Patent Application
20180184468
The present invention relates to a user equipment supporting ultra-reliable low latency communication service, a user equipment supporting enhanced mobile broadband service and a base station. More particularly, the user equipment supporting the ultra-reliable low latency communication service preempts a transmission resource by transmitting a dedicated preamble so that a base station and at least one other user equipment capable of receiving the dedicated preamble suspend the use of the transmission resource.
Application scenarios of the next generation of mobile communication system (which is generally called the 5G mobile communication system currently) mainly have ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) service, enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) service and massive machine type communication (mMTC) service. The URLLC service is mainly applied in scenarios, such as Internet of Vehicles and industrial control or the like, that have ultra-reliable low latency transmission requirements, e.g., applied in automatic driving, unmanned transportation and transfer robots or the like. Therefore, as compared to a user equipment supporting the eMBB service (which is later called an eMBB user equipment) or a user equipment supporting the mMTC service (which is later called an mMTC user equipment), a user equipment supporting the URLLC service (which is later called a URLLC user equipment) needs to transmit data to the base station more rapidly and immediately so as to satisfy the timeliness of data.
However, according to the specifications of various communication system standards currently available, if a user equipment intends to transmit data to a base station after having established a connection with the base station, then the user equipment needs to transmit an uplink resource request message (e.g., an uplink scheduling request (SR) of the LTE communication system) to the base station, wait allocation of an uplink resource by the base station, and then transmit data in the uplink resource only after the uplink resource is allocated to the user equipment by the base station. In this case, transmission requirements of the URLLC service for enabling the user equipment to transmit real-time data to the base station cannot be satisfied.
Accordingly, an urgent need exists in the art to provide a data transmission mechanism which satisfies transmission requirements of the URLLC service, thereby ensuring the data could be transmitted immediately.
An objective of certain disclosed embodiments is to provide a data transmission mechanism, which enables a URLLC user equipment to select a transmission resource from a share resource pool immediately and transmit a dedicated preamble allocated by a base station so that the base station suspends an allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource for other user equipments, thereby achieving the purpose of preempting the transmission resource. In this way, the URLLC user equipment is able to select a transmission resource on its own to directly perform data transmission without the need of requesting an uplink resource from the base station in advance, when the URLLC user equipment needs to transmit instant data. Moreover, the same transmission resource used by the URLLC user equipment will not be allocated to or used by other user equipments. Accordingly, the data transmission mechanism can satisfy the transmission requirements of the URLLC service and further improve the resource utilization ratio and transmission reliability without causing transmission resource collision.
The disclosure includes a user equipment supporting an ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) service, which comprises a storage, a transceiver and a processor. The storage stores a plurality of preambles including a dedicated preamble. The processor is electrically connected to the storage and the transceiver and is configured to execute the following operations: selecting a transmission resource from a share resource pool that is configured for use by the user equipment and at least one other user equipment, the at least one other user equipment supporting the URLLC service or an enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) service; transmitting the dedicated preamble in a preamble resource corresponding to the transmission resource via the transceiver so that a base station suspends an allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource for the at least one other user equipment after receiving the dedicated preamble; and transmitting an uplink data in the transmission resource via the transceiver so that the base station transmits a response message to the user equipment after receiving the uplink data.
The disclosure also includes a user equipment supporting an eMBB service, which comprises a storage, a transceiver and a processor. The processor is electrically connected to the storage and the transceiver and is configured to execute the following operations: receiving downlink control information in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) via the transceiver, the downlink control information indicating an uplink resource allocated by a base station; receiving a preemption notification message via the transceiver, and suspending an uplink data transmission performed by using the uplink resource according to the preemption notification message; and receiving a response message from the base station via the transceiver so as to perform the uplink data transmission according to the response message.
The disclosure additionally includes a base station which comprises a storage, a transceiver and a processor. The processor is electrically connected to the storage and the transceiver and is configured to execute the following operations: receiving a dedicated preamble in a preamble resource via the transceiver, the dedicated preamble being transmitted by a user equipment that supports a URLLC service; receiving an uplink data transmitted by the user equipment in a transmission resource corresponding to the preamble resource according to the dedicated preamble; suspending an allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource for at least one other user equipment according to the dedicated preamble, the at least one other user equipment supporting the URLLC service or an eMBB service; and determining whether the uplink data is correctly received so as to transmit a response message to the user equipment. The transmission resource is included in a share resource pool configured for use by the user equipment and the at least one other user equipment.
