Granted Patent B2

US 12,647,983 · App. 17/802,811 · Granted Jun 2, 2026

Inventors: Seyed Ali Akbar Fakoorian (San Diego, CA); Yushu Zhang (Beijing, CN); Chunxuan Ye (San Diego, CA); Dawei Zhang (Saratoga, CA); Haijing Hu (Los Gatos, CA); Haitong Sun (Cupertino, CA); Hong He (San Jose, CA); Wei Zeng (Saratoga, CA)

Assignee: Apple Inc.

H04W72/21H04W72/232H04W72/25

Abstract

Claims (52)

1 . A method comprising:

generating, for transmission to a base station, an indication of sidelink and uplink processing capabilities of a target user equipment (UE) and an assistant UE;

generating configuration information for transmission to the assistant UE to facilitate coordination of uplink transmissions;

outputting a transport block for transmission to the base station indirectly via the assistant UE;

generating a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission to include the transport block; and

outputting the PUSCH transmission for transmission to the base station directly over a Uu interface.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration information is to enable the assistant UE to decode downlink control information from the base station.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the configuration information comprises: a timing advance at a target UE, uplink power control parameters at a target UE, a PUSCH configuration, a bandwidth part configuration, or a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

decoding downlink control information (DCI) from the base station to obtain a frequency-domain or time-domain resource allocation for the PUSCH transmission,

wherein the configuration information includes the frequency-domain or time-domain resource allocation; and

transmitting the configuration information to the assistant UE using a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) or a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH).

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

transmitting, to the base station, a request to enter an aggregation mode,

wherein the request comprises a scheduling request, a physical random access channel transmission, or uplink control information.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

decoding downlink control information (DCI) from the base station; and

determining, based on the DCI, that an aggregation mode is activated.

7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

determining, based on the DCI, that a K2 value is larger than a predetermined threshold; and

determining, based on the K2 value being larger than the predetermined threshold, that the aggregation mode is activated.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

transmitting the transport block in a groupcast message to a plurality of assistant UEs, including the assistant UE, via a physical sidelink shared channel.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the PUSCH transmission is a retransmission of the transport block and the method further comprises:

transmitting an initial transmission of the transport block in a non-aggregation mode; and

receiving downlink control information (DCI) to trigger the retransmission and activation of an aggregation mode.

10 . A method comprising:

generating downlink control information (DCI) to schedule a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission and to activate an aggregation mode for a target user equipment (UE) and an assistant UE, wherein the aggregation mode enables the target UE to transmit a transport block via both a direct path to a base station and an indirect path to the base station via the assistant UE; and

outputting the DCI for transmission to the target UE,

wherein generating the DCI to activate the aggregation mode includes:

generating the DCI to include a value within an aggregation mode field to activate the aggregation mode; or

generating the DCI to schedule the PUSCH transmission a period of time after the DCI, wherein the period of time is at least equal to a threshold period of time to allow for joint uplink processing of the target UE and the assistant UE.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

receiving an indication of sidelink and uplink processing capabilities of the target UE and the assistant UE,

wherein the DCI is to schedule the PUSCH transmission a period of time after the DCI and the period of time is based on the sidelink and uplink processing capabilities of the target UE and the assistant UE.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the DCI is a group common-DCI (GC-DCI) that includes a list of a plurality of UE identifiers that respectively correspond to a plurality of aggregated UEs, wherein a first UE identifier occurring in the list of the plurality of UE identifiers corresponds to the target UE.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the GC-DCI includes one or more uplink transmission parameters common to the plurality of aggregated UEs, the one or more uplink transmission parameters including a K2 value and a frequency domain resource allocation of resources for the PUSCH transmission.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the GC-DCI includes a first set of uplink transmission parameters for the target UE and a second set of uplink transmission parameters for the assistant UE, wherein:

the first set of uplink transmission parameters includes a first transmit power control command, a first transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI), or a first sounding reference signal (SRS) indicator; and

the second set of uplink transmission parameters includes a second transmit power control command, a second transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI), or a second sounding reference signal (SRS) indicator.

15 . The method of claim 10 ,

wherein the DCI is first DCI and the method further comprises:

determining the PUSCH transmission is not successfully received from the target UE; and

generating second DCI for transmission to the assistant UE to request transmission of the PUSCH transmission.

16 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

outputting, for transmission to the target UE, an indication of whether to transmit a transport block to the assistant UE via a sidelink interface or a Uu interface,

wherein the indication is an explicit indication in radio resource control signaling or DCI signaling or is an implicit indication based on a K2 value within the DCI.

17 . One or more non-transitory, computer-readable media having instructions that, when executed, cause processing circuitry to:

receive configuration information from a target UE;

receive a transport block from the target UE;

determine, based on the configuration information or downlink control information, a transmitted precoding matrix indicator (TPMI) or a sounding reference signal (SRS) indicator; and

output, for transmission to a base station, a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission that includes the transport block, the PUSCH transmission output with a transmit beam based on the TPMI or the SRS indicator.

Continuity (1)

References Cited (67)