Method for coordinating transmissions between different communications apparatuses and communication sapparatuses utilizing the same
View Patent ↗A communications apparatus is provided. A controller module obtains information regarding a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) round trip time (RTT) in an HARQ process, arranging one or more almost blank sub-frame(s) in one or more frame(s) according to the HARQ RTT information and generating a sub-frame pattern describing the arrangement of the almost blank sub-frame(s), wherein the HARQ RTT is defined by the communications system. A transceiver module transmits at least a signal carrying information regarding the sub-frame pattern to a peer communications apparatus in the communications system. In addition, at least one almost blank sub-frame in the sub-frame pattern is arranged in a sub-frame for the peer communications apparatus to transmit an uplink grant message for granting an user equipment to transmit uplink data to the peer communications apparatus.
1. A communications apparatus in a communications system, comprising:
a controller module, obtaining information regarding a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) round trip time (RTT) in an HARQ process, arranging one or more almost blank sub-frame(s) in one or more frame(s) according to the HARQ RTT information and generating a sub-frame pattern describing the arrangement of the almost blank sub-frame(s), wherein the HARQ RTT is defined by the communications system; and
a transceiver module, transmitting at least a signal carrying information regarding the sub-frame pattern to a peer communications apparatus in the communications system,
wherein at least one almost blank sub-frame in the sub-frame pattern is arranged in a sub-frame for the peer communications apparatus to transmit an uplink grant message for granting an user equipment to transmit uplink data to the peer communications apparatus.
2. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein at least one almost blank sub-frame in the sub-frame pattern is arranged in a sub-frame for the peer communications apparatus to transmit an acknowledgment (ACK) or a negative acknowledgment (NACK) message for informing the user equipment about whether the uplink data transmitted by the user equipment in response to the received uplink grant message have been received by the peer communications apparatus.
3. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the almost blank sub-frame(s) in the sub-frame pattern is/are arranged according to a transmission period of an uplink grant message and an acknowledgment (ACK)/negative acknowledgment (NACK) message, wherein the uplink grant message is transmitted for granting an user equipment to uplink data and the ACK/NACK message is transmitted for informing the user equipment about whether the uplink data transmitted in response to the received uplink grant message have been received.
4. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the almost blank sub-frame(s) in the sub-frame pattern is/are arranged in a series of contiguous frames.
5. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein when the HARQ RTT is defined by (k1+k2) sub-frames, the controller module arranges the almost blank sub-frame(s) in the [n+m*(k1+k2)]-th sub-frame(s) for each n-th sub-frame is assigned as an almost blank sub-frame, wherein n and m are non-negative integers, k1 and k2 are positive integers, k1 represents a sub-frame offset between an uplink grant message transmission and uplink data transmission, and k2 represents a sub-frame offset between the uplink data transmission and an ACK or a NACK message transmission.
6. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein a sub-frame index of the almost blank sub-frame(s) is arranged to be fixed in different frames.