HK1070210B - Implementing a physical layer automatic repeat request for a subscriber unit - Google Patents

Description

Implementing physical layer automatic repeat request in a subscriber unit

Technical Field

The present invention relates to wireless communication systems. And more particularly, to a method for modifying the system by using a physical layer (PHY) automatic repeat request (ARQ) method.

Background

The proposed bandwidth-Band Fixed Wireless Access (BFWA) using single carrier-frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE) or orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM) expects to use high speed downlink packet access applications (HSDPA). This application will be for transmitting downlink packet data at high speed. In BFWA, a building or group of buildings are connected in a wired or wireless manner and considered as a single client. Such single-endpoint multi-end users have very high data requirements and require large bandwidths.

The presently proposed system uses a layer 2 automatic repeat request system (ARQ). Data blocks that are successfully transmitted to the user are buffered and retransmitted from layer 2. The data blocks stored in layer 2 are typically large, transmitted for high signal to noise ratio (SNR) reception, received with a low block error ratio (BLER), and retransmitted infrequently. In addition, layer 2 ARQ signals are typically slow, requiring large buffers and long retransmission periods.

Therefore, we want to have other options beyond the RQ system.

Disclosure of Invention

A physical ARQ system includes a transmitter and a receiver. A transmitter receives data and transforms the received data into packets with a particular coding/data modulation. The physical layer transmitter includes n channels for transmitting packets and retransmitting packets in response to not receiving a relative response for a predetermined packet. An adaptive modulation and coding controller in the transmitter collects the transmission statistics and uses the collected statistics to adjust the particular coding/data modulation. The receiver includes an n-channel hybrid ARQ combiner/decoder that combines packet transmissions, decodes packets, and detects packet errors. The receiver includes an acknowledgment transmitter that transmits an acknowledgment for each packet if the packet has an acceptable error ratio. The receiver includes a sequential transmitting element for passing the accepted packets to the higher layer.

Drawings

Fig. 1A and 1B are schematic block diagrams of downlink and uplink actual ARQs.

Fig. 2 is a flow diagram of retransmission statistics using adaptive modulation and coding.

Figure 3 is a block diagram illustrating a multi-channel stop-and-wait architecture.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1A and 1B show a downlink actual ARQ 10 and an uplink actual ARQ 20, respectively.

The downlink ARQ 10 includes a base station 12 for receiving packets from a higher layer ARQ transmitter 14a provided by a network 14. The packet from transmitter 14a is input to physical layer ARQ 12a in base station 12. The ARQ transmitter 12a encodes the data with a forward error correction code (FEC) with an additional Error Check Sequence (ECS), modulates the data as instructed by an Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) controller 12c, using, for example, Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) or m-quadrature amplitude modulation (m-ary quadrature modulation), i.e., 16-QAM or 64-QAM. In addition, for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), the AMC controller 12a may change the sub-channels used to carry the packet data. The physical layer ARQ transmitter 12a transmits the packet to the subscriber unit 16 through a switch, circulator or duplexer 12d and an antenna 13. Transmitter 12a also temporarily stores information for retransmission, if necessary, in a buffer memory incorporated in transmitter 12 a.

The antenna 15a of the subscriber unit 16 receives this packet. This packet is input to the physical layer ARQ receiver 16a via the switch, circulator or duplexer 16 b. At receiver 16a, this packet is FEC decoded and checked for errors using ECS. Receiver 16a then controls acknowledgment transmitter 16c to Acknowledge (ACK) receipt of the packet with the acceptable error ratio or to request retransmission by, preferably, withholding an acknowledgment signal or transmitting a Negative Acknowledgment (NAK).

The ACK is transmitted by ACK transmitter 16c to base station 12 via switch 16b and antenna 15. This ACK is transmitted via the air interface 14 to the antenna 13 of the base station 12. The received ACK is processed by an acknowledgement receiver 12b within the base station. The ACK receiver 12b transmits the ACK/NCKs to an Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) controller 12c and a transmitter 12 a. The AMC controller 12c uses statistical analysis of the received ACKs to determine the channel quality relative to the subscriber unit 16 and may change the FEC coding and modulation techniques for subsequent transmissions of information, as will be described in more detail. If subscriber unit 16 acknowledges receipt of the packet, receipt of this ACK at base station 12 causes the original packet temporarily stored in the buffer memory to be cleared in preparation for the next packet.

