IP Library Granted Patent US 12,634,857
Granted Patent B2
US 12,634,857 · App. 17/799,307 · Granted May 19, 2026

Systems and methods for supporting coherent transmissions in a non-terrestrial network

Inventors: Olof Liberg (Enskede, SE); Stefan Eriksson Löwenmark (Färentuna, SE); Magnus Åström (Lund, SE)
Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
H04W56/0045H04B7/01H04B7/1851
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,634,857
App. No.
17/799,307
Granted
May 19, 2026
Kind
B2
Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for supporting coherent transmissions in a wireless network such as a Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN). In one embodiment, a method performed by a wireless communication device comprises starting an uplink transmission and performing one or more actions comprising creating a time gap within the uplink transmission and/or muting a portion of the uplink transmission to support a timing advance of the continued uplink transmission. The method further comprises performing time-frequency compensation during a time period created by performing the one or more actions and continuing the uplink transmission after performing the time-frequency compensation. In this manner, a low-complexity method for achieving a compensation for a time variant Doppler shift is provided. This offers a predictability that can be used in a wireless network such as, for example, an NTN for supporting coherent demodulation and optimized receiver implementations.

Claims (46)

1 . A method performed by a wireless communication device, the method comprising:

receiving a configuration of one or more parameters from a network node of a non-terrestrial network, NTN, the one or more parameters defining a location of a time gap to be created in an uplink transmission or one or more values to be used by the wireless communication device to derive the location of the time gap to be created in the uplink transmission;

starting the uplink transmission;

creating the time gap within the uplink transmission;

performing an action during the time gap; and

continuing the uplink transmission after performing the action;

wherein performing the action comprises adjusting a transmit frequency of the continued uplink transmission and/or adjusting an uplink transmit timing of the wireless communication device.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the uplink transmission comprises a plurality of consecutive repetitions of a base transmission.

3 . The method of claim 2 wherein the base transmission is a Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel, NPUSCH.

4 . The method of claim 1 wherein the uplink transmission is a Narrowband Internet of Things, NB-IoT, or Long Term Evolution, LTE, for Machine Type Communication, MTC, LTE-M, uplink transmission that comprises a plurality of consecutive repetitions of a base transmission.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the time gap within the uplink transmission comprises creating the time gap within a Transmission Time Interval, TTI, of the uplink transmission, wherein the TTI has a length of greater than 1 subframe, greater than 1 radio frame, greater than 1 millisecond, greater than 10 milliseconds, or greater than 1 second.

6 . The method of claim 1 wherein performing the action comprises

adjusting the transmit frequency of the continued uplink transmissions to compensate for an estimated Doppler shift caused by motion of a satellite of a satellite-based radio access network which is to receive the uplink transmission.

7 . The method of claim 1 wherein performing the action comprises adjusting the uplink transmit timing of the wireless communication device to compensate for an estimated time dilation caused by motion of a satellite of a satellite-based radio access network which is to receive the uplink transmission.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the time gap comprises:

delaying a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

muting a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

puncturing a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

dropping one or more symbols of the uplink transmission; and/or

not using one or more symbols of the uplink transmission; and/or

leaving one or more symbols of the uplink transmission blank.

9 . The method of claim 1 wherein the location of the time gap is based on satellite ephemeris and/or a cyclic prefix duration.

10 . A wireless communication device comprising:

one or more transmitters;

one or more receivers; and

processing circuitry associated with the one or more transmitters and the one or more receivers, the processing circuitry configured to cause the wireless communication device to:

receive a configuration of one or more parameters from a network node of a non-terrestrial network, NTN, the one or more parameters defining a location of a time gap to be created in an uplink transmission or one or more values to be used by the wireless communication device to derive the location of the time gap to be created in the uplink transmission;

start the uplink transmission;

create the time gap within the uplink transmission;

perform an action during the time gap; and

continue the uplink transmission after performing the action;

wherein performing the action comprises adjusting a transmit frequency of the continued uplink transmission and/or adjusting an uplink transmit timing of the wireless communication device.

11 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 wherein the uplink transmission comprises a plurality of consecutive repetitions of a base transmission.

12 . The wireless communication device of claim 11 wherein the base transmission is a Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel, NPUSCH.

13 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 wherein the uplink transmission is a Narrowband Internet of Things, NB-IoT, or Long Term Evolution, LTE, for Machine Type Communication, MTC, LTE-M, uplink transmission that comprises a plurality of consecutive repetitions of a base transmission.

