CN108141412B - Slice-based operation in a wireless network with end-to-end network slices - Google Patents

Abstract

An embodiment provides a BS apparatus operable in wireless communication for a 5G system, the apparatus comprising: RF circuitry to receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software defined network; and baseband circuitry to: identifying, based on information from the communication, a first association of a first local component of the RAN with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice; and identifying a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN based on information of a communication that is the same as or different from the at least one communication, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice; wherein the second association is based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or QoS requirements.

Description

Slice-based operation in a wireless network with end-to-end network slices

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application serial No. 62/247,664, filed on 28/10/2015, the entire specification of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

Technical Field

Embodiments described herein relate generally to the field of wireless communication systems, and in particular to management of a radio access network of a wireless communication system.

Background

Implementations of the present disclosure may generally relate to the field of wireless communications.

Drawings

Various aspects, features and advantages of the embodiments of the disclosure will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals represent like elements, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows a first view of the generalized concept of vertical and horizontal network slicing (slicing);

fig. 2 shows a second view of a portion of the wireless network of fig. 1;

fig. 3 shows how a Radio Access Network (RAN) may be sliced into horizontal slices and vertical slices (slices) according to an alternative (or additional) embodiment to that shown in fig. 1;

fig. 4 illustrates a more detailed example of horizontal slicing in a sliceable wireless network architecture according to an example;

FIG. 5 illustrates a first example C/U plane implementation with a decoupled configuration for a network slice;

FIG. 6 illustrates a second example C/U plane implementation with a coupling configuration for a network slice;

FIG. 7 illustrates a third example C/U plane implementation with partially decoupled and partially coupled configurations for a network slice;

fig. 8 shows a first example slice on (slice on) procedure for a UE based on a threshold;

fig. 9 illustrates a second example slice opening procedure for a UE based on quality of service class;

fig. 10 shows a first example slice opening procedure of a base station;

fig. 11 shows a first example slice off procedure for a base station;

fig. 12 shows a first example random access procedure;

fig. 13 shows an example implementation of an electronic device (e.g., a UE or a base station) in accordance with an embodiment;

fig. 14 illustrates a first example method of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system, in accordance with an embodiment;

fig. 15 illustrates a second example method of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system, in accordance with an embodiment;

fig. 16 shows a diagram of hardware resources according to an embodiment.

Detailed Description

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of the disclosure. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the claims may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the present disclosure with unnecessary detail.

In fourth generation long term evolution (4G-LTE) and LTE-Advanced/Pro wireless communication networks, there is a heterogeneous trend in network architecture and applications. Examples of these trends are the development of small cells and relay networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication networks (also known as proximity services), and Machine Type Communication (MTC). A small cell may be considered to be any form of cell smaller than a conventional macro eNB/base station, e.g., a micro/pico/femto cell. Moving into fifth generation (5G) wireless communication networks, the trend towards heterogeneity may be more prominent, and suitably improved methods and apparatus for controlling wireless resources are desired. For example, because a 5G wireless communication network may need to serve various applications (with various traffic types and requirements), networks and user equipment (with various communication and computing capabilities), and different commercial markets (i.e., use cases) than more traditional voice services (e.g., voice over LTE, VoLTE), and mobile broadband (MBB), it is desirable to provide control over each of these use cases so that the use of wireless resources may be optimized or at least improved.

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to slicing of Radio Access Network (RAN) architecture of a wireless communication network. The RAN may be part of a wireless communication network that implements one or more Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and may be considered to reside at a location between User Equipment (UE) (e.g., a mobile phone, a smartphone, a connected laptop, or any remotely controlled (or simply accessible) machine) and provide connectivity to a Core Network (CN) serving the wireless communication network. The RAN may be implemented using silicon chip(s) residing in UEs and/or base stations (e.g., enhanced node bs (enbs), base stations, or devices forming a cellular-based wireless communication network/system, etc.). Examples of RANs include, but are not limited to: GRAN (GSM radio access network); GERAN (EDGE-enabled GRAN in nature); UTRAN (UMTS radio access network); and E-UTRAN (LTE or LTE-Advance/Pro high speed and low latency radio access network).

Embodiments described herein discuss a general architecture of network slices in a radio access network of a wireless communication network (such as, but not limited to, a 5G wireless communication network). In particular, embodiments may include the concept of horizontal and vertical network slices. Vertical slicing may include slicing the radio access network according to a vertical market, wherein the vertical market may include individual/specific types of communications (i.e., may be defined as individual or specific use cases of the communications involved) of many existing and new types of communications that may be performed over future wireless communication networks, including in particular radio access networks. The commercial market that may be offered over a wireless communication network may also be referred to as a vertical market. Existing types include mobile broadband (MBB) and voice (VoLTE), while new types of communication may include new types of connectivity services and use cases, e.g., Machine Type Communication (MTC), personal area network, private health network, machine to machine (M2M), enhanced MBB (embb), time critical type communication, vehicle communication (V2X) (including vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I)), and so forth. The definition of the vertical market is not limited and any existing or future logical separation (i.e., isolation, partitioning, etc.) of the overlay physical radio access network is provided for exclusive use by wireless communications for a particular purpose or type of communication. In some examples, there may be multiple physical radio access networks in use, where each physical radio access network is divided into logically separate radio access networks.

The proposed network slice may be programmable, highly scalable, and flexible in view of the availability, delay, and power requirements of the wireless communication network as well as the impact on battery life, reliability, capacity, security, and speed required for each particular use case.

Network slicing is considered as one of the key technologies to meet the various demands and diverse services and applications that are expected to be supported in a 5G communication network. This is because, in wireless communication technology, it is becoming increasingly challenging to further improve the spectral efficiency at the radio link level, and new ways have therefore been found to build future wireless networks and devices served by these wireless networks to meet the increasing capacity demands. To achieve these goals, 5G and future generations of wireless networks, particularly those wireless devices that serve or are served by these wireless networks, are being developed, involving combining computing and communications and providing end-to-end solutions. This is a shift in thinking patterns compared to the previous generations where technical development mainly focused on a single level of communication.

To provide higher capacity in a wireless network, the wireless network may be sliced. This may involve slicing (i.e., logically partitioning/separating) a traditional large single mobile broadband network into multiple virtual networks, thereby serving vertical businesses and applications in a more cost and resource efficient manner. Each network slice may have a different network architecture, as well as different application, control, packet, and signal processing capabilities and capacities to achieve the best return on investment. Instead of deploying a new private wireless network for the vertical market, a new vertical slice (i.e., industry or service type) can be added to an existing sliceable wireless network at any time. Thus, vertical network slicing provides a practical means to separate traffic from other universal mobile broadband services from the perspective of vertical applications, thereby virtually avoiding or significantly simplifying traditional QoS engineering problems. Wireless network slicing may include slicing in both the core network and the radio access network (i.e., end-to-end solutions).

In 5G wireless networks and in later generations of wireless networks, the capacity expansion (scaling) of the network may no longer be as consistent as in the previous generations. For example, the spreading factor may be higher when the wireless network is closer to the user, and may be lower when moving deep into the infrastructure of the wireless network. This inconsistent expansion may be a result of an enhanced user experience enabled by the significantly increased sensing capabilities (and/or processing resources) available at wireless devices using the wireless network. Unlike previous generations of wireless networks, where the network serves primarily as a data conduit that scales consistently (but individually) from end-to-end with improvements in the air interface, 5G and future generations of wireless networks may rely at least in part on information networks, including the wireless network and the various (heterogeneous and/or homogeneous) computing, networking, and storage capabilities of the wireless devices served/servicing the wireless network.

For example, the entire wireless network may continue to scale up rapidly, but computing and networking at the edge of the network may grow faster, allowing user data traffic to be handled at the edge of the wireless network (so-called edge cloud applications). The user equipment may no longer simply be a "terminal" that terminates the communication link. Instead, they can become a new generation of mobile or fixed network nodes for a new generation of consumer devices, machines and things. For example, a laptop, tablet, smart phone, home gateway, or any other wireless network device (or component device that forms part of or is part of a wireless network device sold to consumers) may become a computing and networking center for a network cluster around which many devices or things are deployed. For example, it may form a Personal Area Network (PAN). Many such clusters of mobile or fixed wireless networks may form a new type of network in 5G and later generations, which may be referred to as an underlay network, where devices are able to communicate with each other or directly with fixed networks, and computing may be offloaded to larger platforms or edge cloud base stations (i.e., entities in the wireless network that have greater processing resources, whether fully available or available at the time). This may enable optimal mobile computing and communication through a virtualized platform across many devices, including edge clouds.

This new type of wireless network expansion may be driven by many factors. For example, since device sensing is typically local, the processing of the sensed data may be local and the decisions and operations on the sensed data become local. This trend is likely to further amplify with the popularity of wearable devices and the internet of things. For example, as machines begin to play a larger role in communication than human users, the overall communication link speed may increase.

As more and more communication links are located near the user and the user equipment, the end-to-end definition will be reviewed. It is therefore proposed to provide a cloud architecture framework that can incorporate data centers and edge clouds that provide local intelligence and services closer to end users or devices. This may be because, for example, edge cloud servers become more important to performance as well as information privacy and security as wireless networks and systems are deployed into businesses, homes, offices, factories, and automobiles. These newer factors may be driven by increasing privacy and security concerns of users (and governments). Moreover, data centers deep into fixed networks can continue to grow rapidly, as many existing services can be better served with a centralized architecture, with new generations of portable and wearable devices, drones, industrial machines, autonomous cars, and so forth facilitating faster growth in communication and computing capabilities at the edge of the network and around local users.

The concept of newly introduced network slices, and in particular such concept of providing a wireless network system architecture with end-to-end (E2E) vertical and horizontal network slices, can introduce changes to the air interface, Radio Access Network (RAN), and Core Network (CN) to implement a wireless network system with E2E network slices.

In short, horizontal slicing enhances device capabilities by allowing computing resources to be shared between devices serving or served by (i.e., within or on) a wireless network, depending on the processing requirements of the device in time and space/location. Horizontal network slices are designed to accommodate new trends in traffic expansion and allow edge cloud computing and computing offloading. Computing resources in base stations and portable devices may be horizontally sliced, and these slices may be integrated with wearable devices to form virtual computing platforms through the new wireless air interface designs described herein, significantly enhancing the computing capabilities of future portable and wearable devices. Horizontal slicing enhances device capabilities and improves user experience.

In the broadest sense, network slicing may be considered a way of building, partitioning, and organizing the computational and communication resources of a physical wireless network infrastructure into one or more logically separate radio access networks using virtualization techniques to enable flexible support for various use case implementations. For example, in the case of network slicing, one physical wireless network may be sliced into multiple logical radio access networks, each of which is built and optimized for a particular need and/or a particular application/service (i.e., use case). Thus, a network slice may be defined as self-contained (in terms of operation and traffic flow) and may have its own network architecture, engineering mechanisms, and network provisioning. A network slice as proposed herein can simplify the creation and operation of a network slice and allow functional reuse and resource sharing (i.e., provide efficiency) of the physical wireless network infrastructure while still providing sufficient wireless network resources (communication and processing resources) for wireless devices served by the wireless network.