The detailed technology and preferred embodiments implemented for the subject invention are described in the following paragraphs accompanying the appended drawings for people skilled in this field to well appreciate the features of the claimed invention.
In the following description, certain example embodiments will be explained. However, these example embodiments are not intended to limit the present invention to any particular example, embodiment, environment, applications or implementations described in these example embodiments. Therefore, description of these example embodiments is only for purpose of illustration rather than to limit the present invention.
It shall be appreciated that, in the following embodiments and the attached drawings, elements unrelated to the present invention are omitted from depiction; and dimensional relationships among individual elements in the attached drawings are illustrated only for ease of understanding, but not to limit the actual scale.
A first embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
In the present invention, in order to rapidly and immediately transmit data of the user equipment 1 to the base station 3, the user equipment 1 can directly select a transmission resource TR from a share resource pool and transmit the dedicated preamble 102 in a preamble resource PR corresponding to the transmission resource TR. Specifically, there is a correspondence relationship between the transmission resource TR and the preamble resource PR. For example, the preamble resource may be disposed in the same frequency band as the transmission resource TR but located in the several Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols or several time slots ahead of the transmission resource TR, i.e., the transmission resource TR directly follows the preamble resource PR. In this way, the user equipment 1 directly transmits an uplink data 104 in the transmission resource TR after transmitting the dedicated preamble 102. Thereafter, the base station 3 can learn the position of the transmission resource TR after receiving the dedicated preamble 102 in the preamble resource PR, and suspends an allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource TR for at least one other user equipment.
It shall be appreciated that, in order to enable the URLLC user equipment (e.g., the user equipment 1) to transmit uplink data immediately without the need of requesting the transmission resource from the base station 3 (i.e., in a uplink grant-free situation), the base station 3 may configure a share resource pool (which comprises a plurality of share resources) for use by the user equipment 1 and at least one other user equipment in the present invention. The at least one other user equipment may support the URLLC service or the eMBB service. In other words, the share resources in the share resource pool may be used by a plurality of URLLC user equipments and a plurality of eMBB user equipments. Moreover, the preamble resource PR of the present invention belongs to a non-collision resource pool (i.e., an orthogonal resource pool) pre-configured by the base station 3 based on the share resource pool, in order to ensure that the dedicated preamble transmitted by the URLLC user equipment does not overlap with the uplink resource allocated to the eMBB user equipment by the base station 3.
The dedicated preamble 102 serves as a preemption transmission request of the selected transmission resource TR. If the at least one other user equipment is a URLLC user equipment, the base station 3 suspends allocating the transmission resource TR selected by the user equipment 1 to the at least one other user equipment. If the at least one other user equipment is an eMBB use equipment, and the base station 3 has allocated an uplink resource which is at least partly overlapped with the transmission resource selected by the user equipment 1, then the base station 3 suspends the transmission with the at least one other user equipment (i.e., the base station will not treat the data received from the uplink resource as being transmitted by the other user equipment). If the base station 3 has not allocated an uplink resource to the at least one user equipment, then the base station 3 will not allocate the resource overlapped with the transmission resource TR to the at least one other user equipment.
After receiving the uplink data 104, the base station 3 may generate a response message 302 according to whether the uplink data 104 is correctly received (i.e., whether the uplink data 104 can be decoded correctly), and transmit the response message 302 to the user equipment 1. In other words, the response message 302 may carry receiving report information that indicates whether the base station 3 has correctly received the uplink data 104, e.g., carry an acknowledgement (ACK) identifier or a non-acknowledgement (NACK) identifier. Moreover, it shall be also appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the dedicated preamble 102 of the present invention may also be used for channel measurement for the base station 3 to perform signal demodulation.
It shall be appreciated that, in this embodiment, the sizes of the preamble resource PR and the transmission resource TR are pre-configured by the base station 3 or defined by the communication system. However, in other embodiments, the base station 3 allocates a plurality of dedicated preambles 102 to the user equipment 1, and the dedicated preambles 102 may represent transmission resources TR of different sizes respectively. In this way, the base station 3 may determine the size of the transmission resources TR according to the received dedicated preambles 102 so as to retrieve the uplink data 104 from the transmission resources TR. In other words, different sizes of transmission resources TR represent the zones occupied by the transmission resources TR in frequency and time.
