Granted Patent B2

US 12,627,423 · App. 18/115,485 · Granted May 12, 2026

Inventors: Sushant Vikram (San Diego, CA); Gibran Ali (San Jose, CA); Guillaume Monghal (San Diego, CA); Pradeep S. Sharma (Cupertino, CA); Deepankar Bhattacharjee (San Jose, CA); Ajay Singh (San Jose, CA)

Assignee: Apple Inc.

H04L5/001H04W72/0453

Abstract

Claims (83)

1 . A user equipment (UE), comprising:

one or more transceivers configured to wirelessly communicate with a base station on a plurality of component carriers (CCs) in a carrier aggregated (CA) network; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the one or more transceivers and configured to:

perform a time domain bandwidth part (TD-BWP) switch on a first CC of the plurality of CCs when the UE and the base station are communicating on the first CC; and

perform the TD-BWP switch on a second CC of the plurality of CCs when the UE and the base station are communicating on the second CC,

wherein to perform the TD-BWP switch on the first CC of the plurality of CCs or the second CC of the plurality of CCs, the processor is configured to:

in response to determining that a parameter associated with UE traffic meets a condition, add a plurality of padding bits to a transport block (TB) to reach a predetermined slot capacity for one transmission time interval (TTI) associated with the UE traffic;

transmit, using the one or more transceivers, the TB over the TTI to the base station;

receive, using the one or more transceivers, a message from the base station; and

change a TD-BWP based on the received message.

2 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a block error rate (BLER) associated with the UE traffic;

compare the BLER with a threshold; and

in response to the BLER being greater than the threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

3 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a number of retransmissions associated with the UE traffic;

compare the number of retransmissions with a threshold; and

in response to the number of retransmissions being greater than the threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

4 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a traffic type associated with the UE traffic;

compare the traffic type with a plurality of traffic types; and

in response to the traffic type being one of the plurality of traffic types, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

5 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the UE is operating at a first TD-BWP and to change the TD-BWP based on the received message, the processor is configured to operate the UE at a second TD-BWP, wherein the first TD-BWP is for low data traffic and the second TD-BWP is for high data traffic and wherein the processor is further configured to:

switch to the first TD-BWP after a predetermined time period;

in response to determining that a second parameter associated with the UE traffic meets a second condition, add a second plurality of padding bits to a second TB to reach a predetermined slot capacity for a second TTI;

transmit, using the one or more transceivers, the second TB over the second TTI to the base station;

receive, using the one or more transceivers, a second message from the base station; and

switch to the second TD-BWP based on the received second message.

6 . The UE of claim 5 , wherein the processor is configured to repeat the switching between the first TD-BWP and the second TD-BWP for a predetermined number of times within a second predetermined time period or within a radio resource control (RRC) connection duration.

7 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein to perform the TD-BWP switch on the first CC of the plurality of CCs or the second CC of the plurality of CCs, the processor is further configured to:

in response to determining that a parameter associated with UE traffic meets a condition, transmit, using the one or more transceivers, a second message to the base station during a prescheduled uplink grant,

wherein the UE operates at a first TD-BWP and the second message indicates a request for a change of the first TD-BWP.

8 . The UE of claim 7 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a block error rate (BLER) associated with the UE traffic;

compare the BLER with a threshold; and

in response to the BLER being greater than the threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

9 . The UE of claim 7 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a number of retransmissions associated with the UE traffic;

compare the number of retransmissions with a threshold; and

in response to the number of retransmissions being greater than the threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

10 . The UE of claim 7 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

measure a traffic type associated with the UE traffic;

compare the traffic type with a plurality of traffic types; and

in response to the traffic type being one of the plurality of traffic types, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

11 . A base station, comprising:

one or more transceivers configured to wirelessly communicate with a user equipment (UE) on a plurality of component carriers (CCs) in a carrier aggregated (CA) network; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the one or more transceivers and configured to:

trigger the UE to perform a time domain bandwidth part (TD-BWP) switch on a first CC of the plurality of CCs when the UE and the base station are communicating on the first CC; and

trigger the UE to perform the TD-BWP switch on a second CC of the plurality of CCs when the UE and the base station are communicating on the second CC,

wherein to trigger the UE to perform the TD-BWP switch on the first CC of the plurality of CCs or the second CC of the plurality of CCs, the processor is configured to:

compare at least one of a signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) value, hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledgment (ACK) information or HARQ NACK information, downlink channel quality information, or uplink channel quality information to a respective threshold, wherein the UE operates at a first TD-BWP;

in response to the at least one of the SINR value, the HARQ ACK information or the HARQ NACK information, the downlink quality information, or the uplink quality information satisfying the respective threshold, determining that a parameter associated with UE traffic meets a condition;

in response to determining that the parameter meets the condition, change the first TD-BWP to a second TD-BWP to be used by the UE; and

transmit, using the one or more transceivers, a downlink control information (DCI) message to the UE indicating the change to the second TD-BWP.

12 . The base station of claim 11 , wherein the processor is configured to:

receive, using the one or more transceivers, a message from the UE during a prescheduled uplink grant;

examine one or more bytes within the message; and

in response to the one or more bytes indicating a request for a change of the first TD-BWP, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

13 . The base station of claim 12 , wherein the one or more bytes indicating the request for the change of the first TD-BWP are based on a traffic type associated with the UE traffic, a block error rate (BLER) associated with the UE traffic, or a number of retransmissions associated with the UE traffic.

14 . The base station of claim 11 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

determine the SINR value;

compare the SINR value to the respective threshold; and

in response to the SINR value being less than the respective threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

15 . The base station of claim 11 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

determine the HARQ ACK information or HARQ NACK information;

compare the HARQ ACK information or the HARQ NACK information to the respective threshold; and

in response to the HARQ ACK information or the HARQ NACK information being less than the respective threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

16 . The base station of claim 11 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the traffic associated with the UE meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

receive, using the one or more transceivers, a channel state information (CSI) message from the UE, the CSI message including the downlink channel quality information;

compare the downlink channel quality information to the respective threshold; and

in response to the downlink channel quality information satisfying the respective threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

17 . The base station of claim 11 , wherein to determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition, the processor is configured to:

receive, using the one or more transceivers, a sounding reference signal (SRS) message from the UE, the SRS message including the uplink channel quality information;

compare the uplink channel quality information to the respective threshold; and

in response to the uplink channel quality information satisfying the respective threshold, determine that the parameter associated with the UE traffic meets the condition.

18 . A method performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising:

performing a time domain bandwidth part (TD-BWP) switch on a first component carrier (CC) of a plurality of CCs in a carrier aggregated (CA) network when the UE and a base station are communicating on the first CC; and

performing the TD-BWP switch on a second CC of the plurality of CCs when the UE and the base station are communicating on the second CC,

wherein the performing the TD-BWP switch on the first CC of the plurality of CCs or the second CC of the plurality of CCs comprises:

in response to determining that a parameter associated with UE traffic meets a condition, adding a plurality of padding bits to a transport block (TB) to reach a predetermined slot capacity for one transmission time interval (TTI) associated with the UE traffic;

transmitting the TB over the TTI to the base station;

receiving a message from the base station; and

changing a time domain bandwidth part (TD-BWP) based on the received message.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (47)