Vertical slicing is intended to support various services and applications (i.e., types of use cases/communications). Examples include, but are not limited to: wireless/mobile broadband (MBB) communication; extreme mobile broadband (E-MBB) communications; real-time use cases, e.g., industrial control communications, machine-to-machine communications (MTC/MTC 1); non-real-time use cases, e.g., internet of things (IoT) sensor communication, or large-scale machine-to-machine communication (M-MTC/MTC 2); ultra-reliable machine-to-machine communication (U-MTC); moving edge clouds, e.g., caching, communication; vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication; vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication; vehicle-to-anything communication (V2X). That is, the present disclosure relates to providing network slices in accordance with any explicitly definable/distinguishable type of communication that may be performed on a wireless network. Vertical network slicing enables resource sharing between services and applications and can avoid or simplify the traditional QoS engineering problems.

At the same time, horizontal network slicing is intended to extend the functionality of devices in a wireless network (especially mobile devices that may have limitations on their available local resources) and improve user experience. The horizontal network slice spans and exceeds the physical boundaries of the hardware platform. Horizontal network slicing enables resource sharing between network nodes and devices, i.e., higher-capable network nodes/devices can then share their resources (e.g., computation, communication, storage) to enhance the capabilities of the lower-capable network nodes/devices. A simple example may be to supplement the processing and communication capabilities of the wearable device using a network base station and/or a smartphone mobile device. The end result of horizontal network slicing may be to provide a new generation of mobile (e.g., mobile) underlying network clusters, where mobile terminals become mobile network nodes. Horizontal slicing may provide over-the-air resource sharing across wireless network nodes. The wireless network air interface in use may be an integrated part of the horizontal slice and an enabler.

The vertical and horizontal network slices may form separate slices. End-to-end traffic flows in a vertical slice may be transmitted between the core network and the end device. The end-to-end traffic flows in the horizontal slice may be local and transmitted between the client and the host of the mobile edge computing service.

In a vertical slice, each network node may implement similar functionality in a separate slice. The dynamic aspect of vertical slicing may be mainly in resource partitioning. However, in horizontal slicing, when a network node supports a slice, new functionality may be created at the network node. For example, a portable device may use different functionality to support different types of wearable devices. Thus, the dynamic aspect of horizontal slicing may be in network functionality as well as resource partitioning.

Fig. 1 shows a first view of the generalized concept of vertical and horizontal network slices. A complete wireless network 100 is shown that includes a plurality of vertical slices 110 and 140, each of which serves a different (or at least separate) vertical market, i.e., use case. In the example shown, vertical slice # 1110 services mobile broadband communications, vertical slice # 2120 services vehicle-to-vehicle communications, vertical slice # 3130 services secure communications, and vertical slice # 4140 services industrial control communications. These are merely exemplary use cases and the use cases serviced by a cutable wireless network in accordance with the present disclosure are virtually limitless.

Wireless network 100 includes a core network layer portion 150 (e.g., multiple servers/control entities/control portions with enode bs, etc.), a radio access network layer portion 160 (e.g., including multiple base stations, enode bs, etc.), a device layer portion 170 (including, for example, a portable device, e.g., a UE, a vehicle, a monitoring device, an industrial device, etc.), and a personal/wearable layer portion 180 (including, for example, a wearable device, e.g., a smart watch, a health monitor, Google @)^TMglasses/Microsoft Windows^TMHolographic glasses type devices, etc.). The wearable portion may only be involved in some use cases, as shown, the wearable portion is only contained in vertical slices #1 and #2 in the example of fig. 1.

In the vertical domain, the physical compute/storage/radio processing resources and physical radio resources (in terms of time, frequency, and space) in the network infrastructure (as represented by the servers and base stations 150/160) are sliced by use case (i.e., communication type) to form end-to-end vertical slices. In the horizontal domain, physical resources (in terms of computation, storage, radio) in adjacent layers of the network hierarchy are sliced to form horizontal slices. In the example shown, there is a first horizontal network slice 190 operating between the RAN layer 160 and the device layer 170 and a second horizontal network slice 195 operating between the device layer 170 and the wearable layer 180. Any given device served or to be served by wireless network 100 as a whole, and specifically by RAN 160 (and the layers below), may operate on multiple network slices of either (or both) type. For example, a smartphone may operate in a vertical slice for mobile broadband (MBB) services, a vertical slice for medical services, and a horizontal slice for supporting wearable devices.

When implementing network slicing in a RAN (including the air interface used in the RAN), other desirable features for implementing network slicing and typically the 5G RAN/air interface may include flexibility (i.e., support for flexible radio resource allocation between slices), in addition to meeting 5G requirements (e.g., data rate, delay, number of connections, etc.); scalability (i.e., easily extended with the addition of new slices); and effectiveness (e.g., efficient use of radio and energy).

Horizontal slicing may include slicing the network hierarchy (e.g., a hierarchy of network connections and computing (i.e., processing resource) capabilities). This may be done across any number of vertical slices serviced by the network 100, such as anywhere from all vertical markets into one or more vertical slices. This is shown as different widths for two exemplary horizontal slices in fig. 1: horizontal slice #1190 is limited to a single vertical slice, while horizontal slice #2 covers two vertical slices. Examples of network hierarchies/layers may include, but are not limited to, macro network layers, micro/small cell network layers, device-to-device communication layers, and the like. Other network layers may also be involved.

Fig. 2 illustrates a second view 200 of a portion of the wireless network 100 of fig. 1. In particular, fig. 2 shows an example of a slice-specific RAN architecture, where slices may span multiple levels of a conventional wireless network architecture. For example, the RAN architecture for each slice may be dynamically configured according to factors such as traffic type, traffic load, QoS requirements, and the like. In a first example, slice # 1210 may operate only on the macro cell level. While slice # 2220 operates only on the small cell level. Finally, slice # 3230 may operate on both the macro cell level and the small cell level. In another example, a slice (e.g., slice # 1210) may turn on operations on small cells, while another slice (e.g., slice # 3230) may turn off operations on some small cells. The open operation/active slice may be referred to as network slice open and the close operation/deactivate slice may be referred to as network slice close. The slice-specific RAN architecture may require slice-specific control plane/user plane operations, slice open/close operations, and slice-based processing with respect to access control and load balancing, as will be discussed in more detail below.

Horizontal slicing, which includes slicing network/device computing and communication resources, may enable computing offloading. Examples include the base station using its slice of computing resources to assist in the computing of the user device, or the user device (e.g., smartphone) using its slice of computing resources to assist in the computing of the associated wearable device(s).

Embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to any particular form of slicing in the vertical (market) or horizontal (network layering/layer) directions. Embodiments of the present disclosure may provide a management entity operable across a control plane (C-plane) and/or a user plane (U-plane), which may provide a management plane entity that may be used to coordinate the operation of different slices, whether horizontal slices or vertical slices (or multiple/combined, or partial, or some of them). The management entity may use a flat management architecture or a hierarchical management architecture.

Slicing a radio access network may be considered as dividing the radio access network according to a predetermined vertical market or horizontal network layer (or layers/parts of layers) of the network. This may be considered as a form of logical separation between the wireless resources provided by or used by the radio access network. The logical separation of radio resources may allow radio resources to be individually defined, managed, and/or (generally or specifically) resourced. This separation may provide the ability for different slices to not or not allow for interaction. Likewise, in some embodiments, one or more slices may be specifically provided with the ability to manage another one or more slices for operational reasons.

In some embodiments, network functionality may be completely offloaded to network slices, and slices may operate in standalone modes, e.g., standalone millimeter wave (mmWave) small cell networks, and out-of-coverage D2D networks. A millimeter wave small cell is a cell using millimeter-sized radio waves (i.e., high frequency, e.g., 60 gigahertz).

In some embodiments, network function(s) may be partially offloaded to slices, and the slices may operate in a non-standalone mode, e.g., in an anchor-booster architecture, where the anchor booster architecture may include anchor cells that provide a control plane and mobility anchor points for maintaining connectivity. In an embodiment, the anchor cell may be a cell with a wide coverage, such as a macro cell. The anchor amplifier architecture may also include an amplifier cell, providing user plane data offloading. In an embodiment, an booster cell (boost cell) may be a small cell and may be deployed within the coverage of an anchor cell. From the device perspective, the control plane and the user plane may be decoupled, i.e., the control plane may be maintained at the anchor cell and the data plane may be maintained at the booster cell.

In some example embodiments, horizontal slices and vertical slices may be considered interleaved together (i.e., where radio access network functions/resources are shared between some vertical slices and horizontal slices), as shown in diagram 300 of fig. 3. Thus, fig. 3 shows how a Radio Access Network (RAN) according to an alternative (or additional) embodiment to that shown in fig. 1 can be sliced into horizontal slices and vertical slices, where the slices are completely independent in terms of traffic flow and operation. The diagram 300 of fig. 3 has a network hierarchy 302 (i.e., network layers included/in use) along the y-axis, and radio resources 304 (i.e., indicating the use of separate radio resources, e.g., frequencies, time slots, etc.) along the x-axis. In the example of fig. 1, the vertical slices are shown to include four vertical slices 306. However, any number of different market/use cases may be included. The four vertical market/use cases for vertical slice selection are mobile broadband (MBB)110, vehicle type communication (V2X)120, first machine type communication (MTC-1)130, second machine type communication (MTC-2)140, slice # 1-slice #4, respectively. These are merely exemplary choices of use cases that may be provided.

Also shown in fig. 3 are horizontal slices, which in this example also include four horizontal slices 308. The four horizontal slices shown are a macro network layer 210, a micro network layer 220, a device-to-device network layer 230, and a Personal Area Network (PAN) (e.g., wearable) network layer 240. According to an example, each horizontal slice includes a portion of a plurality of vertical slices. Likewise, each vertical slice comprises a portion of each horizontal slice. The separated portions separated in both the horizontal and vertical directions may be referred to as sliced portions. Thus, in the example of fig. 1, the MBB vertical slice 110 includes four slice portions: a macro network layer portion 112; a micro network layer portion 114; D2D network layer portion 116; and a PAN network layer portion 118. Similarly, the V2X vertical slice 120 includes four slice portions: a macro network layer portion 122; a micro network layer portion 124; D2D network layer segment 126; and a PAN network layer section 128. Meanwhile, the MTC-1 vertical slice 130 includes four slice portions: macro network layer portion 132; micro network layer portion 134; D2D network layer portion 136; and a PAN network layer portion 138, and MTC-2 vertical slice 140 includes four slice portions: macro network layer portion 142; micro-network layer portion 144; D2D network layer segment 146; and a PAN network layer portion 148.

An example of such an architecture is that in a personal area network, wearable health sensors may belong to a private health network. The personal area network layer may then represent a horizontal network slice. Health sensors operating within the coverage of a personal area network may belong to a vertical network slice. Also, each horizontal network slice may include a plurality of vertical network slices. Each vertical network slice may have a plurality of horizontal network slices. Another example is a macro cell (i.e., macro eNB) that serves multiple different use case communications. Likewise, each vertical slice may contain portions of multiple horizontal slices, for example, in a V2X network, there may be a V2I layer and a V2V layer. In another example, as shown, a moving broadband (MBB) vertical slice includes portions of each of a macro network layer, a micro network layer, and a device-to-device layer. Thus, embodiments provide a method of logically partitioning wireless resources provided by and/or used by a radio access network according to both use cases (vertically) and network layers (horizontally).

