CN101253794A - Method and device for control signaling in a communication system using different coding schemes - Google Patents

Abstract

An apparatus for providing control channel signaling to a plurality of user terminals is provided. The defining unit is configured to define at least two allocation table formats. The selection unit is configured to select, from the at least two allocation formats, the allocation table format to be used to construct the allocation table. The construction unit is configured to construct the assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format. The transmitter unit is configured to signal the allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table.

Description

Method and device for control signaling in a communication system using different coding schemes

Cross References to Related Applications

This application claims the benefit of US Provisional Patent Application 60/710,892, filed August 25, 2005, and US Provisional Patent Application 60/796,547, filed May 2, 2006, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

technical field

The present invention relates to a new Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) air interface technology with resource efficient sharing of fast and reliable common control signaling. The invention is also applicable to other new air interface technologies where resource sharing is based on similar resource sharing principles.

Background technique

Common control signaling is a mechanism for announcing resource sharing among network devices, such as allocation tables. The allocation table may contain a resource allocation description for all active terminals in a given cell for a duration of a frame or a defined duration for a set of frames. The allocation table is transmitted in the downlink of the E-UTRAN system, and it indicates which users receive what kind of data resource during a frame in the downlink and which users are allowed in the uplink during the corresponding uplink frame What kind of data resources are sent on the road. The carrier frequencies for downlink and uplink transmissions can be multiplexed in frequency division duplex or time division duplex. The allocation table may include an allocation identification and a transport format indication for the terminal with allocated downlink or uplink resources during the frame. The allocation table contains in particular the allocation identification for the same frame in which the allocation table itself is transmitted and which only describes the allocation of this frame. Thus, the allocation table is a key resource for all communication links of a cell/sector, and as a common resource of the cell, its format must be efficient, reliable and uniform.

In the prior art, an allocation table scheme for discontinuous transmission/reception is described without the exact format of the allocation table itself. Other existing techniques include allocation tables with pointers to indicate dedicated resources through piggyback signaling and dedicated headers. Examples include: an allocation table pointing out allocation identities for periods longer than a single frame period (with transport format and resource units), i.e. pointing to any defined set of subsequent frames, e.g. current frame+1, current frame+ 2 until the current frame + N. Also, instead of the current frame, any further frame can be pointed to. Pointing to frames other than the current frame can be motivated by looser processing time requirements. However, this means longer round trip times and is generally not preferred. Defining resources over a period longer than a single frame period can be motivated by a reduction in signaling overhead where available resources are scarce anyway - eg in narrow transmission bands.

Since the allocation table forms a common channel for all receivers in the cell, it must be reliable and decodable for all users in the coverage area of the cell. This means that in the expected coverage area at all experienced signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), ratio of the amount of interference from the serving cell to other cell interfering radios (G-factor) and dominant interference Reliable decoding under the condition of ratio to interference (DIR). What's more, for a receiver to perform a hard handover, the allocation table of the neighboring cell (handover target cell) on the same carrier frequency must already be decodable within the coverage area of the serving cell (handover source cell). Therefore, the allocation table must be decodable down to a level where the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I) drops to about -7dB.

In prior art 2G/3G resource allocation is performed by dedicated signaling for dedicated resources. To access dedicated signaling channels, common channels can be used before using dedicated signaling channels. This will obviously cause some delay. In prior art WLANs, resource allocation is based on carrier collision sensing and packet scheduling. A protocol header is therefore present in each packet to indicate to the receiver which packet to decode. Decoding the headers of all packets whether to be received or not consumes energy at the terminal receiver.

Thus, these prior art means are neither sufficient nor efficient enough for E-UTRAN, since E-UTRAN enables higher symbol speeds than prior art systems, so differences with existing ones cannot be tolerated here. Technically equivalent signal delay. In addition, due to the high symbol rate of E-UTRAN, saving terminal receiver energy is a key feature of the transmission system and cannot be applied by the already mentioned prior art signaling schemes.