If no ACK is received or a NAK is received, the physical layer transmitter 12a retransmits the original information or selectively modifies the original information for the user 16. In the subscriber unit 16, this retransmission is combined with the original transmission, if possible. This technique facilitates the reception of correct information by using data redundancy or selective repetition combining. Packets with an acceptable error ratio are transmitted to the higher layer 16 for further processing. The accepted received packets are transmitted to the higher layer 16d in the same data order (i.e., in-sequence) in which the data is provided to the transmitter 12a in the base station. This maximum number of retransmissions is limited to an operator defined integer value, such as an integer ranging from 1 to 8. After the maximum number of retransmissions is attempted, the buffer memory is cleared for the next packet to use. Decoding an acknowledgment signal using small packets at the physical layer reduces transmission delay and information processing time.

Since PHY ARQ occurs at the physical layer, the number of times retransmission of a particular channel occurs, statistics of retransmissions, are a good measure of channel quality. Using retransmission statistics the AMC controller 12c may change the modulation and coding method for this channel as shown in fig. 2. In addition, retransmission statistics may also be combined with other link quality measurements, such as Bit Error Ratios (BERs) and block error ratios (BLERs), by the AMC controller 12c to measure channel quality and determine whether a change in modulation and coding scheme is required.

To illustrate SC-FDE, retransmission occurrences for a particular channel are measured to generate retransmission statistics, step 60. This retransmission statistic is used to determine whether the modulation scheme should be changed, step 62. If there are too many retransmissions, a stronger coding and modulation scheme is used, step 64, typically at a reduced data transmission rate. The AMC controller 12c may increase the spreading factor and use more codes to transmit the packet data. Alternatively or additionally, the AMC controller may switch from a high data throughput modulation scheme to a lower data throughput scheme, such as 640QAM to 16-QAM or QPSK. If the rate of retransmission is low, a transition is made to a higher capacity modulation scheme, such as QPSK to 16-ary QAM or 64-ary QAM, step 66. This determination preferably uses a retransmission rate or other link quality measure of the signal from the receiver, such as BER or BLER, step 62. The limits of this decision are preferably made by the system operator

For OFDMA, the occurrence of retransmissions is used to monitor the channel quality of each subchannel. If the retransmission rate or retransmission rate/link quality of a particular subchannel indicates poor quality, that subchannel may be selectively de-allocated from the group of OFDM channels, step 64, to prevent the use of such poor quality subchannels in some future periods. If the retransmission rate or the retransmission rate/link quality of a particular subchannel indicates a higher quality, the previously invalidated subchannel may be added back to the OFDM frequency set, step 66.

Using the occurrence of retransmissions as a basis for AMC provides flexibility in the modulation and coding scheme for the average channel condition for each user. Furthermore, this re-injection rate has no effect on the measurement error and reporting delay from the subscriber unit 16.

The uplink ARQ 20 is essentially similar to the downlink ARQ 10 and includes a subscriber unit 26 characterized by packets from a higher layer 2 ARQ transmitter 28a of the higher layer 8 being transmitted to the physical layer ARQ transmitter 26 a. This information is transmitted to the base station antenna via switch 26d, user antenna 25 and air interface 24. The AMC controller may similarly use retransmission statistics for a channel to change the modulation and coding scheme.

The physical layer ARQ receiver 22a, like the receiver 16a of fig. 1a, determines whether this information has an acceptable error ratio that requires retransmission. The acknowledging transmitter reports status to the subscriber unit 26, causing the transmitter 26a to retransmit or clear the original message temporarily stored in the transmitter 26a in preparation for receiving the next message from the higher layer 2 8. The successfully received packets are transmitted to the network 24 for further processing.

Although not shown for simplicity, the system is preferably used for HSDPA applications in BFWA systems, although other embodiments may be used. BFWA systems may use frequency division duplex or time division duplex SC-FDE or OFDMA. In such a system, the base station and all users are located in fixed locations. The system may include a base station and a large number of subscriber units. Each subscriber unit may serve, for example, several subscribers within a building or multiple adjacent buildings. These applications typically require a large bandwidth due to the large number of end users in a subscriber unit location.

