CN105636203B - Method and apparatus for transmitting common paging message for MTC UE - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for transmitting a common paging message for an MTC UE, comprising: configuring a common paging message for one or more MTC UEs in a PDCCH or EPDCCH; and transferring the PDCCH or EPDCCH broadcast to the MTC UE.

Description

Method and apparatus for transmitting common paging message for MTC UE

technical field

The present invention generally relates to the field of wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting a common paging message for MTC UEs.

Background technique

In the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) carries downlink control information ( DCI), the bearer information is divided into common control information (common search space (CSS)) and dedicated control information (dedicated search space). The CSS is mainly used to send some indications to the UE, including each wireless network temporary identity (RNTI), such as system information RNTI (SI-RNTI), paging RNTI (P-RNTI) and random access RNTI (RA-RNTI), To inform UEs whether the information they want, such as system information block (SIB) messages, paging (Paging) messages and random access response (RAR) messages, are transmitted in the allocated resources.

The PDCCH is time-division multiplexed with the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) that transmits downlink data. The UE performs blind detection in the PDCCH control region to search for whether there is a PDCCH sent for it. Blind detection is to use the corresponding RNTI of the UE to attempt to decode the PDCCH. If the decoding is correct, DCI for the UE is received, and then corresponding messages, such as SIB messages, paging messages or RAR messages, are received in the PDSCH.

Machine Type Communication (MTC) is an important application in future wireless systems, which can be widely used in intelligent transportation, remote toll collection, remote monitoring and other fields. 3GPP started a Coverage Enhancement (CE) MTC work item in Rel-12 with the goal of achieving a 15dB coverage enhancement, and has agreed to establish another work item in 3GPP Rel-13 to further enhance coverage and reduce MTC UE complexity / cost and power consumption. Limiting the bandwidth of MTC UEs is an important way to reduce costs, but this will further reduce coverage. As a result, the coverage improvement target of CE MTC was raised to 18dB in Rel-13.

In LTE, paging messages are very important to support discontinuous transmission (DRX) and allow the UE to sleep to save energy. Each UE calculates its own paging occasion based on system parameters and its own International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI). There are 2-32 paging occasions in one paging cycle. There are two types of paging messages: UE-specific paging messages and common paging messages notified to all UEs, such as System Information Block (SIB) modifications, Earthquake and Tsunami Early Warning System (ETWS) indications, and Extended Access Restrictions (EAB) parameter modification. For a common paging message, since it is sent to all UEs, it should be sent on all paging occasions. That is, the same common paging message will be sent up to 32 times in one paging cycle.

For MTC UEs, the processing of UE-specific paging messages and common paging messages is basically the same as that of ordinary UEs, except that the paging messages for MTC UEs are repeated many times to achieve coverage goals. Multiple repetitions are a major technique that can achieve great benefits in coverage, and hundreds of repetitions have been expected to be required. While repetition can provide such great benefits, efficiency should also be considered from a system-wide perspective. Unnecessary duplication should be avoided and inefficient mechanisms for CE MTC should be modified. Considering that each paging occasion is repeated hundreds of times in order to meet the most stringent coverage enhancement goals, it will take up too many resources for CE MTC UEs to transmit at every paging occasion, thus making common paging The sending of the call message is not efficient enough. This problem should be addressed to improve the efficiency of the entire network.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the above problems, the present invention proposes a scheme for transmitting a common paging message for MTC UEs.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for transmitting a common paging message for an MTC UE, comprising: configuring a common paging message for one or more MTC UEs in a PDCCH or EPDCCH; and broadcasting the PDCCH or EPDCCH to the MTC UE.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting a common paging message for MTC UEs, comprising: a configuration unit for configuring a PDCCH or EPDCCH for one or more MTC UEs A common paging message; and a sending unit, configured to broadcast the PDCCH or EPDCCH to the MTC UE.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for transmitting a common paging message for MTC UEs, comprising: predefining or preconfiguring a time and a time for broadcasting the common paging message for MTC UEs and/or frequency resources; and periodically broadcasting the common paging message over the PDSCH in each paging cycle, wherein the common paging message does not have to be broadcast on every paging occasion.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for transmitting a common paging message for MTC UEs, comprising: a preconfiguration unit for predefining or preconfiguring for broadcasting a common paging message for MTC UEs time and/or frequency resources for paging messages; and a sending unit for periodically broadcasting the common paging message over the PDSCH in each paging cycle, wherein the common paging message does not have to be on every paging occasion are broadcast.

The solution of the present invention can reduce the resources used for transmitting the common paging message of the MTC UE, thereby improving the transmission efficiency.

