NETWORKS

PRIORITY CLAIM

[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority to the following patent applications:

[0002] United States Provisional Patent Application No. 63/136,738, filed January 13, 2021, and entitled “TECHNIQUES TO INDICATE AND DETERMINE WHETHER A DYNAMIC GRANT HE SHOULD OPERATE AS INITIATING OR RESPONDING DEVICE IN SEMI-STATIC CHANNEL ACCESS MODE,”

[0003] United States Provisional Patent Application No. 63/169,631, filed April 1, 2021, and entitled “TECHNIQUES TO INDICATE AND DETERMINE WHETHER A DYNAMIC GRANT UE SHOULD OPERATE AS INITIATING OR RESPONDING DEVICE IN SEMI-STATIC CHANNEL ACCESS MODE;”

[0004] United States Provisional Patent Application No. 63/186,424, filed May 10, 2021, and entitled “TECHNIQUES TO INDICATE AND DETERMINE WHETHER A DYNAMIC GRANT UE SHOULD OPERATE AS INITIATING OR RESPONDING DEVICE IN SEMI-STATIC CHANNEL ACCESS MODE,”

[0005] United States Provisional Patent Application No. 63/216,380, filed June 29, 2021, and entitled “TECHNIQUES TO INDICATE AND DETERMINE WHETHER A DYN AMIC GRANT UE SHOULD OPERATE AS INITIATING OR RESPONDING DEVICE IN SEMI-STATIC CHANNEL ACCESS MODE;” and

[0006] United States Provisional Patent Application No. 63/247,469, filed September 23, 2021, and entitled “TECHNIQUES TO INDICATE. AND DETERMINE WHETHER A DY N AM IC GRANT UE SHOULD OPERATE AS INITIATING OR RESPONDING DEVICE IN SEMI-STATIC CHANNEL

ACCESS MODE.”

[0007] Each of the above-listed patent applications is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0008] Aspects pertain to wireless communications. Some aspects relate to wireless networks including 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) networks, 3 GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks, 3 GPP LTE-A (LTE Advanced) networks, (MulteFire, LTE-U), and fifth-generation (5G) networks and beyond including 5G new radio (NR) (or 5G-NR) networks, 5G-LTE networks such as 5G NR unlicensed spectrum (NR-U) networks and other unlicensed networks including Wi-Fi, CBRS (OnGo), etc. Other aspects are directed to techniques to indicate and determine whether a dynamic grant user equipment (UE) should operate as initiating or responding device in semi-static channel access mode in 5G-NR (and beyond) networks.

BACKGROUND

[0009] Mobile communications have evolved significantly from early voice systems to today's highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. With the increase in different types of devices communicating with various network devices, usage of 3GPP LTE systems has increased. The penetration of mobile devices (user equipment or UEs) in modem society has continued to drive demand for a wide variety of networked devices in many disparate environments. Fifth-generation (5G) wireless systems are forthcoming and are expected to enable even greater speed, connectivity, and usability. Next generation 5G networks (or NR networks) are expected to increase throughput, coverage, and robustness and reduce latency and operational and capital expenditures. 5G-NR networks will continue to evolve based on 3 GPP LTE- Advanced with additional potential new radio access technologies (RATs) to enrich people's lives with seamless wireless connectivity solutions delivering fast, rich content and services. As current cellular network frequency is saturated, higher frequencies, such as millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency, can be beneficial due to their high bandwidth.

[0010] Potential LTE operation in the unlicensed spectrum includes (and is not limited to) the LTE operation in the unlicensed spectrum via dual connectivity (DC), or DC-based LAA, and the standalone LTE system in the unlicensed spectrum, according to which LTE-based technology solely operates in the unlicensed spectrum without requiring an “anchor” in the licensed spectrum, called MulteFire. Further enhanced operation of LTE and NR systems in the licensed, as well as unlicensed spectrum, is expected in future releases and 5G (and beyond) sy stems. Such enhanced operations can include techniques to indicate and determine whether a dynamic grant UE should operate as initiating or responding device in semi-static channel access mode in 5G-NR (and beyond) networks.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

[0011] In the figures, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. The figures illustrate generally, by way of example, but not by way of limitation, various aspects discussed in the present document.

[0012] FIG. 1A illustrates an architecture of a network, in accordance with some aspects.

[0013] FIG. 1B and FIG. 1C illustrate a non-roaming 5G system architecture in accordance with some aspects.

[0014] FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments.

[0015] FIG. 5 illustrates a diagram of UE determination of when to operate as initiating device or a responding device, in accordance with some aspects.

[0016] FIG. 6 is a diagram of a base station (e.g., gNB) overriding or canceling its acquired channel occupancy time (COT), in accordance with some aspects.

[0017] FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating wideband operation and UE assumptions, in accordance with some aspects.

[0018] FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a communication device such as an evolved Node-B (eNB), a new generation Node-B (gNB) (or another RAN node), an access point (AP), a wireless station (STA), a mobile station (MS), or a user equipment (UE), in accordance with some aspects.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] The following description and the drawings sufficiently illustrate aspects to enable those skilled in the art to practice them. Other aspects may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, and other changes. Portions and features of some aspects may be included in or substituted for, those of other aspects. Aspects outlined in the claims encompass all available equivalents of those claims.

[0020] FIG. 1A illustrates an architecture of a network in accordance with some aspects. The network 140A is shown to include user equipment (UE) 101 and UE 102. The UEs 101 and 102 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks) but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, drones, or any other computing device including a wared and/or wireless communications interface. The UEs 101 and 102 can be collectively referred to herein as UE 101, and UE 101 can be used to perform one or more of the techniques disclosed herein.

[0021] Any of the radio links described herein (e.g., as used in the network 140A or any other illustrated network) may operate according to any exemplary radio communication technology and/or standard.

[0022] LTE and LTE -Advanced are standards for wireless communications of high-speed data for UE such as mobile telephones. In LTE- Advanced and various wireless systems, carrier aggregation is a technology according to which multiple carrier signals operating on different frequencies may be used to cany communications for a single UE, thus increasing the bandwidth available to a single device. In some aspects, carrier aggregation may- be used where one or more component carriers operate on unlicensed frequencies.

[0023] Aspects described herein can be used in the context of any spectrum management scheme including, for example, dedicated licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, (licensed) shared spectrum (such as Licensed Shared Access (LSA) in 23-2.4 GHz, 3.4-3.6 GHz, 3.6-3.8 GHz, and further frequencies and Spectrum Access System (SAS) in 3.55-3.7 GHz and further frequencies).

[0024] Aspects described herein can also be applied to different Single

Carrier or OFDM flavors (CP-OFDM, SC-FDMA, SC-OFDM, filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC), OF DMA, etc.) and in particular 3 GPP NR (New Radio) by allocating the OFDM carrier data bit vectors to the corresponding symbol resources.

[0025] In some aspects, any of the UEs 101 and 102 can comprise an Internet-of-Things (loT) UE or a Cellular loT (CIoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power ioT applications utilizing short- lived UE connections. In some aspects, any of the UEs 101 and 102 can include a narrowband (NB) IoT UE (e.g., such as an enhanced NB~ioT (eNB-IoT) UE and Further Enhanced (FeNB-IoT) UE). An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity -Based Sendee (ProSe), or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network includes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep- alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

[0026] In some aspects, any of the UEs 101 and 102 can include enhanced MTC (eMTC) UEs or further enhanced MTC (FeMTC) UEs.

[0027] The UEs 101 and 102 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with a radio access network (RAN) 110. The RAN 110 may be, for example, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UEs 101 and 102 utilize connections 103 and 104, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDM A) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth-generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like.

[0028] In an aspect, the UEs 101 and 102 may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 105. The ProSe interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH). [0029] The UE 102 is shown to be configured to access an access point

(AR) 106 via connection 107. The connection 107 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as, for example, a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, according to which the AP 106 can comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

[0030] The RAN 110 can include one or more access nodes that enable connections 103 and 104. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), Next Generation NodeBs (gNBs), RAN network nodes, and the like, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). In some aspects, the communication nodes 111 and 112 can be transmission/reception points (TRPs), In instances when the communication nodes 111 and 112 are NodeBs (e.g., eNBs or gNBs), one or more TRPs can function within the communication cell of the NodeBs. The RAN 110 may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RAN node 111, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e g cells having smaller coverage areas smaller user capacity or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power (LP; RAN node 112 or an unlicensed spectrum based secondary RAN node 112.

[0031] Any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 101 and 102. In some aspects, any of the RAN nodes 111 and 112 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 110 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling, and mobility management. In an example, any of the nodes 111 and/or 112 can be a new generation Node-B (gNB), an evolved node-13 (eNB), or another type of RAN node.

[0032] The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 120 via an SI interface 1 13. In aspects, the CN 120 may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN (e.g., as illustrated in reference to FIGS. 1B-1C). In this aspect, the SI interface 113 is split into two parts: the S1-U interface 114, which carries user traffic data between the RAN nodes 111 and 112 and the serving gateway (S-GW) 122, and the S1-mobility management entity (MME) interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 111 and 112 and MMEs 121.

[0033] In this aspect, the CN 120 comprises the MMEs 121, the S-GW 122, the Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 123, and a home subscriber server (HSS) 124. The MMEs 121 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs 121 may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 124 may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities' handling of communication sessions. The CN 120 may comprise one or several HSSs 124, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 124 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/ addressing resolution, location dependencies etc. [0034] The S-GW 122 may terminate the S1 interface 113 towards the RAN 110, and route data packets between the RAN 1 10 and the CN 120, In addition, the S-GW 122 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities of the S-GW 122 may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[0035] The P-GW 123 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW 123 may route data packets between the EPC network 120 and external networks such as a network including the application server 184 (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface 125. The P-GW 123 can also communicate data to other external networks 131A, which can include the Internet, IP multimedia subsystem (IPS) network, and other networks. Generally, the application server 184 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Sendees (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this aspect, the P-GW 123 is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server 184 via an IP interface 125. The application server 184 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over- Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs 101 and 102 via the CN 120.

[0036] The P-GW 123 may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) 126 is the policy and charging control element of the CN 120. In a non-roaming scenario, in some aspects, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with a local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE's IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within an HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 126 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 184 via the P-GW 123.

