WO2024239335A1

WO2024239335A1 - Fast harq mode indication for sps and configured grant

Info

Publication number: WO2024239335A1
Application number: PCT/CN2023/096382
Authority: WO
Inventors: Pingping Wen; Ping Yuan; Jingyuan Sun; Tzu-Chung Hsieh
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy; Nokia Technologies Oy
Current assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy; Nokia Technologies Oy
Priority date: 2023-05-25
Filing date: 2023-05-25
Publication date: 2024-11-28
Anticipated expiration: 2025-11-25

Abstract

Example embodiments of the present disclosure provide solutions for fast hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode indication for SPS and configured grant. In an example method, a terminal device receives, from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a HARQ mode for semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission (s) or configured grant (CG) transmission (s). The terminal device determines, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the SPS transmission (s) or the CG transmission (s). In this way, dynamic and fast HARQ mode indication/change, which is adaptive to fast activation feature of SPS and CG, is implemented efficiently without introducing extra signaling overhead in DCI.

Description

FAST HARQ MODE INDICATION FOR SPS AND CONFIGURED GRANT

FIELD

Example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of communication, and in particular, to a terminal device, a network device, methods, apparatuses, and a computer readable medium for fast hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode indication for semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) and configured grant.

BACKGROUND

Non-terrestrial communication can be in a complementary manner to terrestrial deployments where satellite connectivity can provide coverage beyond terrestrial deployments. 3GPP has defined a work item for Rel-17 on non-terrestrial networks (NTN) and a work item for Rel-18 on Internet-of-Things NTN (IoT-NTN) performance enhancements. The HARQ mode, e.g. HARQ feedback enabled/disabled in DL and HARQ mode A/B in UL is one important feature in both work items. The benefit of disabling HARQ feedback in DL and HARQ mode B in UL for NTN and IoT over NTN is to enable the network side to reuse an HARQ process ID before a full HARQ round trip time (RTT) has elapsed to avoid the HARQ stalling and reduce the transmission latency as well as enable peak throughput.

It is agreed in 3GPP radio access network group 2 (RAN2) that data transmitted through semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) and configured grant (CG) resources should be the service with the same/similar QoS requirement (e.g., latency, throughput, reliability etc. ) and be configured with the same HARQ mode. The HARQ mode per process may need to be changed based on QoS during transmissions. In some NTN systems, the HARQ mode (e.g., enabling/disabling HARQ feedback for downlink transmission) is semi-static configured by RRC signaling. However, the advantage of fast DCI based semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) activation may be degraded due to the slow RRC signaling for HARQ mode reconfiguration. Therefore, improved solutions for fast HARQ indication need to be investigated and studied.

SUMMARY

In general, example embodiments of the present disclosure provide solutions for fast HARQ mode indication for semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) and configured grant (CG) .

In a first aspect, there is provided a terminal device. The terminal device comprises at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the terminal device at least to: receive, from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and determine, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In a second aspect, there is provided a network device. The network device comprises at least one processor and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the network device at least to: generate downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and transmit the DCI to a terminal device.

In a third aspect, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a method. The method comprises: generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.

In a fifth aspect, there is provided an apparatus. The apparatus comprises: means for receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and means for determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In a sixth aspect, there is provided an apparatus. The apparatus comprises: means for generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and means for transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.

In a seventh aspect, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising program instructions. The program instructions, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising program instructions. The program instructions, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program comprising instructions, which, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus at least to: receive, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and determine, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In a tenth aspect, there is provided a computer program comprising instructions, which, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus at least to: generate, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and transmit the DCI to a terminal device.

In an eleventh aspect, there is provided a terminal device. The terminal device comprises: a receiving circuitry configured to: receive, from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and a determining circuitry configured to determine, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In a twelfth aspect, there is provided a network device. The network device comprises: a generating circuitry configured to generate downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and a transmitting circuitry configured to transmit the DCI to a terminal device.

It is to be understood that the summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example network environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented;

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a process flow in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates an example flowchart of a method implemented at a terminal device according to example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates an example flowchart of a method implemented at a network device according to example embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates an example simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 6 illustrates an example block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Principles of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. The disclosure described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment, ” “an embodiment, ” “an example embodiment, ” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

It shall be understood that although the terms “first” and “second” etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a” , “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” , “comprising” , “has” , “having” , “includes” and/or “including” , when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and/or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and/or combinations thereof. As used herein, “at least one of the following: <a list of two or more elements>” and “at least one of <a list of two or more elements>” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or” , mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all of the following:

(a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and/or digital circuitry) and

(b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable) :

(i) a combination of analog and/or digital hardware circuit (s) with software/firmware and

(ii) any portions of hardware processor (s) with software (including digital signal processor (s) ) , software, and memory (ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and

(c) hardware circuit (s) and or processor (s) , such as a microprocessor (s) or a portion of a microprocessor (s) , that requires software (for example, firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) accompanying software and/or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

As used herein, the term “network” , “communication network” or “data network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as long term evolution (LTE) , LTE-advanced (LTE-A) , wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) , high-speed packet access (HSPA) , wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) , narrow band Internet of things (NB-IoT) , satellite, enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC) , non-terrestrial communication, terrestrial communication, and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device/element in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the fourth generation (4G) , 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G) , the sixth generation (6G) , new radio (NR) , IEEE 802.11 communication protocols, and/or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP) or a transmission and reception point (TRP) , for example, a node B (NodeB or NB) , an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB) , a NR NB (also referred to as a gNB) , a remote radio unit (RRU) , a radio header (RH) , a remote radio head (RRH) , a WiFi device, a relay, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In the following description, the terms “network device” , “AP device” , “AP” and “access point” may be used interchangeably.