Communications and computing have been helping each other to push the bounds of information and computing technology. On the network side, computing has been used to facilitate communication by moving computation and storage to the edge. With edge clouds and edge computing, the communication link between the source and destination becomes shorter, thereby improving communication efficiency and reducing the amount of information dissemination in the network. The optimal deployment of edge clouds and computing solutions varies. In general, the poorer the capabilities of the end devices and/or the higher the device density, the closer the cloud and computing are to the edge of the network.

In terms of devices, as device sizes further shrink from portable devices to wearable devices and user expectations for computing continue to increase, we anticipate that future communications will help provide a user experience, e.g., a network node cuts its computing resources in part to assist computing at a portable device, while a portable device cuts its computing resources in part to assist computing at a wearable device. In this way, the network is sliced horizontally. The split computing resources and the air interface connecting the two ends form an integrated part providing the required services.

Fig. 4 shows a more detailed example of horizontal slicing in a sliceable wireless network architecture according to embodiments. The left side shows the conventional 3G/4G architecture (but only down from the RAN). This includes a base station portion 410, which base station portion 410 includes an upstream/core network-side communication function 412, a base station computation function 414 (i.e., processing resources available in the base station, or closely coupled entities thereof), and a downstream/wireless/device-side communication function 416 (for communicating with devices served by the base station or other peer base stations, e.g., in the case of a forward-haul). Also shown is a portable portion 420 (e.g., user equipment or the like) that includes similar combinations of upstream and downstream communication resources and local processing resources. In this case, the upstream communication link is a typical cellular wireless communication link 422 (e.g., an OFDM/CDMA/LTE type link), and the downstream link communication link 426 is, for example, a 5G Radio Access Technology (RAT) (e.g., an OFDM/CDMA/LTE type link), next generation communication link(s) (e.g., a 5G PAN RAT (yet to be created)), or current or next generation other PAN wireless communication technologies (e.g., bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.). In the middle is a local computing function 424, i.e., a processing resource local to the portable device. Finally, in an example, there is a wearable portion 430, which wearable portion 430 typically has only a single upstream communication link 432 and limited local processing resource functionality 434.

The right side of fig. 4 shows one of the newly proposed horizontal network slicing concepts, in particular how the processing resources of higher and lower entities in the network are "combined" (i.e. shared among themselves) using the communication and processing resource capabilities of the participating entities. The basic functions are similar and are therefore denoted as items 410 'to 434', respectively, and function in a similar manner. However, there is now a concept of horizontal slices, in which case horizontal slices #1190 and # 2195 of fig. 1 are shown in more detail. In this basic example, the wearable device 430 ' is able to utilize the processing resources 424 ' of the portable device 420 ' by sharing processing data (e.g., data to be processed and resulting processed data) using communication functionality. Similarly, the portable device 420 ' can use the processing resources 414 ' of the base station 410 '.

A portion of the network slicing concept according to the present disclosure will now be described in more detail. In some examples, these functions may be provided as new Network Functions (NFs), which may be virtualized in some cases, for example, by using Network Function Virtualization (NFV). These NF and NFV may be slice-specific or operate on multiple/all slices. By exploiting the newly implemented slice identification, the proposed wireless network (as a whole (e.g. including the core network)), in particular the RAN, will now be slice aware.

In accordance with the present disclosure, network slices are designed to build slice-specific end-to-end communication solutions and enable scalable 5G Radio Access Networks (RANs) and Core Networks (CNs) with heterogeneous deployments, heterogeneous traffic and services, and heterogeneous requirements. Network slicing is considered to be one of the key technologies of 5G.

The criteria and granularity at which network slicing is performed may be implementation specific. However, as described above, in general, a network slice may include two dimensions: vertical and horizontal slices, and may be performed to implement user-centric services.

Each slice may be independent, operating on allocated logical resources, e.g., logically separate Radio Access Networks (RANs) and corresponding (i.e., serving) Core Networks (CNs). In an example, this may include slice-specific processing in the CN and the RAN. In the CN, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) may be technical supporters for network slicing. For example, NFV and SDN may be used to virtualize network elements and functions, which in turn may allow network elements and functions to be easily configured/reused in (or for) each slice in order to meet each slice's own operational requirement(s). In a RAN, slices may be built on logical resources extracted from physical radio resources (e.g., transmission points, spectrum, time, etc.). Each slice may have its own air interface and RAN architecture.

In a RAN, each cell site may have multiple slices operating thereon, each slice may have its own RAN architecture, and each mobile device (e.g., User Equipment (UE)) may subscribe to one or more slices. Mobile device (e.g., UE) association, access control, and load balancing schemes may be slice-specific, rather than cell-specific as in current mobile networks. Slice on/off operations may be implemented at each Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS). The control plane and user plane configurations may be customized to allow for slice-based operations. In a sense, the slice-specific operation may obscure the concept of physical cell sites (e.g., base stations) and make network operation more service/traffic/user oriented than physical cells.

Examples of the present disclosure provide slice-based operations in a RAN. Specifically, the following aspects are discussed: 1) a slice-specific RAN architecture; 2) control plane and user plane configuration with network slices; 3) a slice opening/closing operation; 4) slice-based access control; and/or 5) slice-based load balancing.

1.Slice-specific RAN architecture

Fig. 2 shows an example of a slice-specific RAN architecture depending on factors such as traffic type, traffic load, QoS requirements, and the RAN architecture of each slice may be dynamically configured. The proposed sliceable RAN architecture may include control plane and user plane functionality that may provide functionality for slice on/off operations, slice-based processing with respect to access control and load balancing, and so on. The proposed sliceable RAN architecture may utilize control plane and user plane operations, where the c-plane part may be common, or slice-specific, or a combination thereof, as will be shown in the following sections.

2.Control plane and user plane configuration in a RAN

Depending on how the control plane (C-plane) and the user plane (U-plane) are coupled (decoupled) in the RAN, there are a number of options on how to configure the C/U-plane for a sliceable RAN architecture. In the following, reference to "decoupled" may mean that the various parts are co-located (co-located), or not on the same logical or physical signal path of the signaling messages (i.e., if decoupled, the messages of the C-plane do not go through the same path as the messages of the U-plane). The term "coupled" may mean the opposite meaning, i.e., the various parts are co-located, or on the same logical or physical signal path of the signaling message.

Option 1: control plane as an independent slice, decoupled control plane slice and user plane slice

In this option, the C-plane and U-plane of each network slice are decoupled. There may be one C-plane slice supporting all U-planes. The C-plane slice and the U-plane slice may operate on different network nodes. For example, C-plane slices may be maintained at the macro BS, while U-plane slices may operate on the macro BS, on the small cell BSs, and/or via device-to-device links. The advantage of this option is that the C-plane functionality can always be on, providing full coverage to devices served by the network slice(s). A drawback may be the exchange of signaling between the C-plane slice and the U-plane slice while physically co-located. Fig. 5 illustrates an example C/U plane implementation 500 with a decoupled configuration for a network slice. In particular, fig. 5 shows a global common C-plane 510 (i.e., for all network slices), which global common C-plane 510 is connected to the various U-planes, e.g., U-plane 520 of slice #1, U-plane 530 of slice #2, U-plane 540 down to slice # N. That is, the particular number of u-planes of slices/the particular number of slices used is arbitrary for any given example implementation and the current case of that implementation.

Option 2: control plane to user plane coupling in each slice

In this option, the C-plane and U-plane of each slice may be coupled and physically co-located. Advantages of this configuration may include less control signaling delay and signaling exchange overhead between transmission points. In some examples, to ensure C-plane coverage, a slice may be maintained at a transmission point where there is only small traffic on the slice. Fig. 6 shows a C/U-plane coupled slice configuration 600 in which slice-specific C-plane 610 of slice #1 is coupled to slice # 1's U-plane 620, slice-specific C-plane 630 of slice #2 is coupled to slice # 2's U-plane 640, and may continue down to (i.e., up to) slice # N's slice-specific C-plane 650 is coupled to slice # N's U-plane 660. Also, the number of slices used is arbitrary for the implementation and the current case of the implementation.

Option 3: the control plane is divided into a common control plane slice and a slice-specific control plane

In this option, some common control plane functions, e.g., functions in 'radio resource control idle' (RRC idle) mode (e.g., paging, cell reselection, tracking area update) may be classified as common C-plane part, while functions in 'radio resource control connected' (RRC connected) mode (e.g., handover, dedicated bearer setup) may be classified as slice-specific control plane functions. In an example, it is an advantage to provide coverage and at the same time reduce control signaling exchanges between network nodes. Fig. 7 shows a partially decoupled C/U plane configuration 700, in which common C-plane functions 710 are connected to: slice-specific portion 720 of slice #1 and slice-specific U-plane function 730 of slice # 1; slice-specific portion 740 of slice #2 and slice-specific U-plane function 750 of slice #2, and may continue down to (i.e., up to) slice-specific portion 760 of slice # N and slice-specific U-plane function 770 of slice # N. Also, the number of slices used is arbitrary for the implementation and the current case of the implementation.

3.Slice opening/closing procedure

Regardless of which C-plane/U-plane topology is used, the proposed slice-specific RAN architecture inherently suggests the use of a slice on/off procedure. Some scenarios of slice on/off include: opening slices in small cells within the coverage of a macro cell; slices are turned on in cells operating on different frequency bands (e.g., high frequency band, unlicensed band). The trigger for opening a slice at an access point may include:

a) the traffic load of the slice exceeds a certain threshold: such information may be obtained, for example, from UEs attempting to access an AP on a slice, and/or indicated by neighboring APs and/or by a network central controller and/or by APs in an upper layer structure (e.g., a macro cell).

b) The number of active UEs operating on-chip exceeds a certain threshold: such information may be obtained, for example, from a UE attempting to access an AP on a slice, and/or indicated by a neighboring AP and/or by an AP in an upper layer structure (e.g., a macro cell).

c) To maintain service continuity for mobile UEs, where UEs move across base stations (e.g., macro BSs) and are connected to a particular slice (or slices) on one base station, but the base station to which they are to move (and handover) does not yet have any or all of the corresponding slices operating thereon.

d) In order to meet certain QoS requirements, e.g. low latency, super-reliability, etc., i.e. QoS requirements that can be best/better served by a new slice for that QoS class are instigated.

Slice opening at one AP may be triggered by the UE or the network. Fig. 6 to 8 show the slice opening process by different types of triggers. When triggered by the UE, the UE may send an indication of the desired slice during random access. The slice opening procedure may be different depending on the type of UE trigger, i.e. due to traffic load or due to QoS requirements. In a flow load activated slice opening, the BS will only open the slice if it sees enough flow in. The UE access request may not always be accepted if the BS decides not to open the slice. In QoS-motivated slice opening, the BS may open slices when there is a QoS demand. The UE access request may be accepted in case the requested QoS meets certain criteria. When triggered by a peer BS/AP, the peer BS/AP may send a trigger message to request a slice open at the target BS.

Fig. 8 shows a first example 800 of UE triggered slice opening (i.e., slice opening). In the example of fig. 8, the agitation parameter is that the number of UEs requesting (opening) a slice exceeds a certain threshold. In fig. 8, the example opening procedure begins with each UE performing random access that includes an indication of an intended slice (i.e., data element) that the UE wishes to use. This includes a message 810 sent from the UE(s) to the base station. When enough UEs have requested to use the same network slice (i.e., the threshold number has been exceeded), the receiving base station may then turn on the requested network slice 820. Due to the slice opening, messages implementing the slice opening, which are exchanges of configuration information regarding the slice, may be sent from the base station to or received by a Mobility Management Entity (MME) or other network control entity implementing the slice management procedure(s). This is shown in fig. 8 as a two-way message arrow 830. The result of the configuration message exchange may be to allocate radio resources (e.g., frequencies, numerology (numerology), etc.) for the slice to be opened. The slice information may then be included 850 in a system information message (i.e., system broadcast information) for all devices served by the respective base station (and/or network control entity) to prepare for access. This allows all devices wishing to access the newly opened slice to utilize this information to prepare access, for example, by providing slice-specific control information such as, but not limited to: downlink Control Information (DCI), Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) resources, slice Random Access (RA) configuration, and so on. Using this newly acquired information, the respective UE may then randomly access the newly created network slice 870.