[0037] In some aspects, the communication network 140A can be an loT network or a 5G network, including a 5G new radio network using communications m the licensed (5GNR) and the unlicensed (5GNR-U) spectrum. One of the current enablers of loT is the narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT). [0038] An NG system architecture can include the RAN 110 and a 5G network core (5GC) 120. The NG-RAN 110 can include a plurality of nodes, such as gNBs and NG-eNBs. The core network 120 (e.g., a 5G core network or 5GC) can include an access and mobility function (AMF) and/or a user plane function (UPF). The AMF and the UPF can be communicatively coupled to the gNBs and the NG-eNBs via NG interfaces. More specifically, in some aspects, the gNBs and the NG-eNBs can be connected to the AMF by NG-C interfaces, and the UPF by NG-U interfaces. The gNBs and the NG-eNBs can be coupled to each other via Xn interfaces.

[0039] In some aspects, the NG system architecture can use reference points between various nodes as provided by 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 23.501 (e.g., V15.4.0, 2018-12). In some aspects, each of the gNBs and the NG- eNBs can be implemented as a base station, a mobile edge server, a small cell, a home eNB, a RAN network node, and so forth. In some aspects, a gNB can be a master node (MN) and NG-eNB can be a secondary node (SN) in a 5G architecture. In some aspects, the master/primary node may operate in a licensed band and the secondary node may operate in an unlicensed band.

[0040] FIG. 1B illustrates a non-roaming 5G system architecture in accordance with some aspects. Referring to FIG. 1B, there is illustrated a 5G system architecture 140B in a reference point representation. More specifically, UE 102 can be in communication with RAN 110 as well as one or more other 5G core (5GC) network entities. The 5G system architecture 140B includes a plurality of network functions (NFs), such as access and mobility management function (AMF) 132, location management function (LMF) 133, session management function (SMF) 136, policy control function (PCF) 148, application function (AF) 150, user plane function (UPF) 134, network slice selection function (NSSF) 142, authentication server function (AUSF) 144, and unified data management (UDM)/home subscriber server (HSS) 146. The UPF 134 can provide a connection to a data network (DN) 152, which can include, for example, operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. The AMF 132 can be used to manage access control and mobility and can also include network slice selection functionality. The SME 136 can be configured to set up and manage various sessions according to network policy. The UPF 134 can be deployed in one or more configurations according to the desired service type.

The PCF 148 can be configured to provide a policy framework using network slicing, mobility management, and roaming (similar to PCRF in a 4G communication system). The UDM can be configured to store subscriber profiles and data (similar to an HSS in a 4G communication system).

[0041] The LMF 133 may be used in connection with 5G positioning functionalities. In some aspects, LMF 133 receives measurements and assistance information from the next generation radio access network (NG- RAN) 110 and the mobile device (e.g., UE 101) via the AMF 132 over the NLs interface to compute the position of the UE 101. In some aspects, NR positioning protocol A (NRPPa) may be used to carry' the positioning information between NG-RAN and LMF 133 over a next generation control plane interface (NG-C). In some aspects, LMF 133 configures the UE using the LTE positioning protocol (LPP) via AMF 132. The NG RAN 110 configures the UE 101 using radio resource control (RRC) protocol over LTE-Uu and NR-Uu interfaces.

[0042] In some aspects, the 5G system architecture 140B configures different reference signals to enable positioning measurements. Example reference signals that may be used for positioning measurements include the positioning reference signal (NR PRS) in the downlink and the sounding reference signal (SRS) for positioning in the uplink. The downlink positioning reference signal (PRS) is a reference signal configured to support downlink- based positioning methods.

[0043] In some aspects, the 5G system architecture 140B includes an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) 168B as well as a plurality of IP multimedia core network subsystem entities, such as call session control functions (CSCFs).

More specifically, the IMS 168B includes a CSCF, which can act as a proxy CSCF (P-CSCF) 162BE, a serving CSCF (S-CSCF) 164B, an emergency CSCF (E-CSCF) (not illustrated in FIG. 1B), or interrogating CSCF (1-CSCF) 166B. The P-CSCF 162B can be configured to be the first contact point for the UE 102 within the W subsystem (IMS) 168B The S CSCF 164B can be configured to handle the session states in the network, and the E-CSCF can be configured to handle certain aspects of emergency sessions such as routing an emergency request to the correct emergency center or PS AP. The I-CSCF 166B can be configured to function as the contact point within an operator's network for all IMS connections destined to a subscriber of that network operator, or a roaming subscriber currently located within that network operator's sendee area. In some aspects, the I-CSCF 166B can be connected to another IP multimedia network 170E, e.g. an IMS operated by a different network operator.

[0044] In some aspects, the UDM/HSS 146 can be coupled to an application server 160E, which can include a telephony application server (TAS) or another application server (AS). The AS 160B can be coupled to the IMS I68B via the S-CSCF 164B or the I-CSCF I66B.

[0045] A reference point representation shows that interaction can exist between corresponding NF sendees. For example, FIG. 1B illustrates the following reference points: N1 (between the UE 102 and the AMF 132), N2 (between the ILAN 110 and the AMF 132), N3 (between the ILAN 110 and the UPF 134), N4 (between the SMF 136 and the UPF 134), N5 (between the PCF 148 and the AF 150, not shown), N6 (between the UPF 134 and the DN 152), N7 (between the SMF 136 and the PCF 148, not shown), N8 (between the UDM 146 and the AMF 132, not shown), N9 (between two UPFs 134, not shown),

N10 (between the UDM 146 and the SMF 136, not shown). Ni l (between the AMF 132 and the SMF 136, not shown), N12 (between the AUSF 144 and the AMF 132, not shown), N13 (between the AUSF 144 and the UDM 146, not shown), N14 (between two AMFs 132, not shown), N15 (between the PCF 148 and the AMF 132 in case of a non-roaming scenario, or between the PCF 148 and a visited network and AMF 132 in case of a roaming scenario, not shown), N16 (between two SMFs, not shown), and N22 (between AMF 132 and NSSF 142, not shown). Other reference point representations not shown in FIG. 1B can also be used. [0046] FIG. 1C illustrates a 5G system architecture 140C and a service- based representation. In addition to the network entities illustrated in FIG. 1B, system architecture 140C can also include a network exposure function (NEF) 154 and a network repository function (NRF) 156 In some aspects 5G system architectures can be sendee-based and interaction between network functions can be represented by corresponding point-to-point reference points Ni or as service-based interfaces.

In some aspects, as illustrated in FIG. 1C, sendee-based representations can be used to represent network functions within the control plane that enable other authorized network functions to access their sendees. In this regard, 5G system architecture 140C can include the following service- based interfaces: Namf 158H (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the AMF 132), Nsmf 1581 (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the SMF 136), Nnef 158B (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the NEF 154), Npcf 158D (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the PCF 148), a Nudm 158E (a sendee- based interface exhibited by the UDM 146), Naf 158F (a service-based interface exhibited by the AF 150), Nnrf 158C (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the NRF 156), Nnssf .158 A (a sendee-based interface exhibited by the NSSF 142), Nausf 158G (a service-based interface exhibited by the AUSF 144). Other sendee-based interfaces (e.g., Nudr, N5g-eir, and Nudsf) not shown in FIG. 1C can also be used.

[0048] FIG. 2, FIG. 3, and FIG. 4 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments in different communication systems, such as 5G-NK (and beyond) networks. UEs, base stations (such as gNBs), and/or other nodes (e.g., satellites or other NTN nodes) discussed in connection with FIGS. 1A-4 can be configured to perform the disclosed techniques.

[0049] FIG. 2 illustrates a network 200 in accordance with various embodiments. The network 200 may operate in a manner consistent with 3 GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3 GPP systems, or the like.

[0050] The network 200 may include a UE 202, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 204 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 202 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computing device, desktop computer. laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment, in-car entertainment device, instrument cluster, head-up display device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, M2M or D2D device, loT device, etc.

[0051] In some embodiments, the network 200 may include a plurality of UEs coupled directly with one another via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M/D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.

[0052] In some embodiments, the UE 202 may additionally communicate with an AP 206 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 206 may manage a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 204. The connection between the UE 202 and the AP 206 may be consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 206 could be a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In some embodiments, the UE 202, RAN 204, and AP 206 may utilize cellular- WLAN aggregation (for example, LWA/LWIP). Cellular- WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 202 being configured by the RAN 204 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

[0053] The RAN 204 may include one or more access nodes, for example, access node (AN) 208. AN 208 may terminate air-interface protocols for the UE 202 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP), Radio Link Control (RLC), MAC, and L1 protocols. In this manner, the AN 208 may enable data/voice connectivity between the core network (ON) 220 and the UE 202. In some embodiments, the AN 208 may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or more software entities running on server computers as part, of, for example, a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool. The AN 208 be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. The AN 208 may be a macrocell base station or a low-power base station for providing femtocells picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

[0054] In embodiments in which the RAN 204 includes a plurality of ANs, they may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 204 is an LTE RAN) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 204 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data/context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc. [0055] The ANs of the RAN 204 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide the HE 202 with an air interface for network access. The UE 202 may be simultaneously connected with a plurality of cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 204. For example, the UE 202 and RAN 204 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 202 to connect with a plurality of component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN may be a master node that provides an MCG and a second AN may be a secondary node that provides an 8CG. The first/second ANs may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc. [0056] The RAN 204 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LA A, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells/Sceils. Before accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium/carrier-sensing operations based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0057] In V2X scenarios, the UE 202 or AN 208 may be or act as a roadside unit (RSU), which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity- used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary') UE. An RSU implemented in or by: a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU”: a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB -type RSU”; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high-speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally, or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellularAVLAN communications services. The components of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network.

[0058] In some embodiments, the RAN 204 may be an LTE RAN 210 with eNBs, for example, eNB 212. The LTE RAN 210 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: sub-carrier spacing (SCS) of 15 kHz;

CP-OFDM waveform for downlink (DL) and SC-FDMA waveform for uplink (U L); turbo codes for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management, PDSCHZPDCCH DMRS for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; and CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operate on sub-6 GHz bands.

[0059] In some embodiments, the RAN 204 may be an NG-RAN 214 with gNBs, for example, gNB 216, or ng-eNBs, for example, ng-eNB 218. The gNB 216 may connect with 5G-enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 216 may connect with a 5G core through an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 218 may also connect with the 5G core through an NG interface but may connect with a UE via an LTE air interface. The gNB 216 and the ng-eNB 218 may connect over an Xn interface.

[0060] In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 214 and a UPF 248 (e.g., N3 interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN214 and an AMF 244 (e.g., N2 interface). [0061] The NG-RAN 214 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM, and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCHZPDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH and tracking reference signal for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operate on FR1 bands that include sub-6 GHz bands or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include a synchronization signal and physical broadcast channel (SS/PBCH) block (SSB) that is an area of a downlink resource grid that includes PSS/SSS/PBCH.

