US Patent 11310783 Methods and apparatus for device-to-device communications system

A method includes configuring one or multiple pools of Device-to-Device (D2D) communication resources by an eNodeB (eNB), signaling of the configured pool(s) of D2D communication resources by the eNB to a first User Equipment (UE) and a plurality of UEs using a common broadcast channel; sending a request for one or multiple D2D communication resources to an eNB by the first UE configured to transmit D2D messages; determining one or multiple resources for D2D communication by an eNB for the first UE; communicating D2D resource allocation information to the first UE; communicating D2D resource allocation information by the first UE to multiple UEs; and transmitting D2D data by the first UE to multiple UEs. Methods for configuring and signaling D2D communication resources by relay or out-of-coverage UEs are also considered.