Control channel signaling using a common signaling field for transport format and redundancy version
View Patent ↗The invention relates to a method for providing control signalling associated to a protocol data unit conveying user data in a mobile communication system and to the control channel signal. The invention also provides a mobile station and a base station and their respective operation in view of the newly defined control channel signals. To reduce the control channel overhead, the invention suggests defining a common field for the transport format and redundancy version in the control channel information format. According to one approach, the common field is used to jointly encode transport format and redundancy version therein. According to another aspect, one shared field is provided on the control channel signal that indicates either a transport format or a redundancy version depending of whether the control channel signal relates to an initial transmission or a retransmission. In another embodiment, further enhancements to a HARQ protocol are suggested for addressing certain error cases.
1. A wireless terminal for use in a wireless communication system, the wireless terminal comprising:
a receiver for receiving a physical downlink control channel signal destined to the wireless terminal, and
a transmitter for physical uplink shared channel transmission,
wherein the physical downlink control channel signal is associated to the physical uplink shared channel transmission and comprises a control information field having a number of bits jointly encoding a transport block size and a redundancy version used for the physical uplink shared channel transmission,
wherein the bits of the control information field represent one value out of a range of values, and wherein a first subset of the values is reserved for indicating the transport block size of the physical uplink shared channel transmission and a second subset of the values is reserved for indicating the redundancy version for the physical uplink shared channel transmission.
2. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the first subset of the values contains more values than the second subset of the values.
3. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein in case of the control information field representing the first subset of the values, the redundancy version to be used for the initial transmission is a fixed or a preconfigured value.
4. The wireless terminal according to claim 3 , wherein the value of the fixed or preconfigured redundancy version is 0.
5. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein in case of the control information field representing the second subset of the values, the transport block size to be used for the retransmission is a transport block size of the initial transmission.
6. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the transport block size is an index that is used for determining the actual transport block size.
7. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the number of the values in the second subset of the values is 3.
8. The wireless terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the wireless terminal is a user equipment.
9. A method performed by a wireless terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a physical downlink control channel signal destined to the wireless terminal, and
transmitting a physical uplink shared channel signal,
wherein the physical downlink control channel signal is associated to the physical uplink shared channel signal and comprises a control information field having a number of bits jointly encoding a transport block size and a redundancy version used for the physical uplink shared channel signal,
wherein the bits of the control information field represent one value out of a range of values, and wherein a first subset of the values is reserved for indicating the transport block size of the physical uplink shared channel signal and a second subset of the values is reserved for indicating the redundancy version for the physical uplink shared channel signal.
10. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the first subset of the values contains more values than the second subset of the values.
11. The method according to claim 9 , wherein in case of the control information field representing the first subset of the values, the redundancy version to be used for the initial transmission is a fixed or a preconfigured value.
12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the value of the fixed or preconfigured redundancy version is 0.
13. The method according to claim 9 , wherein in case of the control information field representing the second subset of the values, the transport block size to be used for the retransmission is a transport block size of the initial transmission.
14. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the transport block size is an index that is used for determining the actual transport block size.
15. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the number of the values in the second subset of the values is 3.
16. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the wireless terminal is a user equipment.