Method, apparatus, and system for physical channel transmission in unlicensed band

1. A user equipment of a wireless communication system, the user equipment comprising:

a communication module; and

a processor,

wherein the processor is configured to:

perform, in an unlicensed band, a uplink (UL) transmission including a single or a plurality of subframes by using the communication module,

perform, in the unlicensed band, a UL transmission in a partial subframe having a duration shorter than a duration of one subframe to a base station according to at least one of an indication of the base station and a result of a channel access of the user equipment,

when the user equipment accesses a channel in the unlicensed band using a random backoff based channel access, adjust a size of a contention window used in the random backoff based channel access based on whether a transmission of a reference subframe previously transmitted by the user equipment using the random backoff based channel access is successful or not, and

perform, in the unlicensed band, a UL transmission to the base station by accessing the channel based on the size of the contention window,

wherein the reference subframe comprises the partial subframe,

wherein a backoff time in a procedure of the random backoff based channel access is determined based on a random number uniformly distributed within 0 and the size of the contention window.

2. The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to:

when an earliest subframe among a plurality of subframes that are continuously transmitted, by the user equipment in the unlicensed band, without a gap before a recently transmitted subframe is the partial subframe, determine, as the reference subframe, the earliest subframe and a subframe transmitted by the user equipment immediately after the earliest subframe among the plurality of subframes,

wherein the recently transmitted subframe is a subframe that is transmitted most recently by the user equipment among subframes that are transmitted by the user equipment before a time point obtained by subtracting a predetermined time interval from a starting time point of a subframe including a UL grant,

wherein the UL grant indicates a UL transmission to the base station, which is attempted by accessing the channel based on a size of the contention window.

3. The user equipment of claim 2 , wherein when the plurality of subframes include no subframe, the processor is configured to determine only the most recently transmitted subframe in the unlicensed band as the reference subframe.

4. The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein when a new data indicator (NDI) for at least one hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process associated with at least one reference HARQ process identifier (ID) is toggled, the processor is configured to set a size of a contention window of all channel access priority classes to a minimum size of a size of a contention window corresponding to each channel access priority classes,

wherein the reference HARQ process ID is an identifier for identifying an HARQ process of a UL-SCH in the reference subframe.

5. The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein when a new data indicator (NDI) for at least one hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process associated with at least one reference HARQ process identifier (ID) is not toggled, the processor is configured to increase a size of a contention window of all channel access priority classes to the next greater size than a current size of a contention window among sizes allowed in a corresponding channel access priority class.

6. The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein when a UL grant indicates that the user equipment is capable of starting a UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, to the base station at a subframe boundary and one or more starting time points of transmission in a subframe, and the user equipment fails to access the channel to start a UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, to the base station until an initial starting time point of transmission, the processor is configured to attempt a channel access for a UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, to the base station before remaining starting time points of transmission other than the initial starting time point of transmission.

7. The user equipment of claim 6 , wherein when the user equipment fails to access the channel to start the UL transmission to the base station until the initial starting time point of transmission, the processor is configured to determine a channel access type used in the channel access for a UL transmission to the base station after the initial starting time point of transmission based on whether the user equipment performs the UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, within a maximum channel occupancy time (MCOT) configured by the base station.

8. The user equipment of claim 7 , wherein when the user equipment fails to access the channel to start the UL transmission to the base station until the initial starting time point of transmission and the user equipment performs the UL transmission within the MCOT configured by the base station, the processor is configured to attempt to access the channel for the UL transmission to the base station based on whether the channel is idle for a predetermined single time interval, in the unlicensed band, after the initial starting time point of transmission.

9. The user equipment of claim 7 , wherein when the user equipment fails to access the channel to start the UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, to the base station until the initial starting time point of transmission, the processor is configured to determine the channel access type used in the channel access for the UL transmission to the base station after the initial starting time point of transmission based on whether the user equipment performs the UL transmission in the MCOT configured by the base station, regardless of the channel access type indicated by a UL grant indicating the UL transmission after the initial starting time point of transmission from the base station.

10. The user equipment of claim 7 , wherein the channel access type comprises a first type indicating a random backoff based channel access and a second type indicating channel access in which channel access is performed based on whether the channel is idle for a predetermined single time interval.

11. The user equipment of claim 6 , wherein when the user equipment fails to access the channel to start the UL transmission to the base station until the initial starting time point of transmission, the processor is configured to access the channel for the UL transmission to the base station after the initial starting time point of transmission by using a channel access type used in the channel access for the UL transmission to the base station until the initial starting time point of transmission, regardless of the channel access type indicated by a UL grant indicating the UL transmission after the initial starting time point of transmission from the base station.

12. The user equipment of claim 1 , wherein when the user equipment transmits a last subframe of a UL transmission, in the unlicensed band, to the base station as the partial subframe, the processor is configured to configure the partial subframe composed of the number of SC-FDMA symbols starting from a Single Carrier (SC)-Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) symbol index 0 to an SC-FDMA symbol index of 3, 6, or 10, and ends the UL transmission to the base station by transmitting the configured partial subframe.

13. The user equipment of claim 12 , wherein the processor is configured to transmit a Demodulation-Reference Signal (DM-RS) at an SC-FDMA symbol position having an SC-FDMA symbol index of 3 or 10 in a subframe.

14. An operation method of a user equipment of a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

performing, in an unlicensed band, uplink (UL) transmission including a single or a plurality of subframes,

wherein the performing the UL transmission comprises performing the UL transmission in a partial subframe having a duration shorter than a duration of one subframe to a base station according to at least one of an indication of the base station and a result of a channel access of the user equipment,

when the user equipment accesses a channel in the unlicensed band using a random backoff based channel access, adjusting a size of a contention window used in the random backoff based channel access based on whether a transmission of a reference subframe previously transmitted by the user equipment using the random backoff based channel access is successful or not, and

performing, in the unlicensed band, a UL transmission to the base station by accessing the channel based on the size of the contention window,

wherein the reference subframe comprises the partial subframe,

wherein a backoff time in a procedure of the random backoff based channel access is determined based on a random number uniformly distributed within 0 and the size of the contention window.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the adjusting the size of the contention window comprises, when the earliest subframe among a plurality of subframes that are continuously transmitted, by the user equipment in the unlicensed band, without a gap before a recently transmitted subframe is the partial subframe, determining, as the reference subframe, a subframe transmitted by the user equipment immediately after the earliest subframe among the plurality of subframes, wherein the recently transmitted subframe is a subframe that is transmitted most recently by the user equipment among subframes that are transmitted by the user equipment before a time point obtained by subtracting a predetermined time interval from a starting time point of a subframe including a UL grant,

wherein the UL grant indicates a UL transmission to the base station, which is attempted by accessing a channel based on the size of the contention window.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the adjusting the size of the contention window further comprises, when the plurality of subframes only include the most recently transmitted subframe, determining only the most recently transmitted subframe in the unlicensed band as the reference subframe.