POWER EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION WITH WIRELESS SMART REPEATER

Abstract

A smart repeater (SMR) can be configured to amplify and forward data from a base station based on received control information for managing power efficiency of on-off operations. The SMR can configure a power control mechanism based on the control information to adapt one or more bandwidths associated with the SMR based on the control information to save power and forward the communications to the base station or the UE. The control information can include a component carrier (CC) index or a bandwidth part (BWP) identifier (ID), and a set of parameters to configure on-off operations of the one or more bandwidths according to one or more CCs or BWPs.

Description

Claims

1. A smart repeater (SMR), comprising: a memory; anda processing circuitry configured to, when executing instructions stored in the memory, cause the SMR to: receive control information to manage power efficiency of communications to a base station or a user equipment (UE), wherein the control information comprises at least one of: a component carrier (CC) index, a bandwidth part (BWP) identifier (ID), a set of parameters to configure on-off operations of one or more bandwidths, or a combination of thereof;configure a power control mechanism based on the control information to adapt the one or more bandwidths associated with the SMR; andtransmit the communications to the base station or the UE based on the power control mechanism.

2. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to the control information comprising the CC index, forward the communications with the on-off operations from the power control mechanism based on a carrier aggregation of two or more CCs associated with different CC indices of different bandwidths, wherein the set of parameters include at least one of: an absolute radio frequency channel number (ARFCN) of a CC, a CC bandwidth, or other frequency information for downlink communication and uplink communication.

3. The SMR of claim 2, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine a CC of the two or more CCs as an SMR-default CC to be always powered on through the on-off operations of the power control mechanism with other CCs of the two or more CCs, wherein the SMR-default CC is determined based on an explicit indication of the CC, or an implicit indication of the CC based on a CC index or based on a successful cell search operation.

4. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to the control information comprising a BWP ID, forward the communications and configuring the on-off operations of the power control mechanism, based on BWPs of a bandwidth, wherein the set of parameters include at least one of: an ARFCN of a BWP, a bandwidth of the BWP, or other frequency information for downlink communication and uplink communication, and wherein each BWP of the BWPs corresponds to a different value associated with the set of parameters.

5. The SMR of claim 4, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine a BWP of the BWPs as an SMR-default BWP to be always powered on through the on-off operations of the power control mechanism with other BWPs of the BWPs, wherein the SMR-default BWP is determined based on an explicit indication of the BWP, or an implicit indication of the BWP that is based on a BWP index or based on a successful cell search operation.

6. The SMR of claim 1, further comprising: an SMR Mobile Termination (SMR-MT) component configured to terminate a backhaul link between the SMR and the base station and process data of a user-plane protocol layer;an SMR Base Station (SMR-BS) component configured to terminate an access link between the SMR and the UE and process data of the user-plane protocol layer; andan SMR control unit (SMR-CU) component configured to receive the control information at a control-plane protocol layer and perform the on-off operations of the power control mechanism by activating / deactivating CCs or BWPs on the backhaul link and the access link, wherein a default CC of the CCs or a default BWP of the BWPs is always activated.

7. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: activate and deactivate one or more SMR-CCs or one or more SMR-BWPs based on a medium access control (MAC) control element (MAC-CE), wherein the MAC CE is identified by a MAC sub-header with a dedicated logical channel ID (LCID) having a fixed size and comprises one or more fields that includes a cell index associated with an SMR-CC of the one or more SMR-CCs or a BWP index associated with an SMR-BWP of the one or more SMR-BWPs indicating whether to deactivate the SMR-CC or the SMR-BWP.

8. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: activate and deactivate one or more SMR-CCs or one or more SMR-BWPs based on a downlink control information (DCI) format of the control information, wherein a cyclic redundancy checksum (CRC) of the DCI format is scrambled based on a dedicated radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), or an identifier field in the DCI format comprises a predetermined value that identifies the DCI format.

9. The SMR of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: configure a search space set for the DCI format monitoring based on search space set parameters, a control channel element (CCE) aggregation level (AL) and candidates of the CCE AL, wherein the CCE AL is predetermined and the search space set parameters comprise a periodicity, an offset and a control resource set (CORESET), and wherein a time-domain location of the CORESET is limited to be within a predefined number of first symbols in a slot, a frequency location is limited to be within an SMR-DCC or an SMR-DBWP or an explicit indication by an ARFCN.

10. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: receive a DCI Format that comprises a bandwidth indicator field that comprises one or more SMR-CC fields or SMR-BWP fields to trigger a CC based power control mechanism or a BWP based power control mechanism, wherein a size of the DCI format is configured based on a radio resource control (RRC) signaling or a higher layer signaling and a location of the bandwidth indicator field in the DCI format for each SMR of a plurality of SMRs is indicated by higher layer signaling.

11. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: receive a group DCI format with the control information comprising an aggregation of different DCI bandwidth indicator fields of a plurality of SMRs to enable bandwidth adaptation among the plurality of SMRs, wherein the group DCI format is received over a backhaul link with a wide beam; andreceive data for forwarding over the backhaul link with a narrow beam that is narrower than the wide beam.