Fig. 9 shows a second example of UE triggered slice opening 900, where the instigation parameter is that the type of UE request falls into a certain QoS class. This process is very similar to process 800 of fig. 8 (similar items are referenced by the same numbers). In this case, however, after the device sends a request that falls into a given QoS class (e.g., through random access with corresponding request information), the slice is opened 920. In some implementations, other categories may be provided. In this example, the base station provides a random access response 930 in advance, which means that devices requesting slices based on QoS requirements can access the slices earlier, and in a simplified manner at 940, because at least a portion of the information has already been provided to the devices in message 930.

Fig. 10 shows a first example 1000 of network triggered slice opening. In the example of the figure, there is a triggering base station (i.e. a base station that is requesting to open a slice, e.g. that may already have a corresponding slice in operation and that is about to handover a UE to a target base station) and a target base station (i.e. a base station that is receiving a request to open a corresponding slice, e.g. because a device using the corresponding slice is about to be handed over to the base station). The request is sent from the triggering base station to the target base station 1010. The target base station then starts opening the respective slice 1020, which instigates an exchange of configuration information for the slice 1030 with the MME/network control entity managing the respective slice. The MME/network control entity provides the slice configuration information to the target base station 1040 (and sets the slice accordingly), and may then include the information for the corresponding slice in the system information to broadcast to all devices so that devices wishing to access the newly opened slice can do so using the broadcast information.

Meanwhile, the trigger for turning off the slice at the access point (or base station) may include:

a) the traffic load of the slice is below a certain threshold;

b) the number of active UEs operating on a slice is below a certain threshold.

Fig. 11 illustrates an example slice shutdown procedure 1100 in one base station (e.g., a source base station). This example is that the BS (source BS) may decide to turn off the slice based on UE reports on neighbor cell conditions and traffic load/number of connections conditions on the slice. In preparation for slice closing, the BS may switch active UEs operating on a slice residing on the BS to a neighboring BS (i.e., a target base station) on which the slice operates. The process of fig. 11 begins with message 1110, message 1110 being sent from a UE currently connected to a source base station to the source base station, message 1110 including a reported measurement of a target base station. Based on the report in message 1110, the source base station may decide to turn off (i.e., turn off) the slice because the slice off condition is now satisfied, e.g., low traffic load. Active devices (e.g., UEs) on a slice may switch to neighboring base stations to maintain continuity of their service. In this case, a source base station directed (i.e., instigated) handover procedure 1130 may be performed to handover the device to the corresponding slice on the target base station. An information exchange 1140 over an S1 interface (or any other suitable base station to core network interface) may then be performed to exchange information for reconfiguring the slice status on the target and source base stations, respectively, so that the slice on the source base station may then be closed at 1150.

As can be seen from the above examples, the opening and closing of a particular network slice may be instigated by any entity using or providing intra-slice functionality for a variety of reasons. The illustrated examples are merely some exemplary types of slice management processes and sub-processes that may be employed in such management processes according to the present disclosure.

4.Slice-based access control

Since the RAN architecture may be different for each slice, access control may also be slice-specific. Access control is applied when the UE attempts to be connected by Radio Resource Control (RRC) and/or during handover. For a UE in idle mode, the UE may camp on any base station and remain in idle mode. In this case, the C/U plane configuration options 1 and 2 (fig. 5 and 6) discussed may be applied.

Fig. 12 shows an example of a slice-specific random access procedure 1200. The base station system information (i.e., broadcasted system information) may carry information about active slices in the BS 1210. Based on the BS system information, the UE may decide 1220 whether to randomly access the BS. If the slice is expected to be active in the BS and given good channel conditions, the UE may access the active slice by performing a RA request 1230 that includes information about the slice that the UE wants to access. The UE may decide to request access even if the BS does not support the intended slice. In this case, the factors influencing the decision may be: link conditions, QoS requirements, traffic load of neighboring cells, etc. If the UE makes an access request but the slice is currently inactive in the BS, the BS may have to decide whether to accept the request and open the corresponding slice. Signaling exchanges between BSs or between a BS and a central controller may be used to facilitate BS decisions (e.g., as shown in fig. 8-11). Once the BS decides to accept the access request, the BS may open the slice using the procedure discussed in the previous section. In either case, a base station response (i.e., positive or negative) 1240 may be made by the base station to the UE RA request.

For a UE that may operate on multiple slices simultaneously, and where multiple slices are active in different APs or BSs, in an example, the UE may have to maintain multiple connections simultaneously. In this case, the C/U plane configuration options discussed in the previous section become relevant here. For example, the UE may be anchored in one C-plane and maintain multiple connections on the U-plane of different slices (as in C/U-plane configuration option 1 of fig. 5); or the UEs may have one common C-plane for maintaining basic C-plane operation, while having a slice-specific/dedicated C-plane portion for each slice (as in C/U plane configuration option 2 of fig. 6); or the UE may have multiple connections and multiple C-planes, each serving one slice (as in C/U plane configuration option 3 of fig. 7).

In an example, slice-based load balancing may be provided. Slice-based load balancing may enable traffic shaping gains, reduce control signaling overhead, and/or improve overall spectral efficiency. Operations of slice-based load balancing may include coordination across slices and coordination across APs/BSs. A signaling exchange between APs/BSs regarding the load conditions on each slice may be used. Slice-based load balancing may require the joint application of a slice open/close procedure and a slice-specific access control procedure.

In an example, a slice-specific RAN architecture is provided. The RAN architecture for each slice may be dynamically configured according to factors such as traffic type, traffic load, QoS requirements, etc.

In an example, control plane and user plane configuration options may be provided to support RAN slicing. In an example, the C/U plane may be decoupled from the slice configuration (e.g., the control plane as a separate slice, the decoupled control plane slice and the user plane slice). In another example, the C/U plane may not be decoupled from the slice configuration (e.g., the control plane is coupled with the user plane in each slice). In another example, the C/U plane may be partially decoupled from the slice configuration (e.g., the control plane is divided into a common control plane slice and a slice-specific control plane). In some examples, decoupling may be provided by ensuring that portions of the decoupling are in different locations, or do not include the same logical or physical signal paths. For example, when the C-plane is decoupled from the U-plane, the C-plane functions are located differently from the U-plane functions and/or the C-plane messages do not follow the same logical or physical signal path as the corresponding U-plane messages. In some examples, coupling may be provided by ensuring that the coupled portions are co-located, or include the same logical or physical signal paths. For example, when the C-plane is coupled to the U-plane, the C-plane functions are co-located with the U-plane functions and/or the C-plane messages follow the same logical or physical signal path as the corresponding U-plane messages.

In an example, triggers for slice on/off at an AP or BS may include at least one of: the traffic load of a slice exceeds a certain threshold at the AP/BS, the number of active UEs operating on the slice exceeds a certain threshold, the UEs are moved in order to maintain service continuity, or certain QoS requirements are met (e.g., low latency, super-reliability, etc.).

In an example, slice opening at one AP may be triggered by the UE or the network. When triggered by the UE, the UE may send an indication of the desired slice during random access. When triggered by a peer BS/AP, the peer BS/AP may send a trigger message to request a slice open at the target BS. The AP/BS and MME/network control entity may exchange signaling when the slice is opened.

In an example, the slice opening procedure may be different depending on the type of UE trigger (e.g., due to traffic load or due to QoS requirements). In the example, in a traffic load-stimulated slice-on, the BS will only turn on the slice if enough traffic is seen. In an example, the UE access request may not be accepted if the BS decides not to open the slice. In another example, in QoS-motivated slice opening, the BS may open slices in response to QoS requirements (e.g., a UE access request may be accepted if the requested QoS satisfies certain criteria).

In an example, the trigger for closing the slice at the access point may include at least one of: the traffic load of the slice is below a certain threshold, or the number of active UEs operating on the slice is below a certain threshold.

In an example, the BS may determine to turn off the slice based on at least one of a UE report on neighbor cell conditions, or traffic load on the slice/number of connections conditions.

In an example, upon closing a slice, a BS switches active UEs on the slice to neighboring BSs.

In an example, a BS system may carry information about active slices in a BS.

In an example, the UE may decide whether to access the BS based on at least one of: whether the desired slice is open at the BS, link conditions, QoS requirements, or traffic load of neighboring cells.

In an example, signaling exchanges between BSs or between a BS and a central controller may be used to help the BS decide whether to open a slice.

In an example, for a UE that can operate on multiple slices simultaneously, and multiple slices are active in different APs or BSs, the UE can maintain multiple connections simultaneously.

In an example, slice-based load balancing may require coordination across slices and coordination across APs/BSs. A signaling exchange between APs/BSs regarding the load conditions on each slice may be used.

As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, may be part of, or may include the following: an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, the circuitry may comprise logic that is at least partially operable in hardware. As used herein, the terms device (served by RAN or network slice) and UE may be interchangeable.

The embodiments described herein may be implemented as a system using any suitably configured hardware and/or software. FIG. 13 illustrates example components of an electronic device 1300 for one embodiment. In embodiments, electronic device 1300 may be implemented as, incorporated into, or otherwise be part of a User Equipment (UE), an evolved node b (enb), or another network component (e.g., a network component corresponding to a network virtualization device and/or a software-defined network device). In some embodiments, the electronic device 1300 may include application circuitry 1310, baseband circuitry 1320, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 1330, Front End Module (FEM) circuitry 1340, and one or more antennas 1350 coupled together at least as shown.

The application circuitry 1310 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 1310 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to: one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and special-purpose processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processor may be coupled with and/or may include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications and/or operating systems to run on the system.

Baseband circuitry 1320 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to: one or more single-core or multi-core processors. Baseband circuitry 1320 may include one or more baseband processors and/or control logic to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of RF circuitry 1330 and to generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of RF circuitry 1330. The baseband processing circuits 1320 may interface with application circuits 1310 for generating and processing baseband signals and for controlling the operation of the RF circuits 1330. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1320 may include a second generation (2G) baseband processor 1321, a third generation (3G) baseband processor 1322, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 1323, and/or other baseband processor(s) 1324 for other existing generations, generations in development, or generations to be developed in the future (e.g., fifth generation (5G), 6G, etc.). The baseband circuitry 1320 (e.g., one or more of the baseband processors 1321 and 1324) may handle various radio control functions that support communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 1330. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to: signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 1320 may include Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, and/or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, the encoding/decoding circuitry of baseband circuitry 1320 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, viterbi, and/or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and other suitable functions may be included in other embodiments.