The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE) , a subscriber station (SS) , a portable subscriber station, a mobile station (MS) , a station (STA) or station device, or an access terminal (AT) . The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE) , laptop-mounted equipment (LME) , USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE) , an Internet of Things (IoT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD) , a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (for example, remote surgery) , an industrial device and applications (for example, a robot and/or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chain contexts) , a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. In the following description, the terms “station” , “station device” , “STA” , “terminal device” , “communication device” , “terminal” , “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

The term “transceiver” may refer to any device that may be coupled to one or more antennas or antenna ports to wirelessly transmit and/or receive communication signals. The antennas or antenna ports may be the same or different types. The antennas or antenna ports may be located in different positions of an apparatus. One or more transceivers allow the apparatus to communicate with other devices that may be wired and/or wireless. The one or more transceivers may include processors, controllers, radios, sockets, plugs, buffers, or the like circuits to form one or more communication channels to one or more radio frequency units. The one or more transceivers may be integrated in an apparatus or a system, for example a cellular communication apparatus or system, a satellite communication apparatus or system, a WLAN system, or a short ranging system for example Bluetooth system.

Non-terrestrial communication can be in a complementary manner to terrestrial deployments where satellite connectivity can provide coverage beyond terrestrial deployments. 3GPP has defined a work item for Rel-17 on non-terrestrial networks (NTN) in RP-201256 and a work item for Rel-18 on IoT-NTN performance enhancements in RP-212729. HARQ feedback enabled/disabled in DL and HARQ mode A/B is one important feature in both work items. The benefit of disabling HARQ feedback and HARQ mode B for NTN and IoT over NTN is to enable the gNB to reuse an HARQ process ID before a full HARQ RTT has elapsed to avoid the HARQ stalling and reduce the transmission latency as well as enable peak throughput.

In NR NTN, disabling HARQ feedback for downlink transmission is semi-static configured by radio resource control (RRC) signaling. The configuration is indicated per HARQ process index by a bitmap manner, e.g., 32-bit bitmap if the configured HARQ process number is 32. For HARQ feedback of each semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) , UE follows the per-process configuration of HARQ feedback enabled/disabled for the associated HARQ process, except for the first SPS PDSCH after activation if HARQ feedback for SPS activation is additionally enabled.

In IoT over NTN, HARQ feedback disabling/enabling discussion is ongoing. Both HARQ feedback enabling and disabling were agreed to be supported to guarantee the reliability of some important MAC CE and RRC signaling as well as avoid HARQ stalling. Due to the number of HARQ processes in IoT and eMTC may be smaller than the NR UE, e.g., at most two HARQ processes for NB-IoT, 4 HARQ processes for eMTC control element (CE) mode B, there may need large signaling on reconfiguration HARQ feedback enabling/disabling if re-using the NR NTN solution. Therefore, dynamic HARQ feedback enabling/disabling is discussed for IoT over NTN. The current agreement in 3GPP radio access network working group 1 (RAN1) is to support both Option 1 (i.e., per HARQ process via UE specific RRC signaling in a semi-static way) and Option 3 (i.e., explicitly indicated by DCI dynamically) for NB-IoT and eMTC CE mode B, but to support Option 1 (i.e., per HARQ process via UE specific RRC signaling) for eMTC CE mode A. The detailed solution on how to use Option 1 and Option 3 is still ongoing.

Additionally, the agreements on HARQ feedback enabling/disabling for SPS are achieved in RAN1 as below:

Semi-static persistent scheduling (SPS) in NB-IoT/eMTC and SPS /Configured grant (CG) in NR are specified as below.

1. SPS in NB-IoT and eMTC

Take the uplink as the example, E-UTRAN may allocate a semi-persistent uplink resource for the first HARQ transmissions and potentially retransmissions to UEs. In this case, RRC defines the periodicity of the semi-persistent uplink grant, and PDCCH indicates whether the uplink grant is a semi-persistent one i.e. whether it can be implicitly reused in the following transmission time intervals (TTIs) according to the periodicity defined by RRC. In NB-IoT, PDCCH can activate/release the SPS and a UE may validate a semi-Persistent scheduling assignment Narrowband-physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) if all the following conditions are met: the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) parity bits obtained for the NPDCCH payload are scrambled with the SPS C-RNTI, and the new data indicator field is set to value ‘0’ .

Validation is achieved if all the fields for the used DCI format N0 are set according to Table 1 or Table 2 below. If validation is achieved, the UE can consider the received DCI information accordingly as a valid semi-persistent activation or release. If validation is not achieved, the received DCI format may be considered by the UE as having been received with a non-matching CRC.

Table 1 Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Activation NPDCCH Validation

Table 2 Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Release NPDCCH Validation

In eMTC, a UE can validate a SPS assignment MPDCCH if all the following conditions are met: the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) parity bits obtained for the MPDCCH payload are scrambled with the SPS C-RNTI, and the new data indicator field is set to ‘0’ . Validation is achieved if all the fields for the used DCI are set according to Table 3 or Table 4 as below.

