Disclosure of Invention
The application provides a communication method and a communication device, which are used for realizing the switching of terminal equipment to multicast BWP so as to receive the multicast transmission of a service.
In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, where the method may be applied to a terminal device, or may also be applied to a chip inside the terminal device. Taking the example that the method is applied to a terminal device, the terminal device receives first information from a network device, the first information being used to indicate that a multicast transmission of a first service is received on a first BWP (that is, the first BWP is a multicast BWP), and further, the terminal device may switch a second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information and receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
By adopting the method, the network device indicates the terminal device to receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP through the first information, and the terminal device is further switched to the first BWP according to the first information, so that the terminal device is switched to the multicast BWP to receive the multicast transmission of the service.
In one possible design, the first information is first DCI, the first DCI is scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with a first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is first BWP.
In one possible design, the method further includes receiving second information from the network device, the second information being used to configure a correspondence of the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In this way, by setting the corresponding relation between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service and indicating the terminal device to switch to the multicast BWP in an implicit manner, transmission resources can be effectively saved on the basis of implementing the terminal device to switch to the multicast BWP.
In one possible design, the second information includes a G-RNTI and configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes an RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used for indicating frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, and the frequency domain offset position information being used for determining the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
In one possible design, the second information further includes control resource set information and search space information, where the control resource set information and the search space information are used to indicate a time-frequency location corresponding to the first DCI.
In one possible design, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP, bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes parameter resource indication value RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on a frequency domain, the frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP being used to determine the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
As such, the network device does not need to configure the first BWP for the terminal device in advance, but may send configuration information of the first BWP to the terminal device when the terminal device needs to switch to the first BWP, so that the terminal device may switch to the first BWP according to the configuration information of the first BWP and receive multicast transmission of the traffic on the first multicast BWP. By adopting the mode, on one hand, the switching of the terminal equipment to the multicast BWP is realized, and on the other hand, the first BWP is indicated by an explicit mode without setting the corresponding relation between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, so that the flexibility of regulating and controlling the network equipment is improved.
In one possible design, the first information includes an identification of the first BWP, and the method further includes receiving third information from the network device, wherein the third information is used to configure the at least one BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP, the at least one BWP including the first BWP.
In this way, the network device may configure the multicast BWP and the identifier of the multicast BWP for the terminal device in advance, and thus when the terminal device needs to switch to a certain multicast BWP (such as the first BWP), the identifier of the first BWP may be sent to the terminal device, so that the terminal device may switch to the first BWP according to the identifier of the first BWP and receive the multicast transmission of the service on the first BWP.
In one possible design, the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within the group, the method further comprises receiving fourth information from the network device, wherein the fourth information is used to configure the at least one BWP, the identification of the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, the identification of the at least one BWP within the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, and the at least one BWP comprises the first BWP.
In one possible design, the identification of the group to which the first BWP belongs includes an identification of the type to which the first BWP belongs.
In one possible design, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the first service, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In one possible design, switching the second BWP to the first BWP based on the first information includes switching the second BWP to the first BWP based on the first information when it is determined that the first information is not met, wherein the first item is receiving unicast transmissions of the second traffic on the second BWP when the first information is received, wherein the priority of the first traffic is lower than or equal to the priority of the second traffic, or the priority of the multicast transmissions is lower than or equal to the priority of the unicast transmissions, the second item is receiving multicast transmissions of the third traffic on the second BWP when the first information is received, the priority of the first traffic is lower than or equal to the priority of the third traffic, and the third item is performing a random access procedure on the second BWP when the first information is received.
In one possible design, the method further includes switching the first BWP to a third BWP.
In one possible design, switching the first BWP to the third BWP includes sending a request message to the network device requesting to perform BWP switching, receiving a response message from the network device, and switching the first BWP to the third BWP according to the response message.
In one possible design, the request message includes an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting performing the BWP handoff includes a request message for requesting switching the first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, and the response message includes an identification of a third BWP determined by the at least one candidate BWP.
In one possible design, the at least one candidate BWP includes a default BWP of the terminal device and/or a second BWP.
In one possible design, the request message is a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer or a message of the RRC layer.
In one possible design, switching the first BWP to the third BWP includes determining that multicast transmission of the first traffic is not received on the first BWP within the first duration and that the third DCI is not detected, switching the first BWP to the third BWP, or switching the first BWP to the third BWP if the third DCI is not detected on consecutive M candidate time-frequency locations corresponding to the third DCI, M being a positive integer, wherein the third DCI is used to schedule multicast transmission of the first traffic.
In one possible design, the first time length is determined according to indication information from the network device, wherein the indication information is carried in a system message or a message of an RRC layer or fourth DCI scrambled by a G-RNTI of the first service.
In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, where the method may be applied to a network device, or may also be applied to a chip inside the network device. Taking as an example that the method is applied to a network device, the network device sends first information to a terminal device, the first information being indicative of receiving multicast transmissions of a first service on a first BWP, and the network device sends the multicast transmissions of the first service on the first BWP.
In one possible design, the first information is first DCI from the network device, the first DCI is scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is the first BWP.
In one possible design, the method further includes sending second information to the terminal device, where the second information is used to configure a correspondence between the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In one possible design, the second information includes a G-RNTI and configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes an RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used for indicating frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, and the frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP being used for determining the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
In one possible design, the second information further includes control resource set information and search space information, where a time-frequency location corresponding to the control resource set information and the search space information is used to carry the first DCI.
In one possible design, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP, bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes an RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in the frequency domain, the frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP being used to determine the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
In one possible design, the first information comprises an identification of the first BWP, the method further comprises the network device sending third information to the terminal device, wherein the third information is used to configure the at least one BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP, the at least one BWP comprising the first BWP.
In one possible design, the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within the group, and the method further comprises the network device sending fourth information to the terminal device, wherein the fourth information is used for configuring the at least one BWP, the identification of the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, the identification of the at least one BWP within the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, and the at least one BWP comprises the first BWP.
In one possible design, the identification of the group to which the first BWP belongs includes an identification of the type to which the first BWP belongs.
In one possible design, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the first service, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In a possible design, the method further comprises receiving a request message from the terminal device requesting to perform a BWP switch, and sending a response message to the terminal device according to the request message, the response message being used to indicate to switch the first BWP to a third BWP.
In one possible design, the request message includes an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting performing the BWP handoff includes a request message for requesting switching the first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, and the response message includes an identification of a third BWP determined from the at least one candidate BWP.
In one possible design, the at least one candidate BWP includes a default BWP of the terminal device and/or a second BWP.
In one possible design, the request message is a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer or a message of the RRC layer.
In one possible design, the method further includes sending indication information to the terminal device, the indication information being used for indicating the first duration, the indication information being carried in a system message or a message of an RRC layer or fourth DCI, the fourth DCI being scrambled by a G-RNTI of the first service.
It should be noted that, the communication method provided in the second aspect corresponds to the communication method provided in the first aspect, and the beneficial effects of the corresponding technical features may be referred to the description of the first aspect, which is not repeated.
In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, where the method may be applied to a terminal device, or may also be applied to a chip inside the terminal device. Taking an example that the method is applied to a terminal device, the terminal device receives first information from a network device, the first information being used for indicating that multicast transmission of a first service is received on a first BWP, ignores the first information when at least one of the following first item to third item is determined to be met, wherein the first item is performing unicast transmission of a second service on a second BWP when the first information is received, wherein the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the second service, or the priority of the multicast transmission is lower than or equal to the priority of the unicast transmission, the second item is transmitting multicast data of a third service on the second BWP when the first information is received, and the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the third service, and the third item is performing a random access procedure on the second BWP when the first information is received.
By adopting the mode, when the terminal equipment receives the first information, whether the operation with higher priority is executed on the currently activated BWP can be judged first, if so, the BWP switching operation can be temporarily not executed, otherwise, the BWP switching operation can be executed, and therefore, the interruption of the operation with higher priority can be effectively avoided.
In one possible design, the method further comprises sending notification information to the network device, the notification information indicating that the terminal device has ignored the first information.
In this way, after the terminal device ignores the first information, the network device sends notification information to the network device, so that the network device knows that the terminal device ignores the first information, and is convenient for sending the first service to the terminal device in a unicast mode.
In one possible design, the method may further include receiving a unicast transmission of the first traffic on the second BWP.
In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, where the method may be applied to a network device, or may also be applied to a chip inside the network device. Taking as an example that the method is applied to a network device, the method in which the network device sends first information to a terminal device, the first information being for indicating to receive multicast transmissions of a first service on a first BWP, and the network device determines that the terminal device ignores the first information and sends unicast transmissions of the first service to the terminal device on a second BWP.
In one possible design, the network device determining that the terminal device ignores the first information includes the network device receiving notification information from the terminal device and determining that the terminal device ignores the first information based on the notification information.
It should be noted that, the communication method provided in the fourth aspect corresponds to the communication method provided in the third aspect, and the beneficial effects of the corresponding technical features may be referred to the description of the third aspect, which is not repeated.
In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a communication device, which may be, for example, a terminal device or a chip arranged inside the terminal device. The communication device has functions of implementing the first aspect or the third aspect, for example, the communication device includes modules or units or means (means) corresponding to the steps related to the first aspect or the third aspect, where the functions or units or means may be implemented by software, or implemented by hardware, or implemented by executing corresponding software by hardware.
In one possible design, the communication device includes a processing unit, a communication unit, wherein the communication unit may be configured to receive and transmit signals to enable communication between the communication device and other devices, such as the communication unit being configured to receive configuration information from a network apparatus, and the processing unit may be configured to perform some internal operations of the communication device.
Based on such a design, in one embodiment the communication unit is adapted to receive first information from the network device, the first information being adapted to indicate reception of a multicast transmission of the first traffic on the first BWP, the processing unit is adapted to switch the second BWP to the first BWP based on the first information, and the communication unit is further adapted to receive the multicast transmission of the first traffic on the first BWP.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is a first DCI, the first DCI is scrambled by a group radio G-RNTI associated with a first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is a first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the communication unit is further configured to receive second information from the network device, where the second information is used to configure a correspondence between the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP, bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on the frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes parameter resource indication value RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on the frequency domain, the frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP being used to determine the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the first information comprises an identification of the first BWP, the communication unit is further adapted to receive third information from the network device, wherein the third information is used to configure at least one BWP comprising the first BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within said group, the communication unit is further arranged for receiving fourth information from the network device, wherein said fourth information is arranged for configuring at least one BWP comprising the first BWP, an identification of the group to which said at least one BWP belongs, an identification of said at least one BWP within said group to which said at least one BWP belongs.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a first traffic-associated G-RNTI, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the processing unit is specifically configured to switch the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information when it is determined that the first item is not met, and when the first information is received, unicast transmission of the second service is being received on the second BWP, wherein the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the second service, or the priority of the multicast transmission is lower than or equal to the priority of the unicast transmission, the second item, when the first information is received, is receiving multicast transmission of the third service on the second BWP, and the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the third service, and the third item, when the first information is received, is performing the random access procedure on the second BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the communication unit is further adapted to send a request message to the network device requesting to perform the BWP switch, and to receive a response message from the network device, to switch the first BWP to the third BWP according to the response message.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the request message comprises an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting to perform a BWP switch comprises the request message for requesting to switch a first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, the response message comprises an identification of a third BWP determined from the at least one candidate BWP.
In one possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the communication unit is specifically configured to determine that the multicast transmission of the first service is not received on the first BWP within the first duration, and if the third DCI is not detected, send a request message to the network device, or send the request message to the network device if the third DCI is not detected at M consecutive candidate time-frequency positions corresponding to the third DCI, where M is a positive integer, and the third DCI is used to schedule the multicast transmission of the first service.
In one possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the processing unit is specifically configured to determine that the multicast transmission of the first service is not received on the first BWP within the first duration, and if the third DCI is not detected, switch the first BWP to the third BWP, or if the third DCI is not detected on M consecutive candidate time-frequency positions corresponding to the third DCI, switch the first BWP to the third BWP, where M is a positive integer, and the third DCI is used to schedule the multicast transmission of the first service.