Mika Rinne and Olav Tirkkonen's patent application: U.S. Application 11/068,055 "Discontinous transmission/reception in acommunications system" filed February 28, 2005, hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety .

Contents of the invention

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus for providing control channel signaling to a plurality of user terminals is provided. This control channel signaling is structured as a frame or frame group instance each time, which can also be referred to as an allocation table. The defining unit is configured to define at least two allocation table formats. The selection unit is configured to select from the at least two allocation formats the allocation form format to be used for building the allocation form. The construction unit is configured to construct the assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format. The transmitter unit is configured to signal the allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method for control channel signaling to a plurality of user terminals is provided. Define at least two assignment table formats. An allocation form format to be used to construct the allocation form is selected from the at least two allocation formats. An assignment sheet is constructed based at least in part on the selected assignment sheet format. The allocation table is signaled to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a system for control channel signaling to a plurality of user terminals is provided. The system comprises defining means for defining at least two allocation table formats. The system further comprises selection means for selecting, from said at least two distribution formats, the distribution table format used to construct the distribution table. The system further includes constructing means for constructing an assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format. The system further comprises signaling means for signaling the allocation table to a plurality of users, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table.

According to yet another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a user terminal in a communication system is provided. The detection unit is configured to detect whether the allocation table contains an entry for said user terminal. The decoding unit is configured to decode said allocation table only if said allocation table contains an entry for said user terminal. According to this exemplary embodiment, said detection unit detects that said allocation table contains an entry for a user terminal by interpreting a unified entry in said allocation table.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus is provided. The device comprises a definition unit configured to define at least two allocation table formats, wherein the allocation table comprises at least two sections corresponding to the allocation formats. The selection unit is configured to select, from the at least two allocation formats, an allocation table format to be used to construct the allocation table. The construction unit is configured to construct the assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format. The transmitter unit is configured to signal the allocation table to a plurality of users, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table. The device provides control channel signaling to a plurality of user terminals.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus is provided. The receiver unit is configured to receive an allocation table format of an allocation table, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in said allocation table.

Description of drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention, in which:

Figures 1a-c illustrate allocation tables;

Figure 2 illustrates an example of channel coding and mapping of coded bits to OFDM resources;

Figure 3 illustrates the allocation table format with specific channel coding applied to the first entry and the allocation table header;

Figure 4 illustrates examples of the first, second and third fields of a downlink control signal for downlink resource allocation;

5A and 5B illustrate example embodiments of the present invention;

Figure 6 illustrates another embodiment of the invention; and

Figure 7 illustrates another embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

Reference will now be made to the preferred embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The present invention is a signaling method for a common control channel. The common control channel is a common control signaling with a variable and dynamic shared allocation configuration, and provides a unified entry format through a self-decodable channel coding block. Allocation Table.

This involves two aspects. First, the information content of the common control signaling varies depending on the number of assigned users, and second, the assigned information must be decodable by all receivers regardless of the symbol energy they expect to receive up to the interference power. In both respects, the channel coding structure of the common control signaling must either be known in advance, or must be capable of blind detection or must be signaled outside the allocation table itself.

Common control signaling according to embodiments of the invention may be implemented as an allocation table, where the allocation table may include a unified entry for each receiver allocation in the frame. The channel coding structure of the allocation table can be defined to have two parts. The first part is coded into a uniform self-decodable format, which then reveals the format of the following channel coded blocks. Thus, the first part comprises a defined number of information bits and a defined redundancy rate, which results in a uniquely defined length channel coded block. The latter coding blocks allow variable information content, variable number of information bits and variable channel coding rates since they are uniquely identified in the first part of the allocation table.

An example of the present invention defines at least two different allocation tables with a uniform entry format for decoding any allocation table. Embodiments of the present invention provide a uniform allocation table format such that only the first entry in the table - which has a known size - is always coded in a specific way, where after decoding the receiver can learn The size and channel coding block structure of the remainder of the allocation table, which may be of any size or format. Exemplary embodiments of the present invention also provide different levels of coding reliability, since normal channel coding (less redundancy) or more robust channel coding (more redundancy) can be utilized on the remainder of the allocation table , while still using the uniform first entry format.