Table 3: Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Activation MPDCCH Validation

Table 4: Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Release MPDCCH Validation

2. SPS and configured grant in NR

With Semi-Persistent Scheduling (SPS) in downlink (DL) , the gNB can allocate downlink resources for the initial HARQ transmissions to UEs. In this case, RRC defines the periodicity of the configured downlink assignments, while PDCCH addressed to CS-RNTI may either signal and activate the configured downlink assignment, or deactivate it, i.e. a PDCCH addressed to CS-RNTI indicates that the downlink assignment can be implicitly reused according to the periodicity defined by RRC, until deactivated.

With Configured Grants (CG) in uplink (UL) , the gNB may allocate uplink resources for the initial HARQ transmissions and HARQ retransmissions to UEs. Two types of configured uplink grants are defined:

- With Type 1, RRC directly provides the configured uplink grant (including the periodicity) ; and

- With Type 2, RRC defines the periodicity of the configured uplink grant while PDCCH addressed to CS-RNTI may either signal and activate the configured uplink grant, or deactivate it; i.e. a PDCCH addressed to CS-RNTI indicates that the uplink grant can be implicitly reused according to the periodicity defined by RRC, until deactivated.

As in NB-IoT and eMTC, a UE validates, for scheduling activation or scheduling release, a DL SPS assignment PDCCH or a configured UL grant Type 2 PDCCH if the following conditions are met:

- the CRC of a corresponding DCI format is scrambled with a CS-RNTI provided by cs-RNTI or a G-CS-RNTI provided by g-cs-RNTI;

- the new data indicator field in the DCI format for the enabled transport block is set to ‘0’;

- the DFI flag field, if present, in the DCI format is set to ‘0’ ;

- the time domain resource assignment field in the DCI format indicates a row with single SLIV; and

- if validation is for scheduling activation and if the PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator field in the DCI format is present, the PDSCH-to-HARQ_feedback timing indicator field does not provide an inapplicable value from dl-DataToUL-ACK-r16.

Validation is achieved if all the fields for the used DCI are set according to Table 5 or Table 6 below.

Table 5: Special fields for single DL SPS or single UL grant Type 2 scheduling activation PDCCH validation when a UE is provided a single SPS PDSCH or UL grant Type 2 configuration in the active DL/UL BWP of the scheduled cell

Table 6: Special fields for single DL SPS or single UL grant Type 2 scheduling release PDCCH validation when a UE is provided a single SPS PDSCH or UL grant Type 2 configuration in the active DL/UL BWP of the scheduled cell

Based on the current RAN1 agreement, for HARQ feedback for eMTC SPS PDSCH, UE follows the per-process HARQ feedback enabled/disabled configuration for the associated HARQ process except for the first SPS PDSCH after activation. For the first SPS PDSCH after activation, ACK/NACK is reported by UE for the first SPS PDSCH after activation regardless of network configuration of enabled/disabled for this HARQ process, and follow per-process HARQ feedback enabled/disabled configuration otherwise. For NB-IoT uplink, there is no discussion and agreements on HARQ feedback mode change, and it is still for further study whether and how to support DCI based HARQ mode change.

Generally, the data transmitted through SPS resources should be related to the same/similar QoS requirement (e.g., latency, throughput, reliability etc. ) and be configured with the same HARQ mode. The following was agreed on SPS HARQ mode configuration in RAN2:

For SPS and configured grant, HARQ-processes ID is calculated from parameters of radio resource allocation in time domain based on the specified formula, e.g. configured periodicity, HARQ process ID offset, configured HARQ process number, HARQ-processes ID will be rotating from 0 to the number of configured HARQ processes for SPS/CG. To support the same HARQ mode configuration for SPS/CG, the network should determine the HARQ process IDs of the SPS/CG before SPS/CG activation and configure the same mode for these HARQ processes, which will bring the restriction on HARQ mode configuration for the HARQ processes for dynamic scheduling when SPS/CG is not activated.

However, if the HARQ processes are not configured with the same HARQ mode before SPS/CG activation and the network determine to activate the SPS and type 2 CG, the HARQ mode for some HARQ processes need to be re-configured through RRC signaling, the advantage of fast activation on SPS/CG through PDCCH will be degraded. For example, HARQ process is configured with HARQ feedback disabling or HARQ mode B to avoid stalling for dynamic scheduling when SPS is not activated. If SPS is activated after the configuration and the transmission on SPS/CG is with reliability requirement, the HARQ mode may need to be changed from HARQ feedback disabling/HARQ mode B to HARQ feedback enabling/HARQ mode A. If the HARQ mode is changed through RRC reconfiguration, the advantage of fast activation of SPS/CG through PDCCH will be degraded and the RRC reconfiguration signaling is needed to switch the HARQ mode back and forth with the SPS activation and release. In addition, with the moving of the satellite and the RTT becoming longer, a retransmission may not be completed before the new data arrive in the same HARQ process. In that case, resources for HARQ ACK and retransmission will be wasted if HARQ feedback enabling is configured, current semi-static configuring would not be flexible enough on changing the HARQ mode to adapt to the RTT variation.

In view of above, there is a need to support the dynamic and fast HARQ mode change for SPS in eMTC/NB-IoT and SPS/CG in NR. The proposed DCI based solutions can avoid using the RRC signaling to reconfigure the HARQ mode for HARQ processes belong to a SPS/CG configuration, which can save reconfiguration latency and keep the advantage of fast activation for SPS or CG transmission.

