Methods and apparatus of restriction on linked EPDCCH candidates for EPDCCH soft combining
Methods and apparatus of restriction on linked ePDCCH candidates for ePDCCH soft combining are disclosed. The method includes: receiving, by a receiver, a plurality of Control Resource Set (CORESET) configurations, a plurality of search space set configurations, and a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) transmitted with a plurality of repetitions; wherein the plurality of repetitions of the PDCCH are transmitted from a plurality of transmitting-receiving identities, and one CORESET is associated with one search space set; and determining, by a processor, linked monitoring occasions and/or linked candidates for blind detection of the PDCCH with soft combining.
1 . A method performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:
receiving, from a plurality of transmitting-receiving identities, a plurality of control resource set (CORESET) configurations, a plurality of search space set configurations, and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmitted with a plurality of repetitions, one CORESET being associated with one search space set; and
determining linked monitoring occasions and linked candidates for blind detection of the PDCCH with soft combining, wherein the linked candidates are determined from two search space sets with a one-to-one mapping scheme for soft combining.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of CORESET configurations have a same value for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol number and physical resource block (PRB) number.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of CORESET configurations have a same value for control channel element (CCE) number.
4 . A user equipment (UE) for wireless communication, comprising:
at least one memory; and
at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the UE to:
receive, from a plurality of transmitting-receiving identities, a plurality of control resource set (CORESET) configurations, a plurality of search space set configurations, and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmitted with a plurality of repetitions, one CORESET being associated with one search space set; and
determine linked monitoring occasions and linked candidates for blind detection of the PDCCH with soft combining, wherein the linked candidates are determined from two search space sets with a one-to-one mapping scheme for soft combining.
5 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of CORESET configurations have a same value for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol number and physical resource block (PRB) number.
6 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of CORESET configurations have a same value for control channel element (CCE) number.
7 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein each search space set configuration comprises a selected set of PDCCH candidates per aggregation level for selecting candidates from a search space set for soft combining.
8 . The UE of claim 7 , wherein the linked candidates are determined from two selected sets of PDCCH candidates with the one-to-one mapping scheme for soft combining.
9 . The UE of claim 7 , wherein the linked candidates are determined from two selected sets of PDCCH candidates for each aggregation level with maximizing overlapping between control channel elements (CCEs) of different aggregation levels.
10 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to configure a soft combination candidate number N for selection of candidates from a search space set configured by one of the plurality of search space set configurations.
11 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein a soft combination candidate number N is determined as a smaller one of configured PDCCH candidate numbers M among a plurality of search space sets indicated by the plurality of search space set configurations.
12 . The UE of claim 11 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to:
upon determining that the soft combination candidate number N is not larger than a configured candidate number M in a search space set, select a first N candidates from the M configured candidates for soft combining; and
upon determining that the soft combination candidate number N is larger than the configured candidate number M in the search space set, select the first N candidates among concatenated repetitions of the M configured candidates.
13 . The UE of claim 11 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to, upon determining that a first search space set has a configured candidate number M1 and a second search space set has a configured candidate number M2, receive a configuration parameter indicating a selection bitmap of candidates from each of the first and second search space sets.
14 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein:
parameters of monitoringSlotPeriodicityAndOffset, duration and monitoringSymbolsWithinSlot for associated search space sets are configured with same values for frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) based scheme;
parameters of duration, monitoringSymbolsWithinSlot and a periodicity derived by monitoringSlotPeriodicityAndOffset for the associated search space sets are configured with same values for slot level time-division multiplexing (TDM) based scheme; and
parameters of monitoringSlotPeriodicityAndOffset, and duration for the associated search space sets are configured with the same values for sub-slot level TDM based scheme.
15 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein the linked monitoring occasions are determined with slot offset based on a difference between time domain configurations from two search space sets for slot level based TDM scheme, or with symbol offset based on a difference between time domain configurations from two search space sets for sub-slot level based TDM scheme.
16 . The UE of claim 4 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE to determine a specific monitoring window for the linked monitoring occasions having a first monitoring occasion in a first search space set, wherein a second monitoring occasion in a second search space set is selected with a minimum spacing between a starting time location of the second monitoring occasion and a starting time location of the specific monitoring window, and wherein the minimum spacing is not larger than a length of the specific monitoring window.
17 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein the length of the specific monitoring window is configurable.
18 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein a search space set is selected as a reference search space set, the starting time location of the specific monitoring window is a starting time location of a PDCCH monitoring occasion for the reference search space set, and the search space set with a lower search space identification (ID) index is selected as the reference search space set.
19 . A method performed by a network equipment (NE), the method comprising:
transmitting a plurality of control resource set (CORESET) configurations and a plurality of search space set configurations, one CORESET being associated with one search space set;
determining linked monitoring occasions and linked candidates for blind detection of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with soft combining, wherein the linked candidates are determined from two search space sets with a one-to-one mapping scheme for soft combining; and
transmitting, via a plurality of transmitting-receiving entities associated with the NE, the PDCCH with a plurality of repetitions according to the plurality of CORESET configurations and the plurality of search space configurations on the linked monitoring occasions and the linked candidates.
20 . A network entity (NE) for wireless communication, comprising:
at least one memory; and
at least one processor couped with the at least one memory and configured to cause the NE to:
transmit a plurality of control resource set (CORESET) configurations and a plurality of search space set configurations, one CORESET being associated with one search space set;
determine linked monitoring occasions and linked candidates for blind detection of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) with soft combining, wherein the linked candidates are determined from two search space sets with a one-to-one mapping scheme for soft combining; and
transmit, via a plurality of transmitting-receiving entities associated with the NE, the PDCCH with a plurality of repetitions according to the plurality of CORESET configurations and the plurality of search space configurations on the linked monitoring occasions and the linked candidates.