[0062] In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs (bandwidth parts) for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used for dynamic adaptation of the SCS. For example, the UE 202 can be configured with multiple BWPs where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 202, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 202 with different amounts of frequency resources (for example, PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with a small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 202 and in some cases at the gNB 216. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic loads.

[0063] The RAN 204 is communicatively coupled to CN 220 that includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (for example, users of UE 202). The components of the CN 220 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 220 onto physical compute/ storage resources in servers, switches, etc. A logical instantiation of the CN 220 may be referred to as a network slice and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 220 may be referred to as a network sub slice.

[0064] In some embodiments, the CN 220 may be connected to the LTE radio network as part of the Enhanced Packet System (EPS) 222, which may also be referred to as an EPC (or enhanced packet core). The EPC 222 may include MME 224, 8 GW 226, SGSN 228, HS8230, PGW 232, and PCRF 234 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the EPC 222 may be briefly introduced as follows.

[0065] The MME 224 may implement mobility management functions to track the current location of the UE 202 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

[0066] The SGW 226 may terminate an SI interface toward the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the EPC 222. The SGW 226 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[0067] The SGSN 2:28 may track the location of the UE 202 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 228 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 224; MME selection for handovers; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 224 and the SGSN 228 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP access network mobility in idle/active states.

[0068] The H8S 2.30 may include a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 230 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An 86a reference point between the HSS 230 and the MME 224 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing user access to the LTE CN 220.

[0069] The PGW 232 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 236 that may include an application/content server 238. The PGW 232 may route data packets between the LTE CN 220 and the data network 236. The PGW 232 may be coupled with the SGW 226 by an 85 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 232 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (for example, PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point between the PGW 232 and the data network 236 may be an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. The PGW 23:2 may be coupled with a PCRF 234 via a Gx reference point.

[0070] The PCRF 234 is the policy and charging control element of the LTE CN 220. The PCRF 234 may be communicatively coupled to the app/content server 238 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for sendee flows. The PCRF 234 may provision associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI.

[0071] In some embodiments, the CN 220 may be a 5GC 240. The 5GC

240 may include an AUSF 242, AMF 244, SMF 246, UPF 248, NSSF 250, NEF

252, NKF 254, PCF 256, UDM 258, and AF 260 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. Functions of the elements of the 5GC 240 may be briefly introduced as follows.

[0072] The AUSF 242 may store data for authentication of UE 202 and handle authentication-related functionality. The AUSF 242 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5GC 240 over reference points as shown, the AUSF 242 may exhibit a Nausf sendee-based interface.

[0073] The AMF 244 may allow other functions of the 5GC 240 to communicate with the UE 202 and the RAN 204 and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events with respect to the UE 202, The AMF 244 may be responsible for registration management (for example, for registering UE 202), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF -related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 244 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 202 and the SMF 246, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 244 may also provide transport for SMS messages between UE 202 and an SMSF. AMF 244 may interact with the AUSF 24:2 and the UE 202 to perform various security anchor and context management functions.

Furthermore, AMF 244 may be a termination point of a RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the RAN 204 and the AMF 244; and the AMF 244 may be a termination point of NAS (Nl) signaling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrity protection. AMF 244 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 202 over an N3 IWF interface.

[0074] The SMF 246 may be responsible for SM (for example, session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 248 and AN 208); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 248 to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages, downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sent via AMF 244 over N2 to AN 208; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM may refer to the management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 202 and the data network 236.

[0075] The UPF 248 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter- RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnecting to data network

236, and a branching point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 248 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (LIP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 248 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network. [0076] The NSSF 250 may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE 202. The NSSF 250 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs if needed. The NSSF 250 may also determine the AMF set to be used to serve the UE 202 or a list of candidate AMFs based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 254. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 202 may be triggered by the AMF 244 with which the UE 202 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 250, which may lead to a change of AMF. The NSSF 250 may interact with the AMF 244 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). Additionally, the NSSF 250 may exhibit an Nnssf service-based interface.

[0077] The NEF 252 may securely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for the third party, internal exposure/re- exposure, AFs (e.g., AF 260), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 252 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 252 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 260 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 252 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 252 may also receive information from other NFs based on the exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information may be stored at the NEF 252 as structured data, or a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF 252 to other NFs and AFs, or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF 252 may exhibit a Nnef service-based interface.

[0078] The NRF 254 may support service discovery functions, receive NF discovery' requests from NF instances, and provide the information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 254 also maintains information on available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 254 may exhibit the Nnrf service-based interface,

[0079] The PCF 256 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support a unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 256 may also implement a front end to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM 258. In addition to communicating with functions over reference points as shown, the PCF 256 exhibits an Npcf service-based interface.

[0080] The UDM 258 may handle subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions and may store the subscription data of UE 202. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 258 and the AMF 244. The UDM 258 may include two parts, an application front, end, and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 258 and the PCF 256, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 202) for the NEF 252. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR to allow the UDM 258, PCF 256, and NEF 252 to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), del ete, and subscribe to the notification of relevant data changes in the UDR.

The UDM may include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, subscription management, and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points as shown, the UDM 258 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

[0081] The AF 260 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provide access to NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

[0082] In some embodiments, the 5GC 240 may enable edge computing by selecting operator/3rd party services to be geographically close to a point that the UE 202 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide edge-computing implementations, the 5GC 240 may select a UPF 248 close to the UE 202 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 248 to data network 236 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 260. In this way the AF 260 may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing Based on operator deployment, when AF 260 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 260 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 260 may exhibit, a Naf service-based interface.

[0083] The data network 236 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party sendees that may be provided by one or more servers including, for example, application/content server 238.

[0084] FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a wireless network 300 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless netw'ork 300 may include a UE 302 in wireless communication with AN 304. The UE 302 and AN 304 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein.

[0085] The UE 30:2 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 304 via connection 306. The connection 306 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5(3 NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6 GHz frequencies.

[0086] The UE 302 may include a host platform 308 coupled with a modem platform 310. The host platform 308 may include application processing circuitry 312, which may he coupled with protocol processing circuitry' 314 of the modem platform 310. The application processing circuitry 312 may run various applications for the UE 302 that source/sink application data. The application processing circuitry 312 may further implement one or more layer operations to transmit/receive application data to/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations

[0087] The protocol processing circuitry _' 314 may implement one or more layer operations to facilitate transmission or reception of data over the connection 306. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 314 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC, and NAS operations.

[0088] The modem platform 310 may further include digital baseband circuitry 316 that may implement one or more layer operations that are “below” layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 314 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/ decoding, layer mapping/de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space- frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions. [0089] The modem platform 310 may further include transmit circuitry

318, receive circuitry 320, RF circuitry 322, and RF front end (RFFE) 324, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 326. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 318 may include a digital-to-analog converter, mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.; the receive circuitry 320 may include an analog-to-digital converter, mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 322 may include a low-noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; RFFE 324 may include filters (for example, surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 318, receive circuitry 320, RF circuitry 322, RFFE 324, and antenna panels 326 (referred generically as “transmit/receive components”) may be specific to details of a specific implementation such as, for example, whether the communication is TDM or FDM, in mmWave or sub-6 GHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be disposed of in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

[0090] In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry 314 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

[0091] A UE reception may be established by and via the antenna panels 326, RFFE 324, RF circuitry 322, receive circuitry 320, digital baseband circuitry 316 and protocol processing circuitry 314 In some embodiments the antenna panels 326 may receive a transmission from the AN 304 by receive- beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/ antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 326.

[0092] A UE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 314, digital baseband circuitry 316, transmit circuitry 318,

RF circuitry 322, RFFE 324, and antenna panels 326. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 302 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panels 326. [0093] Similar to the UE 302, the AN 304 may include a host platform

328 coupled with a modem platform 330. The host platform 328 may include application processing circuitry 332 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 334 of the modem platform 330. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 336, transmit circuitry 338, receive circuitry 340, RF circuitry 342, RFFE circuitry 344, and antenna panels 346. The components of the AN 304 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with like-named components of the UE 302. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of the AN 304 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, R.NC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

[0094] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

Specifically, FIG. 4 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 400 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 410, one or more memory/storage devices 420, and one or more communication resources 430, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 440 or other interface circuitry . For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 402 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 400. [0095] The processors 410 may include, for example, a processor 412 and a processor 414. The processors 410 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio- frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof

[0096] The memory/ storage devices 420 may include a main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 420 may include but are not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc. [0097] The communication resources 430 may include interconnection or network interface controllers, components, or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 404 or one or more databases 406 or other network elements via a network 408. For example, the communication resources 430 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components,

NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi- Fi® components, and other communication components.

[0098] Instructions 450 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 410 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 450 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 410 (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 420, or any suitable combination thereof Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 450 may be transferred to the hardware resources 400 from any combination of the peripheral devices 404 or the databases 406. Accordingly, the memory of processors 410, the memory/storage devices 420, the peripheral devices 404, and the databases 406 are examples of computer readable and machine readable media [0099] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components outlined in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as outlined in the example sections below. For example, baseband circuitry associated with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, satellite, network element, etc. as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below in the example section.

[00100] The term “application” may refer to a complete and deployable package, environment to achieve a certain function in an operational environment. The term “AI/ML application” or the like may be an application that, contains some artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) models and application-level descriptions. In some embodiments, an AI/ML application may be used for configuring or implementing one or more of the disclosed aspects.

[00101] The term “machine learning” or “ML” refers to the use of computer systems implementing algorithms and/or statistical models to perform a specific task(s) without using explicit instructions but instead relying on patterns and inferences. ML. algorithms build or estimate mathematical model(s) (referred to as “ML models” or the like) based on sample data (referred to as “training data,” “model training information,” or the like) to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform such tasks. Generally, an ML algorithm is a computer program that learns from experience with respect to some task and some performance measure, and an ML model may be any object or data structure created after an ML algorithm is trained with one or more training datasets. After training, an ML, model may be used to make predictions on new datasets. Although the term “ML algorithm” refers to different concepts than the term “ML model,” these terms as discussed herein may be used interchangeably for the present disclosure.

[00102] The term “machine learning model,” “AIL model,” or the like may also refer to ML methods and concepts used by an ML assisted solution An “ML-assisted solution” is a solution that addresses a specific use case using ML algorithms during operation. ML models include supervised learning (e.g., linear regression, k-nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree algorithms, support machine vectors, Bayesian algorithm, ensemble algorithms, etc.) unsupervi sed learning (e.g., K-means clustering, principal component analysis (PCA), etc.), reinforcement learning (e.g., Q-learning, multi-armed bandit learning, deep RL, etc,), neural networks, and the like. Depending on the implementation a specific ML model could have many sub-models as components and the ML model may train all sub-models together. Separately trained ML models can also be chained together in an ML pipeline during inference. An “ML pipeline” is a set of functionalities, functions, or functional entities specific for an ML-assisted solution; an ML pipeline may include one or several data sources in a data pipeline, a model training pipeline, a model evaluation pipeline, and an actor.