For illustrative purposes, principles and example embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below with reference to FIG. 1 to FIG. 6. However, it is to be noted that these embodiments are given to enable the skilled in the art to understand inventive concepts of the present disclosure and implement the solution as proposed herein, and not intended to limit scope of the present application in any way.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an application scenario 100 in which some example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented. The application scenario 100, which is a part of a communication network, includes terminal devices and network devices.

In the descriptions of the example embodiments of the present disclosure, the network environment 100 may also be referred to as a communication system 100 (for example, a portion of a communication network) . The communication system 100 may be a non-terrestrial or terrestrial system.

For illustrative purposes only, various aspects of example embodiments will be described in the context of one or more terminal devices and network devices that communicate with one another. It should be appreciated, however, that the description herein may be applicable to other types of apparatus or other similar apparatuses that are referenced using other terminology.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the communication network 100 may include a network device 110 (which may also be referred to as a gNB or a BS) . The communication network 100 may further include a terminal device 120 (which may also be referred to as user equipment 120 or UE 120. Although only one network device 110 and one terminal devices 120 are shown in FIG. 1, the numbers of the network device and the terminal device are not limited. In other words, there may be one or more network devices 110 and one or more terminal devices 120 in the network.

The network device 110 can provide services to the terminal device 120, and the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 may communicate data and control information with each other. In some embodiments, the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 may communicate with direct links/channels.

In the communication system 100, a link from the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 is referred to as a downlink (DL) , while a link from the terminal device 120 to the network device 110 is referred to as an uplink (UL) . In downlink, the network device 110 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the terminal device 120 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver) . In uplink, the terminal device 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the network device 110 is a RX device (or a receiver) . It is to be understood that the network device 110 may provide one or more serving cells. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the network device 110 provides one serving cell 102, and the terminal device 120 camps on the serving cell 102. In some embodiments, the network device 110 can provide multiple serving cells and the terminal device 120 may switch from a source cell to a target cell between the serving cells during its mobility. It is to be understood that the number of serving cell (s) shown in FIG. 1 is for illustrative purposes without suggesting any limitation.

Communications in the network environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol (s) , comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the fourth generation (4G) , the fifth generation (5G) and the sixth generation (6G) and on the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as institute for electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and/or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future, such as universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) , long term evolution (LTE) , LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) , the fifth generation (5G) , new radio (NR) , the sixth generation (6G) , wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) standards, and employs any suitable communication technologies, including, for example, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) , orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) , time division multiplexing (TDM) , frequency division multiplexing (FDM) , code division multiplexing (CDM) , Bluetooth, ZigBee, narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) , enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) , enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) , massive machine type communication (mMTC) , ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) , carrier aggregation (CA) , dual connectivity (DC) , and new radio unlicensed (NR-U) technologies.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the terminal device 120 may receive downlink control information (DCI) from the network device 110. The DCI may comprise a set of fields with binary values to indicate a HARQ mode for semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission (s) or CG transmission (s) . The terminal device 120 may determine the HARQ mode based on the received DCI. Afterwards, the terminal device 120 may apply the HARQ mode to HARQ processes, e.g., all HARQ processes, in a SPS session or a CG session. In this way, dynamic and fast HARQ mode indication/change, which is adaptive to fast activation feature of SPS and CG, is implemented efficiently without introducing extra signaling overhead in DCI.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a process flow in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For ease of understanding, the process flow 200 will be described with reference to FIG. 1. It would be appreciated that although the process flow 200 has been described referring to the communication network 100 of FIG. 1, this process flow 200 may be likewise applied to other similar communication scenarios.

As shown in FIG. 2, the network device 110 generates (202) downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission. In some embodiments, the network device 110 may determine the HARQ mode based on QoS requirements (e.g., latency, throughput, reliability etc. ) , and set one or more fields or bit (s) of the field (s) in the DCI to values indicative of the determined HARQ mode. In some embodiments, the fields and the corresponding values used to indicate the HARQ mode may be configured on the terminal device (e.g., via RRC signaling) or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, the at least one SPS transmission may be SPS UL or DL transmission (s) in a narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) system. Alternatively or additionally, the at least one SPS transmission may be SPS UL or DL transmission (s) in an enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC) system. Alternatively or additionally, the at least one SPS transmission may be SPS DL transmission (s) in a new radio (NR) system. In some embodiments, the at least one CG transmission may be CG UL transmission (s) in the NR system. Alternatively or additionally, the CG UL transmission (s) may be UL Type 2 CG transmission (s) . In some embodiments, one of more of the NB-IoT, eMTC and NR systems may be a non-terrestrial network (NTN) system. It is to be understood that embodiments of the disclosure are also applicable terrestrial network (TN) systems.

In some embodiments, the HARQ mode for the SPS or CG transmission may be or comprise a HARQ feedback enabled or disabled for downlink (DL) . Alternatively or additionally, the HARQ mode may be or comprise a HARQ mode A or a HARQ mode B for uplink (UL) .