In a further embodiment of the invention, blind detection of the allocation table is possible. Since the allocation table has to be processed quickly to be available in the same frame for the resource payload, two possible "try-test" structures are a practical number of alternatives, about 4 to 8 possible "try-test" structures is the maximum value.

Since the allocation table is a mandatory decodable entity accessing any frame shared resource, its decoding format should be known. If the encoding of the allocation table is signaled outside of the allocation table itself, it should be presented in a form such as a system information broadcast, as in the third embodiment of the present invention. The system information bits are very scarce and precious, and besides they are not repeated very often, so it is not possible to efficiently indicate the encoding format of the allocation table for each frame.

Figures 1a-c illustrate examples of allocation tables. The robust allocation table differs from the allocation table by its channel coding, and in addition, both the robust allocation table and the allocation table consist of the same information entries. Figure 1a shows an allocation table with 4 entries, Figure 1b shows an allocation table with 8 entries, and Figure 1c shows a robust allocation table with 4 entries. An entry is defined to include resource allocation information, such as the radio link identifier (RLID) of the terminal to which the resource is allocated, the transport format (TF) of the resource allocation, such as channel coding modulation, and the multi-antenna configuration of the allocation. The entry also includes the exact index of the allocated time-frequency and channelization coded symbol resources.

The above-mentioned transmission format indication includes the precise definition of the time, frequency, channelization code, scrambling code or space resource allocated to the terminal. It also includes an indication of the transport format by means of modulation, channel coding or multi-antenna configuration.

In the allocation table alternative, instead of describing all allocations one by one entry by entry, first there is a complete list of all RLIDs with all entries that will have allocations during this subframe. Then further on, the actual body of each entry appears separately, which details the assignment. In this way, the body of the entry can continue into the second part of the allocation table which has a variable length. This scheme will speed up the detection by the terminal, since the terminal already detects from the list of RLIDs in the head of the table whether it has an assignment in the frame. In this way, the terminal can avoid decoding the second part of the allocation table unless the RLID list reveals that there is an allocation for the terminal in this subframe and this allocation is detailed in an entry whose body is included in the second part of the allocation table.

Figure 2 illustrates an example of channel coding and mapping of coded bits to OFDM resources. These resources include:

·time;

frequency; and

• Channelization coding resources for multi-carrier symbols.

Both the allocation table and the robust allocation table format are shown in FIG. 2 . Once the allocation table entry is formed, the block of bits will be channel coded and modulated to OFDM resources k to (k+2). These resources can be given as a complete OFDM symbol in time, a number of subcarrier symbols in a frequency on a given OFDM symbol in time, or a given number of subcarrier symbols in a frequency on a given number of OFDM symbols in time . If the robust allocation table format is chosen instead of the normal allocation table format, then the same entries as bitblocks will be channel coded and modulated into k to (k+5) of a higher number of OFDM resources.

Since the information content of the allocation table is not constant but depends on the number of entries present in the allocation table, an allocation table header needs to be present in the first part of the allocation table to indicate exactly the actual channel of the second part of the allocation table Encoding block length. This allocation table header may be appended to the first entry of the allocation table, which allocation table header may eg be a single entry or otherwise of a previously known size. In order to correctly decode the header, the first entry needs to be well protected and needs to be a self-decoding channel coded block with error checking. Thus, the first entry and the header form a unified entry format for the full allocation table. After decoding the first entry and the header, the receiver can decode all other entries (if any). According to an embodiment of the present invention, it may be defined in a communication system that a self-decoding block contains an allocation table header alone, and that the first entry is contained in a consecutive coding block.

Figure 3 illustrates the allocation table format with special channel coding applied to the first entry and the allocation table header. The allocation table header describes the number of successive entries present in the allocation table and their channel coding options. After decoding the unified first entry, the receiver will know exactly how many symbols will form a complete allocation table, which may contain multiple separate channel coding blocks.

