System and methods are disclosed in which pilots are used to assist in identifying grant-free uplink transmissions originating from the same UE. In one embodiment, a base station receives a grant-free uplink transmission that carries initial data from a user equipment and an initial pilot. The initial pilot is successfully decoded and the initial data is unsuccessfully decoded. The successfully decoded initial pilot and the unsuccessfully decoded initial data are stored in memory. Another grant-free uplink transmission carrying retransmission data from the user equipment and a retransmission pilot is then received. The retransmission pilot is successfully decoded and used to identify the successfully decoded initial pilot in the memory and the unsuccessfully decoded initial data. The retransmission data and the unsuccessfully decoded initial data are used to successfully decode the initial data.