The “actor” is an entity that hosts an ML-assisted solution using the output of the ML model inference). The term “ML training host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the training of the model. The term “ML inference host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the model during inference mode (which includes both the model execution as well as any online learning if applicable). The ML -host informs the actor about the output of the ML algorithm, and the actor decides for an action (an “action” is performed by an actor as a result of the output of an ML-assisted solution). The term “model inference information” refers to information used as an input to the ML model for determining inference(s); the data used to train an ML. model and the data used to determine inferences may overlap, however, “training data” and “inference data” refer to different concepts.

[00103] The achievable latency and reliability performance of NR are keys to support use cases with tighter requirements. To extend the NR applicability in various verticals, Rel-16 NR evolved to support use cases including the following: Release 15 enabled use case improvements (e.g., AR/VR and entertainment industry applications) and new Release 16 use cases with higher requirements (e.g., factory automation, transport industry, and electrical power distribution). [00104] However, in some of the scenarios listed above, a limiting factor is the availability of the spectrum. To mitigate this, one of the objectives of Rel.

17 is to identify potential enhancements to ensure Release 16 feature compatibility with unlicensed band ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) and Industrial Intemet-of-Things (IIoT) operation in controlled environments.

[00105] In some embodiments, aspects of the design that can be enhanced when operating in an unlicensed spectrum may be identified. One of the challenges is that the system complies with the regulatory requirements dictated for the sub-6 GHz band, where a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure needs to be performed in some parts of the World to acquire the medium before a transmission can occur (e.g., as described in ETSI EN 301 893 specification), while still being able to guarantee the requirements in terms of reliability and latency identified for the design of URLLC/IIoT to meet the aforementioned use cases. Additional design considerations may be made in this regard. In some aspects, when operating URLLC/IIoT in the unlicensed spectrum, due to the LBT procedure and its aleatory nature, additional latency and loss in reliability may be introduced depending on the medium contention when the LBT fails.

[00106] In some aspects, both load-based equipment (LBE) and frame- based equipment (FBE) design can be adopted to accommodate different scenarios and the use of the LBT procedure. However, for the FBE framework, to exemplify the NR-U design, only the gNB can be acting as an initiating device, and the starting positions of the fixed frame periods align with every even frame given that the fixed frame period (FFP) can be one of {1ms, 2ms, 2.5ms, 4ms, 5ms, 10ms}. However, this mode of operation may lead to long delays when an LBT failure occurs at the gNB at the beginning of an FFP, since in this case all the DL and UL transmissions scheduled within that FFP may need to be postponed to the following FFP for which a gNB can succeed its LBT procedure. [00107] Given that in URLLC/IIoT design, meeting the stringent latency requirements can be considered. In this regard, this mode of operation may be modified and the single point of failure at the gNB may be removed providing a device with more opportunities to be able to transmit and allow the device to be able to operate as an initiating device and acquire their own channel occupancy time (COT). In some aspects, for UL scheduled transmissions, a new signaling framework may be defined for the gNB to indicate to the HE not only what, kind of LBT type it should use, but also whether the LIE may be operating as initiating or responding device. In this context, the disclosed techniques provide several options and related details regarding how-' the gNB may indicate to the UE whether that scheduled transmission may need to be performed assuming the transmission lies within a gNB's FFP or within the UE's FFP (in this last case, the LIE may acquire its FFP before the transmission, or may ensure the correct. UE's behavior is followed to properly perform that transmission as the UE would need to operate as the initiating device).

[00108] T o remove the single point of failure that the Rel. 16 FBE design imposed at the gNB when this cannot acquire an FFP, the disclosed techniques can be used to enable a UE for operating as an initialing device. The disclosed techniques also define the signaling framework for the gNB to control and indicate to a UE whether the UE would operate as initiating or responding device for scheduled UL transmissions. The disclosed techniques also provide options and details that may help close this gap.

[00109] (A) Techniques to indicate and determine whether the UE would operate as an initiating or a responding device in semi-static channel access mode.

[00110] E TSI EN 301 893 defines the 5 GHz unlicensed band regulator}' requirements for the EU. The disclosed techniques include channel access mechanisms for either LBE or FBE. While LAA/eLAA/feLAA designs have been developed for the channel access procedure that uses load-based access, two separate designs have been supported for NR-U: i) the first design is based on the channel access procedure for load-based access; ii) and the second design is instead based on the channel access procedure for frame-based access.

[00111] F or the FBE framework, to exemplify the NR-U design, in some aspects, only the gNB can be acting as an initiating device, and the starting positions of the fixed frame periods align with every even frame given that the fixed frame period (FFP) can be {lms, 2ms, 2.5ms, 4ms, Sms, 10ms). However, this mode of operation may lead to very long delays when an LBT failure occurs at the gNB at the beginning of an FFP, since in this case all the DL and UL transmissions that were supposed to be transmitted within that FFP may need to be postponed to the following FFP for which a gNB can succeed its LBT procedure. Given that in URLLC/IIoT design a big emphasis has been put on restricting any latency, this mode of operation may need to be modified and the single point of failure at the gNB may need to be removed providing every device with more opportunities to transmit, and more importantly with the opportunity to operate as an initiating device.

[00112] Therefore, moving forward in enabling URLLC and IIoT in the sub-6 GHz band, given that the UE would need to be allowed to operate as an initiating device, a framework may be configured using the disclosed techniques, allowing the UE and gNB to be able to respectively know when either one or the other operates as initiating device at a specific time instance.

[00113] In one embodiment, if the gNB's and UE's FFP are configured such that the UE's FFP is confined or at least the initial part of its FFP lies within a gNB's FFP (i.e.., the gNB's FFP is larger than the UE's FFP, or the gNB's FFP is equal to the UE's FFP but the starting position of the two is different, and the gNB's FFP starts before the UE's FFP), no explicit indication is required by the gNB to the UE, regarding when it can operate as an initiating device. In some aspects, the UE may assume that it can operate as initiating device only when the gNB is not able to acquire the FFP overlapping with the UE's FFP within which the gNB has scheduled the related UL transmissions. In this matter, the UE may need to monitor any DL transmissions at the beginning of the gNB's FFP, and if assesses that no DL transmission was performed, then it would assess that the gNB's FFP was not successfully acquired, and therefore the UE will be operating as initiating device. Otherwise, it will be operating as a responding device.

[00114] FIG. 5 illustrates diagram 500 of UE determination of when to operate as initiating device or a responding device, in accordance with some aspects. Diagram 504 in FIG. 5 illustrates the case when the UE's FFP and the gNB's FFP have the same length, and their starting position is not the same.

Diagram 502 depicts the case when the gNB's FFP is larger than the UE's FFP and their starting position is instead the same In both cases the time domain resources used for UL and the CCA procedure are depicted. In both diagrams, the gNB fails to perform the CCA procedure to acquire the gNB's FFP, and the UE by assessing that no DL transmission is performed within the gNB's FFP establishes that it has to operate as initiating device, and it acquires its own FFP to transmit over the scheduled resources.

[00115] In some embodiments, if a scheduled UL transmission is aligned with a UE FFP boundary and it ends before the idle period of that. UE PPF, then the UE assumes that the transmission would need to be performed as if the UE operates as an initiating device. In another option, a new RRC parameter is introduced which may be either cell or UE-specific, which indicates that in the event a scheduled UL transmission is aligned with a UE FFP boundary and it ends before the idle period of that UE PPF, then the UE may either assume that transmission would need to be performed as if the UE operates as an initiating device. [00116] In some aspects, if the transmission is confined within a gNB FFP before the idle period of that gNB FFP, and the UE has already determined that gNB is initiated that gNB FFP, the UE may assume that the scheduled UL transmission corresponds to gNB-initiated COT. Otherwise, the UE may assume that the scheduled UL transmission corresponds to US-initiated COT. [00117] In one embodiment, if cross-FFP scheduling is not allowed, a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by system information block 1 (SIB1) or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, and the gNB does not provide any explicit indication to the UE on whether this may operate as initiation or responding device. The following behavior may be configured: (a) if the LIL transmission occurs within a gNB's COT within an FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is carried, then the UE follows one of the options described above to determine whether it should operate as initiating or responding device to perform that UL burst, and (b) if the UL transmission occurs outside of the gNB's COT or outside of the FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is transmitted, then the UE assumes that the UE would operate as initiating device and can skip any DL monitoring to determine the COT initiator since it WOUM need to imply that it must operate as initiating device.

[00118] In some embodiments, if a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SH31 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, and a gNB schedules a UL transmission in time domain resources belonging to a gNB FFP different than the FFP where the scheduling DO is transmitted, the UE follows COT initiator indication provided within the scheduled DO. However, if a UE is not able to validate the COT ownership provided by the gNB (e.g., the scheduling DO indicated that the gNB is the initiating device, but the UE is not able to assess that the gNB effectively acquired that gNB FFP and/or the transmission prolongs over the gNB's idle period; or the scheduling DO indicated that the UE is the initiating device, but the UE has not been able to acquire that u-FFP and/or the transmission prolongs over the UE's idle period), then the UE drops that scheduled transmission.

[00119] In one embodiment, given that according to the ETSI BRAN 301 893 no cross-FFP scheduling is allowed by a gNB, then: (a) if a gNB schedules a UL transmission within a gNB's FFP which is different from an FFP within which the scheduled UL transmission would be performed, a UE can assume that it may need to operate as an initiating device to perform that transmission.

As an example, regardless of whether explicit signaling is provided or not by the gNB indicating otherwise if the prior condition is met, then a UE assumes that it may need to operate as an initiating device.

[00120] Ib) if the gNB schedules a UL transmission within a gNB's FFP which is the same as the FFP within wdiich the scheduled UL transmission would be performed, a UE can follow one of the following options: (b.1) the UE always assumes that it may operate as a responding device wdien performing that transmission, and (b.2) the UE may follow the indication that is explicitly signaled by the gNB.

[00121] In one embodiment, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode~r16 = 'semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by- higher layer RRC signaling, the field Channel Access-CPext carried in DCI 0_0 and/or 1_0 and/or 2_0 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or TC-

RNTI indicates the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply. In this case, either Table 7.3.1 . 1.1-4 of 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 38.212 could be used, and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new Table could be introduced specifically for a semi-static channel access operation. In the following paragraphs, a few examples of such Tables (e.g., Table I, Table II, and Table III) are provided.

