Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

Optis Cellular Technology, LLC

Matthias Kamuf

Bengt Lindoff

Fredrik Nordström

Andres Reial

Christian Bergljung

Bo Lincoln

Stefan Parkvall

Konstantinos Dimou

Yi-Pin Eric Wang

Stephen J Grant

Shaohua Li

Jianfeng Wang

Niklas Andgart

Sven Erik Mattisson

Anders Rosenqvist

Stefan Mueller-Weinfurtner

Jim Svensson

Lay Hong Ang

Wee Guan Lim

A method for an electronic receiver of processing a packet of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) system is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a first transmission of the packet, wherein the first transmission comprises a first plurality of soft symbol values and determining whether the first plurality of soft symbol values meets a stop criterion. If it is determined that the first plurality of soft symbol values does not meet the stop criterion, a subject of the first plurality of soft symbol values is determined, wherein the subset comprises a number of soft symbol values of the first plurality of soft symbol values, the number being greater than zero and less than the first plurality. The subset of the first plurality of soft symbol values is stored in a HARQ buffer. A second plurality of soft symbol values, comprised in a second transmission of the packet received by the electronic receiver, is combined with the stored subset of the first plurality of soft symbol values to produce a third plurality of combined soft symbol values. Corresponding arrangement, receiver, device, and computer program product are also disclosed.

Method and arrangement of processing a packet of a HARQ system

A method of decoding a signal that has been encoded by a tail-biting code based on at least one encoding parameter is disclosed. The at least one encoding parameter may be a trellis size or a quantity of aggregated encoding elements or a code rate. The method is suitable for use in a communication device and comprises receiving the signal, performing a first decoding attempt of the signal based on a first set of starting state metrics and a first encoding parameter hypothesis, the first decoding attempt resulting in a first set of ending state metrics. The method further comprises performing, if the first decoding attempt fails, a second decoding attempt of the signal based on a second set of starting state metrics based on the first set of ending state metrics and a second encoding parameter hypothesis different from the first encoding parameter hypothesis.

Method and arrangement for decoding a signal encoded by a tail-biting code

A user equipment (UE) located in an extended-range area of a neighbor base station cell in a communication network, such as a low-power cell in a heterogeneous network, can inform its serving base station, such as a macro cell overlying the low-power cell, of the UE's capability of canceling interference from other cells' transmissions. That capability information enables the serving cell to decide based on more information whether range extension of the neighbor cell is beneficial for a number of UEs, and can result in more efficient radio resource utilization.

Methods and apparatus for neighbor cell range extension

Embodiments herein relate to a method in a transceiver () for enabling control of interference cancelling in the transceiver (). The transceiver () is in a first decoding mode. The transceiver () stores a received signal comprising a data block. The transceiver () decodes the received signal using the first decoding mode, thereby obtaining the data block. When an event is triggered, the transceiver () retrieves the stored signal. The transceiver () decodes the retrieved signal using a second decoding mode, thereby obtaining the data block. The transceiver () controls the interference cancelling in the transceiver (), based on the data block decoded using the first decoding mode and the data block decoded using the second decoding mode.

Device and method for controlling interference

Mechanism to receive control signals transmitted from a base station to the user equipment in a manner that minimizes power consumption on the user equipment while still maintaining some acceptable level of performance is described. The user equipment periodically measures the signal quality of component carriers used by the base station and requests control signaling (anchor) carrier reselection. Either a single component carrier can be chosen if the single carrier has sufficient quality or multiple component carriers can be selected when the quality of the single quality is low. The anchor carrier reselection may also be triggered to manage the system as a whole. For fast moving user equipments, anchor carrier hopping pattern can be provided to increase robustness and reduce reselection signaling overhead.

Anchor carrier selection in multi-carrier wireless network

A method for detecting an Almost-Blank Subframe (ABS) configuration for an interfering macro cell of a heterogeneous network is implemented in a wireless terminal. For one or more resource blocks in a received signal, a first power metric is calculated as a function of channel response estimates determined for predicted cell-specific (or common) reference signal (CRS) resource element locations in a plurality of symbols. For the one or more resource blocks in the received signal, a second power metric is calculated as a function of channel response estimates determined for the predicted CRS resource element locations in a single one of the plurality of symbols. A difference between the first and second power metrics is compared to a threshold, and responsive to the comparison a determination is made as to whether the macro cell is operating in a Multicast and Broadcast Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) mode or a non-MBSFN mode.

Almost-blank subframe configuration detection in heterogeneous networks

A technique for decoding a signal in a communication network is provided. A method implementation of the technique comprises the steps of receiving a signal; identifying a position in the signal; initializing a Viterbi state metric; and decoding the encoded signal by means of a wrap-around Viterbi algorithm. The received signal comprises information, wherein the signal is encoded by a tail-biting convolutional code. The identified position relates to a known portion of the information. The initialized Viterbi state metric is consistent with the known portion of the information. The decoding uses the initial Viterbi state metric, wherein the decoding starts at a decoding step following the identified position.

