Downlink control information (DCI) format for grant-less uplink transmission (GUL)

1. A User Equipment (UE) for communicating with a base station on a wireless network, the UE comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

process a first Downlink Control Information (DCI) format OA transmission indicating a Grant-less Uplink (GUL) activation,

generate one or more Uplink (UL) transmissions for an unlicensed spectrum of the wireless network responsive to the GUL activation,

process a second DCI format 0A transmission after sending the one or more UL transmissions, the second DCI format 0A transmission being a GUL-DCI (G-DCI) transmission in a G-DCI format comprising one or more UE-specific parameters associated with the one or more UL transmissions and a plurality of redundant bits to cause the second DCI format OA transmission to be a pre-determined length, wherein the pre-determined length is determined based on a bandwidth of the unlicensed spectrum used for the G-DCI transmission, and process a third DCI format 0A transmission indicating a GUL release; and

an interface configured to:

send the one or more UL transmissions to a transmission circuitry, and

receive the first DCI format 0A transmission and the second DCI format 0A transmission from a receiving circuitry.

2. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the second DCI format 0A transmission comprises one or more flags to specify that the second DCI format 0A transmission is the G-DCI transmission.

3. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the one or more UE-specific parameters comprise one or more bits for a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) Acknowledgement (ACK) bitmap associated with the one or more UL transmissions.

4. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the one or more UE-specific parameters comprise one or more of:

one or more bits for Transmit Power Control (TPC) associated with the one or more UL transmissions-or one or more bits associated with a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) used for transmissions in the unlicensed spectrum.

5. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to process the second DCI format 0A transmission before processing the third DCI format 0A transmission.

6. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of redundant bits comprises a plurality of dummy bits set to zero.

7. The UE of claim 1 , wherein:

a flag in the first DCI format 0A transmission is to indicate that the first DCI format 0A transmission is for the GUL activation; and

a flag in the second DCI format 0A transmission is to indicate that the second DCI format 0A transmission is the G-DCI transmission.

8. The UE of claim 7 , wherein a flag in the third DCI format 0A transmission is to indicate that the third DCI format 0A transmission is for the GUL release.

9. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the one or more UL transmissions comprise at least one of: one or more Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) transmissions or one or more Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) transmissions, which are for transmission without any UL grant from the base station.

10. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

facilitate performing a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure on the unlicensed spectrum to determine if a channel in the unlicensed spectrum is available; and

facilitate sending of the one or more UL transmissions without a prior UL grant upon a determination that the channel in the unlicensed spectrum is available.

11. The UE of claim 1 , wherein the first DCI format 0A transmission and the third DCI format 0A transmission are received over the unlicensed spectrum.

12. A non-transitory machine readable storage media having machine executable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors of a User Equipment (UE) operable to communicate with a base station on a wireless network to perform operations, the operations comprising:

processing a first Downlink Control Information (DCI) format 0A transmission indicating a Grant-less Uplink (GUL) activation;

generating one or more Uplink (UL) transmissions for an unlicensed spectrum of the wireless network responsive to the GUL activation;

processing a second DCI format 0A transmission after sending the one or more UL transmissions, the second DCI format 0A transmission being a GUL-DCI (G-DCI) transmission in a G-DCI format comprising one or more UE-specific parameters associated with the one or more UL transmissions and a plurality of redundant bits to cause the second DCI format 0A transmission to be a pre-determined length, wherein the pre-determined length is determined based on a bandwidth of the unlicensed spectrum used for the G-DCI transmission; and

processing a third DCI format 0A transmission indicating a GUL release.

13. The non-transitory machine readable storage media of claim 12 , wherein the second DCI format 0A transmission comprises one or more flags to specify that the second DCI format 0A transmission is the G-DCI transmission.

14. The non-transitory machine readable storage media of claim 12 , wherein the one or more UE-specific parameters comprise one or more of:

one or more bits for a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) Acknowledgement (ACK) bitmap associated with the one or more UL transmissions;

one or more bits for Transmit Power Control (TPC) associated with the one or more UL transmissions; or

one or more bits associated with a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) used for transmissions in the unlicensed spectrum.

15. The non-transitory machine readable storage media of claim 12 , wherein the processing the second DCI format 0A transmission comprises:

processing the second DCI format 0A transmission before processing the third DCI format 0A transmission.

16. The non-transitory machine readable storage media of claim 12 , wherein the first DCI format 0A transmission comprises a flag to indicate that the first DCI format 0A transmission is associated with the GUL activation; and

wherein the second DCI format 0A transmission comprises a flag to indicate that the second DCI format 0A transmission is the G-DCI transmission.

17. A base station for communicating with a User Equipment (UE) on a wireless network, the base station comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

generate a first Downlink Control Information (DCI) indicating a Grant-less Uplink (GUL) activation; and

generate a second DCI being a GUL-DCI (G-DCI) transmission in a G-DCI format comprising one or more UE-specific parameters associated with one or more Uplink (UL) transmissions for an unlicensed spectrum of the wireless network and a plurality of redundant bits to cause the second DCI to be a pre-determined length, wherein the pre-determined length is determined based on a bandwidth of the unlicensed spectrum used for the G-DCI transmission,

wherein a flag in the first DCI is to indicate that the first DCI is for the GUL activation, and

wherein a flag in the second DCI is to indicate that the second DCI is a GUL DCI (G-DCI) comprising the one or more UE-specific parameters; and

an interface configured to output the first DCI and the second DCI to a transceiver circuitry for transmission to the UE.

18. The base station of claim 17 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to:

generate a third DCI indicating a GUL release.

19. The base station of claim 17 , wherein the first DCI and the second DCI have a DCI format 0A.

20. The base station of claim 17 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to:

process the one or more UL transmissions after generation of the first DCI and before generation of the second DCI.

21. The base station of claim 17 , wherein the second DCI comprises one or more of:

a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) Acknowledgement (ACK) bitmap feedback comprising 2*N bits, where N is a number of configured HARQ process identifications (IDs) for grant-less transmissions;

a Transmit Power Control (TPC) command comprising 2 bits; or a Modulation and coding scheme (MCS) information comprising one of 5 bits or 10 bits.

22. The base station of claim 17 , wherein to generate the first DCI indicating the GUL activation, the one or more processors are configured to:

set the plurality of redundant bits to zeros such that a length of the second DCI corresponds to the pre-determined length, and

wherein the pre-determined length comprises a pre-defined length of a format 0A DCI.

23. The base station of claim 17 , wherein to generate the first DCI, the one or more processors are configured to:

scramble the first DCI using a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) that is specific to GUL transmission.