[00122] Table I - example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted: [00123] Table II example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.1 -4 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

[00124] Table III - example of a new Table or how , Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

In some embodiments, the field Channel Access-CPext, which indicates (as listed in Table I or II or III) the channel access type and cyclic prefix (CP) extension that the UE must use, is carried within DCI 2_0. In another embodiment, DCI 0_2 carries the field Channel Access-CPext based on a newly defined RRC parameter, which indicates to the UE the presence of this field.

[00126] In one embodiment, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FTP value is configured, then the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 0_0 and/or 1_0 and/or 2_0 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or TC- RNTl indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/appiy, but also w-hether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. In this case, either Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212 could be used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new Table could be introduced specifically for semi -static channel access operation, as provided for example by Table IV (note that in this case, for entry 0 and 1, the legacy interpretation of COT initiator is used, which implies that the gNB will he the initiator device). In one option of this embodiment, when index 0 or 1 is indicated in DCI 0_0 (or DCI 1_0 or DCI 2_0), the UE would assume that the UE (or gNB) will operate as a responding device (or initiating device) unless the scheduled resources lie within a UE's FFP (or gNB's FTP) and the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB to acquire that FFP to perform a prior scheduled UL transmission (or the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB that this would be acquiring that FFP to perform a prior scheduled DL transmission).

[00127] T able IV - example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 within TS 38.212 can be reinteipreted:

[00128] In some embodiments, the field ChanneiAccess-CPext which indicates as in Table IV the channel access type, the CP extension, and the COT initiator, is always carried within DO 0_2.

[00129] In some embodiments, DCI 0_2 carries the field ChannelAccess- CPext based on a newly defined RRC parameter, wfiich indicates to the LIE the presence of this field. In this case, if field Channel Access-CPext is absent, then the UE determines the COT initiator as follows: if the gNB's and UE's FTP are configured such that the UE's FFP is confined or at least the initial part of its FFP lies within a gNB's FFP (i.e.., the gNB's FFP is larger than the UE's FFP, or the gNB's FFP is equal to the UE's FFP but the starting position of the two is different, and the gNB's FFP starts before the UE's FFP), the UE may assume that it can operate as initiating device only when the gNB is not able to acquire the FFP overlapping with the UE's FFP within which the gNB has scheduled the related IJL transmissions, in this matter, the UE may need to monitor any DL transmissions at the beginning of the gNB's FFP, and if assesses that no DL transmission was performed, then it would assess that the gNB's FFP was not successfully acquired, and therefore the UE will be operating as initiating device. Otherwise, it will be operating as a responding device. [00130] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-rl 6 - semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and in addition, if the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then DCI format DCI 0_0, 0_1, 0_2, 1_0, 1_1, 1_2 or a subset of them (e.g., 0_0, 0_1 , 1_0 and 1_1 , or only 0_0, 0_1) may include an additional bitfield, which explicitly indicates whether a UE or a gNB operates as an initiating or responding device. As an example this new bitfield could be composed by a single bit: (a) when this is bitfield assumes value “0” (or value “1”) or this field is not provided, then the UE would assume that: a UE operates as a responding device, if this information is provided within DCI 0_X, or the gNB operates as a responding device if this information is provided within DCI 1_X; in alterative, regardless of whether this information is provided within DCI 0_X or 1_X , the UE would assume always that a UE (or gNB) operates as a responding device; and (b) when this is bitfield assumes value “1” (or value “0”), then the UE would assume that: a UE operates as an initiating device, if this information is provided within DCI 0_X, or the gNB operates as an initiating device if this information is provided within DCI 1_X; in alterative, regardless of whether this information is provided within DCI 0_X or 1_X, the UE would assume always that a UE (or gNB) operates as an initiating device. [00131] In some embodiments, a new RRC parameter is introduced specifically to configure whether this bitfield would be carried or not within a DCI format.

[00132] In some aspects, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the field ChannelAccess-CPext-CAPC carried in

DCI 0_1 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB wouki need to use/apply. In this case, one of the following options could be used: (a) Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 of TS 38.212 is substituted with a new table similar to Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212 as those introduced above (e.g., Table I, II, III or IV); and (b) Table

7.3.1.1.2-35 of TS 38.212 is used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new table is formed, and the CAPC information would be ignored if carried. Some possible examples are provided below through Table V and Table VI [00133] Table V -- example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

[00134] Table VI - example of a new Table or how Table 7,3. 1.1,2-35 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

[00135] In some aspects, Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 of TS 38.212 is used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted by the UE, using one or more of the foilowing rules: (a) ignore the CAPC information; (b) interpret the indication of “Type2B-ULChannelAccess defined in [clause 4.2.1.2.3 in 37.213]” as if “TypezC-ULChannelAccess defined in [clause 4.2,1 .2.3 in 37.213]” is provided, and (c) interpret the indication of “Type2A-ULChannel Access defined in [ciause 4.2.1.2.1 in 37.213]” and “Type 1-ULChannel Access defined in [clause 4.2.1.1 in 37.213]” as if “Sensing as defined in clause 4.3 in 37.213]” is provided.

[00136] In one embodiment, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RR.C signaling, and the RR.C parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the field Channel Access-CPext-CAPC carried in DCI 0_1 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. In this case, one of the following options could be used: (a) Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 of TS 38.212 is substituted with a new table similar to Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212, and in one example Table IV could be reused; and (b) Table 7.3.1 .1.2-35 of TS 38.212 is used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new table is formed, and the CAPC information would be ignored if carried. Some possible examples are provided below through Table VII and Table VIII.

[00137] Table VII - example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

[00138] Table VIII - example of a new Table or how Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 within TS 38.212 can be reinterpreted:

[00139] Table 7.3.1.1.2-35 of TS 38.212 can be used and a subset of its entries can be reinterpreted by the UE, using one or more of the following rules:

(a) ignore the CAPC information; (b) interpret the indication of “Type2B- ULChannelAccess defined in [clause 4.2.1 .2.3 in 37.213]” as if “Type2C- ULChannelAccess defined in [clause 4.2.1.2.3 in 37.213]” is provided; (c) interpret the indication of “Type2A-ULChannel Access defined in [clause

4.2.1.2.1 in 37.213]” and “Type1-ULChannelAccess defined in [clause 4.2.1.1 in 37.213]” as if “Sensing as defined in clause 4.3 in 37.213]” is provided; and (d) some of the entries larger than index 43 are used to indicate whether a UE would operate as an initiating device. As an example, the entries could be similar to entries 20-31 in Table VII.

[00140] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 1_1 or 2_1 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates the

CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply.

[00141] In this case, one of the following options could be used: (a) Table 7.3.1.2.2-6 of TS 38.212 is substituted with a new table similar to Table 7.3. 1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212 as those introduced above (e.g., Table I, II, III or IV); and (b) Table 7.3.1.2.2-6 of TS 38.212 is used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new table is formed. A possible example is provided by Table VI.

[00142] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the field ChannelAccess-CPext is carried in DCI 1_0 and/or 1_1 and/or 1_2 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel and this indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. In this case, a new Table could be introduced specifically for semi-static channel access operation as provided for example by Table IV. In this example, when index 0 or 1 is indicated in DCI 1_0 (or DCI 1_1 or DCI 1_2), the UE would assume that the gNB will operate as an initiating device (or as a responding device), unless the scheduled resources lie within a UE's FFP (or gNB's FFP) and the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB to acquire that FFP to perform a prior scheduled UL transmission (or the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB that this would be acquiring that FFP to perform a prior scheduled DL transmission).

[00143] In some aspects, the field Channel Access-CPext, which indicates as in Table IV the channel access type, the CP extension, and the COT initiator, is always carried within DCI 1_2. In another aspect, DCI 1_2 carries the field ChannelAccess-CPext based on a newly defined RRC parameter, which indicates to the UE the presence of this field. In this case, if field ChannelAccess-CPext is absent, then the UE determines the COT initiator as follows: if the gNB's and UE's FFP are configured such that the UE's FFP is confined or at least the initial part of its FFP lies within a gNB's FFP (i.e.., the gNB's FFP is larger than the UE's FFP, or the gNB's FFP is equal to the UE's FFP but the starting position of the two is different, and the gNB's FFP starts before the UE's FFP), the UE may assume that it can operate as initiating device only when the gNB is not able to acquire the FFP overlapping with the UE's FFP within which the gNB has scheduled the related UL. transmissions In this matter, the UE may need to monitor any DL transmissions at the beginning of the gNB's FFP, and if assesses that no DL transmission was performed, then it would assess that the gNB's FFP was not successfully acquired, and therefore the UE will be operating as initiating device. Otherwise, it will be operating as a responding device.

[00144] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 1_1 or 2_1 or 1__2 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. In this case, one of the following options could be used: (a) Table

7.3.1.2.2-6 of TS 38.212 is substituted with a new' table similar to Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212 as those introduced above (e.g., Table I, II, III); and (b)

Table 7.3.1.2.2-6 of TS 38.212 is used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted or a new table is formed. A possible example is provided by Table VIII.

[00145] In some aspects, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, DCI format 2_0 or 0_2 carries a new field which indicates via a bitmap whether in a specific slot or symbols a UE would operate as initiating or responding device. [00146] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, and the gNB provides explicit indication through DCI (as per one of the above embodiments) to the UE on whether this may operate as initiation or responding device, the gNB may use this indication to cancel/override its prior decision(s). In other words, the gNB, by indicating to the UE whether it should operate as initiating or responding device, can override over time an earlier decision to acquire an FFP, and indicate to the UE its decision to release a specific COT earlier, or impose a UE to release its COT earlier.

[00147] FIG.6 is a diagram 600 of a base station (e.g., gNB) overriding or canceling its acquired channel occupancy time (COT), in accordance with some aspects. FIG. 6 provides an example of this embodiment: FFP-g #1 is a gNB's FFP, which the gNB has successfully acquired, and shared with a UE. However, if the gNB does not have anything to transmit toward the end of its FFP (or does not have anything to transmit in the follow-up FFP), the gNB can override its decision to be the initiating device, and release its COT. This can be configured by indicating to the UE that is scheduled to transmit within the time domain resources overlapping with FFP-u #1 that it can operate as initiating device within that FFP, for which the UE was initially signaled and was assuming that it wOuld have to operate as responding device, and WOUM have to stop transmitting within the gNB's idle period to be compliant with the ETSI BRAN regulatory requirements.

[00148] In some aspects, the above mechanism could be enabled through one or more of the following options:

[00149] (a) Via scheduling DCI: a scheduling DCI could be transmitted along an FFP to overwrite the COT initiator assumptions that a UE has been previously made. By receiving a scheduling DCI reverting a previously made assumption regarding the COT initiator, a COT can be terminated earlier. One example could be that provided in FIG. 6.