14 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 , wherein creating the time gap within the uplink transmission comprises creating the time gap within a Transmission Time Interval, TTI, of the uplink transmission, wherein the TTI has a length of greater than 1 subframe, greater than 1 radio frame, greater than 1 millisecond, greater than 10 milliseconds, or greater than 1 second.

15 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 wherein performing the action comprises:-adjusting the transmit frequency of the continued uplink transmissions to compensate for an estimated Doppler shift caused by motion of a satellite of a satellite-based radio access network which is to receive the uplink transmission.

16 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 wherein performing the action comprises adjusting the uplink transmit timing of the wireless communication device to compensate for an estimated time dilation caused by motion of a satellite of a satellite-based radio access network which is to receive the uplink transmission.

17 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 , wherein creating the time gap comprises:

delaying a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

muting a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

puncturing a portion of the uplink transmission; and/or

dropping one or more symbols of the uplink transmission; and/or

not using one or more symbols of the uplink transmission; and/or

leaving one or more symbols of the uplink transmission blank.

18 . The wireless communication device of claim 10 wherein the location of the time gap is based on satellite ephemeris and/or a cyclic prefix duration.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Aug 12, 2022
From: LIBERG, OLOF; ERIKSSON LÖWENMARK, STEFAN; ÅSTRÖM, MAGNUS
To: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
Reel/Frame 060791/0549 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 62976445 · Feb 14, 2020
Related Publication 20230113042A1 · Apr 13, 2023
References Cited (72)
US 5701127A · Sharpe · 1997 [cited by applicant]
US 6114992A · Underbrink · 2000 [cited by applicant]
US 6181911B1 · Sih · 2001 [cited by examiner]
US 6464643B1 · Brock-Fisher · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 6529485B1 · Agarwal et al. · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 6701127B1 · Wreschner et al. · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 7283091B1 · Loomis · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 7327311B2 · Dooley et al. · 2008 [cited by applicant]
US 20020105457A1 · Dooley et al. · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20020105458A1 · Dooley et al. · 2002 [cited by applicant]
US 20030012293A1 · Laurent et al. · 2003 [cited by applicant]
US 20040082303A1 · Giannakis et al. · 2004 [cited by applicant]
US 20070058683A1 · Futami et al. · 2007 [cited by applicant]
US 20090303117A1 · Boiero et al. · 2009 [cited by applicant]
US 20100246720A1 · Wang et al. · 2010 [cited by applicant]
US 20110116386A1 · Blanchard et al. · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20110142115A1 · Wang et al. · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20140378084A1 · Preteseille et al. · 2014 [cited by applicant]
US 20160278033A1 · Wu et al. · 2016 [cited by applicant]
US 20170257862A1 · Xue et al. · 2017 [cited by applicant]
US 20170373907A1 · Tan et al. · 2017 [cited by applicant]
US 20180054800A1 · Yeo et al. · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20180205589A1 · Bai et al. · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20180330611A1 · Jiang et al. · 2018 [cited by applicant]
US 20190104522A1 · Yoo et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190215781A1 · Jeon et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190313357A1 · Wang et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190327762A1 · Takeda et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20190380151A1 · Kim · 2019 [cited by examiner]
US 20190394738A1 · Abedini et al. · 2019 [cited by applicant]
US 20210297147A1 · Qaise · 2021 [cited by examiner]
US 20220046466A1 · Sridhar et al. · 2022 [cited by applicant]
US 20220078734A1 · Zhang et al. · 2022 [cited by applicant]
CN 107211451A · 2017 [cited by examiner]
CN 105474740B · 2019 [cited by applicant]
CN 113630215A · 2021 [cited by applicant]
EP 0848509A1 · 1998 [cited by applicant]
KR 20180021628A · 2018 [cited by applicant]
WO 0014568A1 · 2000 [cited by applicant]
WO 2007044095A1 · 2007 [cited by applicant]
WO 2013177578A1 · 2013 [cited by applicant]
WO 2018160682A1 · 2018 [cited by applicant]
WO 2019097855A1 · 2019 [cited by applicant]
WO 2020031120A2 · 2020 [cited by applicant]
WO 2020089471A1 · 2020 [cited by applicant]
WO 2020165736A1 · 2020 [cited by applicant]
WO 2021033085A1 · 2021 [cited by applicant]
