WO2025151978A1

WO2025151978A1 - Sign bit shaping for polar codes

Info

Publication number: WO2025151978A1
Application number: PCT/CN2024/072262
Authority: WO
Inventors: Liangming WU; Wei Liu; Jian Li; Yinhua Jia; Changlong Xu
Original assignee: Qualcomm Inc
Current assignee: Qualcomm Inc
Priority date: 2024-01-15
Filing date: 2024-01-15
Publication date: 2025-07-24
Anticipated expiration: 2026-07-15

Abstract

Aspects relate to sign bit shaping for polar codes, where the shaping bits are placed on the sign bit level corresponding to a bit level with the highest reliability subchannels. Information bits and frozen bits may be placed on remaining subchannels. Each bit level may be fed to a respective polar transform (e.g., polar sub-kernel) that encodes the respective bit level to produce respective polar code sub-kernel outputs. The polar code sub-kernel outputs may be fed into a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to produce transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword.

Description

SIGN BIT SHAPING FOR POLAR CODES

TECHNICAL FIELD

The technology discussed below relates generally to wireless communication networks, and more particularly, to polar coding in wireless communication networks.

INTRODUCTION

Block codes, or error correcting codes, are frequently used to provide reliable transmission of digital messages over noisy channels. In a typical block code, an information message or sequence is split up into blocks, and an encoder at the transmitting device then mathematically adds redundancy to the information message. Exploitation of this redundancy in the encoded information message is the key to the reliability of the message, enabling correction for any bit errors that may occur due to the noise. That is, a decoder at the receiving device can take advantage of the redundancy to reliably recover the information message even though bit errors may occur, in part, due to the addition of noise to the channel.

Many examples of such error correcting block codes are known to those of ordinary skill in the art, including Hamming codes, Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes, turbo codes, and low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, among others. Many existing wireless communication networks utilize such block codes, such as 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, which utilize turbo codes; and IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi networks, which utilize LDPC codes. In 3GPP New Radio (NR) network specifications, user data is coded using quasi-cyclic LDPC, whereas control information and the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) are coded using polar coding.

While research into implementation of polar codes continues to rapidly advance its capabilities and potential, additional enhancements are desired, particularly for potential deployment of wireless communication networks beyond NR.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF SOME EXAMPLES

The following presents a summary of one or more aspects of the present disclosure, in order to provide a basic understanding of such aspects. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated features of the disclosure and is intended neither to identify key or critical elements of all aspects of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of any or all aspects of the disclosure. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects of the disclosure in a form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

In one example, an apparatus configured for wireless communication at a wireless communication device is provided. The apparatus includes one or more memories and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories. The one or more processors are configured to assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels and place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels can be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, with the first bit level being a sign bit level. The one or more processors are further configured to encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and transmit the polar-coded codeword.

Another example provides a method of wireless communication at a wireless communication device. The method includes assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels and placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels can be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, with the first bit level being a sign bit level. The method further includes encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and transmitting the polar-coded codeword.

Another example provides an apparatus including means for assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels and means for placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels can be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, with the first bit level being a sign bit level. The apparatus further includes means for encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, means for applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and means for transmitting the polar-coded codeword.

Another example provides a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by one or more processors of a wireless communication device to assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels and place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels can be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, with the first bit level being a sign bit level. The non-transitory computer-readable medium further includes instructions executable by the one or more processors of the wireless communication device to encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and transmit the polar-coded codeword.

These and other aspects will become more fully understood upon a review of the detailed description, which follows. Other aspects, features, and examples will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, upon reviewing the following description of specific, exemplary examples of in conjunction with the accompanying figures. While features may be discussed relative to certain examples and figures below, all examples can include one or more of the advantageous features discussed herein. In other words, while one or more examples may be discussed as having certain advantageous features, one or more of such features may also be used in accordance with the various examples discussed herein. In similar fashion, while exemplary examples may be discussed below as device, system, or method examples such exemplary examples can be implemented in various devices, systems, and methods.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a wireless communication system and an access network according to some aspects.

FIGs. 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D are diagrams illustrating examples of a first 5G/NR frame, DL channels within a 5G/NR subframe, a second 5G/NR frame, and UL channels within a 5G/NR subframe, respectively.

FIG. 3 is a diagram providing a high-level illustration of one example of a configuration of a disaggregated base station according to some aspects.

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of wireless communication between a first wireless communication device and a second wireless communication device using coding according to some aspects.

FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of an information block to be polar coded according to some aspects.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a polar-coded modulation (PCM) scheme according to some aspects.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of Gray label mapping according to some aspects.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a transmitter configured for joint coding and shaping according to some aspects.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry configured for PCM with joint coding and shaping according to some aspects.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry configured for joint coding and shaping using sign bits according to some aspects according to some aspects.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry configured for joint coding and shaping with interleaving according to some aspects.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating another example of polar code circuitry configured for joint coding and shaping with interleaving according to some aspects.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation for a wireless communication device employing a processing system according to some aspects.

FIG. 14 is a flow chart of an exemplary process for sign bit shaping for polar codes according to some aspects.

FIG. 15 is a flow chart of another exemplary process for sign bit shaping for polar codes according to some aspects.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The detailed description set forth below in connection with the appended drawings is intended as a description of various configurations and is not intended to represent the only configurations in which the concepts described herein may be practiced. The detailed description includes specific details for the purpose of providing a thorough understanding of various concepts. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that these concepts may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well known structures and components are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring such concepts.

While aspects and examples are described in this application by illustration to some examples, those skilled in the art will understand that additional implementations and use cases may come about in many different arrangements and scenarios. Innovations described herein may be implemented across many differing platform types, devices, systems, shapes, sizes, and packaging arrangements. For example, aspects and/or uses may come about via integrated chip examples and other non-module-component based devices (e.g., end-user devices, vehicles, communication devices, computing devices, industrial equipment, retail/purchasing devices, medical devices, AI-enabled devices, etc. ) . While some examples may or may not be specifically directed to use cases or applications, a wide assortment of applicability of described innovations may occur. Implementations may range a spectrum from chip-level or modular components to non-modular, non-chip-level implementations and further to aggregate, distributed, or OEM devices or systems incorporating one or more aspects of the described innovations. In some practical settings, devices incorporating described aspects and features may also necessarily include additional components and features for implementation and practice of claimed and described examples. For example, transmission and reception of wireless signals necessarily includes a number of components for analog and digital purposes (e.g., hardware components including antenna, RF-chains, power amplifiers, modulators, buffer, processor (s) , interleaver, adders/summers, etc. ) . It is intended that innovations described herein may be practiced in a wide variety of devices, chip-level components, systems, distributed arrangements, disaggregated arrangements (e.g., base station or UE) , end-user devices, etc. of varying sizes, shapes and constitution.

Polar coding is a channel coding scheme that may be used, for example, in coding 5G control channels. Polar coding has a built-in channel polarization structure that splits (or “polarizes” ) polar code subchannels into reliable subchannels and unreliable subchannels. The reliable subchannels carry information bits and the unreliable channels carry “frozen” or “fixed” bits (e.g., “0” bits) .

Polar codes may be suitable, for example, for transmission with higher order modulation, as they may allow for joint coding and modulation (e.g., polar coded modulation (PCM) . However, PCM schemes with uniformly distributed symbols may lead to a shaping loss. Recently, signal shaping for higher order modulation has been introduced to provide for joint coding and shaping (e.g., probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) ) in a single polar code. For example, joint coding and shaping may use a single polar code with information bits, frozen bits, and shaping bits designed to shape the transmitted symbols to a lower transmit power and, thus, improve a capacity for efficiency. However, previous joint coding and shaping designs have suffered from poor forward error correction (FEC) performance for shaping bits or have required multi-level coding based decoding, which results in larger latency and complexity for demodulation.

Various aspects are related to sign bit shaping for polar codes, where the shaping bits are placed on the sign bit level corresponding to a bit level with the highest reliability subchannels. For example, with three bit levels, the sign bit level may be the first bit level with the second and third bit levels including less reliable bits. Each bit level may be fed to a respective polar transform (e.g., polar sub-kernel) that performs polar coding operations on the respective bit level to produce polar code sub-kernel outputs. The outputs of the polar transforms may be fed into a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to produce Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, which may then be mapped to symbols. In some examples, bit-level interleavers may be included before or after the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to interleave the sub-kernel outputs of each of the bit levels.

This PCM scheme is a bit interleaved PCM (BICM) scheme that avoids the latency and complexity issues with multi-level coding. Moreover, by placing the shaping bits on the first bit level of the polar sub-kernels by way of the set-partition to Gray labeling transform, improved FEC performance for shaping bits may be achieved.

In some examples, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform may include XOR gates configured to perform XOR operations on adjacent bit levels. For example, a first XOR operation may be applied to the sub-kernel output of the second bit level with the sub-kernel output of the first bit level (e.g., sign bit level) , and a second XOR operation may be applied to the sub-kernel output of the third bit level with the sub-kernel output of the second bit level.

In some examples, the shaping bits payload (e.g., payload size or number of shaping bits) may be identified using the average conditional entropy of the Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs. The shaping bits may then be constructed using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs. For example, the most reliable S subchannels may be located in the sign bit level and reserved for shaping bits. These S subchannels may initially be left empty to generate an initial polar-coded codeword based on the set of information bits and frozen bits in the remaining subchannels. The initial polar-coded codeword is then fed to a precoder to obtain the shaping bits. For example, the precoder can be configured as a polar decoder to search for a polar codeword representing the set of information bits and frozen bits and that causes the final polar-coded codeword to be distributed according to a target probability distribution. In an example, the precoder may calculate a power saving function based on the initial polar-coded codeword and use the power saving function to initialize log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) of the decoder to obtain the shaping bits.

The various concepts presented throughout this disclosure may be implemented across a broad variety of telecommunication systems, network architectures, and communication standards. Referring now to FIG. 1, as an illustrative example without limitation, a schematic illustration of a wireless communication network including a radio access network (RAN) 100 and a core network 160 is provided. The RAN 100 may implement any suitable wireless communication technology or technologies to provide radio access. As one example, the RAN 100 may operate according to 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) New Radio (NR) specifications, often referred to as 5G. As another example, the RAN 100 may operate under a hybrid of 5G NR and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (eUTRAN) standards, often referred to as LTE. The 3GPP refers to this hybrid RAN as a next-generation RAN, or NG-RAN. In other examples, the RAN 100 may operate according to a hybrid of 5G NR and 6G, may operate according to 6G, or may operate according to other future radio access technology (RAT) . Of course, many other examples may be utilized within the scope of the present disclosure.

The geographic region covered by the RAN 100 may be divided into a number of cellular regions (cells) that can be uniquely identified by a user equipment (UE) based on an identification broadcasted over a geographical area from one access point or network entity. FIG. 1 illustrates cells 102, 104, 106, 108, and 110 each of which may include one or more sectors (not shown) . A sector is a sub-area of a cell. All sectors within one cell are served by the same network entity. A radio link within a sector can be identified by a single logical identification belonging to that sector. In a cell that is divided into sectors, the multiple sectors within a cell can be formed by groups of antennas with each antenna responsible for communication with UEs in a portion of the cell.