[00150] (b) Via DCI 2_0: a UE can be dynamically indicated to change its assumptions on a specific COT via DCI 2_0. In this case, one or more of the following could be used: 1) an additional field is included within DCI 2_0 to explicit indicate whether a UE should be operated as initiating or responding device: 2) the legacy slot format indication (SFI) could be reused to indicate to the UE that a transmission is canceled and the related COT is released, and 3) the COT duration indicator could be used to indicate to the UE that a transmission is canceled and the related COT is released.

[00151] In some aspects, while the procedure described above is constrained to scheduled transmissions, this could be extended to configured grant (CG) transmissions. In this specific case, given that the UE would autonomously decide whether to transmit or not, it may also be given the choice of releasing its CQT/FFP earlier. In one embodiment, a CG UE may indicate to the gNB its autonomous decision to release its COT by one of the following options:

[00152] (a) A dedicated field is carried within the CG-UCL which indicates explicitly to the gNB that the UE has the intention to terminate earlier its COT or FFP.

[00153] (b) A UE could configure within the CG-UCI an invalid set of bits, for example by indicating that the UE may perform COT sharing with an invalid length of the COT, which may he longer than the maximum FFP itself This information could be interpreted by the gNB as if the UE has the intention to terminate earlier its COT or FFP.

[00154] (c) The indication of early termination of a COT can be done through CRC failure of a code block of either the UCI or the PUSCH or both. As soon as gNB detects a CRC pass failure of a code block, the gNB may assume the CQT/FFP has been terminated.

[00155] (d) The indication of early termination of COT can be implicitly indicated by not transmitting the corresponding DMRS symbols with a PUSCH transmission. In this case, the gNB may assume that the COT/TFP has been terminated from that point onwards.

[00156] (e) The indication of early termination of a COT can be implicitly indicated by demodulation reference sequence (DMRS) which is associated with the PUSCH transmission: (e. i) For a CP-OFDM waveform where Gold sequences are used, the DMRS sequences can be formed by using a different initialization value than that specified in the spec, or different n _SClD , which can be configured by higher layers via RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI or a combination thereof, (e.2) For a DFT-S-OFDM waveform where ZC sequences are used, the DMRS sequences can he formed by using a different, root or cyclic shift, which can be configured by higher layers via RRC signaling or dynamically indicated in the DCI or a combination thereof

[00157] In some aspects, if the DCI X_2 is not configured to carry an explicit indication regarding whether a UE should operate as initiating or responding device, and the UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r 16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the UE wmld determine whether it operates as initiating or responding device as follows:

[00158] (a) If the LIE transmission follows within a gNB's FFP, and the UE has either already initiated that UE FFP given that the current transmission does not follow at the beginning of that UE's FFP, or the UE transmission has assessed that the gNB's FFP has not been acquired by the gNB, then the UE assumes that the scheduled UL transmission would be performed as if the UE is an initiating device.

[00159] (b) Otherwise, if the transmission is confined within a gNB's FFP, and if the LIE has already determined that the gNB has initiated that gNB's FFP, then the UE assumes that the scheduled transmission would be performed as if the LIE is a responding device.

[00160] (n one embodiment, if cross-FFP scheduling is not allowed, a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by 8IB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, and the gNB provides explicit indication through DCI (as per one of the above embodiments) to the UE on whether this may operate as initiation or responding device, the following behavior can be configured:

[00161] (a) If the LIE transmission occurs within a gNB's COT within an FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is transmitted, then the UE follow's the indication of the DCI on whether the UE should operate as initialing or responding device.

[00162] (b) If the UL transmission occurs outside of the gNB's COT or outside of the FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is transmitted, then the UE assumes that the UE would operate as initiating device despite the indication that the gNB provides within the DCI, furthermore:

[00163] (b.1) If the scheduled resources correspond to the beginning of the UE's FFP, despite the CP extension and channel access type indicated by the gNB, the UE will assume that CP=0 needs to be used, that single shot LBT need to be performed, and that the UE operates as an initiating device. In this case, if the UL transmission prolongs over the following UE's idle period, the UE terminates the UL transmission earlier so that this does not overlap with its idle period.

[00164] (b.2) If the scheduled resources lie within a UE's FFP, the UE follows the CP extension and channel access type indicated by the gNB, but it assumes that the transmission is performed within a UE's FFP: if the transmission prolongs over the UE's idle period, the UE terminates the UL transmission earlier so that this does not overlap with its idle period.

[00165] In one embodiment, if cross-FFP scheduling is not allowed, a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by S1BI or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, the following behavior is used by the UE:

[00166] (a) If a UL transmission occurs within a gNB's COT within an

FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is transmitted, then the UE follows the indication of the DCI on whether the UE should operate as initiating or responding device.

[00167] (b) If the UL transmission occurs outside of the gNB's COT or outside of the FFP where the DCI scheduling that transmission is transmitted, then the UE would assume that the UE would operate as initiating or responding device independently of the indication provided within the scheduling DCI as follows: if the gNB's and UE's FFP are configured such that the UE's FFP is confined or at least the initial part of its FFP lies within a gNB's FFP (i.e.., the gNB's FFP is larger than the UE's FFP, or the gNB's FFP is equal to the UE's FFP but the starting position of the two is different, and the gNB's FFP starts before the UE's FFP), the UE may assume that it can operate as initiating device only when the gNB is not able to acquire the FFP overlapping with the UE's FFP within which the gNB has scheduled the related UL transmissions. In this matter, the UE may need to monitor any DL transmissions at the beginning of the gNB's FFP, and if assesses that no DL transmission was performed, then it would assess that the gNB's FFP was not successfully acquired, and therefore the UE will be operating as initiating device. Otherwise, it will be operating as a responding device. [00168] In one embodiment, if cross-FFP scheduling is not allowed, a UE is allowed to transmit HARQ-ACK feedback information for a PDSCH transmission as an initiating device as long as the HARQ-ACK is within the same UE's FFP or COT as the PDSCH was initially transmitted.

In some aspects, a UE is provided with ChannelAccessMode-rl6 ='semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, and a UE is configured to transmit a scheduled PUSCH over a specific bandwidth which spans over multiple LBT BWs (i.e., wideband mode), one of the following options could be applied:

[00170] (a) The UE assumes that irrespective of the LET BWs (those within the transmission BW for the scheduled transmission) and the CCA procedure (single s hot LET or no LET )/ CCA procedure outcome for each LET BWs, the assumption on whether a UE would operate as initiating or responding device is the same across all LET BW when it operates in wideband mode: for instance, if a UE operates as initiating device (or as responding device) on one LBT BW, it should also operate as initiating device (or as responding device) in all other LBT BWs that lie within the scheduled BW for that LE. This implies that if the scheduled transmission lies starting from the beginning of the UE's FFP if a UE operates in wideband mode, and if it operates also as an initiating device, the UE must perform and succeed the CCA procedure in all LBT BW within the transmission BW of the scheduled transmission before the LE can initiate the FFP and transmit.

[00171] In this case, for the UE to assume whether it shall operate as an initiating or a responding device, one of the following sub -options could be applied:

[00172] Option 1: In one sub-option:

[00173] Ia) A UE operates as an initiating device in all LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the UE assesses that the UE shall operate as initiating device in that LBT BW or has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as an initiating device; and

[00174] (b) If for each LBT BW the UE assesses that it shall operate as a responding device or the LE has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as a responding device, then the UE operates as a responding device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00175] Option 2: in one sub -option:

[00176] (a) A UE operates as a responding device in all LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the UE assesses that the UE shall operate as responding device in that LBT BW or has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as a responding device; and

[00177] (b) If for each LBT BW the UE assesses that it shall operate as initiating device or the UE has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as initiating device, then the UE operates as initiating device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00178] Option 3 : In another sub-option, a UE does not need to check its assumptions over all the LBT BWs, but it is sufficient that a UE has received indication (which could be either implicit or explicit or both) from the gNB on one LBT BW to determine whether it shall operate as initiating or a responding device when performing a wideband transmission.

[00179] Option 4: In another sub-option, a UE must check individually on each LBT BW whether it operates as initiating or responding device, since each LBT BW may be operated with different assumptions.

[00180] It may be made configurable by RRC between two different- behaviors Option 1/2 and Option 2/3 above.

[00181] In one sub -option:

[00182] (a) A CG UE operates as an initiating device in ail LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the CG UE assesses that the UE shall operate as initiating device in that LBT BW,

[00183] (b) If for each LBT BW the CG UE assesses that it shall operate as a responding device, then the CG UE operates as a responding device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00184] In one sub-option:

[00185] (a) A DG UE operates as an initiating device in all LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the DG UE has received indication to the gNB that it shall operate as an initiating device. [00186] (b) It for each LBT BW the DG UE has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as a responding device, then the DG UE operates as a responding device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00187] In one sub-option:

[00188] (a) A CG UE operates as a responding device in all LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the CG UE assesses that the UE shall operate as responding device in that LBT BW;

[00189] (b) If for each LBT BW the CG UE assesses that it shall operate as initiating device, then the CG UE operates as initiating device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00190] In one sub-option:

[00191] (a) A DG UE operates as a responding device in all LBT BWs, if for at least one LBT BW the DG UE has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as a responding device;

[00192] (b) If for each LBT BW the DG UE has received indication from the gNB that it shall operate as initiating device, then the DG UE operates as initiating device when operating a wideband transmission.

[00193] In another sub-option, Option 1 (or Option 2 or Option 3) or Option 4 could be supported, and whether one or the other is used would depend upon gNB's configuration. In this case, an additional RRC parameter is introduced, which may signal whether Option 1 (or Option 2 or Option 3) or Option 4 is used.

[00194] In some aspects, in all options listed above, before the UE can perform transmission and decide whether to operate as initiating or responding device, it. must assess whether the channel access requirements are also met. In particular, it must assess whether the CCA procedure was successful in all LBT BWs over which the transmission spans if this is mandated (e.g., the UL transmission aligns with the u-FFP boundary and the UE assess that it should operate as initiating device or if the gap between the beginning of the transmission and the end of the previous one sharing the same CO in that FFP is more than 16 us regardless of whether it operates as initiating or responding device). [00195] In some embodiments, the UE assumes that based on the CCA procedure outcome for each LBT BWs or based on each LBT BW, the UE may operate differently in each of them: for instance, it may operate as initiating device for some LBT BWs, while operating as responding device on others. Furthermore, based on the different assumptions that the UE makes on each LBT BW, if the UE operates as initiating device on some LBT BW, it may not necessarily be able to transmit if it succeeds the CCA procedure on all LBT BW before initiating a transmission, but it may be able to transmit as long as:

[00196] (a) In those for which the UE assumes to operate as responding device, the UE is entitled to transmit based on the minimum requirements from the ETSI BRAN, which means that: if the gap with the burst before the UL transmission is less than 16 us, or if the gap with the burst before the UL transmission is larger than 16 us, but during a 9 us sensing period the UE assesses that, the channel is idle. [00197] (b) In those for which the UE assumes to operate as an initiating device, the UE performs the CCA before the related UE's FFP, and assesses that the medium is idle (i.e., if this is idle in at least one 9 us sensing period).

