB), comprising:

identifying one or more periodic on-durations, each on-duration associated with a DRX operation mode of the UE;

identifying an assigned periodic channel quality indicator (CQI) reporting resource;

determining that data was not received properly;

determining a retransmission window for one or more potential retransmissions of the data that was not received properly, the retransmission window occurring after the start of one of the on-durations of the DRX operation mode of the UE;

transmitting periodic CQI control signal during the retransmission window;

identifying an end of a retransmission window; and

responsive to an end of the retransmission window, stopping the periodic transmission of the CQI control signal.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising providing periodic CQI control signal transmissions immediately before the start of the retransmission window.

Assignments (8)

Continuity (2)