For downlink, HARQ feedback can be enabled or disabled per HARQ process. When HARQ feedback is enabled, the terminal 120 device transmits HARQ ACK/NACK and starts a discontinuous reception (DRX) retransmission timer for possible retransmission. When HARQ feedback is disabled, the terminal device 120 does not transmit HARQ ACK/NACK and does not start the DRX retransmission timer. For uplink, HARQ mode A or HARQ mode B may be applied per HARQ process. When HARQ mode A is configured, the terminal device 120 starts the DRX retransmission timer for possible retransmission and expects the network device 110 to schedule UL retransmission based on UL decoding result. When HARQ mode B is applied, the terminal device 120 does not start the DRX retransmission timer, and expects the network not to schedule UL retransmission or to blindly schedule retransmission grant (i.e., not based on UL decoding result) .

The network device 110 then transmits (204) the DCI (205) to the terminal device 120. Accordingly, the terminal device 120 receives (206) the DCI. Upon reception of the DCI (205) , the terminal device 120 determines (208) , based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. Afterwards, the terminal device 120 may apply the determined HARQ mode to a plurality of HARQ processes, e.g. all HARQ processes in a SPS session or a CG session.

In some embodiments, the DCI (205) is used to dynamically indicate the HARQ mode for all SPS/CG HARQ processes in the entire SPS/Type2 CG session. In some embodiments, the CRC of DCI format for HARQ mode indication may be scrambled with SPS cell-RadioNetworkTemporaryIdentifier (C-RNTI) or a configured scheduling RNTI (CS-RNTI) . Based on determining that the DCI is scrambled with the SPS C-RNTI or the CS-RNTI, the terminal device 120 may extract values of one or more field in the DCI to determine the HARQ mode to be applied.

In some embodiments, the HARQ mode may be indicated in the SPS/Type 2 CG activation command. That is, based on the received DCI, the terminal device 120 not only determines the HARQ mode, but also validates the activation of the SPS/Type 2 CG. In this case, a first set of fields of the received DCI is used for validation of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission, and a second set of fields of the received DCI is used to indicate the HARQ mode. In some embodiments, the first set of fields and the second set of fields have no common field.

In some embodiments, the first set of fields for activation validation and the second set of fields for HARQ mode indication may be fields reused from the existing special fields in DCI for SPS/Type 2 CG activation validation, if the proposed DCI-based HARQ mode indication is enabled. One subset values of the current special fields for SPS/Type 2 CG activation validation is used for SPS/Type 2 CG activation PDCCH validation, i.e., less bits are used for SPS/type 2 CG activation PDCCH validation, and the remaining bit (s) may be used to indicate HARQ mode such as HARQ feedback enabling and disabling in downlink and HARQ mode A/B in uplink. The subset values may be configured by the network or defined in the specification. In some embodiment, when DCI-based HARQ mode indication is disabled, the existing special fields in DCI is are used for SPS/Type 2 CG activation validation.

In some embodiments, the bits used to indicate the HARQ mode may be based on one existing field or cross existing fields. Thus, the second set of fields for HARQ mode indication may comprise one or more fields, and at least one bit of a first field among the second set of fields and at least one bit of a second field among the second set of fields are indicative of the HARQ mode.

Alternatively, new special fields may be defined for validation of “SPS/Type 2 CG activation + HARQ mode” , e.g. new special fields are defined for “SPS activation+ HARQ feedback disabling” and “SPS activation+ HARQ feedback enabling” in downlink or new special fields are defined for “SPS/Type 2 CG activation + HARQ mode A” and “SPS/Type 2 CG activation + HARQ mode B” in uplink. In this case, a set of fields of the received DCI is indicative of both of an activation and the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. The set of fields as a whole not only indicates the activation, but also uses different values/bits in some field (s) for indicating different HARQ modes. For example, bits ‘11’ in a given field indicate enabling feedback/mode A, while ‘00’ indicates disabling feedback/mode B.

As described above, both activation and HARQ mode indications may be included in one DCI. Alternatively, the HARQ mode may be indicated one separate DCI which may be validated through the new defined validate fields, e.g. new special fields are defined for “HARQ feedback disabling for SPS” and “HARQ feedback enabling for SPS” in downlink or new special fields are defined for “HARQ mode A for SPS/Type 2 CG” and “HARQ mode B for SPS/Type 2 CG” in uplink.

In an embodiment related to the two DCI scenario, the HARQ mode indication and SPS/CG activation are independent and can be provided in two different DCIs. The DCI for HARQ mode is used to indicate the HARQ mode. In an embodiment, the HARQ mode is applied to all SPS/CG HARQ processes. For example, if SPS/CG is activated before DCI indicative of HARQ mode, the HARQ mode is changed from the default/previous mode to the indicated mode. If DCI indicative of HARQ mode is received first, but SPS/CG is currently not activated, the indicated HARQ mode is applied after the SPS/CG activation DCI is received.

In some embodiments, the DCI for SPS/CG activation and the DCI indicative of HARQ mode may have at least one common field with different values, such that the terminal device 120 knows which is for activation and which is for HARQ mode indication. The at least one common field may be at least a part of existing special fields defined in 3GPP specifications for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission. That is, the part of the special fields reserved for validation of activation is reused to distinguish the DCIs for SPS/CG activation and the DCI indicative of HARQ mode based on different values.

In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 may receive a DCI for activation of SPS/CG transmission. Upon reception of the DCI for activation, the terminal device 120 may check the special fields in the DCI for activation and trigger the SPS/CG transmission in the following TTIs according to the parameters defined by RRC and DCI. The HARQ mode for the HARQ processes of the active SPS/CG may be a RRC configured HARQ mode if no DCI indicative of HARQ mode has been received and applied. The HARQ mode for the HARQ processes of the active SPS/CG may be a DCI indicated HARQ, if a preceding DCI indicative of HARQ mode has been received and applied at the terminal device 120. In both cases, the current HARQ mode for the HARQ processes of the active SPS/CG will be overwritten by the latest DCI indicative of HARQ mode.