A second embodiment of the present invention is an extension of the first embodiment, as shown in
First, referring to
It shall be appreciated that, as shall be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, the user equipment may search downlink control information in different search spaces (e.g., a UE-specific space, and a common search space) based on a DCI format in the PDCCH. Therefore, in order to enable the URLLC user equipment to learn the uplink resource allocated to the eMBB user equipment by the base station 3, information of the uplink resource allocated to the eMBB user equipment may be transmitted in the DCI format of the common search space, while other information that is more private to the eMBB user equipment is transmitted in the DCI format of the UE-specific space in the present invention, thereby ensuring a certain degree of information security. How the present invention transmits the downlink control information 304 shall be readily appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art based on the above descriptions, and thus will not be further described herein.
After selecting the transmission resource TR, the user equipment 1 may indicate a preemption transmission request via the dedicated preamble 102 so as to prevent the base station 3 from allocating the transmission resource TR selected by the user equipment 1 to the user equipment 2. After receiving the dedicated preamble 102, the base station 3 may avoid allocating the resource overlapped with the transmission resource TR to the user equipment 2 or other user equipment according to the preemption transmission request indicated by the dedicated preamble 102. However, if the time point at which the base station 3 allocates the uplink resource is behind the time point at which the user equipment 1 monitors the PDCCH and selects the transmission resource TR, and the transmission resource TR selected by the user equipment 1 is partly overlapped with or completely the same as the uplink resource allocated by the base station 3, then the base station 3 suspends the data transmission with the user equipment 2 in the transmission resource based on the preemption transmission request (i.e., the base station will not treat the data received from the uplink resource as being transmitted by the user equipment 2).
The implementation scenario of
Furthermore, the implementation scenario of
A third embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
In the implementation scenario of
Moreover, after receiving the uplink data 104, the base station 3 may also determine whether the uplink resource allocated to the user equipment 2 originally can still enable the user equipment 2 to transmit the uplink data 202. If the uplink resource cannot enable the user equipment 2 to transmit the uplink data 202 or the base station intends to perform re-allocation, then the base station 3 carries information of the uplink resource re-allocated in the response message 308 to inform the user equipment 2.
On the other hand, in the implementation scenario of
In another embodiment, the dedicated preamble 102 may also indicate an uplink resource request or further indicate the size of an uplink resource required. In this case, no matter whether the base station 3 has successfully received the uplink data 104 in the transmission resource TR or not, the base station 3 will additionally allocate a dedicated transmission resource for use by the user equipment 1 to perform subsequent uplink data transmission, so the response message 302 further includes uplink resource allocation information. For example, the dedicated preamble 102 may serve as an uplink scheduling request (SR) of the LTE communication system so that the base station 3 accordingly allocates a dedicated transmission resource of a preset size, or the dedicated preamble 102 may further indicate a buffer status report (BSR) so that the base station 3 allocates a proper dedicated transmission resource accordingly. To achieve the aforesaid objective of resource request, the base station 3 may allocate a plurality of dedicated preambles 102 to the user equipment 1 so that the user equipment 1 selects one of these dedicated preambles 102 depending on the need thereof. In this way, these dedicated preambles 102 may not only represent the ID of the user equipment 1, but also indicate information such as the uplink resource request and size of the resource required or the like as have been preset or negotiated in advance.
A fourth embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
Additionally, before receiving the uplink data 104, the base station 3 and the base station 4 may decide which one to receive the uplink data 104 based on a received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 that is received previously. For example, if the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 received by the base station 3 is larger than the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 received by the base station 4, then the base station 3 decides to receive the uplink data 104 and performs subsequent operations of transmitting the response messages 302 and 308 and re-allocating the uplink resource. On the contrary, if the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 received by the base station 4 is larger than the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 received by the base station 3, then the base station 4 receives the uplink data 104 and provides the uplink data 104 to the base station 3. Alternatively, the user equipment 1 is further handed over from the base station 3 to the base station 4, and the base station 4 provides the subsequent service (e.g., allocating the uplink resource and transmitting the response messages 302 and 308) for the user equipment 1.