In yet another possible design, the communication device includes a processor, and may further include a transceiver for receiving signals, the processor executing program instructions to perform the method in any of the possible designs or implementations of the first or third aspect. Wherein the communication device may further comprise one or more memories for coupling with the processor. The one or more memories may be integrated with the processor or may be separate from the processor, and the present application is not limited. The memory may hold the necessary computer programs or instructions to implement the functions referred to in the above-described first or third aspects. The processor may execute a computer program or instructions stored by the memory, which when executed, cause the communication device to implement the method in any of the possible designs or implementations of the first or third aspect described above.
In a further possible design, the communication device comprises a processor and a memory, which may hold the necessary computer programs or instructions to implement the functions referred to in the above first or third aspect. The processor may execute a computer program or instructions stored by the memory, which when executed, cause the communication device to implement the method in any of the possible designs or implementations of the first or third aspect described above.
In yet another possible design, the communication device includes at least one processor and an interface circuit, wherein the at least one processor is configured to communicate with other devices via the interface circuit and perform the method of any of the possible designs or implementations of the first or third aspect.
In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a communication apparatus, which may be, for example, a network device or a chip provided inside the network device. The communication device is provided with a function of implementing the second aspect or the fourth aspect, for example, the communication device includes a module or a unit or a means corresponding to the steps of implementing the second aspect or the fourth aspect, where the function or the unit or the means may be implemented by software, or implemented by hardware, or implemented by executing corresponding software by hardware.
In a possible design, the communication device comprises a processing unit and a communication unit, wherein the communication unit can be used for receiving and transmitting signals to realize communication between the communication device and other devices, for example, the communication unit is used for sending system information to terminal equipment, and the processing unit can be used for executing some internal operations of the communication device.
Based on this design, in one embodiment, the communication unit is configured to send first information to the terminal device, the first information being configured to indicate to receive a multicast transmission of the first traffic on the first BWP, and to send the multicast transmission of the first traffic on the first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the first information is first DCI, the first DCI is scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the communication unit is further configured to send second information to the terminal device, where the second information is used to configure a correspondence between the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, where the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes parameter resource indication value RIV corresponding to the first BWP, where the RIV is used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, and the frequency domain offset position information is used to determine the frequency domain start position information.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the first information comprises an identification of the first BWP, the communication unit is further adapted to send third information to the terminal device, wherein the third information is used to configure the at least one BWP comprising the first BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within said group, the communication unit is further arranged for transmitting fourth information to the terminal device, wherein said fourth information is arranged for configuring said at least one BWP, an identification of the group to which said at least one BWP belongs, an identification of said at least one BWP within the group to which said at least one BWP belongs, said at least one BWP comprising the first BWP.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a first traffic-associated G-RNTI, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the communication unit is further adapted to receive a request message from the terminal device requesting to perform the BWP switch, and to send a response message to the terminal device indicating to switch the first BWP to the third BWP in accordance with the request message.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the request message comprises an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting to perform a BWP switch comprises the request message for requesting to switch a first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, and the response message comprises an identification of a third BWP determined from the at least one candidate BWP.
In yet another possible design, the communication device includes a processor, and may further include a transceiver for receiving signals, where the processor executes program instructions to perform the method in any possible design or implementation of the second aspect or the fourth aspect. Wherein the communication device may further comprise one or more memories for coupling with the processor. The one or more memories may be integrated with the processor or may be separate from the processor, and the present application is not limited. The memory may hold the necessary computer programs or instructions to implement the functions referred to in the second or fourth aspects above. The processor may execute a computer program or instructions stored by the memory, which when executed, cause the communication device to implement the method in any of the possible designs or implementations of the second or fourth aspects described above.
In a further possible design, the communication device comprises a processor and a memory, which may hold the necessary computer programs or instructions to implement the functions referred to in the above second or fourth aspect. The processor may execute a computer program or instructions stored by the memory, which when executed, cause the communication device to implement the method in any of the possible designs or implementations of the second or fourth aspects described above.
In yet another possible design, the communication device includes at least one processor and an interface circuit, wherein the at least one processor is configured to communicate with other devices through the interface circuit and perform the method of any of the possible designs or implementations of the second or fourth aspect.
In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a communication system comprising a terminal device for performing the method in any of the possible designs of the first or third aspect described above, and a network device for performing the method in any of the possible designs of the second or fourth aspect described above.
In an eighth aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein computer-readable instructions which, when read and executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of the possible designs of the first to fourth aspects described above.
In a ninth aspect, the present application provides a computer program product which, when read and executed by a computer, causes the computer to carry out the method of any one of the possible designs of the first to fourth aspects described above.
In a tenth aspect, the present application provides a chip comprising a processor coupled to a memory for reading and executing a software program stored in the memory to implement the method of any one of the possible designs of the first to fourth aspects.
These and other aspects of the application will be more readily apparent from the following description of the embodiments.
Detailed Description
The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present application.
First, some terms in the embodiments of the present application are explained for easy understanding by those skilled in the art.
(1) The terminal device may be a wireless terminal device capable of receiving network device scheduling and indication information, the wireless terminal device may be a device providing voice and/or data connectivity to a user, or a handheld device having wireless connectivity functionality, or other processing device connected to a wireless modem. The terminal device may communicate with one or more core networks or the internet via a radio access network (radio access network, RAN), and may be a mobile terminal device, such as a mobile phone (or "cellular" phone), a computer, and a data card, e.g., a portable, pocket, hand-held, computer-built-in, or vehicle-mounted mobile device that exchanges voice and/or data with the radio access network. Such as personal communication services (personal communication service, PCS) phones, cordless phones, session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phones, wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) stations, personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), tablet computers (Pad), computers with wireless transceiver capabilities, and the like. The wireless terminal device may also be referred to as a system, subscriber unit (subscriber unit), subscriber station (subscriber station), mobile Station (MS), remote station (remote station), access Point (AP), remote terminal device (remote terminal), access terminal device (ACCESS TERMINAL), user terminal device (user terminal), user agent (user agent), subscriber station (subscriber station, SS), user terminal device (customer premises equipment, CPE), terminal (terminal), user Equipment (UE), mobile Terminal (MT), etc. The terminal device may also be a wearable device as well as a next generation communication system, e.g. a terminal device in a 5G communication system or a terminal device in a future evolved public land mobile network (public land mobile network, PLMN), etc.
(2) The network device may be a device in a wireless network, e.g. the network device may be a radio access network (radio access network, RAN) node (or device) that accesses the terminal device to the wireless network, also referred to as a base station. Currently, some examples of RAN devices are new generation base stations (generation Node B, gNodeB), transmission and reception points (transmission reception point, TRP), evolved Node bs (enbs), radio network controllers (radio network controller, RNCs), node bs (Node bs, NB), base station controllers (base station controller, BSC), base transceiver stations (base transceiver station, BTS), home base stations (e.g., home evolved Node B, or home Node bs, HNBs), base Band Units (BBUs), or wireless fidelity (WIRELESS FIDELITY, wi-Fi) Access Points (APs), etc. in a 5G communication system. In addition, in one network architecture, the network device may include a centralized unit (centralized unit, CU) node, or a Distributed Unit (DU) node, or a RAN device including a CU node and a DU node. Furthermore, the network device may be other means of providing wireless communication functionality for the terminal device, as other possibilities. The embodiment of the application does not limit the specific technology and the specific equipment form adopted by the network equipment. For convenience of description, in the embodiment of the present application, a device that provides a wireless communication function for a terminal device is referred to as a network device.
(3) The terms "system" and "network" in embodiments of the application may be used interchangeably. "at least one" means one or more, and "a plurality" means two or more. "and/or" describes an association relationship of associated objects, and indicates that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may indicate that a exists alone, a exists with a and B together, and B exists alone, where a and B may be singular or plural. The character "/" generally indicates that the context-dependent object is an "or" relationship. "at least one of" or the like means any combination of these items, including any combination of single item(s) or plural items(s). For example, "at least one of A, B, and C" includes A, B, C, AB, AC, BC, or ABC. And, unless otherwise specified, references to "first," "second," etc. ordinal words of embodiments of the present application are used for distinguishing between multiple objects and not for defining a sequence, timing, priority, or importance of the multiple objects.
Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture to which an embodiment of the present application is applicable. As shown in fig. 1, the terminal device 130 may access a wireless network to obtain services of an external network (e.g., the internet) through the wireless network, or communicate with other devices through the wireless network, such as may communicate with other terminal devices. The wireless network includes a RAN for accessing a terminal device (such as terminal device 1301 or terminal device 1302) to the wireless network and a Core Network (CN) for managing the terminal device and providing a gateway for communication with an external network.
One or more RAN devices, such as RAN device 1101, RAN device 1102, may be included in the RAN.
One or more CN devices, such as CN device 120, may be included in the CN. When the network architecture shown in fig. 1 is applicable to a 5G communication system, the CN device 120 may be an access and mobility management function (ACCESS AND mobility management function, AMF) entity or a user plane function (user plane function, UPF) entity, etc.
It should be understood that the number of the respective devices in the communication system shown in fig. 1 is merely illustrative, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto, and more terminal devices, more RAN devices, and other devices may be further included in the communication system in practical applications.
Fig. 2a is a schematic diagram of another network architecture to which the embodiment of the present application is applicable. As shown in fig. 2a, the network architecture includes CN devices, RAN devices and terminal devices. The RAN device includes a baseband device and a radio frequency device, where the baseband device may be implemented by one node, or may be implemented by multiple nodes, and the radio frequency device may be implemented independently from the baseband device, or may be integrated in the baseband device, or a part of functions may be integrated independently, and a part of functions may be integrated in the baseband device. For example, in an LTE communication system, the RAN apparatus includes a baseband device and a radio frequency device, where the radio frequency device may be remotely located relative to the baseband device, e.g., a remote radio unit (remote radio unit, RRU) is a remote radio unit located relative to the BBU.
The communication between the RAN device and the terminal device follows a certain protocol layer structure, for example, the control plane protocol layer structure may include the functions of a radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) layer, a packet data convergence layer protocol (PACKET DATA convergence protocol, PDCP) layer, a radio link control (radio link control, RLC) layer, a medium access control (MEDIA ACCESS control, MAC) layer, and a physical layer, etc., the user plane protocol layer structure may include the functions of the PDCP layer, RLC layer, MAC layer, and physical layer, etc., and in one possible implementation, the PDCP layer may further include a service data adaptation (SERVICE DATA adaptation protocol, SDAP) layer. Taking information transmission between a network device and a terminal device as an example, the information transmission needs to pass through a control plane protocol layer, such as a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, a MAC layer, and a physical layer, where the PDCP layer, the RLC layer, the MAC layer, and the physical layer may also be collectively referred to as an access layer. Taking downlink transmission as an example, referring to fig. 2b, a schematic diagram of transmission of control information between layers is shown, in fig. 2b, the downward arrow indicates information transmission, and the upward arrow indicates information reception. After the PDCP layer obtains information from an upper layer, the PDCP layer transmits the information to the RLC layer and the MAC layer, and the MAC layer transmits the information to the physical layer, so that radio transmission is performed through the physical layer. The information is correspondingly packaged in each layer, and the information received from the upper layer of the layer is regarded as service data units (SERVICE DATA units, SDUs) of the layer by one layer, becomes PDU after layer packaging, and is transferred to the next layer. For example, the information received by the PDCP layer from the upper layer is called PDCP SDU, the information transmitted by the PDCP layer to the lower layer is called PDCP PDU, the information received by the RLC layer from the upper layer is called RLC SDU, the information transmitted by the RLC layer to the lower layer is called RLC PDU, the information received by the MAC layer from the upper layer is called MAC SDU, and the information transmitted by the MAC layer to the lower layer is called MAC PDU. In the protocol, the connections between layers are mostly corresponding in a channel manner. The RLC layer corresponds to the MAC layer through a Logical Channel (LCH), the MAC layer corresponds to the physical layer through a transport channel (transport channel), and the physical layer is a physical channel (PHYSICAL CHANNEL) below the physical layer to correspond to the physical layer at the other end.