Decoding technique for tail-biting codes

A method for allocating orthogonal sequences to user equipment devices, UEs, of a group sharing a channel of a telecommunication system is disclosed. The method comprises determining which UE of the group having largest transmission resource assigned for a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH; determining a first orthogonal sequence of the UE of the group having largest transmission resource assigned; determining a second sequence that equals a quadrature phase offset of the first orthogonal sequence; reserving said second sequence when allocating sequences to remaining UEs of the group by avoiding the second sequence as long as there are other orthogonal sequences available. A control circuitry for a network node is also disclosed.

Control circuit and method for allocating orthogonal sequences

In one embodiment, a method of scheduling transmissions for a base station in a multi-carrier wireless communication network comprises scheduling initial transmissions of data packets for one or more users on a first carrier, without reserving scheduling capacity on the first carrier for retransmissions. Doing so increases the scheduled capacity of the first carrier for initial transmissions. The method further includes scheduling retransmissions, as needed, for given ones of the data packets on one or more second carriers. The method allows more traffic to be scheduled on the first carrier, meaning that multi-carrier transmissions are less frequently needed to convey all of the traffic targeted to one or more receivers. Those receivers therefore spend more time operating with a reduced receiver bandwidth (as compared to the bandwidth required for receiving more than one carrier), which reduces operating power.

Method and apparatus for retransmission scheduling and control in multi-carrier wireless communication networks

The invention relates to a method performed in a user equipment for estimating channel quality. The user equipment is adapted to operate in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) mode in a communication system comprising a base station node supporting MIMO and serving the user equipment. The method comprises: receiving, from the base station node, a reference signal; performing joint demodulation of the reference signal, thereby obtaining soft values; and generating the channel quality using the soft values. The invention also relates to a user equipment, computer programs and computer program products.

Methods and devices for estimating channel quality

A method of decoding a block with a Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA) using a trellis representation and a sliding window wherein each position of the sliding window has a path determination stage at one end of the sliding window and a symbol decision stage at another end of the sliding window is disclosed. The method comprises determining, for each path determination stage and for each node of the path determination stage, a surviving path (including a surviving path input symbol and a surviving decision stage node) and a concurrent path (including a concurrent path input symbol and a concurrent decision stage node) based on path metrics. A path metric disparity value is calculated and stored for each node. Based on decision criteria, a soft output value of the surviving decision stage node is determined as either of the path metric disparity value of the node of the path determination stage, a function of the path metric disparity value of the node of the path determination stage and the stored path metric disparity value of the concurrent decision stage node, and the stored path metric disparity value of the surviving decision stage node. Corresponding computer program product, decoder and communication apparatus are also disclosed.

Soft output Viterbi algorithm method and decoder

In one or more aspects, the present invention improves the efficiency of soft information transfer within a soft-value processing apparatus, by reducing in some sense the 'amount' of soft information transferred between constituent processor circuits within the apparatus, without forfeiting or otherwise compromising the transfer of 'valuable' soft information. In one example, the soft values produced by a constituent processor circuit are identified as being reliable or unreliable according to a reliability threshold. Some or all of the unreliable values are omitted from a soft value information transfer to another constituent processor circuit, or they are quantized for such transfer. The reduction in memory requirements for soft information transfer advantageously allows the use of lower power, less complex, and less expensive circuitry than would otherwise be required in the apparatus, which may be, as a non-limiting example, a Turbo receiver in a wireless communication device.

Method and apparatus for soft information transfer between constituent processor circuits in a soft-value processing apparatus

Mechanism to receive control signals transmitted from a base station () to the user equipment () in a manner that minimizes power consumption on the user equipment () while still maintaining some acceptable level of performance is described. The user equipment () periodically measures the signal quality of component carriers used by the base station () and requests control signaling (anchor) carrier reselection. Either a single component carrier can be chosen if the single carrier has sufficient quality or multiple component carriers can be selected when the quality of the single quality is low. The anchor carrier reselection may also be triggered to manage the system as a whole. For fast moving user equipments (), anchor carrier hopping pattern can be provided to increase robustness and reduce reselection signaling overhead.

In one or more aspects, the method and apparatus presented herein consider corresponding uplink resource allocations when allocating ARQ signal powers. In particular, in at least one embodiment, more power is allocated to the acknowledgment ('ack') signal(s) corresponding to user equipment (UE) transmissions that involve larger allocations of uplink resources. For the example context of an LTE network, an eNodeB 'boosts' its ack signaling power for acknowledging UE transmissions associated with larger uplink bandwidth allocations. Additionally, or alternatively, the UE is configured to bias its ARQ signal evaluations, to bias its ack/nack decision determinations to favor the ack decision, at least for those acks associated with transmissions that used greater resource allocations.

Method and apparatus for ARQ control in wireless communications

According to the teachings presented herein, a method and apparatus provide a reduced search space for blindly decoding a message included in a signal received at a communication receiver, where the message has an unknown format. Improving blind detection efficiency in this manner offers numerous advantages, including but not limited to lower power consumption through reduced processing overhead, and lower power consumption through expanded sleep opportunities. As a non-limiting example, the communication receiver comprises a mobile station configured for operation according to Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards, as promulgated by the 3GPP for E-UTRA systems, where the mobile station is configured to reduce a search space of DCI message decoding by determining message format likelihoods and blindly decoding a received DCI message based on the message format likelihoods.

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Lund, Sweden

Matthias Kamuf