Apple Inc.
Flexible Downlink Control Signal Monitoring in Wireless Communications

Abstract:

A device may wirelessly communicate with a number of different cells used in a carrier aggregation. The device may monitor physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) on the different cells, dynamically switching between a dormant monitoring state (DS) and an active monitoring state (AS). In the DS, the UE may not monitor any PDCCH candidates on the active secondary SCells corresponding to the DS, or it may monitor PDCCH candidates in the search space (SS) set with the largest monitoring periodicity among the multiple SS sets on the active bandwidth part (BWP). In the AS, the UE may monitor a set of PDCCH candidates in physical resources configured by higher layers on the BWPs. Switching from one monitoring state to another may be facilitated through the use of a new downlink control information (DCI) format without data scheduling, a modified existing DCI format with data scheduling, and/or use of a DS timer.