Communication of uplink control information

1. A method of wireless communication at a communication device, comprising:

detecting that a set of user equipment (UEs) is to use multiple subframes to send uplink control information;

sending an indication of the detection to the set of UEs that the set of UEs is to use the multiple subframes to send the uplink control information;

receiving systematic bits associated with acknowledgement information for at least two UEs of the set of UEs in each of multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes to enable immediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) scheduling for the at least two UEs;

receiving parity bits associated with the acknowledgement information for the at least two UEs in an uplink-centric self-contained subframe that is sequentially subsequent to the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes; and

processing the received systematic bits jointly with the received parity bits for each of the at least two UEs to decode the systematic bits.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the multiple subframes are consecutive subframes.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the uplink control information includes physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) information.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the uplink control information includes at least one of:

channel quality information;

precoding matrix information;

a scheduling request;

acknowledgement information; or

beam quality information.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the channel quality information includes at least one of:

signal to noise ratio (SNR);

signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR);

reference signal received power (RSRP);

reference signal received quality (RSRQ); or

received signal strength indicator (RSSI).

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting comprises:

detecting a link gain associated with a UE of the at least two UEs; and

detecting, based on the link gain, whether the UE is to use the multiple subframes.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the detecting the link gain comprises:

receiving random access channel information from the UE; and

calculating the link gain based on the random access channel information.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the detecting the link gain comprises:

receiving channel quality information (CQI) feedback from the UE in a previous subframe;

and

calculating the link gain based on the CQI feedback received in the previous subframe.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting comprises:

detecting a payload size of uplink control information of a UE; and

detecting, based on the payload size of the uplink control information, whether the UE is to use the multiple subframes.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting comprises:

detecting a link gain associated with a UE;

detecting a payload size of the uplink control information of the UE; and

detecting, based on the link gain and the payload size of the uplink control information, whether the UE is to use the multiple subframes.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting comprises:

detecting an angle of arrival associated with a UE; and

detecting, based on the angle of arrival, at least one group of UEs of the set of UEs that will be scheduled together to transmit simultaneously in a set of subframes.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the detecting the angle of arrival comprises:

receiving directional random access channel information from the UE; and

calculating the angle of arrival based on the directional random access channel information.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the detecting the angle of arrival comprises:

receiving channel quality information (CQI) feedback from the UE in a previous subframe; and

detecting the angle of arrival based on the CQI feedback received in the previous subframe.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

recovering the acknowledgement information of a UE of the at least two UEs based on the decoded systematic bits to detect whether a NACK-to-ACK error has occurred with respect to the acknowledgement information in a downlink-centric self-contained subframe; and

retransmitting, to the UE, a lost data packet associated with the NACK-to-ACK error at a medium access control (MAC) or higher layer.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the systematic bits are received in an uplink acknowledgement portion of each of the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the parity bits are received in a data portion of the uplink-centric self-contained subframe.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

transmitting, to at least one UE of the set of UEs, downlink control information in a control portion of a downlink-centric self-contained subframe that is sequentially prior to the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes,

wherein the downlink control information indicates a data portion of the sequentially prior downlink-centric self-contained subframe for transmitting data information to the at least one UE and one or more acknowledgement portions of the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes for receiving the acknowledgement information from the at least one UE; and

transmitting, to the at least one UE, the data information in the data portion of the sequentially prior downlink-centric self-contained subframe,

wherein the acknowledgement information indicates whether the data information was correctly received.

18. A communication device configured to communicate in a wireless network, comprising:

a transceiver; and

a processing circuit coupled to the transceiver, wherein the processing circuit, via the transceiver, is configured to:

detect that a set of user equipment (UEs) is to use multiple subframes to send uplink control information;

send an indication of the detection to the set of UEs that the set of UEs is to use the multiple subframes to send the uplink control information;

receive systematic bits associated with acknowledgement information for a UE of the set of UEs in each of multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes to enable immediate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) scheduling for the UE;

receive parity bits associated with the acknowledgement information for the UE in an uplink-centric self-contained subframe that is sequentially subsequent to the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes; and

process the received systematic bits jointly with the received parity bits to decode the systematic bits.

19. The communication device of claim 18 , wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:

recover the acknowledgement information based on the decoded systematic bits to detect whether a NACK-to-ACK error has occurred with respect to the acknowledgement information in a downlink-centric self-contained subframe; and

retransmit a lost data packet associated with the NACK-to-ACK error at a medium access control (MAC) or higher layer.

20. The communication device of claim 19 , wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:

transmit, to the UE, downlink control information in a control portion of a downlink-centric self-contained subframe that is sequentially prior to the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes, wherein the downlink control information indicates a data portion of the sequentially prior downlink-centric self-contained subframe for transmitting data information to the UE and one or more acknowledgement portions of the multiple downlink-centric self-contained subframes for receiving the acknowledgement information from the UE; and

transmit, to the UE, the data information in the data portion of the sequentially prior downlink-centric self-contained subframe, wherein the acknowledgement information indicates whether the data information was correctly received by the UE.