USER EQUIPMENT WITH ADAPTIVE TRANSMISSION POWER SCALING BASED ON DECODING CONFIDENCE

1 - 25 . (canceled)

26 . A User Equipment (UE), comprising:

a transceiver, configured to receive a Downlink (DL) transmission from a base station (BS) and to transmit an Uplink (UL) transmission to the BS; and

a controller, configured to determine a decoding confidence of the BS based on a decoding confidence metric with respect to the received DL transmission and to generate a power scaling for the UL transmission based on the determined decoding confidence,

wherein the transceiver is configured to transmit the UL transmission based on the power scaling generated by the controller.

27 . The UE of claim 26 ,

wherein the decoding confidence metric is based on counting unexpected DL retransmission requests.

28 . The UE of claim 26 ,

wherein the decoding confidence metric is based on counting instances when the BS did not follow one of precoding matrix indication (PMI) or rank indication (RI) reports sent by the UE.

29 . The UE of claim 26 ,

wherein the decoding confidence metric is based on counting instances when the BS schedules an over-optimistic modulation and coding set (MCS) allocation.

30 . The UE of claim 26 ,

wherein the controller is configured to reduce the power scaling for the UL transmission when determining an increased decoding confidence of the BS and to increase the power scaling for the UL transmission when determining a reduced decoding confidence of the BS.

31 . The UE of claim 26 ,

wherein the decoding confidence metric is based on a confidence of decoding Uplink Control Information (UCI) by the BS.

32 . The UE of claim 31 ,

wherein the transceiver is configured to transmit the UL transmission comprising the UCI unprotected by error correction coding.

33 . The UE of claim 31 ,

wherein the controller is configured to generate the power scaling in a carrier aggregation scenario for an UL transmission comprising a first UL transmission directed to a primary cell and at least one secondary UL transmission directed to at least one secondary cell, wherein the first UL transmission carries the UCI.

34 . The UE of claim 33 ,

wherein the controller is configured to down-scale the power scaling for the first UL transmission and to upscale the power scaling for the at least one secondary UL transmission when a total configured maximum output power of the UL transmission crosses a threshold.

35 . The UE of claim 33 ,

wherein the controller is configured to reduce the power scaling for the first UL transmission and to correspondingly increase the power scaling for the at least one secondary UL transmission when determining an increased decoding confidence of the BS and to increase the power scaling for the first UL transmission and to correspondingly reduce the power scaling for the at least one secondary UL transmission when determining a reduced decoding confidence of the BS.

36 . A method for power scaling of a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:

receiving a Downlink (DL) transmission from a base station (BS);

determining a decoding confidence of the BS based on a decoding confidence metric with respect to the received DL transmission;

generating a power scaling for an Uplink (UL) transmission to the BS based on the determined decoding confidence; and

transmitting the UL transmission to the BS based on the generated power scaling.

37 . The method of claim 36 ,

wherein the decoding confidence indicates a confidence of decoding an Uplink Control Information (UCI) by the BS, the UCI comprised in the UL transmission.

38 . The method of claim 37 ,

wherein the decoding confidence metric is based on Downlink Control Information (DCI) comprised in the DL transmission.

39 . The method of claim 38 ,

wherein determining the decoding confidence comprises determining unexpected DL retransmission requests based on a comparison of a previously reported Acknowledgement (ACK) or Non-Acknowledgement (NACK) in the UCI with a current indicated New Data Indicator (NDI) in the DCI.

40 . The method of claim 39 ,

wherein determining the decoding confidence comprises determining unexpected Rank Indicators (RIs) based on a comparison of assigned DL layers with previously reported RIs.

41 . The method of claim 40 ,

wherein determining the decoding confidence comprises determining unexpected Precoding Matrix Indicators (PMIs) based on a comparison of previous reported PMIs with a current allocated DL precoding matrix.

42 . The method of claim 41 ,

wherein determining the decoding confidence comprises determining an overoptimistic Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) allocation based on a comparison of a current allocated DL MCS with a previous transmitted Channel Quality Indicator (CQI).

43 . The method of claim 42 , comprising:

using respective mismatch counters for determining the unexpected DL retransmission requests, the unexpected RIs, the unexpected PMIs and the overoptimistic MCS allocation.

44 . The method of claim 43 , comprising:

determining an overall UCI decoding confidence level based on a combined weighted averaging of the respective mismatch counters.

45 . The method of claim 44 , comprising:

determining a power scaling bias factor based on the overall UCI decoding confidence level.

46 . The method of claim 45 ,

wherein the power scaling bias factor is close to zero when the overall UCI decoding confidence level indicates low error rate on UCI decoding; and

wherein the power scaling bias factor is close to one when the overall UCI decoding confidence level indicates a high error rate on UCI decoding.

47 . The method of claim 36 , comprising:

predicting a future decoding confidence of the BS based on a combination of at least one previously determined decoding confidence of the BS and a currently determined decoding confidence of the BS.

48 . A power scaling controller for a User Equipment (UE), the power scaling controller comprising:

an Uplink Control Information (UCI) decoding confidence estimator module, configured to determine a UCI decoding confidence level based on a decoding confidence metric with respect to a current received Downlink Control Information (DCI) and previous transmitted UCI; and

a transmission power scaling controller module, configured to generate a power scaling for an uplink transmission based on the determined UCI decoding confidence level.

49 . The power scaling controller of claim 48 ,

wherein the current received Downlink Control Information (DCI) comprises at least one of a current received New Data Indicator (NDI), information of current allocated layers, a current allocated Precoding Matrix Indicator (PMI), a current allocated DL Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS).

50 . The power scaling controller of claim 49 ,

wherein the previously transmitted UCI comprises at least one of a previously transmitted Acknowledgement (ACK) or Non-Acknowledgement (NACK), a previous transmitted PMI, a previous transmitted Rank Indicator (RI), a previous transmitted Channel Quality Indicator (CQI).