The first part of the allocation table needs to be correctly decoded by all terminals that have allocated resources in that given frame. This means that the allocation table has to be sent with high power, and/or a low channel coding rate (lots of redundant bits) is applied. Since terminals in a given cell may experience a wide range of receive channel interference, it is suboptimal to have a very low channel coding rate for each terminal, such as in the case of a base station with an excellent radio connection. On the other hand, terminals at the cell edge require very good channel coding (low channel coding rate) in order to be able to decode the allocation table correctly. Therefore, it is advantageous to bind the allocation of these terminals to the same part of the allocation table, and the benefit is that the same channel coding protects the signaling content of the allocation table, that is, the allocation of terminals with low channel carrier-to-interference ratio is preferably in the In the same frames, it is preferable that terminals with a high channel carrier-to-interference ratio be allocated in the same frames. Since channel carrier-interference varies due to mobility and radio propagation dynamics, it is not ideal to use too small a receive channel carrier-interference range to determine different allocation table bindings. But it is clear that it is advantageous to provide at least two different allocation table formats, eg a common allocation table for all other receivers and a robust allocation table for low channel carrier-to-interference ratio receivers.

For the reasons mentioned above, the allocation table format should be such that there is a uniform entry format and no signaling is required to identify which allocation table format is applied at a given transmission frame. This can be achieved by adding redundancy so that all terminals will decode the allocation table from known symbol indices k to (k+i) and check for error checking. In case a robust allocation table is sent, error checking is still not possible and the receiver needs to continue decoding symbols k+(i+1) to (k+n). After decoding all symbols from k to (k+n), the robust allocation table is fully received and its error checking will succeed. However, adding redundancy requires a constant or known number of bits of information, which is not the case with allocation tables.

Since the robust allocation table format consumes more symbols than other allocation table formats, and thus reduces the number of symbols available for the payload per frame, it is preferable to apply robustness only to those terminals that strongly require a sufficiently high probability of correct decoding Allocation table format. If low channel carrier-to-interference ratio receivers are spread to any frame (any allocation table, or any part of an allocation table), then all those allocation tables, or all those parts of an allocation table, must have the most robust format, which reduces the throughput of the cell.

On the other hand, if the robust allocation table format is not applied, the probability of incorrectly decoding the allocation table increases, and this means that the opportunity for a single user to receive a payload (on the downlink) is lost or similar The opportunity for a single user to send a payload (on the uplink) is greatly lost. This is inefficient because this happens for payloads that already have payload resource units reserved for users, so it effectively wastes capacity from all other users. What's more, it causes unnecessary delays for other terminals waiting for this "empty shell" transmission. In the downlink, it also causes unnecessary interference to other cells and also consumes unnecessary transmission power. In the uplink, the impact of not using the allocated resources may mean lost transmission opportunities for other terminals, longer delays for other terminals and longer delays for certain terminals that miss the allocated opportunities.

Since each terminal follows its own discontinuous allocation or scheduling rules (such as modulo calculation rules), which indicate the sequence of frames (SFN) that may include its allocation identification, it is preferred if possible The same allocation rule instance is given for terminals experiencing the same receiver condition (eg low C/I). This reduces the need for robust allocation table instances. If the traffic delay requirements for low C/I terminals are very different, it is necessary to divide their allocation rules into further bindings, such as low C/I delay class 1 and low C/I delay class 2, etc. However, even in this case it is advantageous that the low C/I terminals required by a given traffic flow are bound as much as possible to the same robust allocation table.

A judgment as to when to apply a robust allocation table format rather than another allocation table format can be determined by, for example, the following estimate:

The ratio of the number of terminals requiring a normal allocation table to the number of terminals requiring a robust allocation table;

- the ratio of traffic to/from terminals requiring a normal allocation table to traffic to/from terminals requiring a robust allocation table;

• Delay requirements for traffic flow from a terminal requiring a normal allocation table to a terminal requiring a robust allocation table.