In general, a respective network entity serves each cell. Broadly, a network entity is responsible for radio transmission and reception in one or more cells to or from a UE. A network entity may also be referred to by those skilled in the art as a base station (e.g., an aggregated base station or disaggregated base station) , base transceiver station (BTS) , a radio base station, a radio transceiver, a transceiver function, a basic service set (BSS) , an extended service set (ESS) , an access point (AP) , a Node B (NB) , an evolved NB (eNB) , a 5G NB (gNB) , a transmission receive point (TRP) , or some other suitable terminology. In some examples, a network entity may include two or more TRPs that may be collocated or non-collocated. Each TRP may communicate on the same or different carrier frequency within the same or different frequency band. In examples where the RAN 100 operates according to both the LTE and 5G NR standards, one of the network entities may be an LTE network entity, while another network entity may be a 5G NR network entity.

In some examples, the RAN 100 may employ an open RAN (O-RAN) to provide a standardization of radio interfaces to procure interoperability between component radio equipment. For example, in an O-RAN, the RAN may be disaggregated into a centralized unit (CU) , a distributed unit (DU) , and a radio unit (RU) . The RU is configured to transmit and/or receive (RF) signals to and/or from one or more UEs. The RU may be located at, near, or integrated with, an antenna. The DU and the CU provide computational functions and may facilitate the transmission of digitized radio signals within the RAN 100. In some examples, the DU may be physically located at or near the RU. In some examples, the CU may be located near the core network 160.

The DU provides downlink and uplink baseband processing, a supply system synchronization clock, signal processing, and an interface with the CU. The RU provides downlink baseband signal conversion to an RF signal, and uplink RF signal conversion to a baseband signal. The O-RAN may include an open fronthaul (FH) interface between the DU and the RU. Aspects of the disclosure may be applicable to an aggregated RAN and/or to a disaggregated RAN (e.g., an O-RAN) .

Various network entity arrangements can be utilized. For example, in FIG. 1, network entities 114, 116, and 118 are shown in cells 102, 104, and 106; and another network entity 122 is shown controlling a remote radio head (RRH) 122 in cell 110. That is, a network entity can have an integrated antenna or can be connected to an antenna or RRH by feeder cables. In the illustrated example, the cells 102, 104, 106, and 110 may be referred to as macrocells, as the network entities 114, 116, 118, and 122 support cells having a large size. Further, a network entity 120 is shown in the cell 108 which may overlap with one or more macrocells. In this example, the cell 108 may be referred to as a small cell (e.g., a microcell, picocell, femtocell, home base station, home Node B, home eNode B, etc. ) , as the network entity 120 supports a cell having a relatively small size. Cell sizing can be done according to system design as well as component constraints.

It is to be understood that the RAN 100 may include any number of network entities and cells. Further, a relay node may be deployed to extend the size or coverage area of a given cell. In some examples, a cell may not necessarily be stationary, and the geographic area of the cell may move according to the location of a mobile network entity.

FIG. 1 further includes an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) 156, which may be a drone or quadcopter. The UAV 156 may be configured to function as a network entity, or more specifically as a mobile network entity. That is, in some examples, a cell may not necessarily be stationary, and the geographic area of the cell may move according to the location of a mobile network entity such as the UAV 156.

In addition to other functions, the network entities 114, 116, 118, 120, and 122a/122b may perform one or more of the following functions: transfer of user data, radio channel ciphering and deciphering, integrity protection, header compression, mobility control functions (e.g., handover, dual connectivity) , inter-cell interference coordination, connection setup and release, load balancing, distribution for non-access stratum (NAS) messages, NAS node selection, synchronization, radio access network (RAN) sharing, multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) , subscriber and equipment trace, RAN information management (RIM) , paging, positioning, and delivery of warning messages. The network entities 114, 116, 118, 120, and 122a/122b may communicate directly or indirectly (e.g., through the core network 170) with each other over backhaul links 152 (e.g., X2 interface) . The backhaul links 152 may be wired or wireless.

The RAN 100 is illustrated supporting wireless communication for multiple mobile apparatuses. A mobile apparatus is commonly referred to as user equipment (UE) in standards and specifications promulgated by the 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) , but may also be referred to by those skilled in the art as a mobile station (MS) , a subscriber station, a mobile unit, a subscriber unit, a wireless unit, a remote unit, a mobile device, a wireless device, a wireless communications device, a remote device, a mobile subscriber station, an access terminal (AT) , a mobile terminal, a wireless terminal, a remote terminal, a handset, a terminal, a user agent, a mobile client, a client, or some other suitable terminology. A UE may be an apparatus that provides a user with access to network services.

Within the present document, a “mobile” apparatus need not necessarily have a capability to move, and may be stationary. The term mobile apparatus or mobile device broadly refers to a diverse array of devices and technologies. For example, some non-limiting examples of a mobile apparatus include a mobile, a cellular (cell) phone, a smart phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a laptop, a personal computer (PC) , a notebook, a netbook, a smartbook, a tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , and a broad array of embedded systems, e.g., corresponding to an “Internet of things” (IoT) . A mobile apparatus may additionally be an automotive or other transportation vehicle, a remote sensor or actuator, a robot or robotics device, a satellite radio, a global positioning system (GPS) device, an object tracking device, a drone, a multi-copter, a quad-copter, a remote control device, a consumer and/or wearable device, such as eyewear, a wearable camera, a virtual reality device, a smart watch, a health or fitness tracker, a digital audio player (e.g., MP3 player) , a camera, a game console, etc. A mobile apparatus may additionally be a digital home or smart home device such as a home audio, video, and/or multimedia device, an appliance, a vending machine, intelligent lighting, a home security system, a smart meter, etc. A mobile apparatus may additionally be a smart energy device, a security device, a solar panel or solar array, a municipal infrastructure device controlling electric power (e.g., a smart grid) , lighting, water, etc., an industrial automation and enterprise device, a logistics controller, agricultural equipment, etc. Still further, a mobile apparatus may provide for connected medicine or telemedicine support, i.e., health care at a distance. Telehealth devices may include telehealth monitoring devices and telehealth administration devices, whose communication may be prioritized access over other types of information, e.g., in terms of prioritized access for transport of critical service data, and/or relevant QoS for transport of critical service data.

Within the RAN 100, the cells may include UEs that may be in communication with one or more sectors of each cell. For example, UEs 124, 126, and 144 may be in communication with network entity 114; UEs 128 and 130 may be in communication with network entity 116; UEs 132 and 138 may be in communication with network entity 118; UE 140 may be in communication with network entity 120; UE 142 may be in communication with network entity 122a via RRH 122b; and UE 158 may be in communication with mobile network entity 156. Here, each network entity 114, 116, 118, 120, 122a/122b, and 156 may be configured to provide an access point to the core network 170 (not shown) for all the UEs in the respective cells. In another example, a mobile network node (e.g., UAV 156) may be configured to function as a UE. For example, the UAV 156 may operate within cell 104 by communicating with network entity 116. UEs may be located anywhere within a serving cell. UEs that are located closer to a center of a cell (e.g., UE 132) may be referred to as cell center UEs, whereas UEs that are located closer to an edge of a cell (e.g., UE 134) may be referred to as cell edge UEs. Cell center UEs may have a higher signal quality (e.g., a higher reference signal received power (RSRP) or signal-to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) ) than cell edge UEs.

In the RAN 100, the ability for a UE to communicate while moving, independent of their location, is referred to as mobility. The various physical channels between the UE and the RAN are generally set up, maintained, and released under the control of an access and mobility management function (AMF) , which may include a security context management function (SCMF) that manages the security context for both the control plane and the user plane functionality and a security anchor function (SEAF) that performs authentication. In some examples, during a call facilitated by a network entity, or at any other time, a UE may monitor various parameters of the signal from its serving cell as well as various parameters of neighboring cells. Depending on the quality of these parameters, the UE may maintain communication with one or more of the neighboring cells. During this time, if the UE moves from one cell to another, or if signal quality from a neighboring cell exceeds that from the serving cell for a given amount of time, the UE May undertake a handoff or handover from the serving cell to the neighboring (target) cell. For example, UE 126 may move from the geographic area corresponding to its serving cell 102 to the geographic area corresponding to a neighbor cell 106. When the signal strength or quality from the neighbor cell 106 exceeds that of its serving cell 102 for a given amount of time, the UE 126 may transmit a reporting message to its serving network entity 114 indicating this condition. In response, the UE 126 may receive a handover command, and the UE may undergo a handover to the cell 106.

Wireless communication between a RAN 100 and a UE (e.g., UE 124, 126, or 144) may be described as utilizing communication links 148 over an air interface. Transmissions over the communication links 148 between the network entities and the UEs may include uplink (UL) (also referred to as reverse link) transmissions from a UE to a network entity and/or downlink (DL) (also referred to as forward link) transmissions from a network entity to a UE. For example, DL transmissions may include unicast or broadcast transmissions of control information and/or data (e.g., user data traffic or other type of traffic) from a network entity (e.g., network entity 114) to one or more UEs (e.g., UEs 124, 126, and 144) , while UL transmissions may include transmissions of control information and/or traffic information originating at a UE (e.g., UE 124) . In addition, the uplink and/or downlink control information and/or traffic information may be time-divided into frames, subframes, slots, and/or symbols. As used herein, a symbol may refer to a unit of time that, in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) waveform, carries one resource element (RE) per sub-carrier. A slot may carry 7 or 14 OFDM symbols. A subframe may refer to a duration of 1 ms. Multiple subframes or slots may be grouped together to form a single frame or radio frame. Within the present disclosure, a frame may refer to a predetermined duration (e.g., 10 ms) for wireless transmissions, with each frame consisting of, for example, 10 subframes of 1 ms each. Of course, these definitions are not required, and any suitable scheme for organizing waveforms may be utilized, and various time divisions of the waveform may have any suitable duration.

The communication links 148 may use multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology, including spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and/or transmit diversity. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, network entity 122a/122b may transmit a beamformed signal to the UE 142 via one or more beams 174 in one or more transmit directions. The UE 142 may further receive the beamformed signal from the network entity 122a/122b via one or more beams 174’ in one or more receive directions. The UE 142 may also transmit a beamformed signal to the network entity 122a/122b via the one or more beams 174’ in one or more transmit directions. The network entity 122a/122b may further receive the beamformed signal from the UE 142 via the one or more beams 174 in one or more receive directions. The network entity 122a/122b and the UE 142 may perform beam training to determine the best transmit and receive beams 174/174’ for communication between the network entity 122a/122b and the UE 142. The transmit and receive beams for the network entity 122a/122b may or may not be the same. The transmit and receive directions for the UE 142 may or may not be the same.