Description of drawings

The present invention will be better understood and other objects, details, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of specific embodiments of the invention given with reference to the following drawings. In the attached image:

1 shows a flowchart of a method for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to an MTC UE according to an aspect of the present invention;

2 shows a flowchart of a method for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to an MTC UE according to another aspect of the present invention;

3 shows a schematic diagram of an apparatus for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to MTC UEs according to an aspect of the present invention; and

4 shows a schematic diagram of an apparatus for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to an MTC UE according to another aspect of the present invention.

Detailed ways

Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. While preferred embodiments of the present disclosure are shown in the drawings, it should be understood that the present disclosure may be embodied in various forms and should not be limited by the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.

One aspect of the present invention is to transmit common paging messages dedicated to MTC UEs through PDCCH/EPDCCH instead of PDSCH, and MTC UEs identify the common paging messages contained therein by receiving and decoding the PDCCH/EPDCCH without having to receive PDSCH to obtain common paging messages.

Figure 1 shows a flowchart of a method 100 for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to MTC UEs in accordance with one aspect of the present invention. The method 100 may be performed, for example, by the serving base station of the MTC UE.

As shown in FIG. 1, the method 100 includes step 110, wherein the serving base station configures a common paging message in the PDCCH or EPDCCU for one or more MTC UEs it serves.

Since the common paging message is very small, there are many ways to configure the common paging message for the MTC UE in the PDCCH/EPDCCH. For example, either by defining a new dedicated DCI format or using the redundancy of the current DCI format or a combination of both options.

The key point for the PDCCH/EPDCCH based common paging message transmission to work is that the MTC UE should be able to correctly identify the DCI in the PDCCH/EPDCCH containing the common paging message. Three specific implementations are given below to show how the common paging message contained in the DCI in the PDCCH/EPDCCH works.

Embodiment 1

In this embodiment, a new dedicated DCI format is defined to indicate that the PDCCH/EPDCCH contains a common paging message for MTC UEs. That is, this dedicated DCI format is different from the existing DCI format used for common legacy UEs (i.e. non-MTC UEs).

In one implementation, this dedicated DCI format may differ in size from the existing DCI format, and its length depends on the number of types of common paging messages supported by the MTC. Since common paging messages for MTC UEs are usually small, this dedicated DCI format can be very compactly defined. For example, as mentioned above, there are only three common paging messages in current systems, namely SIB modification, ETWS indication and EAB modification. In this case, if the MTC also supports these three types of common paging messages, the dedicated DCI format for the MTC UE may only include at least 2 bits. That is, adding at least 2 bits in PDCCH/EPDCCH is enough to indicate these three common paging messages. However, those skilled in the art can understand that the present invention is not limited thereto. When the types of common paging messages supported by the MTC are more or less, the size of the dedicated DCI format can also be larger or smaller accordingly.

For this embodiment, on the MTC UE side, the MTC UE performs blind decoding on the PDCCH/EPDCCH using this dedicated DCI format at each paging occasion. If the MTC UE detects such a dedicated DCI format, it knows that the PDCCH/EPDCCH contains a common paging message, and accordingly obtains the common paging message.

Embodiment 2

Unlike Embodiment 1, in this embodiment, instead of defining a new dedicated DCI format for common paging messages for MTC UEs, the existing DCI format for non-MTC UEs is reused, but a dedicated RNTI sequence pair is used. The DCI is scrambled to indicate that the DCI is the DCI that contains the common paging message for MTC UEs.

In this embodiment, the DCI format containing the common paging message for the MTC UE is of the same size as one of the existing DCI formats, eg, the same size as DCI format 1A or DCI format 1C, which is the same size as the other DCI formats are distinguished by RNTI. That is, such a DCI containing a common paging message is scrambled with an RNTI sequence dedicated to the MTC UE instead of the P-RNTI.

For example, such a dedicated RNTI sequence may be a reserved RNTI sequence, such as the one in FFF4-FFFC, or may be an M-RNTI (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) RNTI), ie FFFD, as expected in Rel-13 , the MTC UE does not support MBMS.

For this embodiment, the MTC UE knows this dedicated RNTI for the common paging message in advance, for example, according to standard regulations or through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling. Therefore, at each paging occasion, the MTC UE decodes the DCI using this dedicated RNTI, thereby obtaining the DCI containing the common paging message for the MTC UE in the PDCCH/EPDCCH, and accordingly receives the common paging message .

Embodiment 3

Different from Embodiment 1 or 2, in this embodiment, instead of using a dedicated DCI format or a dedicated RNTI sequence to indicate a common paging message for MTC UEs, the existing paging messages for non-MTC UEs are reused. DCI format, and the DCI is scrambled using the P-RNTI sequence as in the existing paging message, except that an indication field is used in the DCI to indicate that the DCI contains a common paging message for MTC UEs , the indication field includes, for example, information that is meaningless to the MTC UE in the existing DCI format.