The RAN device may implement functions of protocol layers such as RRC, PDCP, RLC and MAC by one node, or may implement functions of these protocol layers by multiple nodes. For example, in one evolution architecture, a RAN device may include a CU and DUs, and multiple DUs may be centrally controlled by one CU. As shown in fig. 2a, a CU and a DU may be divided according to protocol layers of a wireless network, for example, functions of a PDCP layer and above are set at the CU, and functions of protocol layers below the PDCP layer, for example, functions of an RLC layer and a MAC layer, etc. are set at the DU. The division of the protocol layers is only an example, and it is also possible to divide at other protocol layers, for example, at the RLC layer, to set the functions of the RLC layer and above at the CU, and the functions of the protocol layers below the RLC layer at the DU, or to divide at a certain protocol layer, for example, to set a part of the functions of the RLC layer and the functions of the protocol layers above the RLC layer at the CU, and the remaining functions of the RLC layer and the functions of the protocol layers below the RLC layer at the DU. In addition, the functions that require processing time to meet the latency requirement may be set in the DU and the functions that do not require processing time to meet the latency requirement may be set in the CU in other manners, such as time-lapse partitioning. In addition, the radio frequency device may be integrated independently, not in the DU, or may be integrated in the DU, or may be partially remote and partially integrated in the DU, without any limitation.
Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of another network architecture to which the embodiment of the present application is applicable. With respect to the network architecture shown in fig. 2a, the Control Plane (CP) and the User Plane (UP) of the CU may also be implemented in fig. 3 by separating the Control Plane (CP) CU entity (i.e. CU-CP entity) and the User Plane (UP) CU entity (i.e. CU-UP entity), respectively.
In the above network architecture, the signaling generated by the CU may be transmitted to the terminal device through the DU, or the signaling generated by the terminal device may be transmitted to the CU through the DU. The DU may be directly transmitted to the terminal device or CU after being encapsulated by the protocol layer without parsing the signaling. In the following embodiments, transmission or reception of signaling by a DU includes such a scenario if such signaling is involved in the transmission between the DU and the terminal device. For example, the signaling of the RRC or PDCP layer is eventually processed as the signaling of the PHY layer to be transmitted to the terminal device or converted from the received signaling of the PHY layer. Under this architecture, the signaling of the RRC or PDCP layer may be considered as being sent by either a DU or by both a DU and a radio frequency device.
The network architecture illustrated in fig. 1, 2a or 3 may be applied to a communication system of various radio access technologies (radio access technology, RAT), for example, a 4G (or referred to as LTE) communication system, a 5G (or referred to as new radio, NR)) communication system, or a transition system between the LTE communication system and the 5G communication system, which may be referred to as a 4.5G communication system, or a future communication system, of course. The network architecture and the service scenario described in the embodiments of the present application are for more clearly describing the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application, and those skilled in the art can know that, with the evolution of the communication network architecture and the appearance of the new service scenario, the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application is applicable to similar technical problems.
The apparatus in the following embodiments of the present application may be located in a terminal device or a network device according to the functions implemented by the apparatus. When the above structure of CU-DUs is employed, the network device may be a CU, or a DU, or a RAN device comprising a CU and a DU.
The following explains the related technical features related to the embodiments of the present application. It should be noted that these explanations are for easier understanding of the embodiments of the present application, and should not be construed as limiting the scope of protection claimed by the present application.
1. BWP (BWP)
Taking the network architecture illustrated in fig. 1, fig. 2a or fig. 3 as an example, the network architecture is applicable to a 5G communication system, in the 5G communication system, in order to adapt to the bandwidth capability of the terminal device, BWP may be configured for the terminal device within a bandwidth supported by one carrier (may be referred to as a carrier bandwidth, and specific values may be 10MHz, 15MHz, 20MHz, 50MHz, 100MHz or 400MHz, etc.). Wherein, a plurality of BWP can be configured in one carrier, for example, 4 BWP can be configured in one carrier. BWP may also be referred to as carrier partial bandwidth (carrier bandwidth part), or other names, and the application is not limited to the names, which are BWP for convenience of description. For example, one BWP contains K (K > 0) subcarriers, or one BWP is a frequency domain resource where N non-overlapping Resource Blocks (RBs) are located, the subcarrier spacing of the RBs may be 15KHz, 30KHz, 60KHz, 120KHz, 240KHz, 480KHz or other values (such as 7.5KHz or 1.25 KHz), or one BWP is a frequency domain resource where m (m > 0) non-overlapping groups of resource blocks (resource block group, RBGs) are located, e.g., one RBG includes P (P > 0) consecutive RBs, the subcarrier spacing (subcarrier spacing, SCS) of the RBs may be 15KHz, 30KHz, 60KHz, 120KHz, 240KHz, 480 or other values, e.g., integer multiples of 2.
(1) Configuration example of BWP in carrier Bandwidth
As shown in fig. 4 a-4 c, the configuration of three BWP in carrier bandwidth according to the embodiment of the present application is shown. Fig. 4a illustrates a case where one BWP is configured in the carrier bandwidth, the network device may first allocate the BWP within the terminal bandwidth capability to the terminal device, and may further allocate some or all of the resources in the BWP for communication. The network device may configure different BWP situations for the terminal device according to the actual scenario. For example, in order to save power consumption of the terminal device, the network device may allocate BWP to the terminal device according to the traffic of the terminal device. When the terminal device has no traffic data transmission or only a small amount of traffic data transmission, a smaller BWP may be allocated to the terminal device for receiving the control information and a small amount of data information, e.g. BWP1 as shown in fig. 4b, and when the terminal device has a large amount of traffic data to be transmitted, a larger BWP may be allocated to the terminal device, e.g. BWP2 as shown in fig. 4 b. For another example, since multiple service types and communication scenarios can be supported in the 5G communication system, different parameters can be configured for different service types and communication scenarios, and the network device can allocate corresponding BWP for the terminal device according to different service types of the terminal device, as shown in fig. 4c, one BWP can correspond to one service type, and in order to meet the service requirement of the service type, the BWP can be configured with frame structure parameters (numerology) capable of meeting the service requirement. As can be seen from fig. 4b, different BWP can occupy partially overlapped frequency domain resources. As can be seen from fig. 4c, different BWP may also occupy completely different frequency domain resources and use different numerology. In the embodiment of the present application, numerology corresponding to different BWP may be the same or different, which is not limited by the present application. It should be understood that fig. 4 a-4 c only illustrate that one or two BWP are configured in one carrier, and that a plurality of BWP may be configured in a carrier in practical application, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.
(2) Classification of BWP
Illustratively, BWP can be broadly classified into 1) initial BWP (Initial BWP), which is BWP used by the terminal device in the initial access phase, and 2) dedicated BWP (Dedicated BWP), which is BWP configured by the network device for the terminal device after the terminal device enters the connected state. In general, for one terminal device, the network device may configure at most 4 dedicated BWP and the identities of the respective dedicated BWP through RRC message, and at the same time, the terminal device may only have 1 dedicated BWP in an active state, i.e., the terminal device may only use 1 BWP. Wherein the first activated BWP (FIRST ACTIVE BWP) may be indicated by RRC signaling. Further, the network device may configure a default BWP (default BWP) for the terminal device through an RRC Reconfiguration message, and the default BWP may be one of the dedicated BWP. If the network device does not configure the default BWP, the terminal device may consider the initial BWP as the default BWP.
(3) BWP switching
After the network device configures one or more dedicated BWP for the terminal device, the one or more dedicated BWP is in an inactive state. The network device may send indication information to the terminal device to indicate activation of one of the dedicated BWP, wherein the indication information may be carried in an RRC message. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the indication information and activates the dedicated BWP, and may communicate with the network device on the dedicated BWP. Subsequently, the terminal device may also switch between a plurality of BWP, including an initial BWP and a dedicated BWP, and the situation in which the terminal device switches between the initial BWP and the dedicated BWP may be various.
For example, in case 1, the terminal device determines that a random access procedure needs to be initiated, the currently activated BWP is not configured with random access resources, and another BWP is configured with random access resources, and may switch to another BWP in order to initiate the random access procedure on the other BWP. Wherein the other BWP may be an initial BWP of the terminal device or other dedicated BWP. In this case, the BWP handover may be triggered by the terminal device.
As another example, in case 2, the network device determines that the load of the BWP currently activated by the terminal device is large or that the resources of the BWP currently activated by the terminal device are insufficient, and may instruct the terminal device to switch to another BWP, which may be another dedicated BWP of the terminal device. For example, the network device sends downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI) to the terminal device, the DCI is used to instruct the terminal device to switch to another BWP, the DCI is scrambled by a cell radio network temporary identifier (cell-radio network temporary identifier, C-RNTI), the DCI includes an identifier of the other BWP, and accordingly, the terminal device may switch to the other BWP and communicate with the network device on the other BWP after detecting the DCI according to the C-RNTI.
2. Multicast transmission technique
The multicast transmission technique is a transmission technique in which one sender transmits data and a plurality of receivers receive the data, for example, a network device transmits the data and a plurality of terminal devices receive the data. One possible multicast transmission technique is the single cell point-to-multipoint (SINGLE CELL point to multipoint, SC-PTM) technique. In the SC-PTM technique, data of a multicast service may be transmitted using a physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink SHARE CHANNEL, PDSCH). The PDSCH carrying the multicast service may be referred to as a multicast PDSCH, unlike the PDSCH carrying the unicast service. The network device may pre-configure an association between multicast services and a group-radio network temporary identity (G-RNTI), one G-RNTI may be associated with each multicast service.
For multicast transmission, the network device may send downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI) carried on a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) to a plurality of terminal devices interested in the multicast service, where the DCI is used to schedule a multicast PDSCH carrying the multicast service, and the DCI may be scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, and accordingly, after detecting the DCI according to the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, the plurality of terminal devices may receive the multicast PDSCH according to scheduling information included in the DCI.
For unicast transmission, the network device may send DCI to the terminal device, where the DCI is used to schedule a unicast PDSCH carrying a service (the service may be a unicast service or a multicast service), and the DCI may be scrambled by using a C-RNTI, and accordingly, after the terminal device detects the DCI according to the C-RNTI, the terminal device may receive the unicast PDSCH according to scheduling information included in the DCI.
3. Multicast BWP
As can be seen from the above description of BWP, BWP in the current 5G communication system includes initial BWP and dedicated BWP of the terminal device. The terminal device may communicate with the network device over a dedicated BWP, such as receiving data sent by the network device in unicast. However, considering that the industry is mature, there is an increasing demand for support of multicast transmission technologies, such as car-to-car (vehicle to everything, V2X), public safety, etc., and thus, one possible way to implement multicast transmission of services in a 5G communication system is to introduce multicast BWP.
Multicast BWP may be used for multicast transmission of traffic, e.g. multicast BWP may be a BWP common to a plurality of terminal devices, so that the plurality of terminal devices may receive data sent by the network device in multicast manner on the multicast BWP.
Embodiments of the present application will be studied with respect to the implementation of multicast BWP. For example, after introducing the multicast BWP, the terminal device may switch between the initial BWP, the dedicated BWP and the multicast BWP, wherein the specific implementation of the terminal device switching between the initial BWP and the dedicated BWP may be referred to in the foregoing description, and how the terminal device switches to the multicast BWP needs further study. Based on this, the embodiment of the application provides a communication method for implementing switching of the terminal device to the multicast BWP to receive the multicast transmission of the service.
The communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to the first to fifth embodiments.
In the following description, this method is taken as an example of application to the system architecture shown in fig. 1. In addition, the method may be performed by two communication devices, for example a first communication device and a second communication device, wherein the first communication device may be a network device or a communication device capable of supporting the network device to implement the functions required for the method, but may also be other communication devices, such as a chip or a chip system. The second communication means may be a terminal device or a communication means capable of supporting the functions required by the terminal device to implement the method, but may of course also be other communication means, such as a chip or a chip system. For ease of description, hereinafter, the method is performed by the network device and the terminal device, that is, the first communication apparatus is the network device and the second communication apparatus is the terminal device. If the present embodiment is applied to the system architecture shown in fig. 1, the network device for performing the embodiment shown in fig. 5, 7, 8 or 9 described below may be the RAN device 110 shown in fig. 1, and the terminal device for performing the embodiment shown in fig. 5, 7, 8 or 9 described below may be the terminal device 130 shown in fig. 1.