In some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1320 may include elements of a protocol stack, such as elements of an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN) protocol, including, for example: physical (PHY), Medium Access Control (MAC), Radio Link Control (RLC), Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP), and/or Radio Resource Control (RRC) elements. A Central Processing Unit (CPU)1325 of the baseband circuitry 1320 may be configured to run elements of a protocol stack for signaling of the PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP, and/or RRC layers. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry may include one or more audio Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) 1326. The audio DSP(s) 1326 may include elements for compression and/or decompression and/or echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

The baseband circuitry 1320 may also include memory/storage 1327. Memory/storage 1327 may be used to load and store data and/or instructions for operations performed by the processor of baseband circuitry 1320. The memory/storage for one embodiment may comprise any combination of suitable volatile memory and/or non-volatile memory. Memory/storage 1327 may include any combination of various levels of memory/storage, including but not limited to Read Only Memory (ROM) with embedded software instructions (e.g., firmware), random access memory (e.g., Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)), cache, buffers, and the like. The memory/storage 1327 may be shared among various processors or dedicated to a particular processor.

In some embodiments, components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or suitably arranged on the same circuit board. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 1320 and the application circuitry 1310 may be implemented together, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 1320 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1320 may support communication with an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN) and/or other Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WMANs), Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 1320 is configured to support radio communications of multiple wireless protocols may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

RF circuitry 1330 may support communication with a wireless network using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 1330 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, and the like to facilitate communication with the wireless network. The RF circuitry 1330 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 1340 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 1320. RF circuitry 1330 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by baseband circuitry 1320 and provide RF output signals to FEM circuitry 1340 for transmission.

In some embodiments, RF circuitry 1330 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of RF circuit 1330 may include a mixer circuit 1331, an amplifier circuit 1332, and a filter circuit 1333. The transmit signal path of RF circuit 1330 may include a filter circuit 1333 and a mixer circuit 1331. RF circuitry 1330 may also include synthesizer circuitry 1334 to synthesize frequency spectrum for use by mixer circuitry 1331 of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuit 1340 based on a synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 1334. The amplifier circuit 1332 may be configured to amplify the downconverted signal, and the filter circuit 1333 may be a Low Pass Filter (LPF) or Band Pass Filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the downconverted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to baseband circuitry 1320 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, but this is not required. In some embodiments, mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path may comprise a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1331 of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert the input baseband signal based on a synthesis frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 1334 to generate an RF output signal for the FEM circuitry 1340. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuitry 1320 and may be filtered by filter circuitry 1333. Filter circuit 1333 may include a Low Pass Filter (LPF), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path and mixer circuit 1331 of the transmit signal path may comprise two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and/or up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1331 of the transmit signal path may comprise two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1331 of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and/or direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1331 of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1331 of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, the RF circuitry 1330 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and the baseband circuitry 1320 may include a digital baseband interface that communicates with the RF circuitry 1330.

In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio Integrated Circuit (IC) circuits may be provided to process signals for one or more frequency spectrums, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1334 may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional-N/N +1 synthesizer, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuit 1334 may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuit 1334 may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by the mixer circuit 1331 of the RF circuit 1330. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1334 may be a fractional-N/N +1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), but this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by either baseband circuitry 1320 or applications processor 1310, depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on the channel indicated by the application processor 1310.

Synthesizer circuit 1334 of RF circuit 1330 may include a frequency divider, a Delay Locked Loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual-mode divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a Digital Phase Accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N +1 (e.g., based on execution) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, a DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to decompose the VCO period into at most Nd equal phase groups, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this manner, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 1334 may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency), and may be used in conjunction with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate a plurality of signals at the carrier frequency having a plurality of mutually different phases. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuit 1330 may include an IQ/polarity converter.

FEM circuitry 1340 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry configured to operate on received RF signals from one or more antennas 1350, amplify the received signals, and provide amplified versions of the received signals to RF circuitry 1330 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 1340 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals provided by the RF circuitry 1330 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 1350.

In some embodiments, FEM circuitry 1340 may include TX/RX switches to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. FEM circuitry 1340 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 1340 may include a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) to amplify the received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 1330). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 1340 may include a Power Amplifier (PA) to amplify an input RF signal (e.g., provided by the RF circuitry 1330), and may include one or more filters to generate an RF signal for subsequent transmission (e.g., through one or more antennas 1350).

In some embodiments, the UE device 1300 may include additional elements, such as memory/storage, a display, a camera, a sensor, and/or an input/output (I/O) interface.

In some embodiments (where the electronic device 1300 is, is implemented as, is incorporated into, or is otherwise implemented as a base station, e.g., an eNB), the baseband circuitry 1320 may identify a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN based on information from the communication. The first association may correspond to a network slice. The baseband circuitry 1320 may identify a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, based on information of a communication that is the same as or different from the at least one communication, the second association corresponding to the network slice. The second association may be based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements. The RF circuitry 1330 can receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software defined network.

In some embodiments (where the electronic device 1300 is, is implemented as, is incorporated into, or is otherwise implemented as a UE), the RF circuitry 1330 can receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software-defined network. The baseband circuitry 1320 may identify a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN based on information from the communication. The first association may correspond to a network slice. The baseband circuitry 1320 may identify, based on the information from the communication, a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN. The second association may correspond to a network slice. The second association may be based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements.

As described herein, the terms mobile network, wireless network, and wireless communication network discuss and describe the same type of network.

In some embodiments, the electronic device of fig. 13 may perform one or more processes, techniques, and/or methods as described herein, or portions thereof. One such process is depicted in fig. 14, for example, with respect to aspects of slice-based operation in a 5G network with end-to-end network slices. For example, the process may include identifying a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice. The process may also include identifying a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice. In an example, the second association may be based on at least one of a traffic type, a traffic load, or a quality of service (QoS) requirement. Another such process is depicted in fig. 15, e.g., for a method of operating a UE with respect to aspects of slice-based operation in a 5G network with end-to-end network slices.

For example, the process may include identifying, at the UE, a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice. The process may also include identifying, at the UE, a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice. In one example, the second association may be based on at least one of a traffic type, a traffic load, or a quality of service (QoS) requirement.

Fig. 15 illustrates a second example method 1500 of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system (e.g., a wireless network). The method includes identifying, at the UE, a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice 1510; and identifying, at the UE, a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice 1520. The second association may be based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements.

Fig. 16 is a block diagram illustrating a component capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some example embodiments. In particular, fig. 16 shows a diagram of a hardware resource 1600, the hardware resource 1600 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1610, one or more memory/storage devices 1620, and one or more communication resources 1630, all communicatively coupled via a bus 1640.

Processor 1610 (e.g., a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) (e.g., a baseband processor), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, processor 1612 and processor 1614. The memory/storage 1620 may comprise main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof.

Communication resources 1630 may includeAmong other suitable devices are interconnect and/or network interface components that communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1604 and/or one or more databases 1606 over a network 1608. For example, communication resources 1630 can include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, Near Field Communication (NFC) components, wireless communication components, and/wireless communication components,

The components (e.g.,

low power consumption),

Components, and other communication components.

The instructions 1650 may include software, programs, applications, applets, apps, or other executable code for causing the at least one processor 1610 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 1650 may reside, completely or partially, within the at least one processor 1610 (e.g., within a cache memory of a processor), the memory/storage 1620, or any suitable combination thereof. Further, any portion of instructions 1650 may be transferred to hardware resources 1600 from any combination of peripherals 1604 and/or databases 1606. Thus, the memory of processor 1610, memory/storage 1620, peripherals 1604, and database 1606 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

Other methods of wireless communication are also disclosed, for example, as discussed above with reference to fig. 8-12.

Embodiments may be implemented collectively and individually in any and all permutations according to any of the following examples:

fig. 14 illustrates a first example method 1400 of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system (e.g., a wireless network). Example 1 may include a method of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system (e.g., a wireless network), the method comprising: identifying a first association of a first local component of a Radio Access Network (RAN) with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice 1420; and identifying a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice; wherein the second association is based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements.

Example 2 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: identifying an association of a control plane slice of a network slice; and identifying an association of a user plane slice of the plurality of user plane slices with the control plane slice.

Example 3 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: identifying an association of a control plane slice of a network slice; and identifying associations of individual user plane slices and control plane slices.

Example 4 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: identifying an association of a common control plane slice of the network slices; and identifying an association of a user plane slice of the plurality of user plane slices with a common control plane slice; and identifying an association of a slice-specific control plane of the plurality of slice-specific control planes with a common control plane slice.

Example 5 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on at least one of: traffic load associated with a network slice exceeds or falls below a threshold, a number of active UEs operating on the network slice exceeds or falls below a threshold, to maintain service continuity for mobile UEs, or to meet certain QoS requirements (e.g., low latency, super reliability, or a combination thereof, etc.).

Example 6 may include examples of example 5 or some other example herein, further comprising: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on the received control signal; wherein the control signal originates from at least one of the UE or a peer base station/access point (BS/AP), and the control signal originating from the UE comprises an indication of an expected slice during random access, and the control signal originating from the BS/AP comprises a trigger message for requesting a change in slice power state at the target BS.

Example 7 may include examples of example 5 or some other example herein, further comprising: in response to determining to change the power state of the first component or the second component, signaling at least one of a remote AP/BS or a Mobility Management Entity (MME)/a network control entity to exchange signaling.

Example 8 may include the example of example 6 or some other example herein, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface (e.g., the control signal originates from a UE), and the method further comprises: in response to receiving the control signal, it is determined whether to maintain a power state of the first component or the second component based on the traffic monitoring.

Example 9 may include the example of example 6 or some other example herein, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface, and the method further comprises: in response to receiving the control signal, a determination is made whether to maintain a power state of the first component or the second component based on the QoS criteria.

Example 10 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: determining whether to change the power state of the first component or the second component based on at least one of a UE report on a neighbor cell condition, or a traffic load/number of connections condition on a network slice.

Example 11 may include examples 5 or 10 or some other example herein, further comprising: in response to determining to change the power state of the first component or the second component, switching the active UEs on the slice to the neighboring BSs.

Example 12 may include examples 5 or 10 or some other example herein, further comprising: transmitting or receiving system information carrying information on active slices in a BS.

Example 13 may include examples of example 1 or some other example herein, further comprising: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on a signal exchange between the plurality of BSs or a signal exchange between a plurality of central controllers of BSs of the plurality of BSs.

Example 14 may include example 13 or some other example herein, further comprising: signaling is sent or received to or from the AP or the BS indicating a load condition with respect to each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice.

Fig. 15 shows an example 15 of a method 1500 of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system (e.g., a wireless network). Example 15 may include a method of wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system, comprising: identifying, at the UE, a first association of a first local component of the radio access network with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to network slice 1510; and identifying, at the UE, a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, the third component of the RAN being different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice; wherein the second association is based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements 1520.

Example 16 may include example 15 or some other example herein, further comprising: determining whether to access the BS based on at least one of a power state of the BS for the desired slice, a link condition, a QoS requirement, or a traffic load of a neighboring cell.

Example 17 may include an example of example 15 or some other example herein, further comprising: while maintaining a connection to the network slice and another network slice of a different AP or BS compared to the network slice.

Example 18 may include an apparatus (e.g., an electronic device of any network equipment, including but not limited to an eNB) to operate in wireless communications for a fifth generation (5G) system (e.g., a wireless network), the apparatus comprising: radio Frequency (RF) circuitry to receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software-defined network; and baseband circuitry to: identifying, based on information from the communication, a first association of a first local component of a Radio Access Network (RAN) with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice; and identifying a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN based on information of the same or different communication as the at least one communication, the third component of the RAN being different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice; wherein the second association is based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements.