[00198] FIG. 7 is a diagram 700 illustrating wideband operation and UE assumptions, in accordance with some aspects. FIG. 7 provides an example of the second option of this embodiment: For BW1 and BW3, the gNB has unsuccessfully acquired the gNB's FFP, so the scheduled transmission occurring in those bands and within the UE's FFP could only occur if the CCA before BW1 and BW3 UE's FFPs succeed, given that the UE shall necessarily operate as an initiating device. As for BW2, the gNB has instead been able to acquire the related gNB's FFP, and therefore the UE could operate as a responding device. Furthermore, if in BW2 the gap between bursts is lesser than 16us, no LBT may be even required before transmission of the scheduled UL is allowed individually in that LBT BW. If the first option of the embodiment above is used, in this case, the UE would be forced to perform CCA right before all the UE's FFP, since the UE would need to apply the same assumption for all the LBT BWs, and in this case, it shall assume that the UE would operate as an initiating device. If the second option of the embodiment above is used, the UE could operate as initiating device in BWI and BWS and as a responding device in BW2. Furthermore, the UE may be allowed to transmit the scheduled PUSCH over these BWs by only succeeding the CCA procedure in BW1 and BW3, given that in BW2 no LBT is needed if the gap with the prior burst is lesser than 16us.

An idle period of at least 100 us or 5% of the FFP, whichever is smaller, is mandated by the ETSI BILAN 301 893 for each FFP of an initiating device when this operates in semi -persistent channel access mode. While this adaptivity procedure is enforced to mitigate possible mutual blocking among devices operating in the sub-6 GHz band, two or more UEs can still block each other if their transmissions overlap with the other device's idle period. To mitigate further this issue, in one embodiment, the gNB could not only indicate to each UE the channel access type, CP extension and/or the COT initiator, but it could also indicate to maximum COT that this can utilize (independently on whether the gNB or UE operate as initiating or responding device). This indication intends to limit the transmission length of each LIE so that the gNB can always guarantee by proper scheduling that multiple UEs would not overlap their transmissions within the other device idle/CCA period causing mutual blocking among each other. In this matter, one or more of the following options could be configured: [00200] (a) For a scheduled UE transmission:

[00201] (a.1) an additional field may be included in DCI 0_0 and/or 0_1 and/or 0_2 which indicates the maximum COT that a LIE can utilize. In one option, the presence of this field could be RRC configured by a newly defined parameter, which indicates to the UE whether this additional field would be present or absent. In one option, this additional field is composed of 1/2/3/or 4 bits where each indicated value corresponds to a specific COT indication which is fixed and indicated within the specification. In another option, the additional field could be composed of X bits, where X= [log_2 C], where C is the number of combinations configured via RRC signaling. [00202] (a.2) A new UE-specific RRC parameter is introduced, which indicates among a set of predefined values the maximum COT that a UE can utilize.

[00203] (b) For a CG UE transmission: [00204] (b.1) When one or more among DO 0_0 and/or 0_1 and/or 0_2 is used to activate a CG transmission an additional field is included which indicates the maximum COT that a UE can utilize. In one option, the presence of this field could he RRC configured by a newly defined parameter, which indicates to the UE wTs ether this additional field wOuld be present or absent. In one option, this additional field is composed of 1/2/3/or 4 bits where each indicated value corresponds to a specific COT indication which is fixed and indicated within the specification. In another option, the additional field could be composed of X bits, where X= [log_2 C], where C is the number of combinations configured via RRC signaling.

[00205] (b.2) A UE is further configured with an additional RRC parameter which indicates the maximum COT that a UE can utilize, and which may be optionally included within the ConfiguredGrantConfig information element. The newly defined UE- specific RRC parameter may indicate among a set of predefined values the maximum COT that a UE can utilize.

[00206] In some aspects, the embodiments listed above are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them may apply together or could be combined.

[00207] This disclosure provides details regarding how the UE would know the initiator of a specific COT or FFP, and how the gNB may implicitly or explicitly provide this information. In some aspects, if the gNB's and UE's FFP are configured such that the UE's FFP is confined or at least the initial part of its FFP lies within a gNB's FFP no explicit indication is required by the gNB to the UE, regarding when it can operate as an initiating device. The UE may assume that it can operate as initiating device only when the gNB is not able to acquire the FFP overlapping with the UE's FFP within which the gNB has scheduled the related UL transmissions. In this matter, the UE may need to monitor any DL transmissions at the beginning of the gNB's FFP, and if assesses that no DL transmission was performed, then it would assess that the gNB's FFP was not successfully acquired, and therefore the UE will be operating as initiating device.

[00208] In some embodiments, if a gNB schedules a UL transmission within a gNB's FFP which is different from an FFP within which the scheduled UL transmission would be performed, a UE can assume that it may need to operate as art initiating device to perform that transmission. In some embodiments, if the gNB schedules a UL transmission within a gNB's FFP which is the same as the FFP within which the scheduled UL transmission would be performed, a UE can follow one of the following options: the UE always assumes that it may operate as a responding device when performing that transmission; and the UE may follow the indication that is explicitly signaled by the gNB.

[00209] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 0_0 and/or 1_0 and/or 2_0 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or TC- RNTI indicates the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply. In this case, either Table 7.3.1 . 1.1-4 of TS 38.212 could be used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new Table could be introduced specifically for a semi-static channel access operation.

[00210] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with

Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE’s FFP value is configured, then the field Channel Access-CPext carried in DCI 0_0 and/or 1_0 and/or 2_0 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access with CRC scrambled by C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or TC- RNTI indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. In this case, either Table 7.3.1.1.1-4 of TS 38.212 could be used and a subset of its entries are reinterpreted, or a new Table could be introduced specifically for a semi-static channel access operation. In one option of this embodiment, when index 0 or 1 is indicated in DCI 0_0 (or DCI 1_0 or DCI 2_0), the UE would assume that the UE (or gNB) will operate as a responding device (or initiating device) unless the scheduled resources lie within a UE's FFP (or gNB's FFP) and the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB to acquire that FFP to perform a prior scheduled UL transmission (or the UE has been previously indicated by the gNB that this would be acquiring that FFP to perform a prior scheduled DL transmission).

[00211] In some aspects, w-hen a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SB31 or a dedicated configuration by- higher layer RRC signaling, and in addition, if the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then DCI format DCI 0_0, 0_1, 0_2, 1_0, 1_1, 1_2 or a subset of them (e.g., 0_0, 0_1, 1_0 and 1_1, or only 0_0, 0_1) may include an additional bitfield, vriiich explicitly indicates whether a UE or a gNB operates as an initiating or responding device. [00212] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by- higher layer RRC signaling, the field ChannelAccess-CPext-CAPC carried in DCI 0_1 for operation in a ceil with shared spectrum channel access indicates the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply. [00213] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r 16 - semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RR.C parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the field Channel Access-CPext-CAPC carried in DCI 0 1 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. [00214] In some aspects, when a UE is provided with Channel AccessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SIB 1 or a dedicated configuration by- higher layer RRC signaling, the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 1_1 or 2_1 for operation in a ceil with shared spectrum channel access indicates the CC A type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/ apply,

[00215] In some embodiments, when a UE is provided with Channel AceessMode-r16 ='semistatic' by SB31 or a dedicated configuration by- higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, then the field ChannelAccess-CPext carried in DCI 1_1 or 2_1 for operation in a cell with shared spectrum channel access indicates not only the CCA type and CP extension that a UE or gNB would need to use/apply, but also whether the UE or gNB operate as an initiating or responding device. [00216] In some aspects, when a UE is provided with ChannelAccessMode r16 ='semistatic' by SIB1 or a dedicated configuration by higher layer RRC signaling, and the RRC parameter indicating the UE's FFP value is configured, DCI format 2_0 carries a new field which indicates via a bitmap whether in a specific slot or symbols a UE would operate as initiating or responding device.

[00217] FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a communication device such as an evolved Node-B (eNB), a new generation Node-B (gNB) (or another RAN node), an access point (AP), a wireless station (STA), a mobile station (MS), or a user equipment (UE), in accordance with some aspects and to perform one or more of the techniques disclosed herein. In alternative aspects, the communication device 800 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other communication devices.

[00218] Circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry) is a collection of circuits implemented in tangible entities of the device 800 that include hardware (e.g., simple circuits, gates, logic, etc.). Circuitry membership may be flexible over time. Circuitries include members that may, alone or in combination, perform specified operations when operating. In an example, the hardware of the circuitry may be immutably designed to carry out a specific operation (e.g., hardwired). In an example, the hardware of the circuitry may include variably connected physical components (e.g., execution units, transistors, simple circuits, etc.) including a machine-readable medium physically modified (e.g., magnetically, electrically, moveable placement of invariant massed particles, etc. ) to encode instructions of the specific operation. [00219] In connecting the physical components, the underlying electrical properties of a hardware constituent are changed, for example, from an insulator to a conductor or vice versa. The instructions enable embedded hardware (e.g., the execution units or a loading mechanism) to create members of the circuitry in hardware via the variable connections to carry out portions of the specific operation when in operation. Accordingly, in an example, the machine-readable medium elements are part, of the circuitry or are communicatively coupled to the other components of the circuitry' when the device is operating. In an example, any of the physical components may be used in more than one member of more than one circuitry. For example, under operation, execution units may be used in a first, circuit of a first circuitry at one point in time and reused by a second circuit in the first circuitry, or by a third circuit in a second circuitry at a different time. Additional examples of these components with respect to the device 800 follow.

[00220] In some aspects, the device 800 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other devices. In a networked deployment, the communication device 800 may operate in the capacity of a server communication device, a client communication device, or both in server- client network environments. In an example, the communication device 800 may act as a peer communication device in a peer-to-peer (P2P) (or other distributed) network environment. The communication device 800 may be a UE, eNB, PC, a tablet PC, an STB, a PDA, a mobile telephone, a smartphone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any communication device capable of executing instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that communication device. Further, while only a single communication device is illustrated, the term "communication device" shall also be taken to include any collection of communication devices that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), and other computer cluster configurations.