Example 1
In the first embodiment, a correspondence relationship between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service may be set. When the network device determines that multicast transmission of the first service needs to be sent, DCI (for convenience of description, referred to as DCI-1) may be sent to a plurality of terminal devices, where the DCI-1 is scrambled by a first G-RNTI associated with the first service, where the first service is a multicast service, and the plurality of terminal devices are terminal devices interested in the first service. Accordingly, after detecting DCI-1 according to the first G-RNTI, the plurality of terminal devices may determine that the first G-RNTI corresponds to the first BWP according to the correspondence between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI, and may further switch to receiving multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP. One possible implementation procedure will be described below taking as an example the interaction between a network device and a certain terminal device interested in a first service.
Fig. 5 is a flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to a first embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 5, includes:
The network device sends configuration information 1 and configuration information 2 to the terminal device, wherein the configuration information 1 may be used to configure one or more multicast BWP and the configuration information 2 may be used to configure one or more dedicated BWP for the terminal device, step 501. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive configuration information 1 and configuration information 2.
Configuration information 1 and configuration information 2 are described in detail herein.
1. Configuration information 1
Configuration information 1 may be used to configure one or more multicast BWP (e.g., BWP1 and BWP 2), and further, configuration information 1 may also configure a correspondence between one or more multicast BWP and one or more G-RNTIs, where the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI may be in one-to-one correspondence. It should be noted that, since each multicast service is associated with one G-RNTI, the corresponding relationship between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI may be replaced by the corresponding relationship between the multicast BWP and the multicast service.
In one example, the configuration information 1 may include configuration information of a plurality of multicast BWP and G-RNTI corresponding to the plurality of multicast BWP, respectively, and optionally may further include physical layer configuration information corresponding to the plurality of multicast BWP, respectively. As shown in table 1, is an example of information included in the configuration information 1.
TABLE 1 information examples included in configuration information 1
| Configuration information of multicast BWP | G-RNTI corresponding to multicast BWP | Physical layer configuration information |
| Configuration information of BWP1 | G-RNTI1 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1 |
| Configuration information of BWP2 | G-RNTI2 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP2 |
In yet another example, configuration information 1 may include configuration information for a plurality of multicast services (such as multicast service 1 and multicast service 2). Taking multicast service 1 as an example, the configuration information of multicast service 1 may include G-RNTI1 associated with multicast service 1, configuration information of BWP1 corresponding to G-RNTI1, and optionally, physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP 1.
As shown in table 2, it is still another example of information included in the configuration information 1.
TABLE 2 information examples included in configuration information 1
| Multicast traffic | Configuration information for multicast services |
| Multicast service 1 | G-RNTI1, configuration information of BWP1, and physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1 |
| Multicast traffic 2 | Configuration information of G-RNTI2 and BWP2, and physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP2 |
The configuration information of the multicast service may also include other possible information, such as parameters of DRX, which is not limited in particular.
The BWP1 is taken as an example, and configuration information of the BWP and physical layer configuration information corresponding to the BWP, which are referred to in the above example, are explained.
(1) Configuration information of BWP1
For example, the configuration information of BWP1 may include frequency domain start position information of BWP1 and bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain, and further, after receiving the configuration information 1, the terminal device may determine a specific position of BWP1 in the carrier bandwidth according to the frequency domain start position information of BWP1 and the bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain. The frequency domain start position information of BWP1 may refer to absolute position information of BWP1 with respect to CRB0, and the bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain may refer to the number of RBs or physical resource blocks (physical resource block, PRBs) continuously occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain.
For another example, the configuration information of BWP1 may include frequency domain offset position information of BWP1 and bandwidth information (locationAndBandwidth) occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain, the value of locationAndBandwidth may be understood as a parameter resource indication value (resource indication value, RIV), where RIV is used to indicate the frequency domain offset position information of BWP1 and the bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain, and after receiving the configuration information 1, the terminal device may obtain the frequency domain offset position information of BWP1 and the bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain according to the RIV corresponding to BWP1, and determine the frequency domain start position information of BWP1 according to the frequency domain offset position information and the offset information of BWP1, thereby determining the specific position of BWP1 in the carrier bandwidth according to the frequency domain start position information of BWP1 and the bandwidth information occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain. The offset information (offsetToCarrier) may refer to a frequency domain offset between a frequency domain reference point (PointA) and a minimum/lowest available subcarrier on the carrier, and a maximum value of the frequency domain offset corresponds to 275 x 8-1, see, in particular, 3gpp TS 38.211, section 4.4.2. The offset information may be included in the configuration information 1, or may be sent by the network device to the terminal device via other possible messages, which is not particularly limited.
For example, the RIV of BWP1 is 13037, and the calculation is performed in a preset manner (for a specific calculation manner, see the prior art), where the offset position of the frequency domain of BWP1 is 112, and the bandwidth occupied by BWP1 in the frequency domain is 48 PRBs. If the offset information is=13, the frequency domain starting position of the BWP1 is (13+112) ×prb=125 PRB.
Illustratively, the configuration information of BWP1 may further include other possible information, such as a subcarrier spacing of BWP1, a length indication of a cyclic prefix, and the like, which is not limited in particular. Wherein the length of the cyclic prefix indicates whether an extended cyclic prefix is used on BWP1, e.g. if the configuration information of BWP1 does not contain or set this indication, the terminal device may use the normal cyclic prefix, whereas if the configuration information of BWP1 contains this indication, the terminal device may use the extended cyclic prefix. The normal cyclic prefix applies to all subcarrier spacings and slot formats and the extended cyclic prefix applies to 60kHz subcarrier spacings (see 3gpp TS 38.211, section 4.2).
(2) Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1
The physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1 may include a search space (SEARCH SPACE) and a control resource set (control resource set, CORESET), and an association relationship may exist between the search space and CORESET. Wherein, the search space and CORESET associated with the search space may be used to indicate a plurality of candidate time-frequency positions corresponding to the DCI, where the plurality of candidate time-frequency positions are located in BWP1. The network device may send DCI to the terminal device at some of the plurality of candidate time-frequency locations of BWP1, and accordingly, after receiving the physical layer configuration information, the terminal device may monitor the DCI at the plurality of candidate time-frequency locations of BWP1.
It should be noted that (1) the DCI herein may be DCI scrambled by G-RNTI1, G-RNTI2 or C-RNTI or other possible RNTI. (2) Illustratively, the search space and CORESET may be configured separately for multicast transmissions. In particular, multiple search spaces may be configured on BWP1 and the use of the multiple search spaces may be indicated when configured, e.g., for paging (PAGINGSEARCHSPACE), for random access (ra-SEARCHSPACE), for receiving SIB1 (searchSpaceSIB 1). For example, in an embodiment of the present application, the use of the search space may be indicated as being for multicasting (multicastSearchSpace) when the search space is configured. It will be appreciated that the search space associations CORESET for the different purposes described above may be the same or may be different.
The control resource set determines a frequency domain resource for transmitting DCI, that is, the DCI may be transmitted on a frequency domain resource corresponding to the control resource set, where the frequency domain resource corresponding to the control resource set may include multiple RBs. The search space determines time domain resources for transmitting DCI, and may be configured with some time domain information, such as a period (i.e., a time interval for detecting the search space may be a time slot), a time slot offset (i.e., a time slot offset from a start of a detection period to an actual detection of the search space, where the time slot offset is smaller than a value of the detection period), a first duration (configured by a duration parameter, i.e., a time for continuously detecting the search space, may include a plurality of time slots, and includes a number of time slots smaller than the value of the detection period), and a time domain start position (i.e., a time domain start position corresponding to a control resource set associated with the search space in each time slot).
For ease of understanding, the meaning of each parameter is described in specific examples. As shown in fig. 6, the period of the search space is 10 slots, the slot offset is 3 slots, the first duration is 2 slots, the time domain starting position is symbol 0 and symbol 7 in one slot, and the second duration of the control resource set associated with the search space is 2 symbols. In this example, the terminal device may detect DCI on symbol 0, symbol 1, and symbols 7,8 within slot 3 and slot 4 within a detection period of every 10 slots.
In addition, the physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1 may further include physical layer parameters required for receiving the PDSCH on BWP 1. The network device may configure timing relationships between multiple PDCCHs and PDSCHs in advance through RRC messages, and when DCI dynamic scheduling resources are used, may indicate which timing relationship to use in the DCI, e.g., when the Value (Value) in the DCI is 0 corresponds to the 1 st timing relationship in the timing relationship table configured by the RRC messages, the Value in the DCI corresponds to the 2 nd timing relationship in the timing relationship table, and so on.
The configuration of each timing relationship may include at least one of (1) a slot offset K0 between DCI and PDSCH scheduled by the DCI (see section 5.1.2.1 in TS 38.214), which the terminal device may default to 0 when the field corresponding to this offset is not present, (2) a PDSCH mapping type indication (MAPPINGTYPE), see TS 38.214, section 5.3, (3) an index (startSymbolAndLength) of a valid combination of start symbol and length (joint coding) may act as a start and length indicator (START AND LENGTH indicator, SLIV), and the network device may configure this field so that the resource allocation does not cross the slot boundary (see section TS 38.214,5.1.2.1).
2. Configuration information 2
Configuration information 2 may be used to configure the terminal device with one or more dedicated BWP (e.g. BWP3 and BWP 4) and further may be used to configure the identity of the one or more dedicated BWP, wherein the identity of the dedicated BWP may be information for identifying the dedicated BWP, such as the number of the dedicated BWP.
As shown in table 3, is an example of information included in the configuration information 2.
TABLE 3 information examples included in configuration information 2
| Identification of special BWP | Configuration information of special BWP | Physical layer configuration information |
| Identification of BWP3 | Configuration information of BWP3 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP3 |
| Identification of BWP4 | Configuration information of BWP4 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP4 |
For example, the configuration information of the dedicated BWP and the physical layer configuration information may be referred to the related description of the configuration information 1 above, and will not be repeated here.
3. Mode of network device transmitting configuration information 1 and configuration information 2
The network device may transmit the configuration information 1 and the configuration information 2 through the same message, for example, the network device may transmit the configuration information 1 and the configuration information 2 through an RRC message. Or the network device may send the configuration information 1 and the configuration information 2 through different messages, for example, the network device may send the configuration information 1 through the RRC message 1 and the configuration information 2 through the RRC message 2, or the network device may send the configuration information 1 through a system message and the configuration information 2 through the RRC message.
It should be noted that, the above step 501 may also be replaced by the step 501' of the network device sending configuration information 1 and configuration information 2 to the terminal device, where the configuration information 1 is used to configure a correspondence between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI, the configuration information 2 is used to configure a plurality of BWP, and may also be used to configure an identifier of the plurality of BWP, where the plurality of BWP may include one or more dedicated BWP and one or more multicast BWP.
For example, the plurality of BWP includes BWP1, BWP2, BWP3 and BWP4, BWP1 and BWP2 are multicast BWP, and BWP3 and BWP4 are dedicated BWP. It should be understood that, in this embodiment, the configuration information 2 is used to configure 4 BWP, and in particular implementation, the configuration information 2 may configure more than 4 BWP, which is not limited to a specific number in the embodiment of the present application.
For configuration information 2, in one example, configuration information 2 may include an identification of the plurality of BWP, configuration information of the plurality of BWP, and physical layer configuration information corresponding to the plurality of BWP, as shown in table 4.
TABLE 4 information examples included in configuration information 2
| Identification of BWP | Configuration information of BWP | Physical layer configuration information |
| Identification of BWP1 | Configuration information of BWP1 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP1 |
| Identification of BWP2 | Configuration information of BWP2 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP2 |
| Identification of BWP3 | Configuration information of BWP3 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP3 |
| Identification of BWP4 | Configuration information of BWP4 | Physical layer configuration information corresponding to BWP4 |
For configuration information 1, in one example, configuration information 1 may include an identification of a plurality of multicast BWP and a G-RNTI to which the plurality of multicast BWP respectively correspond. As shown in table 5, is an example of information included in the configuration information 1.
TABLE 5 information examples included in configuration information 1
| Identification of multicast BWP | G-RNTI corresponding to multicast BWP |
| Identification of BWP1 | G-RNTI1 |
| Identification of BWP2 | G-RNTI2 |
For configuration information 1, in yet another example, configuration information 1 may include configuration information for a plurality of multicast services (e.g., multicast service 1 and multicast service 2). Taking multicast service 1 as an example, the configuration information of multicast service 1 may include G-RNTI1 associated with multicast service 1 and an identifier of BWP1 corresponding to G-RNTI 1. As shown in table 6, is an example of information included in the configuration information 1.