Example 19 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: identifying an association of a control plane slice of a network slice; and identifying an association of a user plane slice of the plurality of user plane slices with the control plane slice.

Example 20 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: identifying an association of a control plane slice of a network slice; and identifying an association of a single user plane slice with a control plane slice.

Example 21 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: identifying an association of a common control plane slice of the network slices; and identifying an association of a user plane slice of the plurality of user plane slices with a common control plane slice; and identifying an association of a slice-specific control plane of the plurality of slice-specific control planes with a common control plane slice.

Example 22 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on at least one of: traffic load associated with a network slice exceeds or falls below a threshold, a number of active UEs operating on the network slice exceeds or falls below a threshold, to maintain service continuity for mobile UEs, or to meet certain QoS requirements (e.g., low latency, super reliability, or a combination thereof, etc.).

Example 23 may include example 22 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on a control signal received by the RF circuit; wherein the control signal originates from at least one of the UE or the peer BS/AP, and the control signal originating from the UE comprises an indication of an expected slice during random access, and the control signal originating from the BS/AP comprises a trigger message for requesting a change of slice power state at the target BS.

Example 24 may include example 22 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: in response to determining to change the power state of the first component or the second component, signaling at least one of a remote AP/BS or a Mobility Management Entity (MME)/a network control entity to exchange signaling.

Example 25 may include example 23 or some other example herein, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface, and wherein the baseband circuitry is to: in response to receiving the control signal, it is determined whether to maintain a power state of the first component or the second component based on the traffic monitoring.

Example 26 may include example 23 or some other example herein, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface, and wherein the baseband circuitry is to: in response to receiving the control signal, a determination is made whether to maintain a power state of the first component or the second component based on the QoS criteria.

Example 27 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: determining whether to change the power state of the first component or the second component based on at least one of a UE report on a neighbor cell condition, or a traffic load/number of connections condition on a network slice.

Example 28 may include example 22 or 27 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: in response to determining to change the power state of the first component or the second component, switching the active UEs on the slice to the neighboring BSs.

Example 29 may include example 22 or 27 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to cause the RF circuitry to transmit system information carrying information about active slices in the BS, or to cause the RF circuitry to receive system information carrying information about active slices in the BS.

Example 30 may include example 18 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: determining whether to change a power state of the first component or the second component based on a signal exchange between the plurality of BSs or a signal exchange between a plurality of central controllers of BSs of the plurality of BSs.

Example 31 may include example 30 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to cause the RF circuitry to transmit signaling to or from the AP or the BS indicating a load condition for each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice, or to cause the RF circuitry to receive signaling to or from the AP or the BS indicating a load condition for each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice.

Example 32 may include an apparatus (e.g., an electronic device of a user equipment operating in wireless communication for a fifth generation (5G) system), comprising: radio Frequency (RF) circuitry to receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software-defined network; and baseband circuitry to: identifying, based on information from the communication, a first association of a first local component of a Radio Access Network (RAN) with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice; and identifying a second association of the first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN based on information of the same or different communication as the at least one communication, the third component of the RAN being different from the second component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice; wherein the second association is based on at least one of traffic type, traffic load, or quality of service (QoS) requirements.

Example 33 may include example 32 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: determining whether to access the BS based on at least one of a power state of the BS for the desired slice, a link condition, a QoS requirement, or a traffic load of the neighbor cell.

Example 34 may include example 32 or some other example herein, wherein the baseband circuitry is to: while maintaining a connection to the network slice and another network slice of a different AP or BS compared to the network slice.

Example 35 may include any one of examples 1 to 34 or some other example herein, wherein the network slice comprises any one or more of: a logical partition of a physical radio access network infrastructure for or dedicated to a single type of communication; a logical partition of physical radio access network infrastructure for communication for or dedicated to a particular use case of communication; a logical partition of a physical radio access network infrastructure having independent operations and traffic flows, wherein the independent operations and traffic flows are independent of operations and traffic flows on any other logical partition of the physical radio access network infrastructure. An advantage of this example, as well as other examples described herein, is a more efficient wireless network, for example, because a given number (e.g., a single) of physical wireless access network infrastructures are allowed to be used by multiple use cases, thereby allowing less hardware/infrastructure to be used than would otherwise be used (e.g., double or more hardware, such as providing separate physical wireless access network infrastructures for each use case).

Example 36 may include any one of examples 1 to 35 or some other example herein, wherein the network slice is an end-to-end network slice, wherein end-to-end comprises a logical separation of both a physical radio access network infrastructure and a physical core network infrastructure used to provide the network slice.

Example 37 may include any one of examples 1 to 36 or some other example herein, wherein the particular use case of the communication includes any explicitly definable/distinguishable type of communication that may be performed over a wireless network.

Example 38 may include any one of examples 1 to 37 or an example of some other example herein, wherein the network slice comprises logically separate radio access networks carried over a shared physical Radio Access Network (RAN).

Example 39 may include any one of examples 1 to 38 or some other example herein, wherein the network slice comprises a vertical slice of each use case and/or a horizontal slice of each shared resource, wherein the shared resource is a shared layer of the radio access network, or a resource shared between selected entities in different layers of the wireless network.

Example 40 may include a Radio Access Network (RAN) control entity comprising circuitry to: logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual radio access networks, wherein a logically separated virtual radio access network comprises a radio access network optimized for predefined types of communication, and wherein a logically separated virtual access network comprises independent operations and traffic flows that are independent of operations and traffic flows on any other logically separated virtual access network; wherein each of the two or more logically separate virtual access networks is dynamically configured according to at least one parameter associated with a predefined type of communication to be used for each of the two or more logically separate virtual access networks; wherein the at least one parameter associated with the predefined type of communication is at least one of: traffic type of the predefined type of communication, traffic load of the predefined type of communication, quality of service requirements of the predefined type of communication.

Example 41 may include example 40 or an example of some other example herein, wherein logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual radio access networks comprises opening or activating the logically separated virtual access networks.

Example 42 may include example 40 or 41 or some other example herein, wherein the opening or activation of the logically separate virtual access network comprises any one or more of: upon triggering by a device served by a wireless network, the device sending an indication of an intended logically separate virtual access network for use in an initial Random Access (RA); upon being triggered by a peer Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS), the peer Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) sending a trigger message to a target Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS), the trigger message comprising a request to open or activate a designated logically separate virtual access network; signalling exchange between an Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) and a Mobility Management Entity (MME) or network control entity associated with a physical radio access network for determining configuration parameters of a logically separate virtual access network to be used, opened or activated.

Example 43 may include examples 40-42 or some other example herein, wherein the traffic load of the predefined type of communication includes any one or more of: exceeding a predefined threshold level of traffic at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS); exceeding a predefined number of active devices operating on an already existing logically separate virtual access network.

Example 44 may include examples 40-43 or some other example herein, wherein the quality of service requirements of the predefined type of communication includes or is based on any one or more of: maintaining service continuity for a mobile device served by a radio access network, and wherein the device is active using a predefined type of communication; providing a predetermined maximum delay for a predefined type of communication; providing a predetermined minimum reliability of communication for a predefined type of communication; a predetermined minimum data rate for a predefined type of communication is provided.

Example 45 may include examples 40-44 or some other example herein, wherein the circuitry is further to: shutting down or logically de-splitting the logically separated virtual access network based on at least one other parameter associated with the predefined type of communication, wherein the at least one other parameter is based on at least one of: a traffic level at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS) is below a predefined threshold; the number of active devices operating on an already existing logically separate virtual access network is below a predefined threshold; data reports on logically separate virtual access networks, or the condition of neighboring cells, base stations, or access points.

Example 46 may include example 45 or some other example herein, wherein the data report includes the system information block or portion thereof.

Example 47 may include examples 45-46 or some other examples herein, wherein the data report includes a system information block, or portion thereof, that carries information about the active logically separate virtual access network(s).

Example 48 may include examples 40-47 or some other examples herein, wherein, when the logically separate virtual access network is de-separated or turned off, the circuitry is further to: switching any remaining devices on the logically separate virtual access network to another, different logically separate virtual access network operating on the same base station or access point; or to switch any devices remaining on the logically separate virtual access network to another base station or access point that maintains operation of the same logically separate virtual access network to be switched off.

Example 49 may include examples 40-48 or some other example herein, wherein the device served by the radio access network comprises a User Equipment (UE).

Example 50 may include examples 40-49 or some other example herein, wherein the served device or UE is to determine whether and how to access the logically separate virtual access network based on any one or more of: an indication that the selected logically separated virtual access network is currently active on a serving Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE; link conditions of a wireless link between the UE and a serving Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE; QoS requirements of wireless communications provided to the UE; or traffic load between neighboring Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) to the Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE.

Example 51 may include an example of examples 40-50 or some other example herein, wherein signaling between served devices, or between serving Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) serving the devices, may be to assist one of the Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) to determine whether to instigate a logically disjoint virtual access network open procedure or a logically disjoint virtual access network close procedure.

Example 52 may include examples 40-51 or some other example herein, wherein the signaling comprises a serving device to provide signaling between Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) of the respective logically separate virtual access network(s) regarding a loading condition of each active logically separate virtual access network.

Example 53 may include examples 40-52 or some other example herein, wherein the device served by the radio access network is operable to maintain an active connection to a plurality of logically separate virtual access networks, and/or to a plurality of Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) serving the device to provide the logically separate virtual access network(s).

Example 54 may include examples 40-53 or some other examples herein, wherein logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual access networks comprises providing two or more network slices, and wherein the control entity provides control plane and user plane configurations for the two or more network slices, wherein the control plane and user plane configurations comprise any one of: a network slice-specific user plane for each operational network slice and a single common control plane used by all operational network slices, wherein the control plane and user plane functions of a particular network slice are decoupled from each other; or a network slice-specific user plane and a network slice-specific control plane for each operational network slice, wherein the network slice-specific control plane and user plane functions are coupled to each other; or a network slice-specific control plane for each operational network slice and a control plane for each operational network slice, the control plane comprising: a first common control plane portion; and a second network slice-specific control plane portion; wherein the control plane and user plane functions of a particular network slice are partially decoupled from each other and partially coupled to each other.

Example 55 may include machine-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, are arranged to implement a method in a wireless communications network, the method comprising: logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual radio access networks, wherein a logically separated virtual radio access network comprises a radio access network optimized for predefined types of communication, and wherein a logically separated virtual access network comprises independent operations and traffic flows that are independent of operations and traffic flows on any other logically separated virtual access network; dynamically configuring each of the two or more logically separate virtual access networks in accordance with at least one parameter associated with a predefined type of communication to be used for each of the two or more logically separate virtual access networks; wherein the at least one parameter associated with the predefined type of communication is at least one of: traffic type of the predefined type of communication, traffic load of the predefined type of communication, quality of service requirements of the predefined type of communication.

Example 56 may include the example of example 55 or some other example herein, wherein logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual radio access networks comprises opening the logically separated virtual access networks.

Example 57 may include examples 55 or 56 or some other example herein, wherein opening the logically separate virtual access network comprises any one or more of: sending, upon triggering by a device served by a wireless network, an indication of an intended logically separate virtual access network for use in an initial Random Access (RA); transmitting a trigger message from a peer Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS) to a target Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) upon a trigger by the peer Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS), the trigger message comprising a request to open a designated logically separate virtual access network; signaling is exchanged between an Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) and a Mobility Management Entity (MME) or network control entity associated with a physical radio access network to determine configuration parameters of a logically separate virtual access network to be used, opened or activated.

