Nec Corporation

Fujitsu Corporation

Nec C Orporation

Tokyo Corporation

Nec Coproration

Yassin Aden Awad

Robert Arnott

Vivek Sharma

Jagdeep Singh Ahluwalia

Yasushi Maruta

Yuhua Chen

Diptendu Mitra

Chadi Khirallah

Toshifumi Sato

Caroline Liang

Kay Seo

Michiharu Nakamura

Neeraj Gupta

Yukio Haseba

Sadafuku Hayashi

Motoki Morita

Saied Abedi

Meng Wang

Sunil Keshavji Vadgama

Robert Ian Paterson

Satoshi Noma

Alberto Suarez

Tao Guo

Ayesha Ijaz

Efficient encoding techniques are described for encoding resource allocation data to be signalled to a user device. In one encoding technique one or more frequency blocks are assigned to a user device and a plurality of resource blocks within the assigned frequency blocks are allocated to the user device. The assignment of frequency blocks and the resource block allocation are encoded separately and signalled to the user device. On receipt of the signalled information the user device interprets the frequency block assignment and uses this when interpreting the resource block allocation.

Resource allocation

A communications system is described in which user devices are allocated sub-carriers on which to transmit uplink data to a base station. ACK/NACK messages for the data transmitted on the uplink are then transmitted by the base station on sub-carriers that depend on the sub-carriers used to carry the uplink data. A direct mapping function is preferably used to determine the sub-carriers to be used for the ACK/NACK messages from the uplink sub-carriers. In another embodiment, the ACK/NACK messages are transmitted to the user devices on sub-carriers that are previously identified to the user devices, preferably by transmitting one or more index values to the user device in a control channel thereof.

Communication system

A communication system is disclosed in which a base station serves a communication area, wherein the communication area is formed by a plurality of directional beams each covering a respective portion of the communication area and each having a different respective beam identifier. The base station communicates control information, for a communication device (UE), using at least one directional beam associated with that communication device (e.g., a UE-specific operational beam set).

A gateway is described which facilitates a change of communication cell for a mobile device in a communication system, which includes a core network. The gateway receives messages from a base station operating a cell and forwards the messages received from the base station to the core network. The gateway intercepts a message relating to a change of communication cell, from a source cell in which the mobile communication device is located to a target cell, to determine if the core network needs to be notified of the change of cell. When it is determined that the core network needs to be notified, the gateway generates a message for providing information relating to the change of cell to the core network and transmits the message to the core network.

A communication system is presented in which a base station is provided for communicating with a plurality of mobile communication devices in a cellular communication system. The base station operates one of more communication cells and communicates subframes, with each of the plurality of communication devices within the cell(s), each comprising the communication resources of a control region for communicating a control channel and the communication resources of a data region for communicating a respective data channel. The base station communicates a control channel having a first DMRS sequence in a control region of some subframes and a control channel having a second DMRS sequence in a control region of other subframes. The second control channel may be transmitted in a radio beam focused spatially in a direction of a communication device. The first control channel may be transmitted omnidirectionally throughout the cell(s).

A communication system is described in which system information is transmitted to communication devices, by a communication apparatus of the system, in system information blocks, in accordance with a system information block transmission scheme. The communication apparatus configures at least one system information block to include control information indicating how the system information blocks will be transmitted.

Method and apparatus for machine type communication of system information

A communications system is described that has a base station and a number of user devices, including legacy user devices and non-legacy user devices. The base station generates control data for transmission to the user devices, the control data including common control data for reception and decoding by a plurality of user devices and user specific control data for reception and decoding by a specific user device. The common control data is for reception and decoding by the non-legacy user devices and cannot be decoded by the legacy user devices. The common control data is repeated within multiple subframes for reception and decoding by non-legacy user devices. The non-legacy user devices are typically Machine Type Communications (MTC) user devices.

A system is disclosed in which a base station defines a search space, in which a communication device can search for control information. The search space is characterised by at least first information which is related to a starting subframes of a plurality of portions of the search space and second information which is related to a periodicity between respective starting subframes, each portion representing a different candidate for the transmission of control information. The base station obtains a parameter indicating both the initial starting subframe and the periodicity and transmits the generated parameter to the communication device.

A communication system is presented in which a base station operates a first cell using a first component carrier and a second cell using a second component carrier. A control channel and reference signals of a first type are provided using the first component carrier. The control channel and the reference signals of the first type are not provided, and reference signals of a second type are provided, using the second component carrier. The base station determines from results of measurements performed on reference signals of the second type whether or not the mobile communication device is within an area covered by said second cell and, if it is, transmits cell configuration information to the mobile communication device.

A communication system is disclosed in which a base station communicates with machine-type-communication (MTC) devices by dividing the base station's cell bandwidth into (non-overlapping) narrowbands and subframes in each narrowband. The base station generates and transmits control information (DCI) for allocating a set of physical resource blocks (PRBs) in a plurality of subframes for an MTC device. After the base station transmits the data, the MTC device generates and transmits an HARQ feedback indicating that i) the data has been successfully received in each one of the plurality of subframes (e.g. a single 'ACK') or ii) the data has not been received in at least one of the plurality of subframes (e.g. a single ‘NACK’).

A communication system is disclosed in which a communications node allocates resources for potential use by any of a plurality of user communication devices, including first type (e.g. legacy) user communication devices and second type (e.g. machine-type) communication devices. Control data is sent, to the user communication devices, defining communication resources for potential use by any of the user communication devices. The control data includes information identifying a first PRACH resource configuration for a first type user communication device and a second PRACH resource configuration for a second type of device such that the user devices can be distinguished by the PRACH configuration used.

A communications node operable to communicate with another communications node over a communications channel having a plurality of frequency resources, the communications node includes data defining a division of the communications channel into a plurality of contiguous sub-bands each having N frequency resources, wherein each frequency resource in a sub-band has a corresponding frequency resource in each of the other sub-bands, data defining an initial allocation of the frequency resources, a resource determination module operable to apply a frequency shift to the initially allocated frequency resources in accordance with a frequency hopping sequence to determine frequency resources to use for communicating information with the other communications node, wherein the frequency shift applied moves the initially allocated frequency resources to corresponding frequency resources in another sub-band, a transceiver for communicating information with the other communications node using the determined frequency resource.

Frequency hopping

Scrambling code is initialized based on a parameter, n', that changes from a given block of sub-frames to a subsequent block of sub-frames wherein the parameter is derived using one of the following formulas:=(+SFN)mod 216=()mod 216

Growing community of inventors

London, United Kingdom

Yassin Aden Awad