TABLE 6 information examples included in configuration information 1
| Multicast traffic | Configuration information for multicast services |
| Multicast service 1 | G-RNTI1, BWP1 identification, and BWP1 corresponding physical layer configuration information |
| Multicast traffic 2 | G-RNTI2, BWP2 identification, and BWP2 corresponding physical layer configuration information |
The difference between the step 501 'and the step 501 described herein is that in the step 501', one or more multicast BWP may be additionally configured in the manner of configuring the special BWP in the prior art, and the corresponding relationship between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI may be configured by the identification of the multicast BWP in the configuration information 2 (i.e. the configuration information of the multicast BWP may not be included in the configuration information 2), and other contents except for this difference may be referred to each other. In this way, by configuring one or more multicast BWP in a manner that is in the prior art, there is less modification to the prior art, thus making the present application more adaptable. And because the configuration information 2 contains less information, the resource cost of the configuration information 2 can be effectively saved.
The terminal device activates the second BWP and communicates with the network device on the second BWP, step 502.
In one example, the second BWP may be an initial BWP or a dedicated BWP. In this case, the second BWP may be a BWP that the network device indicates the terminal device to activate through an RRC message, or may be a BWP that the network device indicates the terminal device to activate through DCI (the DCI is scrambled through the C-RNTI), or may be a BWP that is activated through other means, which is not limited in particular.
In yet another example, the second BWP may be one of a plurality of multicast BWP, such as the second BWP may be BWP1 or BWP2.
In step 503, after determining that the multicast transmission of the first service needs to be sent, the network device sends first information to the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate a first BWP, and the first BWP is used for multicast transmission of the first service, and accordingly, the terminal device receives the first information.
Wherein the first information is used to indicate the first BWP and may include the first information being used to indicate the terminal device to switch to the first BWP or the first information being used to indicate the terminal device to receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP. The first BWP may be one of a plurality of multicast BWP, such as BWP1 or BWP2.
The first information may be DCI-1, for example. If the terminal equipment detects DCI-1 through G-RNTI1, the DCI-1 is scrambled by G-RNTI1, and the terminal equipment can learn that the multicast transmission of the multicast service 1 needs to be switched to BWP1 for receiving according to the configuration information 1, if the terminal equipment detects DCI-1 through G-RNTI2, the DCI-1 is scrambled by G-RNTI2, and the terminal equipment can determine that the multicast transmission of the multicast service 2 needs to be switched to BWP2 for receiving according to the configuration information 1.
In step 504, the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information.
Here, the terminal device switches the active BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP, which may be understood as the terminal device deactivating the currently active BWP (i.e., the second BWP) and activating the first BWP, or may be understood as the terminal device switching from operating on the second BWP to operating on the first BWP.
In step 505, the network device sends a multicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device at the first BWP (i.e. sends data of the first service to the terminal device by multicast), and accordingly, the terminal device receives the multicast transmission of the first service at the first BWP.
Here, the terminal device may determine whether the currently active BWP (i.e., the second BWP) and the first BWP match, and if so (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are the same BWP), the terminal device may receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the second BWP, and if not (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are different BWP), the terminal device may switch the active BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information, and receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
In the embodiment of the application, after receiving the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP, the terminal device may also send feedback information of the multicast transmission to the network device on the first BWP, where the feedback information is used to indicate whether the data of the first service is successfully transmitted, so that the network device can determine the data transmission condition according to the feedback information. The feedback information may be hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ) feedback information, such as HARQ Acknowledgement (ACK) or negative acknowledgement (negative acknowledgement, NACK).
By adopting the scheme in the first embodiment, the network device can instruct the terminal device to switch to the multicast BWP through the implicit indication mode by setting the corresponding relation between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, so that the terminal device can be timely and effectively switched to the multicast BWP to receive the multicast transmission on one hand, and can effectively save transmission resources by adopting the implicit indication mode on the other hand.
Example two
In the second embodiment, when the network device determines that multicast transmission of the first service needs to be sent, DCI (for convenience of description, referred to as DCI-2) may be sent to a plurality of terminal devices, where DCI-2 may be scrambled by a first G-RNTI associated with the first service or may also be scrambled by a C-RNTI, the DCI-2 includes configuration information of the first BWP, or the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI-2 includes configuration information of the first BWP, where the first service is a multicast service, and the plurality of terminal devices refer to terminal devices interested in the first service. Accordingly, after receiving DCI-2 or PDSCH scheduled by DCI-2, the plurality of terminal devices may acquire configuration information of the first BWP, and switch to receiving multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP. One possible implementation procedure will be described below taking as an example the interaction between a network device and a certain terminal device interested in a first service.
Fig. 7 is a flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to a second embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 7, including:
The network device sends configuration information to the terminal device, which may be used to configure the terminal device with one or more dedicated BWP, step 701, and the terminal device may receive the configuration information accordingly.
Here, the configuration information may also be used to configure the identifier of one or more specific BWP, and the description of the configuration information 2 in the first embodiment may be referred to, which is not repeated.
The terminal device activates the second BWP and communicates with the network device on the second BWP, step 702.
Here, the second BWP may be an initial BWP, a dedicated BWP, or a multicast BWP.
In step 703, the network device sends first information to the terminal device, the first information being used to indicate that the multicast transmission of the first service is received at the first BWP, and the terminal device receiving the first information accordingly.
Here, the first information may include configuration information of the first BWP, and further, the first information may further include physical layer configuration information corresponding to the first BWP.
In one example, the first information may be carried in DCI-2, which may be scrambled by a C-RNTI or a first traffic associated G-RNTI. In this case, after detecting DCI-2 according to the C-RNTI or the G-RNTI associated with the first service, the terminal device may obtain the first information from DCI-2.
In yet another example, the first information may be carried in a PDSCH of the DCI-2 schedule, which DCI-2 may be scrambled by a C-RNTI or a first traffic associated G-RNTI. In this case, after detecting DCI-2 according to the C-RNTI or the G-RNTI associated with the first service, the terminal device may receive the PDSCH according to the scheduling information in the DCI-2, and further obtain the first information from the PDSCH. Here, as can be seen from the protocol layer architecture illustrated in fig. 2b described above, the information transmitted in the PDSCH may include information transmitted to the physical layer via the PDCP layer, the RLC layer, and the MAC layer, and thus, the first information may be carried in a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer. The control message of the MAC layer may include a MAC CE, the control message of the RLC layer may be an RLC control PDU, and the control message of the PDCP layer may be a PDCP control PDU.
In step 704, the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information.
In step 705, the network device sends a multicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device at the first BWP, and the terminal device receives the multicast transmission of the first service accordingly at the first BWP.
Here, the terminal device may determine whether the currently active BWP (i.e., the second BWP) and the first BWP match, and if so (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are the same BWP), the terminal device may receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the second BWP, and if not (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are different BWP), the terminal device may switch the active BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information, and receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
With the solution in the second embodiment, the network device does not need to configure the multicast BWP for the terminal device in advance, but may send configuration information of the multicast BWP to the terminal device through the DCI or the DCI scheduled PDSCH when the terminal device needs to switch to the multicast BWP, so that the terminal device may switch to the multicast BWP according to the configuration information of the multicast BWP and receive multicast transmission of the service on the multicast BWP. By adopting the mode, on one hand, the switching of the terminal equipment to the multicast BWP is realized, and on the other hand, the first BWP is indicated by an explicit mode without setting the corresponding relation between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, so that the flexibility of regulating and controlling the network equipment is improved.
Example III
In the third embodiment, when the network device determines that the multicast transmission of the first service needs to be sent, DCI (referred to as DCI-3 for convenience of description) may be sent to a plurality of terminal devices, where the DCI-3 may be scrambled by a first G-RNTI associated with the first service or may also be scrambled by a C-RNTI, the DCI-3 includes an identifier of the first BWP or an identifier of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identifier of the first BWP in the group, or the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI-3 includes an identifier of the first BWP or an identifier of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identifier of the first BWP in the group, and the plurality of terminal devices refer to terminal devices interested in the first service. Accordingly, after receiving DCI-3 or PDSCH scheduled by DCI-3, the plurality of terminal devices may acquire the identifier of the first BWP or the identifier of the group to which the first BWP belongs and the identifier of the first BWP in the group, and further switch to receiving the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP. One possible implementation procedure will be described below taking as an example the interaction between a network device and a certain terminal device interested in a first service.
Fig. 8 is a flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to a third embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 8, including:
The network device sends configuration information to the terminal device, step 801, which may be used to configure at least one BWP, such as at least one BWP comprising BWP1, BWP2, BWP3 and BWP4.
Here, the at least one BWP may include a multicast BWP, such as BWP1, BWP2, BWP3, and BWP4, may be all multicast BWP, or the at least one BWP may include a multicast BWP and a dedicated BWP, such as BWP1, BWP2 being multicast BWP, BWP3, and BWP4 being dedicated BWP.
The network device may send the configuration information to the terminal device in a plurality of ways. For example, the network device may send an RRC message to the terminal device, the RRC message including configuration information, in which case the at least one BWP may include multicast BWP, or the at least one BWP may include multicast BWP and dedicated BWP. For another example, the network device may send a system message to the terminal device, the system message comprising configuration information, in which case the at least one BWP may comprise a multicast BWP.
In one example, the configuration information may also be used to configure the identity of at least one BWP, i.e. the configuration information may also be used to configure the identity of each of BWP1, BWP2, BWP3 and BWP 4.
In yet another example, the configuration information may also be used to configure an identification of a group to which the at least one BWP belongs and an identification of the at least one BWP within the group to which the at least one BWP belongs. For example, the at least one BWP may be grouped according to a type to which the at least one BWP belongs, and the identification of the group to which the at least one BWP belongs may be an identification of the type to which the at least one BWP belongs. Wherein the type to which the at least one BWP belongs may include a dedicated BWP and a multicast BWP, such as an identification of the group to which BWP1, BWP2 belongs as multicast BWP, the BWP1 is identified as number 1 in the group, BWP2 is identified as number 2 in the group, the BWP3 and BWP4 belong to the group identified as dedicated BWP, BWP3 is identified as number 1 in the group, and BWP4 is identified as number 2 in the group. Or the type to which the at least one BWP belongs may include a BWP corresponding to URLLC traffic and a BWP corresponding to multicast traffic, or the type to which the at least one BWP belongs may also include other possible types, which is not limited in particular.
The terminal device activates a second BWP and communicates with the network device on the second BWP, step 802.
Here, the second BWP may be an initial BWP, a dedicated BWP, or a multicast BWP.
In step 803, the network device sends first information to the terminal device, the first information being used to indicate that a multicast transmission of the first service is received on the first BWP, and the terminal device receiving the first information accordingly.
Here, the first information may include an identification of the first BWP, or the first information includes an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within the group.
In one example, the first information may be carried on DCI-3, which DCI-3 may be scrambled by a C-RNTI or a first traffic associated G-RNTI. In this case, after detecting DCI-3 according to the C-RNTI or the G-RNTI associated with the first service, the terminal device may obtain the first information from the DCI-3.
In yet another example, the first information may be carried in a PDSCH of the DCI-3 schedule, which DCI-3 may be scrambled by a C-RNTI or a first traffic associated G-RNTI. In this case, after detecting DCI-3 according to the C-RNTI or the G-RNTI associated with the first service, the terminal device may receive the PDSCH according to the scheduling information in the DCI-3, and further obtain the first information from the PDSCH. The first information may be carried in a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In step 804, the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information.
In step 805, the network device sends a multicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device at the first BWP (i.e. sends data of the first service to the terminal device by multicast), and accordingly, the terminal device receives the multicast transmission of the first service at the first BWP.