It is possible for other special terminal packets to be signaled in the same frame eg by the same allocation table. Such groupings may be defined based on the capabilities or configuration of the terminals. For example, if a terminal has a single antenna configuration and is not MIMO capable, or if a terminal has a multi-antenna configuration and is MIMO capable, it may be possible to assign them primarily in different frames, i.e., non-MIMO capable terminals are allocated in the same frame as each other (same set of frames), while the assignments of MIMO-capable terminals are in the same frames (same set of frames) as each other. This allows any particular allocation table encoding and mapping, making it usable either for single antenna terminals, or for terminals with multiple antennas from each antenna separately or jointly from all antennas.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the method for allocating signaling to users is as follows. A downlink (DL) control signal comprising a plurality of control signal blocks is provided. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, different transport formats are applied to or associated with a plurality of control signal blocks.

The transmission format of the first block is very robust in order to guarantee coverage requirements. For example, for a level block error rate of 1%, the coverage requirement should be set to a very high coverage probability at the level of 95% to 99%. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the transport format of the first block is cell-specific and transmitted to all UEs through system information. According to another embodiment of the present invention, the transport format of the first block is standardized and written into the specification so that it can be easily programmed into the UE.

The transport format of the next block of the allocation table is signaled to the UE in the first block of the allocation table, or alternatively they may also be included as fields in the system information. According to a previous embodiment of the invention, the first part of the allocation table may contain the transport formats of all control blocks from 1 to K, which form the allocation table, or alternatively, the nth control signal block has An indicator of the transmission format of the control signal blocks - for blocks 2 to K. The indicator indicates the presence and Transport Format Indicator (TFI) identifying the (n+1)th control signal block. If the maximum number K of blocks is known to the UE, no format field is required in the last Kth control signal block.

According to an example embodiment of the present invention, the control signal block containing resource allocation information on which PRB the UE uses also contains at least one Entry Existence Indicator (EEI) bit. Each EEI bit corresponds to a physical resource block (PRB), and this control signal block is used to indicate whether the PRB is allocated (EEI="1") to a certain UE or some UEs, and has not been allocated to a certain UE UE or certain UEs (EEI="0"). Thus, if the PRB is not allocated to any UE in this control signal block, it may be empty (not used at all), or the allocation of this PRB is signaled by another control signal block, or the allocation of this PRB is in another sub-block. Signaled in a frame or the like, the EEI bit indicates that a PRB is not allocated. Multiple UEs may share PRBs if distributed allocation is used or if there is multi-user MIMO transmission.

In addition to the EEI indicating whether a PRB is allocated in a given channel coding block, there may be an overall entry presence indicator (OEEI) signaled in the first channel coding block. The OEEI indicates whether the referred PRB is allocated in the channel coding block of the allocation table in this subframe. If not allocated, it means that the PRB is not used at all, or the allocation of this PRB is signaled in another subframe, or using out-of-band signaling, etc.

According to an example embodiment of the invention, in each control signal block there is a field with a UE entry identifying the UE to which resources will be allocated in that control signal block. These entries indicate at least the radio link identity (also called UE identity), and possibly other relevant information, such as transport format, HARQ information, etc. There is a mapping from a set of UEs that can be allocated in a block to a set of UE indices. This mapping can be explicit or implicit according to UE entry order or out-of-band signaling. Through out-of-band signaling, the address space of the UE index can be expanded to indicate UEs that do not have a UE entry in the indicated control signal block for indicating UE identity. According to this exemplary embodiment, the address space size of the UE index is equal to the number of UEs that can be allocated in a control signal block.

In another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the address space of the UE index should also have an index indicating that PRBs are not allocated in this control block. Thus the space for the UE index will be enlarged by the EEI bits. In this field there is a UE index entry indicating which UE obtains which PRB. In this field, UE index entries in the (n+1)th control block for each resource are not indicated in blocks 1, 2...n. An advantage of this example embodiment is that no separate EEI domain is required. However, the address space for the UE index should be one bit larger than in the preferred embodiment, and a UE index entry is required for each PRB in this field.