Example 58 may include examples 55-57 or examples of some other example herein, wherein the traffic load of the predefined type of communication includes any one or more of: exceeding a predefined threshold level of traffic at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS); exceeding a predefined number of active devices operating on an already existing logically separate virtual access network.

Example 59 may include examples 55-58 or some other example herein, wherein the quality of service requirements of the predefined type of communication includes or is based on any one or more of: maintaining service continuity for a mobile device served by a radio access network, and wherein the device is active using a predefined type of communication; providing a predetermined maximum delay for a predefined type of communication; providing a predetermined minimum reliability of communication for a predefined type of communication; a predetermined minimum data rate for a predefined type of communication is provided.

Example 60 may include examples 55-59 or examples of some other example herein, further comprising: shutting down or logically de-splitting the logically separated virtual access network based on at least one other parameter associated with the predefined type of communication, wherein the at least one other parameter is based on at least one of: a traffic level at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS) is below a predefined threshold; the number of active devices operating on an already existing logically separate virtual access network is below a predefined threshold; data reports on logically separate virtual access networks, or the condition of neighboring cells, base stations, or access points.

Example 61 may include example 60 or an example of some other example herein, wherein the data report includes the system information block or a portion thereof.

Example 62 may include example 60 or 61 or an example of some other example herein, wherein the data report includes a system information block, or portion thereof, that carries information about the active logically separate virtual access network(s).

Example 63 may include examples 55-62 or some other example herein, wherein, when the logically-detached virtual access network is detached or closed, the method further comprises: switching any remaining devices on the logically separate virtual access network to another, different logically separate virtual access network operating on the same base station or access point; or to switch any devices remaining on the logically separate virtual access network to another base station or access point that maintains operation of the same logically separate virtual access network to be switched off.

Example 64 may include examples 55-63 or some other example herein, wherein the device served by the radio access network comprises a User Equipment (UE).

Example 65 may include examples 55-64 or examples of some other examples herein, further comprising: the served device or UE determines whether and how to access the logically separate virtual access network based on any one or more of: an indication that the selected logically separated virtual access network is currently active on a serving Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE; link conditions of a wireless link between the UE and a serving Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE; QoS requirements of wireless communications provided to the UE; or traffic load between neighboring Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) to the Access Point (AP) or Base Station (BS) currently serving the UE.

Example 66 may include examples 55-65 or some other example herein, wherein signaling between served devices, or between serving Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) serving the devices, may be to assist one of the Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) to determine whether to instigate the logically disjoint virtual access network open procedure or the logically disjoint virtual access network close procedure.

Example 67 may include examples 55-66 or some other example herein, wherein the signaling comprises a serving device to provide signaling between Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) of the respective logically separate virtual access network(s) regarding a loading condition of each active logically separate virtual access network.

Example 68 may include examples 55-67 or examples of some other examples herein, further comprising: a device served by the radio access network(s) maintains an active connection to multiple logically separate virtual access networks and/or to multiple Access Points (APs) or Base Stations (BSs) serving the device to provide the logically separate virtual access network(s).

Example 69 may include examples 55-68 or some other examples herein, wherein logically separating the physical infrastructure of the radio access network into two or more logically separated virtual access networks comprises providing two or more network slices, and the method further comprises providing control plane and user plane configurations for the two or more network slices, wherein the control plane and user plane configurations comprise any one of: a network slice-specific user plane for each operational network slice and a single common control plane used by all operational network slices, wherein the control plane and user plane functions of a particular network slice are decoupled from each other; or a network slice-specific user plane and a network slice-specific control plane for each operational network slice, wherein the network slice-specific control plane and user plane functions are coupled to each other; or a network slice-specific control plane for each operational network slice and a control plane for each operational network slice, the control plane comprising: a first common control plane portion; and a second network slice-specific control plane portion; wherein the control plane and user plane functions of a particular network slice are partially decoupled from each other and partially coupled to each other.

Example 70 may include an apparatus for triggering network slicing in a radio access network, comprising: circuitry to trigger the opening or closing of a network slice according to any one or more of: traffic load of the radio access network, or traffic load of a network slice of the radio access network, crosses a threshold traffic load, optionally wherein the threshold traffic load is a traffic load at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS) in the Radio Access Network (RAN); and/or a number of active User Equipments (UEs) operating on the radio access network, or on a network slice of the radio access network, exceeds a threshold number of active UEs; in accordance with service continuity requirements of a mobile UE maintained for use on a radio access network or on a network slice of the radio access network; optionally wherein the QoS requirements include, but are not limited to, an amount of delay of a wireless connection of the radio access network or network slice, or a reliability level of a wireless connection of the radio access network or network slice, depending on the quality of service (QoS) requirements of a device used on the radio access network or used on a network slice of the radio access network being met or maintained.

Advantages of example 70 or other examples described herein may include improved radio access network performance, efficiency, reliability, service maintenance, and quality of service for all devices operating across a RAN and located within each slice of the RAN.

Example 71 may include example 70 or an example of some other example herein, wherein the network slice is opened at an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS), and wherein the trigger to open the network slice comprises: receiving a UE trigger signal from a UE, the UE trigger signal comprising an indication of an intended network slice for use by the UE, optionally wherein the UE trigger signal is included in a random access of the UE; or receiving, by a target Access Point (AP) or a target Base Station (BS), a trigger signal from a peer Access Point (AP) or a peer Base Station (BS), the trigger signal comprising a request to open a network slice at the target Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS).

Example 72 may include example 70 or 71 or an example of some other example herein, wherein opening the network slice comprises exchanging signaling between an Access Point (AP) or a Base Station (BS) and a Mobility Management Entity (MME) or a network control entity, thereby opening the network slice.

Example 73 may include examples 70-72 or some other example herein, wherein in traffic load stimulated network slice opening, the Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) opens the network slice only when the Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) receives a sufficient amount of traffic that makes network slice opening worthwhile, wherein the sufficient amount of traffic is a predetermined value.

Example 74 may include examples 70-73 or some other example herein, wherein the Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) rejects the Random Access (RA) request from the requesting entity if the amount of traffic is insufficient.

Example 75 may include examples 70-74 or some other example herein, wherein, in QoS-excited network slice opening, the Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) opens the network slice only when the Access Point (AP) or the Base Station (BS) receives a QoS service request that satisfies a predetermined criterion.

Example 76 may include a Base Station (BS) apparatus to operate in a wireless communication network, the apparatus comprising: radio Frequency (RF) circuitry to receive at least one communication originating from or transmitting at least one communication to a wireless network device; and a radio access network control entity according to any of examples 40 to 54; or an apparatus comprising means or modules for performing any one of examples 55 to 69; or the device of any one of examples 70 to 75; or some other example herein.

Example 77 may include a User Equipment (UE) apparatus to operate in a wireless communications network, the apparatus comprising: radio Frequency (RF) circuitry to receive or transmit at least one communication destined for another device in a wireless communication network; and a radio access network control entity according to any of examples 40 to 54; or an apparatus comprising means or modules for performing any one of examples 55 to 69; or the device of any one of examples 70 to 75; or some other example herein.

Example 78 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of a method described in any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69 or in connection with any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 79 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69 or related to any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69, or any other method or process described herein, or to provide functionality of an apparatus or device according to any of examples 18-54 or 70-75.

Example 80 may include an apparatus comprising logic, a module, an apparatus, and/or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69 or in connection with any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 81 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process described in any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69 or related to any of examples 1-17, 35-39, 55-69, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 82 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 83 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example 84 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example 85 may include a device implementing the network slice in a radio access network, the device comprising any combination of, or part of, devices, entities, or methods described herein.

Example 86 may include a radio access network including any combination of, or part of, the apparatus, entities, or methods described herein.

Example 87 may include a device for use in a radio access network, the device comprising any combination of, or part of, devices, entities, or methods described herein.

Example use case/communication types may include: wireless/mobile broadband (MBB) communication; extreme mobile broadband (E-MBB) communications; real-time use cases, e.g., industrial control communications, machine-to-machine communications (MTC/MTC 1); non-real-time use cases, e.g., internet of things (IoT) sensor communication, or large-scale machine-to-machine communication (M-MTC/MTC 2); ultra-reliable machine-to-machine communication (U-MTC); moving edge clouds, e.g., caching, communication; vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication; vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication; vehicle-to-anything communication (V2X). That is, the present disclosure relates to providing network slices in accordance with any explicitly definable/distinguishable type of communication that may be performed on a wireless network.

In some examples, the RAN control entity is distributed over a portion of the RAN. In some examples, the portion of the RAN is a base station (e.g., eNB) of the RAN. In other examples, the portion(s) of the RAN may be a UE; or any other device that is or will be served by or forms part of the wireless network/RAN, e.g., a Mobility Management Engine (MME), a baseband unit (BBU), a Remote Radio Head (RRH), etc. In some examples, if the RAN control entity is physically distributed, the RAN control entity may be co-located with the macro BS and manage only the slice portion under the macro BS coverage. In some examples, the RAN control entity may manage the slice portions of the plurality of BSs that span under the coverage of the RAN control entity if the RAN control entity is located at a central location. The RAN control entity may include at least partial control allocation of the RAN, or devices, resources (e.g., computing resources available at/in devices in the wireless network, or devices in the wireless network) as needed according to one or more horizontal or vertical slices.

As described herein, where examples or claims recite RF circuits (e.g., to form a larger entity (e.g., a base station) within a wireless network), it is also intended to cover alternative embodiments that do not include RF circuits, e.g., alternative embodiments for (or provide) distributed entities according to the present disclosure. This may be applicable, for example, when the entity forms part of a cloud RAN, where the radio part (e.g., RRH) is not co-located/not within the same entity as at least one significant part (entity, module, etc.) of the control function (e.g., BBU). Thus, there is no intent to limit embodiments to only those having an RF portion that sends or receives messages to or from a wireless network. For example, some implementations may be part of a fronthaul (front-haul) capability, which may be a connection from a centralized or more centralized baseband function (e.g., BBU) to a radio front end (e.g., RRH).

As used herein, any reference to a computer program product or computer-readable medium may include reference to both transitory (e.g., physical media) and non-transitory forms (e.g., signals or data structures thereof).

Various examples disclosed herein may provide a number of advantages, such as, but not limited to: providing full (more complete) coverage for the devices being served for any given number of core network and/or RAN resources (e.g., computing, radio, etc.); less control signaling delay and signaling exchange overhead between transmission points; provide improved coverage and at the same time reduce control signaling exchanges between network nodes (including transmission points); a more efficient wireless network (in whole, in substantial part), for example because a given number (e.g., a single) of physical radio access network infrastructures are allowed to be used by multiple use cases, thereby making the hardware/infrastructure used less than would otherwise be used (e.g., double or more hardware, such as providing separate physical wireless access network infrastructures for each use case); generally improved radio access network performance, efficiency, reliability, service maintenance/maintenance, and quality of service are provided for all devices operating across RANs and within each slice of the RAN.