Here, the terminal device may determine whether the currently active BWP (i.e., the second BWP) and the first BWP match, and if so (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are the same BWP), the terminal device may receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the second BWP, and if not (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are different BWP), the terminal device may switch the active BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information, and receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
With the solution in the third embodiment, the network device may configure the multicast BWP and the identifier of the multicast BWP (or the identifier of the group to which the multicast BWP belongs and the identifier of the multicast BWP within the group) for the terminal device in advance, and when the terminal device needs to switch to the multicast BWP, the identifier of the multicast BWP is sent to the terminal device through the DCI or the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI, so that the terminal device may switch to the multicast BWP according to the identifier of the multicast BWP and receive the multicast transmission of the service on the multicast BWP. By adopting the method, on one hand, the switching of the terminal equipment to the multicast BWP is realized, on the other hand, the first BWP is indicated by an explicit mode without setting the corresponding relation between the multicast BWP and the G-RNTI associated with the multicast service, the flexibility of regulating and controlling the network equipment is improved, and the transmission resource can be effectively saved because the identification of the multicast BWP generally occupies only a small amount of transmission resource.
In the above embodiments one to three, the description has been made regarding the implementation of the terminal device switching to the multicast BWP, that is, the terminal device may receive the first information from the network device and switch the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information. However, considering that the terminal device may perform the operation with higher priority on the second BWP when receiving the first information, in this case, if the second BWP is switched to the first BWP, the operation with higher priority may be interrupted.
Based on this, the embodiment of the present application further provides a communication method, in which when the terminal device receives the switching information, it may determine whether a preset condition is met, if not, the BWP switching operation may be performed according to the switching information, and if so, the switching information may be ignored, that is, the BWP switching operation may not be performed, where the preset condition may be set according to actual needs.
Illustratively, the method may be applicable to a variety of possible BWP switching scenarios. For example, the method may be applicable to a scenario in which the terminal device switches between initial BWP and dedicated BWP, or may be applicable to a scenario in which the terminal device switches between multicast BWP, or may be applicable to a scenario in which the terminal device switches between dedicated BWP (or initial BWP) and multicast BWP.
Example IV
In the fourth embodiment, one possible implementation will be described taking as an example a scenario where the method is applicable to a terminal device switched to multicast BWP by initial BWP, dedicated BWP or multicast BWP.
Fig. 9 is a flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to a fourth embodiment of the present application, as shown in fig. 9, including:
In step 901, the network device sends handover information to the terminal device, and accordingly, the terminal device may receive the handover information.
For example, the switching information may be first information in the first to third embodiments, for instructing the terminal device to switch the second BWP to the first BWP.
Step 902, the terminal device determines whether the preset condition is met, if so, performs steps 903a and 904a, and if not, performs steps 903b and 904b.
In one example, the terminal device determining whether the preset condition is met may refer to the terminal device determining whether at least one of (1) when the first information is received, unicast transmission of the second service is being received on the second BWP, wherein the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the second service, or the priority of multicast transmission is lower than or equal to the priority of unicast transmission. In this case, the second BWP may be a dedicated BWP, and the second traffic may be unicast traffic or may also be multicast traffic. (2) When the first information is received, a multicast transmission of the third traffic is being received on the second BWP, the priority of the first traffic being lower than or equal to the priority of the third traffic. In this case, the second BWP may be a multicast BWP and the third traffic may be a multicast traffic. (3) When the first information is received, a random access procedure is being performed on the second BWP. In this case, the second BWP may be a dedicated BWP or an initial BWP.
And if the terminal equipment determines that at least one of the conditions (1), the conditions (2) and the conditions (3) are met, the terminal equipment indicates that the preset conditions are met, and if the terminal equipment determines that the conditions (1), the conditions (2) and the conditions (3) are not met, the terminal equipment indicates that the preset conditions are not met.
In this example, the priority of each service may be preconfigured to the terminal device by the network device, or may be agreed upon by the protocol. The priorities of the unicast transmissions and the priorities of the multicast transmissions may be preconfigured to the terminal device by the network device or may be agreed upon by the protocol.
In step 903a, the terminal device ignores the handover information, i.e. does not perform BWP handover according to the first information.
Here, if the handover information is the first information in the first to third embodiments, the terminal device ignoring the first information may be understood as the terminal device ignoring the DCI-1 in the first embodiment, the terminal device ignoring the first information may be understood as the terminal device ignoring the DCI-2 (the first information is carried by the DCI-2) or the terminal device ignoring the DCI-2 and the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI-2 (the first information is carried by the PDSCH) in the second embodiment, and the terminal device ignoring the first information may be understood as the terminal device ignoring the DCI-3 (the first information is carried by the DCI-3) or the terminal device ignoring the DCI-3 and the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI-3 (the first information is carried by the PDSCH) in the third embodiment.
In step 904a, after determining that the terminal device ignores the handover information, the network device may send unicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device (i.e. send data of the first service to the terminal device in a unicast manner), and accordingly, the terminal device may receive unicast transmission of the first service.
Here, there may be various ways in which the network device determines that the terminal device ignores the first information. For example, after the terminal device ignores the first information, the network device may send notification information to the network device, and then the network device may determine that the terminal device has ignored the first information according to the notification information. The notification information may be carried in a control message of the MAC layer, and the control message of the MAC layer may include MAC subPDU. MAC subPDU may include a MAC sub-header and a MAC CE, where the MAC sub-header includes a logical channel identifier (logical CHANNEL ID, LCID) field, where the LCID field may be used to indicate LCID, and in an embodiment of the present application, a special LCID (for example LCID-1) may be introduced, where when the LCID field indicates LCID-1, a control message indicating that the MAC layer is used to indicate that the terminal device has ignored the first information. Alternatively, the MAC CE corresponding to the MAC sub-header may be null (i.e., the length of the field is 0).
The network device may, for example, determine that the terminal device ignores the first information, if the second BWP currently activated is a dedicated BWP, then the network device may send a unicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device on the second BWP, or instruct the terminal device to switch to another dedicated BWP, and then send a unicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device on the other dedicated BWP, which is not limited in particular.
In step 903b, the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information.
In step 904b, the network device sends a multicast transmission of the first service to the terminal device at the first BWP, and the terminal device receives the multicast transmission of the first service accordingly at the first BWP.
Here, the terminal device may determine whether the currently active BWP (i.e., the second BWP) and the first BWP match, and if so (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are the same BWP), the terminal device may receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the second BWP, and if not (e.g., the second BWP and the first BWP are different BWP), the terminal device may switch the active BWP from the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information, and receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
By adopting the mode, when the terminal equipment receives the switching information, whether the operation with higher priority is executed on the currently activated BWP can be judged first, if so, the BWP switching operation can be temporarily not executed, otherwise, the BWP switching operation can be executed, and therefore, the interruption of the operation with higher priority can be effectively avoided.
In the embodiment of the present application, it is considered that after the terminal device receives the multicast service on the multicast BWP, some problems may exist if the terminal device still stays on the multicast BWP. For example, from the viewpoint of traffic demand, since multicast traffic is not frequent, when receiving multicast traffic is required, the terminal device may switch to multicast BWP to receive multicast traffic, but after the multicast traffic is transmitted, if the terminal device remains on the multicast BWP (e.g. uses SCS, bandwidth, etc. corresponding to the multicast BWP), the demand of other traffic may not be satisfied, thereby affecting the reception of other traffic. For another example, from the point of view of power consumption of the terminal device, the multicast service (such as live video) generally corresponds to a larger data volume, and thus the required multicast BWP has a larger width, and when the live video is over, the normal service does not need to have such a large width, so that the terminal device may still stay on the multicast BWP with a larger width, which may result in a larger power consumption of the terminal device.
Based on this, the embodiment of the present application also provides a communication method, in which, after the terminal device switches to the multicast BWP, the multicast BWP can fall back to the appropriate BWP to solve the above-mentioned problem. The terminal device may switch to the multicast BWP in the manner described in the foregoing embodiments one to three, or may switch to the multicast BWP in other possible manners.
Example five
In embodiment five, a possible implementation of the terminal device to fall back from multicast BWP to other suitable BWP will be described in connection with implementation 1 and implementation 2 taking the terminal device to switch to multicast BWP in the manner described in the previous embodiments one to three as an example.
Implementation 1
In implementation 1, the decision to switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP may be made by the terminal device. Wherein the third BWP may be predefined for the protocol, or pre-agreed by the network device and the terminal device, or pre-indicated by the network device, e.g. the third BWP is a default BWP or a second BWP. In this way, the terminal device decides to switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP, so that signaling overhead between the terminal device and the network device can be effectively saved, and the terminal device can timely fall back onto the appropriate BWP.
In one example of this implementation, the terminal device may switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP if it determines that the multicast transmission of the first traffic is not received on the first BWP within the first duration and no DCI-4 is detected. Wherein, the DCI-4 is used for scheduling the multicast transmission of the first service, and the DCI-4 can be scrambled by the G-RNTI associated with the first service. Specifically, the terminal device may start a timer at a first time, determine that the timer times out at an end time of a preset time period if the multicast transmission of the first service is not received on the first BWP and DCI-4 is not detected in the preset time period with the first time as a start time, and switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP. And restarting the timer if the multicast transmission of the first service is performed on the first BWP and/or the DCI-4 is detected within a preset time period. The duration of the timer is equal to the duration of the preset time period and is equal to the first duration.
The first time may be the time when the first information is received, or may be the time when the activated BWP is switched to the first BWP, or may be the end boundary of a subframe or a slot or a micro slot or a symbol or a frame when the multicast transmission is received, or may be other possible time, which may depend on the internal implementation of the terminal device. The first duration may be indicated by the network device, for example, the terminal device receives indication information from the network device, where the indication information is used to indicate the first duration, and the indication information may be carried in a system message or a message of an RRC layer or DCI, where the DCI may be scrambled by a G-RNTI of the first service. Or the first duration may be predefined by the protocol.
In yet another example of this implementation, if the terminal device does not detect DCI-4 on consecutive M candidate time-frequency locations corresponding to DCI-4, the activated BWP may be switched from the first BWP to the third BWP. The value of M may be indicated by the network device, or may be predefined for the protocol.
In yet another example of this implementation, the terminal device may start a timer at the second moment and switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP after the timer expires. The second time may be the time when the first information is received, or may be the time when the activated BWP is switched to the first BWP, or may be the end boundary of a subframe or a slot or a micro slot or a symbol or a frame when the multicast transmission is received, or may be other possible time, which may depend on the internal implementation of the terminal device. The duration of the timer may be a second duration, which may be indicated by the network device, or may be predefined by the protocol.
Furthermore, in implementation 1, after the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP, a switch acknowledgement indication may also be sent to the network device on the third BWP for indicating that the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP. Accordingly, after receiving the switch acknowledgement indication from the third BWP, the network device may learn that the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP, so as to ensure that the understanding of the working BWP of the terminal device by the terminal device and the network device is consistent.
Implementation 2
In implementation 2, the terminal device may send a request message to the network device, where the request message is used to request to perform BWP switching, and correspondingly, after receiving the request message, the network device may send a response message to the terminal device, and further, the terminal device may switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP based on the response message of the network device. There may be various triggers for the terminal device to send a request message to the network device. For example, the terminal device may send a request message to the network device if it determines that the multicast transmission of the first traffic is not received on the first BWP within the first duration and DCI-3 is not detected. For another example, the terminal device sends a request message to the network device if it determines that no DCI-3 is detected at consecutive M candidate time-frequency locations corresponding to DCI-3. Specific implementations can be found in the description above. By adopting the mode, the terminal equipment switches BWP according to the response message of the network equipment, so that the flexibility of regulation and control of the network equipment can be effectively improved.
Implementation 2 is described in detail below in connection with scenario 1 through scenario 3.
Case 1
The network device and the terminal device may agree on the rolled-back BWP in advance, or may also define the rolled-back BWP, such as the third BWP, in advance by the protocol. As such, the request message for requesting to perform BWP switching may mean that the request message is for requesting to switch the first BWP to the third BWP or the request message is for requesting to fall back to the third BWP. Accordingly, after receiving the request message, the network device may determine whether to allow the terminal device to switch to the third BWP, and send a response message to the terminal device according to the determination result. For example, the response message may include 1 bit of indication information, if the value of the bit is 1, it indicates that the terminal device is allowed to switch to the third BWP, and if the value of the bit is 0, it indicates that the terminal device is not allowed to switch to the third BWP. For example, 2, if the response message includes the identifier of the third BWP, it indicates that the terminal device is allowed to switch to the third BWP, and if the response message does not include the identifier of the third BWP, it indicates that the terminal device is not allowed to switch to the third BWP. In other possible examples, if the network device determines that the terminal device is not allowed to switch to the third BWP, the network device may not send the response message any more, and accordingly, if the terminal device does not receive the response message, the network device may learn that the terminal device is not allowed to switch to the third BWP. As an example, the basis for the network device to determine whether to allow the terminal device to switch to the third BWP may be various, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.