Since in Rel-13, the MTC UE has a bandwidth limit of about 6 PRBs, some PRB indications in the existing DCI format are not required. Therefore, some PRB indications that Rel-13 MTC UEs will not use can be defined to represent common paging messages for MTC UEs.

In this embodiment, the DCI format containing the common paging message for MTC UEs is the same size as one of the existing DCI formats, eg, DCI format 1A or DCI format 1C, and uses P - RNTI (ie FFFE) for scrambling. In other words, the common paging message is sent in a conventional DCI format (DCI format 1A or 1C) for paging of MTC UEs. However, in this DCI format, some fields contain indications that are meaningless for Rel-13 MTC. This field is defined as an indication field. The indication field is used to inform the MTC UE that the DCI is used to send common paging messages and other fields in the DCI are common paging messages.

For this embodiment, when DCI is received and detected, the MTC UE decodes it to determine if the DCI is scheduling information for paging messages in PDSCH. If the MTC UE, after detecting the entire scheduling information, finds that it cannot operate in compliance with the scheduling information because the scheduling information exceeds its capabilities, the MTC UE will know that this DCI format contains a common paging message for the MTC UE, Thus, the common paging message is received accordingly.

For example, in a specific implementation, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field in a conventional DCI format may be defined as an indication field. In Rel-13, the MTC UE only supports QPSK, that is, only supports MCS 0-9. Therefore, a higher modulation order can be used in the MCS field to indicate that the DCI contains common paging messages for MTC UEs.

When the MTC UE reads the MCS field and finds that the MCS indicates a higher modulation order, such as 16QAM or 64QAM, it knows that this indicates that the DCI contains a common paging message for the MTC UE and reads the common paging from other fields information.

Those skilled in the art will understand that this is just an example, other fields, such as a physical resource block (PRB) allocation field or even a bit that will not be used by Rel-13 MTC, can be defined as common paging for MTC UEs message indication.

Next, in step 120, after configuring a common paging message for MTC UEs in the PDCCH or EPDCCH as described above, the serving base station broadcasts such PDCCH or EPDCCH to these MTC UEs.

Another aspect of the present invention is to periodically broadcast a common paging message for MTC UEs.

2 shows a flowchart of a method 200 for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to MTC UEs according to another aspect of the present invention.

The method 200 includes step 210 in which time and/or frequency resources for broadcasting a common paging message for MTC UEs are pre-defined or pre-configured.

Next, at step 220, the serving base station periodically broadcasts the common paging message at pre-defined or pre-configured resources in each paging cycle. Wherein, the common paging message is not broadcast at every paging occasion. Therefore, compared with the prior art scheme of broadcasting the common paging message at every paging time, system resources are saved.

For example, in one implementation, the common paging message may be broadcast once per paging cycle as needed. The subframe (time) and/or frequency resources of the broadcast common paging message may be pre-defined, eg by a standard, or may be pre-configured, eg by a system information block (SIB), such as SIB1 or SIB2.

For this implementation, after initial access, MTC UEs can periodically receive common paging messages according to pre-defined or pre-configured time and frequency information.

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of an apparatus 300 for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to an MTC UE according to an aspect of the present invention. The apparatus 300 may be implemented, for example, in a serving base station of an MTC UE.

As shown in FIG. 3, the apparatus 300 includes a configuration unit 310 for configuring a common paging message for one or more MTC UEs in the PDCCH or EPDCCH; and a sending unit 320 for broadcasting the PDCCH or EPDCCH to the MTC UE.

In one implementation, the configuration unit 310 is configured to configure a dedicated DCI format to contain the common paging message, the dedicated DCI format being different from the DCI format used for non-MTC UEs.

In one implementation, the dedicated DCI format contains 2 bits to indicate common paging messages for SIB modification, ETWS indication and EAB modification, respectively.

In one implementation, the configuration unit 310 is configured to reuse the DCI format for non-MTC UEs to contain the common paging message and to scramble it with a dedicated RNTI sequence for the common paging message for MTC UEs.

In one implementation, the configuration unit 310 scrambles the DCI containing the common paging message using either FFF4-FFFC or M-RNTI.

In one implementation, the configuration unit 310 is configured to reuse the DCI format for non-MTC UEs to contain the common paging message and scramble it with the RNTI sequence of the paging message for non-MTC UEs, but A non-meaningful field for MTC UEs is included in the DCI format to indicate that the DCI contains common paging messages for MTC UEs.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of an apparatus 400 for transmitting a common paging message dedicated to an MTC UE according to another aspect of the present invention. The apparatus 400 may be implemented in, for example, a serving base station of an MTC UE.