[00221] Examples, as described herein, may include, or may operate on, logic or a number of components, modules, or mechanisms. Modules are tangible entities (e.g., hardware) capable of performing specified operations and may be configured or arranged in a certain manner. In an example, circuits may- be arranged (e.g., internally or with respect to external entities such as other circuits) in a specified manner as a module. In an example, the whole or part of one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone, client, or server computer system) or one or more hardware processors may be configured by firmware or software (e.g., instructions, an application portion, or an application) as a module that operates to perform specified operations. In an example, the software may reside on a communication device-readable medium. In an example, the software, when executed by the underlying hardware of the module, causes the hardware to perform the specified operations.

[00222] Accordingly, the term "module" is understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed, specifically configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarily (e.g., transitorily) configured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a specified manner or to perform part or all of any operation described herein. Considering examples in which modules are temporarily configured, each of the modules need not be instantiated at any one moment in time. For example, where the modules comprise a general -purpose hardware processor configured using the software, the general -purpose hardware processor may be configured as respective different modules at different times. The software may accordingly configure a hardware processor, for example, to constitute a particular module at one instance of time and to constitute a different module at a different instance of time.

[00223] The communication device (e.g., UE) 800 may include a hardware processor 802 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 804, a static memory 806, and a storage device 807 (e.g., hard drive, tape drive, flash storage, or other block or storage devices), some or all of which may communicate with each other via an interlink (e.g., bus) 808.

[00224] The communication device 800 may further include a display device 810, an alphanumeric input device 812 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 814 (e.g., a mouse). In an example, the display device 810, input device 812, and UI navigation device 814 may be a touchscreen display. The communication device 800 may additionally include a signal generation device 818 (e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 820, and one or more sensors 821, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, compass, accelerometer, or another sensor. The communication device 800 may include an output controller 828, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc. ) connection to communicate or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, card reader, etc.). [00225] The storage device 807 may include a communication device- readable medium 822, on which is stored one or more sets of data structures or instructions 824 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. In some aspects, registers of the processor 802, the main memory 804, the static memory 806, and/or the storage device 807 may be, or include (completely or at least partially), the device- readable medium 822, on which is stored the one or more sets of data structures or instructions 824, embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. In an example, one or any combination of the hardware processor 802, the main memory 804, the static memory 806, or the mass storage 816 may constitute the device-readable medium 822.

[00226] As used herein, the term "device-readable medium" is interchangeable with “computer-readable medium” or “machine-readable medium”. While the communication device-readable medium 822 is illustrated as a single medium, the term "communication device-readable medium" may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) configured to store the one or more instructions 824. The term "communication device-readable medium" is inclusive of the terms “machine-readable medium” or “computer-readable medium”, and may include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions (e.g., instructions 824) for execution by the communication device 800 and that causes the communication device 800 to perform any one or more of the techniques of the present disclosure, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non-limiting communication device-readable medium examples may include solid-state memories and optical and magnetic media. Specific examples of communication device-readable media may include non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., Electrically Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; Random Access Memory (R AM); and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks. In some examples, communication device-readable media may include non-transitory communication device-readable media. In some examples, communication device-readable media may include communication device-readable media that is not a transitory propagating signal.

[00227] Instructions 824 may further be transmitted or received over a communications network 826 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 820 utilizing any one of a number of transfer protocols. In an example, the network interface device 820 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phonejacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 826. In an example, the network interface device 820 may include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of single-input-multiple-output (SIMO), MIMO, or multiple-input- single-output (MISO) techniques. In some examples, the network interface device 820 may wirelessly communicate using Multiple User MIMO techniques. [00228] The term "transmission medium" shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the communication device 800, and includes digital or analog communications signals or another intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software. In this regard, a transmission medium in the context of this disclosure is a device-readable medium.

[00229] The terms “machine-readable medium,” “computer-readable medium,” and “device-readable medium” mean the same thing and may be used interchangeably in this disclosure. The terms are defined to include both machine-storage media and transmission media. Thus, the terms include both storage devices/media and carrier waves/modulated data signals.

[00230] Described implementations of the subject matter can include one or more features, alone or in combination as illustrated below by way of examples.

[00231] Example 1 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) configured for operation in a Fifth Generation New Radio (5GNR) network, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry, wherein to configure the UE for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in an unlicensed spectrum of the 5G NR network, the processing circuitry/ is to: decode downlink control information ( DCI) received from a base station via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including channel access configuration information, the channel access configuration information including an indication the UE is to operate as an initiating device; perform a listen-before-talk (LIST) procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the initiating device; acquire a fixed frame period (FFP) of the UE based on a successful completion of the LBT procedure; and encode data for an uplink (UE) transmission to the base station during the FFP, and a memory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store the DCI.

[00232] In Example 2, the subject matter of Example 1 includes subject matter where the channel access configuration information further includes a cyclic prefix (CP) extension index, the CP extension index indicating a CP extension for transmission before the UL transmission.

[00233] In Example 3, the subject matter of Example 2 includes subject matter where the CP extension is zero when the UE is configured to operate as the initiating device.

[00234] In Example 4, the subject matter of Examples 1-3 includes subject matter where the processing circuitry is configured to decode second

DCI received from the base station via the PDCCH, the second DCI including second channel access configuration information, the second channel access configuration information including a time-domain (TD) scheduling grant, a frequency domain (FD) scheduling grant, and an indication the UE is to operate as a responding device.

[00235] In Example 5, the subject matter of Example 4 includes subject matter where the processing circuitry is configured to perform a second LBT procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the responding device, encode additional data for a second UL transmission using the TD scheduling grant and the FD scheduling grant, the second UL transmission based on successful completion of the second LBT procedure.

[00236] In Example 6, the subject matter of Example 5 includes subject matter where the channel access configuration information further includes a cyclic prefix (CP) extension index, the CP extension index indicating a CP extension for transmission before the UL transmission. [00237] In Example 7, the subject matter of Examples 1-6 includes subject matter where the processing circuitry is configured to decode the DCI to further determine a scheduling grant for a second UL transmission, the scheduling grant associated with an FFP of the base station which is after a current FFP of the base station during which the DCI is received.

[00238] In Example 8, the subject matter of Example 7 includes subject matter where the processing circuitry is configured to perform a presence detection to validate a channel occupancy time (COT) ownership by the base station; and encode additional data for the second UL transmission using time and frequency resources of the scheduling grant, based on successful validation of the COT ownership by the base station.

[00239] In Example 9, the subject matter of Examples 1-8 includes, transceiver circuitry' coupled to the processing circuitry ; and one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry. [00240] Example 10 is a computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a base station, the instructions to configure the base station for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in an unlicensed spectrum of in a Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) network, and to cause the base station to perform operations comprising: encoding downlink control information (DCI) for transmission to a user equipment (UE) via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including channel access configuration information, the channel access configuration information including an indication the UE is to operate as an initiating device; and decoding data received in an uplink (UL) transmission by the UE, the UL transmission received during a fixed frame period (FFP) of the UE, the FFP acquired by the UE after a successful completion of a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure, the LBT procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the initiating device.

[00241] In Example 11, the subject matter of Example 10 includes subject matter where the channel access configuration information further includes a cyclic prefix (CP) extension index, the CP extension index indicating a CP extension for transmission before the UL transmission, and wherein the CP extension is zero when the UE is configured to operate as the initiating device. [00242] In Example 12, the subject matter of Examples 10—11 includes, the operations further comprising: encoding second DCI for transmission to the UE via the PDCCH, the second DCI including second channel access configuration information, the second channel access configuration information including a time-domain (TD) scheduling grant, a frequency domain (FD) scheduling grant, and an indication the UE is to operate as a responding device. [00243] In Example 13, the subject matter of Example 12 includes, the operations further comprising: decoding additional data received via a second UL transmission from the UE, the second UL transmission using the TD scheduling grant and the FD scheduling grant, the second UL transmission based on successful completion of a second LBT procedure, the second LBT procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the responding device.

[00244] Example 14 is a computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE), the instructions to configure the UE for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) in an unlicensed spectrum of a Fifth Generation New Radio (5GNR) network and to cause the UE to perform operations comprising: decoding downlink control information (DCI) received from a base station via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), the DCI including channel access configuration information, the channel access configuration information including an indication the UE is to operate as an initiating device; performing a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the initiating device; acquiring a fixed frame period (FFP) of the UE based on successful completion of the LBT procedure; and encoding data for an uplink (UL) transmission to the base station during the FFP.

[00245] In Example 15, the subject matter of Examples 13—14 includes subject matter where the channel access configuration information further includes a cyclic prefix (CP) extension index, the CP extension index indicating a CP extension for transmission before the UL transmission, and wherein the CP extension is zero when the UE is configured to operate as the initiating device.

[00246] In Example 16, the subject matter of Examples 13—15 includes, the operations further comprising: decoding second DCI received from the base station via the PDCCH, the second DCI including second channel access configuration information, the second channel access configuration information including a time-domain (TD) scheduling grant, a frequency domain (FD) scheduling grant, and an indication the UE is to operate as a responding device. [00247] In Example 17, the subject matter of Example 16 includes, the operations further comprising: performing a second LBT procedure based on the indication the UE is to operate as the responding device; encoding additional data for a second UL transmission using the TD scheduling grant and the FD scheduling grant, the second UL transmission based on successful completion of the second LBT procedure. [00248] In Example 18, the subject matter of Example 17 includes subject matter where the channel access configuration information further includes a cyclic prefix (CP) extension index, the CP extension index indicating a CP extension for transmission before the UL transmission.

[00249] In Example 19, the subject matter of Examples 13-18 includes, the operations further comprising: decoding the DCI to further determine a scheduling grant for a second UL transmission, the scheduling grant associated with an FFP of the base station which is after a current FFP of the base station during which the DCI is received.

[00250] In Example 20, the subject matter of Example 19 includes, the operations further comprising: performing a presence detection to validate a channel occupancy time (COT) ownership by the base station; and encoding additional data for the second UL transmission using time and frequency resources of the scheduling grant, based on successful validation of the COT ownership by the base station. [00251] Example 21 is at least one machine-readable medium including instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations to implement any of Examples 1-20.

[00252] Example 22 is an apparatus comprising means to implement any of Examples 1-20. [00253] Example 23 is a system to implement any of Examples 1-20.

[00254] Example 24 is a method to implement any of Examples 1-20.

[00255] Although an aspect has been described with reference to specific exemplary aspects, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these aspects without departing from the broader scope of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. This Detailed Description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of various aspects is defined only by the appended claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.