In case 1 above, the request message may be a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer or a message of the RRC layer (i.e., RRC message).
For example, when the request message is a control message of the MAC layer, the control message of the MAC layer may include a MAC sub-PDU (sub-PDU). Referring to fig. 10a, MAC subPDU may include a MAC sub-header and a MAC Control Element (CE), where the MAC sub-header includes an LCID field, where the LCID field may be used to indicate LCID, and a special LCID (such as LCID-2) may be introduced in the embodiment of the present application, where when the LCID field indicates LCID-2, a control message indicating that the MAC layer is used to request to perform BWP handover. Alternatively, the MAC CE corresponding to the MAC sub-header may be null (i.e., the length of the field is 0).
For another example, when the request message is a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer, the control message of the RLC layer or the control message of the PDCP layer may be a control PDU. Referring to fig. 10b, the PDU may include a D/C field, a PDU type (type) field, and a reserved (reserved) field. The D/C field is used to indicate that the PDU is a control PDU, and the PDU type field is used to indicate the type of the PDU.
Case 2
The request message may include an identification of one candidate BWP (e.g., the candidate BWP is the third BWP), and thus, the request message for requesting the BWP switch may refer to the request message for requesting the first BWP switch to the third BWP. Accordingly, after receiving the request message, the network device may determine whether to allow the terminal device to switch to the third BWP, and send a response message to the terminal device according to the determination result. Wherein case 2 differs from case 1 in that the request message includes an identification of a candidate BWP, and the two contents other than the difference can be referred to each other.
Case 3
The request message may include an identification of a plurality of candidate BWP, and thus, the request message for requesting to perform BWP switching may refer to the request message for requesting to switch the first BWP to one BWP of the plurality of candidate BWP. Accordingly, after receiving the request message, the network device may select the third BWP from the plurality of candidate BWP, and send a response message to the terminal device, where the response message includes an identifier of the third BWP, and the terminal device may switch to the third BWP according to the response message. In other possible examples, if no identification of any candidate BWP is included in the response message or the terminal device does not receive the response message, it is indicated that the terminal device is not allowed to perform BWP handover. Illustratively, the basis for the network device to select the third BWP from the plurality of candidate BWP may be various, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.
In case 2 and case 3 described above, the request message may be a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer or a message of the RRC layer.
For example, when the request message is a control message of the MAC layer, the control message of the MAC layer may include MAC subPDU. Referring to fig. 10c, MAC subPDU may include a MAC sub-header and a MAC CE, where the MAC sub-header includes an LCID field, where the LCID field may be used to indicate LCID, and a special LCID (such as LCID-2) may be introduced in the embodiment of the present application, where when the LCID field indicates the special LCID, a control message indicating that the MAC layer is used to request to perform BWP handover. The MAC CE corresponding to the MAC sub-header may include an identification of one or more candidate BWP.
For another example, when the request message is a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer, the control message of the RLC layer or the control message of the PDCP layer may be a control PDU. Referring to fig. 10D, the control PDU may include a D/C field, a PDU type field, and a reserved field. The D/C field is used to indicate that the PDU is a control PDU, and the PDU type field is used to indicate the type of the PDU. The reserved field may include an identification of one or more candidate BWP.
In addition, in implementation 2, after the terminal device switches the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP based on the response message of the network device, a switch acknowledgement indication may be further sent to the network device on the third BWP to indicate that the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP, and accordingly, after the network device receives the switch acknowledgement indication from the third BWP, the network device may know that the terminal device has completed BWP switching, so that it can be ensured that the understanding of the terminal device and the network device about the working BWP of the terminal device is consistent.
Implementation 3
In implementation 3, the terminal device may select one BWP from the plurality of candidate BWP (e.g., select BWP as the third BWP), and switch the activated BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP. Wherein the plurality of candidate BWP may be preconfigured for the network device, and the plurality of candidate BWP may include a dedicated BWP and/or a multicast BWP of the terminal device. In this way, the terminal device selects one BWP and switches to the BWP, so that the terminal device is flexible to implement, and the terminal device can fall back to the appropriate BWP.
Here, the basis or rule by which the terminal device selects one BWP from the plurality of candidate BWP may be various. In one example, the terminal device may select BWP according to traffic requirements for subsequent transmissions, which may include traffic data volume and/or requirements for traffic latency. For example, the terminal device may select a BWP having a larger width from among the plurality of candidate BWP if the traffic data amount is larger, and may select a BWP having a smaller width from among the plurality of candidate BWP if the traffic data amount is smaller. For another example, if the traffic delay requirement is high, the terminal device may select a BWP corresponding to a smaller subcarrier spacing from the plurality of candidate BWP. It will be appreciated that when two or more BWP among the plurality of candidate BWP meet a condition (e.g., two or more BWP of larger width), the specific selection of which BWP may depend on the internal implementation of the terminal device.
In yet another example, the terminal device may select BWP according to the measured quality of the reference signal on the plurality of candidate BWP. For example, BWP of which the quality of the reference signal is higher than or equal to the preset threshold may be selected from the plurality of candidate BWP, and when there are two or more BWP of which the quality of the reference signal is higher than or equal to the preset threshold, the specific selection of which BWP may depend on the internal implementation of the terminal device. The quality of the reference signal may be RSRP and/or RSRQ. The preset threshold may be preconfigured for the network device or predefined for the protocol.
In addition, in implementation 3, after the terminal device switches the active BWP from the first BWP to the third BWP, a switch acknowledgement indication may be further sent to the network device on the third BWP to indicate that the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP, and accordingly, after the network device receives the switch acknowledgement indication from the third BWP, it may be known that the BWP selected by the terminal device from the multiple candidate BWP is the third BWP and the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP, so that understanding of the working BWP of the terminal device and the network device by the terminal device can be ensured to be consistent.
Note that, in the above-described implementation 1, implementation 2, or implementation 3, there may be various ways in which the terminal device sends the switch acknowledgement indication on the third BWP. For example, the handover confirmation indication may be a control message of the MAC layer, and the control message of the MAC layer may include MAC subPDU, in which a special LCID (for example LCID-3) may be introduced in the embodiment of the present application, and when the LCID field of MAC subPDU indicates LCID-3, it indicates that the control message of the MAC layer is the handover confirmation indication. Alternatively, MAC subPDU MAC CEs may be null. When the terminal device determines that there are available uplink resources on the third BWP, the control message of the MAC layer may be transmitted through the available uplink resources. For another example, the handover confirm indication may correspond to one or more specific random access preambles (such as preamble 1), that is, preamble 1 may indicate that the terminal device has rolled back to the third BWP, and thus, the terminal device transmits the handover confirm indication on the third BWP may refer to the terminal device transmitting preamble 1 on the third BWP. The correspondence between the handover confirmation indication and the specific random access preamble may be configured by the network device for the terminal device, or may be predefined by a protocol.
For the first to fifth embodiments, it should be noted that:
(1) The first to fifth embodiments may be implemented individually or in combination. For example, the first, second, or third embodiment may be implemented in combination with the fourth embodiment, for example, the first, second, or third embodiment may be implemented in combination with the fifth embodiment, for example, the fourth and fifth embodiments may be implemented in combination, and for example, the first, second, or third embodiment may be implemented in combination with the fourth and fifth embodiments.
(2) The first to fifth embodiments described above focus on the differences between the different embodiments, and may be referred to each other, except for other differences.
(3) The step numbers of the flowcharts described in the first to fourth embodiments are only an example of the execution flow, and do not limit the execution sequence of the steps, and in the embodiment of the present application, there is no strict execution sequence between the steps that have no time sequence dependency relationship with each other. Furthermore, not all the steps illustrated in the respective flowcharts are necessarily performed, and partial steps may be added or deleted on the basis of the respective flowcharts according to actual needs.
The scheme provided by the embodiment of the application is mainly introduced from the interaction point of the network equipment and the terminal equipment. It will be appreciated that, in order to implement the above-described functions, the network device or terminal device may include corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules that perform the respective functions. Those of skill in the art will readily appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is implemented as hardware or computer software driven hardware depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.
The embodiment of the application can divide the functional units of the terminal equipment and the network equipment according to the method example, for example, each functional unit can be divided corresponding to each function, and two or more functions can be integrated in one unit. The integrated units may be implemented in hardware or in software functional units.
In case of integrated units, fig. 11 shows a possible exemplary block diagram of the apparatus involved in an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 11, the apparatus 1100 may include a processing unit 1102 and a communication unit 1103. The processing unit 1102 is configured to control and manage the operations of the apparatus 1100. The communication unit 1103 is used to support communication of the apparatus 1100 with other devices. Alternatively, the communication unit 1103, also referred to as a transceiver unit, may include a receiving unit and/or a transmitting unit, for performing receiving and transmitting operations, respectively. Optionally, the apparatus 1100 may further comprise a storage unit 1101 for storing program code and/or data of the apparatus 1100.
The apparatus 1100 may be the terminal device in any of the above embodiments, or may also be a chip provided in the terminal device. The processing unit 1102 may support the apparatus 1100 to perform the actions of the terminal device in the examples of the methods above. Or the processing unit 1102 mainly performs internal actions of the terminal device in the method example, the communication unit 1103 may support communication between the apparatus 1100 and the network device.
Specifically, in one embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is configured to receive first information from a network device, where the first information is used to indicate that a multicast transmission of a first service is received on a first BWP, the processing unit 1102 is configured to switch a second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information, and the communication unit 1103 is further configured to receive the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is a first DCI, the first DCI is scrambled by a group radio G-RNTI associated with a first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is a first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to receive second information from the network device, where the second information is used to configure a correspondence between the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, wherein the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP, bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on the frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes parameter resource indication value RIV corresponding to the first BWP, the RIV being used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP on the frequency domain, the frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP being used to determine the frequency domain start position information of the first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information comprises an identification of the first BWP, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to receive third information from the network device, wherein the third information is used to configure at least one BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP, the at least one BWP comprising the first BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within said group, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to receive fourth information from the network device, wherein the fourth information is used for configuring at least one BWP, an identification of the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, an identification of the at least one BWP within the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, the at least one BWP comprising the first BWP.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a first traffic-associated G-RNTI, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the processing unit 1102 is specifically configured to switch the second BWP to the first BWP according to the first information when it is determined that the first item is not met, and when the first information is received, unicast transmission of the second service is being received on the second BWP, wherein the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the second service, or the priority of the multicast transmission is lower than or equal to the priority of the unicast transmission, the second item, when the first information is received, is receiving multicast transmission of the third service, and the priority of the first service is lower than or equal to the priority of the third service, and the third item, when the first information is received, is performing the random access procedure on the second BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to send a request message to the network device, where the request message is used to request to perform BWP switching, and receive a response message from the network device, and switch the first BWP to the third BWP according to the response message.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the request message comprises an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting to perform a BWP switch comprises the request message for requesting to switch a first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, the response message comprises an identification of a third BWP determined from the at least one candidate BWP.
In one possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is specifically configured to determine that the multicast transmission of the first service is not received on the first BWP within the first duration, and the third DCI is not detected, send a request message to the network device, or send the request message to the network device if the third DCI is not detected at M consecutive candidate time-frequency positions corresponding to the third DCI, where M is a positive integer, and the third DCI is used to schedule the multicast transmission of the first service.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the processing unit 1102 is specifically configured to determine that the multicast transmission of the first service is not received on the first BWP within the first duration, and if the third DCI is not detected, switch the first BWP to the third BWP, or switch the first BWP to the third BWP if the third DCI is not detected on M consecutive candidate time-frequency positions corresponding to the third DCI, where M is a positive integer, and the third DCI is used to schedule the multicast transmission of the first service.
The apparatus 1100 may be a network device (such as the first network device or the second network device) in any of the above embodiments or may also be a chip disposed in the network device. The processing unit 1102 may support the apparatus 1100 to perform the actions of the network device in the examples of methods above. Or the processing unit 1102 mainly performs internal actions of the network device in the method example, the communication unit 1103 may support communication between the apparatus 1100 and other devices.
