User Equipments, Base Stations And Methods

What is this patent about?

’432 is related to the field of wireless communication systems, specifically addressing the efficient management of channel state information (CSI) reporting in scenarios where user equipment (UE) communicates with a base station using multiple downlink bandwidth parts (DL BWPs). The background involves the increasing complexity of wireless communication standards like 5G NR, which support flexible bandwidth allocation and require efficient mechanisms for UEs to provide feedback about channel conditions to the base station.

The underlying idea behind ’432 is to ensure that CSI reporting configurations are properly managed when DL BWPs are activated and deactivated. The key inventive insight is that when a DL BWP associated with a semi-persistent CSI-RS and CSI-IM resource configuration is deactivated, the UE should consider the CSI reporting configuration as suspended. This prevents the UE from attempting to perform CSI reporting on a BWP that is no longer active, saving resources and avoiding errors.

The claims of ’432 focus on a user equipment (UE) and a base station apparatus, as well as their respective communication methods. The independent claims cover the reception and transmission of activation and deactivation commands for semi-persistent CSI-RS and CSI-IM resource configurations associated with a DL BWP. Crucially, the claims stipulate that the UE and base station both consider the CSI reporting configuration suspended when the associated DL BWP is deactivated.

In practice, the invention works by having the base station signal to the UE when a particular DL BWP is active and when it is not. The base station transmits an activation command to initiate semi-persistent CSI reporting on a specific DL BWP. When the base station deactivates that DL BWP, it sends a deactivation command. Upon receiving this command, the UE's processing circuitry suspends the CSI reporting configuration, meaning it stops attempting to measure and report CSI for that BWP. This avoids unnecessary processing and potential errors.

This approach differs from prior solutions by explicitly linking the CSI reporting configuration to the activation state of the DL BWP. Without this mechanism, the UE might continue to attempt CSI reporting on a deactivated BWP, leading to wasted resources and potentially incorrect feedback to the base station. By suspending the CSI reporting configuration, the UE ensures that it only provides channel state information for active bandwidth parts, improving the overall efficiency and accuracy of the wireless communication system. The use of semi-persistent CSI-RS and CSI-IM , along with explicit activation/deactivation signaling, allows for dynamic adaptation to changing network conditions and traffic demands, optimizing resource utilization and enhancing system performance. The DL BWP deactivation triggers the suspension, ensuring synchronization between the network and the UE. This mechanism is particularly important in 5G NR and beyond, where flexible bandwidth allocation is a key feature.