CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is based on PCT filing PCT/EP2018/072137, filed Aug. 15, 2018, which claims priority to EP 17194261.8, filed Sep. 29, 2017, the entire contents of each are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

Field of Disclosure

The present disclosure relates to infrastructure equipment and communications devices of communications systems, where multiple methods may be used to configured slot structures of transmissions between the infrastructure equipment and communications devices.

The present application claims the Paris Convention priority of European patent application EP17194261.8, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

Description of Related Art

The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.

Third and fourth generation mobile telecommunication systems, such as those based on the 3GPP defined UMTS and Long Term Evolution (LTE) architecture, are able to support more sophisticated services than simple voice and messaging services offered by previous generations of mobile telecommunication systems. For example, with the improved radio interface and enhanced data rates provided by LTE systems, a user is able to enjoy high data rate applications such as mobile video streaming and mobile video conferencing that would previously only have been available via a fixed line data connection. The demand to deploy such networks is therefore strong and the coverage area of these networks, i.e. geographic locations where access to the networks is possible, may be expected to increase ever more rapidly.

Future wireless communications networks will be expected to routinely and efficiently support communications with a wider range of devices associated with a wider range of data traffic profiles and types than current systems are optimised to support. For example it is expected future wireless communications networks will be expected to efficiently support communications with devices including reduced complexity devices, machine type communication (MTC) devices, high resolution video displays, virtual reality headsets and so on. Some of these different types of devices may be deployed in very large numbers, for example low complexity devices for supporting the “The Internet of Things”, and may typically be associated with the transmissions of relatively small amounts of data with relatively high latency tolerance.

In view of this there is expected to be a desire for future wireless communications networks, for example those which may be referred to as 5G or new radio (NR) system/new radio access technology (RAT) systems, as well as future iterations/releases of existing systems, to efficiently support connectivity for a wide range of devices associated with different applications and different characteristic data traffic profiles.

The increasing use of different types of terminal devices associated with different traffic profiles gives rise to new challenges for efficiently handling communications in wireless telecommunications systems that need to be addressed.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure can help address or mitigate at least some of the issues discussed above.

Embodiments of the present technique can provide a method of transmitting or receiving signals by a communications device communicating under control of a wireless communications network. The method comprises receiving from an infrastructure equipment of the wireless communications network slot configuration information indicating a configuration of one or more time divided slots of a wireless access interface provided by the wireless communications network for communicating data to the communications device in a downlink and receiving data from the communications device in an uplink, the time divided slots of the wireless access interface each providing a plurality of symbols on one of more radio frequency carrier signals which can be configured differently for use by the communications device or the infrastructure equipment. The symbols may be for example Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) symbols comprising a plurality of sub-carriers arranged in the frequency domain, each sub-carrier in a symbol being provided as a resource element of the wireless access interface. The slot configuration information includes an indication that one or more of the plurality of symbols are to be used for transmitting signals from the communications device or that one or more of the plurality of symbols are to be used for receiving signals at the communications device. The method includes, in accordance with the received slot configuration information receiving signals by the communications device in each of the one or more slots on the one or more of the symbols allocated for receiving signals, and transmitting signals from the communications device in each of the one or more slots on the one or more of the symbols allocated to the communications device for transmitting signals. The receiving the slot configuration information from the infrastructure equipment comprises receiving first slot configuration information from the infrastructure equipment indicating the configuration of a first plurality of the time slots, and receiving subsequently at least one other slot configuration information from the infrastructure equipment indicating the configuration of one or more of the first plurality of time slots. If the at least one other slot configuration information indicates that one or more of the symbols of each of the one or more time slots are configured differently to the first slot configuration information, the method comprises determining a dynamic characteristic of the first slot information and the at least one other slot information, and determining a configuration of the differently configured one or more symbols by the communications device according to a conflict resolution rule based on the determined dynamic characteristic of the first slot configuration information and the determined dynamic characteristic of the at least one other slot configuration information. The dynamic characteristic may be for example one or both of a rate of change of the slot configuration information or a time duration over which the slot configuration information is valid.

Embodiments of the present technique can provide an arrangement in which a communications device is configured to determine autonomously, according to a conflict resolution rule how to configure one or more symbols, which maybe OFDM symbols of one or more time slots where different slot configuration information received at different times indicate a different configuration of the one or more symbols. The conflict resolution rule may be pre-determined according to a system configuration so that an infrastructure equipment from which the slot configuration information was sent can also determine the way in which the communications device will configure the one or more symbols which have received conflicting configurations. The communications device can therefore be configured with one or more symbols with conflicting configurations as either for uplink (UL), downlink (DL), reserved or for sidelink (device to device) communications.

Respective aspects and features of the present disclosure are defined in the appended claims.

In [5], it is proposed that symbols with conflicting DL-UL configurations are treated as errors and that the link direction is unknown to the UE. It should be noted that although [5] stated an unknown direction, it does not state that it can be overwritten by a more dynamic indicator such as a DCI.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, but are not restrictive, of the present technology. The described embodiments, together with further advantages, will be best understood by reference to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