Specifically, in one embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is configured to send first information to the terminal device, where the first information is used to indicate that a multicast transmission of the first service is received on the first BWP, and send the multicast transmission of the first service on the first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the first information is first DCI, the first DCI is scrambled by a G-RNTI associated with the first service, and the BWP corresponding to the G-RNTI is first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to send second information to the terminal device, where the second information is used to configure a correspondence between the G-RNTI and the first BWP.
In a possible implementation manner of this embodiment, the first information includes configuration information of the first BWP, where the configuration information of the first BWP includes frequency domain start position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, or the configuration information of the first BWP includes parameter resource indication value RIV corresponding to the first BWP, where the RIV is used to indicate frequency domain offset position information of the first BWP and bandwidth information occupied by the first BWP in a frequency domain, and the frequency domain offset position information is used to determine the frequency domain start position information.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information comprises an identification of the first BWP, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to send third information to the terminal device, wherein the third information is used to configure at least one BWP comprising the first BWP and the identification of the at least one BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information comprises an identification of a group to which the first BWP belongs and an identification of the first BWP within said group, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to send fourth information to the terminal device, wherein the fourth information is used for configuring the at least one BWP, the identification of the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, the identification of the at least one BWP within the group to which the at least one BWP belongs, the at least one BWP comprising the first BWP.
In one possible implementation of this embodiment, the first information is carried on a second DCI scrambled by a first traffic-associated G-RNTI, or the first information is carried on a control message of the MAC layer or a control message of the RLC layer or a control message of the PDCP layer.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment, the communication unit 1103 is further configured to receive a request message from the terminal device, where the request message is used to request to perform a BWP switch, and send a response message to the terminal device according to the request message, where the response message is used to indicate that the first BWP is switched to the third BWP.
In a possible implementation of this embodiment the request message comprises an identification of at least one candidate BWP, the request message for requesting to perform a BWP switch comprises the request message for requesting to switch a first BWP to one of the at least one candidate BWP, and the response message comprises an identification of a third BWP determined from the at least one candidate BWP.
It should be understood that the division of the units in the above apparatus is merely a division of a logic function, and may be fully or partially integrated into a physical entity or may be physically separated when actually implemented. The units in the device can be realized in the form of software calling through the processing element, can be realized in the form of hardware, can also be realized in the form of software calling through the processing element, and can be realized in the form of hardware. For example, each unit may be a processing element that is set up separately, may be implemented as integrated in a certain chip of the apparatus, or may be stored in a memory in the form of a program, and the functions of the unit may be called and executed by a certain processing element of the apparatus. Furthermore, all or part of these units may be integrated together or may be implemented independently. The processing element described herein may in turn be a processor, which may be an integrated circuit with signal processing capabilities. In implementation, each step of the above method or each unit above may be implemented by an integrated logic circuit of hardware in a processor element or in the form of software called by a processing element.
In one example, the elements in any of the above apparatuses may be one or more integrated circuits configured to implement the above methods, such as one or more Application SPECIFIC INTEGRATED Circuits (ASICs), or one or more microprocessors (DIGITAL SINGNAL processors, DSPs), or one or more field programmable gate arrays (Field Programmable GATE ARRAY, FPGA), or a combination of at least two of these integrated Circuit forms. For another example, when the units in the apparatus may be implemented in the form of a scheduler of processing elements, the processing elements may be processors, such as a general purpose central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), or other processor that may invoke a program. For another example, the units may be integrated together and implemented in the form of a system-on-a-chip (SOC).
The above unit for receiving is an interface circuit of the device for receiving signals from other devices. For example, when the device is implemented in the form of a chip, the receiving unit is an interface circuit of the chip for receiving signals from other chips or devices. The above unit for transmitting is an interface circuit of the apparatus for transmitting signals to other apparatuses. For example, when the device is implemented in the form of a chip, the transmitting unit is an interface circuit of the chip for transmitting signals to other chips or devices.
Fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application. Which may be the terminal device in the above embodiment, for implementing the operation of the terminal device in the above embodiment. As shown in fig. 12, the terminal device includes an antenna 1210, a radio frequency part 1220, and a signal processing part 1230. The antenna 1210 is connected to the radio frequency portion 1220. In the downlink direction, the radio frequency part 1220 receives information transmitted from the network device through the antenna 1210, and transmits the information transmitted from the network device to the signal processing part 1230 for processing. In the uplink direction, the signal processing portion 1230 processes information of the terminal device and transmits the processed information to the radio frequency portion 1220, and the radio frequency portion 1220 processes information of the terminal device and transmits the processed information to the network device through the antenna 1210.
The signal processing portion 1230 may include a modem subsystem for implementing processing of each communication protocol layer of data, a central processing subsystem for implementing processing of an operating system and an application layer of the terminal device, and other subsystems such as a multimedia subsystem for implementing control of a camera, a screen display, etc. of the terminal device, a peripheral subsystem for implementing connection with other devices, etc. The modem subsystem may be a separately provided chip.
The modem subsystem may include one or more processing elements 1231, including, for example, a master CPU and other integrated circuits. In addition, the modulation and demodulation subsystem may also include a storage element 1232 and an interface circuit 1233. The storage element 1232 is used to store data and programs, but the programs used to perform the methods performed by the terminal device in the above methods may not be stored in the storage element 1232, but in a memory other than the modulation and demodulation subsystem, which is loaded for use when in use. Interface circuit 1233 is used to communicate with other subsystems.
The modulation and demodulation subsystem may be implemented by a chip comprising at least one processing element for performing the steps of any of the methods performed by the above terminal device and an interface circuit for communicating with other devices. In one implementation, the unit of the terminal device implementing each step in the above method may be implemented in the form of a processing element scheduler, for example, the apparatus for a terminal device includes a processing element and a storage element, and the processing element invokes the program stored in the storage element to perform the method performed by the terminal device in the above method embodiment. The memory element may be a memory element where the processing element is on the same chip, i.e. an on-chip memory element.
In another implementation, the program for executing the method executed by the terminal device in the above method may be a storage element on a different chip than the processing element, i.e. an off-chip storage element. At this time, the processing element calls or loads a program from the off-chip storage element on the on-chip storage element to call and execute the method executed by the terminal device in the above method embodiment.
In yet another implementation, the unit of the terminal device implementing the steps of the above method may be configured as one or more processing elements disposed on the modem subsystem, where the processing elements may be integrated circuits, such as one or more ASICs, or one or more DSPs, or one or more FPGAs, or a combination of such types of integrated circuits. These integrated circuits may be integrated together to form a chip.
The units of the terminal device for implementing the steps in the method can be integrated together and implemented in the form of an SOC chip for implementing the method. The method performed by the above terminal device may be implemented in the form of a program stored by the processing element calling the storage element, or the method performed by the above terminal device may be implemented in the form of at least one integrated circuit integrated in the chip, or the functions of part of the units may be implemented in the form of a program called by the processing element in combination with the above implementation.
It will be seen that the above apparatus for a terminal device may comprise at least one processing element and interface circuitry, wherein the at least one processing element is adapted to perform any of the methods performed by the terminal device provided by the above method embodiments. The processing element may perform some or all of the steps performed by the terminal device in a first manner, i.e. by calling a program stored by the storage element, or may perform some or all of the steps performed by the terminal device in a second manner, i.e. by means of integrated logic circuitry of hardware in the processor element in combination with instructions, or may, of course, perform some or all of the steps performed by the terminal device in combination with the first and second manners.
The processing elements herein are as described above and may be implemented by a processor, and the functions of the processing elements may be the same as those of the processing unit described in fig. 11. The processing element may be, for example, a general purpose processor such as a CPU, or may be one or more integrated circuits configured to implement the above methods, such as one or more ASICs, or one or more microprocessors DSPs, or one or more FPGAs, or the like, or a combination of at least two of these integrated circuit forms. The memory element may be implemented by a memory, and the function of the memory element may be the same as that of the memory cell described in fig. 11. The memory element may be implemented by a memory, and the function of the memory element may be the same as that of the memory cell described in fig. 11. The memory element may be one memory or may be a collective term for a plurality of memories.
The terminal device shown in fig. 12 is capable of implementing the respective processes involving the terminal device in the method embodiments illustrated in fig. 5, 7, 8 or 9. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the terminal device shown in fig. 12 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiment. Reference is specifically made to the description of the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid redundancy.
Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application. For implementing the operations of the network device (such as the first network device or the second network device) in the above embodiments. As shown in fig. 13, the network device includes an antenna 1301, a radio frequency device 1302, and a baseband device 1303. The antenna 1301 is connected to a radio frequency device 1302. In the uplink direction, the radio frequency device 1302 receives information transmitted by the terminal device through the antenna 1301, and transmits the information transmitted by the terminal device to the baseband device 1303 for processing. In the downlink direction, the baseband device 1303 processes information of the terminal device, and sends the processed information to the radio frequency device 1302, where the processed information of the terminal device is sent to the terminal device through the antenna 1301 by the radio frequency device 1302.
The baseband apparatus 1303 may include one or more processing elements 13031, including, for example, a master CPU and other integrated circuits. The baseband device 1303 may further include a storage element 13032 and an interface 13033, where the storage element 13032 is configured to store programs and data, and the interface 13033 is configured to interact with the radio frequency device 1302, such as a common public radio interface (common public radio interface, CPRI). The above means for network device may be located in the baseband means 1303, e.g. the above means for network device may be a chip on the baseband means 1303 comprising at least one processing element for performing the steps of any of the methods performed by the above network device and interface circuitry for communicating with other means. In one implementation, the units of the network device implementing the steps in the above method may be implemented in the form of a processing element scheduler, for example, an apparatus for a network device includes a processing element and a storage element, where the processing element invokes the program stored in the storage element to perform the method performed by the network device in the above method embodiment. The memory elements may be memory elements on the same chip as the processing elements, i.e., on-chip memory elements, or may be memory elements on a different chip than the processing elements, i.e., off-chip memory elements.
In another implementation, the units of the network device implementing the steps of the above method may be configured as one or more processing elements disposed on the baseband apparatus, where the processing elements may be integrated circuits, for example, one or more ASICs, or one or more DSPs, or one or more FPGAs, or a combination of these types of integrated circuits. These integrated circuits may be integrated together to form a chip.
The units of the network device implementing the steps of the above method may be integrated together and implemented in the form of a system-on-a-chip (SOC), e.g. the baseband device comprises the SOC chip for implementing the above method. The method performed by the above network device may be implemented in the form of a program stored by the processing element calling the storage element, or the method performed by the above network device may be implemented in the form of at least one integrated circuit integrated in the chip, or the functions of part of the units may be implemented in the form of a program called by the processing element in combination with the above implementation.
It will be seen that the above apparatus for a network device may comprise at least one processing element and interface circuitry, wherein the at least one processing element is adapted to perform any of the methods performed by the network device provided by the above method embodiments. The processing element may perform some or all of the steps performed by the network device in a first manner, i.e., by calling a program stored by the storage element, or may perform some or all of the steps performed by the network device in a second manner, i.e., by integrated logic circuitry of hardware in the processor element in combination with instructions, although some or all of the steps performed by the network device above may be performed in combination with the first and second manners.
The processing elements herein are as described above and may be implemented by a processor, and the functions of the processing elements may be the same as those of the processing unit described in fig. 11. The processing element may be, for example, a general purpose processor such as a CPU, or may be one or more integrated circuits configured to implement the above methods, such as one or more ASICs, or one or more microprocessors DSPs, or one or more FPGAs, or the like, or a combination of at least two of these integrated circuit forms. The memory element may be implemented by a memory, and the function of the memory element may be the same as that of the memory cell described in fig. 11. The memory element may be implemented by a memory, and the function of the memory element may be the same as that of the memory cell described in fig. 11. The memory element may be one memory or may be a collective term for a plurality of memories.
The network device shown in fig. 13 is capable of implementing the various processes involving the network device in the method embodiments illustrated in fig. 5, 7, 8 or 9. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the network device shown in fig. 13 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiment. Reference is specifically made to the description of the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid redundancy.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that embodiments of the present application may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present application may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present application may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.
The present application is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to the application. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the present application without departing from the spirit or scope of the application. Thus, it is intended that the present application also include such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.