By this way, the default HARQ mode can be HARQ feedback enabled (HARQ mode A for uplink) for the legacy activation DCI. After the SPS/type 2 CG activation, another DCI which CRC is scrambled with SPS C-RNTI or CS-RNTI can be sent for the HARQ mode indication on all SPS/CG HARQ processes for the entire SPS/CG session.

In some embodiments, the dynamic HARQ mode indication may only apply for the HARQ processes configured with DL HARQ feedback enabling/disabling or UL HARQ Mode A/B. The HARQ mode may keep unchanged for HARQ process (es) not configured with DL HARQ feedback enabling/disabling or UL HARQ Mode A/B.

Examples of DCI usage and design according to embodiments of the disclosure are provided as below. Note that the fields and values in the following tables are only for illustrative purpose without limiting the scope of the disclosure.

Take the eMTC as the example, firstly a UE may validate a Semi-Persistent Scheduling HARQ mode indication MPDCCH if all the following conditions are met (as conventional SPS activation/release validation) : (i) the CRC parity bits obtained for the MPDCCH payload are scrambled with the SPS C-RNTI; and (ii) the new data indicator field is set to ‘0’ .

In some embodiments, the HARQ mode may be indicated in the SPS activation command. One option is to use one subset values of the current special fields for SPS activation PDCCH validation and use the remaining bit (s) to indicate HARQ mode. For example, only the fields of “HARQ process number” , “TPC command for scheduled PUSCH” , “TPC command for scheduled PUCCH” are defined/configured as special fields for SPS activation validation, and the fields “Redundancy version” is used to indicate the HARQ mode as shown in Table 7 in which DCI format 6-0A is for uplink in eMTC and DCI format 6-1A is for downlink in eMTC (the same applies for other tables hereafter) .

Alternatively, the bits used to indicate HARQ mode can also be based on one existing field or cross existing fields, e.g. one bit from RV and one bit from HARQ process number.

Table 7: New Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Activation MPDCCH Validation and HARQ mode indication

Another option is to define new special fields for validation of “SPS activation +HARQ mode” . For example, new special fields are defined for “SPS activation + DL HARQ feedback disabling/UL mode B” and “SPS activation HARQ feedback enabling/UL HARQ mode A” as shown in Table 8 and Table 9. The new special fields indicate both of the HARQ mode and the SPS/SG activation in one DCI. Note that values of the field “Redundancy version” are different: “00” for downlink HARQ feedback enabling or UL HARQ mode A and “11” for downlink HARQ feedback disabling or UL HARQ mode B.

Table 8: New Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Activation MPDCCH Validation and downlink HARQ feedback enabling or UL HARQ mode A

Table 9: New Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling Activation MPDCCH Validation and downlink HARQ feedback disabling or UL HARQ mode B

In another embodiment, the HARQ mode may be indicated in one separate DCI which can be validated through the new defined validation fields. With this, special fields need to be defined for “DL HARQ feedback disabling/UL HARQ mode B for SPS” and “DL HARQ feedback enabling /UL HARQ mode A for SPS” . One example on the new validation fields is given as in Table 10 and Table 11 separately. In this example, Table 10 and Table 11 are for two DCIs cases, where the DCI for SPS activation may be as legacy specification, and Table 10 and Table 11 only gives examples of fields for HARQ mode indication. Note that values of the field “Redundancy version” are different: “01” for downlink HARQ feedback enabling or UL HARQ mode A and “10” for downlink HARQ feedback disabling or UL HARQ mode B.

Table 10: New Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling DL HARQ feedback enabling /UL HARQ mode A MPDCCH Validation

Table 11: New Special fields for Semi-Persistent Scheduling DL HARQ feedback disabling/UL HARQ mode B MPDCCH Validation

Tables 6 to 11 only give the example of the DCI field definition/configuration on SPS HARQ mode indication according to embodiments of the disclosure. Similar solutions can be used for NB-IoT SPS and NR SPS and UL type 2 configured grant. Although the Tables read “MPDCCH” , similar DCI structure is applicable to other channel types as well.

In view of above, embodiments of the disclosure provide DCI-based HARQ mode (e.g. including HARQ feedback disabled/enabled for DL and HARQ mode A/B for UL) indication/change for SPS or UL Type 2 CG as well as related DCI design in communication systems (e.g. NB-IoT/eMTC over NTN and NR NTN) . It can support dynamic and fast HARQ mode change for SPS or CG, which is adaptive to fast activation feature of SPS or UL Type 2 CG as well as the RTT variation and will not introduce extra signaling overhead in DCI.

FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 300 implemented at a terminal device in accordance with some other embodiments of the present disclosure. For ease of understanding, the method 300 will be described from the perspective of the terminal device 120 with reference to FIG. 1.

At block 310, the terminal device 120 receives, from a network device 110, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission. At block 320, the terminal device 120 determines, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 may be in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .

In some embodiments, a first set of fields of the received DCI is used for validation of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. In some embodiments, in the event that a DCI-based HARQ mode change is enabled, the first set of fields is a first part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission; and the second set of fields is a second reused part of the special fields.