Author Unknown, “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Study on New Radio (NR) to support non terrestrial networks (Release 15),” Technical Report 38.811, Version 1.0.0, Jun. 2018, 3GPP Organizational Part… [cited by applicant]
Author Unknown, “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Study on New Radio (NR) to support hon terrestrial networks (Release 15),” Technical Report 38.811, Version 15.0.0, Jun. 2018, 3GPP Organizational Par… [cited by applicant]
Author Unknown, “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Solutions for NR to support non-terrestrial networks (NTN) (Release 16),” Technical Report 38.821, Version 16.0.0, Dec. 2019, 3GPP Organizational Part… [cited by applicant]
Author Unknown, “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical channels and modulation (Release 16),” Technical Specification 36.211, Version 16.0.0, D… [cited by applicant]
Author Unknown, “Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Physical layer procedures (Release 16),” Technical Specification 36.213, Version 16.0.0, Dec. 201… [cited by applicant]
Ericsson, “R1-1912725: On NTN synchronization, random access, and timing advance,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #99, Nov. 18-22, 2019, Reno, Nevada, 22 pages. [cited by applicant]
Ericsson, “R2-1907296: On random access procedures for NTN,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 #106, May 13-17, 2019, Reno, Nevada, 6 pages. [cited by applicant]
Mediatek Inc., “R1-1904644: Doppler compensation in initial access procedure in NR-NTN,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #96bis, Apr. 8-12, 2019, Xi'an, China, 5 pages. [cited by applicant]
Mediatek Inc., “RP-193235: New Study WID on NB-IoT/eTMC support for NTN, ” 3GPP TSG RAN Meeting #86, Dec. 9-31, 2019, Sitges, Spain, 4 pages. [cited by applicant]
Sony, “R1-1906829: Discussion on physical layer control procedures,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #97, May 13-17, 2019, Reno, Nevada, 4 pages. [cited by applicant]
Thales, et al., “RP-171450: Study on NR to support Non-Terrestrial Networks,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting 88bis, West Palm Beach, Florida, Jun. 5-9, 2017, 5 pages. [cited by applicant]
Thales, “RP-181370: Study on solutions evaluation for NR to support Non Terrestrial Network,” 3GPP TSG RAN meeting #80, Jun. 11-14, 2018, La Jolla, California, 5 pages. [cited by applicant]
Thales, “RP-193234: Solutions for NR to support non-terrestrial networks (NTN),” 3GPP TSG RAN meeting #86, Dec. 9-13, 2019, Sitges, Spain, 10 pages. [cited by applicant]
International Search Report and Written Opinion for International Patent Application No. PCT/SE2021/050097, mailed May 14, 2021, 18 pages. [cited by applicant]
International Search Report and Written Opinion for International Patent Application No. PCT/IB2020/057596, mailed Dec. 11, 2020, 15 pages. [cited by applicant]
Ericsson, “R1-1909107: On frequency compensation, uplink timing and random access in NTN,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #98, Aug. 26-30, 2019, Prague, Czech Republic, 19 pages. [cited by applicant]
Ericsson, “R1-2005502: On UL time and frequency synchronization enhancements for NTN,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 Meeting #102-e, Aug. 17-28, 2020, Electronic Meeting, 14 pages. [cited by applicant]
Huawei, et al., “R1-1905994: Discussion on timing advance and RACH for NTN,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #97, May 13-17, 2019, Reno, Nevada, 10 pages. [cited by applicant]
Nokia, et al., “R1-1913017: Doppler Compensation, Uplink Timing Advance and Random Access in NTN,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #99, Nov. 18-22, 2019, Reno, Nevada, 28 pages. [cited by applicant]
OPPO, “R1-1908984: Ntn operation for Doppler and Timing Advance,” 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #98, Aug. 26-30, 2019, Prague, Czech Republic, 4 pages. [cited by applicant]
OPPO, “R2-1909753: Discussion on timing advance in NTN RACH,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #107, Aug. 26-30, 2019, Prague, Czech Republic, 3 pages. [cited by applicant]
Thales, “RP-180543: NR-NTN: NR impact area identification, initial downlink synchronisation,” 3GPP TSG RAN Meeting #79, Mar. 19-23, 2018, Chennai, India, 7 pages. [cited by applicant]
ZTE Corporation, et al., “R2-1911768: TP on Random Access for UE with location information,” 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #107, Aug. 26-30, 2019, Prague, Czech Republic, 16 pages. [cited by applicant]
First Office Action for Chinese Patent Application No. 202180028616.8, mailed Apr. 30, 2025, 11 pages. [cited by applicant]
Examination Report for European Patent Application No. 21706052.4, mailed Jan. 3, 2025, 6 pages. [cited by applicant]