The communication links 148 may utilize one or more carriers. The network entities and UEs may use spectrum up to Y MHz (e.g., 5, 10, 15, 20, 100, 400, etc. MHz) bandwidth per carrier allocated in a carrier aggregation of up to a total of Yx MHz (x component carriers) used for transmission in each direction. The carriers may or may not be adjacent to each other. Allocation of carriers may be asymmetric with respect to DL and UL (e.g., more or fewer carriers may be allocated for DL than for UL) . The component carriers may include a primary component carrier and one or more secondary component carriers. A primary component carrier may be referred to as a primary cell (PCell) and a secondary component carrier may be referred to as a secondary cell (SCell) .

The communication links 148 in the RAN 100 may further utilize one or more multiplexing and multiple access algorithms to enable simultaneous communication of the various devices. For example, 5G NR specifications provide multiple access for UL or reverse link transmissions from UEs 124, 126, and 144 to network entity 114, and for multiplexing DL or forward link transmissions from the network entity 114 to UEs 124, 126, and 144 utilizing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with a cyclic prefix (CP) . In addition, for UL transmissions, 5G NR specifications provide support for discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) with a CP (also referred to as single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) ) . However, within the scope of the present disclosure, multiplexing and multiple access are not limited to the above schemes, and may be provided utilizing time division multiple access (TDMA) , code division multiple access (CDMA) , frequency division multiple access (FDMA) , sparse code multiple access (SCMA) , resource spread multiple access (RSMA) , or other suitable multiple access schemes. Further, multiplexing DL transmissions from the network entity 114 to UEs 124, 126, and 144 may be provided utilizing time division multiplexing (TDM) , code division multiplexing (CDM) , frequency division multiplexing (FDM) , orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) , sparse code multiplexing (SCM) , or other suitable multiplexing schemes.

Further, the communication links 148 in the RAN 100 may utilize one or more duplexing algorithms. Duplex refers to a point-to-point communication link where both endpoints can communicate with one another in both directions. Full-duplex means both endpoints can simultaneously communicate with one another. Half-duplex means only one endpoint can send information to the other at a time. Half-duplex emulation is frequently implemented for wireless links utilizing time division duplex (TDD) . In TDD, transmissions in different directions on a given channel are separated from one another using time division multiplexing. That is, at some times the channel is dedicated for transmissions in one direction, while at other times the channel is dedicated for transmissions in the other direction, where the direction may change very rapidly, e.g., several times per slot. In a wireless link, a full-duplex channel generally relies on physical isolation of a transmitter and receiver, and suitable interference cancellation technologies. Full-duplex emulation is frequently implemented for wireless links by utilizing frequency division duplex (FDD) or spatial division duplex (SDD) . In FDD, transmissions in different directions may operate at different carrier frequencies (e.g., within paired spectrum) . In SDD, transmissions in different directions on a given channel are separated from one another using spatial division multiplexing (SDM) . In other examples, full-duplex communication may be implemented within unpaired spectrum (e.g., within a single carrier bandwidth) , where transmissions in different directions occur within different sub-bands of the carrier bandwidth. This type of full-duplex communication may be referred to herein as sub-band full duplex (SBFD) , also known as flexible duplex (FD) .

In various implementations, the communication links 148 in the RAN 100 may utilize licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, or shared spectrum. Licensed spectrum provides for exclusive use of a portion of the spectrum, generally by virtue of a mobile network operator purchasing a license from a government regulatory body. Unlicensed spectrum provides for shared use of a portion of the spectrum without need for a government-granted license. While compliance with some technical rules is generally still required to access unlicensed spectrum, generally, any operator or device may gain access. Shared spectrum may fall between licensed and unlicensed spectrum, wherein technical rules or limitations may be required to access the spectrum, but the spectrum may still be shared by multiple operators and/or multiple RATs. For example, the holder of a license for a portion of licensed spectrum may provide licensed shared access (LSA) to share that spectrum with other parties, e.g., with suitable licensee-determined conditions to gain access.

The electromagnetic spectrum is often subdivided, based on frequency/wavelength, into various classes, bands, channels, etc. In 5G NR, two initial operating bands have been identified as frequency range designations FR1 (410 MHz –7.125 GHz) and FR2 (24.25 GHz –52.6 GHz) . Although a portion of FR1 is greater than 6 GHz, FR1 is often referred to (interchangeably) as a “sub-6 GHz” band in various documents and articles. A similar nomenclature issue sometimes occurs with regard to FR2, which is often referred to (interchangeably) as a “millimeter wave” band in documents and articles, despite being different from the extremely high frequency (EHF) band (30 GHz –300 GHz) which is identified by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a “millimeter wave” band.

The frequencies between FR1 and FR2 are often referred to as mid-band frequencies. Recent 5G NR studies have identified an operating band for these mid-band frequencies as frequency range designation FR3 (7.125 GHz –24.25 GHz) . Frequency bands falling within FR3 may inherit FR1 characteristics and/or FR2 characteristics, and thus may effectively extend features of FR1 and/or FR2 into mid-band frequencies. In addition, higher frequency bands are currently being explored to extend 5G NR operation beyond 52.6 GHz. For example, three higher operating bands have been identified as frequency range designations FR2-2 (52.6 GHz –71 GHz) , FR4 (71 GHz –114.25 GHz) , and FR5 (114.25 GHz –300 GHz) . Each of these higher frequency bands falls within the EHF band.

With the above aspects in mind, unless specifically stated otherwise, it should be understood that the term “sub-6 GHz” or the like if used herein may broadly represent frequencies that may be less than 6 GHz, may be within FR1, or may include mid-band frequencies. Further, unless specifically stated otherwise, it should be understood that the term “millimeter wave” or the like if used herein may broadly represent frequencies that may include mid-band frequencies, may be within FR2, FR4, FR2-2, and/or FR5, or may be within the EHF band.

In some examples, access to the air interface may be scheduled, wherein a scheduling entity (e.g., a network entity 114) allocates resources for communication among some or all devices and equipment within its service area or cell. Within the present disclosure, as discussed further below, the scheduling entity may be responsible for scheduling, assigning, reconfiguring, and releasing resources for one or more scheduled entities. That is, for scheduled communication, UEs (e.g., UE 124) , which may be scheduled entities, may utilize resources allocated by the scheduling entity 114.

Network entities are not the only entities that may function as scheduling entities. That is, in some examples, a UE may function as a scheduling entity, scheduling resources for one or more scheduled entities (e.g., one or more other UEs) . For example, two or more UEs (e.g., UEs 144 and 146) may communicate with each other using peer to peer (P2P) or sidelink signals via a sidelink 150 therebetween without relaying that communication through a network entity (e.g., network entity 114) . In some examples, the UEs 144 and 146 may each function as a scheduling entity or transmitting sidelink device and/or a scheduled entity or a receiving sidelink device to communicate sidelink signals therebetween without relying on scheduling or control information from a network entity (e.g., network entity 114) . In other examples, the network entity 114 may allocate resources to the UEs 144 and 146 for sidelink communication. For example, the UEs 144 and 146 may communicate using sidelink signaling in a P2P network, a device-to-device (D2D) network, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) network, a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) , a mesh network, or other suitable network.

In some examples, a D2D relay framework may be included within a cellular network to facilitate relaying of communication to/from the network entity 114 via D2D links (e.g., sidelink 150) . For example, one or more UEs (e.g., UE 144) within the coverage area of the network entity 114 may operate as a relaying UE to extend the coverage of the network entity 114, improve the transmission reliability to one or more UEs (e.g., UE 146) , and/or to allow the network entity to recover from a failed UE link due to, for example, blockage or fading.

The wireless communications system may further include a Wi-Fi access point (AP) 176 in communication with Wi-Fi stations (STAs) 178 via communication links 180 in a 5 GHz unlicensed frequency spectrum. When communicating in an unlicensed frequency spectrum, the STAs 170 /AP 176 may perform a clear channel assessment (CCA) prior to communicating in order to determine whether the channel is available.

In some examples, a UE may correspond to an IoT device 182. The IoT device 182 may include, for example, a passive IoT device, such as RFID-type sensor/actuator (SA) , a semi-passive IoT device, or an active IoT device. Active IoT devices and semi-active IoT device may include a battery or power source that may be charged, for example, using wireless power transfer (WPT) or, more generally, ambient energy harvesting, whereas passive IoT devices lack an internal power source, and therefore, use ambient energy harvesting to power the device. Semi-passive IoT devices may include a capacitor or other storage device that provides a warm start-up to the energy harvesting in the device. The IoT device 182 may communicate with a network entity (e.g., network entity 114 or RFID reader) . In some examples, the network entity 114 may communicate with the IoT device via cellular (Uu) links. For example, the network entity 114 may provide an energy transmission on the downlink to power the IoT device. The energy transmission may further be modulated and backscattered by the IoT device 182 as an information-bearing signal on the uplink. In addition, the network entity 114 may transmit control information and/or data to the IoT device 182 on the downlink, which may be detected by the IoT device using, for example, envelope detection. In this manner, the network entity 114 may read information from the IoT device 182 and write information to the IoT device 182.

The network entities 114, 116, 118, 120, and 122a/122b provide wireless access points to the core network 160 for any number of UEs or other mobile apparatuses via core network backhaul links 154. The core network backhaul links 154 may provide a connection between the network entities 114, 116, 118, 120, and 122a/122b and the core network 170. In some examples, the core network backhaul links 154 may include backhaul links 152 that provide interconnection between the respective network entities. The core network may be part of the wireless communication system and may be independent of the radio access technology used in the RAN 100. Various types of backhaul interfaces may be employed, such as a direct physical connection (wired or wireless) , a virtual network, or the like using any suitable transport network.

The core network 160 may include an Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) 162, other AMFs 168, a Session Management Function (SMF) 164, and a User Plane Function (UPF) 166. The AMF 162 may be in communication with a Unified Data Management (UDM) 170. The AMF 162 is the control node that processes the signaling between the UEs and the core network 160. Generally, the AMF 162 provides QoS flow and session management. All user Internet protocol (IP) packets are transferred through the UPF 166. The UPF 166 provides UE IP address allocation as well as other functions. The UPF 166 is configured to couple to IP Services 172. The IP Services 172 may include the Internet, an intranet, an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) , a PS Streaming Service, and/or other IP services.

FIG. 2A is a diagram 200 illustrating an example of a first subframe within a 5G/NR frame structure. FIG. 2B is a diagram 230 illustrating an example of DL channels within a 5G/NR subframe. FIG. 2C is a diagram 250 illustrating an example of a second subframe within a 5G/NR frame structure. FIG. 2D is a diagram 280 illustrating an example of UL channels within a 5G/NR subframe. The 5G/NR frame structure may be FDD in which for a particular set of subcarriers (carrier system bandwidth) , subframes within the set of subcarriers are dedicated for either DL or UL, or may be TDD in which for a particular set of subcarriers (carrier system bandwidth) , subframes within the set of subcarriers are dedicated for both DL and UL. In the examples provided by FIGs. 2A, 2C, the 5G/NR frame structure is assumed to be TDD, with subframe 4 being configured with slot format 28 (with mostly DL) , where D is DL, U is UL, and X is flexible for use between DL/UL, and subframe 3 being configured with slot format 34 (with mostly UL) . While subframes 3, 4 are shown with slot formats 34, 28, respectively, any particular subframe may be configured with any of the various available slot formats 0-61. Slot formats 0, 1 are all DL, UL, respectively. Other slot formats 2-61 include a mix of DL, UL, and flexible symbols. UEs are configured with the slot format (dynamically through DL control information (DCI) , or semi-statically/statically through radio resource control (RRC) signaling) through a received slot format indicator (SFI) . Note that the description infra applies also to a 5G/NR frame structure that is TDD.