As shown in FIG. 4 , the apparatus 400 may include a pre-configuring unit 410 for pre-defining or pre-configuring time and/or frequency resources for broadcasting the common paging message for MTC UEs; and a sending unit 420 for The common paging message is broadcast periodically over the PDSCH every paging cycle, wherein the common paging message is not broadcast on every paging occasion.

Herein, the methods disclosed herein are described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood, however, that the order of steps shown in the drawings and described in the specification is merely illustrative and that method steps and/or actions may be performed in a different order without departing from the scope of the claims. Be limited to the specific order shown in the drawings and described in the specification.

In one or more exemplary designs, the functions described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. Such computer-readable media may include, for example and without limitation, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage devices, magnetic disk storage devices or other magnetic storage devices, or may be used in a general purpose or special purpose computer or general purpose or special purpose Any other medium that carries or stores desired program code modules in the form of processor-accessible instructions or data structures. Also, any connection can be termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if the software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then coaxial Cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are also included in the definition of medium.

General purpose processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or Any combination of the described functions implements or executes the various exemplary logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with this disclosure. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, or, in the alternative, the processor may be any ordinary processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, for example, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, multiple microprocessors, a combination of one or more microprocessors and a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

It should also be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various exemplary logical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithm steps described in conjunction with the embodiments of the present application may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or a combination of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have been described above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether this functionality is implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Those skilled in the art may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, however, such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as a departure from the scope of the present invention.

The above description of the present disclosure is intended to enable any person of ordinary skill in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications to this disclosure will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the examples and designs described herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.

Claims (10)

1. a kind of method for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

One or more is configured in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH The public paging message of MTC UE；And

The PDCCH or EPDCCH are broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein configuring the public paging message includes: the dedicated DCI format of configuration to include the public paging message, described Dedicated DCI format is different from the DCI format for non-MTC UE.

2. the method as described in claim 1, wherein the length of the dedicated DCI format depend on MTC supported it is public The species number of paging message.

3. a kind of method for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

One or more is configured in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH The public paging message of MTC UE；And

The PDCCH or EPDCCH are broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein configuring the public paging message includes: that reuse is used for the DCI format of non-MTC UE to include the public paging Message, and it is scrambled using the dedicated RNTI sequence of the public paging message for MTC UE.

4. method as claimed in claim 3, wherein using any of FFF4-FFFC or using M-RNTI to including institute The DCI for stating public paging message is scrambled.

5. a kind of method for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

One or more is configured in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH The public paging message of MTC UE；And

The PDCCH or EPDCCH are broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein configuring the public paging message includes: that reuse is used for the DCI format of non-MTC UE to include the public paging Message, and it is scrambled using the RNTI sequence of the paging message for non-MTC UE, but in the DCI format Comprising field meaningless for MTCUE to indicate that the DCI includes the public paging message for MTC UE.

6. a kind of device for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

Configuration unit is used for configuring in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH In the public paging message of one or more MTC UE；And

Transmission unit, for the PDCCH or EPDCCH to be broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein the configuration unit is for configuring dedicated DCI format to include the public paging message, the dedicated DCI Format is different from the DCI format for non-MTC UE.

7. device as claimed in claim 6 is used wherein the dedicated DCI format includes 2 bits with being used to indicate respectively In the public paging message of SIB modification, ETWS instruction and EAB modification.

8. a kind of device for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

Configuration unit is used for configuring in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH In the public paging message of one or more MTC UE；And

Transmission unit, for the PDCCH or EPDCCH to be broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein the configuration unit is used to reuse the DCI format for non-MTC UE to include the public paging message, and It is scrambled using the dedicated RNTI sequence of the public paging message for MTC UE.

9. device as claimed in claim 8, wherein the configuration unit is using any of FFF4-FFFC or uses M- RNTI scrambles the DCI comprising the public paging message.

10. a kind of device for being used for transmission the public paging message for machine type communication MTC user equipment (UE), comprising:

Configuration unit is used for configuring in physical downlink control channel PDCCH or enhancing Physical Downlink Control Channel EPDCCH In the public paging message of one or more MTC UE；And

Transmission unit, for the PDCCH or EPDCCH to be broadcast to the MTC UE,

Wherein the configuration unit is used to reuse the DCI format for non-MTC UE to include the public paging message, and It is scrambled using the RNTI sequence of the paging message for non-MTC UE, but in the DCI format comprising for Meaningless field is for MTC UE to indicate that the DCI includes the public paging message for MTC UE.