In some embodiments, the first set of fields and the second set of fields may have no common field. In some embodiments, the second set of fields may comprise one or more fields. In some embodiments, at least one bit of a first field among the second set of fields and at least one bit of a second field among the second set of fields may be indicative of the HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, a set of fields of the received DCI may be indicative of both of an activation validation and the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In some embodiments, the DCI is a first DCI, and the terminal device 120 may receive from the network device a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission; and activate, based on the received second DCI, the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In some embodiments, the first DCI and the second DCI may have at least one common field with different values. The at least one common field may be at least a part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission.

In some embodiments, the DCI may comprise at least one value for at least one field, and wherein the at least one value and the at least one field are configured by the network device or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 may further apply the HARQ mode to a plurality of HARQ processes in a SPS session or a CG session. In some embodiments, the HARQ mode may apply to all HARQ processes in the SPS session or the CG session. In some embodiments, the HARQ mode indicated by the DCI may apply to at least one HARQ process with a previously configured HARQ mode without applying to at least one HARQ process without a previously configured HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) of the DCI may be scrambled with an SPS cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) or a configured scheduling RNTI (CS-RNTI) .

In some embodiments, the HARQ mode may comprise a HARQ feedback enabled or disabled for downlink (DL) . Alternatively or additionally, the HARQ mode may comprise a HARQ state including a mode A or a mode B for uplink (UL) .

In some embodiments, the at least one SPS transmission may comprise at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in a narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) system. Alternatively or additionally, the at least one SPS transmission may comprise at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in an enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC) system. Alternatively or additionally, the at least one SPS transmission may comprise at least one SPS DL transmission in a new radio (NR) system. In some embodiments, the at least one CG transmission may comprise at least one CG UL transmission in the NR system. The at least one CG UL transmission may comprise a UL Type 2 CG transmission.

FIG. 4 illustrates another flowchart of an example method implemented at a network device in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. For ease of understanding, the method 400 will be described from the perspective of the network device 110 with reference to FIG. 1.

At block 410, the network device 110 generates generate downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission. At block 420, the network device 110 transmits the DCI to a terminal device 120. In some embodiments, the network device 110 may be in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .

In some embodiments, a first set of fields of the received DCI is used for validation of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. In some embodiments, in the event that a DCI-based HARQ mode change is enabled, the first set of fields is a first part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission; and the second set of fields is a second part of the special fields.

In some embodiments, the DCI is a first DCI, and the network device 110 may transmit a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission to the terminal device 120.

In some embodiments, the DCI may comprise at least one value for at least one field, and wherein the at least one value and the at least one field are configured on the terminal device 120 or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing the method 300 (for example, the terminal device 120) may comprise means for performing the respective steps of the method 300. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus comprises: means for receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and means for determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission. In some embodiments, the apparatus may be in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .

In some embodiments, the DCI is a first DCI, and the apparatus may comprise means for receiving from the network device a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission; and means for activating, based on the received second DCI, the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.

In some embodiments, the apparatus may further comprise means for applying the HARQ mode to a plurality of HARQ processes in a SPS session or a CG session. In some embodiments, the HARQ mode may apply to all HARQ processes in the SPS session or the CG session. In some embodiments, the HARQ mode indicated by the DCI may apply to at least one HARQ process with a previously configured HARQ mode without applying to at least one HARQ process without a previously configured HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further comprises means for performing other steps in some embodiments of the method 300. In some embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the performance of the apparatus.

In some embodiments, an apparatus capable of performing the method 400 (for example, the network device 110) may comprise means for performing the respective steps of the method 400. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module.

In some example embodiments, the apparatus comprises: means for generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and means for transmitting the DCI to a terminal device. In some embodiments, the apparatus may be in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .

In some embodiments, the DCI is a first DCI, and the apparatus may further comprise means for transmitting a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission to the terminal device.

In some embodiments, the DCI may comprise at least one value for at least one field, and wherein the at least one value and the at least one field are configured on the terminal device or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.

In some embodiments, the apparatus further comprises means for performing other steps in some embodiments of the method 400. In some embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the performance of the apparatus.

FIG. 5 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device 500 that is suitable for implementing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 500 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the network device 110 or the terminal device 120 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 500 includes one or more processors 510, one or more memories 520 coupled to the processor 510, and one or more communication modules 540 coupled to the processor 510.

The communication module 540 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 540 has at least one antenna to facilitate communication. The communication interface may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements.

The processor 510 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 500 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

The memory 520 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 524, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM) , a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD) , a digital video disk (DVD) , and other magnetic storage and/or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random access memory (RAM) 522 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

A computer program 530 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 510. The program 530 may be stored in the ROM 524. The processor 510 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 530 into the RAM 522.

The embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 530 so that the device 500 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. The embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

In some example embodiments, the program 530 may be tangibly contained in a computer-readable medium which may be included in the device 500 (such as in the memory 520) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 500. The device 500 may load the program 530 from the computer-readable medium to the RAM 522 for execution. The computer-readable medium may include any types of tangible non-volatile storage, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like.

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a computer-readable medium 600 in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The computer-readable medium 600 has the program 530 stored thereon. It is noted that although the computer-readable medium 600 is depicted in form of CD or DVD in FIG. 6, the computer-readable medium 600 may be in any other form suitable for carry or hold the program 530.

Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. While various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

The present disclosure also provides at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The computer program product includes computer-executable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target real or virtual processor, to carry out the process or method 300 or 400 as described above with reference to FIG. 3 or 4. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. These program codes may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program codes, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions/operations specified in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program codes or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer-readable medium, and the like.

The computer-readable medium may be a computer-readable signal medium or a computer-readable storage medium. A computer-readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer-readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM) , a read-only memory (ROM) , an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory) , an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) , an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. The term “non-transitory, ” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i.e., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e.g., RAM vs. ROM) .

Further, while operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

A terminal device comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the terminal device at least to:

receive, from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

determine, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
The terminal device of claim 1, wherein:

a first set of fields of the received DCI is used for validation of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission; and

a second set of fields of the received DCI is used to indicate the HARQ mode.
The terminal device of claim 2, wherein in the event that a DCI-based HARQ mode indication is enabled:

the first set of fields is a first part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission; and

the second set of fields is a second part of the special fields.
The terminal device of claim 2 or 3, wherein the first set of fields and the second set of fields have no common field.
The terminal device of any of claim 2 to 4, wherein the second set of fields comprises one or more fields.
The terminal device of claim 5, wherein at least one bit of a first field among the second set of fields and at least one bit of a second field among the second set of fields are indicative of the HARQ mode.
The terminal device of claim 1, wherein:

a set of fields of the received DCI is indicative of both of an activation validation and the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
The terminal device of claim 1, wherein the DCI is a first DCI, and the terminal device is further caused to:

receive, from the network device, a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission; and

activate, based on the received second DCI, the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
The terminal device of claim 8, wherein the first DCI and the second DCI have at least one common field with different values, and the at least one common field is at least a part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission.
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the DCI comprises at least one value for at least one field, and wherein the at least one value and the at least one field are configured by the network device or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 10, wherein the terminal device is further caused to:

apply the HARQ mode to a plurality of HARQ processes in a SPS session or a CG session.
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 11, wherein the HARQ mode indicated by the DCI applies to at least one HARQ process with a previously configured HARQ mode without applying to at least one HARQ process without a previously configured HARQ mode.
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 12, wherein cyclic redundancy check (CRC) of the DCI is scrambled with an SPS cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) or a configured scheduling RNTI (CS-RNTI) .
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 13, wherein the HARQ mode comprises at least one of the following:

a HARQ feedback enabled or disabled for downlink (DL) ; and

a HARQ state including a mode A or a mode B for uplink (UL) .
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 14, wherein the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission comprises at least one of following:

at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in a narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) system;

at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in an enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC) system;

at least one SPS DL transmission in a new radio (NR) system; or

at least one CG UL transmission in the NR system.
The terminal device of claim 15, wherein the at least one CG UL transmission comprises a UL Type 2 CG transmission.
The terminal device of any of claims 1 to 16, wherein the terminal device is in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .
A network device comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first device at least to:

generate downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

transmit the DCI to a terminal device.
The network device of claim 18, wherein:

a first set of fields of the DCI is used for validation of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission by the terminal device; and

a second set of fields of the DCI is used to indicate the HARQ mode.
The network device of claim 17, wherein in the event that a DCI-based HARQ mode change is enabled:

the first set of fields is a first part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission; and

the second set of fields is a second part of the special fields.
The network device of claim 18 or 19, wherein the first set of fields and the second set of fields have no common field.
The network device of any of claims 18 to 20, wherein the second set of fields comprises one or more fields.
The network device of claim 21, wherein at least one bit of a first field among the second set of fields and at least one bit of a second field among the second set of fields are indicative of the HARQ mode.
The network device of claim 17, wherein:

a set of fields of the DCI is indicative of both of an activation validation and the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
The network device of claim 17, wherein the DCI is a first DCI, and wherein the network device is further caused to:

transmit a second DCI indicative of activation of the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission to the terminal device.
The network device of claim 24, wherein the first DCI and the second DCI have at least one common field with different values, and the at least one common field is at least a part of special fields reserved for validation of activation of SPS or CG transmission.
The network device of any of claims 17 to 25, wherein the DCI comprises at least one value for at least one field, and wherein the at least one value and the at least one field are configured on the terminal device or defined for indicating the HARQ mode.
The network device of any of claims 17 to 26, wherein the HARQ mode comprises at least one of the following:

a HARQ feedback enabled or disabled for downlink (DL) ; and

a HARQ state including a mode A or a mode B for uplink (UL) .
The network device of any of claims 17 to 27, wherein the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission comprises at least one of following:

at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in a narrowband-Internet of things (NB-IoT) system;

at least one SPS UL or DL transmission in an enhanced machine-type communication (eMTC) system;

at least one SPS DL transmission in a new radio (NR) system; or

at least one CG UL transmission in the NR system.
The network device of claim 28, wherein the at least one CG UL transmission comprises a UL Type 2 CG transmission.
The network device of any of claims 18 to 30, wherein the network device is in a non-terrestrial network (NTN) .
A method comprising:

receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
A method comprising:

generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.
An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

means for determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
An apparatus comprising:

means for generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

means for transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions that, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform at least:

receiving, at a terminal device and from a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

determining, based on the received DCI, the HARQ mode for the at least one SPS transmission or the at least one CG transmission.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions that, when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform at least:

generating, at a network device, downlink control information (DCI) indicative of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) mode for at least one semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) transmission or at least one configured grant (CG) transmission; and

transmitting the DCI to a terminal device.