Other wireless communication technologies may have a different frame structure and/or different channels. A frame (10 ms) may be divided into 10 equally sized subframes (1 ms) . Each subframe may include one or more time slots. Subframes may also include mini-slots, which may include 7, 4, or 2 symbols. Each slot may include 7 or 14 symbols, depending on the slot configuration. For slot configuration 0, each slot may include 14 symbols, and for slot configuration 1, each slot may include 7 symbols. The symbols on DL may be cyclic prefix (CP) OFDM (CP-OFDM) symbols. The symbols on UL may be CP-OFDM symbols (for high throughput scenarios) or discrete Fourier transform (DFT) spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) symbols (also referred to as single carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) symbols) (for power limited scenarios; limited to a single stream transmission) . The number of slots within a subframe is based on the slot configuration and the numerology. For slot configuration 0, different numerologies μ 0 to 5 allow for 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 slots, respectively, per subframe. For slot configuration 1, different numerologies 0 to 2 allow for 2, 4, and 8 slots, respectively, per subframe. Accordingly, for slot configuration 0 and numerology μ, there are 14 symbols/slot and 2^μ slots/subframe. The subcarrier spacing and symbol length/duration are a function of the numerology. The subcarrier spacing may be equal to 2^μ*15 kKz, where μ is the numerology 0 to 5. As such, the numerology μ=0 has a subcarrier spacing of 15 kHz and the numerology μ=5 has a subcarrier spacing of 480 kHz. The symbol length/duration is inversely related to the subcarrier spacing. FIGs. 2A-2D provide an example of slot configuration 0 with 14 symbols per slot and numerology μ=0 with 1 slot per subframe. The subcarrier spacing is 15 kHz and symbol duration is approximately 66.7 μs.

A resource grid may be used to represent the frame structure. Each time slot includes a resource block (RB) (also referred to as physical RBs (PRBs) ) that extends 12 consecutive subcarriers. The resource grid is divided into multiple resource elements (REs) . The number of bits carried by each RE depends on the modulation scheme.

As illustrated in FIG. 2A, some of the REs carry reference (pilot) signals (RS) for the UE. The RS may include demodulation RS (DM-RS) (indicated as R_x for one particular configuration, where 100x is the port number, but other DM-RS configurations are possible) and channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS) for channel estimation at the UE. The RS may also include beam measurement RS (BRS) , beam refinement RS (BRRS) , and phase tracking RS (PT-RS) .

FIG. 2B illustrates an example of various DL channels within a subframe of a frame. The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) carries DCI within one or more control channel elements (CCEs) , each CCE including nine RE groups (REGs) , each REG including four consecutive REs in an OFDM symbol. A primary synchronization signal (PSS) may be within symbol 2 of particular subframes of a frame. The PSS is used by a UE 104 to determine subframe/symbol timing and a physical layer identity. A secondary synchronization signal (SSS) may be within symbol 4 of particular subframes of a frame. The SSS is used by a UE to determine a physical layer cell identity group number and radio frame timing. Based on the physical layer identity and the physical layer cell identity group number, the UE can determine a physical cell identifier (PCI) . Based on the PCI, the UE can determine the locations of the aforementioned DM-RS. The physical broadcast channel (PBCH) , which carries a master information block (MIB) , may be logically grouped with the PSS and SSS to form a synchronization signal (SS) /PBCH block (SSB) . The MIB provides a number of RBs in the system bandwidth and a system frame number (SFN) . The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) carries user data, broadcast system information not transmitted through the PBCH such as system information blocks (SIBs) , and paging messages.

As illustrated in FIG. 2C, some of the REs carry DM-RS (indicated as R for one particular configuration, but other DM-RS configurations are possible) for channel estimation at the base station. The UE may transmit DM-RS for the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) and DM-RS for the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) . The PUSCH DM-RS may be transmitted in the first one or two symbols of the PUSCH. The PUCCH DM-RS may be transmitted in different configurations depending on whether short or long PUCCHs are transmitted and depending on the particular PUCCH format used. Although not shown, the UE may transmit sounding reference signals (SRS) . The SRS may be used by a base station for channel quality estimation to enable frequency-dependent scheduling on the UL.

FIG. 2D illustrates an example of various UL channels within a subframe of a frame. The PUCCH may be located as indicated in one configuration. The PUCCH carries uplink control information (UCI) , such as scheduling requests, a channel quality indicator (CQI) , a precoding matrix indicator (PMI) , a rank indicator (RI) , and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) ACK/NACK feedback. The PUSCH carries data, and may additionally be used to carry a buffer status report (BSR) , a power headroom report (PHR) , and/or UCI.

Deployment of communication systems, such as 5G new radio (NR) systems, may be arranged in multiple manners with various components or constituent parts. In a 5G NR system, or network, a network node, a network entity, a mobility element of a network, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, a network element, or a network equipment, such as a base station (BS) , or one or more units (or one or more components) performing base station functionality, may be implemented in an aggregated or disaggregated architecture. For example, a BS (such as a Node B (NB) , evolved NB (eNB) , NR BS, 5G NB (gNB) , access point (AP) , a transmit receive point (TRP) , or a cell, etc. ) may be implemented as an aggregated base station (also known as a standalone BS or a monolithic BS) or a disaggregated base station.

An aggregated base station may be configured to utilize a radio protocol stack that is physically or logically integrated within a single RAN node. A disaggregated base station may be configured to utilize a protocol stack that is physically or logically distributed among two or more units (such as one or more central or centralized units (CUs) , one or more distributed units (DUs) , or one or more radio units (RUs) ) . In some aspects, a CU may be implemented within a RAN node, and one or more DUs may be co-located with the CU, or alternatively, may be geographically or virtually distributed throughout one or multiple other RAN nodes. The DUs may be implemented to communicate with one or more RUs. Each of the CU, DU and RU also can be implemented as virtual units, i.e., a virtual central unit (VCU) , a virtual distributed unit (VDU) , or a virtual radio unit (VRU) .

Base station-type operation or network design may consider aggregation characteristics of base station functionality. For example, disaggregated base stations may be utilized in an integrated access backhaul (IAB) network, an open radio access network (O-RAN (such as the network configuration sponsored by the O-RAN Alliance) ) , or a virtualized radio access network (vRAN, also known as a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) ) . Disaggregation may include distributing functionality across two or more units at various physical locations, as well as distributing functionality for at least one unit virtually, which can enable flexibility in network design. The various units of the disaggregated base station, or disaggregated RAN architecture, can be configured for wired or wireless communication with at least one other unit.

FIG. 3 shows a diagram illustrating an example disaggregated base station 300 architecture. The disaggregated base station 300 architecture may include one or more central units (CUs) 310 that can communicate directly with a core network 320 via a backhaul link, or indirectly with the core network 320 through one or more disaggregated base station units (such as a Near-Real Time (Near-RT) RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) 325 via an E3 link, or a Non-Real Time (Non-RT) RIC 315 associated with a Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) Framework 305, or both) . A CU 310 may communicate with one or more distributed units (DUs) 330 via respective midhaul links, such as an F1 interface. The DUs 330 may communicate with one or more radio units (RUs) 340 via respective fronthaul links. The RUs 340 may communicate with respective UEs 350 via one or more radio frequency (RF) access links. In some implementations, the UE 350 may be simultaneously served by multiple RUs 340.

Each of the units, i.e., the CUs 310, the DUs 330, the RUs 340, as well as the Near-RT RICs 325, the Non-RT RICs 315 and the SMO Framework 305, may include one or more interfaces or be coupled to one or more interfaces configured to receive or transmit signals, data, or information (collectively, signals) via a wired or wireless transmission medium. Each of the units, or an associated processor or controller providing instructions to the communication interfaces of the units, can be configured to communicate with one or more of the other units via the transmission medium. For example, the units can include a wired interface configured to receive or transmit signals over a wired transmission medium to one or more of the other units. Additionally, the units can include a wireless interface, which may include a receiver, a transmitter or transceiver (such as a radio frequency (RF) transceiver) , configured to receive or transmit signals, or both, over a wireless transmission medium to one or more of the other units.

In some aspects, the CU 310 may host one or more higher layer control functions. Such control functions can include radio resource control (RRC) , packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) , service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) , or the like. Each control function can be implemented with an interface configured to communicate signals with other control functions hosted by the CU 310. The CU 310 may be configured to handle user plane functionality (i.e., Central Unit –User Plane (CU-UP) ) , control plane functionality (i.e., Central Unit –Control Plane (CU-CP) ) , or a combination thereof. In some implementations, the CU 310 can be logically split into one or more CU-UP units and one or more CU-CP units. The CU-UP unit can communicate bidirectionally with the CU-CP unit via an interface, such as the E1 interface when implemented in an O-RAN configuration. The CU 310 can be implemented to communicate with the DU 330, as necessary, for network control and signaling.

The DU 330 may correspond to a logical unit that includes one or more base station functions to control the operation of one or more RUs 340. In some aspects, the DU 330 may host one or more of a radio link control (RLC) layer, a medium access control (MAC) layer, and one or more high physical (PHY) layers (such as modules for forward error correction (FEC) encoding and decoding, scrambling, modulation and demodulation, or the like) depending, at least in part, on a functional split, such as those defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) . In some aspects, the DU 330 may further host one or more low PHY layers. Each layer (or module) can be implemented with an interface configured to communicate signals with other layers (and modules) hosted by the DU 330, or with the control functions hosted by the CU 310.

Lower-layer functionality can be implemented by one or more RUs 340. In some deployments, an RU 340, controlled by a DU 330, may correspond to a logical node that hosts RF processing functions, or low-PHY layer functions (such as performing fast Fourier transform (FFT) , inverse FFT (iFFT) , digital beamforming, physical random access channel (PRACH) extraction and filtering, or the like) , or both, based at least in part on the functional split, such as a lower layer functional split. In such an architecture, the RU (s) 340 can be implemented to handle over the air (OTA) communication with one or more UEs 350. In some implementations, real-time and non-real-time aspects of control and user plane communication with the RU (s) 340 can be controlled by the corresponding DU 330. In some scenarios, this configuration can enable the DU (s) 330 and the CU 310 to be implemented in a cloud-based RAN architecture, such as a vRAN architecture.