As discussed above, in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, there is a field in the control signal block with a UE index indicating which UE gets allocated in which PRB. Thus, UE index entries exist only for PRBs with corresponding allocation indicated by EEI. For a PRB with EEI set to '1', the UE index entry indicates that the PRB is allocated in the control signal block.

The UE Index field can be encoded using any compression scheme of the prior art.

The (n+1)th control signal block signals resource allocations on PRBs that are not indicated by block 1 , block 2 , . . . , block n. In other words, resource allocation only on the remaining PRBs is signaled. This information can be obtained from the EEI bits of block 1, block 2, ... block n, and possibly from the OEEI.

FIG. 4 is an example of a control signal block signal according to an example embodiment of the present invention. According to this example, there are three control signal blocks 1-3. In this example, the following assumptions can be made:

• There are N PRBs.

• The downlink entry contains the radio link ID (also called UEID) and all necessary transmission information for the indicated UE.

The transmission format of the control signal block 1 is known by the UE in advance;

The resource allocation of N1 PRBs (out of N PRBs) is signaled by control signal block 1;

The allocation of M1 UEs to N1 resource blocks is signaled by control signal block 1;

The resource allocation of N2 PRBs (out of N-N1 PRBs) is signaled by control signal block 2;

The allocation of M2 UEs to N2 resource blocks is signaled by control signal block 2;

The resource allocation of N3 PRBs (out of N-N1-N2 PRBs) is signaled by control signal block 3;

• The allocation of M3 UEs to N3 resource blocks is signaled by control signal block 3 .

The TFI in control signal block 3 indicates that there are no control signal blocks following it, or alternatively, this last TFI can be omitted, as discussed above.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4, UEs are divided into three groups 1-3 based at least in part on UE channel conditions, such as path loss or carrier-to-interference ratio. According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the downlink (DL) control signal contains a common control signal, a control signal for DL resource allocation of several UEs and a control signal for uplink (UL) resource allocation of several UEs . Thus, it is possible to apply different transport formats to different UEs. The result is a reduction in control signaling overhead while maintaining coverage of all required information. Therefore, according to this embodiment of the present invention, the transmission format of the first field of the resource allocation structure should be the most robust. The advantage of this embodiment is that the first field can indicate the allocation of all PRBs if some UEs utilize the bandwidth of the whole system.

Another advantage of embodiments of the present invention is that the control signals themselves have the same scheduling flexibility as the associated data.

Other special groups of UEs are possible according to other embodiments of the invention. These UE groups include, but are not limited to, the configuration or capabilities of UEs. For example, if a UE has a single antenna configuration or no MIMO capability, or if a terminal has multiple antenna configurations and has MIMO capability, then these UEs can be allocated in different frames, because for a UE with MIMO capability allocated in the first frame, And resources for UEs without MIMO capability are allocated in the second frame.

How many frames and what kind of sequence of frames are allocated for non-MIMO, for MIMO, for high C/I, for low C/I, depends on the mutual ratio of active terminals present in the cell each time, and also on their transmission requirements and business flow requirements.

The allocation table header in the first part of the allocation table can define the transmission format for the second part of the table, such as channel coding type (turbo code, convolutional code, etc.), channel coding rate (such as 1/8, 1/6, 1 /4, 1/3, 1/2...), an indication of whether to use the outer code (yes/no), the type of the outer code (Reed Solomon code, Gray code, Hamming code or other block code), The block length of the block code, the error checking type (eg CRC), the error checking length (eg 12 bits), and the channel coding block length (number of entries).