The spread of PHY ARQ in such systems is apparent to higher layers, such as Medium Access Controllers (MACs). Thus, PHY ARQ may be used in conjunction with higher layer ARQs, e.g., layer 2. In this case, this PHY ARQ reduces the retransmission overhead of the higher layer ARQs.

Fig. 3 illustrates the N-channel stop-and-wait structure of PHYARQ 30. The physical layer ARQ transmitting function 38 may be located at a base station, subscriber unit or depending on whether downlink, uplink or phyarq is used. Data block 34a arrives from the network. This network block is placed in a queue 34 for transmission of data channels 41 of an air interface 43. The N-channel sorter 36 routes the data to the N transmitters 40-1 through 40-N based on the transmit block data. Each transmitter 40-1 to 40-n FEC encodes block data and provides ESC to generate AMC modulation and transmitted packets within the data channel 41. The FEC encoded/ECS data is stored in a buffer at the transmitters 40-1 through 40-n for possible retransmission. In addition, control signals are transmitted from PHYARQ transmitter 38 to synchronize the reception, demodulation, and decoding of receivers 46-1 through 46-n.

Each receiver 46-1 through 46-n receives packets in its associated time slot. The received packets are delivered to respective hybrid ARQ decoders 50-1 to 50-n, (50). The hybrid ARQ decoder 50 determines an error ratio, e.g., BER or BLER, for each received packet. If the packet has an acceptable error ratio, it is released to higher layers for further processing and an ACK is transmitted by ACK transmitter 54. If the error ratio is not acceptable or the packet is not received, no ACK is transmitted or a NAK is transmitted. Packets with unacceptable error ratios are buffered in the decoder 50 as a possible combination with a retransmitted packet.

A method of combining packets using turbo codes (turbo codes) is as follows. If a turbo encoded packet with an unacceptable error ratio is received, the packet is retransmitted to facilitate code combining. Packets containing the same data are encoded differently. To decode the packet data, the two packets are processed by a turbo decoder to recover the original data. Since the second packet has a different encoding, e.g., soft symbols (softsymbols) are mapped to different points in the decoding. Using packets with different codes increases coding diversity and transmission diversity to improve overall BER. In another approach, this same signal is transmitted. The two received packets are combined using the maximum ratio of the combined symbols. The combined signal is then decoded.

The ACK for each receiver 46-1 through 46-n is transmitted in a Fast Feedback Channel (FFC) 45. The feedback channel 45 is preferably a low delay channel. For time division duplex systems, the ACKs may be transmitted during idle periods of upstream and downstream transmissions. The FFC 45 is preferably a low speed, high bandwidth CDMA channel on other intra-channel transmissions. The FFC CDMA code and modulation are selected to minimize interference with transmissions within the channel. To increase the capacity of such an FFC 45, multiple codes may be used.

The ACK receiver 56 detects ACKs and indicates to the corresponding transmitters 40-1 through 40-n whether the ACK was received. If the ACK is not received, the packet is retransmitted. This retransmitted packet may have a different modulation and coding method as indicated by the AMC controllers 12c, 26 c. If an ACK is received, the transmitters 40-1 through 40-n clear the previous packet from the buffer and receive the next transmitted packet.

The number of transmitters and receivers, N, is based on different design considerations, such as channel capacity and ACK response time. Preferably, a 2-channel architecture is used for the preferred system described above, with even and odd transmitters and receivers.

The PHY ARQ technique of the preferred embodiment provides a signal to noise (SNR) gain of 7db compared to systems using only higher layer ARQ. Which occurs by operating at higher block error ratio (BLERs) (5-20%) frequencies and using a smaller block size at layer 1 than the higher layer ARQ alone. The reduced SNR requirement allows: capacity is increased by switching to higher order modulation using Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) techniques; lower Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) by using lower level RF (radio frequency) elements with PHY ARQ that compensates for reduced implementation performance; increasing a downlink range of an extended cell (cell) radius; reduced power in a Base Station (BS) to minimize cell-to-cell interference; and a back-off value (back-off) of the added Power Amplifier (PA) when using the multiple carrier technique.