The SMO Framework 305 may be configured to support RAN deployment and provisioning of non-virtualized and virtualized network elements. For non-virtualized network elements, the SMO Framework 305 may be configured to support the deployment of dedicated physical resources for RAN coverage requirements which may be managed via an operations and maintenance interface (such as an O1 interface) . For virtualized network elements, the SMO Framework 305 may be configured to interact with a cloud computing platform (such as an open cloud (O-Cloud) 390) to perform network element life cycle management (such as to instantiate virtualized network elements) via a cloud computing platform interface (such as an O3 interface) . Such virtualized network elements can include, but are not limited to, CUs 310, DUs 330, RUs 340 and Near-RT RICs 325. In some implementations, the SMO Framework 305 can communicate with a hardware aspect of a 5G RAN, such as an open eNB (O-eNB) 311, via an O1 interface. Additionally, in some implementations, the SMO Framework 305 can communicate directly with one or more RUs 340 via an O1 interface. The SMO Framework 305 also may include a Non-RT RIC 315 configured to support functionality of the SMO Framework 305.

The Non-RT RIC 315 may be configured to include a logical function that enables non-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) workflows including model training and updates, or policy-based guidance of applications/features in the Near-RT RIC 325. The Non-RT RIC 315 may be coupled to or communicate with (such as via an A1 interface) the Near-RT RIC 325. The Near-RT RIC 325 may be configured to include a logical function that enables near-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources via data collection and actions over an interface (such as via an E3 interface) connecting one or more CUs 310, one or more DUs 330, or both, as well as an O-eNB, with the Near-RT RIC 325.

In some implementations, to generate AI/ML models to be deployed in the Near-RT RIC 325, the Non-RT RIC 315 may receive parameters or external enrichment information from external servers. Such information may be utilized by the Near-RT RIC 325 and may be received at the SMO Framework 305 or the Non-RT RIC 315 from non-network data sources or from network functions. In some examples, the Non-RT RIC 315 or the Near-RT RIC 325 may be configured to tune RAN behavior or performance. For example, the Non-RT RIC 315 may monitor long-term trends and patterns for performance and employ AI/ML models to perform corrective actions through the SMO Framework 305 (such as reconfiguration via O1) or via creation of RAN management policies (such as A1 policies) .

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of wireless communication between a first wireless communication device 402 and a second wireless communication device 404 using coding according to various aspects. Each wireless communication device 402 and 404 may be a user equipment (UE) , a network entity (e.g., an aggregated or disaggregated base station) , or any other suitable apparatus or means for wireless communication. In the illustrated example, a source 422 within the first wireless communication device 402 transmits a digital message over a communication channel 406 (e.g., a wireless channel) to a sink 444 in the second wireless communication device 404. In practical circumstances, noise 408 on the communications channel 406 may affect the reliability of the message.

Block codes, or error correcting codes are frequently used to provide reliable transmission of digital messages over such channels. In a typical block code, an information message or sequence is split up into blocks, each block having a length of K bits. An encoder 424 at the first (transmitting) wireless communication device 402 then mathematically adds redundancy to the information message, resulting in codewords having a length of N, where N > K. Here, the code rate R is the ratio between the message length and the block length: i.e., R = K /N. Exploitation of this redundancy in the encoded information message is one key to reliability of the message, possibly enabling correction for bit errors that may occur due to the noise 408 or other signal propagation affects. That is, a decoder 442 at the second (receiving) wireless communication device 404 can take advantage of the redundancy to attempt to recover the information message even though bit errors may occur, in part, due to the addition of noise to the channel, etc.

One example of a linear block error correcting code is a polar code. In general terms, channel polarization is generated with a recursive algorithm that defines polar codes. Polar codes are the first explicit codes that achieve the channel capacity of symmetric binary-input discrete memoryless channels. That is, polar codes achieve the channel capacity (the Shannon limit) or the theoretical upper bound on the amount of error-free information that can be transmitted on a discrete memoryless channel of a given bandwidth in the presence of noise. With polar codes, the codeword length N is typically a power of 2 (e.g., 256, 512, 1024, etc. ) because the original construction of a polarizing matrix is based on the Kronecker product ofFor example, a generator matrix (e.g., a polarizing matrix) G_N for generating a polar code with a block length of N can be expressed as:

Here, B_N is the bit-reversal permutation matrix for successive cancellation (SC) decoding (functioning in some ways similar to the interleaver function used by a turbo coder in LTE networks) , andis the n^th Kronecker power of F. The basic matrix F is The matrixis generated by raising the basic 2x2 matrix F by the n^th Kronecker power. This matrix is a lower triangular matrix, in that all the entries above the main diagonal are zero. Because the bit-reversal permutation just changes the index of the rows, the matrix ofmay be analyzed instead. The matrix ofcan be expressed as:

The polar encoder may then generate a polar code block as:

whereis the encoded bit sequence (e.g., bit sequence of the polar code block) , andis the encoding bit sequence (e.g., bit sequence of the information block) .

Thus, the information bit vector u may include a number (N) of original bits that may be polar coded by the generating matrix G_N to produce a corresponding number (N) of coded bits in the polar codeword x. In some examples, the information bit vector u may include a number of information bits, denoted K, and a number of frozen bits, denoted Frozen bits are bits that are set to a suitable predetermined value, such as 0 or 1. Thus, the value of the frozen bits may generally be known at both the transmitting device and the receiving device. The polar encoder, such as the polar encoder 424 shown in FIG. 4, may determine the number of information bits and the number of frozen bits based on the coding rate R. For example, the polar encoder 424 may select a coding rate R from a set of one or more coding rates and select K = N x R bits in the information block to transmit information. The remaining (N -K) bits in the information block may then be fixed as frozen bits

In order to determine which information block bits to set as frozen bits, the polar encoder 424 may further analyze the wireless channel over which the polar codeword may be sent. For example, the wireless channel for transmitting the polar codeword may be divided into a set of subchannels, such that each encoded bit in the polar codeword is transmitted over one of the subchannels. Thus, each subchannel may correspond to a particular coded bit location in the polar codeword (e.g., subchannel-1 may correspond to coded bit location containing coded bit x₁) . The polar encoder 424 may identify the K best subchannels for transmitting the information bits and determine the original bit locations in the information block contributing to (or corresponding to) the K best subchannels. For example, based on the generating matrix, one or more of the original bits of the information block may contribute to each of the coded bits of the polar codeword. Thus, based on the generating matrix, the polar encoder 424 may determine K original bit locations in the information block corresponding to the K best subchannels, designate the K original bit locations for information bits and designate the remaining original bit locations in the information block for frozen bits.

In some examples, the polar encoder 424 may determine the K best subchannels by performing density evolution or Gaussian approximation. Density evolution is generally known to those skilled in the art, and therefore the details thereof are not described herein. For example, construction of polar codes based on density evolution is described in R. Mori and T. Tanaka PERFORMANCE OF POLAR CODES WITH THE CONSTRUCTION USING DENSITY EVOLUTION, IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 519-521, July 2009. Gaussian approximation is a lower complexity version of density evolution, and is also generally known to those skilled in the art. For example, construction of polar codes based on Gaussian approximation is described in V. Miloslavskaya, SHORTENED POLAR CODES, IEEE Trans. on Information Theory, June 2015.

The polar encoder 424 may perform density evolution or Gaussian approximation to calculate a respective reliability metric, such as a bit error probability (BEP) and/or log likelihood ratio (LLR) , for each of the original bit locations. For example, the LLRs of the coded bit locations are known from the subchannel conditions (e.g., based on the respective SNRs of the subchannels) . Thus, since one or more of the original bits of the information block may contribute to each of the coded bits of the codeword, the LLRs of each of the original bit locations may be derived from the known LLRs of the coded bit locations by performing density evolution or Gaussian approximation. Based on the calculated original bit location LLRs, the polar encoder 424 may sort the subchannels and select the K best subchannels (e.g., “good” subchannels) to transmit the information bits. The polar encoder 424 may then set the original bit locations of the information block corresponding to the K best subchannels as including information bits and the remaining original bit locations corresponding to the N-K subchannels (e.g., “bad” subchannels) as including frozen bits.

The receiving wireless communication device 404 may receive a noisy version of x, and has to decode x or, equivalently, u. Polar codes may be decoded with a simple successive cancellation (SC) decoder, which has a decoding complexity of O (N log N) and can achieve Shannon capacity when N is very large. However, for short and moderate block lengths, the error rate performance of polar codes significantly degrades. Therefore, SC-list (SCL) decoding may be utilized to improve the polar coding error rate performance. With SC-list decoding, instead of only keeping one decoding path (as in simple SC decoders) , L decoding paths are maintained, where L>1 and L represents the list size. At each decoding stage, the decoder (e.g., polar decoder 442) at the receiving wireless communication device 404 discards the least probable (worst) decoding paths and keeps only the L best decoding paths. For example, instead of selecting a value u_i at each decoding stage, two decoding paths corresponding to either possible value of u_i are created and decoding is continued in two parallel decoding threads (2*L) . To avoid the exponential growth of the number of decoding paths, at each decoding stage, only the L most likely paths are retained. At the end, the decoder will have a list of L candidates for out of which the most likely candidate is selected. Thus, when the decoder completes the SC-list decoding algorithm, the decoder returns a single codeword.

FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of an information block 500 to be polar coded according to some aspects. The information block 500 includes a plurality of information bits 502 and a plurality of frozen bits 504. The information block 500 further includes CRC information 506 (e.g., CRC bits) that may be utilized by the receiving wireless communication device to verify the integrity of the information bits 502. In some examples, a polar encoder (e.g., polar encoder 424 shown in FIG. 4) may determine K original bit locations in the information block 500 corresponding to the K best subchannels for both the CRC and the information bits and designate the remaining original bit locations in the information block for frozen bits 504.

In polar-coded modulation (PCM) for constellations with 2^m signal points, a successive demapper (e.g., polar demapper) connects m binary polar codes to m bit levels of the channel inputs (e.g., QAM symbols) . An example of PCM is bit interleaved PCM (BICM) . In BICM, polar coding and modulation are connected by an interleaver, and Gray labeling may be used for mapping between the coded bits and the constellation symbols. At the receiver, a polar demapper may first calculate bit-wise LLRs, which are then processed as independent. However, LLRs calculated from the same channel output are dependent. Therefore, such demappers are considered mismatched (e.g., these polar demappers apply mismatched decoding) .

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a PCM scheme according to some aspects. The PCM scheme shown in FIG. 6 is for 2^m-ASK constellations and represents a BICM scheme. In the example shown in FIG. 6, a length mn vector u including information bits and frozen bits is split into m vectors u₁, u₂, …u_m, each corresponding to a respective bit level. The vectors u_j may then be mapped to vectors c_j by respective polar transforms 702a, 702b, …702M. Each of the polar transforms 702a, 702b, …702M is configured to implement polar encoding of the respective vector u_j. For example, the polar transforms 702a, 702b, …702M may map the information vectors u_j to polar coded vectors c_j as follows:

Polar mappers 704a, 704b, …704N are configured to implement a label function that maps the m bits c_1i, c_2i, …c_mi to the ith transmitted ASK symbol x_i for i=1, 2, . …, n. Thus, for j=1, 2, . …, m, the output c_j of the jth polar transformation is mapped to the jth bit level of the labeling function. The polar label may be defined as:
b_i=b_i1, b_i2, …, b_im: c_1i, c_i2, …, c_mi, i=1, 2, …n

For example, as shown in FIG. 7, the polar label b 702 may first be mapped to a Binary Reflective Gray Code (BRGC) 704 (e.g., Gray labeled) , which is then mapped to an 8-ASK symbol 706. Gray labeling is an encoding such that adjacent binary numbers have a single bit differing by one. In the example shown in FIG. 7, the most significant bits (MSB) are flipped to make the 8-ASK symbol switch between (-7, 1) , (-5, 3) , (-3, 1) , and (-1, 7) pairs, which can maximize the energy saving.