5A and 5B illustrate other example embodiments of the invention. According to this embodiment, as shown in Figure 6, the allocated resources can be localized virtual resource blocks (l-VRBs), or distributed virtual resource blocks (d-VRBs), or multiplexed 1-VRBs and a collection of d-VRBs. VRBs can be constructed in various ways known in the art. Signaling on how to construct localized and distributed VRBs from PRBs can be implemented in the first control signal block for all PRBs allocated in the allocation table, or it can be made separately in Each control signal block is used for the resources allocated in that control signal block. For example the document "3GPP, R1-060305, NTTDoCoMo and Nokia, distributed FDMA Transmission for Shared DataChannel in E-UTRA Downlink (3GPP, R1-060305, NTT DoCoMo and Nokia, for shared data channel in E-UTRA downlink Distributed FDMA transmission)" and "Amended Control for Resource Allocation in a Radio Access Network" EP 06111410.4 proposed on March 20, 2006, discussing the issue from PRB Different methods of constructing VRB and multiplexing 1-VRB and d-VRB. These references are hereby fully incorporated by reference. According to this example embodiment, a predefined method of constructing distributed resource blocks may be used together with an indication of the number of d-VRBs to identify distributed VRBs from localized VRBs. Examples of predefined methods are shown in Figures 5A and 5B. According to an example shown in Fig. 5A, the cyclic distribution constructs d-VRBs cyclically from symbols in a subframe and PRBs for distributed transmission. According to another example shown in Fig. 5B, subcarrier level partitioning creates d-VRBs in a predefined way by sharing all subcarriers for d-VRBs during a subframe.

6 and 7 illustrate other exemplary embodiments of the present invention. In the example discussed above, there is no restriction when allocating PRBs to users. In some systems such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) UL, it is preferable to allocate only a set of contiguous resource blocks to a user or to allocate contiguous resource blocks to a user after a predefined ordering.

When only contiguous resources can be allocated to a user, methods known in the prior art can be used to simplify the allocation information. For example, the document 3GPP R1-060573, Ericsson, NTT, DoCoMO, "E-UTRA Downlink Control Signaling-Overhead Assessment (E-UTRA Downlink Control Signaling-Overhead Assessment)" discusses two types of continuous resource allocation using signaling Methods. This reference is hereby fully incorporated by reference. In an exemplary embodiment according to the invention, these methods are used to signal the allocation of continuous resources. In the first example of Fig. 6, for each UE, the first allocated resource is indicated by the first resource indicator (FRI) field and the number of allocated resources in the resource number indicator (NRI) field. In the solution according to the invention, the UE can be composed into parts and there is a field indicating the presence and possible transport format of the next part. Fig. 7 shows a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The implementation of this embodiment is included in the "Method for Indicating and Checking Transmission Resource Allocation in a Multi-User Communication System". The order of UE-specific entries is used to indicate resource allocation. Then, only NRI information needs to be signaled. According to the present invention, allocation signaling can be divided into multiple parts, and EEI or OEEI can be used to limit the scope of allocation signaling in each part. Note that in the embodiment according to Fig. 7, the last NRI field in each part carries redundant information and need not be sent. Thus, the invention can be utilized if the allocation of resources to users is completely free or if there are some restrictions on the allocation.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention can be used in any device that implements an allocation table format with uniform entries for decoding the allocation table. The foregoing description is directed to specific embodiments for use with the present invention. It is evident, however, that other changes and modifications may be made to the described embodiments in order to obtain some or all of the advantages of the invention. For example, embodiments of the invention may include, but are not limited to, hardware, software, ASICs, modules, and computer readable code embodied on a computer readable medium. Accordingly, it is the aim of the appended claims to cover all changes and modifications that come within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims (32)

