Device, Network, and Method for Communications with Opportunistic Transmission and Reception

Abstract

A system and method of subframe configuration in licensed-assisted access using long-term evolution (LAA-LTE) with carrier aggregation (CA). A wireless device such as an eNodeB (eNB) may transmit control information in a subframe from a secondary cell (SCell) in downlink control information (DCI) to a user equipment (UE). The SCell may operate in an unlicensed band. The control information may indicate at least one of a non-ending subframe in a data burst, an ending subframe, and a duration of the ending subframe. The duration may be one of a predefined number of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol durations, and the ending subframe may be a partial or full subframe. A partial ending subframe may use a time slot structure in a time division duplexing (TDD) scheme, e.g., downlink pilot time slots (DwPTS). The eNB may then transmit to the UE data in the subframe according to the control information.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for subframe configuration in licensed-assisted access using long-term evolution (LAA-LTE) with carrier aggregation (CA), comprising:
 receiving, by a user equipment (UE) from a secondary cell (SCell), control information in a subframe indicating at least one of a non-ending subframe in a data burst, an ending subframe in the data burst, and a duration of the ending subframe in the data burst, wherein the duration is one of a predefined number of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol durations; and   receiving, by the UE, data in the subframe according to the control information.