It shall be appreciated that, in practical situations, each of various base stations adjacent to the user equipment 1 may receive the dedicated preamble 102 transmitted by the user equipment 1, and only one single base station 4 is taken as example for illustration in this embodiment. However, the implementation in which a plurality of base stations receive the dedicated preamble 102 shall be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art based on the explanation of this embodiment, and thus will not be further described herein. Additionally, the base stations capable of receiving the dedicated preamble 102 and the uplink data 104 from the user equipment 1 (e.g., the base station 3 and the base station 4) can also perform data demodulation cooperatively (i.e., perform cooperative modulation) so as to improve the probability of correctly decoding the uplink data 104. For example, the base station 4 may transmit the dedicated preamble 102 and the uplink data 104 received to the base station 3 (e.g., via an X2 interface defined by the LTE mobile communication system).
It shall be appreciated that, in the aforesaid embodiments, it is assumed that the share resource pool is a part of an uplink resource pool (i.e., an uplink channel) configured by the base station 3, i.e., the share resource pool is used by the base station 3 for allocating a dedicated resource (i.e., a dedicated uplink resource) to the eMBB user equipment or the URLLC user equipment to achieve uplink resource transmission and used by the URLLC user equipment for uplink grant-free transmission. However, in other embodiments, the share resource pool may also be a part of a downlink resource pool (i.e., a downlink channel) configured by the base station 3. In other words, the share resource pool may also be used by the base station 3 for allocating a dedicated resource (i.e., a dedicated downlink resource) to the eMBB user equipment or the URLLC user equipment to receive downlink data and used by the URLLC user equipment for uplink grant-free transmission.
In this case, the dedicated preamble 102 also serves as a preemption transmission request of the selected transmission resource TR. If the at least one other user equipment is a URLLC user equipment, the base station 3 suspends the allocation of the transmission resource TR selected by the user equipment 1 to the at least one other user equipment. If the at least one other user equipment is an eMBB use equipment, and the base station 3 has allocated a downlink resource which is at least partly overlapped with the transmission resource selected by the user equipment 1, then the base station 3 suspends the transmission with the at least one other user equipment (i.e., the base station 3 will not transmit downlink data to be transmitted to the at least one other user equipment in the downlink resource) and the base station 3 may re-allocate a downlink resource to transmit the downlink data to the at least one user equipment. If the base station 3 has not allocated a downlink resource to the at least one user equipment, then the base station 3 will not allocate the resource overlapped with the transmission resource TR to the at least one other user equipment. Various implementation scenarios where the share resource pool is a part of the downlink resource pool configured by the base station 3 shall be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art based on the above descriptions, and thus will not be further described herein.
A fifth embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
Additionally, as in the implementation scenario of
In other embodiments, the at least one other user equipment includes another user equipment supporting the eMBB service (e.g., the user equipment 2 in the aforesaid embodiments), and the base station 3 has allocated an uplink resource to the user equipment 2 before receiving the dedicated preamble 102. In this case, if the user equipment 2 is capable of receiving the dedicated preamble 102 to determine that the allocated uplink resource is at least partly overlapped with the transmission resource TR, then the user equipment 2 voluntarily suspends an uplink data transmission using the uplink resource allocated to prevent transmission collision.
In other embodiments, the response message 302 carries receiving report information that indicates whether the base station 3 has successfully received the uplink data from the user equipment 1 (as described in the third embodiment). If the base station 3 fails to successfully receive the uplink data from the user equipment 1, the response message 302 further comprises uplink resource allocation information for use by the user equipment 1 to re-transmit the uplink data 104. Moreover, in other embodiments, the dedicated preamble 102 may indicate an uplink resource request, and the response message 302 may further comprise uplink resource allocation information. Additionally, as described in the aforesaid embodiments, the dedicated preamble 102 is allocated by the base station to represent an identification (ID) of the user equipment. Therefore, the base station can learn the user equipment 1 corresponding to the dedicated preamble 102 after receiving the dedicated preamble 102.
A sixth embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
In other embodiments, the storage 21 stores a plurality of preambles including a dedicated preamble. The preemption notification message is the dedicated preamble, transmitted by another user equipment supporting the URLLC service, that indicates a preemption transmission request (e.g., the dedicated preamble 102 transmitted by the user equipment 1). As described previously, the dedicated preamble 102 is transmitted in the preamble resource PR, and the user equipment 1 further transmits the uplink data 104 to the base station 3 in the transmission resource TR corresponding to the preamble resource PR, and the uplink resource allocated to the user equipment 2 and the transmission resource TR are all included in a resource pool and at least partly overlapped with each other.
