Early termination of repeated transmissions for MTC

1. An apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB) for machine-type communications (MTC) comprising:

receive circuitry configured to receive one or more transmissions of block data on a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) from a first user equipment (UE) during a retransmission window;

control circuitry configured to:

determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and

generate an early termination of repeated transmissions message for the data block following determination of successful decoding, the early termination of repeated transmissions message comprising a downlink control information (DCI) message; and

transmit circuitry configured to transmit the early termination of repeated transmissions message during the retransmission window.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

determine a channel quality associated with the PUSCH based on one or more quality evaluations prior to reception of the one or more transmissions of the block data; and

select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with the retransmission window.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the DCI message comprises a DCI format 0 message comprising:

CRC parity bits scrambled with a C-RNTI; and

a new data indicator (NDI) value set to 0.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the DCI format 0 message further comprises:

a TPC command for the PUSCH set to 00;

a cyclic shift DM RS set to CS_val;

a modulation and coding scheme redundancy version set to 11111; and

a resource block assignment and hopping resource allocation value comprising all ‘1’s.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the eNB is configured to receive data from a plurality of transport blocks on the PUSCH during the retransmission window;

wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks; and

wherein the control circuitry is configured to associate the block data with the early termination of repeated transmissions message based on a timing relationship between a first subframe of the one or more transmissions of the block data and a first subframe of the early termination of repeated transmissions message.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the eNB is configured to receive data from a plurality of transport blocks on the PUSCH during the retransmission window;

wherein the block data is associated with a first transport block of the plurality of transport blocks;

wherein the control circuitry is configured to associate each of the plurality of transport blocks with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) process number; and

wherein the DCI message comprises a first HARQ-ACK process number associated with the first transport block.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the DCI message further comprises a cyclic shift bit field and a new data indicator (NDI).

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the eNB is configured to communicate with the first UE in a half-duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) operation mode such that the PUSCH is interspersed with downlink subframes during the retransmission window.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the transmit circuitry is further configured to communicate one or more transmissions of second block data on a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) to the first user equipment (UE) during a second retransmission window; and

wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

initiate transmission of the second block data to the first UE on the PDSCH, the transmission of the second block data comprising repeated transmission of the second block data during the second retransmission window;

manage reception of a second early termination of repeated transmissions message from the first UE comprising a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) message during the second retransmission window, the second early termination of repeated transmissions message based on a second decoding of the second block data at the first UE prior to completion of the second retransmission window; and

terminate the repeated transmission of the second block data in response to receipt of the second early termination of repeated transmissions message during the second retransmission window.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the retransmission window and the second retransmission window are both determined based on a same first channel quality measurement.

11. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the HARQ-ACK message comprises a positive acknowledgement message.

12. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the second retransmission window is based on a selected number of subframe retransmissions.

13. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the PDSCH is associated with HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) starting from an (n+4)th upload subframe of the second block data in the PDSCH, wherein a downlink subframe n corresponds to (f*N) where N is a selected number of subframe retransmissions and 0<f<1.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on the PUCCH is associated with a plurality of subframes;

wherein a first subframe of the plurality of subframes is based on a first n where f=0.25;

wherein a second subframe of the plurality of subframes is based on a second n where f=0.5; and

wherein a third subframe of the plurality of subframes is based on a third n where f=0.75.

15. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the receive circuitry is further configured to receive one or more transmissions of third block data on a second Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) from the first user equipment (UE) during a third retransmission window;

wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:

determine that the third block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the third block data; and

generate a third early termination of repeated transmissions message comprising a second hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) message; and

wherein the transmit circuitry is further configured to transmit the third early termination of repeated transmissions message during the third retransmission window.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, configure an evolved node B (eNB) for machine-type communications (MTC), the instructions to configure the eNB to:

determine a channel connection quality to a user equipment (UE) based on one or more measurements associated with a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH);

select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with a retransmission window;

receive one or more transmissions of block data on the PUSCH from the UE during the retransmission window;

determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and

configure, in response to the determination that the block data has been successfully decoded, a transceiver for transmission of an early termination of repeated transmissions message comprising a downlink control information (DCI) message during the retransmission window.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the DCI message comprises a DCI format 0 message; and

wherein the block data is associated with the early termination of repeated transmissions message based on a timing relationship between a first subframe of the one or more transmissions of the block data and a first subframe of the early termination of repeated transmissions message.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the DCI message comprises a custom DCI format comprising a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) process number used to identify the block data.

19. An apparatus of an evolved node B (eNB) for machine-type communications (MTC) comprising:

receive circuitry configured to receive one or more transmissions of block data on a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) from a first user equipment (UE) during a retransmission window;

control circuitry configured to:

determine a channel quality associated with the PUSCH based on one or more measurements prior to reception of the one or more transmissions of the block data;

select a retransmission value based on the channel quality, wherein the retransmission value is associated with the retransmission window;

determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the eNB using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and

generate an early termination of repeated transmissions message comprising a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) message; and

transmit circuitry configured to transmit the early termination of repeated transmissions message during the retransmission window.

20. The apparatus of claim 19 wherein the retransmission window is based on a selected number of subframe retransmissions; and

wherein the PDSCH is associated with periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback scheduled on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) starting from an (n+4)th upload subframe of the block data in the PDSCH, wherein a downlink subframe n corresponds to (f*N) where N is a selected number of subframe retransmissions and 0<f<1.

21. The apparatus of claim 19 wherein the eNB is configured to schedule periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback in a cell-specific or UE-specific manner to avoid collisions with regular HARQ-ACK feedback.

22. The apparatus of claim 21 wherein the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback is scheduled via higher layer signaling.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein PUCCH resources for the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback are derived from a starting CCE index of an initial downlink control channel transmission carrying a downlink scheduling assignment.

24. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein the cell-specific or UE-specific scheduling manner is based on varied starting offsets configured corresponding to each instance of the periodic intermediate HARQ-ACK feedback to avoid PUCCH resource collisions between different UEs communicating with the eNB.

25. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) for machine-type communications (MTC) comprising:

control circuitry configured to:

process retransmission information from an evolved node B (eNB) based on a measured channel quality associated with a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH); and

process one or more transmissions of block data on a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) from the eNB during a retransmission window;

determine that the block data has been successfully decoded at the UE using the one or more transmissions of the block data; and

generate, in response to the determination that the block data has been successfully decoded, an early termination of repeated transmissions message comprising a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) message in response to the determination that the block data has been successfully decoded.

26. The apparatus of claim 25 further comprising:

receive circuitry coupled to an antenna and the control circuitry, the receive circuitry configured to receive the retransmission information and the block data from the antenna and communicate the retransmission information and the block data to the control circuitry; and

transmit circuitry coupled to the antenna and the control circuitry, the transmit circuitry configured to transmit the early termination of repeated transmissions message to the eNB before the end of the retransmission window.