As described herein, the opening, activation, logical separation, etc. of network slices may be the same as one another, and the terms may be used interchangeably. Similarly, the closing, deactivation, or logical solution separation of network slices, etc. may be identical to one another, and the terms may be used interchangeably. A network slice may also be referred to as a logically separate (detached, partitioned, etc.) radio network access, or a logically separate (detached, partitioned, etc.) radio network access portion. Devices that are or will be served by a physical radio access network infrastructure or network slice may include UEs, however any and all other forms of devices that may be served may also be interchanged with reference to UEs herein. The device may be referred to as a wireless network device. However, a wireless network device as used herein may also refer to a serving entity, e.g., a base station, MME, BBU, RRH, etc., depending on the usage context. Operationally, an access point and a base station may be considered similar in use or deployment in terms of the disclosed network slice.

As described herein, specific examples have been used to explain the disclosed methods and functions (and the functional units that perform those functions), however, the disclosure is not limited thereto. For example, embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to any particular examples, such as: wherein a particular vertical market is disclosed with respect to the figures, this is merely an example, and any vertical market may be used instead; wherein specific parts of the slices are disclosed with respect to the figures, any part of the slice may be used instead; where the RAN has been disclosed with respect to the figures as having particular sizes, types or numbers of (horizontal or vertical) slices, any size, type or number of slices may be used instead; where it has been disclosed with respect to the figures that slices or slice portions have a particular size, type or number (in the horizontal or vertical direction), any size, type or number of slices or slice portions may be used instead. Also in the foregoing, although the numbering scheme for slices has been applied starting from 1, other numbering schemes may be implemented, e.g. numbers may instead start from 0, so that slice #1 may be slice #0, etc. Thus, specific numbers are not limiting, except by showing exemplary distinctions between slices (by differently numbered), or exemplary relationships between numbered slice portions (by consecutively numbered sub-portions of like numbered slices).

As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, may be part of, or may include the following: an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware or software components (including one or more virtual machines that provide the described functionality). In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, the circuitry may comprise logic that is at least partially operable in hardware. In some embodiments, processing/execution may be distributed rather than centralized.

As used herein, any reference to a (RAN) architecture may include anything that may be defined or considered to be a refinement or type of any form of specific process (es), technology(s), implementation details, operation of a wireless network (or similar networked system entity), particularly in a RAN. The architecture can generally be introduced, maintained, and updated in standard documentation for corresponding wireless network technologies (e.g., third generation partnership project (3GPP) standards, etc.).

It should be understood that any of the disclosed methods (or corresponding apparatuses, programs, data carriers, etc.) may be performed by a host or a client, depending on the particular implementation (i.e., the disclosed methods/apparatuses are in the form of communication(s), and thus, may be performed according to any 'point of view' (i.e., corresponding to another approach)). Further, it should be understood that the terms "receive" and "transmit" include "input" and "output," and are not limited to the RF context in which radio waves are transmitted and received. Thus, for example, a chip or other device or component used to implement an embodiment may generate data for output to, or have input data from, another chip, device, or component, and such output or input may be referred to as "transmitting" and "receiving," including both acronyms, i.e., "occurring" and "receiving," and such "transmitting" and "receiving" in the RF context.

As used in this specification, any formalization used of "at least one of A, B or C" and "at least one of A, B and C" using the disjunctive "or" and the disjunctive "and" such that these formalizations include any and all combinations and permutations of A, B, C, i.e., a alone, B alone, C alone, a and B in any order, a and C in any order, B and C in any order, and A, B, C in any order. More or less than three features may be used in such formalization.

In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of other elements or steps than those listed in a claim. Furthermore, the terms a or an, as used herein, are defined as one or more. Likewise, the use of introductory phrases such as "at least one" and "one or more" in the claims should not be construed to imply that the introduction of another claim element by the indefinite articles "a" or "an" limits any particular claim containing such introduced claim element to inventions containing only one such element, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases "one or more" or "at least one" and indefinite articles such as "a" or "an". The same holds true for the use of definite articles. Unless otherwise specified, terms such as "first" and "second" are used to arbitrarily distinguish between the elements such terms describe. Thus, these terms are not necessarily intended to indicate temporal or other prioritization of such elements. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.

Features of the foregoing embodiments and examples, and those of the following claims, may be integrated together in any suitable arrangement, particularly where such is advantageous, unless expressly stated otherwise as incompatible, or physical or other aspects of the embodiments, examples, or claims prevent such combination. This is not limited to any specific benefit, but may come from an "ex post factor" benefit. That is to say that the combination of features is not limited by the form described, in particular the example(s), the form of embodiment(s) (for example numbering), or the dependencies of the claim(s). Moreover, this also applies to the phrases "in one embodiment," "according to an embodiment," and the like, which are merely words of language and are not to be construed as limiting the following features of a single embodiment to all other instances of the same or similar words. That is, references to "an", "one", or "some" embodiments may be references to any one or more, and/or all embodiments disclosed, or combinations (of one or more) thereof. In general, similarly, reference to "the" embodiment may not be limited to the previous embodiment.

In the foregoing, a reference to a 'Layer' may be a reference to a predefined (or definable) portion of the infrastructure, while a reference to a 'Layer' may be a reference to a network protocol Layer operating on/in the network infrastructure or a portion thereof. As used herein, a vertical slice may be referred to or relate to a vertical market segment. As used herein, any machine executable instructions may perform the disclosed methods, and thus may be used synonymously with the term method.

The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the claims to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various implementations of the disclosure.

Claims (34)

1. A method of wireless communication for a fifth generation 5G system, comprising:

identifying a first association of a first local component of a radio access network, RAN, with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice;

identifying a second association of a first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN that is different from a second remote component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice,

wherein the second association is based on at least one of a traffic type, a traffic load, or a quality of service (QoS) requirement; and

in response to receiving a control signal, determining whether to maintain a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on traffic monitoring.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying an association of a control plane slice of the network slice; and

an association of a user plane slice of a plurality of user plane slices with the control plane slice is identified.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying an association of a control plane slice of the network slice; and

an association of a single user plane slice with the control plane slice is identified.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying an association of a common control plane slice of the network slices;

identifying an association of a user plane slice of a plurality of user plane slices with the common control plane slice; and

an association of a slice-specific control plane of a plurality of slice-specific control planes with the common control plane slice is identified.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on at least one of: a traffic load associated with the network slice exceeding or falling below a threshold, a number of active user equipment, UEs, operating on the network slice exceeding or falling below a threshold, to maintain service continuity for a moving user equipment, UE, or to meet a particular QoS requirement.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on the received control signal;

wherein the control signal originates from at least one of a UE or a peer to peer base station/access point, BS/AP, and the control signal originating from the UE comprises an indication of an expected slice during random access, and the control signal originating from the BS/AP comprises a trigger message for requesting a change of slice power state at a target BS.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

in response to determining to change the power state of the first local component or the second remote component, signaling at least one of a remote AP/BS or a Mobility Management Entity (MME)/a network control entity to exchange signaling.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface, and further comprising:

in response to receiving the control signal, determining whether to maintain a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on QoS criteria.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on at least one of UE reports on neighboring cell conditions, or traffic load/number of connections conditions on the network slice.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

switching active UEs on the slice to a neighboring BS in response to determining to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component.

11. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

transmitting or receiving system information carrying information on active slices in a base station BS.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on a signal exchange between a plurality of base stations BS or a signal exchange between a plurality of central controllers of BSs among the plurality of base stations BS.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

sending or receiving signaling to or from an access point, AP, or a base station, BS, indicating a load condition with respect to each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice.

14. The method of claim 5, wherein the particular QoS requirement is at least one of low latency, super reliability.

15. A method of wireless communication for a fifth generation 5G system, comprising:

identifying, at a User Equipment (UE), a first association of a first local component of a Radio Access Network (RAN) with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice;

identifying, at a UE, a second association of a first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from a second remote component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice,

wherein the second association is based on at least one of a traffic type, a traffic load, or a quality of service (QoS) requirement; and

in response to receiving a control signal, determining whether to maintain a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on traffic monitoring.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining whether to access the BS based on at least one of a power state of the base station BS for the desired slice, a link condition, a QoS requirement, or a traffic load of a neighboring cell.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

while maintaining a connection to the network slice and another network slice of a different access point AP or base station BS than the network slice.

18. An apparatus of a base station, BS, operable in wireless communication for a fifth generation, 5G, system, the apparatus comprising:

radio Frequency (RF) circuitry to receive at least one communication originating from a network virtualization component and/or a software defined network; and

a baseband circuit to:

identifying, based on information from the communication, a first association of a first local component of a radio access network, RAN, with a second remote component of the RAN, the first association corresponding to a network slice;

identifying a second association of a first local component of the RAN with a third component of the RAN based on information of a communication that is the same as or different from the at least one communication, wherein the third component of the RAN is different from a second remote component of the RAN, the second association corresponding to the network slice;

wherein the second association is based on at least one of a traffic type, a traffic load, or a quality of service (QoS) requirement; and

in response to receiving a control signal, determining whether to maintain a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on traffic monitoring.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

identifying an association of a control plane slice of the network slice; and

an association of a user plane slice of a plurality of user plane slices with the control plane slice is identified.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

identifying an association of a control plane slice of the network slice; and

an association of a single user plane slice with the control plane slice is identified.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

identifying an association of a common control plane slice of the network slices;

identifying an association of a user plane slice of a plurality of user plane slices with the common control plane slice; and

an association of a slice-specific control plane of a plurality of slice-specific control planes with the common control plane slice is identified.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on at least one of: a traffic load associated with the network slice exceeding or falling below a threshold, a number of active user equipment, UEs, operating on the network slice exceeding or falling below a threshold, in order to maintain service continuity for mobile user equipment, UEs, or in order to meet a particular QoS requirement.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on a control signal received by the RF circuitry;

wherein the control signal originates from at least one of a UE or a peer to peer base station/access point, BS/AP, and the control signal originating from the UE comprises an indication of an expected slice during random access, and the control signal originating from the BS/AP comprises a trigger message for requesting a change of slice power state at a target BS.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

in response to determining to change the power state of the first local component or the second remote component, signaling at least one of a remote AP/BS or a Mobility Management Entity (MME)/a network control entity to exchange signaling.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the control signal is received over a UE interface, and wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

in response to receiving the control signal, determining whether to maintain a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on QoS criteria.

26. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

determining whether to change a power state of the first local component or the second remote component based on:

at least one of UE reports on neighbor cell conditions, or traffic load/number of connections conditions on the network slice; or

Signal exchange between a plurality of base stations BS, or signal exchange between a plurality of central controllers of BSs of the plurality of base stations BS.

27. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the baseband circuitry is to:

switching the active UE on-chip to a neighboring BS in response to determining to change the power state of the first local component or the second remote component.

28. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the baseband circuitry is to cause the RF circuitry to transmit system information carrying information about active slices in a BS or to cause the RF circuitry to receive system information carrying information about active slices in a BS.

29. The device of claim 22, wherein the particular QoS requirement is at least one of low latency, super reliability.

30. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the baseband circuitry is to cause the RF circuitry to:

sending signaling to or from an AP or BS indicating a load condition with respect to each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice; or

Receiving signaling to or from an AP or a BS indicating a load condition with respect to each of a plurality of network slices including the network slice.

31. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that, in response to being executed at a computing device, cause the computing device to perform the method of any of claims 1-14.

32. An apparatus for wireless communication of a fifth generation 5G system, comprising means for performing the steps of the method of any of claims 1-14.

33. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions that, in response to being executed at a computing device, cause the computing device to perform the method of any of claims 15-17.

34. An apparatus for wireless communication of a fifth generation 5G system, comprising means for performing the steps of the method of any of claims 15-17.

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