Joint coding and shaping (e.g., probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) ) may perform FEC coding and shaping in a single code. For example, joint coding and shaping may use a single polar code with both frozen bits and shaping bits. For example, joint coding and shaping may enable placement of both shaping bits and information bits within a transmission. Shaping bits may be used to shape the transmitted symbols to a lower transmit power and, thus, improve a capacity for efficiency.

Joint coding and shaping may be suitable for small block length packets, such as control information (e.g., physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) ) . With joint coding and shaping, the information bits may be decoded once, which may enable lower complexity than separate coding and PAS.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a transmitter configured for joint coding and shaping according to some aspects. As shown by the block 802 labeled “CRC attachment, ” a transmitter 800 (e.g., a transmitting wireless communication device) may be configured to append cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits to a payload vector a to produce vector c. The transmitter polar-interleaves the vector c at polar interleaving block 804 to generate vector c′, and inserts shaping bits at shaping bits insertion block 806 to generate vector c″. The transmitter may further perform polar encoding at polar encoder block 808 to generate a vector (or codeword) d, re-order the vector d using a sub-block interleaver 810 to a vector y, and perform bit selection at bit selection block 812 to generate a rate-matched vector e. The transmitter may then be configured to interleave vector e at code-bit interleaving block 814 to generate vector f, perform scrambling of vector f at scrambling block 816 to generate vector b, and map vector b to channel input symbols x at QAM mapping block 818.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry 900 configured for PCM with joint coding and shaping according to some aspects. In the example shown in FIG. 9, a vector u′of length N may include both information bits and frozen bits. The vector u′is split into three vectors u₁, u₂, u₃, each corresponding to a respective bit level. In the example shown in FIG. 9, u₃ represents the sign bit level (e.g., a highest bit level) , u₂ represents a second bit level and u₁ represents a third bit level, where the third bit level includes less significant bits than the second bit level. The vector u₃ may be fed to a precoder 902 that generates shaping bits to construct the vector u _[D] .

The vectors u₁, u₂, u _[D] may be fed to respective polar transforms (e.g., polar sub-kernels) 904a, 904b, and 904c that perform polar coding operations on the vectors u₁, u₂, u _[D] to produce respective polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors B₁, B₂, B₃) , each associated with a bit level. In the example shown in FIG. 9, polar transform 904c is associated with the sign bit level, polar transform 904b is associated with the second bit level and polar transform 904a is associated with the third bit level. A labeling transform 906 may then be applied to the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. The vectorsare mapped to symbols by bit-symbol mapping block 912. In some examples, the transform 906 and bit-symbol mapping block 912 may correspond to a polar mapper similar to the polar mappers shown in FIG. 6.

In the example shown in FIG. 9, the labeling transform 906 is a set-partition to Gray labeling transform 906. Set-partition labeling and Gray labeling traditionally have different designs. For example, with set-partition labeling for each of the bit levels, the sets of signal points corresponding to the following bit level are chosen such that the minimum Euclidean distance within the subsets is maximized. Therefore, the increment of mutual information from one level to the next is designed to be large. By contrast, with Gray labeling, bit levels are generated that are as independent as possible.

In an example, an M-ary ASP/PSK constellation with SP labeling can be represented as an (M, m) binary matrix M_SP, m= (m=log₂ (M) ) containing the dual representations of the numbers 0, …, M-1 as rows with the left-most column representing the least significant bit. A binary reflected Gray labeling may also be given by a binary matrix M_Gray of equal dimensions. Examples for m=3 are shown below.

In accordance with various aspects, set-partitioning labeling of an M-ASK/PSK constellation can be transformed into a binary reflected Gray labeling via an (m, m) binary matrix:

such that M_SP, m·T_m=M_Gray, m holds.

Similar to the case of ASK/PSK constellations, an SP labeling may be converted into a Gray labeling by a linear transform in the case of square M²-QAM constellations such that:

where G₂ is the generator matrix of a length-2 polar code.

In the example shown in FIG. 9, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 906 includes various XOR operations (as represented by XOR gates) that operate on the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce the transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. For example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 906 may include a first XOR gate 908 that applies a first XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₂ with the sign bit level polar code sub-kernel output B₃. In addition, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 906 may include a second XOR gate 910 that applies a second XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₁ with the polar code sub-kernel output B₂. By using this transform 906, the sign bit levelonly impactsand the bit-flipping of thecan maximize the energy flipping gain, as in Gray mapping.

In an example, the most reliable S indices of u′may be left empty to be filled with shaping bits, with the most reliable remaining indices filled with information bits and the rest of the indices filled with zeros as frozen bits. Here, the indices correspond to subchannels. The most reliable S subchannels may be located in the sign bit level, corresponding to u₃. By allocating the most reliable S subchannels in the sign bit level for shaping bits (which do not carry any information) , the desired target probability distribution of symbols may be achieved.

For example, the precoder 902 may identify a payload size (e.g., a number) of the shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropyThe precoder 902 may then construct the shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the transformed polar code sub-kernel outputsto determine the shaping bits. For example, the precoder 902 may be configured as a polar decoder to search for a polar codeword representing u′and that causes the polar codeword to be distributed according to the target probability distribution.

In an example, the bit level vectors u₁, u₂, u₃ with the most reliable S indices of u′ on the sign bit level u₃ left empty (e.g., to be subsequently filled with shaping bits) may be encoded by polar transforms 904a, 904b, and 904c to produce initial polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁′, B₂′, B₃′. The set-partition to Gray labeling transform 906 may then be applied to the initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain Gray labeled sub-kernel outputsthat collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword. The precoder 902 may further be configured to calculate a power saving function based on the Gray labeled sub-kernel outputsFor example, the power saving function g may be calculated as:

The precoder 902 may then utilize the power saving function to initialize the LLRs and decode the initial polar-coded codeword to obtain the shaping bits.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of polar code circuitry 900 for three bit levels. However, the polar code circuitry 900 shown in FIG. 9 may be extended to any number of bit levels, with the transform 906 including additional XOR gates to XOR adjacent bit levels.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry 1000 configured for joint coding and shaping using sign bits according to some aspects. As in the example shown in FIG. 9, in the example shown in FIG. 10, the polar code circuitry 1000 includes a plurality of polar transforms (e.g., polar sub-kernels) 1004a, 1004b, and 1004c that perform polar coding operations on respective sets of bits to produce respective polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors B₁, B₂, B₃) . A labeling transform 1006 may then be applied to the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. The vectorsare mapped to symbols by bit-symbol mapping block 1012. In some examples, the transform 1006 and bit-symbol mapping block 1012 may correspond to a polar mapper similar to the polar mappers shown in FIG. 6.

In addition, the transform 1006 may be a set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1006 includes various XOR operations (as represented by XOR gates ⊕) that operate on the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce the transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. For example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1006 may include a first XOR gate 1008 that applies a first XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₂ with the sign bit level polar code sub-kernel output B₃. In addition, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1006 may include a second XOR gate 1010 that applies a second XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₁ with the polar code sub-kernel output B₂.

Each of the polar transforms 1004a, 1004b, and 1004c is associated with a respective bit level 1014a, 1014b, and 1014c. Each bit level 1014a, 1014b, and 1014c includes a respective set of indices of a length N information block that includes both information bits 1016 and frozen bits 1018. For example, a first bit level 1014c represents the sign bit level (e.g., a highest bit level) and may include indices {0 …x-1} , a second bit level 1014b includes less significant bits than the sign bit level 1014c and may include indices {x …y-1} and a third bit level 1014a includes less significant bits than the second bit level 1014b and may include indices {y …N-1} . As shown in FIG. 10, each of the indices corresponds to a respective subchannel 1002 (e.g., frequency) . The most reliable S subchannels 1002 may be located in the sign bit level 1014c. These S subchannels are reserved for shaping bits 1020 that may be generated as shown in FIG. 9. The set of information bits 1016 (including CRC bits) , referred to as I, may be placed on the most reliable subchannels 1002 excluding the S shaping bit subchannels 1002. The remaining subchannels 1002 (e.g., the least reliable subchannels) may include the set of frozen bits

For polar codes at a relatively higher order of modulation, an interleaver may be used to improve wireless communication by reducing the bit error rate and improving transmission efficiency over fading channels. For example, interleaving polar coded bits may distribute transmitted bits in time to achieve a desirable bit error distribution to counter the effects of fading channels. The interleaver can change the permutation of the signal bit stream without changing the information content. Therefore, the interleaver can maximize the dispersion of continuous error bits generated by bursts in the process of transmission. In this way, the error correction and error detection capabilities of the receiver can be improved. To further randomize inter-symbol bit-level LLRs at the receiver, different interleavers may be used for different bit levels.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of polar code circuitry 1100 configured for joint coding and shaping with interleaving according to some aspects. As in the example shown in FIG. 9, in the example shown in FIG. 11, the polar code circuitry 1100 includes a plurality of polar transforms (e.g., polar sub-kernels) 1102a, 1102b, and 1102c that perform polar coding operations on respective sets of bits, each associated with a bit level, to produce respective polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors B₁, B₂, B₃) . A labeling transform 1106 may then be applied to the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. The vectorsare mapped to symbols by bit-symbol mapping block 1112. In some examples, the transform 1106 and bit-symbol mapping block 1112 may correspond to a polar mapper similar to the polar mappers shown in FIG. 6.

In addition, the transform 1106 may be a set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1106 includes various XOR operations (as represented by XOR gates) that operate on the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce the transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. For example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1106 may include a first XOR gate 1108 that applies a first XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₂ with the sign bit level polar code sub-kernel output B₃. In addition, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1106 may include a second XOR gate 1110 that applies a second XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₁ with the polar code sub-kernel output B₂.

As further shown in FIG. 11, the polar code circuitry 1100 may include a plurality of bit-level interleavers 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c (e.g., Π₁, Π₂, Π₃) positioned after the polar transforms 1102a, 1102b, and 1102c and before the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1106. The bit-level interleavers 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c may be configured to apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.