Moreover, in other embodiments, the preemption notification message is received from the base station 3, i.e., the preemption notification message 306 as shown in
A seventh embodiment of the present invention is as shown in
Next, the processor 35 receives the uplink data 104 transmitted by the user equipment 1 in the transmission resource TR corresponding to the preamble resource PR according to the dedicated preamble 102, and suspends an allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource TR for at least one other user equipment according to the dedicated preamble 102. The at least one other user equipment supports the URLLC service or the eMBB service. The processor 35 determines whether the uplink data 104 is correctly received so as to transmit a response message 302 to the user equipment 1.
In other embodiments, the processor 35 transmits downlink control information to another user equipment supporting the eMBB service (e.g., the user equipment 2 of the aforesaid embodiments) among the at least one other user equipment in a physical downlink control channel via the transceiver 33 before receiving the dedicated preamble 102. Because the downlink control information indicates an uplink resource allocated to the another user equipment, and the uplink resource is at least partly overlapped with the transmission resource, the processor 35 suspends the allocation and transmission procedure of the transmission resource associated with the at least one other user equipment in response to the preemption transmission request indicated by the dedicated preamble 102, as described in the second embodiment and the third embodiment.
In other embodiments, the processor 35 further generates and transmits a preemption notification message 306 to the another user equipment in response to receiving the dedicated preamble 102 so that the another user equipment suspends an uplink data transmission using the uplink resource in response to the preemption notification message 306 (as shown in
Moreover, as described in the third embodiment, the response message 302 transmitted to the user equipment 1 carries receiving report information that indicates whether the base station 3 has successfully received the uplink data 104 from the user equipment 1. If the base station 3 fails to successfully receive the uplink data 104 from the user equipment 1, the response message 302 may further comprise uplink resource allocation information for use by the user equipment 1 to re-transmit the uplink data 104. In other embodiments, the dedicated preamble 102 may indicate an uplink resource request. The uplink resource request may further inform the base station 3 of the resource size required by the user equipment 1 for subsequent uplink data transmission. The processor 35 further allocates an uplink resource to the user equipment 1 in response to the uplink resource request, so the response message 302 further comprises uplink resource allocation information that indicates the uplink resource allocated.
Additionally, in other embodiments, the processor 35 further determines a received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 and receives another received signal strength from another base station (e.g., the base station 4 of the fourth embodiment) via the transceiver 33, and the another received signal strength is determined by the another base station based on receiving the dedicated preamble 102. In this case, the processor 35 further determines whether the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 that is received by the base station 3 is greater than the received signal strength of the dedicated preamble 102 that is received by the base station 4. If the determination result is yes, then the base station 3 receives the uplink data 104. Moreover, in another embodiment, the processor 35 may further receive the uplink data 104 received by the base station 4 from the another base station (e.g., the base station 4 of the fourth embodiment) via the transceiver 33 so as to perform a cooperative demodulation on the uplink data 104 and the uplink data received from the processor 35.
According to the above descriptions, the data transmission mechanism of the present invention enables a URLLC user equipment to directly transmit uplink data in the transmission resource selected by the URLLC user equipment itself without the need of first requesting the transmission resource from the base station, and a dedicated preamble indicating a preemption transmission request of the transmission resource selected by the user equipment is transmitted to achieve the purpose of preempting the transmission resource. Therefore, the data transmission mechanism of the present invention can satisfy the transmission requirements of the URLLC service and further improve the resource utilization ratio and transmission reliability without causing transmission resource collision. Moreover, the present invention uses the dedicated preamble as a beacon and for channel measurement, and not only the base station originally serving the URLLC user equipment can receive the uplink data transmitted by the URLLC user equipment, but other base stations surrounding the URLLC user equipment which are capable of receiving the dedicated preamble can also assist in receiving the uplink data, thereby increasing the probability of successfully receiving the uplink data transmitted by the URLLC user equipment.
The above disclosure is related to the detailed technical contents and inventive features thereof. People skilled in this field may proceed with a variety of modifications and replacements based on the disclosures and suggestions of the invention as described without departing from the characteristics thereof. Nevertheless, although such modifications and replacements are not fully disclosed in the above descriptions, they have substantially been covered in the following claims as appended.
This application claims the benefit of priority based on U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/438,444 filed on Dec. 22, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62438444 | Dec 2016 | US |