1. A device comprising: a definition unit configured to define at least two allocation table formats; a selection unit configured to select, from said at least two allocation formats, an allocation form format to be used for constructing an allocation form; a construction unit configured to construct an assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format; a transmitter unit configured to signal the allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table; and Wherein, the device provides control channel signaling to multiple user terminals. 2. The device of claim 1, further comprising: a grouping unit configured to group a plurality of user terminals, thereby forming a user terminal group; and A second defining unit configured to define the allocation table format based on the user terminal group. 3. The device of claim 2, further comprising: An encoding unit configured to perform joint encoding on the configured group of multiple user terminals. 4. The device of claim 2, wherein the grouping unit is configured to group a plurality of user terminals based on at least one physical resource. 5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the transmitter unit is configured to signal the allocation table to the plurality of user terminals and is configured to provide a separate header, the header The section identifies whether a user terminal of the plurality of user terminals has an entry in the allocation table. 6. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the transmitter unit is further configured to transmit at least one entry presence indicator bit. 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein, in the defining unit, the defined allocation table format is previously known by the plurality of user terminals. 8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein, in the defining unit, the defined allocation table format is signaled outside the allocation table. 9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein, in the defining unit, the defined allocation table format is enabled to be blindly detected by the plurality of user terminals. 10. A method for control channel signaling, the method comprising: define at least two allocation table formats; selecting an allocation form format to be used to construct the allocation form from the at least two allocation formats; Build an assignment sheet based on the selected assignment sheet format; signaling the allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table; 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising: grouping a plurality of user terminals, thereby forming a user terminal group; and defining the allocation table format based on the group of user terminals; 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the grouping of a plurality of user terminals is based on at least one physical resource. 13. The method of claim 10 , wherein said signaling said allocation table to said plurality of user terminals comprises providing a separate header, said header identifying one of said plurality of user terminals Whether the user terminal has an entry in said allocation table. 14. The method of claim 11, wherein the signaling the allocation table to the plurality of user terminals comprises transmitting at least one entry presence indicator bit. 15. The method of claim 10, wherein the allocation table format is previously known by all of the user terminals. 16. The method of claim 10, wherein the allocation table format is signaled outside of the allocation table. 17. A system comprising: defining means for defining at least two allocation table formats; selecting means for selecting from said at least two allocation formats the allocation form format to be used to construct the allocation form; creating means for constructing an assignment table based at least in part on the selected assignment table format; signaling means for signaling said allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein said selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in said allocation table; 18. The system of claim 17, further comprising: grouping means, which is used to group a plurality of user terminals, thereby forming a user terminal group; Definition means for defining said allocation table format based on said group of user terminals. 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the grouping means groups the plurality of user terminals based on at least one physical resource. 20. The system of claim 18, wherein said signaling means signaling said assignment table to said plurality of user terminals comprises providing a separate header identifying said plurality of user terminals Whether the user terminal of the terminals has an entry in the allocation table. 21. The system of claim 18, wherein the signaling means transmits at least one entry presence indicator bit. 22. The system of claim 17, wherein said allocation format is previously known by said plurality of user terminals in said defining means. 23. The system of claim 17, wherein said allocation format is signaled outside of said allocation table in said defining means. 24. A user terminal, comprising: a detection unit configured to detect whether an allocation table contains an entry for said user terminal; a decoding unit configured to decode the allocation table only if the allocation table contains an entry for the user terminal, Wherein, the detecting unit detects whether the allocation table contains an entry for the user terminal by interpreting a unified entry in the allocation table. 25. A device comprising: a definition unit configured to define at least two allocation table formats, wherein the allocation table contains at least two sections corresponding to the allocation formats; a selection unit configured to select, from said at least two allocation formats, an allocation table format to be used to construct an allocation table; a transmitter unit configured to signal the allocation table to a plurality of user terminals, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in the allocation table, Wherein, the device provides control channel signaling to multiple user terminals. 26. The device of claim 25, further comprising: a grouping unit configured to group a plurality of user terminals, thereby forming a user terminal group; A second defining unit configured to define the allocation table format based on the user terminal group. 27. The device of claim 26, wherein the grouping unit is configured to group a plurality of user terminals based on at least one physical resource. 28. The device of claim 25, wherein the transmitter unit is configured to signal the allocation table to the plurality of user terminals and is configured to provide a separate header, the header The section identifies whether a user terminal of the plurality of user terminals has an entry in the allocation table. 29. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the transmitter unit is further configured to transmit at least one entry presence indicator bit. 30. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein, in the defining unit, the defined allocation table format is previously known by the plurality of user terminals. 31. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein, in the defining unit, the defined allocation table format is signaled outside the allocation table. 32. A device comprising: A receiver unit configured to receive an allocation table format of an allocation table, wherein the selected allocation table format is identified by a unified entry in said allocation table.

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