Claims (17)

1. A subscriber unit for implementing physical layer automatic repeat request, comprising:

a transmitter having:

a physical layer transmitter for receiving data, formatting the received data into packets, each packet having a particular coding/data modulation, transmitting the packet, and retransmitting the packet in response to failing to receive a corresponding acknowledgement for a predetermined packet;

an acknowledgment receiver for receiving the corresponding acknowledgment; and

an adaptive modulation and coding controller for collecting retransmission statistics and adjusting the particular coding/modulation using the collected statistics, wherein if the collected statistics indicate a low number of retransmissions, a higher capacity coding/data modulation scheme will be selected as the coding/data modulation; and if the collected retransmission statistics indicate a high number of retransmissions, a lower capacity coding/data modulation scheme will be selected as the coding/data modulation; and

a receiver having:

a physical layer receiver for demodulating the packet;

a combiner/decoder for buffering, decoding and detecting packet errors; and

an acknowledgement generator for generating an acknowledgement for each packet if the packet has an acceptable error ratio.

2. The subscriber unit of claim 1 wherein the particular code/data modulation is forward error correction.

3. The subscriber unit of claim 2 wherein the packets are transmitted using an orthogonal frequency division multiple access air interface and the forward error correction coding/data modulation adjustment is performed in addition to selectively nulling subchannels in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access packet.

4. The subscriber unit of claim 1, wherein the packets are transmitted using a single carrier with a frequency domain equalized air interface.

5. The subscriber unit of claim 1 wherein the subscriber unit uses a code division multiple access air interface and wherein the acknowledgment is transmitted on a fast feedback channel.

6. The subscriber unit of claim 1 wherein the acknowledgment generator transmits a negative acknowledgment if any packet has an unacceptable error ratio.

7. A subscriber unit supporting broadband wireless communication, comprising:

a sorter having a queue for receiving data blocks from a communication network and for sequentially passing packets to the n transmitters;

n transmitters for transmitting the packets via a data channel;

n receivers for receiving the returned packets via the data channel; and

n hybrid ARQ decoders, each coupled to one of the n receivers;

the n hybrid ARQ decoders thus have a feedback channel for transmitting an acknowledgement when a packet with an acceptable error ratio is received and for releasing packets with an acceptable error ratio, wherein retransmission statistics are collected, wherein if the collected statistics show a low number of retransmissions, a higher capacity coding/data modulation scheme will be selected to transmit the packet; and if the collected retransmission statistics indicate a high number of retransmissions, a lower capacity coding/data modulation scheme will be selected to retransmit the packet.

8. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein each of said n signal transmitters temporarily stores a packet that has been transmitted in a buffer memory; thus, when an acknowledgement signal for the stored packet has been received at one of the n receivers, each of the n transmitters clears the stored packet in preparation for reception of another block.

9. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein each of said n signal transmitters temporarily stores a packet that has been transmitted in a buffer memory; thus, when an acknowledgement signal of the stored packet is not received at one of the n receivers, the n transmitters retransmit the packet temporarily stored in their buffer memories.

10. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein each of said n transmitters clears its buffer memory if an acknowledgment signal is not received after a maximum number of retransmissions.

11. The subscriber unit of claim 10 wherein the maximum number of retransmissions is an operator defined integer ranging from 1 to 8.

12. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein each of said n receivers combines a retransmitted packet with an originally transmitted packet to facilitate error correction.

13. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein a transmitter that fails to receive an acknowledgment signal decodes the packet by using a different coding technique than the coding technique used in the original transmission of the packet.

14. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein each of said n transmitters uses turbo coding and each decoder uses a code combining an original transmission and a retransmission to facilitate error correction.

15. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein the packets are transmitted using an orthogonal frequency division multiple access air interface, and wherein subchannels in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access group may be selectively deactivated.

16. The subscriber unit of claim 7, wherein the packets are transmitted using a single carrier with a frequency domain equalized air interface.

17. The subscriber unit of claim 7 wherein the acknowledgments are transmitted on a fast feedback channel using a code division multiple access air interface.