In some examples, each bit-level interleaver 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c may be defined by one or more of an interleaver pattern and/or a shift pattern. For example, interleaver patterns may include a triangular interleaver, a rectangular interleaver, or any other suitable shape of interleaver. Interleaver shift patterns may include cyclic shifts of the bits input to each interleaver 1104a, 1104b, or 1104c.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating another example of polar code circuitry 1200 configured for joint coding and shaping with interleaving according to some aspects. As in the example shown in FIG. 9, in the example shown in FIG. 12, the polar code circuitry 1200 includes a plurality of polar transforms (e.g., polar sub-kernels) 1202a, 1202b, and 1202c that perform polar coding operations on respective sets of bits, each associated with a bit level, to produce respective polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors B₁, B₂, B₃) . A labeling transform 1206 may then be applied to the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. The vectorsare mapped to symbols by bit-symbol mapping block 1212. In some examples, the transform 1206 and bit-symbol mapping block 1212 may correspond to a polar mapper similar to the polar mappers shown in FIG. 6.

In addition, the transform 1206 may be a set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1206 includes various XOR operations (as represented by XOR gates) that operate on the polar code sub-kernel outputs B₁, B₂, B₃ to produce the transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs (e.g., vectors) corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. For example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1206 may include a first XOR gate 1208 that applies a first XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₂ with the sign bit level polar code sub-kernel output B₃. In addition, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1206 may include a second XOR gate 1210 that applies a second XOR operation on the polar code sub-kernel output B₁ with the polar code sub-kernel output B₂.

As further shown in FIG. 12, the polar code circuitry 1200 may include a plurality of bit-level interleavers 1204a, 1204b, and 1204c (e.g., Π₁, Π₂, Π₃) positioned after the set-partition to Gray labeling transform 1206. The bit-level interleavers 1204a, 1204b, and 1204c may be configured to apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputsto produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword.

In some examples, each bit-level interleaver 1204a, 1204b, and 1204c may be defined by one or more of an interleaver pattern and/or a shift pattern. For example, interleaver patterns may include a triangular interleaver, a rectangular interleaver, or any other suitable shape of interleaver. Interleaver shift patterns may include cyclic shifts of the bits input to each interleaver 1204a, 1204b, or 1204c.

In each of the examples shown in FIGs. 11 and 12, the LLRs for the shaping bits can be determined based on the interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. For example, the power saving function may be calculated as:

whereis the de-interleaver function.

In examples in which no interleaver is included in the polar code circuitry (e.g., as shown in FIG. 9) , mismatched decoding based code construction may be applied. For example, using the mismatched mapper shown in FIG. 7, a label transform of the mismatched mapper from polar label b to BRGCmay be represented as:

Decoding involves demapping and then decoding the first polar bit level, followed by demapping and then decoding the second polar bit level, and so on, through the final (mth) level. In an example, the polar demapper passes soft-information L_ji to the jth polar decoder, which returns an estimateThe polar demapper then successively calculates:

Thecan be calculated as:

where j=1, 2, 3. Theare then combined using a boxplus operation defined by:

The L_j, j=1, 2, 3 are calculated from the same channel output Y and are therefore stochastically dependent. This is ignored by the boxplus operation, which assumes independence. Consequently,

whereThus, the demapper is mismatched.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation for a wireless communication device employing a processing system 1314. For example, the wireless communication device 1300 may correspond to any of the UEs or network entities shown and described above in reference to FIGs. 1, 3 and/or 4.

The wireless communication device 1300 may be implemented with a processing system 1314 that includes one or more processors 1304. Examples of processors 1304 include microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs) , field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) , programmable logic devices (PLDs) , state machines, gated logic, discrete hardware circuits, and other suitable hardware configured to perform the various functionality described throughout this disclosure. In various examples, the wireless communication device 1300 may be configured to perform any one or more of the functions described herein. That is, the processor 1304, as utilized in the wireless communication device 1300, may be used to implement any one or more of the processes and procedures described below.

The processor 1304 may in some instances be implemented via a baseband or modem chip and in other implementations, the processor 1304 may include a number of devices distinct and different from a baseband or modem chip (e.g., in such scenarios as may work in concert to achieve examples discussed herein) . And as mentioned above, various hardware arrangements and components outside of a baseband modem processor can be used in implementations, including RF-chains, power amplifiers, modulators, buffers, interleavers, adders/summers, etc.

In this example, the processing system 1314 may be implemented with a bus architecture, represented generally by the bus 1302. The bus 1302 may include any number of interconnecting buses and bridges depending on the specific application of the processing system 1314 and the overall design constraints. The bus 1302 links together various circuits including one or more processors (represented generally by the processor 1304) , a memory 1305, and computer-readable media (represented generally by the computer-readable medium 1306) . The bus 1302 may also link various other circuits such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, and power management circuits, which are well known in the art, and therefore, will not be described any further. A bus interface 1308 provides an interface between the bus 1302 and at least one communication interface 1310 (e.g., a transceiver and one or more antenna arrays) . The communication interface 1310 provides a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium (e.g., air interface) . The bus interface 1438 may further provide an interface between the bus 1302 and an optional user interface 1312 (e.g., keypad, display, speaker, microphone, joystick) .

The processor 1304 is responsible for managing the bus 1302 and general processing, including the execution of software stored on the computer-readable medium 1306. Software shall be construed broadly to mean instructions, instruction sets, code, code segments, program code, programs, subprograms, software modules, applications, software applications, software packages, routines, subroutines, objects, executables, threads of execution, procedures, functions, etc., whether referred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or otherwise. The software, when executed by the processor 1304, causes the processing system 1314 to perform the various functions described below for any particular apparatus. The computer-readable medium 1306 and the memory 1305 may also be used for storing data that is utilized by the processor 1304 when executing software. For example, the memory 1305 may store one or more of information bits 1316 and shaping bits 1318.

The computer-readable medium 1306 may be a non-transitory computer-readable medium. A non-transitory computer-readable medium includes, by way of example, a magnetic storage device (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strip) , an optical disk (e.g., a compact disc (CD) or a digital versatile disc (DVD) ) , a smart card, a flash memory device (e.g., a card, a stick, or a key drive) , a random access memory (RAM) , a read only memory (ROM) , a programmable ROM (PROM) , an erasable PROM (EPROM) , an electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM) , a register, a removable disk, and any other suitable medium for storing software and/or instructions that may be accessed and read by a computer. The computer-readable medium 1306 may reside in the processing system 1314, external to the processing system 1314, or distributed across multiple entities including the processing system 1314. The computer-readable medium 1306 may be embodied in a computer program product. By way of example, a computer program product may include a computer-readable medium in packaging materials. In some examples, the computer-readable medium 1306 may be part of the memory 1305. Those skilled in the art will recognize how best to implement the described functionality presented throughout this disclosure depending on the particular application and the overall design constraints imposed on the overall system.

In some aspects of the disclosure, the processor 1304 may include circuitry configured for various functions. For example, the processor 1304 may include communication and processing circuitry 1342, configured to communicate with a receiving wireless communication device (e.g., a UE or network entity) . In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include one or more hardware components that provide the physical structure that performs processes related to wireless communication (e.g., signal reception and/or signal transmission) and signal processing (e.g., processing a received signal and/or processing a signal for transmission) . In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include low complexity circuitry for baseband or near-baseband processing with minimal RF processing.

In some implementations where the communication involves receiving information, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may receive a signal from a component of the wireless communication device 1300 (e.g., from the communication interface 1310 that receives the information via radio frequency signaling or some other type of signaling suitable for the applicable communication medium) , process (e.g., decode) the information, and output the processed information. For example, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may output the information to another component of the processor 1304, to the memory 1305, or to the bus interface 1308. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may receive one or more of signals, messages, other information, or any combination thereof. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may receive information via one or more channels. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include functionality for a means for receiving. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include functionality for a means for processing, including a means for demodulating, a means for decoding, etc.

In some implementations where the communication involves sending (e.g., transmitting) information, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may obtain information (e.g., from another component of the processor 1304, the memory 1305, or the bus interface 1308) , process (e.g., modulate, encode, etc. ) the information, and output the processed information. For example, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may output the information to the communication interface 1310 (e.g., that transmits the information via radio frequency signaling or some other type of signaling suitable for the applicable communication medium) . In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may send one or more of signals, messages, other information, or any combination thereof. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may send information via one or more channels. In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include functionality for a means for sending (e.g., a means for transmitting) . In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may include functionality for a means for generating, including a means for modulating, a means for encoding, etc.

In some examples, the communication and processing circuitry 1342 may be configured to transmit a polar-coded codeword to a receiving wireless communication device (e.g., a UE or network entity) . The communication and processing circuitry 1342 may further be configured to execute communication and processing instructions (software) 1352 stored in the computer-readable medium 1306 to implement one or more of the functions described herein.

The processor 1304 may further include polar code circuitry 1344, configured to generate the polar-encoded codeword. In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may include the polar code circuitry shown in FIG. 9, 10, 11, and/or 12. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels. The polar code circuitry 1344 may further be configured to place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels may be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels corresponding to a sign bit level. The polar code circuitry 1344 may further be configured to encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, and to apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to the polar-coded codeword.

In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to apply a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the first polar code sub-kernel output and apply a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output. The second polar code sub-kernel output may be associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels and the third polar code sub-kernel output may be associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels. The third bit level may include less significant bits than the second bit level.

In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to identify a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy and to construct the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs. In an example, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to place the plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels and the plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, while leaving the select subchannels empty. The polar code circuitry 1344 may further be configured to encode the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs. The polar code circuitry 1344 may then be configured to apply the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword. The polar code circuitry 1344 may then be configured to calculate a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs and to perform a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits. In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In this example, the power saving function is calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.

In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In this example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be configured to apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword. In some examples, the polar code circuitry 1344 may be further configured to map respective bits from each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to a plurality of symbols. The polar code circuitry 1344 may further be configured to execute polar code instructions (software) 1354 stored in the computer-readable medium 1306 to implement one or more of the functions described herein.

FIG. 14 is a flow chart of an exemplary process 1400 for according to some aspects. As described below, some or all illustrated features may be omitted in a particular implementation within the scope of the present disclosure, and some illustrated features may not be required for implementation of all examples. In some examples, the method may be performed by the wireless communication device 1300, as described above and illustrated in FIG. 13, by a processor or processing system, or by any suitable means for carrying out the described functions.

At block 1402, the wireless communication device may assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to assign the information bits and frozen bits to subchannels.

At block 1404, the wireless communication device may place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels. The select subchannels may be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels. The first bit level may be a sign bit level. In some examples, the wireless communication device may identify a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy and construct the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to place the shaping bits on select subchannels.

At block 1406, the wireless communication device may encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to encode the information bits, frozen bits, and shaping bits.

At block 1408, the wireless communication device may apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword. In some examples, the wireless communication device may apply a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, where the second polar code sub-kernel output is associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels. The wireless communication device may then apply a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, where the third polar code sub-kernel output is associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels and the third bit level includes less significant bits than the second bit level. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to apply the set-partition to Gray labeling transform.

At block 1410, the wireless communication device may transmit the polar-coded codeword (e.g., to a receiving wireless communication device) . For example, the communication and processing circuitry 1342, together with the communication interface 1310, shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13, may provide a means to transmit the polar-coded codeword.

