Methods and apparatuses for transmitting downlink control signaling on wireless relay link

1. An apparatus comprising:

a processor configured to allocate, to a wireless relay link, a control channel resource of a relay transmission frame, with an identified starting point, in a semi-static allocation scheme;

the processor is further configured to generate control signaling based on a status of the wireless relay link;

the processor is further configured to map the control signaling to the allocated control channel resource via any one of a time-first mapping, a frequency-first mapping, or a multiplexing mapping; and

a transceiver configured to transmit the mapped control signaling on the wireless relay link to an associated relay node.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the control signaling is updated for a subsequent transmission period based on another status of the wireless relay link.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

the processor is further configured to generate second control signaling to reallocate at least one unused channel resource from a previous resource allocation, wherein the second control signaling comprises one of a channel resource grant or a bitmap to indicate a resource allocation for one subsequent relay transmission frame.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the allocation of the control channel resource comprises identification of one or more control channel elements, identification of a starting point of the identified control channel element, or a length of the allocated control channel resource in the relay transmission frame.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

wherein the allocation of the control channel resource comprises identification of a first control channel resource for a first relay transmission frame type and identification of a second control channel resource for a second relay transmission frame type; and

wherein the first relay transmission frame type comprises a multicast broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) sub-frame and the second relay transmission frame type comprises a zero-control-symbol MBSFN sub-frame.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the control signaling generation further comprises the generation of one of an access grant, an indicator for resource allocation, an acknowledgement, or a negative acknowledgement.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

the control signaling generation comprises generation of an indicator for a hybrid resource allocation scheme to indicate any one of:

whether additional resources in addition to semi-statically allocated resources are available for the associated relay node; or

whether semi-statically allocated resources are reserved.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein generation of the control signaling further comprises no access grant generation based on traffic volume and variation in the wireless relay link of the associated relay node.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

the processor is further configured to map the control signaling to one or more control channel elements (CCEs) and to map the one or more CCEs to one or more physical resource blocks in the relay transmission frame.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprises:

the processor is further configured to map the control channel resource in the time-first mapping or the frequency-first mapping when the control signaling includes one or more of access grants, acknowledgements, negative acknowledgements; or

the processor is further configured to map the control channel resource in the multiplexing mapping when the control signaling includes zero access grant, wherein the multiplexing mapping is performed in one of a code division multiplexing, a time division multiplexing, or a frequency division multiplexing.

11. An apparatus comprising:

a processor configured to decode a control channel element of a relay transmission frame received via a wireless relay link, wherein a control channel resource associated with the relay transmission frame is allocated in a semi-static allocation scheme;

the processor is further configured to extract a starting indicator from the decoded control channel element;

the processor is further configured to extract at least a part of control signaling from the decoded control channel element based in part on the extracted starting indicator; and

the processor is further configured to assemble the control signaling, wherein the control signaling is based on a status of the wireless relay link.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising:

the processor is further configured to determine a decoding set for the relay transmission frame; and

wherein the decoding set comprises one of the starting indicator of the control signaling, a total number of physical resource blocks allocated for the control signaling, or length of the control signaling.

13. The apparatus claim 11 further comprising:

the processor is further configured to extract the at least part of control signaling from the decoded control channel element based on the extracted starting indicator, a length of the control signaling, or a total number of physical resource blocks.

14. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising:

the processor is configured to validate the control signaling, wherein the validation comprises checking whether a last control signaling part has been extracted and to combine decoded control signaling parts into the control signaling.

15. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein validation of the control signaling comprises a cyclic redundancy check.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with stored instructions executable by a computer, the instructions comprising:

instructions to allocate, to a wireless relay link, a control channel resource of a relay transmission frame, with an identified starting point, in a semi-static allocation scheme;

instructions to generate control signaling based on a status of the wireless relay link;

instructions to map the control signaling to the allocated control channel resource via any one of a time-first mapping, a frequency-first mapping, or a multiplexing mapping; and

instructions to transmit the mapped control signaling on the wireless relay link to an associated relay node.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16 further comprising:

instructions to map the control signaling to one or more control channel elements (CCEs) and to map the one or more CCEs to one or more physical resource blocks in the relay transmission frame.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with stored instructions executable by a computer, the instructions comprising:

instructions to decode a control channel element of a relay transmission frame received via a wireless relay link, wherein a control channel resource associated with the relay transmission frame is allocated in a semi-static allocation scheme;

instructions to extract a starting indicator from the decoded control channel element;

instructions to extract at least a part of control signaling from the decoded control channel element based in part on the extracted starting indicator; and

instructions to assemble the control signaling, wherein the control signaling is based on a status of the wireless relay link.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 further comprising:

instructions to determine a decoding set for the relay transmission frame, wherein the decoding set comprises one of the starting indicator of the control signaling, a total number of physical resource blocks allocated for the control signaling, or length of the control signaling.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 further comprising:

instructions to extract the at least part of control signaling from the decoded control channel element based on the extracted starting indicator, a length of the control signaling, or a total number of physical resource blocks.