12. The SMR of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to receiving a discontinuous reception (DRX) trigger signal, configuring a DRX monitoring cycle comprising a DRX active mode and a DRX inactive mode, and monitoring downlink communication only in the DRX active mode based on a set of DRX parameters at least one of: a DRX cycle periodicity or one or more offset values; andpowering off or entering a sleep mode to not monitor a backhaul link with one or more CCs during the DRX inactive mode of the DRX monitoring cycle except for any symbols / slots being reserved by an indication of the DRX trigger signal.

13. The SMR of claim 12, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to the indication of the DRX trigger signal indicating one or more symbols or slots for a transmission of an SMR synchronous signal block (SMR-SSB) or an SMR channel state information reference signal (SMR-CSI-RS), or comprising a bitmap corresponding to the one or more symbols / slots, enabling a transmission or a reception during the DRX monitoring cycle based on the indication.

14. The SMR of claim 13, wherein the DRX trigger signal is configured to control the DRX cycle in a DCI format for one or more SMRs based on subsets of CCs of a plurality of CCs or a BWP based on at least one bit of the bitmap, wherein the DRX trigger signal in a DCI is configured with a DRX monitoring occasion for the DRX cycle and the DRX monitoring occasion is configured by RRC signaling prior to a first slot of the DRX monitoring cycle.

15. The SMR of claim 12, wherein the DRX trigger signal comprises an SMR channel state information reference signal (SMR-CSI RS) that configures tracking reference signal (TRS) or CSI-RS resources in a DRX monitoring occasion, a set of reserved TRS sequences, or a TRS sequence with an orthogonal cover code (OCC) to indicate activation or deactivation of at least one of: a subset of CCs of a plurality of CCs or one or more BWPs for one or more SMRs.

16. The SMR of claim 12, wherein the DRX trigger signal is based on a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) M sequence that configures carrier frequency checking and indicates activation or deactivation of at least one of: a subset of CCs of a plurality of CCs or one or more BWPs for one or more SMRs, wherein an M sequence of the BPSK M sequence is based on a number of resource elements (REs) mapped to the DRX trigger signal and at least one of: an SMR-CC group index or a BWP index.

17. A base station comprising: a memory, anda processing circuitry configured to: generate control information associated with a smart repeater (SMR) to amplify and forward communications based on a power control mechanism by adapting one or more bandwidths over at least one of: a backhaul link or an access link based on the control information, wherein the control information comprises at least one of: a component carrier (CC) index or a bandwidth part (BWP) identifier (ID), a set of parameters to configure on-off operations of the one or more bandwidths, or a combination thereof; andtransmit the control information to the SMR.

18. The base station of claim 17, where the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine a traffic load under a coverage of the SMR; andgenerate the control information based on the traffic load, wherein the control information is provided via a medium access control (MAC) control element (MAC CE), a downlink control information (DCI) format, or a group common DCI format.

19. The base station of claim 17, where the processing circuitry is further configured to: provide a discontinuous reception (DRX) trigger signal to configure discontinuous reception for the SMR to enter into sleep mode without monitoring the backhaul link during a DRX inactive mode of a DRX cycle except for one or more slots / symbols associated with an SMR synchronous signal block (SMR-SSB) or an SMR channel state information reference signal (SMR-CSI-RS) and symbols indicated in a bitmap.

20. The base station of claim 19, wherein the DRX trigger signal enables activation and deactivation of at least one of: one or more subsets of CCs or BWPs, based on a DRX indication in the bitmap corresponding to one or more SMRs and is provided in a DCI format, a CSI-RS, or a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) M sequence.

21. A user equipment (UE), comprising: a memory; anda processing circuitry configured to, when executing instructions stored in the memory, cause the UE to: receive communications forwarded from a smart repeater; andprocess the communication by adapting one or more bandwidths based on control information associated with a power control mechanism from a base station and over an access link from a smart repeater (SMR), wherein the control information comprises at least one of: a component carrier (CC) index or a bandwidth part (BWP) identifier (ID), a set of parameters associated with on-off operations of the one or more bandwidths, or a combination of thereof.

22. The UE of claim 21, further comprising: a UE control unit (UE-CU) component configured to receive the control information at a control-plane protocol layer and process the on-off operations of the power control mechanism by activating / deactivating CCs or BWPs on the access link, wherein a default CC of the CCs or a default BWP of the BWPs is always activated; anda UE data control unit (UE-DU) component configured to receive and send data via a data of a user-plane protocol layer in direct communication with a base station or indirectly via a smart repeater.

23. The UE of claim 21, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to the control information comprising the CC index, process the communications with the on-off operations of the power control mechanism based on a carrier aggregation of two or more CCs associated with different CC indices of different bandwidths; andin response to the control information comprising a BWP ID, process the communications with the on-off operations of the power control mechanism based on BWPs of a bandwidth; andwherein the set of parameters include at least one of: an absolute radio frequency channel number (ARFCN), a bandwidth, or other frequency information associated with downlink communication and uplink communication, wherein at least one CC of the two or more CCs is an SMR-default CC, or a BWP of the BWPs is an SMR-default BWP, that is always powered on through the on-off operations of the power control mechanism with other CCs of the two or more CCs or other BWPs of the BWPs.