In some examples, the wireless communication device may apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In this example, the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In some examples, the wireless communication device may apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword

FIG. 15 is a flow chart of an exemplary process 1500 for according to some aspects. As described below, some or all illustrated features may be omitted in a particular implementation within the scope of the present disclosure, and some illustrated features may not be required for implementation of all examples. In some examples, the method may be performed by the wireless communication device 1300, as described above and illustrated in FIG. 13, by a processor or processing system, or by any suitable means for carrying out the described functions.

At block 1502, the wireless communication device may place a plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of a plurality of subchannels and a plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels with select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels reserved for a plurality of shaping bits being empty. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to place the information bits and frozen bits on subchannels.

At block 1504, the wireless communication device may encode the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to encode the information bits and frozen bits.

At block 1506, the wireless communication device may apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 may provide a means to apply the set-partition to Gray labeling transform.

At block 1508, the wireless communication device may calculate a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs. In some examples, the wireless communication device may apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. In this example, the power saving function may be calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 and/or the precoder 902 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 9 may provide a means to calculate the power saving function.

At block 1510, the wireless communication device may perform a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits. For example, the polar code circuitry 1344 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 13 and/or the precoder 902 shown and described above in connection with FIG. 9 may provide a means to perform the polar-decoding operation.

In one configuration, the wireless communication device 1300 includes means for assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels, means for placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels being associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level, means for encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, means for applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and means for transmitting the polar-coded codeword, as described in the present disclosure. In one aspect, the aforementioned means may be the processor 1304 shown in FIG. 13 configured to perform the functions recited by the aforementioned means. In another aspect, the aforementioned means may be a circuit or any apparatus configured to perform the functions recited by the aforementioned means.

Of course, in the above examples, the circuitry included in the processor 1304 is merely provided as an example, and other means for carrying out the described functions may be included within various aspects of the present disclosure, including but not limited to the instructions stored in the computer-readable storage medium 1306, or any other suitable apparatus or means described in any one of the FIGs. 6 and/or 8–13 utilizing, for example, the processes and/or algorithms described herein in relation to FIG. 14 and/or 15.

The processes shown in FIGs. 14 and 15 may include additional aspects, such as any single aspect or any combination of aspects described below and/or in connection with one or more other processes described elsewhere herein.

Aspect 1: A method of wireless communication at a wireless communication device comprising assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels and placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels can be associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level, encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels, applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword, and transmitting the polar-coded codeword.

Aspect 2: The method of aspect 1, wherein the applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform comprises: applying a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, the second polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels; and applying a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, the third polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the third bit level comprising less significant bits than the second bit level.

Aspect 3: The method of aspect 1 or 2, wherein the placing the plurality of shaping bits comprises: identifying a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy; and constructing the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs.

Aspect 4: The method of aspect 3, wherein the constructing the plurality of shaping bits further comprises: placing the plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels and the plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, wherein the select subchannels are empty; encoding the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs; applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword; calculating a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs; and performing a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits.

Aspect 5: The method of aspect 4, further comprising: applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs, wherein the power saving function is calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.

Aspect 6: The method of any of aspects 1 through 5, further comprising: applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs, wherein the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.

Aspect 7: The method of any of aspects 1 through 5, further comprising: applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword.

Aspect 8: The method of any of aspects 1 through 7, further comprising: mapping respective bits from each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to a plurality of symbols.

Aspect 9: The method of any of aspects 1 through 8, wherein the wireless communication device is a user equipment (UE) .

Aspect 10: The method of any of aspects 1 through 8, wherein the wireless communication device is a network entity.

Aspect 11: An apparatus configured for wireless communication at a wireless communication device comprising one or more memories and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors being configured to perform a method of any one of aspects 1 through 10.

Aspect 12: An apparatus comprising at least one means for performing a method of any one of aspects 1 through 10.

Aspect 13: A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by one or more processors of a wireless communication device to perform a method of any one of aspects 1 through 10.

Several aspects of a wireless communication network have been presented with reference to an exemplary implementation. As those skilled in the art will readily appreciate, various aspects described throughout this disclosure may be extended to other telecommunication systems, network architectures and communication standards.

By way of example, various aspects may be implemented within other systems defined by 3GPP, such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) , the Evolved Packet System (EPS) , the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) , and/or the Global System for Mobile (GSM) . Various aspects may also be extended to systems defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) , such as CDMA2000 and/or Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) . Other examples may be implemented within systems employing IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) , IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) , IEEE 802.20, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) , Bluetooth, and/or other suitable systems. The actual telecommunication standard, network architecture, and/or communication standard employed will depend on the specific application and the overall design constraints imposed on the system.

Within the present disclosure, the word “exemplary” is used to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration. ” Any implementation or aspect described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects of the disclosure. Likewise, the term “aspects” does not require that all aspects of the disclosure include the discussed feature, advantage or mode of operation. The term “coupled” is used herein to refer to the direct or indirect coupling between two objects. For example, if object A physically touches object B, and object B touches object C, then objects A and C may still be considered coupled to one another-even if they do not directly physically touch each other. For instance, a first object may be coupled to a second object even though the first object is never directly physically in contact with the second object. The terms “circuit” and “circuitry” are used broadly, and intended to include both hardware implementations of electrical devices and conductors that, when connected and configured, enable the performance of the functions described in the present disclosure, without limitation as to the type of electronic circuits, as well as software implementations of information and instructions that, when executed by a processor, enable the performance of the functions described in the present disclosure.

One or more of the components, steps, features and/or functions illustrated in FIGs. 1–15 may be rearranged and/or combined into a single component, step, feature or function or embodied in several components, steps, or functions. Additional elements, components, steps, and/or functions may also be added without departing from novel features disclosed herein. The apparatus, devices, and/or components illustrated in FIGs. 1, 3–6, and/or 8–13 may be configured to perform one or more of the methods, features, or steps described herein. The novel algorithms described herein may also be efficiently implemented in software and/or embedded in hardware.

It is to be understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods disclosed is an illustration of exemplary processes. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods may be rearranged. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order and are not meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented unless specifically recited therein.

The previous description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but are to be accorded the full scope consistent with the language of the claims, wherein reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless specifically so stated, but rather “one or more. ” Unless specifically stated otherwise, the term “some” refers to one or more. A phrase referring to “at least one of” a list of items refers to any combination of those items, including single members. As an example, “at least one of: a, b, or c” is intended to cover: a; b; c; a and b; a and c; b and c; and a, b, and c. All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the various aspects described throughout this disclosure that are known or later come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims. Moreover, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether such disclosure is explicitly recited in the claims.

Claims

An apparatus configured for wireless communication at a wireless communication device, the apparatus comprising:

one or more memories; and

one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, the one or more processors being configured to:

assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels;

place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels being associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level;

encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels;

apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword; and

transmit the polar-coded codeword.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

apply a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, the second polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels; and

apply a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, the third polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the third bit level comprising less significant bits than the second bit level.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

identify a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy; and

construct the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

place the plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels and the plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, wherein the select subchannels are empty;

encode the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs;

apply the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword;

calculate a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs; and

perform a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits.
The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the power saving function is calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

apply a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

map respective bits from each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to a plurality of symbols.
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication device is a user equipment (UE) .
The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication device is a network entity.
A method of wireless communication at a wireless communication device, comprising:

assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels;

placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels being associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level;

encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels;

applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword; and

transmitting the polar-coded codeword.
The method of claim 11, wherein the applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform comprises:

applying a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, the second polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels; and

applying a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, the third polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the third bit level comprising less significant bits than the second bit level.
The method of claim 11, wherein the placing the plurality of shaping bits comprises:

identifying a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy; and

constructing the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The method of claim 13, wherein the constructing the plurality of shaping bits further comprises:

placing the plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels and the plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, wherein the select subchannels are empty;

encoding the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs;

applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword;

calculating a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs; and

performing a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits.
The method of claim 14, further comprising:

applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the power saving function is calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The method of claim 11, further comprising:

applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The method of claim 11, further comprising:

applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword.
The method of claim 11, further comprising:

mapping respective bits from each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to a plurality of symbols.
The method of claim 11, wherein the wireless communication device is a user equipment (UE) .
The method of claim 11, wherein the wireless communication device is a network entity.
An apparatus, comprising:

means for assigning a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels;

means for placing a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels being associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level;

means for encoding the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels;

means for applying a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword; and

means for transmitting the polar-coded codeword.
The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the means for applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform comprises:

means for applying a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, the second polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels; and

means for applying a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, the third polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the third bit level comprising less significant bits than the second bit level.
The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the means for placing the plurality of shaping bits comprises:

means for identifying a payload size of the plurality of shaping bits based on an averaged conditional entropy; and

means for constructing the plurality of shaping bits using density evolution or Gaussian approximation on the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the means for constructing the plurality of shaping bits further comprises:

means for placing the plurality of information bits on information bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels and the plurality of frozen bits on frozen bit subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, wherein the select subchannels are empty;

means for encoding the plurality of information bits and the plurality of frozen bits to produce a plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs;

means for applying the set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs to obtain a plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs that collectively form an initial polar-coded codeword;

means for calculating a power saving function based on the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs; and

means for performing a polar-decoding operation on the initial polar-coded codeword using the power saving function to obtain the plurality of shaping bits.
The apparatus of claim 24, further comprising:

means for applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of initial polar code sub-kernel outputs or each of the plurality of Gray labeled sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the power saving function is calculated based on the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising:

means for applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs,

wherein the set-partition to Gray labeling transform is applied to the respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs.
The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising:

means for applying a respective interleaving operation to each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce respective interleaved polar code sub-kernel outputs collectively forming the polar-coded codeword.
The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising:

means for mapping respective bits from each of the plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs to a plurality of symbols.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by one or more processors of a wireless communication device to:

assign a plurality of information bits and a plurality of frozen bits to a plurality of subchannels associated with a plurality of bit levels;

place a plurality of shaping bits on select subchannels of the plurality of subchannels, the select subchannels being associated with a first bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the first bit level being a sign bit level;

encode the plurality of information bits, the plurality of frozen bits, and the plurality of shaping bits into a plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs, each associated with a respective bit level of the plurality of bit levels;

apply a set-partition to Gray labeling transform to the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs to produce a plurality of transformed polar code sub-kernel outputs corresponding to a polar-coded codeword; and

transmit the polar-coded codeword.
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 29, further comprising instructions executable by the one or more processors of the wireless communication device to:

apply a first XOR operation on a second polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with a first polar code sub-kernel output associated with the first bit level, the second polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a second bit level of the plurality of bit levels; and

apply a second XOR operation on a third polar code sub-kernel output of the plurality of polar code sub-kernel outputs with the second polar code sub-kernel output, the third polar code sub-kernel output being associated with a third bit level of the plurality of bit levels, the third bit level comprising less significant bits than the second bit level.