DEVICE TO DEVICE CLUSTER ENHANCEMENT TO SUPPORT DATA TRANSMISSION FROM/TO MULTIPLE DEVICES

摘要

The exemplary embodiments of this invention provide, in one aspect thereof, a method that includes operating a first wireless communications device in a role as a cluster head in a device-to-device communication mode cluster; and autonomously transferring the role of the cluster head to a second wireless communications device in the device-to-device communication mode cluster. In this method only a wireless communications device that is operating in the role of the cluster head has authority to transmit new data to another wireless communications device in the device-to-device communication mode cluster. The exemplary embodiments of this invention also provide, in another aspect thereof, a method that includes operating a first wireless communications device in a role as a cluster head in a device-to-device communication mode cluster; and transmitting a scheduling grant from the wireless communications device that is operating in the role of the cluster head to another wireless communications device in the device-to-device communication mode cluster, In this method the scheduling grant authorizes the another wireless communications device to perform, during a subframe specified by first information in the scheduling grant, a retransmission of data that was received by the another wireless communications device during a subframe specified by second information in the scheduling grant. Also disclosed are corresponding apparatus and computer readable memories storing computer program instructions to implement the methods.